The moment I stepped inside, the door slammed behind me.

I turned and ran for it, but the knob would not move.

Then I heard the heavy scrape of a padlock outside.

“Gavin!” I shouted. “Open the door!”

Through the frosted window, I saw him standing on the porch.

He was not alone.

Alyssa stood beside him in a white fur coat, smiling with those same red lips.

Gavin held up my satellite phone and my winter parka.

“It was never about your career, Morgan,” he called over the rising wind. “It was about the money. The life insurance, the pension, the house. You’re worth more to me dead than alive.”

Alyssa laughed softly. “Come on, babe. We have a memorial to plan.”

Gavin looked at me one last time.

“By morning, the storm will do the work. They’ll think you wandered off during training. Rest in peace, Lieutenant.”

Then they walked away.

For one terrible minute, grief crushed me. The man I had married had locked me in a frozen cabin and left me to disappear.

Then I took a breath.

The wife in me broke.

The soldier took over.

The cabin was freezing, and the chimney was blocked with solid ice. I could not safely build a real fire. I smashed an old chair and used the wood for a small controlled flame, staying low beneath the smoke. Then I searched the room for tools.

My fingers bled as I worked at the lock. I tore a metal spring from an old bed frame and bent it into a crude tool. I used a broken floorboard for leverage and forced myself to ignore the cold, the smoke, and the pain.