Four of Josh’s soldiers appeared at the lodge in about twenty minutes. Three men and a woman who looked as if she could carry any load the guys could. The tromp of their booted feet, in cadence, had brought Krystal and Josh from Joan’s office.
The room fell silent, staring in amazement at this unexpected invasion. None of the four carried guns, Krystal noted, but the potential threat was hardly less visible as they stood there in a straight line, at attention, in their camo clothing and ponchos.
One spoke. “Reporting for duty, Colonel.”
Josh answered, “Thanks, Angus. I appreciate you all volunteering.” Then he looked around at a room that had gone from stunned to whispering. “These soldiers are here to protect you. Even from yourselves. If I were you, I wouldn’t want to make it difficult for them to provide that protection.”
Joan emerged from the kitchen with Donna Carstairs, her chief cook. “Josh? Okay to offer coffee and food to your soldiers?”
“After today, I’m sure they’d be grateful. At ease, troops.”
At once the four soldiers broke from formation and scattered around the room. The effect was to make them appear less of a threat. Yet people remained wary and startled by their arrival.
Krystal, for her part, was grateful that Mason Cambridge couldn’t be here. She could just imagine the story he’d weave around the presence of the soldiers.
But people started to talk. Started to hear that these soldiers, so long hidden behind stockade walls, had emerged to protect them all.
Moods gradually became friendlier.
And some of that ugly talk faded away.
Except, of course, the inevitable wondering about whether a murderer was in this room right now. People kept looking around, aware that a threat could be standing only a few feet away.
Soldiers or not, the situation was explosive.
JOSH WATCHED THE soldiers spread out, helping themselves to food but speaking to no one. He wished he could gather them into a group session right now, to help them over this hump of being surrounded by civilians, the very people who had failed to understand them when they needed it most.
Instead of looking as if they needed some reassurance to get through this trial, however, they’d become stoic, revealing nothing of the inner turmoil they must be experiencing from this exposure.
He walked among them, sharing a few quiet words, thanking them. They all nodded, and at least none of them showed the thousand-yard stare that could have warned of trouble. None of this group of four had disconnected in the least way.
And he thought he felt their gratitude when he added an expression of his pride in the way they were handling the situation.
Carly Narth, whose experience had left her with a scarred face, shrugged. “Gotta do what you gotta do, Colonel.”
He watched her turn away, changing the direction of her attention again to the crowd they were keeping an eye on. Carly had a terrible story. A roadside bomb had burned her badly. That had been awful enough, but when she’d come home she’d learned that her own family wouldn’t look at her. They couldn’t handle her injury and didn’t want to.
Nor had the rest of the world been much kinder. It was a wonder she showed her face to anyone anywhere. But in this room, her defiance was almost palpable.
KRYSTAL WAS JUST about reaching the point of sleeping upright while leaning against a wall when the sheriff returned along with two of his deputies.
He pulled his hat off, shaking the hair that had nevertheless managed to get wet despite his rain protection. “We’ve got the crime areas cordoned off. Nobody gets inside those zones. It’s a damn mess. Anyway, we’ll be back in the morning with more extensive help and the crime scene unit.” He glanced around the room. “You gonna need any extra help here?”
He had to have noted the edginess of the room in one sweep of his gaze.
“At the moment,” Josh answered, “I’d say no.”
Gage nodded, once again sweeping the room with his dark gaze. “Okay. We’re starting to get some comms back, mostly landlines, a few satellite phones, but with a telephone tree you ought to be able to reach us from here. Keep people off the internet and off their cells, though.”
Josh nodded. “Lousy bandwidth?”
“The lousiest.” Gage slapped his hat back on his head and turned to take his deputies from the lodge with him. Then he paused, speaking to the deputy Josh had met earlier. “Connie? You mind hanging around here?”
“Not in the least, boss.”
“Just keep me posted.”
Then with a sweep, all the deputies but one left the lodge. Connie put her feet up on one table and watched the room over the edge of a coffee cup. She didn’t look the least bit weary. And her uniform provided another layer of authority.
Because the room was beginning to seethe again. People were uneasy. Lacking any useful information. Knowing only that terrible things were happening and they were stuck in a virtual cave. No place to run, no place to hide. Faces were growing tighter, more worried. With the sheriff gone there was even less reason for peace.
But the presence of Josh’s people in the room seemed to be keeping the cork stuffed in the bottle. As if these seemingly frightened people didn’t want to get involved with those hard-eyed veterans. Nor should they.
Reject, who’d been curled up quietly as near as he could get to Krystal, suddenly raised his head, ears perked. He didn’t make a sound, not even a growl, but he looked around as if measuring something.
But what?
Josh caught sight of the husky’s awareness, too, and scanned the room, following the dog’s gaze. Something wasn’t right, and it wasn’t right in this room.
But how could that be possible? Damn near everyone had been sitting here all day. A few had left only to return as the lousy weather made remaining alone in their cabins an unattractive option.
But could a murderer really be sitting here among them? The question had crossed Krystal’s mind and made her no less uneasy now. But how could anyone tell?
She met Josh’s gaze, saw the steeliness returning. He wasn’t dismissing the possibility.
But even if the killer was right here with them, how could they know? If one more person fell to the blade of a knife, how could anyone know who the killer was? Too many people.
As awful as this day had been, for the first time Krystal felt a real sense of hopelessness. Then there was Reject. He had become alert, and now he jumped down awkwardly from his chair and began to move from person to person as if seeking a pat. Most obliged him.
Krystal looked at Josh. “Could he smell something?”
“God knows. This day would have probably washed away anything but a pigsty.”
He had a point, but Reject continued his trip around the room, accepting tidbits of food when they were offered.
Krystal’s gaze slipped to the heavily curtained windows again. A bullet had come through that glass. Aimed at no one, it seemed, but maybe aimed at anyone. And the point of that? To instill more terror? To confuse everything more?
“Hell,” she muttered.
Josh looked at her. “What?”
“I’m just wishing we were down closer to Conard City. Surrounded by neighbors, all of whom give a damn and know everything on the grapevine.”
One corner of his hard mouth lifted. “You feel like that often?”
“Actually, no,” she admitted. “I went to school with a lot of people down there and I can drop in for a visit anytime I want. It’s not like I’m any more isolated than I want to be.”
“So what’s changed?”
She twisted her mouth. “Other than a crazed killer?”
He nodded slowly. “Tell you what. You try to catch some sleep on that couch in your mother’s office. I’ll keep watch over you.”
“That’s a generous offer,” she answered more warmly than she intended. “But you’ve got more important things to watch.”
He shook his head. “I’ve got four good helpers, and all of them are going to need to cadge their own sleep in stages. You just take yours now. You’ll be more useful.”
Useful? she wondered as she headed back to Joan’s office. Joan had already claimed the recliner and appeared to be out like a light. Good. She’d been going nonstop since early that morning.
Grabbing a blanket, Krystal curled up on the sofa and wondered if she’d be able to sleep at all.
But she did. It was as if Josh’s presence out there lifted some of her worries.
At least for a while.
JOSH KEPT AN eye on the lodge great room, and Krystal, all night. He was used to doing without sleep as long as necessary, and this was one of those nights.
Perplexity troubled him, though. Two people murdered by different methods.
And then, what about Reject? Why would anyone attack that dog? And the bigger question: Who the hell had put a bullet through that window? No one had been out there to do that, had they? At least not from the lodge, as far as he knew. And why? Just to terrorize everyone? Or to cause them to close the curtains and see nothing outside.
That latter thought gave him heartburn. Reduced visibility was a dangerous problem.
How many killers might there be? Who might have been missing in the hours before anyone suspected there had been murders? He was ready to discount the people they had gathered up from their cabins. None of them appeared capable of such killing, although anything was possible.
God. He rubbed his eyes and resumed his study of the room. He noticed his own unit was just as busy watching, even as the clients in the room began to fall asleep with their heads on tables, their bodies spread on area rugs. Filling whatever comfortable chairs they might have found.
The thunder, at least, had finally drawn into the distance. Maybe morning, bringing the sheriff and his experienced teams, would shed light on everything. Maybe they’d even have some actual light to see by. Not that he was eager to see any more detail in those two cabins.
He didn’t need imagination to fill in what his flashlight beam had missed.
Reject evidently finished his survey of the room, keeping his secrets in the way of a dog, and struggled up onto the chair beside Josh. Josh reached out to pet the animal. Dogs were such wonderful companions that he often thought people didn’t deserve them.
He eventually noticed one person who seemed more restless than the others. Mary Collins, wasn’t it? A romance novelist who’d been published. Was fear keeping her awake?
Damn, he’d never imagined that he’d get to know any of these people, let alone by name. His whole purpose in being in this area was to provide a refuge and psychological care to vets most in need.
Being a psychologist didn’t necessarily give him special insights, but his time in uniform had given him a connection few who had only sat behind desks as professionals could have had.
Maybe he was kidding himself that he was doing these vets of his any particular good. But some at times felt ready to move on, which he counted a victory. Others might never be ready.
Josh never judged them. Judgment was the last thing any of them deserved or needed. They’d know when their own time to leave came.
And right now, this group looked filled with purpose and determination. That had to be a good thing. Maybe. Or it could be slashing old wounds open. No way to guess at this point.
Then his thoughts drifted to Krystal and he closed his eyes briefly. She was the most attractive woman he’d met in years, and it wasn’t just her natural beauty. Her intelligence. Her courage. She’d insisted on going out with him into that storm earlier, even knowing the possible dangers they faced.
It was the kind of behavior he expected from women in uniform, not from quiet, inexperienced civilians who weren’t on a steroid rush.
Krystal embodied a lot of things he admired. And felt attracted to.
And he was wasting his time daydreaming. He’d chosen his path in life, an important one, and he wasn’t about to start shredding it. Too many people relied on him.
Their faces floated before his mind’s eye, faces that he’d come to know well for the most part. Faces that hid the unending internal battles they fought. He couldn’t possibly tear that group apart in pursuit of selfish ends.
All of it was pipe dreaming anyway. They had a much more immediate issue to deal with: murders. One or two perpetrators? The idea of a single killer seriously bothered him, given the difference in the crimes, and he wondered if he could possibly get some of Gage’s impressions about the murders. Although he’d learned cops were pretty silent about ongoing investigations, there was always the hope Gage might be of a different mind under these circumstances.
But then morning brought a new list of troubles. Of course, these artists wanted to get back to their cabins for their computers, for a change of clothes. For some semblance of normal life.
And of course, they started convincing themselves the threat had passed. No more murders so far. A great metric. Not.
Josh drew a steadying breath and began to make plans for a new problem, one that at least probably had the sense to wait until after Joan had served breakfast. Then this crowd would try to move out.
LYING IN THE middle of the room, Mary Collins thought about how easy she had found it to locate a coconspirator in the murder of Mason Cambridge. Enough people around here hated the man with a purple passion.
But only Mel Marbly had a desire as strong as her own to end the existence of Cambridge. Mason had spent a lot of time insulting Mel Marbly about his gardening work. Called him a dirt pusher, a mud rat, a stupid sod farmer. Criticized him constantly for dirt under his fingernails. Called him a dolt.
More insults than any man should have to take and Mel had been taking those shots for years now. It was as if Mason Cambridge needed to look down on anyone who actually worked with their hands. And somehow Mason had managed not to toss his insults when the Metcalfes were around, and Mel hadn’t complained to them.
But Mary had heard. The whole thing disgusted her until her stomach turned over every time she heard Mason. She’d often seen hate glowing in Brady Marbly’s eyes as well. Perhaps more than her husband Mel’s.
But Mary knew neither Brady’s nor Mel’s feelings of rage for the insults they’d endured could come close to her own feelings of hatred. Her justified feelings of hatred.
For Mason had stolen from her. Had taken her dreams and claimed credit for them. Had used them to launch a career that should have been her own.
Mary hadn’t stopped seething in years. The calmer voices of friends, who reminded her that ideas couldn’t be copyrighted, made her feel no better. Reminders that a book never would have been written since Shakespeare if no ideas could be copied helped Mary not at all.
None of it meant a thing to her. Vengeance meant everything and that man deserved to pay for treating her like dust beneath his heels. She hadn’t mattered to him, not even enough to give her credit for her ideas.
She’d been useful. Nothing more. Catapulting him to a career as a bestseller when he stole her idea, leaving her nothing but life as a mid-list romance novelist.
Because even though her ideas were better than Mason’s, they got brushed aside by publishers because Mason was going to do it better. Or maybe not so much better, but he was guaranteed huge sales.
Right. He’d stolen her chance and wouldn’t give even part of it back to her.
But Mel was serving her well. He’d wanted to kill Mason, but he’d decided to stab Sebastian to death to make it look like a different kind of crime. Then the bullet through the window at that damn dog. A brilliant touch, if she did say so herself, although she feared Mel was getting his own ideas, might mess things up. Too many victims. Too many possibilities now. Would that cause confusion or lead the cops right to Mel?
She hated dogs, but this one had become a freaking nuisance. He was next on her list if Mel didn’t mess things up. Still, she needed to find a private minute with Mel in order to make sure he was still largely in line with her. Especially since he wounded the damn dog in the first place, without clearing it with her. Still, it had proved to be a touch that had added to the terror. Maybe not a mistake on Mel’s part. She still hadn’t made up her mind about Sebastian, much as his murder must be muddying the waters.
But Mel was beginning to make her seriously uneasy.
In the meantime, she sat back, pretending occasionally to join the general fear, and just enjoyed all that she had unleashed. She hadn’t expected quite this much uproar over one dead author.
She should have guessed. Mason would do everything in the biggest way possible, even die. But never had she guessed that she could enjoy the reaction to his murder as much as his murder itself. Life did offer some gifts, few though they were.
Then she looked at the soldiers, including that one who had appeared to be in charge. She hadn’t expected them. Since a year ago when the stockade had started to be built, she had known they liked to be left alone. They wanted no part of the rest of the world except the two or three who occasionally went shopping for essentials in Conard City.
Now they were out and about, at least some of them, and they made her skin crawl. Unpredictable creeps, likely to explode into violence without warning. Wasn’t that what these PTSD guys did?
Even the sheriff and his jerks didn’t worry her as much. Then she forced her attention away, for fear she might draw notice by focusing too much. She had more important matters to deal with anyway. Much more important.
Like making sure she took care of the Marblys before they could talk. Then to get out of here unscathed.
She had confidence in her abilities to escape. After all, look what Mason had achieved just because of her. Mary was the one with the brilliant, devious mind.
She ordered another coffee and half dozed as she watched the room. Not long before something would start happening, she felt. The only question was whether she should take advantage of it just yet.
THE COMPOSITION OF the room started to change as the few remaining deputies, cold and exhausted from a long night in the rain, began to rotate through to take advantage of the hot coffee and sweet rolls Joan and her staff provided.
As near as Krystal could tell, the crime scene units were out at the cabins, but no information could be shared yet.
The room did calm, however, as if the growing desire to escape eased, at least for now. As if the presence of those uniformed deputies changed the mental landscape. Even those who had been talking of returning to their own cabins decided to delay in favor of coffee and rolls.
Josh’s soldiers switched off duty then, too. Grabbing something to eat, then heading out, four more to follow them into the lodge.
When Krystal had the chance for a quiet word with Josh, she murmured, “I thought these guys didn’t want to be out here with us.”
“They don’t. But they feel a duty.”
In those few words he offered a flood of information. Krystal studied the soldiers with new respect, noting for the first time how many of them were visibly injured. Regardless, they all showed backbones of steel.
“What exactly do you do for them?”
“I’m a psychologist. I’m also a veteran.”
Another few words containing a flood of information. And for the first time he shared with her his purpose. His meaning. More than just providing a sanctuary for the wounded.
Her respect for him deepened. This task of his was momentous.
But what had she done with her own life? Dabble at a novel? Help run this writers’ retreat, some of which managed to seem awfully indulgent. Although she had to admit her own indulgence in her private little cottage on the creek canyon. Sure, she had duties at the lodge, primarily helping her mother and the staff, but what else of importance did she accomplish?
Hours of scribbling a few words on an otherwise empty computer screen.
“Write anything at all,” Davis Daniels had suggested. That didn’t seem to work well for her. She needed something more organized to focus on.
Hah! Maybe she should start at the middle or the end of a story and see where that got her. When she’d first started writing, that had been a problem for her: a vivid beginning, then the end too clear not to write immediately, both of them surrounding a big, gaping hole she couldn’t figure out how to fill. Some part of her simply felt the story was completed even though it clearly wasn’t.
She’d had a lot of those false starts in her bottom drawer until she’d finally thrown them on her fireplace. No point in keeping useless ideas.
But sometimes she missed them because they had been so much fun to write. So absorbing they’d carried her totally away.
She was having no such luck this time. Rising, she went to help Joan and the kitchen staff churn out enough food for a suddenly hungry army. The night’s storm had begun to drift away, letting patches of sunlight through, and only the dripping of rain from the leaves remained as a reminder.
Even some of the curtains had been drawn open to let in the freshening light. People avoided the open ones, which was kind of ridiculous to Krystal’s way of thinking, given that she suspected a whole lot of them were wanting to get back to their cabins, which would expose them far more than the windows.
The urge to return to private cabins grew even stronger when Angus MacDougall and Josh climbed up to the roof to realign the satellite dish. After a few false starts, computers came on again, and people started using their cell phones and satellite phones.
The world had returned to normal.
Except for two corpses lying out there. Except for the inescapable presence of one or two murderers.
Yeah, normal, Krystal thought. Not the kind of normal any of them should want.
THE COPS WEREN’T off duty, however. As they warmed up and ate, they moved among the residents, talking quietly, explaining that, at this time, the other cabins appeared safe.
“No signs of breaking and entering,” Krystal heard more than one of them say. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean there can’t be.”
Uneasy looks passed around the room, then the remaining poet, Paul Aston of the crazy hair, raised his voice. “Then just what the hell are we supposed to do, Deputy? Hang around here all day with no good reason? We have work.”
Sheriff Gage Dalton had come into the room unseen, but when he lifted his voice he claimed everyone’s attention. “Stick it out a few more hours,” he said firmly. “You don’t know what’s out there and why this happened. But if you really want to race out there by yourselves, be my guest. I can’t stop you. Just stay away from the areas marked off with yellow crime scene tape.” He stepped outside, probably to speak to some of his deputies.
Well, that dampened the growing restlessness, although probably only temporarily. At some point these people were going to honestly decide the threat was over. That someone had a grudge against Mason Cambridge, easily understandable, and Sebastian Elsin had just gotten in the way of a vendetta.
It sure made more sense than any other explanation.
But what were they going to find when they got out there?
DARLENE, MASON’S AGENT, was having the hardest time of anyone. That, too, was understandable. She’d found the body. That alone would have seriously shaken anyone to the core. But to have it be the body of someone she knew well? Far worse.
Darlene didn’t seem to want any physical comfort, not a hug or a pat on the shoulder. She remained curled up in a padded chair, wrapped in a blanket and sipping hot chocolate whenever Joan, Krystal or the staff thought to bring it to her. And her hands had never stopped shaking, most especially when Connie had interviewed her about what she had seen.
The woman needed an ambulance, Krystal thought, but getting one up here right now seemed difficult. Mud and more mud layered the road outside, and then came the first low rumble. Landslide. Inevitable. Krystal prayed it would remain in the confines of the canyon, where it would do less harm. Usually such floods did, although they could make a mess of the canyon for a while.
“Okay,” Gage Dalton announced as he reappeared, grabbing all the attention in the room. “It’s a mess out there. You’ve already been told it’s bad, but now we have landslides. I have no way of knowing how long they’ll last or how bad they’ll be. If anyone here decides to venture out, then you’d better take someone with you. I’d prefer you didn’t, though. I’m having to bring up a lot of heavy-duty equipment from the county, and from neighboring counties as well, and we’re going to need some of it at lower elevations.”
He paused, looking around, clearly gauging the responses. “You go out there on your own, you’re going to be on your own. I don’t have the manpower to dig you all out.”
Krystal shuddered. Frankly, she couldn’t imagine much worse than being buried alive in mud. Inevitably, she looked toward the porch windows and wondered if they’d hold against an onslaught, especially the one with the bullet hole in it.
But the impatient swirling in the room had started to settle down again, and Krystal had reached the end of her rope. Using her jacket as a pillow, she gathered it up and used it on the table as a place to rest her head. For a little while, she woke occasionally as if she couldn’t quite rest with all the people around, but at last sleep claimed her in a deep embrace.
Dreams of Josh followed her, however. Dreams of the confident way he moved, the force in his voice when it was needed, his surprising gentleness with his vets.
Hard and soft. She liked both.