Allison disengaged cruise control and shifted in her seat, steering the Corolla around a right-hand curve. She crossed the Au Sable River just north of the town's historic covered bridge. The riverbank blazed with autumn's last fire—maples, birches, and oaks all glowing. She followed the river briefly before the road climbed again into the darker shade of evergreens. Her ears popped.
To her right, the trees gave way to an open mountain meadow—a glacial field where some intrepid family had once dared to fell the tall pines. Amid the boulder-strewn field, a red barn stood. The field, now just sepia-toned stubble, stood out against the technicolor ridgeline to the east.
The Jay Range. That meant she was nearly there.
The Corolla shifted gears as it climbed a steep grade past the mountain farm. Back into the cloistering pines.
"In two miles, make a right-hand turn," Allison's phone prompted in a cartoonish voice. She'd chosen Scruff, Tetherly's cartoon mascot, as her phone's voice back in high school. At the time, the goofy dog with his lopsided mouth had made her smile. Now it just opened wounds. Time to change that, too.
"GPS Signal lost," her phone announced thirty seconds later. No surprise. She'd entered the dead zone.
Despite covering an area twice the size of New Jersey, the Adirondacks had a population density under fifteen people per square mile. The region's rugged, rural nature, coupled with signal-disrupting iron deposits and local regulations against "eyesore towers," left the whole area pockmarked with dead zones. In the eyes of cell phone companies, reaching out to Sanguine Springs, with its five houses tucked away between Jay and the similarly sized town of Ausable Forks, wasn't worth the squeeze.
A red light caught her eye—a single LED on her prosthetic wrist, flicking on and off in a steady rhythm. Like it had once before on the highway. Odd. She'd never noticed it before.
Allison held the wheel with her left hand and flexed the fingers of her right. They opened and closed as usual. The battery had more than enough juice.
The light came on right after I lost cell service, she mused. But that doesn't make sense. My prosthesis isn't on the IoT. At least, it shouldn't be.
She would have known. At Tetherly, Allison stood in the gap between the world of human users and the Internet of Things. While the term typically referred to everyday objects from thermostats and televisions on up to gas grills and autonomous cars, Newton's vision of the future included bringing medical devices like hearing aids, pacemakers, and prosthetics into the Tetherly ecosystem. The new devices would have been heavily subsidized by Thomas Newton's own foundation, paving the way for even the lowest-income amputees to acquire serious upgrades. But the project, mired in governmental red tape and HIPAA restrictions, had ground to a halt long before Hadley's interests.
At first, Allison had been surprised by resistance from within the amputee community. But when she read the feedback from user surveys, a new angle appeared. Unlike Allison, who had suffered loss of limb during a childhood vehicle accident, many of the nation's amputees were veterans. Men and women maimed in the course of military service. They came from all walks of life, but one thing united them—a deep distrust of trading freedom for convenience.
It matched the attitude of the veteran she knew best.
Uncle Betty.
Allison had just passed another Instagram-worthy mountain farm, its pasture filled with shaggy and adorable long horned Scottish Longhorn Cattle, when she saw it. A fork in the road. Single lane, gravel. She flipped the turn signal with her still-blinking right hand and let off the accelerator. The rental car raised a spume of dust as it passed a handmade sign. It loomed, six feet wide, four tall. Rough-hewn boards, letters carved deep with precise chainsaw strokes.
WELCOME TO SANGUINE SPRINGS.
Despite the warmth of the car, Allison shivered. She recognized the letters. Her father had carved that sign.
The birch trees arching over the roadway glowed vibrantly in the noonday sun. A yellow canopy of gold stretched overhead, the color filling her with an inexpressible feeling of longing and happiness compressed into a bittersweet pill.
She'd never visited her father—yet it felt like coming home.
The road dipped down, crossing a clear and stony mountain stream, the rocks a collection of blues, reds, and pale sandstone, worn down by the relentless flow of water and time.
Alongside the road, piles of leaves stagnated, the hues of this autumn overtopping the detritus of years gone by.
Despite a recent frost, or because of it, the reds, oranges, and yellows of the surrounding trees shone brightly atop the more sedate, rust-red flooring of pine needles and degraded duff.
This was the sort of country people try to emulate with candles and needle-stuffed pillows, Allison realized.
This was what the few remaining hipsters in LA wanted to emulate, with their designer-brand flannel and pre-distressed stocking caps.
All a mockery of the true north woods.
Birches gave way to stately pines and venerable maples, their branches spread high like a cheerleader in exultation.
The crisp air carried a scent of woodsmoke, its fragrance detectable through the air vents as she ran the heater.
She crested a final rise, the creek babbling somewhere off to her left, the tires skipping momentarily on loose gravel scree; then, she was at the top, looking down into the town of Sanguine Springs.
'Town' was really too grand of a word.
The five houses clustered at the cul-de-sac end of the road were all there was to be seen.
Technically a hamlet, what the remote neighborhood lacked in cell reception, commerce, and amenities it made up for in Adirondack style.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Where in other parts of the country small maples and oaks would have stood, here stood the full-grown, hundred-year-old specimens, gracing front lawns and filling the five back yards with grandeur.
Smoke rose from four chimneys, tracing faint curlicues in the air, and drawing the eye up to the rugged peaks of the Jay Range.
A flicker of motion caught Allison's attention.
She pressed the brakes and held her breath as a slender-legged doe stepped from the forest right in front of her car.
The creature turned its head, appraising her with wide, calm eyes. Its right ear flicked once, then it turned again, serenely, and stepped lightly into the woods on the other side of the road.
Allison's eyes misted with tears.
The 'town' wasn't as beautiful as her father had said—it was more.
She wished again that she had taken the time to visit more than she had, if only for the view.
Wishes won't bring him back, Al.
Allison shook her head, clearing the siren spell of FOMO, and coasted downhill to her father's final home. She'd already forgotten the still-blinking light on her wrist.
Matthias Neumann wiped sweat from his eyes and set the dumbbells back on their rack.
He glanced at the hickory-handled cane sitting in a corner near his weight bench, then looked away. A symbol of how far he'd come. The pain and stiffness merely whispered now, and he could navigate the house without the cane, though he still counted the steps from one room to the next. The habit joined this new life to his old one.
Matthias felt proud of the progress, then shame at the pride.
He was better than this.
Or he had been—a year ago.
A flash of light pierced the blinds of his living room gym, drawing his attention. He stood, listening to the crunch of rubber on gravel.
Ten steps to the window.
He lifted the blinds and watched the silver car stop in front of a silent, two-story house. The sedan parked beside the rusty red F-150. Interesting, Matthias thought, as the running lights died.
A moment later the driver's door opened. Matthias took one step back and one to the side, watching the stranger from the concealed vantage point.
His nerves tingled. His pulse rose. The hamlet did not get visitors. That's why he chose it.
The driver stepped out and stared up at the house.
Not a threat.
A young woman.
Matthias chided himself—but did not stop his reconnaissance.
The woman's gaze shifted from the house to the rusty truck. Her skin was lightly tanned, with nut-brown hair pulled into a ponytail. About five-foot-six, slight build, dressed in red-checked flannel, blue boot-cut jeans, and brown boots. No one to fear. She was cute, or appeared so from the distance. He even approved of her footwear—sturdy hiking boots, not the eye-rolling faux wool nonsense women seemed to wear around Lake Placid and Plattsburgh.
The newcomer stretched, raising her arms overhead as if to unkink a stiff back. He caught a flash of darker color on her right hand. A driving glove?
No.
A prosthesis. Gunmetal black and burnished titanium. He glanced down at his leg, feeling the phantom chill of metal beneath his own skin.
Allison, he thought. The dead man's daughter.
Jake had been quiet, a private man, but he'd still bragged about his genius daughter, albeit with a mixture of pride and sorrow.
But the funeral was weeks ago.
Why come now? To settle the estate? Perhaps to sell the house.
He lowered the blinds, his mood sinking even lower. He'd liked the old woodworker and felt pity for his grieving family.
Especially Brad.
His landlord, the gruff veteran, hadn't been the same since his brother's death.
Matthias's phone dinged, interrupting the melancholy.
Not a message.
His phone wouldn't pick up a signal until he was halfway to Keeseville. The notification came from his workout app.
Time for his next set.
Matthias returned to his workout.
Nine steps to the bench.
This time, he felt none of the pride. Only the shame.
Brad sat slumped in his chair, arms folded atop the dining room table, head resting on a pillow of slack muscle.
There's a line between hangover and migraine. Unfortunately for Brad, that line was a pulsing, jagged sine wave, fluttering between two separate but equal forms of agony.
A thump echoed flatly against the house's exterior. Brad groaned, opening bloodshot eyes one at a time. His mouth was emery-board dry and tasted awful—like death.
Maybe next time.
The former soldier sat up, extending his elbows behind himself and tilting his head from left to right, earning a couple of cracks for his effort. His tinnitus cleared for a second as he yawned—a wide-mouthed, lazy leonine yawn, all molars and pop-eyed saints.
Sunlight poured onto the table through three skylights set in his south-facing roof. The late morning beams bathed the empty bottle and loaded gun in harsh light.
"You're not a trainee in Coronado anymore, Clarkie," he said, his rough voice filling the empty room.
It was true.
The hangovers lasted longer now than in his teens and twenties, or even his thirties. He'd spent his best years in the teams, loved it all—even the parts he hated. But time marches on, which explained the gray hairs and the spare tire. Middle age had a way of putting you in a rear naked chokehold.
Another thump outside caught his attention. Someone closing a car's trunk.
Brad stood and grabbed the Glock from the table. He lifted the front of his T-shirt and carefully slid the pistol into his inside-the-waistband Kydex holster.
The dining table sat on the eastern side of his lakefront house, with the garage and driveway on the west. Brad left the table and crossed the great room, following the exposed beams of his vaulted ceiling. He turned at the open kitchen, crossing between the countertop and island stove to a door beside his black stainless steel refrigerator. He punched in a 4-digit combination on the door's mechanical lock and turned the knob.
Metallic footfalls echoed up as Brad hustled down the basement stairs. He had installed the camera system for times like this. I should have sunk the still into the bottom of the pond, he berated himself, as he clicked between camera feeds to find the proper view. His closed circuit surveillance system was extensive—over two dozen cameras. Thankfully, it only took a few channel clicks to locate the unknown car.
It was easy to find the visitor: a silver Toyota, late model with out-of-state plates. He ran down a mental checklist of his neighbors' associates. It came up blank. Neither Matthias, Jael, nor Tony had interacted with this car or its driver.
Then the driver turned, a suitcase in each arm. Her face filled the screen as she gazed around, an inquisitive look in her eyes.
Allison.
Jake's girl. His niece.
What is she doing here now?
In the middle of his mountain hideaway, on the first floor of his basement, Brad Clarke felt fear—a terror of looking into the eyes of the daughter of a brother he'd killed.
The migraine-hangover hybrid reappeared with a vengeance, tugging at his guts and hammering at his chest. He sucked air and dug his fingernails into the surface of his computer desk, eyes clenched tight.
A minute passed.
He opened his eyes.
Allison was still on the monitor, walking now toward the front door of her father's house.
You wanted to go to hell to make up for what you did, Brad reminded himself. Time to suffer.
He stood and walked out of the office, then turned and clambered back up the steel basement steps, shutting the door behind him. Brad Clarke crossed into the entry room and headed for his distressed oak front door. He laid his hand on the knob and opened it. Time to meet the daughter of the man he had killed.