Page 12 of Guarded By the Mountain Man

HOLT

I wake before five with Juliette's gorgeous hair spread out on my pillow. The phone on the nightstand feels like an unexploded grenade.

She sleeps sprawled out, one arm flung across my chest, one bare foot hooked over my shin, like she’s claiming territory. Six got the door open at some point in the night and is a warm weight across both our feet, and for about ninety seconds I lie in the dark grinning.

Then I ease out from under her arm and tuck the quilt up over her shoulder. I pick up my phone and go stand in the cold woodshed.

Dane picks up on the second ring.

“Newell.” His voice is smooth and unhurried, a voice built for telling billionaires their itinerary changed. “You didn't call back yesterday. That's not like you.”

“Busy. What do you want, Dane?”

“A favor, maybe. Or to do you one.” Paper rustles. He's at his desk already. “We took a locate contract three days ago. Family out east, serious money. Daughter went missing from her own wedding, and the family's worried sick. Twenty-four years old… a Juliette Ashton."

Ashton. She’s been living in my house and I get her last name from a contract brief. It goes through me like ice water, and I keep my voice level and bored, the way all those years on the job taught me.

“And this is my problem how?”

“Her car was flagged on a traffic cam on Route 20, headed into the high country. Your general direction, big guy. Thought I'd ask if you'd seen anything before I send bodies up there to freeze.”

“What's the brief say about why she ran?”

“That's the sad part… father says she's unwell. Off her medication since the spring, episodes, paranoia, the works. Wedding stress tipped her over. There's a fiancé, Corbin Vance, even more serious money, apparently still deeply in love, still wants to go through with it.” Paper rustles in the background. “Family wants it quiet, no police, no press, just their girl home safe before she hurts herself.”

I look at the axe in the chopping block. Dane's not a bad man. He talked me down, after the hospital, sat with me and said the right things.

But Dane is good at his job. If I give him Juliette’s name and location, it goes in a file, and the file goes to the client. Suddenly it'll be lawyers and a family with the money to make “unstable” official. And I don’t believe she’s unwell for a second, that’s just their cover story.

“Haven't seen anything,” I say. “But I'll keep my eyes and ears open.”

“You do that… good to hear your voice. Don't be a stranger."

I stand in the shed, clenching my fists. The name of Juliette’s fiancé rang a bell. I have one more call to make, and it can't wait for a decent hour. He answers on the fourth ring, his voice gravelly with sleep.

“Somebody better be dead.”

“Good morning to you too, Hawk.”

“Holt.” My cousin is awake fast. Nothing like the military for training that into you. “What's wrong?”

“Maybe nothing. I need to know what you know about a name.” I watch the tree line turning gold with dawn. “Vance.”

The line goes quiet, and I hear the bedsprings creak as he sits up.

“Where'd you hear that name?”

“Paperwork that followed somebody I care about up my mountain.”

“Huh. So the hermit’s got a somebody. Give me a couple of hours, I'll call you from a burner. Until then, whoever your somebody is, keep them close to home.” A creak, boots on floorboards. “And Holt. I mean close.”

He hangs up. Hawk never tells me to be careful about anything, including the time we jumped the quarry at fifteen. My cousin runs with a motorcycle club that doesn't scare easy, so whatever he knows about Vance already has my hackles rising.

Inside, Juliette is up, wearing my flannel and nothing else. She’s feeding Six his kibble ration and looks up when I walk in.

“Everything okay?”

“Generator. Needs a part.”