Page 48

Cascade, Idaho

The little lodgepole building on the outskirts of Cascade—The Big Cat Mountain Lodge—was lit up in neon, advertising “The Best Prime Rib in Idaho” on its glowing letterboard. Beyond it, through the thick pines, there were more speckled lights promising civilization farther down the highway. But the rustic bar and grill blazing with light and surrounded by a few vehicles was the closest by a longshot.

The closer we got, the more April scrutinized each shadow and shape in the darkness. As we approached the trees at the edge of the dirt parking lot, she stood for a few minutes squinting through the night at each of the ten or so vehicles in the parking lot for the shape of the minivan.

We were so close. But if he had any suspicion that she’d somehow made it into town, this was the place she’d end up.

Skye moved ahead into the parking lot to verify what all of us tentatively saw: The minivan was nowhere in sight, and a phone and help were mere steps away.

Kimmie perked up and looked over her shoulder at the bright lights and sound of music coming from the doorway to the Big Cat Lodge. “We made it?” she asked in a small voice.

“We made it,” April said in a shaky voice, still not moving from where she stood in the shadows at the edge of the parking lot.

“I really don’t think he’s here,” Skye called from the small collection of vehicles in the parking lot. “She actually made it.” The relief in the air felt like helium, lifting all of us as we flanked April and the girls and hurried inside.

The exhilaration I felt as she grasped the door and slipped into the orange glow of the bar with the girls was headier and richer and somehow deeper than almost anything I could remember feeling in my life.

I fully expected the porch lights on the outside of the building to pop. Instead, they blazed brighter with a sudden surge that illuminated the entire parking lot.

I looked at Skye and Meghan in pure bliss.

There was no question they’d made it. And there was no question, in my mind at least, that in some small way we’d tipped the scales to get them here.

There was no changing the past or righting the violence that had led to this dark night. April and the girls didn’t have any inkling we were even here. But just knowing that they wouldn’t be able to see any of us tonight was the happiest I’d felt for as long as I could remember. I imagined that, decades from now, maybe we’d all meet. But only after they lived long lives far away from the monster that had connected all of us.

Caught up in my reverie, I didn’t even notice that April had stopped in her tracks, just inside the doorway.

Because just a few yards away, sitting at the bar, was James.