Part 5
The notary’s brass seal clicked against the final closing document, completing the last signature Caleb needed before the deed could be recorded. Julian slid a thick manila folder across the marble table of the West Loop coffee shop, his perfectly manicured fingers resting lightly on the tab.
Caleb reached for the paperwork, taking a sip from his paper coffee cup, but Julian kept his hand firmly on the folder, pinning it to the marble. Julian was not looking at him. His attention was fixed on the busy Chicago street outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, where a delivery truck was idling in the slush.
“There is one minor logistical detail,” Julian said. His voice carried the same flat, transactional tone he had used to negotiate the property boundaries. “I prefer to be completely transparent to avoid any future liability. My wife left a cat at the property. It is still there.”
Caleb froze. His coffee cup hovered midway to the table.
It was the first week of March. “Still there?” Caleb repeated, his brow furrowing as he tried to make sense of the timeline. “You told me the county doesn’t plow that access road. There’s been over two feet of snow on the ground up there since Christmas. Who have you been paying to feed it?”
Julian stood up, unbuttoning his suit jacket to slip his arms into a heavy cashmere overcoat. He adjusted his collar with precise, unhurried movements.
“The last time I was at the cabin was in November,” Julian replied, his tone entirely devoid of defensive hesitation. “My wife is in a medically induced coma. I have actual priorities to manage, Caleb. I left food for it in the yard, but given the sub-zero fronts we had in January, I severely doubt it remains an active issue. The property is yours now. You can throw the animal’s belongings away when the spring thaw hits.”
Julian pulled a crisp fifty-dollar bill from his money clip, dropped it onto the table next to his untouched espresso, and walked out into the winter air without a backward glance.
Caleb sat alone in the bustling cafe. He stared at the keys resting on top of the manila folder. He and Nora had been looking for a lake house for over a year, and this cabin had fallen into their lap at twenty percent under market value. Julian had claimed he was liquidating assets to cover immense medical bills. Up until two minutes ago, Caleb had felt a deep, respectful sympathy for the man.
Now, his mind was racing through a brutal, inescapable timeline. November. December. The deep freeze of January. February. More than ninety days. Ninety days alone in the frozen Wisconsin woods without a heat source or running water.
Caleb grabbed the keys, shoved the folder into his leather satchel, and walked out.
He didn’t return to his architectural firm. Instead, he drove straight into the sprawling industrial grid of Cicero. Tucked behind a tire shop was a row of weathered, corrugated metal storage units. Caleb rolled up the aluminum door of his rented space, ignoring the heavy smell of dust and old motor oil. He dug past a stack of moving boxes until he reached the very back, pulling out a pair of long, wooden cross-country skis that had belonged to his late father. He checked the leather bindings, tossed them into the back of his SUV, and immediately merged onto the interstate heading north.
The highway was clear, but as Caleb crossed the state line and ventured deeper into rural Wisconsin, the landscape turned hostile. The snowbanks towering on the shoulders of the two-lane county roads grew higher with every mile, eventually rising like canyon walls.
When he finally reached the turnoff for the lakefront community, Caleb hit the brakes. The pavement simply ended. Ahead of him lay a vast, unbroken ocean of white snow that buried the gravel road entirely, stretching endlessly toward the dark line of the woods.
He killed the engine, stepped out into the biting cold, and pulled the skis from the trunk. The brief warming trend over the weekend had melted the top layer of snow, and the subsequent overnight freeze had turned it into a thick, armored crust of ice. Caleb strapped his heavy winter boots into the leather bindings and pushed off. The wood glided over the icy crust with a dry, rhythmic hiss.
He pushed himself aggressively, planting his poles deep into the snowpack. The sub-freezing air burned his throat with every inhalation. Within thirty minutes, sweat was pooling beneath his heavy parka, making his back damp and shivering, but he refused to slow his pace. The physical exertion was exhausting, his thighs burning as he navigated the buried contours of the road.
By the time he reached the first row of cabins, an hour had passed. The community was a ghost town. There were no tire tracks, no footprints, no woodsmoke rising from the brick chimneys. It was a silent, frozen graveyard of summer homes buried up to their windowsills.
Caleb stopped, leaning heavily on his poles to catch his breath. Plumes of white vapor exploded from his mouth. He scanned the dead landscape. Most of the addresses were buried under drifts.
A sudden flash of movement caught his eye.
A small, brown sparrow fluttered down from the naked branches of a massive oak tree. It hopped lightly across the snow crust, dislodging a tiny spray of white powder, and vanished behind a snow-draped cedar fence. Caleb pushed his skis toward the tree. As he got closer, he spotted a rusted metal placard bolted to the wood, the numbers barely visible: 22.
He hurriedly unclipped his boots from the bindings. The snow against the heavy wooden gate was waist-deep. Plunging his gloved hands into the drift, Caleb began frantically shoveling the heavy, icy blocks away, fighting to clear enough clearance to force the gate open. He squeezed through the narrow gap and stumbled into the yard, his eyes instantly locking onto the cabin.
The concrete porch was a pristine, undisturbed sheet of white.
There were no paw prints. No indents. No signs of life whatsoever.
Caleb waded through the deep snow, pulling himself up onto the porch. He grabbed the handle of the sliding glass door and yanked, but it was locked solid. Cupping his hands around his eyes to block out the harsh glare of the sun, he pressed his face against the freezing glass. The interior was perfectly dark and hollow.
He stepped back, letting his arms drop to his sides. The overwhelming silence of the property pressed down on him.
“Where are you?” he whispered. His voice cracked, instantly swallowed by the vast, frozen emptiness of the yard.