The drone,” Chuck said to Lex.
“No. It’s too much. We just need to make it through the night.”
“It’ll help keep everyone engaged, focused.”
Lex studied the darkening sky. “Okay,” he said. “Think there’s enough daylight?”
“If we hurry.”
Lex turned to the closed cabin door. The bags of wrinkled flesh beneath his eyes were dark half-moons. “I’m sorry,” he said, and Chuck realized he was addressing Sarah’s body, inside the cabin. “I never thought...I couldn’t have imagined...”
Chuck put a hand on Lex’s shoulder, wanting to give him strength, to return the favor Lex had paid him a moment ago. “The superintendent will put the park’s investigative team on this. They’ll work with the FBI and whoever else to find her killer. That’s their job.”
He turned Lex away from the cabin, back to the mist-shrouded meadow. “Keep it simple when everyone gets here. No details. I’ll go find Kaifong and Randall.”
Chuck passed the mess tent and angled up the slope. He studied the scientists making their way down the hill in the gathering gloom but failed to spot either of the Drone Team members. On its platform in the middle of tent row, the Drone Team’s large, red tent glowed with light from within.
“Randall?” Chuck called as he approached. “Kaifong?” Nothing. He climbed onto the platform and batted the nylon wall of the tent with the flat of his hand.
Randall unzipped the front entrance. He removed ear buds strung to a music player in his palm as he stepped out. He looked past Chuck at the researchers gathering in front of the cabin and his eyes grew wide.
“You don’t know what’s going on?” Chuck asked.
“Sorry.” Randall lifted the music player. “Violent Femmes. Sickest retro on the planet.”
“You didn’t hear the wolves?”
He shook his head. “No, man.”
“They’ve crossed the river. They’re approaching camp. Sounds like they might have a bear with them.”
Randall took a quick breath. “A grizzly?”
“Lex and I are thinking you and Kaifong might be able to answer that question for us. We’re wondering if you could do a flyover, see if you can make out anything.”
Randall faced the strong breeze coursing across the hillside from the west. “Windspeed’s cranking, but manageable.” He turned to Chuck. “You got it. I’ll load up.”
“Where’s Kaifong?”
Randall pointed at the three dozen scientists forming a half-circle around Lex in front of the cabin. “Down there, I guess. She was hanging with the wolfies the last I saw of her.” He turned to the tent. “I’ll be just a sec.”
“Need any help?”
“Nah,” he said as he ducked inside. “I can get it all, no prob.”
Lex finished addressing the group as Chuck returned to the bottom of the hill. The researchers headed for the storage kegs lined between the cabin and mess tent, their faces set.
“I told them Sarah’s sick,” Lex said to Chuck as Randall approached with the drone in its frame on his pack. “I said we were caring for her in the cabin, that help wouldn’t get here until morning, and that no one was to bother her in the meantime.”
“All ready to rock and roll,” Randall announced.
“Still no sign of Kaifong?” Chuck asked.
“She’s not down here?”
Chuck aimed a questioning look at Lex, who shook his head.
Around them, the scientists hung LED lanterns, taken from the storage kegs, on hiking poles driven into the muddy ground.
“Do me a favor?” Chuck called to Clarence, who worked with Toby to fasten one of the lanterns to a pole in front of the mess tent.
“Sí, jefe.” Clarence’s voice was subdued, but his gaze was resolute.
“We’re not sure where Kaifong’s gone off to. Would you and Toby track her down?” Chuck clenched his jaw. Surely, Sarah’s killer hadn’t struck again, not this quickly, and not in such a crowd.
“We’ll find her,” Clarence said.
He and Toby set off while Randall went ahead of Chuck and Lex to the west side of the cabin.
Chuck peered at the fog filtering through the trees at the foot of the meadow. No more howls or growls came from the woods. Had the grizzly and Stander Pack really teamed up? The fact that the grizzly and the single wolf, Number 217, had traveled across the valley away from camp together was unlikely enough. The idea that the entire pack of wolves had forged some sort of alliance with the same grizzly, particularly after 217’s death, was unfathomable. But so was Sarah’s murder.
Chuck shuddered at the realization that Sarah’s killer still lurked among the researchers. Lex had assured him Janelle and the girls were safe in the cabin, where they were alone with Keith.
It was Keith who’d led the search that resulted in finding Sarah’s body. That meant he couldn’t be the killer—could he?
Chuck put the side of his hand to the cabin’s window and looked inside. Keith stood with his back to the closed door. The girls squatted on the floor in front of the fireplace with Chance resting between them. Janelle sat on the rear bench above the girls, speaking with Keith.
Chuck exhaled. Janelle and the girls were fine. But where was Kaifong?
He turned to Lex. “She wasn’t there when you spoke with everyone?”
“Kaifong?” Lex shook his head. “When we counted off, only she and Randall were missing. But I saw the light in their tent, up on their platform. I figured they were on their way.”
“She was at our tent, up until just a bit ago,” Randall said. “She’s around. Clarence and Toby will find her.” He glanced at the dusky sky. “If we’re going to do this, though, we’d better get airborne, like, right now.”
He handed the drone to Chuck and retrieved the tablet computer from his backpack. He held the tablet out to Lex. “I’ll need you to hold that up for me until Kaifong gets here.”
Lex took the computer. Randall freed the control console from the holster at his waist and pressed a switch. The four rotors kicked in. He nudged the console’s left toggle forward. The rotors spun faster. The craft trembled in place before lifting from Chuck’s hands and rising into the cloud-covered sky with a loud whine.
Randall looked from the hovering drone to the view of the cabin and meadow streaming on the tablet screen. He thumbed the right toggle forward and watched the drone zoom across the open field, the whine of the rotors dying away.
When the drone was a black speck against the clouds, Randall eyed the computer screen, where the view of the meadow disappeared, replaced by treetops.
Chuck pointed at the video feed. The tops of the trees passing beneath the drone looked as if they were only inches from the hanging camera. “Make sure you stay—”
“We’re golden,” Randall said before Chuck could finish. “The wide-angle lens makes the trees look way closer than they are.” The drone slowed as Randall worked the controls. “Okay,” he said to Lex, “what is it you want me to do?”
Lex looked from the tablet propped in his hands to Chuck, who said, “We should check nearby meadows, see if we can catch sight of anything. You said animals will come into the open sometimes when they hear the drone, out of curiosity.”
Lex said, “Maybe the wolves will—”
“Wait,” Randall broke in, his eyes locked on the computer screen. “Did you see that?”
Chuck stared at the tablet. “See what?”
“Movement, I think.”
The tablet showed a tight clearing in the forest. Randall nudged the console’s toggles with his thumbs. The drone descended into the shadowy opening. The scene on the tablet grew grainy in the reduced light below the treetops. The drone came to a halt, hovering a few feet off the ground. A phalanx of tree trunks and pine branches surrounded the clearing.
Something moved at the base of a tree.
The camera continued to focus on the gray trunks of the trees and the green of the tree branches spreading above.
Seconds passed. Had he imagined it? The drone hovered. The camera streamed the unchanging scene. A burst of light gray entered the video feed, moving fast, straight toward the camera.
Randall nudged the controls. The drone climbed. On the computer screen, a wolf flung itself at the rising copter. Its mouth snapped shut as it disappeared from view beneath the dangling camera.
“That was close,” Randall said.
The drone circled as it climbed, the camera capturing a panning scene of tree trunks and branches and something else, barely visible at the edge of the shadowed clearing, dark on top, lighter below.
Randall leaned toward the tablet as he worked the controls on the console. The copter and camera plunged back toward the ground.
Chuck’s heart leapt into his throat. On the tablet screen, the object grew in size and grainy focus until it became a person dressed in a navy jacket and khaki slacks, bound to a tree trunk by loops of rope, mouth gagged, head slumped forward.