by J L Raven
Yasmine’s eyes were red from crying. She’d been the first into the room when I started screaming. Coming back in here, seeing one of her oldest friends standing over the body of another of her friends, the murder weapon in hand…
No wonder she’d started screaming, too.
Adam looked almost as catatonic as Melissa. I wondered if, up until this moment, he’d truly believed deep down that he had some control over the situation. Tiffany had vanished, yes, and no one was having a good time, but he’d never really thought anything truly bad would happen to his friends. They would continue on with the charmed lives they’d been born into, protected by their money and privilege. Maybe he even thought that, in some insane way, the experience would bring them together the way Melissa’s DUI had.
Now he’d started to realize no one was safe after all. Even from each other.
Yasmine stirred. “Was it an accident?” she asked, her voice hoarse from crying.
Melissa stopped rocking. I was a little surprised that Yasmine’s question had penetrated the daze she seemed to be in. “What do you mean?”
“I think you know exactly what I meant.” Yasmine moistened chapped lips. She looked a far cry from the elegant beauty I’d met on Thursday. Most of her makeup was long gone, except for a raccoon smudge around her eyes. Her black hair was unwashed, no longer gleaming like silk.
None of them looked the way they had on Thursday. All the polish had worn away.
Melissa slowly uncurled. “What the hell are you saying, Yasmine?”
“Rick went out of his way to claim that you—that all of us—were as guilty as he was for what happened with X-ULT. But he was the one who created the formula.” Yasmine glanced at the bloodstained floor, then looked away quickly. “Maybe you thought he was the one the killer really wants. That without Rick, he’ll let the rest of us go.”
Some life seemed to slip back into Adam. “Do you think he might?”
Melissa’s lips drew back from her teeth. “I can’t believe what I’m fucking hearing. You think I would kill somebody?”
“You already did,” Yasmine replied coolly.
With a strangled scream, Melissa lurched to her feet and hurled herself at Yasmine. If she hadn’t been injured, she might have actually hurt the other woman. As it was, Yasmine scrambled out of the way, and Adam caught Melissa’s wrist, pulling her off balance and into him. “Melissa, stop!”
“Let me go!” She yanked against his grip. When he didn’t release her, she sagged against him, her fight gone. “Of course you’re taking her side. You always do, ever since you started fucking. I hate both of you.”
“If it wasn’t for us, you’d be in jail right now.” Adam released her, as if he couldn’t bear to touch her any more. “And Rick would be alive.”
Melissa’s shoulders slumped. She collapsed slowly to her knees, put her face in her hands, and began to sob.
“We need to get it together and think,” I said into the ensuing silence. “Whoever our stalker is, at least he isn’t in the lodge right now. We’d have found him during the search if he was. But he did get in.” I held up the coat for proof. “We need to barricade the doors somehow, so he can’t just use Tiffany’s keys to come in whenever he feels like it.”
“On it,” Adam said. He grabbed a chair and jammed it under the front door knob, then carried another back to the kitchen. It wasn’t much, but at least it would give us a warning.
Yasmine stared at the bloody coat. “He’s playing with us. He watched until we were all together here, snuck in the back, planted the coat where we’d eventually find it, then left the door open on his way out so we’d panic.”
“He’s a sick fuck,” Adam said as he returned. “Shit, maybe he’s out there watching us now.”
We all instinctively turned toward the glass wall. The cold forced us to huddle near the fire; anyone outside would be able to see us in its light. And we in turn could see nothing but blackness.
“I hope he freezes his balls off,” Yasmine muttered.
“It is awfully cold out there,” I said thoughtfully. “And it was a man I saw on the side of the road, not a monster, so he has to sleep sometime.”
Yasmine cocked her head. “The hunting blind?”
“Maybe, but there wasn’t anything in the way of camping equipment in it. This guy got here before we did, and probably planned to be here for at least a few days.” I looked from face to face. “Even if he didn’t expect a huge snowstorm, he would have wanted somewhere comfortable to hole up.”
“The empty cabins,” Melissa said, without lifting her head.
I went to the cabinet and opened it. “The keys to cabins seven and eight are still here. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any copies floating around. Or that he didn’t just break in through an unlocked window.”
“As soon as it gets light, we’ll go together and look,” Adam decided. “If he’s been staying there, maybe we can find some clues. Or even get the drop on the bastard.”
“Should we set up a watch schedule?” Yasmine asked uncertainly.
I glanced at the bloody coat. The huge stain on the floor, where Rick had gasped his last. “Somehow, I don’t think any of us are going to be sleeping tonight.”
It was one of the longest nights of my life. I tried not to look at the place where Rick had died, and yet I couldn’t seem to help myself. I remembered how slack his body had been at the end, how pale he'd gone as the blood pumped out of his throat.
I took out the photo of my adoptive parents and ran my thumb over their faces. From where he sat in the shadows, Adam stirred and said, “That’s your parents, right?”
“My adoptive parents,” I corrected him. “But yes.”
“You said they died. What happened?”
It was a ghoulish question to ask, with Rick’s body stiffening in the freezer. But maybe Adam was just trying to stay awake. “A gas leak. Dad was a real do-it-yourself type of guy. Pro tip: if your gas heater is having problems, call in an expert instead of trying to fix it yourself.”
Yasmine had stretched out on the couch, but she raised her head now. “An explosion?”
“No, thankfully. Their bedroom was on the first floor, right above the heater. They died in their sleep.” I wrapped my arms around myself and stared at the dancing flames in the fireplace. “It was sheer coincidence my half sisters had invited me to a sleepover that night. The next morning, we were all sitting around, eating cornflakes and gossiping about boys, when the police showed up.”
“You were lucky,” Yasmine said.
“I didn’t feel lucky.” I tucked the photo back into my pocket, alongside the scissors I’d picked up earlier. “Ever since, whenever I need to put my mind to a task, I just think about them. Their memory makes me feel strong enough to do anything.”
“I wish I had that kind of relationship with my parents,” Adam said. “My dad is always at some fundraiser, or golfing, or jetting off to Washington to have a chat with some congressman or other about whatever legislation is up for a vote. And my mom is…” he hesitated. “She has some problems of her own. I was mostly raised by nannies.”
At first, the words shocked me. Adam, admitting weakness, especially on the emotional front? Then I started to get annoyed. His father had given him eight million dollars to launch Agonarch. Was he really going to pull this poor little rich boy crap? He had power, privilege, and more money than he’d ever know what to do with. Maybe he ought to try living on food stamps while his mother worked three jobs.
I pasted on a fake smile. “Like Yasmine said, I’m very lucky.”
It began snowing again just before dawn, a thick curtain of white flakes streaming past the window. If I ever got back to civilization, I was going to call the weather service and let them know just where they could stick their shoddy forecasts.
Eventually, light struggled through the thick clouds, bathing the world in a dull gray radiance. I stared out the window, watching a pair of cardinals hop from branch to branc
h, looking for something to eat. The male’s crimson plumage stood out against the brown bark and white snow like a drop of blood.
My head ached, and exhaustion weighted every movement. I went into the kitchen, and scrounged some of the remaining granola bars for breakfast. Melissa refused to eat with a shake of her head, but when Yasmine started to do the same, Adam said, “We need to keep our strength up.”
“Why?” Melissa asked dully. She glanced at the bloody coat. “So we can live long enough to be murdered like Tiffany?”
I shuffled my feet uncomfortably. “Do you think she’s dead?”
“Given how much blood is on the coat, yes.” Yasmine took one of the granola bars, opened the wrapper, and began to nibble on it. “If she was bleeding out, not all the blood would have gone onto the coat, after all.”
I couldn’t help but look at the stain where Rick had died. “Right.”
“We have to focus on ourselves,” Adam said firmly. “Come on. It’s light enough. Let’s go search the empty cabins.”
Twenty
We trudged through the accumulating snow to the cabins. Our footprints from the day before, when we gathered our gear, had already been filled in by snow. All traces of us were disappearing, covered over by Mother Nature. Soon it would be like we were never here at all.
I carried the keys to the two extra cabins. As we approached number seven, I scanned for footprints. Nothing—but, as I’d just noted, that didn’t mean anything, other than no one had entered or left in the last few hours. “What if he’s inside?” I said in a low voice.
Adam hefted the fireplace poker in his hands. “You throw open the door. I’ll rush in. If he’s there, I’ll give him a taste of his own medicine with this.”
I nodded. The plan had some obvious problems, starting with what to do if we’d been overheard or spotted out a window. But it wasn’t as if I had a better suggestion to offer.
I crept slowly up the stairs leading to the small porch. All but holding my breath, I tried the doorknob. Locked, as expected. Taking out the key, I unlocked and hurled it open as fast as I could, then dove out of the way as Adam charged past.
He stopped a couple of feet inside. “Nothing.”
I peered around him. The interior looked similar to my own, though none of the cabins were identical. There was no sign anyone had been here in a while. A fine layer of dust covered the floor, the windows needed washing, and the fireplace was empty even of ashes.
Adam looked disappointed, but he shrugged. “He must be in Cabin 8, then.”
I felt queasy as we approached the final cabin. A combination of nerves and lack of sleep had my stomach churning around the granola bar. The tall trees, branches bent under the weight of snow and ice, blocked out the weak sunlight. The wind picked up; ice crystals stung my exposed face, and the trees around us groaned. We couldn’t run in the deep snow, so if any of them fell on us, we’d be crushed where we stood.
Cabin 8 was tucked well away from the others. In the summer, it would be a beautiful, secluded spot. Covered in snow and ice, beneath the shadows of the trees, it looked ominous.
“There’s no smoke coming out of the chimney at least,” Yasmine whispered. “Maybe we were wrong.”
I shook my head and pointed at the steps. “See how much lighter the snow is on the stairs? Someone cleared them to go in and out.”
“Shit.” Adam lifted the poker. “He’s in there. Okay, Lauren. Let’s do this.”
The cold air dried my throat as I crept as quietly as possible up the stairs. One of them creaked loudly under Adam’s weight as he followed me up. We both froze, but no sound came from within the dark cabin.
Two short steps across the porch, and we were at the door. Adam positioned himself to one side, ready to rush in the moment it was open far enough. Our eyes met, and he nodded.
I reached out to stealthily check the doorknob again. It turned beneath my hand. Unlocked.
No time to waste on surprise. I hurled open the door and jumped back. Adam barreled in, poker raised as he let out a primal yell of rage.
For a second time, he stopped just inside. “Fuck! No one’s here. But they have been—come take a look.”
I slipped in. Yasmine came up the porch, Melissa limping along behind her in stoic silence. Unlike the other cabin, this one had obviously been used in the not-too-distant past. There were marks in the dust, and evidence of a fire in the fireplace. Adam knelt down and warily touched the ashes, scraping aside the layers of burned wood until he found what he was looking for. “There’s still some residual warmth. Someone was here in the last day or so.”
“Do you think…” I swallowed heavily. “Could he have brought Tiffany here? Tied her up so she couldn’t scream? What if she was this close the whole time we were looking for her?”
Expressions of horror passed over Yasmine and Melissa’s faces. Adam began to search the cabin, looking for any clue. The bed was bare, without even sheets over the mattress. A wardrobe stood against one wall; he swung it open—
Something tumbled out.
Adam leapt back with a curse. Yasmine and Melissa both screamed.
“It’s a tree branch,” I said. Someone had deliberately propped it in the wardrobe so it would fall out when the doors were opened.
My mouth tasted metallic from adrenaline, and I put a hand to my chest to keep my pounding heart from escaping. Melissa let out a sob of relief and pressed her hand to her forehead, while Yasmine slumped against the doorframe.
Adam aimed a kick at the branch, but caught himself before his boot connected. “Wait—what’s that?”
A piece of paper was taped to the branch. It looked to have been ripped from a glossy magazine, then folded in half before being secured in place. I pulled it loose and unfolded it.
ORGANIC CHEMISTRY: AN INTERVIEW WITH RICARDO GARCIA
Over the last year, Ricardo Garcia has changed the face of the herbal supplement business. As the head of product development, he’s the brains behind the brawn of up-and-coming industry powerhouse Agonarch, Inc.
“When we started Agonarch, we had two very clear goals,” Garcia, who is also one of the four founders of the company, tells me. We sit in his office at Agonarch headquarters, the expansive windows showing off an incredible riverside view. “One: our products should be affordable enough to be in reach for anyone who wants to improve their lives. Two: they should be absolutely safe.”
A picture of Rick accompanied the article. He wore a white lab coat and leaned against a table with artfully arranged beakers and distilling equipment. Arms folded over his chest, a grin on his face, and a twinkle in his eye.
Someone had drawn an X through his face with red marker. Below the picture, they’d scrawled: ONE DOWN.
Twenty-One
“We have to get out of here,” Adam said. He paced back and forth in front of the fireplace in the lodge, hands clasped behind his back.
Melissa had gone straight to the bar as soon as we got inside, grabbed a bottle of Grey Goose, and brought it to the couch. After going outside, she was limping even worse; the alcohol might have been as much to dull the pain as to settle her nerves. She took a long pull straight from the bottle, then passed it to Yasmine, who drank and handed it off to Adam. He took his own swallow and offered it to me, but I shook my head.
“Not yet.” I didn’t want anything to take the edge off my anger.
It was all I could do to keep my hands from shaking. Damn Rick. He’d been giving interviews, having his picture taken, boasting about how safe the supplements he developed were. And the whole time, he’d already known there were problems. That some people had bad reactions.
And instead of doing something about it, he and everyone else in this room had covered it up. Thanks to them, Theodora Lamb died from the supplements Rick claimed were perfectly safe. Possibly other people as well, whose families didn’t have the money to scrape together a lawyer.
The hypocrisy and greed were breathtaking.
“One dow
n,” Melissa said. Her voice shook on the words, and she took another swallow of vodka. “Whoever is doing this was watching. They know about the-the accident.”
“And they’re letting us know it’s not over.” Yasmine wrapped her arms around herself. “Rick’s death wasn’t enough to satisfy him.”
“Probably wants to kill us himself, the sick son of a bitch.” Adam scowled.
“This is insane.” Melissa slumped forward. “I keep thinking I’ll wake up, and this will have all been a horrible dream.”
I wandered over to the map of the inholding, that hung on the wall below the Agonarch banner. WELCOME TEAM AGONARCH! FIRST ANNUAL RETREAT: PLAY TO WIN!
So much for that. If this was a game, Team Agonarch was definitely losing.
Adam crossed the room and joined me. “What are you thinking? Is there another way out of here?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Look at the property—it’s a wonder anyone ever wanted it, let alone enough to hang onto it when the surroundings became a national park.”
The terrain was incredibly rugged, as we’d seen firsthand. The river curved around the inholding, forming two-thirds of the boundary line. The remaining third consisted of a steep drop over a deep ravine.
Adam pointed to the ravine. “Maybe we could hike out this way.”
“In this weather?” I shook my head. “And remember what Tiffany said about the rope bridge across being closed for repair. No way would it safe to cross covered in snow and ice, assuming it hasn’t already fallen into the bottom of the gorge.”
“We could use the zip line.” He traced its course. “The final leg goes over the ravine. Tiffany said people normally hike back over the bridge, but it’s not like we want to come back here once we’re out.”
“A zip line?” Yasmine’s head came up in alarm. If she’d been terrified just climbing a tree, a zip line would be her worst nightmare. “You’ve got to be joking. I’m not getting on a zip line.”