Stella Hastings's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Stella Hastings kneels in the snow outside a shuttered general store, examining the marks she's been tracking for two hours. Her niece was here. The small boot prints stop at a wooden bench, then disappear. In their place, drag marks lead to the street. She follows the trail three blocks to a four-story building with peeling yellow paint and rust-eaten railings. The door hangs open. Inside, the apartment on the second floor still holds warmth in its walls. Stella finds a single mitten on the kitchen floor, small and purple with a white snowflake pattern. She bought it for her niece last Christmas. The tag inside still has her niece's initials in permanent marker. But the closet is empty, the bathroom cleared out. They left within the last few hours. Stella closes her fist around the mitten and walks back into the cold. She has less than three days left, and now she knows exactly how close she is. But then she sees it, half-buried in snow near the building's back steps. The locket. Silver with intricate vines carved into the oval face, the chain broken at the clasp. Stella bends down and pulls it free. She gave this to her niece six months ago, told her it was something permanent, something that said you matter. The child wore it every day after that, even slept in it. For it to be here, discarded in the snow, means her sister-in-law found it and ripped it off. Stella turns the locket over in her palm and sees fresh scratches on the back, like someone pried at it with a key. They're running scared now. And scared people make mistakes. Stella pockets the locket and studies the drag marks leading away from the building. They head toward the main road where tire tracks cut through fresh snow. Her sister-in-law is moving the child again, probably to another remote building where Stella will have to start over. But this time is different. The broken necklace means her niece knows Stella gave her something worth keeping. And if her sister-in-law is desperate enough to tear it off, she knows Stella is close. The deadline is ticking down, but so is the distance between them.