The heater in the rented Subaru hums a low, dying note against the bite of the Washington dusk. Joss Marchetti kills the engine, and the silence that rushes in is absolute, heavy with the weight of old growth and fresh powder. She reaches for the chewed black pen behind her ear, her thumb tracing the familiar ridges. Through the windshield, the lodge looms as a jagged crown of cedar and stone, its amber windows the only warmth for miles.
This is the place where people have stopped dying. She shifts her satchel, the worn leather creaking in the stillness. Five years without a single grave—it is a statistical impossibility her editor called a fluke, but the stillness of Hemlock Bend feels less like luck and more like a held breath. Joss checks her watch; Caleb Roan is expecting her, and he is not the kind of man a reporter keeps waiting.
She reaches for the door handle, but her hand freezes mid-air. Through the driving snow, a massive silhouette emerges from the treeline and walks steadily toward her car.
