Chapter 6 - The Frost Settles In
The next three days were the best kind of solitude.
With the holidays approaching and the temperature dropping to twelve below zero, Red Mountain Pass became a ribbon of hard-packed ice and towering snowdrifts. Route 550 was intermittently closed for avalanche control, keeping the weekend tourists and Denver day-trippers safely down in the valleys.
I spent those days the way I had always dreamed of spending them when I was grinding away at my desk in Capitol Hill. I woke up at six in the morning, wrapped in a wool Pendleton blanket, watching the sunrise turn the granite peaks of the San Juans into jagged slabs of gold and violet. I hauled firewood from the shed, shoveled the steep cedar-shingle roof before the ice dams could form, and spent my afternoons sitting at the small oak table by the south-facing window, reviewing commercial liability claims on my laptop while drinking black coffee laced with cinnamon.
No phone calls from Olivia. No guilt-tripping texts from Aunt Carol. Even my mother had gone radio silent, presumably licking her wounds in her suburban Denver condo while pondering the consequences of signing fraudulent legal documents at the behest of her favorite child.
On the fourth day, a sharp rap on the front door broke the rhythm of my typing.
I looked up from my screen, frowning. Nobody came up Red Mountain Pass in the middle of a blizzard unless they were lost, freezing, or carrying a subpoena.
I walked over to the entryway, unlatched the heavy deadbolt, and pulled the door open.
It wasn't Deputy Miller. And it wasn't Olivia.
Standing on my porch, shivering in a thin trench coat that was entirely useless against a Colorado mountain gale, was a man I recognized instantly from the corporate directory at Jason’s defunct landscaping LLC—though I had never met him in person.
He was older, fiftyish, with graying temples, frost-bitten ears, and an expression that made a debt collector look like a holiday greeter.
"Are you Rebecca Hart?" he asked without preamble, his breath pluming white in the freezing air.
"I am," I said, keeping my hand on the interior door latch. "And you are?"
"Marcus Vance," he said, pulling a leather folder from beneath his coat. "I’m the court-appointed receiver for Apex Landscaping LLC, formerly owned and operated by Jason Miller. I’m looking for the property at 4, Red Mountain Spur."
May you like
I didn't blink. I simply tilted my head and looked at him through the narrow gap in the doorway.
"You found it," I said. "What can I do for you, Mr. Vance?"
