In the Dark

by Loreth Anne White

  And if Bart exposed Monica and Nathan, there was no way in hell Monica would go down without ratting on him.

  Panic tightened like a noose around Steven’s neck. He couldn’t breathe.

  Is there a way I can still stop this from coming out? Stop Bart from making connections out here, in this forced proximity?

  Can I stop Bart . . . dead?

  The thought—the word—hit Steven square between the eyes as he looked into Bart’s swarthy face.

  Dead.

  To save myself.

  Could I bring myself to do it?

  Who would know? If it happened out there in the woods while they were all searching for Jackie Blunt?

  “I found these,” Katie said as she set several rolls of fluorescent-orange flagging tape onto the worktable beside the knives, hatchet, pepper spray, and air horn they’d collected. “We can tie pieces on branches as we go, so we don’t lose our way back.”

  “Great. Like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs,” said Monica.

  “At least the ravens and crows and woodland animals won’t eat flagging tape,” retorted Katie.

  The women glared at each other. Steven could feel the tension crackle between them.

  How much has Katie guessed? She has to have figured out the Stella-Estelle connection, surely? Judging by the manic questions she was asking Stella inside, the way she was tapping her knee and jiggling her foot. But Katie Colbourne can’t possibly know how Monica, Nathan, and I are connected to Stella. Not even the police found us back then.

  Bart seemed edgy, checking and rechecking that the rifle was loaded.

  “Okay,” said Stella. “Pick your defense weapons. And let’s pair off—”

  “I’m going with Bart,” Steven stated.

  Everyone fell silent.

  “Look, I don’t trust Bart with the gun,” Steven said. “I don’t know what happened to his knife. I don’t know how he cut his hand, or why there was blood on the dock, okay?”

  “I told you all. Someone took my knife.”

  “Yeah, like who?”

  Bart glowered at him. Tension thickened to the combustion point.

  “Fine,” Stella said. “Go with Bart. Katie, do you want to come with—”

  “I’ll go with you, Stella,” Monica interjected. “Nathan can pair with Katie.”

  Katie’s eyes flashed. “Don’t trust me, either?”

  “I trust myself, and I trust my husband,” Monica said. “I feel more comfortable if we split up, and Nathan and I each watch someone else.”

  The wind came suddenly down from the mountain behind the shed and whooshed in through the cracks.

  “We need to move,” Stella said. “Before the next storm comes in, and before it gets dark. Each group take a flashlight in case we don’t make it back before we lose light.”

  “So what’s our search strategy?” Bart asked. “Where were those drag marks, Steven?”

  Steven explained. “I took the trail which led to the next bay. There was a bit of a clearing, and then the forest grew thick again. I saw the marks going into those thick trees, along a narrower track, at the end of the clearing.”

  “So who would’ve made these trails?” Monica asked.

  “Probably people who came to stay in this lodge,” Katie said.

  “Or animals,” Bart suggested. “They could be animal tracks.”

  “He’s right,” Stella said. “We might encounter wildlife. And that wildlife might be protecting prey. Two of the teams take a can of bear spray each. There are only two. The other will have to take the air horn.”

  “I think the guys with the rifle can take the air horn,” Katie said, reaching for a can of pepper spray. “Or the rest of us will have nothing to actually fend off the wildlife.”

  “Air horns scare bears.” Steven picked up the air horn can.

  “Allegedly,” said Monica, reaching for the last can of bear spray.

  They helped themselves from the assortment of knives that had been brought from the kitchen. Stella took the hatchet.

  Steven led the way, and they moved in single file, fast, along the trail through the trees to the second bay. Monica took up the rear. The forest through which the trail snaked was old growth. Big, towering evergreens. A dense canopy overhead, thick trunks, sparsely spaced. Lots of springy moss and pine needles on the ground. Emerald-green moss and white and orange and pale-green lichens grew over old, rotting logs. Mushrooms sprouted everywhere out of the loam, and conks bulged like cancerous growths from some of the trunks. Steven was grateful Nathan kept his mouth shut about all the fungi. Mist moved like specters through the trunks. At intervals they attached strips of tape to low-hanging branches or bushes.

  “We don’t need the tape on this part of the trail,” Steven said, growing more agitated by the second. “It’s clear that it leads to the lodge.”

  “Not if the mist gets very thick and it gets dark,” Stella argued from behind him. “People get really turned around in conditions like that.”

  “And you know this?” he called over his shoulder.

  “Yeah, I know this. I’ve flown tons of charters into remote places like this, and to Gulf Islands, and places up and down to the Inside Passage.”

  “How long have you been flying charters, Stella?” Monica asked from the rear of their column. And Steven could see what Monica was doing—digging for the truth about Stella Daguerre.

  “About fifteen, maybe more, years,” said Stella.

  She’s lying. If she really is Estelle Marshall, then she was flying big commercial aircraft on the Singapore route fourteen years ago.

  Nine Little Liars thought they’d escaped . . .

  “Here.” He pointed. “The marks are here. You can see under the slush.”

  “I can’t see any marks,” Katie said, coming up to his side.

  Professor Mushroom did his man-who-loves-forests thing and crouched down on his haunches. With his bare hand he tenderly moved aside slush and snow.

  “Blood,” said Nathan. “That looks like blood.” He glanced at the trees into which the trail led. A tiny gap opened into deep, dark woods. Another path led into the trees a little lower down the flank of the mountain, closer to the lake.

  A wolf howled. Everyone fell silent.

  It howled again, somewhere up in the distant mountains. Katie shivered as the howl rose in crescendo, then died with a series of answering yips from another direction.

  Steven swallowed. He felt fear. He didn’t like it. He knew his hospital. He knew the city. He knew money and smart cars and fine wine and first-class air travel. He knew vineyards and Europe and London and New York. Fine hotels. This he had not signed up for.

  Mist swirled, thickening, and a breeze rustled through the old branches.

  “I think we should go back,” Monica said.

  “We split up here,” Bart said. And Steven wondered if he was leading them into some kind of a trap. It could have been Bart who’d hurt Jackie and left blood on the dock. That’s how he might have cut his hand. He thought of Jackie missing. He thought of wolves.

  “I just keep thinking of those figurines,” Katie said, her voice going tight. “And that rhyme. Monica is right. We should go back to the lodge.”

  “We have to look for her, Katie,” Stella said. “That could be her blood down there. Something could have dragged her into those woods.”

  “I know. That’s the problem,” said Katie.

  “We have to do this,” Bart said.

  “No, we don’t,” Monica snapped. “We really don’t.”

  “And if it was you who was missing?” Bart said. “And hurt somewhere?”

  “What are we if we don’t at least try?” Stella asked.

  Bart stepped forward, determination on his face. The wind ruffled his black hair. His cheeks were red from the cold. “Steven, you and I will take this path with the blood. We have the gun. Monica, Stella, Nathan, Katie—you all take the lower one, and split if you encounter a branch. Keep calling out
every ten minutes or so. Make sure we all stay within ear contact.”

  “This is dumb,” Katie said, still shivering, looking pale.

  Bart ignored her. “We walk for an hour, max. Searching carefully for signs. Keep flagging your routes. After sixty minutes, if nothing, we turn back. Same path. Make sure you know how to trace your steps back.”

  Steven and Bart watched for a moment as the others started down to the lower trail.

  “They do look like animal trails, don’t they?” Bart said, returning his attention to the narrow, overgrown path. “As opposed to man-made.”

  “I wouldn’t fucking know, now would I?” Steven snapped. “Go on, you’re the Boy Scout. Lead our way.”

  Bart held Steven’s gaze for a second, then turned and entered the gap that led into the dark woods.

  THE SEARCH

  CALLIE

  “They appear to have written a message in a notebook, saying they were leaving the lodge,” Mason told Callie and her team as he reholstered his sidearm outside the building. “But the note was ripped out. Just the first part of it is legible.”

  Callie looked up at the big, dark house.

  “They had shelter here,” she said. “Tools for boiling water, wood to make fire. They would presumably know they didn’t stand much chance out in the forest, in these mountains. Especially in this weather.”

  “Which begs the question,” Oskar said. “Why did they go?”

  “Maybe they were desperate,” offered one of the SAR techs. “Risking their lives in the wilderness seemed more attractive than staying here.”

  “Knowing more about the individuals will help toward answering those questions,” Callie said.

  “Callie,” Mason said, “you come with me. I want your initial assessment based on what you see inside.” He turned to the others. “This is a crime scene. No one touch anything they don’t have to. Use gloves. Follow protocol of one approach route in, same approach out. Oskar, can your guys do a careful sweep around the sides of the building, and the rear, to be certain no one is still here?”

  Oskar nodded.

  “And take no risks,” Mason ordered. “A woman has been murdered. The killer could be out here.”

  Oskar drew the techs aside and began to divide them into two groups.

  Callie entered the lodge behind Mason while the two SAR teams went around the sides of the building.

  The darkness inside felt like a physical weight. She and Mason ran their flashlights around the room. The darkness darted away from their beams, scuttling into corners, under things, watching and leaping back whenever they turned their beams another way. The house seemed to exhale cold, and old fire smoke, and a faintly foul, unidentifiable odor. An evil breath.

  Get a grip. It’s just been locked up, musty, things decaying—Callie started as her beam reflected on the glowing, yellow eyes of a deer head mounted on the paneled walls.

  Get a grip.

  On the walls were dark oil paintings, shelves lined with musty-looking old books, indigenous masks with wild black hair and garish grins.

  Mason found and lit a kerosene lantern. Gold light shimmered into the void. Suddenly the interior looked a little less hostile. The room was huge, the stone hearth Gothic in design and dimension.

  “Where was the note?” she asked Mason. Her voice seemed to bounce from wall to wall in the cavernous space before being cast up toward the vaulted roof. She glanced up and saw a massive horn chandelier hanging like a sword of Damocles above her head.

  Mason pointed to a coffee table in front of the hearth, where a notebook lay next to a big checkerboard made of stone. On the board stood five carved wooden figurines. They looked to Callie like traditional First Nations art that echoed the design of the totem poles outside.

  An additional three of the carvings had been toppled over. It appeared their heads had all been freshly chopped off, given the markings and the light color of the wood where the cuts had been made. Callie frowned and caught Mason’s gaze.

  But the sergeant’s eyes were hidden in shadow beneath the bill of his cap, and the expression in them was unreadable. He handed Callie a pair of blue nitrile gloves he’d taken from his pocket. He was already wearing a pair of his own.

  “Use these before touching anything.”

  She removed her cold-weather gloves, snapped on the crime scene gloves, and reached for the notebook on the table.

  Someone had written in blue ink:

  To whoever finds this note,

  We have left this lodge to fi . . .

  The rest of the note had been ripped diagonally from the book. The tear marks leaving only this corner with these few words. As if done in haste.

  She glanced up at Mason. He was watching her intently, his face all angles and rugged planes in the quavering yellow lantern light.

  “They wanted to leave rescuers a note, then changed their minds?”

  “Or one of them didn’t want that note left,” Mason said.

  A chill slid down Callie’s spine. “You think whoever killed Jackie Blunt might be among the group? That the killer might have ripped out the note, not wanting anyone to follow? Or to delay possible help?”

  “Someone cut those ropes on the plane,” he said. “Setting it adrift with Jackie Blunt’s body inside.”

  “And they’d have to have known the Beaver would blow away from the lodge in the prevailing wind. Or possibly they weren’t thinking logically. Panic will do that—” A piece of white paper on the floor under the table snared Callie’s attention. She set the notebook down, got down on her knees, and fished it out.

  “It’s been typed,” she said, coming to her feet. “Some kind of verse, a rhyme.”

  Mason came close. They read it together as he held the lantern up for them both to see clearly.

  Nine Little Liars thought they’d escaped.

  One missed a plane, and then there were eight.

  Eight Little Liars flew up into the heavens.

  One saw the truth, and then there were seven.

  Seven Little Liars saw they were in a fix.

  One lost control, and then there were six.

  Six Little Liars tried hard to stay alive.

  One saw the judge, and then there were five.

  Five Little Liars filed out the door.

  One met an ax, and then there were four.

  Four Little Liars lost in the trees.

  One got stabbed, and then there were three.

  Three Little Liars realized what they knew,

  One hanged himself, and then there were two.

  Two Little Liars went on the run.

  One shot a gun, and then there was one.

  One Little Liar thinks he has won.

  For in the end, there can only be one.

  But maybe . . .

  there shall be none.

  “Nine Little Liars?” Callie said. “And one missed the plane?” She looked at Mason. “The RAKAM Group tour started out as nine people, too.”

  “Before Dan Whitlock died of food poisoning.”

  “And then there were eight,” Callie said softly. Her attention shifted back to the five carvings on the board, then the three without heads lying to the side.

  The noise of a door bashing open boomed like a dull explosion into the quietness of the house. Callie’s muscles tightened, and she spun round.

  “Sergeant!” Oskar entered the big room with his hunting spotlight, breathing hard, face tight. “You need to come and see this.”

  “What is it?” Callie asked, stepping forward.

  “There’s . . . a freezer in the shed out back. It’s hooked up to a generator that must have run out of gas a while ago.” He paused. “There are bodies inside. Two.”

  “Show me,” Mason said, hastening toward Oskar. Oskar spun on his heels to lead the way. Callie rushed after them.

  Outside, nestled up against the trees that grew dense at the foot of Mount Warden, was an open-sided shed facing the house. Just under the cover was a
stump with an ax that had clearly been used to chop wood. Split wood had been stacked against one wall. In the middle of the shed was a big worktable. The SAR guys stood behind the table in front of a big chest freezer, dark stains down the sides. Their faces looked blanched in the flickering lantern light. Someone was vomiting around the corner, out of sight. One of the guys held open the freezer lid.

  Callie and Mason moved closer. Oskar shone his spotlight inside. The contents jumped into stark visibility. A woman’s face and a hand were partially visible from a fold in the sheet in which she’d been wrapped. One eye stared sightlessly out at them. Callie’s stomach clutched, and bile surged into the back of her throat. The smell was fetid, like carrion.

  She covered her nose and mouth.

  “Shit,” Mason said quietly. He’d gone still, his gaze fixed on the macabre sight in the freezer. Time seemed to elongate. The wind shushed and whispered in the trees. Rain pattered on the tin roof of the shed.

  “All of you, move back. Get well away from this shed, and away from the lodge building.” He unsheathed his satellite phone. “We need to cordon off this entire area all the way down to the beach and dock. As of now it’s all officially a crime scene.”

  He stepped out of the shed to call it in.

  THE LODGE PARTY

  NATHAN

  Nathan walked in front of Katie. They’d parted ways with Monica and Stella a while back, where the path divided into two. His mind raced. Panic was beginning to override his usually rational, careful, considered, scientific mind. His scholarly objectivity. Ordinarily he could remove himself, distance himself from a problem, compartmentalize base human emotions—like rage or betrayal—while he examined things logically.

  But now, out here, confronted with Steven again, his feelings were suddenly raw. Anxiety churned through him. Complex emotions fought in his heart for dominance—hurt, love, fury. His hands fisted and unfisted at his sides as he walked blindly into the dark of the forest.

  “You okay?”

  He spun around to face Katie. His eyes felt hot. His mind in the past—reliving how it had gutted him to hear Monica reveal she’d slept with Steven.