The Team

by J L Raven

  The corner of his mouth lifted. “That’s the thing, Lauren. No one is as vicious an enemy as someone who used to be a friend.”

  “What happened, though? The question asked how it felt to have blood on her hands.” I shifted uneasily.

  “It was in Agonarch’s early days.” Rick lowered his voice, so I had to strain to hear him. “We all worked crazy-long hours. Even Adam, though his work was schmoozing investors and greasing the wheels. It was stressful as hell, so when we let loose, we really let loose. One night, Melissa decided to drive home instead of call a ride.” He caught himself and smiled ruefully. “Okay, more than one night, and I did it too. She just turned out to be the unlucky one.”

  “I would have thought whoever she hurt is the unlucky one.”

  “Oh yeah, of course,” he backpedaled. “Anyway, she hit a woman on a bicycle. I mean, it was stupid dangerous of the woman to ride a bike at night, especially on a dark road, so it wasn’t even really Melissa’s fault, if you think about it. Yasmine and Adam were able to secure a lesser charge, and thank God the dead woman didn’t have any family, except a grandson who was in jail himself.” He paused. “It was really stressful for a while there, but it’s funny. We all banded together around Melissa the second she needed us. It could have been any of us there in court, and we all knew it. After that, I would have said nothing could ever get between us.”

  “Shit.” I stared out the glass wall, my head swimming. Melissa had killed a woman, and Adam and Yasmine just made it…go away. Blamed the dead woman. Then they’d all carried on like it never even happened. Worse—Rick actually felt the experience had brought them closer.

  It was a stark reminder of just how out of my depth I was here. I’d climbed a tree with Melissa yesterday, cheered for her. I’d let myself forget just how ruthless these people could be. Agonarch hadn’t ended up on top of the corporate heap because its senior management team played nice.

  I took a sip of my drink and silently swore it wouldn’t happen again.

  Tiffany did her best to get us involved in another exercise that afternoon, but it soon became clear no one was in the mood to do anything but drink and brood. As the cloud cover thickened, the sky outside grew darker and darker, and the thermometer mounted on the lodge’s front porch plummeted.

  “I think another storm might be coming in,” I said. The look of the iron-gray clouds worried me. I didn’t want to end up trapped here by a blizzard, slowly freezing to death while we waited for rescue. Rick and I might have joked about the Donner Party earlier, but in a survival situation I’d be first on the menu. Well, maybe Tiffany.

  “We’ll be fine,” Tiffany said, and I was glad she couldn’t hear my morbid thoughts. She’d just finished delivering another drink to Adam, and stopped beside me on the way back to the bar. “We have plenty of supplies and great gear. Sure, it’s going to be a bit cold, but we have everything we need.” She gave me an encouraging smile. “It might even make things better.”

  “More authentic,” I said, too low for Adam to hear.

  She laughed. “Exactly.”

  Right. Okay. I touched my back pocket, where the photo of my adoptive parents still rested.

  I could do this. A little snow was no reason to panic.

  As it grew colder outside, the interior of the lodge gradually lost the heat it had managed to retain throughout the day. Visiting the toilets became an exercise in speed. Dinner included campfire coffee—spiked with alcohol—and sausage roasted over the flames.

  Melissa still didn’t seem inclined to talk to anyone. She had to be wondering which of her so-called friends had left the note. Rick spent the evening staring at Yasmine; safe to assume he’d decided she was the culprit.

  As for Adam, he sat in one of the rustic-chic chairs, gazing moodily at the fire and downing drinks. His vision for the weekend, rebuilding the team stronger than ever, wasn’t coming to pass. And as evidenced by his reaction to my question during the balloon game, he wasn’t a man who dealt well with failure.

  Darkness wrapped itself around the lodge. With no generator to power the outside lights, it seemed to press on the glass wall. Sleet pinged against the windows, and the wind grew stronger, until the lodge’s enormous wooden beams groaned in protest. My nerves began to draw tight. Despite Tiffany’s reassurances, I couldn’t help but worry that if a serious storm blew up, we’d be in trouble.

  Rick and I both jumped when a small branch hit the side of the building. “The weather’s really taking a turn for the worse,” he said.

  “We’ll be fine.” Tiffany repeated the same reassurances she’d given me earlier: we had cold weather gear, plenty of food, and lots of firewood.

  “And booze,” Yasmine added, lifting her martini.

  “This is the lap of luxury, compared to mountain climbing in Alaska,” Adam said. “At least we don’t have to worry about being eaten by grizzly bears here.”

  I barely restrained myself from rolling my eyes. I’d seen his carefully curated social media feed, and knew he’d stayed at a luxury resort. Whatever climbing he’d done, it certainly hadn’t been in the back country, and I doubted he’d been in any danger from grizzly bears. But I didn’t say anything.

  “Exactly.” Tiffany beamed. “We’re perfectly safe here.”

  “I’m going back to my cabin,” Melissa said, rising to her feet. She winced as she put weight on the injured one. “Then again, why don’t we all sleep in here? Like a camp out?”

  “No beds,” Yasmine pointed out. “That, and we’re not twelve.”

  “Besides, the little cabins are so much cozier,” Tiffany chirped. “Even if your fire’s died down, it won’t take but a few minutes to get it going again from the coals.”

  It was obvious nothing more was going to be achieved in the lodge tonight. And I didn’t feel like stumbling through an ice storm drunk. “I’ll walk with you, Melissa.”

  We bundled up against the cold, then headed out. As soon as we set foot on the porch, the wind hit us like a wall. My face went numb, and I yanked my knit cap down farther over my ears. Slivers of ice pelted us, and the trees all around creaked in the freezing gusts.

  “I don’t like this.” I directed my flashlight at the swaying evergreens around the cabin.

  Melissa didn’t respond, only limped along the broken snow that marked our earlier trail. I hurried to catch up. “Do you need help?”

  “No.”

  “Your foot—”

  “The wet sock chafed it really bad earlier.” Her breath turned to steam on the frosty air as she spoke. “Not to mention the shoes are new. My heel is completely raw.”

  “That sucks.”

  “This whole trip sucks. I wish I’d stayed home.”

  “I imagine.” I stuffed my gloved hands as deep into the big pockets of my coat as I could. “Rick seems to think Yasmine was behind the balloon prank.”

  Her mouth pursed. “Of course he’d say that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? Rick wants to get back at me for last night.”

  “For telling everyone he cheated on his boyfriend?”

  She nodded and wiped her nose with the back of one glove. “Don’t be fooled by him, Lauren. He’ll act like your friend, right up until the minute you aren’t useful to him anymore. Then the knives come out.”

  Before I could think how to respond, we reached our cabins. Melissa turned off for hers without saying anything more.

  Once at the cabin, I took the time to build a fire, though it wasn’t nearly as easy as Tiffany had claimed. It would have been simpler to crawl into the sleeping bag and zip it up over my head. But just because the bag was rated for cold weather didn’t mean it would be toasty enough to be comfortable.

  Besides, I wasn’t sure I could sleep anyway. The wind howled through the trees clustered around the cabins. The trunks creaked, and branches rubbed against one another, creating hollow moans that could almost have come from a human throat. The sleet pinged harder a
nd harder against the windows.

  Slowly the air around the fire began to warm. I fed it slowly, my sleeping bag wrapped around my shoulders as I listened to the storm outside. Every gust of wind made me more uneasy. I recalled what Tiffany had said. We were well equipped. I might not know anything about the great outdoors, but she did. It only made sense to rely on her judgment.

  I could do this. We could do this. Everything was going to be fine.

  Eventually the storm died down a bit. Though still windy, the really strong gusts were less frequent. The loud sleet changed over to silent snow, and the warmth of the fire made me drowsy.

  This time, I remembered to put a big log on to burn through the night. Then I laid the sleeping bag on the bed, climbed inside, and zipped myself away.

  When we woke up the next morning, Tiffany had disappeared.

  Now

  Hassan steps out a moment to confer softly with a deputy. “Do you need anything else, sugar?” the nurse asks me.

  “Not right now.” That’s a lie. I need Heather. I need my sister, Janice. But all I have is this matronly woman with kind eyes.

  She pats my shoulder gently. “The weather can turn fast in the park. Something to do with the elevation, I think. You’re not the first bunch who found themselves in over their heads.”

  Maybe. But those other groups only had nature to contend with.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes, to make sure the sheriff gives you a chance to rest. If you need anything sooner, just push the call button, all right, honey?”

  I nod. “Yes. Thank you.”

  Sheriff Hassan steps back inside as the nurse departs. “Sorry about the interruption.”

  I want nothing more than to close my eyes and sleep for a week. But I can’t. Not yet. “It’s fine.”

  “I believe you were saying something about the storm,” he prompts.

  The storm. Right. “It made everyone tense. We were stuck inside most of the day after the first round of snow. Then more came in. It got a little…crazy.”

  He leans one shoulder against the wall. “Was there drinking? Drugs?”

  “No drugs, unless you count Yasmin’s sleeping pills.” I look away from him, concentrating on the blanket beneath my fingers. “But drinking…yes. Lots of it.”

  “The rescue party mentioned there were a lot of empties when they searched the lodge,” Hassan said. “But the inholding isn’t park property, so you weren’t breaking any laws.”

  Not that Adam and the rest would have cared. If they were okay with Melissa killing a woman while driving drunk, boozing it up on federal land wouldn’t have exactly weighed on their consciences. But I only say, “I think someone mentioned that when we were on the way up Thursday.”

  Hassan takes off his hat, turns it around in his hands, then puts it back on his shining black hair. “I’m sorry we have to go over this next part, but I want to hear what you have to say while it’s still fresh.”

  I close my eyes. “You mean…”

  His voice is gentle. “The first death.”

  “Call it what it was, sheriff.” I open my eyes and look straight at him. “Murder.”

  Day 4: Sunday

  Thirteen

  I woke to a pounding on my cabin door. It matched the throbbing behind my eyes. I should have stopped drinking earlier than I did.

  I sat up with a groan. The big log on the fire had mostly reduced to ash and charcoal, but the air in the cabin was at least above freezing. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Melissa! I think something’s wrong!”

  The panic in her voice brought me the rest of the way awake. I’d slept in my clothes again for warmth, so I unzipped my bag, rolled out, and stuffed my feet into my boots. Dragging on my coat, I went to the door. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Melissa stood on the porch, leaning heavily against the railing. Her eyes were wide, and she kept biting her lip. “Tiffany’s cabin—look.”

  The storm had transformed the world overnight. Smaller trees sagged beneath the weight of accumulated ice and snow. A heavy blanket of white covered everything, making the path indistinguishable from the forest. Several inches of snow was piled on the porch railing, and icicles hung like the teeth of some great beast from the edge of the roof. The only tracks marring the pristine snowfall belonged to Melissa.

  This was a lot worse than the weather report had originally called for.

  My heart began to beat faster, but I took a deep breath and steadied myself. There was no sense in panicking about the weather just yet. I left the porch and went to the path, where I could see Tiffany’s cabin tucked just a few yards away from my own.

  The door stood wide open. The snow blown against it was undisturbed, so it must have been opened—and left that way—sometime before the storm really started. Once again, Melissa’s tracks were the only disturbance.

  I glanced at Melissa. “Did you look inside?”

  She shook her head mutely. “Should I get Adam? Or Rick?”

  “Not yet.” I followed Melissa’s earlier steps to the porch. “Tiffany?” I called.

  Only silence answered. I stuck my head through the door cautiously.

  The fire had long gone out, leaving the single room cold as a meat locker. A bright orange sleeping bag lay half on the bed, and half on the floor. A pillow was also scattered on the floor, but otherwise the cabin appeared undisturbed.

  “Lauren?” Melissa called anxiously from behind me.

  I stepped back, shaking my head. “She’s not in here. Some stuff has been knocked off the bed, but I don’t think anything’s missing.”

  “Oh Lord. Do you think something happened to her?”

  “Let’s not panic.”

  “Someone else is in the woods here with us.” Melissa wrung her hands. “You were right—they came into the lodge yesterday while we were gone, and now they’ve done something to Tiffany.”

  The thought of her being at the mercy of the storm, disoriented by the ice and snow, sent a chill through me. She was experienced in the outdoors, but a lot of branches had come down last night. If a heavy one fell on her…

  “Or there might have been a problem with the door latch, and Tiffany went to the lodge for the night,” I said, pushing my own fears aside. “Let’s look for her there before we go jumping to conclusions.”

  Melissa was limping more heavily this morning than yesterday. I silently held out my arm, and she leaned on me as we made our way through the snow. When we reached the driveway, my foot shot out from under me. “Whoa!”

  We both went down in a heap, coating ourselves with snow. “Shit. It’s slick.” I sat up and brushed the snow away. Underneath, a thick layer of ice had formed on the drive. “We’ll have to be careful.”

  The lodge porch was a sheet of ice where the sleet and freezing rain had blown in at the beginning of the storm. We navigated our way carefully across it, nearly falling again. “I hope there’s some salt inside.”

  Melissa had a death grip on my arm. “Tiffany would have put it out already, if she was okay.”

  As soon as I opened the door, it became obvious Tiffany wasn’t in the lodge. For the last two mornings, we’d been greeted by a crackling fire in the huge fireplace. Now, it lay dark and cold.

  “Oh God,” Melissa whispered. “It was that man, the one you saw the first day, the one watching us from the blind. He took her.”

  “Everyone just stay calm,” Adam said a short while later.

  While I woke up the other three, Melissa had gotten the fire going. She hadn’t been happy about being left alone, even for a few minutes, but I pointed out there was no sense in making her foot worse with unnecessary walking. She’d reluctantly agreed, though only when I promised to leave the lodge door open so I could hear if she screamed.

  “Stay calm?” Rick repeated. “Tiffany is missing! Our guide is gone, and there’s a crazy person running loose—”

  “Oh God,” Melissa moaned. Yasmine wrapped her arms around herself, looking just a
s terrified.

  Adam held up his hands. “You’re jumping to conclusions. The storm last night was bad, and it’s easy to get confused under those circumstances. She probably got lost on the way back to her cabin.”

  “Then why was her door open, and her sleeping bag on the floor?” I countered.

  “All right, maybe she made it back to her cabin, then got up in the night to use the lodge’s bathroom, and didn’t shut her door all the way.” Adam dropped his hands. “Either way, there’s no evidence some crazy person kidnapped her.”

  “And the sleeping bag?”

  “If she had food in her cabin, a bear might have gotten in,” Adam said.

  “A bear?” Melissa squeaked.

  I straightened my shoulders, even though the reminder there might be bears in the woods sent a shiver down my spine. “Tiffany might be out there with hypothermia. Or lying in the snow, hurt. We need to search for her.”

  “But what if whoever did this is still out there?” Melissa asked.

  Adam waved his arms impatiently. “No one did this! No one snuck in the stupid balloon while we were gone yesterday. No one hid in the middle of the woods, in a fucking ice storm, just so they could kidnap the last person to go to bed. It’s just us.”

  “Adam has a point,” Yasmine said reluctantly. “If there was someone out there, they’ve had plenty of chances to do something before now. They wouldn’t pick the middle of a bad storm to act; they’d be huddled up in that stupid blind, out of the wind.”

  Rick nodded slowly. “Besides, the message in the balloon was aimed at Melissa. If our mystery person had a grudge against her, then why kidnap Tiffany?”

  I bit my lip, uncertain whether to speak up or not. “You’re assuming the balloon message was meant for Melissa.”

  “Who else could it have been for?”