The house was quiet. She didn’t hear any noise from downstairs. However, she could smell the lingering aroma of breakfast: freshly brewed coffee, eggs, and savory bacon. She should get out of the bed, but she didn’t want to give up the warmth the comforters provided. She pulled up the blanket up to her chin and drifted back to sleep for another hour.
When she opened her eyes for the third time that morning, she forced herself out of the bed and took a shower. By the time she went down, it was clear nobody had come home yet. She saw Savannah’s note on the kitchen fridge, saying she wouldn’t be home for lunch. The cleaning crew was going to come around noon, she informed Vanessa, so she wouldn’t freak out when strangers came into the house.
Vanessa had coffee and a light breakfast. She turned the TV on, looking for a weather channel. A snowstorm had arrived overnight. She looked out the windows and saw the flurries coming down. Despite the storm, the temperature hovered around thirty-two degrees, which wasn’t too bad.
She logged into her laptop to do some work, but still couldn’t concentrate. The scene last night played in her mind. She could swear she saw a tiger. In her bed. She must have been crazy to have seen such a thing. It felt so real.
Where was Quinn anyway?
She texted him. No answer. She tried to call, but it was directed to his voicemail. She gave up. She gave up on work too. She decided to take a walk to clear her head. It wasn’t too bad today. Besides, she liked the snow. She put on her parka and meandered into the backwoods.
The landscape was blanketed with fresh, fluffy snow. The ice made crunchy sounds under her boots. The scenery was so pretty, just like in a postcard. Pine trees covered in powdered flakes, quite picturesque. Luckily it wasn’t windy, so the temperature wasn’t too cold for a morning stroll.
Quinn and his brothers seemed to like to walk down the trail. They might be somewhere in the woods. If she followed the path, she might catch them. She needed to talk to Quinn about a work-related problem she had read in her email this morning anyway.
An icy breeze sent her shivering like a wet dog. She should have brought her gloves with her, but she had forgotten about them and left them on the kitchen counter. She thought of going back, but decided against it. She had already walked too far from the house.
She crammed her hands into her jacket pockets instead. She plodded in the snow as she skirted the bend. She dreaded this part of the path. From there, the trail came to an incline. She wasn’t athletic and packed thirty pounds more on her frame than her ideal weight; hiking this section would inevitably make her breathe hard. The view was spectacular, though. She didn’t mind that. She needed the exercise anyway.
When she got to the clearing, she didn’t see anybody. The Alexanders had a gazebo built here for summer entertaining. Although she couldn’t fathom who would come here just to relax after such a steep incline spent sweating their asses off. She sat on the bench, catching her breath and enjoying the view. She took her hands out of her pockets and rubbed them together. A fire would be nice. If Quinn were here, he’d know how to make one. That guy had great survival skills.
By the way, where was he? It wasn’t like him just to take off like that without leaving a message.
After a few minutes, she decided to walk some more. If she couldn’t find Quinn, she would head back to the house. There were emails to respond to. Some small patches she must fix. Stephen had been nagging her about some glitches in the programming she wrote. The other programmer who worked on it now had a hard time merging it into their portion of the project. She must take a closer look.
She blew on her hands and crammed them into her pockets again as she got up. She wondered what it looked like here in the summertime. The sight must be spectacular. All the snow was gone and replaced by grasses and greenery. The scent of the pine trees must be aromatic. At present everything was frozen, waiting for the winter to render the landscape white for another few months.
After a few minutes of walking, Vanessa decided she’d had enough. The trail ahead of her was beginning to get difficult to climb. And besides, walking by herself was actually quite dangerous. If there were an avalanche, she could be buried and nobody would know what happened to her.
Suddenly, something rustling in the background caught her attention.
She felt creeped out, like she was being watched. She didn’t like it. When she turned, she was shocked to find Ivy Bishop.
“Ivy? Is that really you?” Vanessa asked.
Her coworker came out from behind a particularly large fir tree.
“What are you doing here?” She saw Ivy had three huge dogs with her. “Are those Siberian Huskies? They’re so big. And cute.”