Chapter 12 - The Cabin by the Lake
Forty miles north, the world was completely white.
The heavy pine trees were bowed down with thick blankets of fresh powder, and the waters of Blackwood Lake were frozen solid into a sheet of slate-gray ice. Hidden three hundred yards off the logging road, behind a dense wall of spruce, sat the small timber cabin Jax had spoken of.
Inside, a cast-iron wood stove crackled softly, radiating a steady, comforting heat that pushed back the mountain chill.
Nora sat on the edge of a rustic wooden bed, watching Abby sleep beneath a pile of wool blankets. Her daughter had barely stirred when Nora carried her inside two hours ago. The child was exhausted, not just from the cold, but from the invisible weight of a childhood spent walking on eggshells around people who resented her very existence.
Nora looked down at her own hands. They were raw, dry from endless hand-washing at the hospital, but for the first time in seven years, they were completely steady.
She walked over to the small kitchen table, where an old battery-operated shortwave radio sat beside a kerosene lantern. Her cell phone lay powered off inside her coat pocket. She had followed Jax’s instructions to the letter: no digital footprint, no contact until noon.
The quiet of the cabin was almost disorienting. In the suburban bungalow, there was always the background roar of the interstate, the sudden glare of headlights through the bedroom blinds, the constant knot in her chest waiting for Caleb to step out of the dark.
Now, the only sound was the wind whispering through the pines and the rhythmic crackle of dry birch burning in the iron belly of the stove.
Nora walked to the window, pulling the coarse burlap curtain aside.
The snow had stopped falling. A pale winter sun broke through the heavy gray cloud cover, casting long, golden beams across the frozen lake.
A sudden knock rattled the heavy timber door.
Three slow thumps, followed by two quick taps. The signal Jax had given her.
Nora grabbed the iron poker from beside the wood stove, holding it low by her thigh, and approached the door. "Who is it?"
"It’s Jax," came the muffled, gravelly response. "You can put the poker down, Nora. The storm is over."
Nora unlocked the heavy wooden crossbar and pulled the door inward.
Jax stood on the snow-dusted porch, holding a brown paper grocery bag in one arm. Behind him, parked in the clearing, was his black truck, but the tension that had framed his face at dawn was gone, replaced by the tired resignation of a man who had finished a long, dirty job.
"They're in custody," Jax said simply, stepping inside and kicking the snow from his heavy leather boots. "Both of them. State police picked them up at the diner two hours ago. Federal warrants."
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Nora’s fingers slowly uncurled from the iron poker, letting it lean back against the hearth. The breath she had been holding for seven long years finally left her lungs in a long, shuddering sigh.
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