“Well, it was my idea, so if it was bad, then I’m the one who should be beating myself up about it, not you. Let’s get into bed.”
“I’m too restless.”
“Just try. Once you’re in bed, maybe your body will decide it is safe to relax and sleep.”
Zachary began to undress, not arguing with her logic. It was something she had said before, and while it never really seemed to work that way for Zachary, she persisted. She was convinced, despite the evidence and everything she knew about anxiety disorders, that he could relax if he just did normal, relaxing things, and focused on clearing his mind instead of worrying over everything.
She had her delusions too.
Kenzie took off her day clothes and pulled on some soft flannel pajamas. Not sexy, maybe, but they were warm and comfy, which was exactly what she needed on a night when they were snowbound. She slid in under the covers, with several more blankets on hand if she got cold in the night. Zachary climbed in. He put his arms around her and explored her curves under the pajamas.
“This is cozy.”
Kenzie snuggled up to him. “It is.” She put her arms around his bare back. “I should get you some too. They’re very fashionable,” she teased.
He jerked suddenly, turning to look at the window. Kenzie waited, watching his dark shape against the slight glow from the window.
“What is it?”
“I heard a noise.”
Kenzie breathed slowly, regulating her response. “I didn’t hear anything. What did it sound like?”
“It sounded like someone is out there.”
He got back out of bed and looked out the window again. He stood there for a long time.
“Don’t see anything?” Kenzie surmised.
“No.” He finally turned back around and returned to the bed.
“Did you take something for anxiety tonight?” she asked. Normally she didn’t prompt him about his meds. He was a big boy and knew what was best for his body and mind. But she was afraid that his anxiety was getting the better of him and he would never be able to settle down for the night without an aid.
“No.”
“Have you thought about it? You are still recovering from your treatment; your body needs the rest.”
“Not tonight.” He turned his head and looked toward the window again.
Kenzie cuddled, trying to get comfortable and to distract him from his hypervigilance. But he turned away from her, lying on his other side so he could watch the window. Kenzie spooned against his back and breathed slowly, drawing her breath out long to see whether he would unconsciously match her slower rhythm and allow himself to relax. He had been still for a long time, and she was wondering if he were drifting off when he sat up abruptly and slid his feet back out of bed again. Kenzie stifled a groan and rolled onto her back. She watched him check the window once more and then moved toward the open bedroom door.
“What is it? Do you need something?”
“Just checking the doors.”
Kenzie knew she had already checked the doors before going to bed, and so had Zachary. The house was very quiet, and she heard him checking not only the front and back doors of the cabin, but also going quietly into each room. To check the windows, she assumed. They were all properly latched, and probably frozen shut as well. Which might actually be a problem for Zachary, if he started to worry about how they would all get out of the house if the heater started a fire. But the children were in the room with Tyrrell, not sleeping on their own, so if there were a fire, Tyrrell would know to break a window rather than trying to get it unstuck. He’d been trapped in his bedroom the night of the fire when Zachary was ten and Tyrrell was just four. The firefighters had needed to break the window from the outside to get him out.
She continued to listen, but despite herself was almost asleep again by the time Zachary returned.
“Everything okay?” Kenzie murmured.
Zachary got back into bed again. The third time now? Kenzie was losing track. “There are people out. I can hear them walking back and forth.” His body was tense, and his muscles did not relax when she rubbed his back, shoulders, and neck.
“It’s okay if there are people out,” Kenzie told him calmly. There was no point in telling him that there were not people out. He had already decided that there were. “We are safe in here. No one else can get in. We’re snug as a couple of bugs in a rug.”
“Five bugs,” he corrected immediately, taking his brother and family into account.
“Snug as five bugs in a rug,” Kenzie agreed sleepily. “Don’t worry about what anyone else is doing.”
“Uh-huh.”
Kenzie closed her eyes. Maybe Zachary wasn’t going to get any sleep, but she was. She was warm and cozy in the bed and it had been a busy day.
22
Kenzie was awakened by a loud crash. She jolted awake, and her first thought was that the noise had been caused by Mason, or Mason and Alisha together. Jumping off of the bed or playing Jenga or getting into something they were not supposed to. She tried to hold back her anger and get reoriented to time and space. She reached out for Zachary but, as she expected, he was not beside her. If he had gotten any sleep, he had risen before her, which was his usual practice.
Kenzie rubbed her eyes and looked around. The room was light, so the sun was up and was forcing its way down through the clouds. Maybe they would have some cell reception. She climbed out of bed. There was a braided rug beside the bed, but when she stepped off of it, her feet hit icy wood floor that made her want to get right back into bed. She forced herself to keep going. Zachary had probably not thought to turn the heater back up, and she would have to do it herself.
She walked out to the living room and looked around. She had expected to see the children, but they weren’t there. Maybe they had gone out and it was the door slamming behind them that had woken her up?
Zachary was sitting in one of the easy chairs, facing the main window, very still.
“Was there a noise?” Kenzie asked. “Something woke me up.”
“The door.”
“Did the kids go out?”
“No. Someone at the door.”
Kenzie looked pointedly at Zachary sitting there like a statue. “Why didn’t you answer it, then?”
He didn’t respond. Kenzie rubbed her arms. Her toes were going numb on the cold floor.
“Can you at least turn the heater up?”
She hated the anticipation of opening the cabin door and letting all of the cold air in. Her skin was covered with goosebumps already. It was cold as a witch’s behind out there.
Kenzie reached the door and put her hand on the latch.
“Burknall said not to let anyone in,” Zachary reminded her.
“That was last night. When he thought weird things were going on. But everyone will be asleep now. Anybody with any sense is still in bed.”
With that, she flipped the latch and unlocked the door. She didn’t even have time to turn the door handle when the door flew open, pushed by someone outside. Kenzie stepped back to avoid getting hit, her anger rising the second time in two minutes. Or the third time, counting her irritation at Zachary for not turning up the heat or answering the door himself.
Redd Flagg stepped into the room, and he shut the door quickly, blocking out the cold air. He swore and slapped his hands against his arms. He was wearing leather gloves that didn’t even look as if they were lined and an autumn jacket. What was wrong with men who couldn’t dress themselves properly for the weather?
“Is it ever cold out there!” Redd declared.
“Yes, it is. What are you doing up already? I thought writers sleep in.”
“Something has happened.”
Kenzie had been looking at Zachary to see whether he were going to turn up the heater. Her head snapped back around to look at Redd.
“What?”
“Cabin four. I don’t know what’s going on; I can’t get a coherent answer out of anyone. Did you hear or
see anything last night?”
“No. I mean, I didn’t. Zachary said he could hear people going back and forth. What time? Mr. Burknall said that... people were acting strangely last night. I assume it was just the stress, but...”
“I don’t know what it is, but you should probably get dressed. There’s not even anyone in charge now, with Mr. Dewey dead. I don’t know who is supposed to take charge. One of the help? That doesn’t seem right.”
And from what Kenzie had seen of the three of them, none of them was particularly suited to leadership. Burknall seemed the best bet, but he was brusque and more likely to tackle a job alone than to lead anyone else.
“Okay, I’m going to get dressed.”
Redd nodded, looking relieved. Zachary followed Kenzie to the bedroom. He was already dressed. Of course he hadn’t been sitting around in the cabin in his skivvies. Even if he had been distracted, he was bound to notice sooner or later he was cold and put some clothes on.
“What do you think it is?” Kenzie asked. “Could you tell what was going on from what you heard last night?”
“No. It was all pretty confusing.”
“You said you heard footsteps. People walking.”
“Yes. You would think that in the middle of cold weather like this, people would stay indoors. But they were back and forth all night.”
“Who was?”
“I don’t know.”
“I imagine people were probably uncomfortable. Hyped up. Maybe Burknall had to build a couple of fires or take care of frozen pipes or flooding. Or just calm people down.”
Zachary nodded, making no suggestions.
Kenzie changed as quickly as she could, both so that she didn’t have to deal with the cold air on her skin and so that she could get out and see what was going on. Redd was right. Someone would have to take charge until Dewey’s replacement got there. And it was better for everyone if that someone were not Vance Stiller.
Zachary left the bedroom. When Kenzie finished and headed back to the living room, he was just coming out of Tyrrell’s bedroom. “Just letting him know that we were going out,” he explained.
“Oh, are you coming too?”
Zachary looked taken aback. “If there’s trouble, I’m not letting you go on your own.”
Was there trouble? Or was Redd just being overly dramatic, as she’d suggested Burknall was the night before? Kenzie’s brain was coming up with random ideas of what could have happened to upset Redd so much. And why Burknall had been so worried about the lovebirds the night before.
Kenzie and Zachary put on their boots, coats, and the rest of their winter gear in silence. It wasn’t far to the next cabin. The newlyweds’. Kenzie joined the little cluster of people around the door.
“What’s going on?”
Raven just shook her head. Only her eyes were showing through her ski mask, and to Kenzie they looked abnormally wide, her pupils dilated way too much in the morning sun. Mrs. Hubbard was there, and shushed Kenzie as though she had been talking too loudly in a library. Kenzie was about to protest, then realized that the others were trying to hear what was going on behind the closed door. She cocked her head and waited, ears pricked to hear whatever she could. Two male voices. Mr. Andy Collins, of course, and she thought that the other was the curt, abrupt cadences of Mr. Burknall. Certainly not Vance Stiller’s. She hadn’t paid much attention to Jack and the way that he spoke, but it sounded too low and measured to be the younger man.
The door opened and Burknall stood there, looking at them all, caught eavesdropping. Kenzie refused to be embarrassed by the fact. Of course she had been trying to overhear them and figure out what was going on. Anyone would have. Everyone was.
“We have a missing person,” Burknall said briefly.
Kenzie looked around at the group around her, but she already knew who it had to be. She hadn’t heard a female voice behind the door. “Mrs. Collins?”
Burknall nodded.
“Oh dear.” Kenzie looked around. Trails had been trampled up and down the front of the cottages, and there were several inroads going between them to the back yards which bordered on the woods. There had been too many people back and forth to simply follow Mrs. Collins’s footprints away from the cabin. And Zachary had said that people had been coming and going all night. How long had it been since Mrs. Collins had disappeared? With the temperature so low, she wouldn’t last very long outside. “Are you sure she’s not up at the house? If they had a fight, then maybe she just went somewhere else to cool down. Calm down, I mean. She might have fallen asleep on a chair or something and doesn’t even know anyone is looking for her.”
Mrs. Hubbard and Samantha looked at each other. “I didn’t see her at the house,” Mrs. Hubbard said, “but the door was left unlocked all night. She could have come and be asleep in one of the spare rooms...”
“I’ll go look,” Samantha said immediately.
A bundle of furs that had to be Brittany spun in a circle, looking all around. “Where could she have gone if she didn’t go to the house? Where else is there to go? She didn’t come to my cabin. Raven?”
“No, not mine either,” Raven provided.
Zachary looked down at the trails trampled through the snow. “We’d better check out each trail that has been broken. Even if only one person has walked through a certain place. We should divide into teams of two so that no one else can get lost.”
Kenzie had a sneaking suspicion that the suggestion to go in pairs was not just so that people didn’t get lost in the snow. The whole world outside seemed to be white, but she didn’t think anyone would go far enough afield to get lost.
Zachary didn’t want anyone to be alone where they could do mischief.
Kenzie’s stomach clenched.
Something had happened. Mrs. Andy Collins had not just gone out for a morning constitutional.
23
Zachary and Kenzie helped organize the search. Of course they paired themselves up.
“Where do you think we should look?” Kenzie asked.
Zachary gazed around, looking at the trails that had been trampled into the snow. It was surprising how many people had been walking around since the snow had fallen. Or even while it was still falling, as she could see that some footprints had been partially filled in after they were made. She had assumed that everyone would be bundled up cozy and warm in their cabins, like she and Zachary and Tyrrell’s family had been. She had written off Zachary’s claim that he could hear people walking around outside as paranoia. Hearing things because he was anxious.
But clearly, people had been wandering about when they should have been in bed.
Zachary pointed toward their own cabin. “Let’s circle around ours and see if there are any trails branching off from there.”
Had he heard anything else the night before? Voices? Snatches of conversation? She didn’t ask in front of the others. There would be opportunities for private conversation later.
Kenzie started walking along the trampled trail that led behind their cabin. Zachary followed close behind her. She liked that he didn’t act all macho and insist on going in front of her. He didn’t think that she was weak or less able to handle whatever they encountered than he was.
Directly behind the cabin, almost leading from their back door, was a trail leading back toward the woods. Kenzie wasn’t surprised that Zachary had been right about that. He said he had been up all night listening to them. He would know that they had been behind the house, then fading off into the distance.
“Into the woods?” Kenzie asked.
“Yes,” Zachary said gruffly.
Kenzie took the branching pathway and led the search into the woods.
The snow wasn’t as thick on the ground under the trees. There were bare patches where there was thicker foliage overhead catching the snow. But the trail was still easy to see. Kenzie stopped and studied it. The snow wasn’t trampled down as much as it was around the cabins. She could see the distinct treads as people had
gone into the woods and returned. Three different treads, she thought. If they’d had a tech team there, they could have taken casts of the shoe prints.
Kenzie took out her phone and powered it up.
“You won’t be able to get a signal in here,” Zachary said.
“I don’t need a signal.”
Kenzie waited for the phone to boot up, then took off her glove to unlock it with her fingerprint and tap the buttons. It was too cold to go without gloves for long, but she would have to put up with it for a few minutes. She crouched down and took pictures of the various footprints. They didn’t come out very well.
“Try more of an angle and turn on the flash,” Zachary suggested. “That will cast shadows that will show the print better.”
Kenzie obeyed, and got a few shots that were reasonably good. She put her own foot next to one of the prints to use as the scale for the picture. One of the distinct treads was smaller than hers. The other two were bigger. Two men and a woman?
“Okay.” Kenzie put her phone back in her pocket and put her gloves back on, then tucked her hands under her armpits to warm them up faster. She continued along the trail, the dread growing in her belly.
They didn’t speculate about what they were going to find, if they were to find anything. A missing woman in a snowstorm? Kenzie hoped that Mrs. Hubbard found her sleeping in the main house, unaware that people were concerned about her.
The trail didn’t take them far. A few twists and turns through the woods. Not as far as they had gone on their hayride. Kenzie could see a shape in the snow ahead, and picked up her pace, hoping she wouldn’t find what she did.
Mrs. Andy Collins lay crumpled in the snow. There were footprints around her. Someone had been there, knew where she was and what had happened to her, but hadn’t told them so. More than one set of footprints. Kenzie tried to avoid them as she got closer to the fallen woman to examine her.
She had on a coat over her nightgown; boots, but no gloves or hat. The coat had not been buttoned up, maybe just thrown on as she tried to make her escape from whatever had caused her to leave her cabin the night before.
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