“Just look at all those woods down there! All those mountains! That bastard is hiding out there somewhere. And we’re gonna find him,” Mr. White yells over the tiny plane’s engine.

For something so small, it sure makes a lot of noise. I nervously cling to the armrests of my uncomfortable seat, it’s only one of eight in the entire cabin. I’ve never seen a plane where you could lean over and have a conversation with the pilot if you felt like it. But then again, until today, I’d only ever seen airplanes on television. The commercials of smiling, gorgeous flight attendants serving people in luxury lounge chairs is very similar to the two jumbo jets we took to connect here, but a far cry from the reality of this flight.

The turbulence of flying over the mountain range has been terrifying. It’s not hard to imagine your fiery death when the plane rattles so hard you’re left wondering if the wings are going to stay attached. However, apparently, I’m the only one worried. From the placid look on the bored attendant’s face, I can see this is all normal.

And the only thing getting Mr. White worked up is the idea of tracking down and capturing our target, Cole McAllister. I meet his pale blue eyes, brought back to life with the idea of tracking down a known killer. He’s so animated, so boisterous, you’d never guess that he’s almost fifty years old. Right now, I can almost see the whispers of the handsome man he must have been long before age chipped away at him. The ghost of his youth hovers around his wispy, white hair as this private investigation case reinvigorates his soul. I honestly don’t even think it’s the million dollar payday he stands to cash in on that’s got him so excited. The idea of tracking down a murderer in the Yukon wilderness like some kind of episode of Man Hunter has him buzzing like a kid who ate too much sugar.

“I’m sure with your expertise we will find him, Mr. White,” I answer with a smile.

The truth is, I have no idea if we’ll catch Cole or not. I have no experience with tracking people or any of this. With the sheltered existence that I’ve lived so far, I barely have any experience with life. The thought brings me back to my mother. Back to the hours I spent sitting on the side of her bed, watching cancer steal her beauty, then her words, then her mind. Until, it finally stole her from me forever. As a single mother, it was just her and me growing up. Over the course of my life she had to be a mom and a dad to me. A mentor and a friend. I lost everything the day she finally passed away.

I swallow hard to push away my sadness and my ears squeak. The pressure in the cabin is changing as we begin to descend on the Canadian Yukon. I fight back the tears that are always just under the surface, threatening to spring up, like a never ending geyser of mourning, every time I think of Mama.

“I told you, call me Cecil. We could be tracking this perp for quite some time, you don’t need to be so formal.”

I nod, “Cecil,” I repeat, but it doesn’t feel right. I was raised to call my elders by their last names, and that goes double for my employers.

I look past Mr. White’s unnerving icy stare, I mean, Cecil’s icy stare, and glance out the window at the sprawling woods below. They look much larger and much more intimidating than when we were just in the planning phase of this operation. Luckily, there have been rumors from locals that Cole has been spotted getting supplies from time to time in Whitehorse. I would think that means he’s not living too far inside the perimeter of that forest. It can’t be easy to haul goods through there under the best of conditions.

“You sure you’re ready for this? This is the big time. You don’t know how lucky you are. For a newbie like you to assist me on a big case like this,” Cecil sounds off on his favorite speech. He’s told me this before. Many times. I know he’s right, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying to listen to.

“Of course I am,” I give him a tight-lipped smile and go back to staring out the window as he blathers on about how I’ve been handed the opportunity of a lifetime on a silver platter.

I get it. I’m young. I’m inexperienced. This isn’t news to me.

Two years ago, if you told me I’d be doing this, I would’ve choked on my Chai latte laughing. Back then, I was in the thick of my political science degree at Midwestern State University. Life was predictable, stable and safe. Just how I liked it. I had a five-year plan. Hell, I had a ten-year plan and it was all unfolding exactly how I envisioned.

Mom couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes when I would tell her about my comparative politics courses and my plans to someday work in government. She would always say, “As long as you think you’ll be happy pushing paper, I guess.” It never bothered me. Not until she was dying and I dropped out of university to tend to her. As the cancer spread, her pleas began. She dropped the passive-aggressive acceptance of my career choice and began campaigning for me to live my life. To spend my youth living an adventure. To learn about life outside of the confines of a classroom. To explore many paths so I could find the right one. I still remember her frail hand holding mine and her oxygen machine whirring louder than her weak voice, but she still persisted. She still begged me to explore. To let myself be wild. She was convinced that I would never know myself until I was really challenged by life.

“You can’t go changing the world until you know who you truly are,” she pleaded her case, “and you’ll never learn who you are from a textbook.”

A month after I spread her ashes off a cliff she told me that her and her friends spent summers jumping from into the lake below, I was standing in Cecil’s office asking for a job. Never in a million years did I expect to have the luck of landing a position as his assistant on such a huge case. But life has a way of tearing up all your plans of what you expect to happen and throwing it up in the air like confetti at a wedding.

So, here I am. Nervous. Unsure of myself. But here. And for that, I know Mama would be proud.

“Thank you for this opportunity, Mr. White. I mean Cecil,” I quickly correct myself before he has another chance to. “I won’t let you down,” I meet his pale blue eyes and he stops me mid-sentence.

“I know you won’t, Abbie. You’re a good girl, I can see that. When I catch this guy, I’m gonna make you famous. Just the news coverage alone will be phenomenal. And the camera is going to love a pretty face like yours,” his gaze travels over my mouth slowly and then keeps sliding down my body, slithering over me like a snake until I wrap my arms over my chest and turn away.

The overhead speaker system crackles as the pilot’s voice fills the cabin, “We’ll begin our descent here, folks. We should be touching down at the Whitehorse airport in no more than twenty minutes,” he formally announces, as if he couldn’t just yell it over his shoulder at us.

“Perfect,” Cecil claps his hands together and I jump. He hunches over the plane window and watches as the landscape below appears to come up and meet us.

I drift deep into my own thoughts. I hope this isn’t all a mistake. I want to be brave. I want to experience adventures like my mother pleaded with me to do. I just can’t quiet the uncertainty. That tiny but powerful voice that whispers persistently in my ear, telling me that I’m in way over my head.