Chapter 1

Oh my God, have I killed them? Landing flat on my back, Maggie pulled tight under my right arm, Molly, her identical twin sister, under my left. Cold, clammy, dripping wet, lifeless. Me, painfully numbed by the icy, soaking rain we had just escaped. From the coastal Pacific Northwest winter storm to an empty Mt. Hood cabin in an instant. We had tried again and again to get home. But couldn’t; something must be wrong there. So we implemented Plan B, but was it too late?

Two emergency lights flickered on with our arrival, partially illuminating the drab hunting cabin. A ghostly white shone on the soaked to the bones, unconscious girls in my arms. Were they still alive? I had to move fast. Every moment counted. But my fingers could not grip from the cold. I gently slid my shoulders free. Two heads lowered gently to the floor. I sat up and hoped. Hoped they were alive. I hoped someone had left the cabin prepared. That voice in my head spoke calmly:

Hope is the first step towards failure. People stop at hope, and forget to do.

Crawled to the pot-bellied stove, opened the door, felt the dry paper and kindling, reached on top of the stove, found the lighter. Thank gawd! Somehow, flicked the lighter with a thumb, the paper caught fire, but barely. Smoke leaked out. The flue! Slammed it open with a palm. Rewarded by the ignition of the paper, the kindling soon became a roaring fire.

Now, with the generator on, my shoes left a watery trail out the door into the heavy early morning sleet. Slipping, sliding, falling once as I rounded around the back of the cabin. Having been here once before with Kenneth and his dad on a black bear hunt, the cabin was familiar. The generator responded with the push of a button. The quiet rumble of the gas engine. Lights inside blinked on. Back inside the cabin, I checked the girls. Fingers still too numb to find a pulse. Sickly blue lips. I had never witnessed blue lips and didn’t know they were a real thing. Shallow breathing. I thought. I again hoped. No time to waste. With still barely functional fingers, I climbed up to the loft, pulled the bedroom mattresses out, dragged and dropped them down the narrow steps. Arranged the two single thin mattresses close to the rapidly warming air near the stove. Blankets, pulling them all out. Towels, all of them.

The clothes had to go. Quickly. T-shirt and bra. Toweled dry. Shoes and socks. Pants and panties. Socks. Toweled dry. Rolled and dragged the body to the mattress. Thawing fingers worked better. Cover in blankets. Repeat. Fast. Naked 18-year-old young women. Blonde and beautiful normally. But not tonight. Half dead, the only thought was saving them. Briefly, the worst-case scenario flashed into my mind. I’m sure the cops would never understand. I toweled their hair and tried to wrap their hair up ... how did women do it so easily? But it was done. Everything dried, wrapped, tucked away.