Lone Survivor. Jill Elizabeth Nelson

       ONE

      Karissa Landon gnawed her lower lip as she guided her compact sedan up the steep gravel driveway toward her cousin Nikki’s home in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. As excited as she’d been to reconnect with this long-lost relative—pretty much the last one on the bare branches of her family tree—now that she was at the moment of truth, her palms were sweating and her heart rate stuttered like she was about to undergo a particularly grueling job interview. Karissa and her cousin had both recently crossed the threshold of thirty years old, and it had been twenty-two years since they’d last seen each other. Would they like the adults the other had become?

      Karissa and her twin sister, Anissa, had been inseparable with Nikki when their families lived next door to each other during their early grade school years, but after their families moved far apart, they’d gradually fallen out of touch. Now, this reunion meant a lot to Karissa—probably too much—which led to her arriving at her cousin’s place a good half hour earlier than their agreed-upon time. But with her parents and her twin sister gone from this world, she longed for connection with someone who shared her DNA.

      She stopped the car at the edge of a circular drive in front of a log house. The structure was considerably bigger and more elaborate than Nikki’s reference to it as a “cabin” would have implied during their initial telephone conversation several days ago. Her cousin had sounded delighted to hear from her and fascinated to learn that Karissa had joined an ancestry website specifically to find any remaining relatives. Nikki had been excited to share about her three-month-old son, Kyle, but sad over her husband’s recent death due to prostate cancer.

      Karissa’s insides knotted. Was it unrealistic of her to hope that she and Nikki would rebond after all these years? Regardless, she had to try.

      Sucking in a fortifying breath, Karissa stepped out of her car and walked up the three steps onto a wide front porch populated by small tables and chairs, as well as a swing at the far end. The large front door was a unique blend of ornate and rustic. Massive, floor-to-ceiling picture windows to the right of the door suggested a great room that would offer a panoramic vista of the wooded valley below. No wonder her cousin delighted in the place.

      Resolute, she knocked on the solid wood and waited...and waited. Not a sound carried to her from the interior. Had her cousin forgotten she was coming? Or maybe Nikki had run out on an errand and would soon be back at the time they’d agreed to meet. Probably that was it. So much for her puppylike eagerness to get this reunion underway.

      However, with this view to admire and fresh pine air to invigorate her senses, waiting on the front porch would be no hardship. Karissa stepped toward a chair but halted in front of the windows. The curtains were wide-open, revealing a great room with a vaulted ceiling. The room was tastefully furnished with high-end, rustic-chic furniture. However, it wasn’t the loveliness of the space that snared her attention. Her gaze locked onto a pair of bare, feminine feet and legs poking out from behind the brown leather sofa.

      Something was wrong. Had her cousin fallen? Was she hurt?

      Karissa whirled and raced back to the door. She turned the knob. Thankfully, the door was not locked. She burst inside and rushed toward the woman on the floor then pulled up short with a thin shriek. Nikki lay sprawled on her back, slender arms flung above her head. Her long brown hair fanned out across the cabin floor, the color nearly blending with the medium-toned wood.

      “Nikki?” The cry came out hoarse and strangled as Karissa dropped to her knees and felt for a pulse in her cousin’s neck. Stupid, futile gesture. There was no life to be found.

      Swallowing hard, Karissa squeezed her eyes shut. Surely, this moment was a dream—or rather, a nightmare. Would she wake up soon? She opened her eyes, but the grim reality remained the same. Worse, if there was a worse in such a situation, it wasn’t even possible to believe that the death was due to natural causes—not with the