Page 35 of Mountain Shadow

“They didn’t catch him …” she mumbled. He could see how much the thought of this man having been inside her home jarred her.

“No. They think he was most likely already there when he called you.”

“But he said—”

“I know what he said, but you can’t trust anything he says.” Jens squeezed her hand gently. “He might have taken some things from your place. The police are checking, but—”

She waved that away as inconsequential. “It’s just stuff. There’s nothing there that matters.”

Jens steeled himself for the next question he had to ask.

“I need to ask you something important, Sarah. I know you didn’t tell anyone where you were going.”

“No. Not a soul.”

He swallowed thickly. “But is there anything in your place that could point him to Chamonix?”

She shook her head quickly. “No. I’d only been here once before, and I didn’t—”

“Think hard. Anything relating to Tess. A T-shirt. Anything that could point him in this direction.”

She shook her head again, then stopped mid-shake. Her expression blanched, revealing a couple freckles he’d never noticed before.

“What is it, Sarah?”

“There’s a picture. On the fridge. Of me and Tess, with Mont Blanc behind us. Tess wrote a message on the back. She might have mentioned Chamonix.”

Fuck.

“This is bad, isn’t it?”

Jens didn’t want to scare her, but he needed to get on the phone with the London police, ask them to look for the picture.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It’s unlikely he noticed something like that, but we’ll check with the police.”

12

Sarah

As a child, Sarah had never been afraid of monsters lurking in her bedroom in the dark of night. For a while, she’d been the one to tell Tess that monsters didn’t exist, even going so far as to check behind the door and under her sister’s bed, night after night, until she stopped being afraid.

Now, it was all she could do not to get in bed again and pull the covers over her head—except she couldn’t do that either, because she knew the monster she feared was real, and that he wouldn’t go away just because she couldn’t see him.

While Jens called the police, she’d gotten dressed. She’d already known, somehow, that the news would be bad, and she didn’t want to be half-naked and bleary-eyed when she heard. Now, walking down the stairs, she wondered how she’d ever thought her choice of leggings and a long-sleeve shirt would protect her from the news.

Jens stood in the middle of his living room, his look tentative.

“You can tell me. I’m a big girl.”

“The picture is gone.”

She swallowed thickly.

“What should I do? I guess I need to … I need to get out of here.”

“Let’s not rush into any decisions, Sarah. He could have taken it as a souvenir. It doesn’t have to mean anything. Tell me everything you remember about it.”

She scrunched her eyes tight, trying to think of the picture, but even though she’d seen it every time she opened her fridge, the details were fuzzy.