The Naked Truth

by Maggie Aldrich

  We tore the cabin apart looking for Fritz’s missing laptop. I searched where Darcy had searched, she searched where I had searched, and finally, we searched it again together, to no avail. I was right to think someone had been here. They’d been here and taken the laptop.

  All of the information Fritz had on my dad was on that machine. Highly classified documents that he’d twisted arms and pulled favors to get had been sitting open on the screen when we left. I was kicking myself for being so stupid. Why didn’t we lock it up? But then why would I have worried about a break-in at a high-end resort? And in the middle of a snowstorm!

  Chills ran up and down my spine. I reached for my cell phone and called the front desk first, explaining what had happened (skipping over the “top secret” aspect to everything). Erik, the assistant manager, assured me that they’d immediately come right over to change the locks and assess the situation.

  “Do you want me to stay awhile?” Darcy asked. “I’m wired now, and I don’t think I’d get any sleep at home anyway after this. I feel responsible.”

  I hugged myself and shivered at the thought of someone else being in here, going through our stuff. “Yeah, if you don’t mind.” I leaned back on the kitchen counter, my mind reeling. “You’re not any more responsible for this than I am. We should’ve locked it up, or kept it with us, or…something. But really, who on earth would have expected a break-in? Someone had to have known we had sensitive information in here. But how?” Omigod, I thought. Had those nail techs been foreign spies after all? No! That was a crazy idea! They were just college students. Nothing more. Right? Maybe this was just a random break-in and they got spooked and left before taking anything else. Still, I couldn’t shake the fear that someone had overheard our conversation yesterday, and we’d lost Fritz’s laptop—and so much intel on my dad—because of it.

  Erik arrived at the cabin shortly thereafter, along with his handyman. He apologized profusely, citing this as the first break-in they’d had in the history of the resort’s existence. (It was only three years old, but still.) He questioned me and Darcy at length, and we gave his as much information as we could without completely compromising the search for my dad.

  In the meantime, the locks were changed, and the two men did another perimeter check of the property. Erik said all staff with access to the cabins would be questioned immediately, and he’d keep me updated. The police had been called, but due to the snowstorm and resulting accidents in town and on the roadways, they were unable to divert any resources tonight. They’d be out to question us in the morning, time and weather permitting.

  Once the two guys were all done and we assured them we were fine, they left, telling us to leave all exterior lights on. I had a feeling I’d be sleeping with all lights on all over the cabin if I had my way. Of course, Fritz and Michael would be back any minute, and I knew I’d feel safer then.

  I looked at my watch and was shocked to see how late it had gotten. “Crap, Darcy, it’s already nine o’clock.” Worried, I looked up at her. She had to be awake again in six hours. But more importantly, where were Michael and Fritz? “Okay, now I’m really beginning to worry,” I said as I started pacing the room. “They’ve been gone almost twelve hours. It doesn’t take that long to check out five properties, four of which are vacant of any buildings.” When was the last time we’d heard from them? Around lunchtime? I knew service was spotty on that mountain, but we should have heard back from them by now. Michael would know I’d be worried. They should have returned by now.

  I grabbed my cell phone and immediately called Michael. It went straight to voicemail. Same thing with Fritz’s phone. I thought for a second and pulled up my FriendFinder app. Darcy walked over and joined me, our two heads together, staring at my phone, hoping for some answers. The app indicated his last location was on the mountain a few miles down the road from here. No surprise there. But that was at four o’clock, which meant they were still nowhere near here.

  We looked at each other, our brows furrowed.

  “They haven’t called, they haven’t texted, they’ve been out of cell tower range for five hours. Michael’s phone would have pinged a tower at several different places on the main road back up here.” I started chewing on my lip, trying to decide what we should do.

  “Well,” Darcy sighed, taking a step back toward the Keurig, “looks like we’ve got no other choice.” She pulled out a coffee pod and put it in to brew. The smell of fresh coffee immediately permeated the air.

  “What do you mean, ‘we have no other choice?’” I rubbed my forehead as I tried to sort out the situation. We had to come up with a plan.

  “Listen. Your husband and the old man are missing.” I cringed, knowing Fritz would hate being called an old man. “They only brought along snacks, and they’ve been gone almost twelve hours, with no pings saying they ever went into town, and no pings since four o’clock.

  “Someone broke into the cabin tonight and stole a laptop with some very incriminating information. Only that laptop. Nothing else is missing.”

  “Right,” I nodded, agreeing with her. I knew in my heart of hearts that the burglar hadn’t got spooked and left. They’d locked up on their way out. “It’s like they knew what they were looking for. But how?”

  “I don’t know. But I think all of this is fishy, don’t you? I don’t want to stay here doing nothing, and I don’t think you do either. We’re going to look for them,” she said resolutely.

  “How are we going to do that? The police won’t even come up the mountain tonight!”

  “They won’t come up because a B&E at a rich resort isn’t high on their priority list tonight. They’re not afraid of the snow, and neither am I.” At my look of doubt, she continued. “I’m from Ohio, Emily. I learned how to drive on snow and ice. And I have a 4WD SUV. Stop worrying.”

  She turned around to pop another pod in the Keurig. This Cole Haan boot-wearing, Botoxed, spray-tanned, fake-boobed, brown-haired Barbie was going to drive us around a mountain in a snowstorm? Well, I thought, if it might save my husband and Fritz? I’m in.

  ●CHAPTER 21●

  DARCY AND I FOUND A FEW TRAVEL mugs in the kitchen and loaded them up with coffee—high-octane, fully caffeinated. I was surprised she didn’t just grab a few pods to take with us to munch on. We also packed all the food we could find, with plans to get some more from the resort shop on our way out. I grabbed blankets, more layers of clothes, and some hand warmers that we’d brought along for the trip, and we loaded up the SUV.

  I debated whether to tell the staff where we were going but wasn’t sure whom I could trust. After all, one of them could be responsible for the break-in. Instead, I left a note on the kitchen table in the cabin. The police were supposed to be here in the morning, and in the event we weren’t around…well, hopefully the right people would come looking for us.

  Darcy went outside to warm up the car while I again pulled up Michael’s latest FriendFinder location, entering it into my GPS. Not surprisingly, there was no direct route to that area. There were no paved roads leading the entire way there. We’d have to off-road, in the snow, in the dark, with only a GPS that may or may not work all the way there. To be safe, I downloaded the offline map to save us when we lost service. If only I could download an offline snowplow and team of Army Special Forces.

  We hopped into the SUV and drove down to the resort’s store. It was just before ten and I snuck in minutes before closing.

  “Grabbing something for a late-night snack?” the staff person asked as she prepared to lock up for the night.

  “Yep, something like that.” I grabbed protein bars, bananas, water, and a bottle of whiskey. Don’t they always give a shot of whiskey to people caught out in the cold in the movies? Well, it couldn’t hurt.

  I carefully ran back to the car and we took off at a snail’s pace. The resort roads were slick, even with the salt and sand the staff had spread throughout the area.

  Once we got to the main road, things started to ge
t worse. The road hadn’t been plowed or salted at all, and the snow kept falling. Darcy’s SUV handled it well, the weight of it with a full tank of gas being enough to keep us from sliding off. We slowly began navigating down the mountain, following the main road according to the GPS. Compared to last night, we were crawling. Was it just last night that Michael and I had snuck off for our little rendezvous in the woods? He had sped around these winding roads without a second thought. So much had transpired in the past twenty-four hours. My gut tightened at the thought of Michael and Fritz being in danger. Would we be able to find them without endangering ourselves?

  We crept down the mountain road. Snow flew at the windshield. The light from the headlights bounced off it and nearly blinded us. We saw no other traffic, and the road was eerily quiet. In the pitch dark, had it not been for the GPS, we would have had no idea how far we’d gone. Everything looked the same. I kept myself calm by thinking of how smart and resilient Michael was. He’d know to stay in the vehicle if they were stuck, right? And that neon green SUV would be easily spotted amid the snow. Besides, surely Fritz had done his share of work in cold climates. The two of them would figure out something if they were in trouble…I hoped. I wouldn’t even let myself think of other alternatives.

  Ninety minutes later, we’d gone two miles. Looking outside to see only darkness, snow, and the shadow of trees, I was completely lost. The GPS indicated Michael’s last ping was a couple hundred feet east of our current location. But again, there were no mapped roads leading to it. Why had they gone this way? What had caught their attention that they decided to off-road?

  We slowed to a crawl and I noticed a piece of metal barely sticking up out of a mound of snow on the side of the road. Could that be a clue or just a piece of roadside trash?

  “Man, I shouldn’t have had caffeinated coffee,” Darcy moaned. She slowed the car even more. “I gotta pee.”

  “Well, see that piece of metal over there?” I pointed to the mound of snow.

  “You want me to pee on a piece of metal?” she scoffed and looked at me incredulously.

  “No. I want you to stop so I can see what it is. Maybe it’s a road sign or something.” I shook my head. “You can scout out a place to pee.”

  “Outside in the cold?”

  “Where did you think you were going to go?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking ahead.” She growled under her breath.

  She pulled the car to a stop and hesitated. I opened my door and hopped out, my feet sinking at least six inches. “Are you going to get out?” I hollered above the now howling winds. She looked at me as if I were crazy. “No one is looking, I promise.”

  “Argh. Fine,” she grunted. She grabbed some Kleenex, hopped out the other side, and crunched her way behind the vehicle to a small thicket of bushes. “Ouch,” she said, tripping over something in the snow. She slowly crept behind the bushes and disappeared.

  “Don’t go far,” I said. “People get lost easily in blizzards.”

  “How about I keep talking to you as I pee,” she said sarcastically. “And besides, this isn’t a full-on blizzard. It’s just a snowstorm.”

  I couldn’t remember there being much of a difference, but I wasn’t going to argue.

  While she took care of business, I walked over to the piece of metal, grabbing at it carefully with my gloved hand. It didn’t budge. I tried again, but still nothing. It must be frozen to the ground, I thought. I started scooping away the snow surrounding it, jostling it back and forth at the same time. With one final yank, it came free, sending me back on my butt. Darcy walked up behind me.

  “God, I feel so much better.” She sighed in relief. “Thank you for making me get out of the car. Whoo!” She squatted down next to me in the snow and whispered, “Why are you on your ass? Did you figure out what that piece of metal was?”

  I started to push myself up and dusted off my clothes. “Well, I was able to get it, but when I pulled it loose, I fell and it flew off somewhere. Look around.” I hauled myself upright, grabbed my cell, and turned on the flashlight. Darcy did the same. We slowly swept the area with our tiny squares of light. The snow was coming down harder and I knew the metal would easily be covered up in seconds.

  “I found it!” Darcy yelled from a few feet away. I tromped my way over to her. The piece was pretty bent, but otherwise in good shape. She turned it over as she wiped off the snow. “N—” She kept wiping, trying now to scrape at it with her gloved hands. “It’s pretty iced over, but it does say something. Doesn’t look like a typical road sign though. Go back to my car and grab the ice scraper.”

  I stumbled back to the car and searched around the front seat. Thankfully, I found it tucked in the glove compartment. It was small, but looked pretty sturdy. I hoped it could do the job. If not, we’d just have to bring the sign with us and defrost it in the car.

  “Thank God,” she said when I walked back over. She handed me the sign. “Here, I don’t want to break a nail.”

  I propped the sign against my thigh and began to chisel away at the ice. Slowly, but surely, the ice began to break off. “N-O.” Could this be the “No Trespassing” sign that Michael and I had driven past last night? Had they gone down that abandoned road? I kept scraping furiously, my breath fogging up the space in front of me. I was beginning to sweat from the effort. Finally, one last large chunk fell off, revealing the sign in its entirety. “No Trespassing.” It was the sign from the abandoned mining road after all. And in the bottom right corner, which was slightly bent, was a small scraping of neon green paint.

  Darcy and I looked at each other. The guys had gone down this road for sure, and apparently, in a hurry. Michael would not have cut the turn so close as to hit the sign without reason. Had they been chased down this road? In the pit of my stomach, I knew something was terribly wrong.

  “This is an abandoned mining road. They went this way.” I gestured to the barely visible clearing to our right.

  “Are you sure?” Darcy asked. “How do you know anything about this road?”

  Images of last night flooded my brain, and tears pricked my eyes. Last night in this very spot we’d nearly been hit by Dirk and Savannah barreling down this road. What was back there besides a nice secluded make-out spot? What the hell was going on? My hands started shaking as we headed back to the SUV. I’d been sweating a minute ago, but now I was shivering with cold and fear.

  “I just do.”

  “Listen, everything’s going to be all right,” Darcy said as we got into the SUV and she started it up. “Okay? Don’t freak out on me now.”

  “I’m not freaking out,” I said, gazing straight ahead as she backed up and turned down the abandoned road. I set my jaw, blinked back my tears, and again pulled up the GPS. The app was now using the offline downloaded version. We now had no service because of the storm.

  “Just take us down this road as far as you can. We’ll go about 100 yards and then we’re going to have to off-road.”

  “Whatever you say, boss.” Darcy looked at me and shook her head, but followed my lead. Sure enough, just as I remembered, 100 yards in, the road seemed to end, and bushes and trees seemingly blocked the way. Their last ping had been just a little bit further.

  We stared at our surroundings, barely visible in the darkness. “Turn on your bright lights and your fog lights. Anything possible that will help us see what’s out here.”

  The area in front of us came ablaze as the SUV’s bright lights lit up the snow surrounding us. We scanned from side to side. Where was the path? According to the GPS, we just had to keep going straight, but if we did that, we’d run straight into a grove of trees.

  “Back up a little bit so we can see a bigger area.”

  Darcy complied and the SUV’s tires began to spin. “Time to take it into 4WD,” she said, pushing a button. Somehow the push of a button was anticlimactic compared to what I was expecting. The vehicle groaned and she downshifted, backing us up now with ease.

  “There,�
�� I said, pointing to an area of broken limbs just to our right. “Could that be it?” Darcy eased the SUV over to the area, hesitant to go much further.

  “Uh, I know you said off-roading was a possibility, but going through that mess is going to scratch the heck out of my car.”

  “I’ll pay for any damages, I promise. Please, Darcy.” I looked at her anxiously, my heart hammering and my voice constricting in my throat. “We might be running out of time.”

  She looked at the tree limbs one more time, sighed, and slowly accelerated. The vehicle bumped and groaned over the rough ground. Broken branches scraped loudly against the roof and doors.

  Once we were through the trees, the vegetation cleared a bit, but the ground was still rutted and rough. The snow hid everything and we were jolted at every turn.

  “Their last ping was just ahead according to the GPS,” I said, pointing out into darkness. Darcy continued down the primitive road and when we hit a large rut, the SUV came to a shuddering halt.

  “Great,” she said and groaned in frustration. “We need to get out of this hole. Hold on.” She rocked the vehicle forward and back, taking great care not to spin the tires. Finally, the tires caught and we lifted back up out of the hole.

  “This should be about it,” I said, unbuckling. “Let’s get out and look around. I mean, I know they’re probably not here, but this was their last known location.”

  I got out of the car and my breath caught in my throat. Snow swirled around me. Darcy was still inside the vehicle, digging around for something in the glove compartment.

  “Ah, I knew it!” she hollered, hopping out of the SUV. “My little Maglite.” She shook it at me, eyes glistening. “This thing may be tiny, but the amount of light it puts out is incredible. Plus,” she said, sliding a finger through the key ring at the end and swinging it around, “it’s pretty solid and can be used as a weapon.”