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"The food here is good, but it's all starting to taste the same," Cassie said. "Let's see if there's anything we can whip up with what's in this kitchen."
"I'll help," I said. Cassie and I rifled through the kitchen in search of anything we could use as a weapon or use to make a weapon. There wasn't a lot. It was clear that the kitchen area was only intended to serve drinks or make coffee and tea. It wasn't really outfitted for cooking. The silverware was good quality and heavy enough to be useful. There was a shaker of salt, ground coffee, and a corkscrew.
When I looked at the items we set aside as weapons, I realized just how desperate we were. We could only use what we had. We felt sure there were guns somewhere in the lodge, but we hadn't seen them. I assumed that was because of Cassie's well-known expertise with firearms. They wouldn't want there to be any chance for her to get her hands on one. In the jungle environment, much like back home in Wilkins' Gap, wild animals were a threat and most people kept some type of gun around for personal protection. Unless we could find out where they were stored in the next few hours, our makeshift weapons would have to be enough.
No matter how much we tried to plan, it would be a crap shoot once we put the plan in motion. Things would happen, and we'd have to adapt.
I was surprised to see Mark sitting at a table in the dining room when we walked in for lunch. He walked over and kissed Gracie Layne. "I have a lighter schedule today," he said, "so I thought I'd join you ladies for lunch."
When we sat down, I noticed that there were already four glasses on the table. It looked like sweet tea. Gracie reached for her glass, but I put my hand on her arm to stop her. I still didn't trust Mark.
"I didn't poison it, Everly. Dr. Braun wouldn't be very pleased if I killed the golden goose so to speak."
"Maybe not kill, but sedate," I said, reaching for my water glass and then realizing that he might have counted on my reacting just this way.Â
"Here, I'll switch glasses with you," he said.
"Don't bother."
He took a big drink from his glass. "See. It's fine."
"You know that's something that never makes sense to me in the movies," Cassie said. "It's not like all poisons cause an immediate reaction."
Katrin came over to see what the commotion was about. "Is there a problem?"
"We're concerned that our drinks may have been poisoned," Gracie Layne said.
"If we wanted to poison you, why would we have waited this long. You didn't seem worried about it before?"
"She's right," Cassie said, taking a big swig of her sweet tea. "Death by sweet tea. There are worse ways to go."
I got the impression Mark was trying to communicate something to us, but I didn't know what, and I wasn't ready to trust him. After lunch, we headed out to explore the jungle. After getting away from the Lodge, we turned toward the fence we'd found. What we could see of the pen was empty. That wasn't a surprise. Most large animals would stay sheltered from the heat of the day if they could. There were buildings within the pen, so it was possible that's where the current residents were.
"Are you guys ready for this?" I asked.
"As much as we can be," Cassie said. "We can't afford to wait. We need to take advantage of the fact that Braun is gone. I just hope the guys are able to walk."
We had two version of our plan. If the guys were both able to walk OK, we'd move as quickly as we could to get as far away from the lodge as possible. The jungle was intimidating but, with the exception of Gracie Layne, we were all experienced in the wilderness—a different kind of wilderness, but we hoped our outdoor skills would be transferable.
Unless there was a platoon of armed guards hidden somewhere nearby or Dr. Braun returned early, there were only four people to thwart our plans. That number might be only three if Mark Wainwright was really on our side. I still wasn't convinced. We hadn't included him in our plans because we couldn't be sure where his loyalties lie.