Vance watched Sutton’s video message a second time. The tall, gray-haired old man was smiling, but something was wrong. Vance had a singular intuition about these things. Growing up on Whidbey Island, his fellow high school students jokingly called it his spidey sense, but ever since he was old enough to walk, he knew where possible danger lay. The only time he was ever in trouble was when he ignored the unease in his body telling him to stop, or turn around, or take another direction. That sense was screaming at him now to not disregard Sutton’s invitation, whereas his normal intuition was telling him go back to chopping wood for his cabin. Winter was coming, and the Olympic Peninsula was nowhere to be caught without a good supply of fuel for the cold months. But he held the axe still in
