Page 72 of Claimed on the Ridge

She has a plan. I can see it taking shape on her notepad, the boxes filling in, the arrows connecting. She's building something methodical and smart, and given time, it will work. The problem is time. Gary doesn't give time. Gary takes it.

I wait until Kendall goes upstairs to shower. I listen to her footsteps on the stairs, the bedroom door opening and closing, the water starting through the pipes. The sounds of a woman who trusts me enough to leave the room.

Then I cross to the kitchen, pick up the satellite phone, and dial a number I haven't called in years.

The man who answers was my father's contact in Anchorage. He works the gray spaces between legitimate security and the kind of work that doesn't have letterhead. My father used him twice that I know of. Once for a property dispute with a mining company that wouldn't take no from a man who owned his land outright. Once for something I never asked about and my father never explained.

"It's Alex Sawyer," I say. "Jack's son."

The pause on the other end is the pause of a man recalibrating. Then: "Didn't think I'd hear from a Sawyer again. What do you need?"

"A name. Corporate security consulting, based out of Anchorage. Gary Simmons. I need to know who he is, what he has, and what it would take to make him stop looking for something he lost."

"That's not a small ask."

"I'm not asking small."

Another pause. "Your father's credit still carries weight up here. Give me some time."

I end the call. The phone goes back on the counter. The kitchen is quiet. Upstairs, I can hear the water running through the pipes. She'll be in the shower for another few minutes. Long enough for the decision I just made to settle into the foundation of a choice I can't undo.

She didn't ask me to do this. She didn't want me to do this. The map on her notepad is her operation, her intelligence, her plan. It's taking shape on paper with the precision of a woman who survived years inside a predator's house by being smarter than the man who thought she wasn't paying attention.

She told me not to lock her in a room. I heard her. I understood her. Then I picked up the phone and made a call that moves her situation forward faster than her notepad can. The problem isn't the call. The problem is that when she finds out, it will feel like a cage closing around her. I need to find a way to make it feel like a door opening instead.

The certainty is right. It is necessary. It is the only call I could make and still call myself the man who stands between her and whatever is coming up that road.

Upstairs, the water shuts off.

17

KENDALL

The water shuts off and the quiet rushes in. I stand in the steam with my palms flat against the tile, letting the last of the heat work into the places where the cold has taken up permanent residence. My ribs barely register anymore. The skin is smooth where the bruise used to be, unmarked, as if the evidence of Gary's hand has finally conceded to time.

I come downstairs with my hair damp against the collar of Alex's flannel, the one I took from the hook by the mudroom and have stopped pretending is borrowed. The lodge is warm. The fire in the hearth has been rebuilt, fresh logs stacked with the focus Alex brings to everything. The light it throws across the main room is amber and steady.

I round the corner into the kitchen and find Alex at the counter with a mug. The stillness in his body is the kind I've learned to read over the past week. He's thinking about a conversation he has no intention of starting. The posture is casual. The jaw is not.

"Coffee's fresh," he says.

"Thanks." I cross to the counter. My own mug is where I left it, rinsed and set on the drain board. I pour and drink standing,the same routine I've kept in this kitchen for days, and the domesticity of it lands in my body like a warning I keep choosing to ignore.

The satellite phone is on the counter by the sugar. I reach for it instead of the bowl, thinking I'll call Amberly about the rib check she asked for. The call log is basic, a short list of numbers and timestamps on a small backlit screen. The most recent outgoing call was placed minutes ago to a number I don't recognize, an Anchorage area code.

I was in the shower.

The pieces snap together. The water started running. Alex waited until the pipes were loud enough to cover his voice. He picked up the phone, dialed a number in Anchorage, and made a call he didn't want me to hear. Then he put the phone back where he found it, poured himself coffee, and waited for me to come downstairs.

I set the phone down. The click of it against the pine is quiet and final.

"Who did you call?"

Alex sets his mug down. The motion is controlled, and the control is the tell. A man with nothing to hide puts a mug down without thinking about it. Alex is thinking about every part of this, which means he was already thinking about it before I picked up the phone.

"A contact in Anchorage," he says.

"Whose contact?"