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It took a full minute for Romano to realize that his eyes were open. He was awake in a pitch-black camper. It had been a dream, for God’s sake. Just a dream.

He sat up in bed, pushing his hands through his hair, gnawing his lower lip a little, just to be sure he was really awake. Seemed he was. And his first instinct was to call to Lexi. To hear her voice answering him would be reassuring. It would confirm everything was all right. Just as it should be.

She needs you.

He gave his head a shake, trying to rid himself of the haunting memory of that dream.

It had been so real. He cleared his throat and very softly, not wanting to wake her, he said, “Lexi? You awake?” He waited, remembering with a flush of embarrassment the way he’d poured his heart out to her earlier.

The way she’d held him as he’d told her everything.

Every single thing he’d vowed not to talk about with another living soul.

And how deeply she’d listened. And how sharing it with her had made him feel like maybe he could survive this hell after all.

There was no answer. Okay, so she was asleep. He shouldn’t feel such an intense need to hear her voice, anyway. It was ridiculous. As ridiculous as the crushing disappointment of falling asleep with her in his arms, then waking up to find her gone.

She needs you!

Romano rolled his eyes at his own apparent mental instability. But he decided there was no use fighting it. He got out of bed, reached for the gas lamp nearest him and turned the knob. The flame grew brighter, reaching its yellow fingers into the corners, chasing shadows away.

He stood up and turned toward the bunks. He’d just look at her, assure himself that she was okay, and maybe he’d be able to get some sleep.

Only, she wasn’t there. The bunk was empty. The sight of it was like a blow between the eyes and he took an involuntary step backward at its impact.

He swore, then checked the bathroom, and swore some more. The camper was as empty as her bed. And her shoes and jeans were gone, and so were the jacket and the flashlight.

“Dammit, she’s gone to the house.” The note on the table confirmed his suspicion, when he finally noticed it there.

I’m hiking to the house just to take a look. Be right back. Promise.

Okay, okay, calm down, he told himself. So, she’d sneaked out while he slept. So, she’d done exactly what he’d told her not to do. So what? It didn’t mean the world was going to end.

He gathered his clothes, picked up his gun. She’d been right from the beginning. There was barely a snowball’s chance in hell that White had left men behind to watch her place. She’d be all right. She’d be fine.

He squinted through the RV’s windshield, frowning. And then he reached past the steering wheel to turn on the headlights.

But even their blazing white glow couldn’t penetrate the blizzard blanketing the night.

He couldn’t see a yard in front of the RV.

Not a yard. Sometime while he’d been sleeping, a brutal wind and blinding snowstorm had kicked up.

And Lexi was out there somewhere. A chill of foreboding slipped up his spine, and again he heard his dead wife’s meaning-laden whisper. She needs you.

He swore. It couldn’t have been this bad when she’d left.

Couldn’t have been, or she wouldn’t have gone.

Lexi was too smart for that. This was the Adirondack forest, for God’s sake.

She wouldn’t have gone out there alone in a storm like this.

He hoped she’d reached the house safely before the blizzard had unleashed its fury, and that no one had been there waiting for her when she had.

He pulled on every sweatshirt that remained, including one of the new hoodies, and fished her pills out of the glove compartment in case she needed them. Then he picked up his duffel bag. Hunching forward, he headed out into the storm.

Lexi made it halfway, she figured, before the snow began flying horizontally instead of vertically, driven by an ever-strengthening, frigid wind.

She lost her bearings. It was ridiculous.

Stupid, to get lost in a place she knew so well.

All she had to do was follow the fire trail, for God’s sake.

Problem was, she could no longer see the fire trail, and the flashlight she gripped was a joke against the power of the sudden storm.

When she’d left the camper, it had been cold, yes, but not like this.

Now there was a bitter, harsh wind that turned wet snowflakes into razors.

There was no light, no darkness. Just snow.

She couldn’t even make out the shapes of the trees she moved among, until she was nearly inhaling their bark.

There was nothing to guide her. The wind moaning eerily through the boughs overhead seemed like the voice of her father.

Condemning. Scornful just as he’d always been.

Yes. He had been. Unreasonably, miserably hateful toward her, even before the dementia had set in.

All her life, really. She’d never admitted that to herself before.

Down deep, she realized that she’d always thought of herself as unworthy of him.

Everyone said he was a great man. She heard it all the time, saw proof of it in the awards and certificates that had lined their home during the height of his career.

He’d invented vaccines that had saved countless lives.

He was practically a god. To a child, a great man who hated her was proof she was not good enough.

But the truth was, he was just a mean bastard to her for no reason at all.

Her nose and cheeks burned, razed by the blizzard’s claws.

It hurt to inhale the frigid air, and her lungs screamed with every breath.

She felt her heart trip over itself and begin to gallop.

The cold and the fear tried to send her into tachycardia, but Lexi fought it.

She forced herself to remain calm and tried to take slow, deep breaths.

She ordered her body not to betray her now.

She’d left her meds in the camper.

Her hands were wet and slowly going numb, and her feet had long since mutated into solid ice chunks. She couldn’t feel them anymore when she stepped on them, so she lurched along, trying to find her way.

But there was no more sign of the fire trail, and she wasn’t sure whether she’d have known it even if she’d somehow stumbled onto it again.

She only knew she wasn’t on the trail now.

Somehow she’d veered into the forest. That was obvious by the trees that loomed into her vision with every few steps, towering, but too far apart to provide sufficient shelter from the wind-driven snow.

Panic chilled her even more deeply than the cold.

But she fought it. There had to be a way to get through this.

She squinted in the snow, trying to see something that would give her a clue which way to go, and finally decided to backtrack.

She might be able to find her way back to the fire trail, or maybe all the way to the camper if she just followed her own tracks.

Turning in place, she aimed the flashlight at the ground, searching for the footprints she’d left in the snow.

She had to bend almost double and hold the light only inches above the ground to see them.

Loose snow swirled and whipped around her lower legs like the ghostly mist in a horror movie.

Only more deadly. She finally found a shallow indentation in the snow that marked the place where she’d stepped. Then another. Slowly she started back.

She was shivering now. Shaking so hard her teeth rattled and her muscles burned and the flashlight beam jerked and danced in crazy patterns.

She pulled her hands up into the sleeves of Romano’s jacket, wrapped her arms around herself, huddled into the hood, and bent into the wind that screamed in her ears.

But in only a few yards, the footprints vanished. The blizzard had already filled them in. And now just what on earth was she going to do?

Keep moving. Just keep moving, Lexi, or you’ll die out here.

She tried to obey the voice of reason, did for a while.

Until it became impossible. The tachycardia came on full force.

Her breathing quickened because her brain wasn’t receiving enough oxygen.

She gasped, sucking breaths of freezing air into her lungs, but she knew it wasn’t enough to sustain her.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t breathing in enough, it was that her heart wasn’t pumping it efficiently.

Dizziness came as she’d known it would. She groped for a support, her hand sweeping through the falling snow, finding nothing to grasp.

She’d only passed out from one of these attacks once in her life.

But she knew she was very close to making it twice.

And then the snowy ground reached up to surround her face.

Its cold was an icy slap, an injection of awareness.

She managed to pull herself up again. But her rally didn’t last. She staggered forward a few more steps only to collapse against the skin-scraping bark of a massive pine.

Her stinging face pressed to the trunk, she tasted its fragrance with every breath.

Romano knew which way she would have gone.

He left the headlights on, which would help for a little while.

As soon as he stepped out of the camper, the cold bit right through every layer of clothing he wore.

Damn. It was frigid, killing cold, with this wind behind it.

She wouldn’t last long in cold like this. No one would.

He thought about her episodes, the way her heart could take off and that it was sometimes triggered by fear. She’d be afraid right now, if she was out in this storm. If she was lost, she’d be terrified.

Romano snapped himself out of his worry by mentally insisting she’d made it to the house. She was inside right now, and she was warm and dry and safe. He envisioned her wrapped in a blanket, warming her feet by the fireplace, that fat yellow cat purring in her lap.

Only the ever-growing knot in the pit of his stomach kept insisting that wasn’t the scene he was going to find.

He managed to stay on the fire trail. He was snow-covered and shivering before he’d reached what he judged was the halfway point, but the extreme cold only drove him on.

Maybe he even picked up his pace, calling her name as he went.

It seemed that the storm abated a little.

That the wind eased and the snowfall slowed as he moved on.

Or maybe he was just going numb and his senses were dulled.

But no. He’d made it.

He stopped and stared off into the gloom at his right.

There was a glow, very pale, but there. It was like trying to see a streetlight through heavy fog, as he squinted and started toward it.

The light led him off the fire trail, into the forest, but it remained visible, even grew clearer as he went.

And then the trees he’d been hiking through came to an end.

And he was seeing Lexi’s house beyond the veil of the storm, the outdoor light glowing like a beacon, and he ran toward it.

Thank God! If the light was on, she must be …

Halfway across the driveway, he paused, studying that outdoor light now that it was more visible. It was the kind of light that came on automatically at dark.

He put his observational skills into gear and felt his heart sink. There wasn’t a single light glowing from inside the house. Only the automatic outdoor one.

He wanted to run up the front steps, slam the door open and yell her name.

But he didn’t. A lifetime of caution wasn’t overcome that easily.

He drew the gun and moved slowly, his feet making furrows in the snow.

Then he walked up the three concrete steps.

He stood before the dark wood door with its fan-shaped, snow-encrusted panes of glass, and he listened.

The house was silent. Not a sound or a movement from within. He didn’t think Lexi was there, and the idea that she wasn’t almost put him on his knees. They actually began to buckle. It was a sensation Romano had only experienced once in his life.

He steadied himself, trying to weigh his options. Fortunately, it didn’t look as if anyone else was there, either. He tucked the gun under his arm and rubbed his hands together to warm them. It didn’t help much. Neither did blowing on them.

He turned to look behind him, just once. Just to be sure. No vehicles. No tire tracks. No footprints. Then again, if there had been any, they’d have been filled in by now.

He tried the brass doorknob and found it unlocked. Then he pulled the gun out again with his right hand, held its barrel steady as he opened the door with his left.

In the bit of light that spilled in from outside, he saw the far wall. The dark, empty fireplace without so much as a glowing ember to attest to recent use. No one waited in ambush inside. So Lexi had been right and he’d been overly cautious. No one was there.

Including her.

He replaced the gun and turned on some of the lights. The more light, the better. He didn’t care who else might see them right now. These were for Lexi, in case he couldn’t find her, the lights might guide her in.

But he would find her. He had to.

He turned back to the door and headed out.

He kept thinking of Lexi, lying in the snow, dying.

He kept picturing himself discovering her lifeless body, and it was tearing his insides apart.

Dammit, she hadn’t done a thing to deserve any of this.

She’d been dragged into a situation beyond her control, and now she might die because of it.

No. No, she damn well wouldn’t die, because he wouldn’t let her. He was going to do it right this time. He wasn’t going to lose another person he cared about. Not again.

He swallowed hard, realizing that he’d just admitted he cared for Lexi Stoltz. He hadn’t wanted to. But the woman made it impossible to keep a distance. She’d wormed her way under his skin, and yes, he’d let himself care.

She was out there, somewhere. He wasn’t going to quit until he found her.