“Your mom’s upset,” I told him. “That’s all. She probably drove down to get a signal or cool off.”
Even as I said it, I knew how thin it sounded.
The overlook sat on a narrow turnout above Miller’s Drop, a steep section of old forest road west of Silver Basin. We were almost nine thousand feet up, with dense pine on one side, a long, rocky descent on the other, and no guardrail between the gravel shoulder and six hundred feet of empty air. The rental cabin we’d left that morning was fifteen miles back. The nearest town with a gas station, grocery store, or sheriff’s office was nearly an hour away even in good weather.
And the weather was turning fast.
The trip had been my wife Tessa’s idea.
Continue on the next page:
