I found myself holding my breath and staring at Bram. “Do you think that’s who’s out there? Not the missing staffer, who suddenly went postal?”
“It could be both.” Bram rubbed his chin, now sprouting a five o’clock shadow. “I don’t know.”
“Why would someone fly out here just to murder a bunch of innocent people?” I asked.
Bram turned to Roy. “So I have to ask, do you have any enemies? Anyone that would want to hurt you or destroy the Mule Shoe?”
Roy was silent for a moment. “No. And really, it’s not about me now.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He sold Mule Shoe.” Bram kept his eyes on the older man. “Roy, you said no one knows about the sale outside of the buyer and agent. We have to assume this is about you. So my question still stands.”
Roy shook his head. “I don’t have any enemies that I know of. I just know a crazy person is out there.” He pivoted and stalked to the lobby.
“Now what?” I asked Bram. “We need to get help.”
“Not tonight, though,” Bram said. “There are more than a million and a half acres of wilderness between us and help. We can’t afford to get lost. We’ll head out at dawn.”
Liam sauntered into the room with yet another beer. When he noticed me staring at him, he shrugged. “No way I’m going to let these beers go to waste. Gotta drink ’em when they’re cold.”
Bram moved to the middle of the lobby. “Listen, folks, we’re going to ride out to get help—”
“You’re not leaving me—”
“There’s a killer out—”
“What are we supposed to do—”
“Who’s leaving—”
Bram threw up his hands to stem the flurry of words. “Please, please calm down, all of you. We’re working on the details, but we can’t leave before first light.”
“I’m going with you.” Peter’s face was flushed. “My wife, Stacy, and I are going with you.”
“I am too.” Grace’s hands were squeezed into fists.
Bram looked at Roy, Wyatt, and finally me. “We won’t force anyone to go, or to stay, but someone has to stay here with Angie and Cookie. And for those who go, this will be extremely difficult, not a casual trail ride. Think about it, and try to get a little sleep.”
“Be sure you’re not near a window,” Wyatt said.
People moved around, looking for comfortable chairs, throws, pillows, or cushions. Roy turned the lamps down so the room had a soft golden glow. Liam aimed for the kitchen, undoubtedly for another beer.
Bram came to Wyatt and me. “We need to take turns standing guard.”
“I’ll take the first watch,” Bram said. “Roy, I’ll need my Glock.”
Roy handed Bram the pistol.
Holly started barking. Outside, Maverick let out a howl.
I drew in a sharp breath.
The earthquake was short. Just a slight roll of the earth that left the hanging lamps swaying.
Holly flew to my side and I bent down to comfort her, then stood and looked for a place to sleep, though I felt restless and jumpy. My missing limb ached with phantom pain, and my PTSD made me irritable and on edge. I’d worn my prosthesis for more time than usual, and my residual limb was sore.
After pacing around the dining room, I pulled up a chair and sat at one of the tables. I tried rubbing my leg and tried not to scratch my neck. I could feel Bram’s gaze on me. I need a distraction, something to focus on.
I stood to pace when Bram walked over. “What’s wrong, Darby?”
Resisting the urge to bite his head off, I said, “Nothing. I’m peachy. Life is grand. What could possibly be wrong—”
“Okay, okay, you don’t have to bite my head off.”
So much for resisting urges. “Sorry.”
His shoulders drooped.
A weight dropped into my stomach. “Look, I really am sorry.” I waved my hand as if to wipe away my nasty comments, then turned and strolled to the map. Vast tracks of wilderness surrounded Mule Shoe. Nobody knew we needed help. And one person or maybe two were bent on killing us.
And Bram . . . well, I knew my life would be like this. Single, simple, sane.
I spun and searched for something, anything, to break this chain of thinking. I finally slapped my hand. Hard. That hurt.
Bram’s head jerked up. “Darby?”
“Um . . . mosquito.” I flicked the imaginary bug’s carcass off my hand. That certainly broke my chain of thinking.
Bram, still watching me with a puzzled expression, moved to another table and spread out the files from his messenger bag. He bent over the paperwork.
There was something I could do.
He glanced up as I approached him. “Do you need someone to bounce ideas off of?”
He pointed to a chair. “I was just going over all the events, trying to figure out who was where, what someone’s motive might be for the murders, who has alibis, and so on.” He’d written the names of everyone at the Mule Shoe on Post-it notes—orange for staff, yellow for guests. Index cards had the events—the murders of the two staff members were on blue cards, and Cookie’s and Angie’s attacks on pink. He tugged the collar of his shirt. “Yeah, I know, on television the police place the clues on a wall, neatly color coded, and with a map and studio photographs. This is the best I could do.”
“Looks pretty color coded to me. And you used two different pens—”
“Ran out of ink.”
“Oh.”
“Whoever got off the second helicopter is likely our perpetrator. If Spuds—uh, Kevin, is involved, then the two of them are out there. It makes sense that someone who knows Mule Shoe would be involved—someone who knew where the guns and radio were, and probably with a grudge against Roy.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” I spread out his notes.
Bram reached out to straighten them, paused, and shuffled the index cards into a neat pile.
“As soon as we can get out of here and call for help, we can identify the extra passenger on the helicopter.” He started to rearrange the notes into his original order.
I touched his hand to stop him.
He jerked it away as if burned.
Flying solo. “Um . . . what if the plan is for no one to get out of here alive?”
“That’s a pleasant thought. If that’s the case, we’re stuck with why? And the pilot could still ID the passenger.”
I stared off into space. Holly’s barking brought me back. The earthquake rattled dishes and caused a few sleepers to grumble.
A gem of an idea formed in the back of my brain. “Let me try a few what-ifs.”
“Okay.”
“First a question. Would the helicopter from Idaho Falls fly over Devil’s Pass?”
“Maybe.”
I nodded. A few puzzle parts dropped into place. “So now a non sequitur. We just had two earthquakes fairly close together.”
“If you’re starting with the eruption of the Yellowstone caldera . . .”
“No. I mean, it may blow, but I was thinking more about my two dogs barking every time an earthquake is about to start.”
Bram placed his elbows on the table and raised his eyebrows.
Cookie entered the dining room heading for the kitchen. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I need another aspirin and a drink of water.”
“I’m sorry, Cookie. I should have thought of that. Do you need help?” I asked.
“I’m fine. Ignore me.” She wiggled her fingers at us before leaving the room.
“You were talking about barking dogs,” Bram prompted me.
“Right. Once, though, the dogs barked after the ground shook. After the second helicopter left, the ground trembled.”
“You’re going somewhere with all this?”
“Now I come to the what-ifs. What if that ‘earthquake’”—I made quotation marks in the air—“was the slide at the Devil’s Keyhole?”
Bram’s gaze became unfocused and he absently rubbed his chin. “The slide was large, possibly big enough to be felt here. And if it happened after the helicopter flew over that spot, no one would see we were cut off, but if the pilot saw the slide, he could send help. Can we take that chance that help is on the way?” He thought for a moment. “There’s still the issue of the identification of the unknown passenger.”
Now it was my turn to stare off into space. “I can think of several prospects. One is that the person sitting in the copilot’s seat merely took another seat in the copter for the return trip. Or you were wrong—”
“I know what I saw.”
“I’d rather you were wrong. The other possibilities are that the helicopter didn’t make it to Idaho Falls, or whoever got off doesn’t care if they’re identified. He, or she, doesn’t plan on getting out of here alive.”
Bram frowned. “Those are pretty grim thoughts.”
“Four people were attacked. Two of them are dead, and a fifth person is missing. That’s grim.”
We were silent for a few moments. Soft snoring came from the other room.
“We haven’t explored the idea that the passenger could have a good reason for being here,” I said.
“Who could that be? And why wouldn’t he make himself known? And why didn’t anyone see him—or her?”
“Maybe they did,” I said slowly. “Do you have something I could write on?”
“Full sheet, Post-it note, index card? Any particular color?”
“Five-by-seven mint-green index card, unlined.”
Bram pulled up his messenger bag, opened it, and began searching. “I’m not sure I have—”
“Bram, I’m kidding.”
“Oh.” He pulled a piece of blank paper from his bag and handed it to me.
The window nearest the kitchen shattered as a barrage of gunfire erupted.
Adrenaline shot through my body. I dove to the floor.
Bram grabbed the table and flipped it on its side, creating a barrier, then yanked me behind it.
Screams came from the lobby as everyone took cover.
I curled up, covering my head with my arms. My brain became a pulsing strobe of thoughts: Run! No! Wrong! Help me! Blackness. I was moving, shaking. A sharp pain on my cheek.
I opened my eyes. Bram was shaking me. “Darby, stop! Look at me.”
He’d slapped me.
I slapped him back.
He let go, then grinned. “I guess you’re better. It’s over. The shooting stopped.”
“Sorry,” I muttered. “PTSD trigger. Nobody’s ever slapped me before. Except me.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry about that. I’ve never hit a woman before, either. You were screaming. I probably should have done this.” He kissed me.
The burning on my cheek spread to my whole body.
He let go and turned toward the lobby. “Everyone okay?”
Wyatt answered. “No one was hit.”
“Good. Stay low,” Bram said. “Roy, do you have a hammer and long nails here in the lodge? We can use a table to board up this window.” Roy, Bram, and Wyatt soon had the table hammered across the shattered window.
I remembered Cookie had gone into the kitchen for water. The room at first appeared empty except for a broken glass and spilled water on the floor. I soon found her in a corner crouched under a table. “It’s safe now. Come into the other room.”
The two of us joined the three men gathered in the lobby. “Ladies.” Bram had to speak up to be heard over the panicked voices and crying. “Please, be calm. There is only one person out there.” He glanced at me quickly, clearly wanting to keep the possibility of two a secret for now. “The shooter doesn’t know how many armed people are in here, so he isn’t going to try to get in.”
“We have team-building exercises,” Roy said, “to teach companies what to do in an active-shooter situation. We are implementing these steps to keep you safe.”
“What we need you all to do,” Wyatt said, “is spread out even more and stay as far away from windows as possible. We want you to adopt the survival mindset. You will get out of this.”
Bram indicated the fireplace. “We’ll only have Angie and Cookie by the fire with one of the staff members. Wyatt, you’ll need to cover the back of the lodge. Got it?” The men nodded.
To stop shivering from the combination of a PTSD incident and Bram’s kiss, I returned to the dining room, then crawled across the floor picking up the notes we’d been working on. By the time I’d collected them all, everyone had settled down, or at least settled down as much as they could knowing a killer was outside. And knowing we had far fewer tables than windows.