An extract from The Hiding Season

There are moments in your life that change everything. One step left, and the bus doesn’t hit you. One step right, and it’s game over. I stepped right the day I took the job in Montana.

After a painful relationship breakdown, Maya Landry accepts a job at an exclusive ski resort in the Montana mountains, taking care of the luxurious million-dollar lodges that lie empty during the off-season. She relaxes into the steady routine, until one life-altering day in July…

Thursday dawned bright, the sun melting across the craggy reaches of the hilltops and peaks.

Up on the mountain, a steady breeze rushed through the forest, and by noon I’d already completed my first two lodges. One of them was my dream house. Stillwater Cabin was a glorious five-bedroom stone-fronted building. I loved everything about it: the bookcases filled with volumes I longed to read, the charming windows with their little curled black latches, the kitchen – just the right size – with traditional glass cabinets and an oak farmhouse table.

I could see myself in that living room on a snowy day, by the fire with the perfect book. A curious warmth and welcoming feel pervaded the whole place. The light slanted silkily across the oak floors, and the views were the most spectacular I’ve ever seen, taking in the deep, green valley and long, curving ski slopes. I loved working in that house. Stillwater days were the best days.

So, I left it reluctantly, closing the door gently behind me, regretting the click of the lock.

Inevitably, the following house would be a comedown, so I decided to break my usual routine and do my least favourite house next.

White Pine Lodge was the most ostentatious of all the houses in The Gateway. Eight bedrooms, plus a ‘bunkhouse’ that was really a two-bedroom guest house with its own living and dining space. It was decorated garishly, with white tiled floors that showed every smudge, and shiny chrome fixtures that looked cheap but had probably cost a fortune.

In White Pine Lodge, there were no books at all. In fact, there was nothing that showed personality. It was a big, flashy house for big, flashy people. A lawyer, I thought, owned this place. Not the good kind of lawyer but the slick kind you can’t trust. With empty eyes and a huge bank account.

It was one of the lower houses, and I usually did those on Fridays, but it felt right getting it over with now.

The driveway stretched for nearly a mile through thick forest that shadowed the narrow lane so completely, I was momentarily blinded when I emerged back into the light. I had to squint to see the hulking oak- framed structure in front of me.

As I blinked, I thought for a second I saw a curtain in the front window move. But when my vision cleared, everything was in place.

A trick of the light.

There were three steps to the front door, and I climbed them with my head down, searching my phone for the right code. On that day, the code was 1098. I will never forget it.

The door opened smoothly. For a second, I stood in the open doorway, sliding my earbuds into place, restarting the podcast before I stepped inside. The latest clues the podcasters had found included a wedding announcement for a woman in California who looked strikingly similar to the missing mother.

‘On this episode of Back in Black,’ the podcaster intoned, ‘we’re going deeper into the story of April McKay. Did she escape her life, rebrand herself as Mary Kenna, and move to California? We start by looking into Mary Kenna, to find out whether everything about her was invented . . .’

Focusing on the voices in my ears, I walked into the wide entrance hall and closed the door behind me.

Instantly I had the sense that something wasn’t right.

This house should have been warm inside, but the air felt cool against my skin and smelled of the outdoors, as if a door or window had been left open. But that wasn’t possible. Nobody had been here since my last visit two weeks ago, and I was zealous about closing everything before I left. Surely I wouldn’t make a mistake like that.

I hurried my pace, dread rising in my chest. The temperature didn’t make sense. What if I had left the back door open? Coyotes could have got in, or raccoons. They could have trashed the place.

I’d get fired.

The podcasters were still talking as I raced down that long hallway, but I couldn’t hear them any more as I reached the living room and skidded to a stop.

Instantly I could see the French doors were closed tight. A small sigh of relief escaped me. But there was a smell that shouldn’t have been there. A human smell of sweat and something else.

I yanked the earbuds from my ears, and the silence roared in.

Light pouring through the glass gave the pale room, with its white tiled floor and ivory rugs, an unearthly glow.

‘Hello?’ My voice trembled. ‘Is someone here?’ The words echoed in the quiet.

I hadn’t paused the podcast, and tinny voices kept talking through the earbuds in my hand, but I made no move to reach for my phone to switch them off. Something was wrong. I could feel it like electricity on my skin. Every nerve in my body tingled and my stomach clenched as I took one tentative step forward and then another, expanding my view of the room until it encompassed the white sofas, the rectangular glass coffee table, the fireplace built of soft-grey stone.

Empty. All empty.

I took three further steps. And froze.

A man lay on the white rug. His face was the most horrible thing I’d ever seen, purple and contorted, the tongue protruding grotesquely.

But it was his eyes that stopped me in my tracks. Ice blue and wide open, staring at the ceiling. Those empty eyes. I’d never seen a dead body before, but I knew, without question, that this man was dead.

I don’t know why I didn’t scream, but I did not. Instead, I stood very still. I could no longer hear the tinny voices. In fact, all sound had ceased, as if the world itself had receded. No birdsong, no breeze through the trees outside, no electrical hum.

Then, as quickly as they had gone, the sounds of the world returned in a flood: the podcast hosts still talking, the terrified rasp of my breath, the thud thud thud of my heart.

My gaze darted around the space, but there was no one else in the room. Just the man lying on the rug.

I didn’t understand how he could be there. The house should be empty.

Who was he? Where had he come from? Gina always alerted me if one of the owners was going to be there. She’d said nothing in her messages yesterday or this morning. Nothing at all.

By then, I was standing above him. I didn’t want to touch him, but I felt I had to check if he was alive.

As I crouched slowly beside him, the man’s vacant blue eyes seemed to watch me, aware of my fear. My hand trembled visibly as I reached out to touch his wrist.

His skin was smooth and cool but not cold. His chest did not rise or fall. The eyes fixed on the ceiling were glazed. And up close, I could see what I had not noticed from across the room – a thin, clear plastic line laced around his neck like a delicate noose, pulled tight, the skin around it florid and raw.

I stared at that translucent noose for what felt like minutes but must have been no more than a split second, and then I was in motion, leaping to my feet, racing across the room, hurling myself out the front door. I slammed it shut behind me, fumbling for my phone, but the device slipped from my numb fingers, thudding to the ground. Swearing, I snatched it up again, only then remembering that there was no phone signal up here. None whatsoever.

Slowly, I turned and looked back at the house. There was Wi-Fi in there, but it was password-protected. It was the same in all the lodges. There were no landlines. There was no way for me to reach anyone.

I needed help. Somebody had killed that man. And they could still be here.

Ed Anderson. I needed to find him. As usual, he hadn’t been at the guardhouse when I arrived, but he must be on the property somewhere. There was a landline inside the guardhouse.

All at once, I felt light-headed. I couldn’t seem to get a breath of that thin mountain air as I raced down the front steps to the car, yanking open the door and hurling myself into the driver’s seat, punching the button to lock the doors.

At some point I must have begun to weep, because when I looked through the windscreen, the trees blurred in a wash of deep green.

Swiping my cheeks with the back of my hand, I started the engine and floored the accelerator. In seconds, I was heading back down that long, shadowy drive through the trees. Although I checked the rear- view mirror constantly, there was never anyone behind me. All the same, my hands were so tight on the wheel that my fingers ached long before I reached the black iron gate.

The guardhouse was dark and quiet. There was no sign of Ed. All the same, I ran to the door and tried the handle – locked tight. I pounded on the wood in futile frustration, peering through the glass at the computer and phone on the desk.

‘Ed!’ I shouted. My voice faded instantly, absorbed by the branches of the impassive pines. ‘Ed!’

There was no one else up here. I didn’t know where Ed was and I couldn’t wait here. The killer could be on the grounds. I had to find help.

Shivering now, I leapt back into my car and started the engine, heading for the gate. My eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror, I waited impatiently until the gap was wide enough to squeeze the car through.

At last, I was out and racing downhill towards the main highway. Whatever had happened in that house, I needed help.