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  PAST NEVER DIES

  Copyright © 2021 by Cate Clarke

  All right reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

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  Chapter 1

  Diana Weick

  Lake Chelan, Washington

  Helicopters whirred overhead. Headlights panned over the docks, scraping the water with yellow and highlighting the caps of Lake Chelan’s small waves. People in high-visibility vests gathered around, adding the rays from their flashlights to the yellow ambience that surrounded the search party.

  It was too dark now. They’d dragged Diana out of the trails, kicking and screaming, after another day, another night of no Kennedy. It had been three days. Three days without her. Three days with no sleep. Three days of reporters, police officers and her ex-husband, Rex. Diana was walking through a nightmare, black ghost hands grabbing at her and pulling her in directions that she had been trying to avoid all her life. Yet, she couldn’t open her eyes. She couldn’t step out of the dream no matter how many times she imagined herself pulling Kennedy into her arms.

  “Ms. Weick.”

  Diana turned to the police officer that had called her name more than once—she was sure of that from the eyebrows upturned in annoyance on his face. Detective Merino moved his dark brown hair out of his face as he stepped into the beam of Diana’s headlights.

  “What is it, Merino?” Diana muttered, crossing her arms over her chest, not taking her eyes off the dark lake stretched out in front of her.

  “We’re calling the search for today.”

  “I know that.”

  “I wanted to ask you about Kennedy’s skills that you mentioned yesterday.”

  “You mean the Eagle Scouts?”

  Merino nodded. He scratched at his stubble and sighed, searching for something inoffensive. Diana knew that look. She had worn it many times when training clients and when dealing with superior officers in BUD/S.

  “Yes. You mentioned that she was one of few girls in the Eagle Scouts. I know they learn lots of survival skills and whatnot. But, well—” He paused again, searching. “Do you know if she knew how to make fire? It’s supposed to get below freezing tonight. Not usual for March.”

  Diana looked to him, her eyes flashing up and catching the light of more passing flashlights. A boat whirred in the distance, the last boat, pulling up to the dock with Rex and Wesley on board. She pushed herself off the hood of the car and squared herself toward Merino.

  Diana looked over him, standing taller than him in her heeled hiking boots. “She knows.”

  Merino cleared his throat, stealing glances at her crossed arms. “Good.”

  “It won’t be the cold—” Diana said as Merino started to turn away. He looked back over his shoulder. “It won’t be the cold that gets her, or these woods…”

  “From what you’ve said, she seems to be a survivor.”

  “She is. She can survive these woods, but what I worry about is if she runs into other people. She’s not good with people.”

  “Sometimes, that’s a good thing,” Merino said. “People can be as unsafe as a dark thick forest.”

  “I trust these woods more than I trust you, Merino,” Diana murmured, and Merino gave half a laugh. He pulled his jacket further around himself. Diana did the same. With the sun gone, the cold was moving in quick, reminding them all that summer was still a long way off despite the heat and humidity they’d had over the last three days.

  “You served, right?” Merino asked, taking another step away, keeping his eyes between Diana and the gathered officers waiting by their vehicles.

  “Navy.”

  Merino danced around it. Diana knew he wanted to say something more, maybe mention seeing her picture in the papers or on the news years ago. The attention had been unwarranted, unnecessary and just utterly annoying. She hadn’t become the first woman Navy SEAL to get on the Tonight Show or meet the queen. She had completed the program because she could, because she knew it was something that she was capable of and it would prove something to herself, to her father, to her children. Not to society. Not to mid-level detectives like Merino who looked at her like she was some type of beast about to slam him with the power of America in her fists.

  But, she wasn’t that woman anymore. She was a mother now—a mother with a missing daughter, proving that no matter how much time and passion you committed to your country, no matter how much blood and sweat you put in to try and prove yourself, no one was immune to the relentless strength of human nature and a mother’s negligence.

  Clearing his throat and smiling, Merino said, “Well, if your daughter has even half the determination that you have…we’ll have her back in no time.”

  Diana just nodded and let him walk away.

  The wind blew hard, picking up the cold from across the lake and stinging at Diana’s cheeks. Rex helped Wesley out of the boat and they both tossed their life jackets behind them—her son looked way too much like his father. The two of them, standing and walking together, made their resemblance all the more obvious. Shoulder-length brown hair, strong angular jaws and ears that stuck out underneath their hair. Rex was bigger and wider with pudge around his stomach, but Diana found herself getting more and more nervous that Wesley would end up just like his father if she wasn’t careful.

  “Nothing,” Rex said as he shook some of the boat’s mist from his hair and approached her.

  “Not a lot,” Wesley added.

  Diana looked to both of them, putting a strong arm around Wesley and pulling him toward her.

  “You’re freezing,” she said.

  “I’m fine, Mom.”

  “They have blankets over there and hot chocolate,” Diana said.

  “I’m fine—”

  “Listen to your mother, champ,” Rex interrupted, nodding down at Wesley who groaned and then shuffled across the parking lot to the table lined with shiny silver carafes.

  “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you say that,” Diana noted as Wesley moved out of earshot.

  Rex grinned and shrugged, playing with his hair some more and looking around at the masses of Seattle residents and local Lake Chelan volunteers.

  “Quite the turnout,” Rex said. “Missing white girl will do that.”

  Diana scoffed. “You mean your daughter? Kennedy? Missing white girl—Christ, Rex.”

  “No— Di, I didn’t mean that.” Rex took a step toward her and she took a step back, the headlights from her car wrapping around their ankles. “I just mean… Yeah. No, you’re right. I’m stressed out.”

  “You don’t need to be here.”
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  Rex raised his eyebrows. “She is my daughter, Di. That just came out of your mouth. I’ll be damned if I don’t do everything I can to find her.”

  “You weren’t here yesterday,” Diana replied immediately, her eyes flashing up and narrowing. “But, I know. This is everything you’re capable of.”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m one of the kids.”

  Diana looked at him, pressing her lips into a straight line. “I wish you were one of the kids. Then maybe it would be you out in those woods.”

  Rex had brought this up in court—Diana’s ability to vex everything. His lawyer had even argued that she was borderline emotionally abusive because of post-traumatic stress from being overseas. Ridiculous. He had tried to prove that she was the emotionally incompetent one in their relationship when he had been the one pouring his emotions into a new girl every week. Sure, Diana was bitter. It sat like vinegar on her tongue, ready to be spat out at anyone willing to cross her, especially Rex.

  He let out a long sigh and shut his eyes hard for a moment, mustering something.

  “Listen, Diana,” Rex began. “I was thinking…maybe I should move back in with you guys for a bit. With the case being so freshly closed, I’m sure the court would understand. I could help out with things…for Wes, you know?”

  The wind blew again, light splashes of cold water spraying the side of Diana’s arm as she stared at Rex with shock. Her eyebrows raised, and her mouth dropped open. There were many things that she could have said. But, Kennedy. This wasn’t about Rex or Detective Merino or the plaguing calls from the journalists—it was about Kennedy Tennison-Weick.

  So Diana reeled back and simply said, “No.”

  She walked around her ex-husband, moving toward the table with the hot chocolate where Wesley was waiting, chatting with other search party members.

  As soon as she made her way out from behind the cars, the flashing of cameras joined the scattered flashlights and headlights.

  “Ms. Weick!”

  “Diana, over here!”

  “Any progress on the search, Ms. Weick?”

  Reporters called from beyond the police barrier, waving their hands in the darkness and holding up their phones as spotlights. News cameras rolled, following Diana as she crossed the parking lot toward her son. Then there was a sudden second wave of flashing and she knew Rex was behind her, coming after her. Before he could even make a move to grab her, Diana turned around, clutching one strong hand to his wrist.

  “Diana—” Rex began. Diana squeezed, twisting and pulling on his arm to try and bring his eyes down to hers.

  “Don’t,” Diana growled. More cameras snapped, several lights panning to them, illuminating the red ring forming around Rex’s wrist. Detective Merino bounded forward with two officers behind them, waving their arms at the reporters and screaming at them to back up and give some privacy. But Diana didn’t bother to check if it was effective. She stared Rex down for another moment and then dropped his wrist and grabbed her son.

  Half-dragging Wesley back to their car, Diana started the ignition immediately and then reversed. The car ripped through the caution tape, turning and whipping the yellow barrier like it was a tail and the car was a rabid animal. Reporters jumped out of the way, a few of them falling into each other and onto the crowd as Diana’s Subaru tore out of the parking lot. She reached across the console to put a hand on Wesley’s shoulder but she kept her eyes forward, not daring to look behind her at the scene she had left because she only had one thing on her mind, and she would only allow herself to have one thing on her mind: Kennedy.

  Chapter 2

  Kennedy Tennison-Weick

  Wenatchee National Forest, Washington

  It was cold and dark. Kennedy was entirely alone. All she could smell was pine—damp and acidic, biting down onto her tongue and nostrils.

  There was music. It was muffled and coming from somewhere in the darkness. She reached out one arm, patting along the dirt and stretching her fingers out toward the sound. The phone screen lit up her dark corner as she clamped her hand around it. Kennedy squinted. The music stopped, her phone’s speaker giving out as soon as she had it in her hand.

  Evergreens and uneven ground surrounded her. She was at the bottom of a long drop and when she tilted the phone up, it illuminated a rocky hillside running up at least fifty feet above her head. The memories swirled. She’d gone back up to the last vista point to try and get service when her messages hadn’t been sending to her Discord chat. Phone in the air, stretching it out like a beacon, leaning over the edge and then darkness.

  Okay, arms—good to go. Though one of her fingernails was stinging.

  Torso, not bleeding.

  Head, pounding.

  Legs—she rolled both of her ankles and pain splintered up her left side. One was either sprained or broken. The sharp pain caused a guttural hiss to escape through her teeth and something moved behind her in the bushes, snapping twigs.

  “Who’s there?” Kennedy whispered, crawling toward the trunk of the nearest pine tree and clutching to it. There was more snapping, a rustle and then the sound filtered out into the night of crickets and distant rushing water.

  Kennedy had no idea how long she’d been unconscious. She certainly felt hungry and thirsty, enough for it to be days. Once whatever animal had been smelling her had completely moved on, she lifted her sprained ankle and elevated it on a nearby rock, laying the rest of her body on a bed of pine needles. And as she lay there, staring up at the bottom of the evergreen, peering through the needles to the stars overhead, Kennedy didn’t panic. She had the skills to survive this forest. Sure, she was cold. She was scared. But, panicking wouldn’t get her anywhere.

  The forest moved in the night, animals scurrying and trees creaking, but there was little wind. It was as if Kennedy was in some type of vacuum in which the wind couldn’t reach, and she actually found herself getting warm as she slept, so she took off her sweater and used it as a pillow.

  Not by choice, her eyes opened with the sun. It pierced through the thinning needles of the tree that looked brown, almost red in the morning sun. Kennedy groaned. Her stomach grumbled along with her, and her throat—it burned with thirst like someone had been running sandpaper along the inside of it.

  She had to get a better look at where she was. Using her arms, she crawled out from under the tree, her ankle trailing behind, bumping with pain each time she hit uneven ground. Kennedy managed to get herself to her feet by using the branches above her, her curly hair falling around her shoulders. At some point, she’d lost her ponytail.

  And when she looked up, she understood a few things. First, why she hadn’t yet been found. Above her, the hillside she had fallen off of jutted out on a sharp angle and then sank back into a flat wall, one that she was against now. Across from that there was another wall of flat stone. There was a narrow gap between the hillside and the stone wall, just big enough for Kennedy to have fallen through and for the sun to cut inside, but it was preventing anyone from seeing her overhead. Most would probably just walk right over the gap without even looking down. Second, she understood why there was no wind. The stone wall and the rocky hillside ran like a narrow hallway through the forest, creating a cavern-like channel that Kennedy was stuck at the bottom of.

  She sighed and fished her phone out of her pocket. The screen was shattered. Though she could turn it on, she couldn’t unlock it—it was a glorified flashlight.

  “Fuck!” She screamed into the sky. “Fuck! Fuck!”

  Not only was her mom probably outraged, but Mr. Steedman, her previous scout master, would be furious with her. His furrowed brow, his sweaty upper lip, glaring down at her, giving her small hints at what she needed to do to get her badge as all the boys watched her with wide eyes, and smirks across their freckled faces.

  “What would he say? What would Mr. Steedman say?” Kennedy whispered to herself, shutting her eyes to try an
d make the image clearer. Offhand, she added, “What would Mom do?”

  Set the ankle, and get out of this channel.

  Find water.

  Kennedy took three deep breaths. Dread was rising in her chest; she could feel it moving up and down along her hoarse throat. Except that it wasn’t dread. It was just bile, and she had to turn her head to vomit out strings of yellowy mucus onto the bed of pine needles she had slept on. Stumbling backwards, ankle thumping, tears forced their way out of Kennedy’s eyes.

  Panic had entered the chat.

  This was pain and loneliness. Kennedy let the waves of sobs rush over her, cursing herself for being selfish. She’d just wanted to send that picture to Cryptic, and now here she was, at the bottom of a forty-foot drop, no sense of how far she was from the trail, alone and panicking.

  How could she have been so stupid?

  Her breaths came in shallow bursts. Kennedy placed a hand over her chest, her other hand trembling as she tried to put her phone back in her pocket but missed, falling to the forest floor with a soft thud. When she tried to bend down, pain shot up her left leg, her ankle drumming in time with the beat of her heart and reminding her that it was the priority.

  If she could manage to get enough cloth, she would make a U-shaped splint, but with her limited resources, Kennedy would maybe have to settle for a C-splint. She could still hobble so at least the ankle wasn’t broken. Looking down at her sweater that was crumpled into her sweat-covered pillow, she decided that it would be easier to rip her yellow T-shirt. It was March. It could still get cold during the night.

  Kennedy pulled her shirt over her head. Even though there wasn’t a single soul around, perhaps for miles, she still felt uncomfortable standing in the middle of the woods in her pink training bra with the pit stains.

  With her palms sweating, she yanked at the fabric. Her knees crunched against the pine needles as she crouched forward, more pain running up and down her leg like it was filled with static. Using both of her hands, she ripped the T-shirt into two, finally thankful for the cheap polyester of fast fashion. She had told her mom on countless occasions that she only wanted clothes that were thrifted or from sustainable sources, but Mom was always out for a deal. She was also always out for not listening to what Kennedy had to say.