Chapter 2 - The Blood in the Snow
By 2:00 AM, the emergency medical interventions had stabilized the children.
Nathan had set up a makeshift pediatric ICU in his master living room. With Rosa’s tireless help, he administered warm IV fluids, monitored their vitals, and placed the twins in a heated bassinet near the stone hearth. Lily’s core body temperature had risen to a safe 96.8 degrees, her color returning to a soft pink, though her feet were severely frostbitten and required painstaking medical dressing.
Once he was certain the children were out of immediate physical danger, Nathan stood up and walked to his desk.
His face was set in stone. The gentle, agonized uncle was gone, replaced by a ruthless man who had suddenly remembered who he was.
He picked up his encrypted satellite phone—a device he kept for emergency medical consultations when working in remote regions—and dialed a direct line to Arthur Vance, the Chief of Police for King County and a personal friend whose life Nathan had saved on an operating table five years ago.
"Nathan?" Vance’s voice came through the speaker, crisp despite the storm interference. "Why are you calling on the sat-line? Is the storm hitting Cascade Ridge that hard?"
"Arthur," Nathan said, his tone dropping so low that even Rosa stopped her cleaning near the fireplace to look at him. "I need an immediate, high-priority tactical response team dispatched to 1420 Old Logging Road in the lower valley."
There was a beat of silence on the line. "Old Logging Road? That’s an abandoned logging sector near the river. What’s going on, Nathan?"
"My sister, Sarah, is lying on the kitchen floor of a rental cabin at that address," Nathan said, every word dripping with lethal precision. "She has a severe head trauma inflicted by Marcus Kane. Kane is likely still at the residence, or attempting to flee the county before the mountain passes freeze completely."
"Marcus Kane?" Vance gasped. "Nathan, Kane has an active warrant out of Oregon for armed extortion and assault! We’ve been looking for that bastard for six months!"
"He’s in that cabin, Arthur," Nathan hissed. "And if my sister dies before your men get there, I swear to God I will hunt that man down myself and use my surgical scalpels to strip him piece by piece."
"Hold your ground, Dr. Pierce," Vance commanded firmly. "I’m authorizing an emergency snow-cat tactical unit right now. Old Logging Road is low enough that our heavy treads can cut through the drifts. We’ll be at that cabin in thirty minutes. Do not leave your house!"
Nathan hung up the phone. He turned to look at the glass walls.
The blizzard was reaching its terrifying peak. Snow was piling against the lower panes of glass like white sand dunes. Through the darkness, the storm looked like a chaotic wall of static.
"Dr. Pierce?" Rosa asked softly, standing by Lily’s bed. "You aren't going down there, are you?"
Nathan didn't answer right away. He walked over to his wall vault behind the bookshelf, unlocked it, and pulled out a sleek black case containing a licensed 9mm semi-automatic pistol—a weapon he had purchased years ago for estate security but had never loaded. He slapped a full magazine into the grip, rack-chambered a round, and slid it into the inner holster of his heavy winter parka.
"I can't stay here, Rosa," Nathan said quietly, pulling on his tactical winter boots. "Vance’s men are fast, but if Sarah is bleeding from an epidural hematoma, she doesn't have thirty minutes. She has minutes, period. I am the only board-certified trauma surgeon within fifty miles."
"Uncle Nathan?"
Lily had pushed herself up onto her elbows, her green eyes wide with panic. She reached her small, bandage-wrapped hand toward him. "Don't go out there! The bad man... he has a gun! He told Mommy he was going to burn the house down so nobody would find us!"
Nathan froze, his hand resting on the heavy copper door handle.
Burn the house down.
If Marcus Kane realized Sarah was unconscious and the children were gone, he wouldn't just flee. A psychopath cornered in a storm would destroy the crime scene. He would set fire to the structure to erase the DNA, the blood, and the evidence of his abuse.
Nathan turned back, walked over to Lily’s bed, and knelt beside her. He took her face gently between his hands.
"Lily," he said, his voice soft, warm, and absolute. "Your mommy risked everything to get you to my door. She knew I was strong enough to protect you. Now it’s my turn to go get her and bring her home to this warm room. Do you trust me?"
Lily looked at her uncle’s face—the strong jaw, the green eyes that matched her own, the total absence of fear in his expression.
Slowly, she nodded. "Bring Mommy back."
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"I give you my word as a Pierce," Nathan said. He kissed her forehead, stood up, and pulled his snow goggles down over his eyes. "Rosa, lock the steel security shutters behind me. Do not open this door for anyone except Chief Vance or me."
Nathan stepped out into the freezing fury of the mountain storm.
