“Stella?” Nathan said.
She dragged her hand down over her mouth. “The mooring ropes had been sliced clean through. Someone did this on purpose. They knew that in the offshore wind last night, the plane would have drifted away fast. And we’d be totally stranded.”
“First the radio,” Katie whispered, rocking slightly where she sat on the sofa. “Now this.” She met their gazes in turn. “And whoever did it—whoever cut our plane free, also did that—” Katie pointed to the newly decapitated figurine. “He’s here. He’s been inside this house. While we were upstairs sleeping, or outside.”
“Or her,” Steven said. “What makes you think a female couldn’t do that? Strikes me as more of a female thing. Passive-fucking-aggressive.”
Deborah’s chest constricted in anger at the cosmetic surgeon’s words, but she bit her tongue, bottling it up inside. She watched as Katie glared at the surgeon. The ex–television reporter looked wild, a mess. No makeup. Matted hair. Nothing at all like the polished anchorwoman she’d seemed a day earlier.
“A woman wouldn’t mess with a mother’s emotions and make her worry about her child,” Katie retorted, referencing the eerie painting in her own room.
“Oh, wouldn’t they?” said Deborah sharply, no longer able to hold her tongue.
Heads swiveled toward Deborah. Surprise registering in their faces at her acid tone.
Dial it back, Deborah. You need to stay in the background and not draw attention to yourself. Lay low. Focus. And you’ll get out of this without needing to reveal your past. Ewan can’t know about that. My new baby, our child, must never know about that. People deserve second chances. I deserve my second chance.
She cleared her throat, unable to shake the memory of some of the females she’d had to endure in prison. “Women are capable of worse things than men,” she said quietly.
Monica swallowed, growing more pale.
“So you think Jackie took the plane?” Nathan asked Stella.
“Why would she take the plane? I mean, can she fly?” Steven asked.
“Not in this weather,” Stella said. “Pilot or not. No one could take off in this visibility.”
“And there was blood,” Bart said, his eyes fixed on Stella. “A fair bit of it. Which means Jackie could be hurt.”
“Or someone is hurt,” Stella said quietly. “There remains the possibility that there’s someone out there in the woods stalking us, sneaking into this house while we’re unaware.”
“Do you think Jackie could be hurt and on the plane?” Monica asked.
“If she is on board,” Stella said, “she went south down that lake when the ropes were cut. I don’t know how long she could last out there, even if the Beaver does connect with land somewhere. If Jackie was hurt and on that plane, she could be as good as dead.”
“I don’t think she’s on that plane,” Steven said. “When I went along that trail this morning, I saw a smaller path leading into the trees on the other side of that second bay. There were marks that had been made through the mud and snow, like something could have been dragged.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” Bart asked.
“I am saying so. I thought it could have been a wild animal, dragging a kill or something. It’s only now that it’s taking on significance.”
“So someone is out there?” Katie asked.
“I saw something last night,” Nathan said quietly. He rubbed his chin. “Through my window. It looked like a tiny flashlight moving through the trees.”
“Christ, Nathan, why didn’t you say so?” Katie demanded.
“I just thought it might be Stella, going down to check on her plane. But now I think it could have been Jackie.”
Steven regarded Nathan, a strange look of suspicion—or perhaps disbelief, mistrust—twisting the doctor’s face.
“What time was that?” Steven asked.
“I . . . I’m not sure,” Nathan said. “We went upstairs not long after that big clock struck eleven. We changed for bed—Monica and I. We chatted awhile, then I saw the light out the window.”
“I also saw something,” Steven said. “And now I’m thinking it could have been you, Nathan.” The surgeon turned to the others. “At about eleven fifty p.m., I also saw a light moving through the trees. A person who was staying in the cover of the trees rather than using the path. Then I saw a second shadow, following the first. My bet is on Nathan.”
“What in the hell would I be doing going down to the plane in the dark?” Nathan asked.
“You tell me,” said Steven.
Silence fell like a blanket over the room, save for the crackling fire.
Deborah watched the others. Her gaze settled on Bart. That’s when she noticed.
“Bart, where’s your knife?” Deborah asked.
His hand went to the sheath he’d looped onto the belt at his hips. “Oh . . . that’s the other thing,” he said, meeting their gazes. “When I woke up, the knife that I’d taken from the shed out back was missing from where I’d laid it with my jeans over a chair.”
No one said a word.
Bart’s face darkened. “What? You guys don’t believe me?”
“How’d you injure your hand?” Steven pointed to the angry red cut along the back of Bart’s right hand, which was now resting on the empty knife sheath.
“I slipped in the snow, tried to halt my fall, and connected with something sharp.”
Silence as everyone struggled to process and weigh the veracity of Bart’s words. The house creaked under the gathering weight of snow.
Bart’s face turned thunderous. “Jesus, what is this? Are you people accusing me of something?”
“There was blood on the dock,” Stella said, her gaze locking with Bart’s. “It could have come from your bleeding hand. Were you on the dock before I arrived, Bart? While the plane was still safely moored there? Did you use that missing knife to cut it free?”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Bart said. “Can’t you see what’s happening here? We’re scared. We’re turning feral. We’re turning on each other. Weren’t you the one, Stella, who said the only way out of this is if we work as a team? Weren’t you the one who said back during our safety briefing that panic is dangerous—panic is what kills?” He glowered at her, his eyes flashing dark and angry.
He raked his fingers through his short, dark hair. “Look, Jackie Blunt might be on that plane. And if she is, she’s gone. But given those weird drag marks Steven described seeing in the woods, she might still be here, somewhere out in the forest, and hurt. And we need to look for her because she might need help. I think our first step is to organize a search party.”
“Those woods are endless,” said Nathan.
“But if there is someone out there, and if they did take Jackie, they’re human,” Bart countered hotly. “And a human can only get so far dragging a woman of Jackie’s size. We’ll search until it gets dark again.”
Silence. They all watched. Fire crackled and roared as another log caught fire, and the eyes of animals suddenly came alive with reflected flame and darting shadows.
“We have to,” Bart said quietly. “What would we be if we didn’t?”
Stella came to her feet. “He’s right.”
“Oh no. I’m not going off into those woods,” Steven said. “What if it is one of us? What if it’s Bart, and he’s leading us into an ambush?”
“Jesus, Steven,” Monica said. “Are we going to let Jackie Blunt bleed to death? Is that what we’ve become?”
“What if it’s Jackie?” Deborah said suddenly.
Again, all eyes swung to her.
Her cheeks heated under the intensified scrutiny. “Jackie could have staged this. Maybe she cut the plane free, and now she’s waiting to finish us off in the woods, one by one. Maybe she planned this all along.”
Silence.
Stella began to pace in front of the fire. She stopped. “Either way, are we any safer sitting here? Like rats in a barrel, waiting to be picked off? I think we should mount
that search party. I think we have no choice but to look for her. Because if she is innocent and out there, Bart’s right, she needs our help. Left out there for the night, she will die.”
Katie sat forward, her features setting into a firm line, her neck muscles cording. “Stop right there, Stella. Just because Jackie Blunt is gone, just because Dan Whitlock never got on the plane, it doesn’t mean they’ve been ‘picked off.’ It doesn’t mean they are dead. We could all be leaping to extreme conclusions here, imaginations running wild because of some . . . some psychological taunting with that book and that rhyme and those figurines. This might not actually be as malevolent as it seems.”
“Wishful thinking, Katie,” Deborah said. “What about the heads lopped off these carvings? That second head came off sometime between when we all went to bed and now.”
Nathan glanced at Steven, then Monica, as if deliberating something. “I . . . I wasn’t going to mention it, because . . .” Nathan shot another look at Steven. “It didn’t have as huge a significance at the time. But it goes to the fact someone was inside not long before we arrived. Steven and I found a bag of groceries in the kitchen. The receipt shows the contents were purchased just over four weeks ago.”
“Where were the groceries bought?” Katie said.
Another glance at Steven. “Kits Corner Store. In Kitsilano.”
Stella froze. “What . . . what was in the bag?” Her voice came out soft, strange.
They all looked at her. The mood in the room shifted, thickening with a sense of mounting anxiety. Fear.
“A cardboard carton of a dozen organic eggs,” Nathan said. “And a Snickers bar and a box of cereal—strawberry-flavored Tooty-Pops.”
Stella’s face went ashen. Her mouth opened. Closed. Slowly, she seated herself on the stone ledge in front of the fireplace. Her hands went to cover her mouth.
“What is it, Stella?” Monica sat sharply forward, her body wire-tense suddenly.
“I . . I . . . It’s—” Stella sucked in a deep, shaky breath. “It’s . . . just a bad memory. I’m fine. It’s nothing.”
She came sharply to her feet, dragged both hands over her hair. “We should search in twos. We . . . we should try to arm ourselves with something, in case—”
“Stella!” Monica said, her face pinched and white, borderline hysterical. “You have to tell us. What is it about those groceries?”
But Stella just stood there. Almost dazed. Time stretched. The damn clock tock, tock, tocked.
Tears filled her eyes. When she spoke again, her voice was thick. “I made a mistake once,” she said quietly. “I was a mother once. I lost my child because I . . . I was a bad mother. I . . . He . . .” Angrily she swiped a tear from her cheek, then another. “He used to love that cereal. Tooty-Pops. Strawberry flavor was his best.” She swore suddenly. “I paid for it. God, did I pay. I was accused and punished for it in a court of public opinion. Even my husband blamed me for our child’s death. I lost my marriage. I lost my job. Everyone out there thought they could be judge and jury of my life. Yet no one, not one, had walked in my shoes. No one had the right. No one . . .” Her voice cracked. She wavered. Then she reseated herself slowly and looked down at her hands.
“They said a woman like me had no right to have children in the first place. And I couldn’t have more. It had been a bad birth.” She was silent as the clock ticked loudly for several seconds.
“They said I killed my child,” she whispered.
“Who said that?” demanded Katie. “What did you actually do—what happened?”
“They said I deserved to lose everything. I’d had my heart cut right out, and they said it was—” Stella went sheet white suddenly. She glanced up. “Karma,” she said quietly. “They said it was karma.” Her eyes darkened, and a look of fear braided with resignation settled over her face. “That has to be why I was lured here. I’m guilty of murder. Like the people in that book, I am to face a reckoning in these woods.”
They all stared. Deborah saw raw terror twisting into Monica’s features. Katie began to tap her knee and jiggle her foot, her blue eyes darting wildly about the room as though she were seeing ghosts in the shadows and dark paneling.
Deep inside Deborah’s belly, she started to shake. She was going to be sick again. She was suddenly beginning to understand—a picture was emerging, and she was going to throw up.
“What did you do to your son?” Katie demanded again. “What happened?”
Stella shook her head, as if something was dawning on her. “You can’t blame me anymore. No one can punish me any further for what happened. I’ve had to live with it, and I’m not going to talk about it. I don’t owe anyone an explanation anymore.”
Katie’s gaze shot back to the figurines. She tapped her knee harder and her foot jiggled faster. “If . . . if that rhyme is to be believed, we’re all guilty of some crime, some lie, some sin. And I’m beginning to think we’d be really stupid—all of us—not to take that rhyme very, very seriously right now.”
Stella sucked in another shaky breath, sat up straighter, and squared her shoulders. But she looked older, thinner, the hollows beneath her high cheekbones deeper. Her gray eyes no longer so lucid, but rather exhausted and underlined with shadows. It was as though her capable-woman veneer had been thin, and it had been ripped right off, and her insides had been laid bare for them all to see.
Deborah swallowed. She felt Stella’s pain as if it were her own. She couldn’t begin to imagine hurting her own baby and being blamed for it. She reached over and took Stella’s hand. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
Tears glinted again into Stella’s eyes as she looked at Deborah.
“We’ll get through it,” Deborah said.
“We will,” echoed Bart. “Stella’s right. We divide into teams of two—”
“We’re seven, Bart,” said Steven. “We can’t pair off seven.”
“I’ll go alone,” Bart said. “I’ll take that rifle.” He pointed to the gun on the wall.
“No, you won’t,” said Steven. “I don’t trust you alone with that gun. Either I take the gun, or I go with you.”
“Can you even shoot a rifle?” Nathan asked Steven. “Or are you just scared and hope Bart will protect you?”
“I’ve shot clay pigeons. And don’t you fuck with me, Nathan.”
Nathan glowered at Steven, his body almost vibrating. “Likewise, Steven.”
Steven held the professor’s glare. A hidden message seemed to crackle between the two men. Monica reached for her husband’s hand, as if restraining him yet again from doing—or saying—something.
There’s some secret being shared between those three. It started to reach a high pitch when Nathan mentioned the groceries. That angered Steven. And the mention messed with Monica’s head, too. She seemed shocked. I think her husband had not told her. Why?
Her gaze still fixed on the threesome, Deborah said, “I’ll stay here. You six can pair off. My ankle will hold me back anyway. And I can be here in case Jackie returns. I’ll lock the doors, and if she bangs on them, I will check out the window before letting her in.”
“I don’t know if you should let her in,” said Monica. “She could be behind this, and you’ll be alone with her.”
“There’s an air horn on the shelf near the back door,” Stella said, pulling herself together. “And yes, lock all the doors. If someone, anyone, comes, and you have reason to be alarmed, sound that horn out of one of the upstairs windows. It’ll be a signal for us all to return.”
“To return with caution,” Bart said.
They all agreed.
While everyone started bustling around in preparation for leaving, Deborah announced she was not feeling well, and she hobbled up the stairs to her bedroom. She entered the small bathroom that led off her room and threw up into the toilet. Twice. Her throat burned with acidic bile as she hung her head over the bowl and held her hair back from her face, breathing hard. Stella’s confession went around and around
and around in her mind. Deborah placed her hand on her belly, emotion filling her chest. There appeared to be no turning back now—not with the plane, their lifeline, gone. Whatever this was, they were locked in it together. And no matter how fervently Deborah intended to hide her past from these people, she feared there might be no way out, and from this point, it was all just going to get worse.
THE SEARCH
MASON
Tuesday, November 3.
Mason sat in the passenger seat of the SAR truck, Callie at the wheel. Behind them they towed an eight-meter SAR jet boat designed for a crew of two plus twelve rescued passengers. Callie confidently navigated the steep, rutted, and muddy logging track with the heavy rig.
In front of them, barely visible through the low clouds, were the blurred taillights of a slightly larger rig driven by Callie’s second in command, Oskar Johansson. The boat on the trailer in front of them could accommodate a crew of six. Both Callie and Oskar were trained and licensed to operate the watercraft—Kluhane Bay was on the shores of one of the biggest and northernmost lakes in the interior of British Columbia. The area drew a large volume of wilderness and backcountry recreation enthusiasts over the summer months, and the number of water-related SAR incidents showed it. Mason had read the reports—missing boaters, kayakers, hikers, and hunters, and swimmers in trouble, formed the bulk of KSAR callouts during the warmer season.
He checked his watch. By the time he’d updated the lead cop in Prince George, and by the time KSAR techs had reported to base and the equipment—including ropes, radios, carabiners, helmets, hunting spotlights, flashlights, food, water, camping gear, bear aversion spray, wilderness first aid kits, and litter baskets to carry the injured or bodies—had been loaded into the boats, trucks, and trailers, it had been 11:00 a.m. They’d been driving since, heading up into the densely forested mountains, aiming for a boat put-in area north of the Taheese Lake outflow. Callie had explained that the currents were too strong right now to put in any lower down, which would have been closer by vehicle.
He glanced at Callie. Her gloved hands held the wheel comfortably. She had a nice, strong profile. Clear skin. No makeup. Her dark-blonde, shoulder-length hair was thick and glossy and tied back neatly. Over it she wore a woolen hat with a KSAR logo.
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