What was once the home of champion Alaskan "musher" Jessie Arnold is now a pile of charred logs and ashes. With her life in pieces, she gratefully accepts a friend's proposal that she drive his RV up from Idaho, along a two-thousand-mile-long road that winds past glaciers and glass-blue lakes, hot springs and breathtaking wilderness: the Alaska Highway.With her lead sled dog, Tank, along for the ride, Jessie sets out from the Lower Forty-Eight, sharing the journey with new friends she encounters along the way. One of them, Maxie, a colorful senior citizen living life at full throttle, makes the miles melt away. But it's Patrick Cutler who brings terror aboard.Jessie offers the hungry, frightened teenager shelter, a compassionate ear, and a ride. But at Jasper National Park, he disappears. Suddenly police are swarming around Jessie and Maxie, searching for the runaway in connection with two shocking murders. Jessie's instincts are telling her that Patrick is innocent, but her concern, linked with a determined need to uncover the truth, has plunged her and her elderly companion into the deadly center of a crazed blood vendetta. There are dark secrets in the boy's past that could have devastating -- perhaps fatal -- consequences for anyone who unearths them. Because, stalked victim or murderous maniac, Patrick Cutler is a lightning rod for violence and death. And now Jessie is a target -- a traveler on a cold and empty wilderness road that could be leading her no