“What do you think?” Cork said.
Dina’s keen green eyes followed the boot prints as they disappeared down the path through the woods.
“Where does this trail lead?” she asked.
“Damned if I know. But Charlie might.”
Inside Thor’s Lodge, Dina knocked on the door to Charlie’s temporary bedroom.
“What?” came the girl’s surly reply.
“We need your help,” Dina said.
“Bite me.”
Dina opened the door. Charlie lay sprawled on the bed, a comic book in her hands. Her eyes cut into Dina like razor blades.
“Get out,” she spat.
“Normally I would, Charlie, but the circumstances aren’t normal right now.”
“What do you want?”
“There’s a trail just west of the resort,” Cork said, moving in next to Dina. “Do you know what it is?”
“The Killbelly Marsh Trail. It’s part of the Copper River Trail system. Hiking, snowmobiling, that kind of thing.”
“Loops around the marsh and connects with the main trail along the river.”
“Is it heavily used?”
“Heavily?” She rolled her eyes, as if having to think about it was an incredible imposition. “It’s fall. A lot of trolls come up here for the color. The trail’s popular.”
“‘Trolls’?” Dina asked.
“People from the lower peninsula,” Cork clarified. “Below the Mackinac Bridge, get it?”
“‘Trolls,’” Dina said.
Charlie put down her comic book and sat up. “Why do you want to know this stuff?”
“Just curious,” Cork told her.
“So, is that it?”
“Yes, thanks.”
He turned to head out, but Dina held back.
“Hungry yet?” she asked the girl.
“No.”
“Suit yourself.”
Dina joined Cork and closed the door behind her.
In the kitchen, they spoke quietly. Cork leaned on his cane; Dina crossed her arms and leaned against the counter.
“A troll?” Cork said. “Just some curious hiker?”
“It’s possible, I suppose. Someone who stumbled across the cougar tracks and followed them.”
“Or someone who thought the girl would show up here eventually and dropped by to check it out.”
“Or,” Dina added, “someone looking for you.”
Cork shook his head. “He’d have picked me off the moment I stepped out the door. Has Charlie been outside this morning?”
“Let’s keep her in the cabin.”
Dina nodded. “Maybe I should reconnoiter.”
Cork did a quick appraisal of her outfit: a white sweater, black jeans, white Reeboks. “You’d look like a zebra prancing through the woods.”
“It was my intention,” she said evenly, “to change into something more fitting. And to arm myself appropriately.”
“What are you packing?”
“In addition to my Glock, I’ve got a Colt .45 with a suppressor. Or I could opt for the Ruger .44 carbine still in my trunk. How about you?”
“Just the Tomcat you gave me. It’s in my cabin.”
“Maybe you should get it,” Dina said.
“You go on and change. I’ll stay and let Charlie know what’s up, then get the gun.”
Dina headed to the door.
“You’ll be careful?” Cork said.
“At what I do,” she replied without looking back, “I’m the best.”
Cork moved to the front door. He watched her enter Cabin 2, which Jewell had given her to store her things. For ten minutes he stood waiting for her to come out. She never did. It dawned on him that she’d probably left in a way that would be unobserved. A bathroom window maybe.
She was good.
“Where’s the old lady?”
Cork turned around to find Charlie standing near the kitchen counter. His leg was killing him. He sat down at the table and hung the cane on the chair back.
“The lady’s out there right now, making sure you’re safe.”
She went into the kitchen, opened a cupboard door, and hauled out a bowl. She opened another door and plucked out a box of Cap’n Crunch. From the refrigerator, she got a carton of milk. In another minute, she was sitting at the table across from Cork, greedily eating her breakfast. She slumped in her chair, her face six inches from the bowl. Cork didn’t know if this was her normal eating habit or done simply to keep her from having to look at him.
“She saved my life on a couple of occasions,” he told her.
“Big deal,” Charlie said through a mouthful of cereal.
“It is to me.”
Charlie wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “So she’s, like, what? Your girlfriend?”
“She’s a friend to me in the same way you’re a friend to Ren.”
It was a while before she spoke again. “Do you think she’s pretty?”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you like her?”
“No.”
“Right.”
“Charlie—”
Cork’s comment was cut off by the sound of a gunshot outside. It didn’t come from a handgun. Something heavier. Shotgun, probably. He grabbed the cane and pushed himself from the chair just as another report smacked the morning air. He hobbled to the door and scanned the grounds outside where nothing moved.
“Charlie, get into your room. Hide under the bed or in the closet. Just stay out of sight until I come back. Okay?”
She stared at him.
“Move,” he said sharply.
She stood up and turned.
He threw the screen door open and hurried down the steps. Dina hadn’t said anything to him about a shotgun, so he figured it wasn’t hers. The gunfire had come from a distance. He hoped that meant there was time to get to his cabin, where he’d stowed the Beretta. He berated himself for not having grabbed his weapon earlier. He felt exposed, vulnerable, stupid.
The .32 Tomcat was under his pillow. For safety, should Ren find the weapon, Cork had removed the clip and slipped it under the mattress. He pulled them both from their hiding places and slapped the clip home.
As he started back to Thor’s Lodge, he felt the intense, unsettling quiet of the woods in the wake of the gunshots. Two reports, then nothing. Why hadn’t Dina returned fire? He didn’t want to dwell on that one. He scanned the trees as he limped across the wet ground, leaves sticking to his soles like leeches. Nothing moved. However, a man with a shotgun, a heavy slug, and good scope wouldn’t need to move much to keep the crosshairs on Cork’s chest.
He made the steps, the porch, then stumbled inside. With his back to the wall beside the door, he caught his breath. He risked a look through the doorway, a limited field of vision that revealed nothing. He hobbled to the back room.
“Charlie, I’m here now.”
There was no answer.
With difficulty, he knelt and checked under the bed, then tried the closet. The girl wasn’t there.
“Charlie?” he said again, louder this time. “Charlie?”
How long had he been gone? Three minutes, maybe four? Long enough for whoever wanted her to have taken her?
He limped back to the main room where he bellowed, “Charlie!”
The porch steps squealed under the weight of quickly mounting feet. Cork swung around, the Beretta leveled on the center of the doorway.
Dina stepped into view, saw the weapon in his hand, and spun back instantly out of sight.
“It’s me, damn it,” she hollered.
He lowered the Beretta. “You okay?”
She peered tentatively around the corner of the doorway, her face dark beyond the screen. “Yeah.”
“The gunshots?”
“A hunter. Some guy with his dog shooting at birds, whatever the hell is in season.” She opened the screen door and came in. “Everything okay here?”
“Not exactly,” Cork replied. “I seem to have lost Charlie.”