Page 5

A s Adam drove away from Main Street, the breathtaking natural landscape stood in stark contrast to the makeshift shelters scattered throughout the land — each one a clue to the people who’d come to Alaska to disappear.

Unlike the cabin his father had chosen to build, living off-the-grid here meant lean-tos draped in army-green tarps and held together with straps, stakes, or even duct tape.

A step up from the crude lean-tos were the old cars and ragged tents that claimed stretches of the lush undeveloped land.

The richest of the campsites were those who’d had the good fortune to happen across or spend their last dollar on a Volkswagen van or an actual camper.

Peter was sound asleep when Adam arrived at the ranch he hoped belonged to Clara Mae. It looked vaguely familiar, then again, it’d been a few years since he’d accompanied his father.

Adam quietly turned off the ignition and parked the truck on the edge of the dirt road — not too close to the berm — just outside a chained gate.

He definitely didn’t want to drive off the road.

Sizable mounds of brown slush — or snirt , as his father called the filthy combination of dirt and snow — lined the shoulder where a snowplow had clearly pushed it aside.

The piles gave off a rancid scent, probably from garbage — or maybe even animals struck by vehicles and buried in the gray muck.

The road itself was bare, but those grimy banks loomed like frozen traps. He imagined driving into one would feel like dunking your body in fish-fry batter and stepping into a walk-in freezer. The wet snow would mold into every crevice of a vehicle, freeze solid, and seal the doors shut.

The sun still hadn’t crested the white-capped peaks, but what looked like sunlit whitecaps above a purple sea hovered near the mountaintops, revealing a spectacular view of the Matsu Valley — as far as the eye could see.

Instead of exiting the truck, Adam stared at the weathered split-rail fence, stretching for hundreds of acres in either direction, then trailing north to the river that bordered the ranch.

Like Adam’s property — well, hopefully his property again someday — areas of the fence had collapsed, probably under the weight of wild animals.

Definitely not wolves — the gray wolves in the area were more graceful and tended to keep their distance.

He doubted brown bears, but black bears were a strong possibility.

Feasibly, horses could have done the damage, but most horses knew where their food came from.

Most gentled horses — his father had taught his sons that he gentled horses, rather than broke them — wouldn’t consider jumping a fence — unless it was to return to the stable where they had shelter from the elements and predators, and troughs of hay and water.

Adam could relate, the reason he’d pondered just asking Thomas to send them to the state.

The idea of food, shelter, and no concern of machine-gun-slinging drug dealers was definitely appealing.

Still, he worried for Peter. He wasn’t sure why, but his baby brother had a quick-to-ignite temper, nothing like himself or even Thomas.

Peter also had a strong sense of right and wrong.

If Peter encountered a bully or something he deemed unfair, he would end up in a fight, then he’d be shipped to another foster home, or God forbid, an institution for troubled teens.

The truck door squealed open, and Adam jumped, nearly hitting the roof. Peter not only jumped but screamed, his fingers fumbling with the door handle.

Adam spotted a woman in his peripheral vision, wielding a double-barreled shotgun with two-foot-long barrels — if they were an inch — and quickly raised his hands to the steering wheel.

Peter gave up on the door and reached for the sack on the floorboard.

“Don’t, Peter,” Adam cautioned as both barrels gleamed when she stepped closer. Keeping one hand raised, Adam clutched the back of Peter’s jeans and lifted him off the seat, away from the gun he wanted. “It’s all right, Ma’am. You know me —”

“Can’t say that I do, boy!” The woman’s voice was gravelly but strong. “Better keep ’em han’s where I can see ’em.”

“My brother’s okay. Just scared. Please allow me to deal with him. I’ll keep my hands where you can see them.”

Adam shoved Peter against the door, offered him a stern look, then nearly growled the words their father had spoken repeatedly, “Don’t you ever reach for a gun unless you tend to use it, you hear me?”

Peter drilled Adam with his dark-brown gaze, but then he must have seen something in his eyes that Adam didn’t even know he possessed because he lifted his hands in compliance.

“Ma’am…” Adam spoke softly as if he were talking to a wild horse. “I’m gonna move this bag out of reach. You can see it’s not open.”

“Slowly!” demanded the woman.

Adam threaded just his fingers through the straps and dragged rather than lifted the small backpack to his side of the floor. He then turned to the woman, waiting on her next order.

“What y’all want at this early hour? We don’t got no school here.”

Adam glanced at Peter, winked to remind him of their purpose here, then returned his gaze to the woman, who wasn’t near the age he thought she would be.

Maybe late thirties or forty-something, like his mother would have been.

The woman’s long, slightly-graying-at-the-roots dark hair was braided, the tail resting on her left shoulder.

She wore nothing but a red-and-black checkered flannel shirt, dark corduroys, and rubber boots — no coat.

“My name is Thomas, Ma’am. Thomas Adam Belgarde. I sold you some horses… and… and a few guns a year or so ago. He didn’t know if Thomas had sold her the guns on top of the horses, but he hoped he’d guessed correctly.”

Keeping her eyes trained on Adam and Peter, the woman edged backward.

“You!” She waved the twelve-gauge slightly downward, but maintained Adam’s direction.

Not that it mattered. A blast from that scattergun would take out him, Peter, and most of the truck.

“Step on down from the truck.” She nodded toward Peter.

“You, keep ’em han’s where I can see ’em. ”

Adam inched his way down from the driver’s seat. “I’m just looking for work, Ma’am. Since we’ve done business in the past —”

“I ain’t done no business with you, kid.”

“My name is —”

“You ain’t Thomas.”

“Clara Mae!” His voice broke on her name.

If she wasn’t Clara Mae, he might still not make it through this day alive.

“I can’t believe you don’t remember me.” Adam flirted uncomfortably, something Thomas would have done.

Their mother had always called Thomas a ham, teased that his smile would get him anything.

Thomas would have thrown his hand over his heart to show shock.

Nothing like Adam. Nervous, Adam moved his still-raised hands to his head, running them over his scalp.

He was so tired. He just wanted someplace to close his eyes for five minutes.

Maybe he’d wake up, and everything would turn out to be a nightmare. “I have ID, Ma’am —”

“Yeah, I remember Thomas. Maybe you are him. Looking younger threw me off.” Reflexively, she jutted her head forward, narrowing dark brows over light eyes. “Where’s your ID?”

Adam gestured to the bag.

“Thomas,” Peter said quietly. “Remember, you pulled your IDs out of the bag to make sure you had them?” Peter glanced to the floor. “They must’ve fallen off the dash to the floor.”

Adam nodded, remembering his earlier righteous anger — with Thomas, with himself — then sighed inwardly, thankful that the woman wouldn’t see the rolled-up wads of cash and two birth certificates.

If she insisted on looking inside the bag, she would more than likely surmise that there should be three of them, and that Adam most certainly was not Thomas, but sixteen-year-old Adam Thomas Belgarde.

What an idiot he was to believe that he could pull this off. Thomas should have known —

“Well, I ain’t got all morning. You gonna show me your ID, or what? Not that it matters. Don’t got your picture on it.”

“I have my temporary Coast Guard ID, too.” Adam squatted so that his upper body was in line with the floorboard but kept his hands up. No one had ever pointed a gun at him — well, aside from the machine gun fire earlier. But somehow, this felt more personal.

This miserable day, which began at midnight, was fast becoming the worst day of his young life.

He’d been sad when his parents died, but he hadn’t needed to throw up and, now, twice in one night, his insides felt like they might turn in on themselves.

He slowly lowered just one hand, reaching beneath the brake pedal where, out of anger, he’d deliberately dropped the license and Coast Guard badge.

Thank the Lord for Peter’s eagle eye — and ability to lie.

As slowly as possible, Adam scraped both IDs across the footwell — fingers splayed, so Clara Mae wouldn’t get an antsy trigger finger, as his father would quip — until he reached the vinyl floor’s edge.

The ragged and curled-up vinyl exposed scraped metal, rusting where the paint had eroded.

But at least the jagged edge allowed him to lift the laminated cards off the slick flooring.

Clara Mae accepted the information, quickly scanned one ID then the other, all while keeping an eye on Adam and Peter.

Peter cleared his throat, and Adam flashed him a sneer when he saw that Peter was nodding toward the pack with the gun.

Clara Mae lowered the firearm fractionally, handing the IDs back to Adam. “Yeah, I remember Thomas — you. Odd, you look… younger.”

He shrugged. “I was going through a lot back then. Plus, winter, I guess.”

“And shorter.”

Adam reached above the seatback, pulled down Thomas’s hat. “I usually wear my hat.”