I was standing outside the shack in the middle of the woods, near the pebbled shore of the still glacial lake, scanning the low hanging clouds concealing the tall rocky mountains above them, the air quiet and cool. Daniel standing nearby picked up a flat rock near the water’s edge and flung it at a shallow angle so that it skipped across the lakes surface. It went surprisingly far in the lake before it lost too much moment and then…
I woke to silence. Not the comfortable quiet of dawn at the observatory, but something wrong – an absence that pulled me fully alert before I’d even opened my eyes. “Daniel?” No answer. The sleeping bag beside me, dumped in a rumpled pile, was cold and long empty. I scrambled outside, scanning the shoreline where we’d pulled the canoe up the night before. Gone. My chest tightened as I searched for any sign – footprints in the soft earth, a…
The helicopter rotors grew louder as Daniel grabbed my arm. “The canoe,” he said simply, nodding toward the dock where Justine’s bark and sinew craft still bobbed in the darkening water. He ejected the tape from the VCR and slid it into his backpack, slinging it back over his shoulder. I grabbed my hastily packed knapsack, and I followed him down the narrow path, the evening air thick with the scent of pine and approaching night. “Can you paddle?” Daniel…
The drive back from Mountain River Park gave me too much time to think. Sarah’s parting comment about the lumber mill and abandoned mine kept replaying in my mind. Government acquisitions? Daniel hadn’t mentioned anything about that, and I thought I was privy to most aspects of his operation. When I arrived back at the cabin, I found Daniel in his study, methodically cleaning the glass on his pachinko machine. The afternoon light caught the polished steel balls as they…
With her powerful perfume still lingering in the air and my cheeks still blushing from where she kissed them, Prime Minister’s Justine Moreau’s sudden visit and departure had left it’s mark. The Premier of Louise, Daniel Smythe, was standing in the middle of the cabin living room, livid with what had just happened. He was uncharacteristically tugging on his grey t-shirt and putting his hands in and out of his camouflage pants, like his mind was spinning so hard that…
The silence stretched between them like a taut wire. I could feel the weight of those hidden recordings beneath us, the evidence that could topple governments sitting just metres below the Prime Minister’s feet. Daniel’s grip on my wrist had tightened imperceptibly when she mentioned JD Ruff – a warning to stay quiet. “This is Al, my assistant,” Daniel finally said, his voice carrying that same measured calm he’d used with the Valdorians. “He’s been with me for six years.”…