Page 79 of Into the Storm

George was an artist. A carver of totem poles and other Native art—yet there was no monument great enough that could fully honor him.

She swiped at tears that fell without permission. She wanted to blame pregnancy again, but this was straight-up fear. She’d be crying now even if she weren’t pregnant.

She returned to the back room and locked the door that separated the two areas. She stood behind the wall of post office boxes—a grid of cubbyholes, with each rectangle measuring five by four inches. There was a box for each cottage, plus extra for local businesses and renters who wanted a coveted Lake Olympus address. George’s cabin had a box, as did tour operators who held park concession contracts, but were based in Port Angeles.

Audrey scanned the boxes. Jeb’s box—identifiable because “McCutcheon” was printed on a label taped to the back end of the cubbyhole—contained a grocery store mailer, junk mail that couldn’t be avoided even in the most remote of places, and a notice from the US Navy that access to Lake Olympus Road would be cut off as of Monday of this week—four days ago, given that they were now minutes into Friday morning.

The Navy had been required to send these notices in a timely manner to all inholding property owners, but now it occurred to her to wonder, did everyone with a PO Box receive a notice?

She checked the rental boxes for tour operators and felt a surge of adrenaline at seeing the same notice. These groups didn’t have a gate key and wouldn’t be able to access their box until the road opened, but they’d received the same notice as all box renters.

But…not everyone who owned a box collected their mail from here. There were forwarding services for PO Boxes to deliver to street addresses. What if someone had learned of the training and managed to get a box, then had the mail forwarded?

It could explain the leak of the timing for the training, without Jeb or someone else playing the role of traitor.

Deep down, Audrey didn’t want Jeb to be a traitor. Even unwitting as he would have been. Partly because she hated the idea of him being killed by the very men he’d unintentionally abetted.

Not that it mattered. He was dead either way. But there was something a little extra horrific at the idea of being duped into sharing information and then being killed by the same people who’d manipulated him.

She continued with her lawbreaking, going through the mail of each box, not for any purpose, but to pass the seconds that ticked away to the moment she both anticipated and feared.

Still, the clock hands on the wall behind her moved achingly slow, yet somehow, she found herself lost in emotional spirals that made her lose track of time.

It was during one such lost brain spiral that she heard the first explosion.