TWISTED SISTER: A MYSTERY ROMANCE PAPERBACK

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TWISTED SISTER: A MYSTERY ROMANCE EBOOK

Faith stretched and curled back up inside her down sleeping bag. She had to pee and her toes were starting to get cold, but she didn’t want to leave her warm cocoon. The snow beneath her body creaked as she shifted into a more comfortable position.

A dull ache thumped its way through her head as she lifted it and repositioned the lumpy pile of clothes that blocked the cold air waiting outside the bag’s opening.
She never should have listened to her sister. Bridal shower or not, drinking champagne in the bitter cold was dangerous. Winter camping required intelligence and stamina. Alcohol inhibited both.

She scrunched her wool shirt into a tighter ball, tucked its rough surface under her cheek, and drifted back to sleep until the urge to pee became too strong to ignore.
Opening her eyes, she poked her head out of her bag.

Her nose practically touched the tent sidewall. The small tent was a tight squeeze for two bodies and their gear, especially when both sisters stood nearly six feet tall in stocking feet.

The inside surface of the igloo tent was rimed with a light coat of white, prickly frost. She watched, fascinated, as the spikes of frost quivered and disintegrated under her warm breath.

The cold air from the tent wall wafted onto her face and cleared the fuzziness from her brain. Now that she was wide awake she could feel the chill of the frozen snow under the tent floor seeping through her sleeping pad and bag.

Faith closed her eyes again and tried to ignore her full bladder. If Hope was still sleeping she didn’t want to wake her. Hope was never pleasant when woken before she was ready to get up.

The sisters had set up camp very late last night. Faith had been exhausted after a full day’s work followed by the long drive from Falmouth to the town of Greenville situated on the southern tip of Moosehead Lake.

Her sister Hope had let Faith drive from Falmouth to Greenville, then insisted that they head for the woods immediately even though Faith had wanted to spend the night in Greenville and leave for the woods in the morning.

After several long, dark hours on snowmobile the sisters had finally set up camp at the base of a small mountain. They shared a bottle of champagne to celebrate Faith’s upcoming wedding. The long day and bubbly had finished Faith off. She couldn’t remember crawling into her bag.

She couldn’t ignore the urge to pee any longer. Hadn’t one of their teachers—Mrs. Halstead probably, as she loved to lecture on the perils of ignoring common sense—once told the girls that they would get bladder infections if they tried to hold their urine for too long?

“Hope?” Faith called softly. No point in waking her sister if she still slept. “Hope? You awake?”

Faith rolled onto her back and looked to her right. The spot that should have held Hope’s sleeping bag was empty. She frowned at the blank space. Since when had Hope ever been awake and moving before her? Apparently that bottle of champagne had more kick than Faith had realized.

“Hope?” she called louder. Maybe Hope had taken the camp stove outside and had water boiling for tea.
The thought of drinking more fluid set Faith’s teeth on edge. If she didn’t pee right now she was going to burst. She pushed her wool pants down into the bag and struggled to pull them up over her long, underwear-clad legs.

Winter camping required multiple layers of clothing. Too many, Faith realized. She wasn’t going to make it.
She unzipped her bag and grabbed her felt-lined boots. Pee first, dress after. She jammed her feet into the boots and crawled on her hands and knees to the tent door. Her knees left shallow, bowl-shaped depressions in the snow under the tent floor.

She unzipped the screen door, then the solid door, and crawled onto the ground tarp that lined the narrow vestibule floor. Her bare hands sunk into snow.

The ground tarp was gone.

“Not funny, Hope!”

Faith had often been the brunt of her sister’s cruelty growing up. It had been several years since Hope had pulled one of her tricks; long enough for Faith to begin to believe that maybe—maybe—her older sister had finally outgrown the need to harass her.

Faith grumbled a curse. Apparently she would always have to be on guard against Hope’s unpleasant jokes. The inevitable confrontation would have to wait or she’d be wearing wet pants in frigid temps, never a good idea.

Faith rocked to her feet and crab-walked out of the vestibule. She whipped down her pants and squatted in the snow, moaning with relief as she emptied her bladder. It wasn’t until she had pulled her pants back up and looked around the tent site that she realized Hope had gone.

Faith shivered and blinked against the bright snow. The sun was well up over the horizon—mid-morning, she guessed. A gust of wind tore through her inadequate clothing and she dove back into the tent to finish dressing.

She struggled to button her red buffalo plaid wool shirt with trembling fingers as her situation sank in.

What kind of prank was Hope up to this time? Why had Hope left Faith here? This was more than a prank. Abandoning Faith in the winter woods of northern Maine could easily turn into a death sentence.

She added her bulky, navy wool fisherman’s sweater, kicked off her boots, and pulled wind pants on over her thick, wool pants. While most modern campers went for the latest hi-tech fabrics like polypro, Faith preferred good old-fashioned wool.

She tried to avoid all clothing made from man-made fabrics, opting for natural fibers like silk and cotton instead. Wool was one of her favorites. It was not only a versatile natural fiber, it kept a person warm even when it got wet.

She had a feeling that would soon be important to her survival.

Faith knelt down and pulled her mittens, scarf, and balaclava from the toe of her sleeping bag. Stuffing them down there was the last thing she remembered doing from the previous night. That was before the bottle of champagne.

She pulled the light balaclava over her head and wrapped the scarf around her neck, then looked around the tent for her heavy winter parka. It was nowhere in sight.

A small frisson of fear prickled the back of Faith’s neck as she flipped the empty sleeping bag aside to check underneath.

No parka. Her loving sister had stranded her in the north woods without adequate protection from the elements.

She set her mittens aside and considered her situation while she rolled up her sleeping bag and stuffed it into its stuff sack.

Hope was gone. She had taken the snowmobile and its small pull-behind trailer with all their food and survival gear, including the snowshoes.

She’d left Faith with only the tent and her sleeping bag.
This explained why Hope had claimed her own snow machine was in the shop for repairs. It also explained why Hope had insisted they come on the planned bridal shower camping trip anyway.

Faith’s hand shook as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. What a fool she had been. Would she never learn? She had wanted so desperately to believe that Hope had changed her ways that she had been thrilled when Hope suggested this trip in lieu of a regular bridal shower.

It would be great, Hope had told her. Just us sisters, the nearly identical Irish twins, born thirteen months apart—sisters who should have been closer and more alike—on a winter camping trip in the wilds of northern Maine to celebrate Faith’s upcoming marriage and the completion of her latest novel.

Faith tossed the stuff sack out the tent door, pulled on her mittens, and crawled out after the bag.
A sharp wind whistled through the tree tops overhead. Invisible molecules of ice cut through her sweater and attacked every cell of exposed skin on her face.

The sunlight reflected off the snow, a white hinterland strewn with glittering jewels that blinded her with their dazzle and made her eyes tear. She crawled back into the tent and dug her tinted goggles out of the small side pocket, thankful that exhaustion had made her stuff them into the tent pocket last night instead of placing them in the snow machine’s seat compartment like she usually did.

Faith exited the tent once more and turned a full circle, inspecting the surrounding landscape. Around her stood the sentinels of the northern mountains: slim, straight trunks of silver-gray aspen and white paper birch dotted with dark stands of evergreens.

She took a deep breath, drawing the crisp, icy air deep into her lungs. She had always loved winter camping—loved the bracing, pure cleanliness of the air and the sparkling snow, the utter stillness and quiet.

This had not been a bridal shower. Nor had Hope’s plan been spur of the moment. Faith could see that now. This was a well thought out act of pure malice, concocted in the mind of a sister so twisted with jealousy that she had no scruples about leaving Faith here to die.

She squared her shoulders as anger seeped in and pushed out the sadness Faith always felt whenever Hope betrayed her with yet another cruel trick. She was not going to let Hope get away with it.

A snowmobile track marked the snow to one side of the tent. A single line that circled and rejoined itself before heading off into the distance until it disappeared from sight. Faith’s snow machine, Faith’s gear, all stolen by her not-so-loving sister.

She must have been dead to the world not to hear Hope leave.

Faith pulled off her mittens with a heavy sigh and bent to the task of taking down the tent. She had shelter and a warm sleeping bag; boots, but no snowshoes or cross-country skis. No food, no water, no way to melt snow.

She rolled the tent tightly and stuffed it into its carry sack along with the rainfly and poles, then struggled to her feet and pulled her mittens back over her stiff hands.

She also had no pack to carry the sleeping bag and tent in. She had no choice but to carry them—without protection from the elements she had no chance of survival. With them she had a slim chance of getting out of her predicament alive.

She eyed her sleeping pad. A self-inflating air pad, it had already puffed up in size even though she had closed the air valve when she emptied it. She needed the insulation from the cold snow, but she could only carry two items.

Faith knelt and dug a narrow trench in the snow and reluctantly buried the sleeping pad under the snow. At least burying the pad would prevent it from blowing around the woods. She couldn’t bear to litter. She even stooped to pick up other people’s trash when walking through her neighborhood.

When–if–she survived, she thought angrily, she would never speak to Hope again. And she would draw up a new will. As her only living relative, Faith had left everything to her sister. Now she’d look for a charity to give it to instead.

If she survived.

She stomped down the snow over the pad, hefted a stuff sack under each arm and stepped onto the snowmobile track. Her boot promptly sank up to her left shin in the packed powder.

They had come at least fifty miles from where they had left Faith’s truck and snowmobile trailer. The nearest small town was another forty miles beyond that.
Ninety miles. Ninety impossible miles through deep snow, one slow step at a time.

For a moment the hopelessness of the task she faced overwhelmed her.

Faith took several deep breaths to calm her fear and stepped with her right foot. She pulled her left foot free and took another step, stretching her leg as far as it would go. Fewer steps would use up less of her energy, she reasoned.

She struggled forward, one slow step at a time. Pull a foot free, stretch, set it down, balance, repeat. Within twenty minutes she had pulled down her balaclava and unwound her scarf. Beads of moisture rolled down her back and the fear-tainted, sour scent of her own sweat mixed with the wool’s lanolin rose from her damp clothes.

The snowmobile track meandered over the wooded slope. Hope had driven Faith’s machine last night, insisting that it was only fair since Faith had driven from Falmouth to the place where they left her truck.

Hope had followed the official snowmobile trail for the first hour, then veered away from it despite Faith’s protests that it was safer to keep to the marked trail.
Of course Hope had left the marked trail, Faith thought bitterly. Her sister wouldn’t want to risk another snowmobiler coming along and rescuing Faith. Her sister’s actions were all so obvious now.

Faith followed the snowmobile track between a pair of large, old growth oak trees. Every thirty steps she stopped to catch her breath. Faith kept herself in good physical condition, but the effort required to move through deep snow was pushing her heart rate.

She leaned against one of the ancient oak trees, welcoming the irritation of the rough, gnarly bark against her bare cheek. She pressed her face against it, reminding herself that she was alive,. Not beaten by her sister, nor by the beautiful winter wonderland that she loved.

A faint breeze wafted through the trees and carried the pleasant fragrance of balsam fir to her. The balsam scent reminded Faith of Christmas trees and loving, storybook families and renewed her determination to survive.

The low drone of a small, unseen plane flying overhead taunted her. It was the first civilized sound she’d heard since Hope had abandoned her. Faith cried out and struggled to run into the open. If she could catch the pilot’s attention he would send a search party for her. But the snow prevented her from moving fast enough and the engine’s drone faded away before she could get out from under the trees.

She fought down the feeling of helplessness that threatened to overwhelm her and trudged, one step at a time, until the sun touched the mountaintops. She found a flat spot and set up the tent, then crawled inside her bag without removing her clothes and tried to ignore her complaining belly.

She could live without food. Water was a more pressing problem. She had scooped snow into her mouth regularly, but melting snow robbed her body of precious heat and energy.

The night was long and cold, so cold that she heard the occasional tree crack as it contracted. Without her air pad the cold seeped through the tent floor and into her sleeping bag. She removed only her boots and rolled herself into a tight ball in an attempt to conserve her body heat.

Outside the tent the wind picked up, rattling bare branches overhead. It whistled down the mountainside and snapped the edges of the tent's fly. Faith shivered and prayed the wind would die down before sunrise.

She knew she would not survive another day of exposure to its icy bite.