Cash watched the bird carrying Romanski disappear over the ring of mountains. It was getting on toward evening, and the search parties had still come up with nothing—not even a drop of blood. After discussing it with her boss, McFaul, she’d decided to stay at the resort to supervise the case full-time. With the CBI chopper gone, she tagged a ride on the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office bird back to the lodge, where, she knew, an all-nighter awaited her.
They took off as the sun hung fire over the mountaintops. As they skimmed past meadows and valleys, Cash glimpsed strung-out lines of Erebus searchers moving steadily across the rugged landscape, and she once again wondered how the hell four people with two bodies could just disappear like that. That was a big area to search, and she wondered if it might be appropriate to request a National Guard deployment, since it would not be best practices to leave the search mostly up to Erebus personnel. There was always the possibility that someone at Erebus might have been involved in the crime.
It was a ten-minute flight to the lodge. The helicopter set down on the heliport on the lodge’s roof. Maximilian, who had left the crime scene earlier, met them. No one spoke as the three of them took the elevator down to the main floor of the lodge.
When the doors opened, it was a showstopper. Cash found herself staring into a magnificent space framed in massive wooden beams and log walls that gave her the feeling of being in a great Adirondack lodge. A huge stone fireplace dominated the center, in which burned a real fire. This was surrounded by rustic sofas and chairs of wood and leather, with Navajo rugs on the floor and an immense chandelier of elk antlers above. The log walls were decorated with crossed wooden skis and snowshoes and paintings of mammoths and other extinct animals. A faint smell of pinon smoke from the fire added to the atmosphere of a Western lodge.
The right side of the lofty room opened into a cantilevered deck that extended out into space, ending in a glass wall. The glass was crowded with people looking out, a murmur rising.
Cash paused, wondering what was going on—what they were all looking at.
Maximilian asked, “You’ve not been here before?”
“No,” said Cash.
“Me neither,” Colcord said.
“Sunset is when many of the animals come to the lake. We have a traditional gathering on the observation deck every evening. Would you like to see?”
“I sure would,” said Colcord.
Cash felt a twinge of impatience; they had more important things to do. But she said nothing. She noticed that Colcord, in the classic Western style, had not removed his cowboy hat inside. She still hadn’t made up her mind about him, but at least he wasn’t a talker. She hated talkers.
“Follow me.”
She and Colcord followed Maximilian past the great stone fireplace and out onto the deck. It offered spectacular views of the lake and mountains, the peaks aflame with the setting sun. The wall was formed from seamless curved glass, and sections of the floor were also glass, looking down. People had gathered, drinks in hand, oohing and aahing as they watched a family of woolly mammoths disporting themselves on the lakeshore and wading in the shallows. A calf, like a fur ball, splashed and stomped in the water, playfully squirting his mother and everyone within reach. On the other side, a herd of giant elk quietly watered.
Cash, despite herself, was entranced. She glanced over at Colcord, but it was hard to read him. She’d been hearing about the Erebus Resort for years but never took much interest in it herself, dismissing it as a kind of Disneyland for rich people. But this—it was genuinely amazing.
“That mammoth family comes here every evening,” murmured Maximilian. “The baby is a favorite. Nicknamed Tom Thumb after P. T. Barnum’s famous little elephant. We have three mammoth herds in the park. And those”—he pointed—“are Irish elk, Megaloceros giganteus. Not an elk at all but a giant deer. The antlers are twelve feet from tip to tip and weigh close to ninety pounds.”
“A hell of a trophy that would make,” said Colcord.
Cash frowned. What a comment. She couldn’t imagine killing one of those animals.
Maximilian pointed. “And here comes one of my favorites, right on time, Megatherium americanum, the giant ground sloth.”
A sharp buzz of excitement rose from the crowd, and there was a movement of people to one side to get a better view. A creature had just emerged from the trees, seeming more like a freak of nature than an animal. It was as big as the mammoths, twenty feet from its awkward head to its thick tail, covered in cinnamon-colored fur. It waddled on two stumpy back legs and two front legs, in a pigeon-toed gait. It periodically stopped to reach up with a clawed paw to snag down a branch. An enormous tongue then snaked out and, curling around, it stripped off the leaves with incredible efficiency. The creature then moved on, repeating the process left and right, leaving a trail of broken and torn-off branches in its wake.
“God must have been drunk when he designed that creature,” murmured Cash.
“We have only one of those,” said Maximilian. “It was challenging to de-extinct because its living relatives are genetically distant and much smaller. It’s the very hellion of an eater, stripping several acres of trees in a day.”
“Doesn’t it get lonely?” Cash asked.
“It’s a solitary animal in the wild. They only come together to mate … but our animals don’t mate.”
“Poor buggers,” said Cash, then re-collected herself. “This is interesting, but the sheriff and I have business to take care of.” She made an effort to return to an air of professionalism.
“Right,” said Colcord.
“Of course.” Maximilian led them away from the glass wall. They crossed the great room and came to a door marked STAFF ONLY. Maximilian used a key card on a lanyard to enter. As he did so, he said, “I’ll get you both one of these.”
“Thank you.”
The change from rustic Western luxury to C-suite elegance was abrupt. A corridor of blond wood paneling with recessed lighting led into a suite of executive offices. One of the first was marked DIRECTOR OF SECURITY, and this they entered.
The outer office was occupied by two assistants, even though it was after six o’clock. They passed through a second door into Maximilian’s inner office.
It was a beautiful room, again paneled in blond wood, with a real fireplace, several old Navajo rugs, a capacious desk, and a sitting area of leather furniture. At the far end, a picture window looked out over the lake.
“Please, have a seat,” Maximilian said.
They seated themselves.
“Coffee, tea, water?”
“Coffee for me,” said Cash.
“Same,” said Colcord, finally taking off his hat and placing it on the table. Cash was shocked to see Colcord was almost entirely bald, with just a fringe of blond hair. No wonder he wore the hat most of the time.
Maximilian touched a unit on a table. “Miriam, could you kindly bring in some fresh coffee, along with an assortment of snacks?” He sat back and folded his hands. “Now—what next? We want to help you in every possible way to track down these killers.”
“Thank you,” said Cash. “I’ll start by asking you if you have any idea who might be behind this. Could it be any of your staff or guests? Do you have enemies?”
“We’ve accounted for everyone on payroll—everyone,” said Maximilian. “No guests are unaccounted for either. I think it has to be someone from the outside.”
“Any thoughts on who?”
“We’ve had no end of environmental protesters trying to shut us down. Early on, a radical antidevelopment group set fire to the gatehouse at the valley entrance while it was under construction. They were caught—thanks to Sheriff Colcord.”
The sheriff nodded. “They were pretty ragtag, but we’re looking into them and their associates now.”
Cash remembered how, when Erebus was built some ten years ago, right after she had arrived at the CBI, there were a bunch of protests. “Have there been any recent threats?”
“The protests mostly died down. We still get the occasional anonymous threat. I’ve asked my staff to compile them, and we’ll of course share them with you.”
“Thank you,” said Cash. “I’ve drawn up a list of specific ways Erebus can support our investigation.” She took out a handwritten sheet she had hastily drawn up. “We’d like to set up a command and control center here, in the lodge. Tonight. Large enough to accommodate up to ten personnel, with a separate room for private interviews.”
“Done.”
“I’ll need a guest room for a Forensic Services specialist, and a storage area. A room for myself. And meals, et cetera.”
“We are at your disposal. Sheriff?”
“I’ll also need two rooms, for myself and Deputy Sandoval,” he said.
“Done.”
“Tomorrow morning, early,” said Cash, “I’d like to have a tour of the resort. I need to get a handle on the geography of the valley and what you do. I’d like to see everything. Sheriff, you’re welcome to come.”
“I will, thank you.”
“And then I’d like to start conducting interviews. We’ll start with you and Maitland Barrow and your CEO, and anyone connected with the victims from the time of their arrival at the resort, including guests. If you could put together a list of the people the two victims interacted with in a meaningful way, that would be helpful. As we collect more evidence, our list of interviewees will grow—that’s how it usually goes.”
At this, Maximilian folded his hands. “Our founder, Maitland Barrow, isn’t here, and I doubt he would agree to an interview. He’s quite … inaccessible. And anyway, he hasn’t been here in at least a month, so I doubt he has any information of value to contribute.”
Cash said, “A voluntary interview is always better than a subpoena, don’t you agree? But I hear you. I’ll let you know when and if we need to interview him.”
“As for interviewing guests,” Maximilian said, “that might be awkward.”
Cash raised her eyebrows questioningly and waited.
“Obviously, we want to keep this incident from frightening the guests.” He hesitated. “We’ve been fortunate in keeping it under wraps so far.”
“What exactly are you telling people?” Colcord asked.
“Just that two guests have gone missing in the backcountry. It would make your job and mine much harder if we had a valley full of panicked guests—not to mention the media swarming about.”
“There’s a simple solution to that,” said Cash evenly. “Shut down the resort until we find the killers.”
At this, Maximilian displayed a frisson of horror. “You aren’t serious.”
Cash had gone over this many times in her mind and had conferred with McFaul, who was fully against the idea of ordering Erebus shut, even if the CBI had the authority to do so, which it did not. “At this point, we’re not officially recommending a shutdown.” She leaned forward on her elbows. “But I’m not sure you’re thinking this through, Mr. Maximilian. You’ve got two victims, who are—let’s be real—probably dead. One’s an Olympic medalist and the other’s a famous billionaire’s son. Word’s going to get out.” She paused. “Have next of kin been notified?”
Maximilian paled more. “Yes.”
“I imagine they’re on their way right now.”
“I believe they are.”
“How are you going to keep them from making a scene—and letting the cat out of the bag?”
At that moment, the intercom unit buzzed on Maximilian’s desk. He picked up the phone and listened, and his face went just a shade paler. “Tell him I’ll see him in a moment. I’m just wrapping up a meeting.”
But even before he could put down the phone, a voice roared from the outer office and the door flung open. An enormous man, bulging out of his suit, with a white beard and mussed white hair, stood framed in the doorway like an unruly bear.
“You’ll see me now, you son of a bitch, and tell me what the fuck you’re doing to find my son!”