Maddie didn’t flinch. She just stood there in her red knit cap with her arms folded tight across her chest. Wind pushed strands of brown hair across her face. Behind her, the mountains rolled away in hard gray layers, and the first real snow of the afternoon was beginning to spit out of the clouds.
“She packed the blue duffel before we left the cabin,” Maddie said. “I saw her.”
My son, Evan, looked from her to me with that frightened, searching expression kids get when the adults are speaking in a language that sounds calm but means danger.
“Dad?” he said.
I forced myself to breathe.
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