Page 20 of If You're Reading This

She was finally learning that cooperation extended survival.

I made a note that the bandage on her left temple needed changing. Unless I drugged her again, there was no way Morgan would let me touch her. She was feistier than I’d expected. Of course, she was bold enough to venture out for her photo sessions alone, so I shouldn’t be surprised. I knew she had a strong personality.

Her independence made me like her more.

Now I needed to continue with my plan.

The subject for the next masterpiece was already secured and currently sedated in the workshop behind my house. I smiled at the thought of what was about to happen.

A burst of joy exploded inside me.

The next photo came off the wall.

I studied it. Memorized it.

Soon, I would become it.

My smile widened. “See you soon, Gibson.”

There were others who would come first. But Logan Gibson would be number six.

His finale would be the most glorious. I would title that final photograph “Loss.”

Loss . . . something I felt deeply.

And art should reflect that.

CHAPTER

EIGHT

Nearly as soon asDuke and Andi had left Morgan’s place, Reeves called Logan with a hit on Morgan’s cell phone. The device had last pinged four days ago.

Four days.

The night of the award ceremony.

As soon as Logan had the phone’s coordinates, he left Morgan’s cabin and rushed toward the location, still praying for the best.

He attempted to push all the tragic scenarios out of his mind. But if he were honest with himself, he expected the worst. He halfway expected to find Morgan dead in the forest still clutching her phone.

He prayed that wasn’t the case.

The location was twenty minutes from Fairbanks, between Morgan’s cabin and the lodge where the award ceremony had taken place.

Logan pulled his SUV onto the narrow shoulder of Parks Highway.

The dashboard clock read 10:17 p.m., its green glow the only light aside from a waning crescent moon partially obscured by passing clouds.

The darkness here was profound—not the soft darkness of city outskirts, but the absolute black of deep wilderness.

He grabbed his Maglite from the center console, the familiar weight steadying his hand as he stepped out into the biting cold. His breath immediately crystallized in the beam of his flashlight.

The area where Morgan’s phone had last pinged was unremarkable by Alaskan standards. It was a stretch of highway carved through dense boreal forest, with black spruce standing like sentinels, their spindly silhouettes jagged against the night sky.

Snow had been plowed into dirty berms along the roadside, now frozen into miniature mountain ranges streaked with gravel. Beyond the immediate shoulder, the forest floor remained blanketed in pristine white, unmarred except for occasional moose tracks and the delicate trails of snowshoe hares.

A hundred yards back, Logan spotted the turnout—little more than an indentation in the tree line where emergency vehicles or travelers might pause, unmarked on any tourist map.