Chapter 1 - The Stranger Below the Cliff
Six weeks before I met Vincent Moretti, my husband put my suitcases on the porch.
He did not carry them there while I watched.
That would have required him to look at me.
Instead, when I came home from school on a Tuesday afternoon, my two blue suitcases were already waiting beside the front door, and my mother-in-law, Marjorie Whitaker, was standing in the foyer with divorce papers in her hand.
Ethan stood behind her.
Four years of marriage, and he could not lift his eyes from the hardwood floor.
Marjorie held out the papers.
“We’ve all waited long enough, Hannah.”
I looked at Ethan.
He said nothing.
Marjorie continued.
“You’ve seen three specialists. Four years, no baby. Ethan deserves a family.”
I remember thinking how strange it was that she said family while destroying one.
I took the papers.
Ethan’s signature was already there.
“Are you going to say anything?”
He looked at the floor.
I waited.
One breath.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Nothing.
So I folded the papers, slipped them into my purse, picked up both suitcases, and walked out.
Nobody followed me.
That was how my marriage ended.
Not with screaming.
Not with betrayal discovered in a hotel room.
Not with a slammed door.
Silence ended it.
Six weeks later, I was living forty miles north in the old mountain house where Rose Bell had raised me.
Rose had been gone for two years.
The house had spent most of that time boarded shut.
The roof leaked over the laundry room, the furnace worked only when threatened, and half the porch leaned slightly toward Vermont.
But it was mine.
More importantly, nobody could put my suitcases outside it.
That Saturday morning, rain was falling hard over Black Ridge when Rocco began barking.
Rocco was a hundred-and-twenty-pound Rottweiler who considered barking beneath his dignity.
He preferred staring.
If you entered the yard without permission, Rocco would stand fifteen feet away and look at you until you reconsidered every decision you had made since childhood.
So when he came charging out of the forest barking like the mountain was on fire, I dropped the broom.
“Rocco?”
Mud covered his legs.
He rushed to me, grabbed the bottom of my flannel shirt between his teeth, pulled once, released it, and ran toward the tree line.
Then he stopped.
Looked back.
Barked.
Something was wrong.
“Fine.”
I grabbed my rain jacket.
Rose had taught me one thing early: when an animal that never panics suddenly panics, pay attention.
My hiking pack hung beside the door.
Inside it was the coil of climbing rope I used for hauling deadwood up steep slopes.
I grabbed that too.
I had no idea why.
Twenty minutes later, I was grateful I did.
Rocco led me almost a mile into the woods.
The rain turned the ground to black mud beneath my boots.
We crossed a narrow creek, climbed through pines, then reached an abandoned logging cut where the earth suddenly dropped away.
Rocco stopped at the edge.
I heard something below.
Not shouting.
Breathing.
I crawled closer.
A man lay perhaps twelve feet beneath me on a shelf of wet rock.
Black suit.
White shirt stained dark along one side.
One leg twisted beneath him.
No coat.
No phone visible.
And even from above, I could see how pale his face was.
“Hey!”
His eyes opened.
Dark.
Sharp.
Very much alive.
“Don’t move,” I called.
His answer came immediately.
“Go away.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“Leave.”
Even half-dead at the bottom of a ravine, the man somehow sounded like he was dismissing an employee.
“I’m trying to help you.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Clearly.”
His eyes narrowed.
“If you stay here, you’re putting yourself in danger.”
That sentence changed things.
I looked around the forest.
“From what?”
He did not answer.
Then he tried moving.
Pain crossed his face.
He hid it almost instantly.
I had taught eight-year-olds for seven years.
I knew that expression.
Children used it when they fell on the playground and were determined not to cry in front of classmates.
“You have a broken leg.”
“I’m aware.”
“And you’re freezing.”
“I’m also aware of that.”
“Good. Then we’re making progress.”
He actually looked offended.
I took off my pack.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m getting you out.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
For the first time, his expression changed.
Not much.
Almost amusement.
Then it disappeared.
I tied one end of the rope around a thick pine several feet from the edge.
Rose had taught me the hauling knot when I was twelve.
At the time, she made me practice until my fingers hurt.
I never understood why she thought a little girl needed to know how to build a primitive pulley.
Rose had believed survival skills were more useful than explanations.
Twenty-eight years later, she proved right.
I lowered a loop.
“You’ll need to get this under your arms.”
He looked at the rope.
Then at me.
“You can’t pull me up.”
“I can with leverage.”
“You weigh half what I do.”
“Probably less.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“Then stop talking and save your strength.”
His mouth almost moved again.
Almost.
It took ten minutes to secure him.
Another fifteen to bring him up.
Rain ran into my eyes.
Mud slid beneath my boots.
Every muscle in my back burned.
Twice, I thought the rope would tear skin from my palms.
Rocco paced beside me, whining.
Finally, a blood-covered hand appeared over the ledge.
I caught his wrist.
“Give me your other hand.”
“I can do it.”
“Your leg is broken.”
“I’m aware.”
“You say that a lot.”
“And you talk too much.”
“Wonderful. We hate each other. Other hand.”
He gave it to me.
I leaned backward.
He dragged himself over the edge.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Then he rolled onto his back in the rain and stared at the gray sky.
I sat beside him, breathing like I had just run a marathon.
“See?”
He turned his head.
“What?”
“You didn’t die.”
“Morning’s young.”
That was the first time I laughed.
It was also the first time he looked at me as though I had surprised him.
Getting him home took another hour.
He refused an ambulance.
That should have been my first clue.
He also refused the hospital.
Second clue.
The third was the handgun strapped beneath his jacket.
I discovered that when I helped him onto my kitchen table.
I froze.
His hand immediately covered mine.
Not threatening.
Firm.
“Don’t touch it.”
I looked at him.
“You have a gun.”
“Yes.”
“You were lying in a ravine with a gun.”
“Yes.”
“Normal people carry phones.”
“I had one.”
“What happened to it?”
“Someone tried to kill me.”
I slowly stepped back.
Rocco moved between us.
The stranger looked at him.
Rocco stared back.
“Your dog doesn’t like me.”
“My dog likes six people.”
“How many are still alive?”
“All six.”
“That’s encouraging.”
I cleaned the cut along his temple and wrapped his ribs as best I could.
His leg needed a doctor.
He knew it.
I knew it.
But every time I mentioned one, he gave the same answer.
Not yet.
Finally I asked:
“What’s your name?”
He hesitated.
“Vincent.”
“Last name?”
Another pause.
“Moretti.”
Something about the name bothered me.
Familiar.
But I couldn’t place it.
I reached for another bandage.
My silver locket slipped from beneath my shirt.
Vincent’s entire body went still.
Not tense.
Still.
His eyes fixed on the small image engraved on the metal.
Saint Michael with a sword.
He reached toward it, then stopped before touching me.
“Where did you get that?”
His voice had changed.
“It belonged to my mother.”
“What was her name?”
“Rose Bell.”
He stared at me.
“No.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“That didn’t belong to Rose Bell.”
I touched the locket.
“She gave it to me before she died.”
Vincent slowly sat straighter despite the pain.
“Hannah.”
I had not told him my name.
My stomach dropped.
“How do you know my name?”
Before he answered, Rocco began growling toward the front windows.
Low.
Deep.
Vincent looked toward the driveway.
Engines.
More than one.
I moved to the window.
Three black SUVs came through the rain.
They stopped in a straight line outside Rose’s old house.
Doors opened.
Men in dark coats stepped onto the muddy yard.
None looked like police.
None looked lost.
The first man reached my porch.
Then another.
Then four more.
I backed away.
“What did you bring to my house?”
Vincent did not answer.
The front door opened.
The first man stepped inside.
He saw Vincent.
His face changed instantly.
Relief.
Then something else.
Respect.
He lowered his head.
“Mr. Moretti.”
The other men did the same.
Nobody moved until Vincent spoke.
“I’m fine.”
Clearly a lie.
Then the first man saw me.
His eyes dropped to the locket resting against my shirt.
The color left his face.
He whispered something in Italian.
Vincent answered quietly.
The man looked at me again.
This time he did not look suspicious.
He looked stunned.
Then, slowly, he lowered his head toward me too.
I gripped the edge of the kitchen counter.
“What is happening?”
Vincent Moretti looked at the locket Rose had told me never to remove.
Then he looked directly into my eyes.
“The woman you called your mother saved your life.”
I swallowed.
“I know.”
His expression hardened.
“No, Hannah.”
May you like
A beat passed.
“You don’t.”
