at the thought of getting out of the rain. A minute later, the last stair creaked as she stepped onto the front porch. Jonas wasn’t far behind.
She turned to him. “How old do you think this place is?”
“I don’t know, but there are a lot of empty cabins in the Northwest.”
Inside the one-room cabin was a bed frame but no mattress. There were a couple broken chairs and some rusty cast-iron pots, but it didn’t look as if anyone had been inside the place for months.
She stopped in the middle of the wooden floor. “I don’t think these walls are going to stop a bullet if Barrick comes after us, but they should keep us dry. What about a fire?”
“The fireplace doesn’t actually look that bad, and there’s a pile of logs on the porch that are hopefully still dry.” He crouched down in front of the wall of stone. “After what you’ve been through, I want you to sit down and rest. I’ll have a fire going in a few minutes.”
He returned a minute later with a large armful of wood. “This should last us most of the night.”
“Perfect.”
Another bolt of lightning flashed. Jonas dug a box of matches out of his backpack. A second later, a crash of thunder confirmed the storm was hovering right on top of them.
“And you don’t by chance happen to have any food in there as well, do you?” she asked.
“Normally, no, but I still have some things from my flight to Seattle, because I wanted more than peanuts for lunch and never unpacked it.” He pulled out a ziplock bag and grinned. “Looks like we’re in for a fire and a gourmet dinner. I’ve got a package of beef jerky, a couple protein bars, and some trail mix—plus a couple bags of airline peanuts.”
“Sounds like I ended up with the right partner for this trip.” She pulled off the wet jacket and laid it out next to her, still shivering from the cold.
He reached into his bag, pulled out a small notebook, and added the crumpled pages as tinder. Another few minutes and he had a decent fire going. Madison leaned toward the fireplace, grateful for the warmth of the flames.
“What made you decide to move back to Seattle?” she asked.
“I grew up there and my mother lives in Bellevue.” Jonas checked the chimney flue and the draft, before piling some logs inside the fireplace. “I guess it’s something I knew I would do eventually, but it was always far in the future. Michaels contacted me a while ago and planted the seed about moving back, and well, here I am.”
She held her hands closer to the fire. “Did you miss it, being away?”
“To be honest, most of the time I’m so busy I don’t really think about settling down and planting roots.”
“You had to have missed something.”
“There are a few things. Like Pike Place Market,” Jonas said. “Every time I visited my mother, we’d always spend a Saturday morning there. She would look at the crafts, and I would eat. Chinese street food, French crepes, Persian kebabs. Hands down, the best is the seafood chowder.”
“I love going there as well, though I’m not a huge seafood fan.”
“And you live in Seattle?” He laid down a couple more sticks, then sat down next to her and held his hands toward the flames. “You’ve got to be kidding. When I lived in the city, one of my favorite restaurants was located just down the street from me and served the most amazing clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. I used to go at least twice a month. In fact, one of the reasons I decided to move back to the Northwest was the seafood.”
“You moved back for a bowl of clam chowder?”
“Well, when you put it that way, yes.”
She laughed. “Seattle does have more to offer than just seafood, you know.”
“True.”
“That’s what’s so wonderful about living in the city. It doesn’t matter what I’m hungry for. Chinese, Vietnamese, pizza, or even a hot dog from a street vendor—”
“Wait a minute. You’d pass up chowder for a hot dog.”
Her eyes widened. “Have you tried one with cream cheese and onions?”
He shook his head. “No, but I’ll make you a deal. Once this case is over—and it will be soon—I’ll celebrate with you by eating one of your cream cheese hot dogs, if you let me take you out to one of my favorite little restaurants and promise to try their chowder.”
She paused. Was