Chapter 23 #2
Jem flexed his free hand; the aches were getting worse. “Right. Why wait to fire a gun until you’re in the middle of a snowstorm? Why not blast us with it when we interrupted him?”
“Aside from, you know, leaving our bullet-ridden corpses at the scene?”
“Yeah, aside from that,” Jem said absently. “What the fuck is going on?”
“I’ve been thinking about it.” A smile ghosted across Tean’s face. “A lot, big surprise. Jem, there had to be someone else.”
Jem nodded slowly. “Working with Stephen?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nora?”
Tean hesitated. “I don’t know. I asked Vaughan if he could find out where she’s been today, but I haven’t heard back from him.”
“So, we don’t know why Stephen was in the chalet. We don’t know if he had something to do with getting rid of Tafton. We don’t know who else is involved. And we don’t know why someone would want Tafton dead. Wait, do we know why someone would want Tafton dead?”
The doc shook his head.
“Well, we’re doing great,” Jem said sourly. “Do you think it had something to do with what Quinn and Beckett told us? Tafton said he’d figured out a way around the filter on his phone.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how it could.”
“One thing we do know is that Tafton lied about where he was Friday night. Quinn and Beckett saw him going somewhere with Stephen.”
“Vaughan told me that he’s looking for Stephen, but he’s only got a couple of security staff, and they’re stretched pretty thin. Without the cameras, they’re going to have a hard time finding Stephen unless they luck into him.”
“Which means we have to find him ourselves,” Jem said.
“Which means I need clothes, unless you plan on us playing Naked Detectives, which actually sounds like an awesome game for when Scipio is at doggy daycare. The mystery of the hidden pickle. The mystery of the wiener in the bun. The mystery of the men who porked. Hey, wait, we still haven’t banged! ”
“We are not playing Naked Detectives,” Tean said—a little more firmly than Jem would have liked, although he did appreciate how Tean’s cheeks turned red at the mystery of the wiener in the bun.
“You are going to rest. I am going to make sure you rest.” Getting to his feet, Tean said, “I’ll warm up the soup. ”
“The soup?” Jem called after him. “What kind of soup? Does it have potatoes? Does it have bacon? There better be crackers!”
Tean, as usual, didn’t bother to respond.
Some bargaining, finagling, and weaseling finally got Jem permission to sit on the couch in the front room.
A gas fire burned steadily on fake logs, and although Jem was required—by law—to stay bundled up in the blankets, he actually found the heat pleasant.
Tean produced some Tylenol, and the aches in Jem’s hands and feet faded.
Tean bustled around the kitchenette. A bowl clinked. Something poured. The microwave dinged.
“Chicken noodle?” Jem said.
The look on Tean’s face told him this hadn’t been the right thing to say.
“Chicken noodle is great,” Jem said.
“Hmm,” Tean said.
Jem got a spoonful of broth—which was just a fancy name for soup water. He let it drain back into the bowl. He poked a carrot.
“Jem,” Tean said like he was very tired.
“It’s got lots of vegetables,” Jem said.
“Oh my gosh.”
“It’s probably super healthy.”
“Jem,” Tean said again. “Please. For my sake. It’s been a long day.”
Jem thought about it. “Only because you saved my life.”
“Thank you.”
“But for future reference, like, a chili, or even a stew—”
“Jeremiah.”
Jem tried not to grin, but it slipped out anyway. Tean looked like he might not smile. But there was a hint of it, barely there, at the corners of his mouth.
To be fair, the soup was good. It would have been perfect as an appetizer. Or, you know, a side dish. With—what did you eat with soup? Oh, with a mountain of grilled cheese sandwiches. A platter of them. With the cheese all gooey and melted exactly right.
When Jem finished, Tean took the bowl. He brushed a hand over Jem’s forehead.
The skin there, too, felt more sensitive than normal.
Jem closed his eyes. Tean’s hand drifted away, and from the kitchenette came the sound of water running.
The wind shrilled and then pulled back, like something huge and ancient sucking in its breath.
The fire crackled, but that was softer now, quieter by the moment.
At the edge of Jem’s awareness, right before he could no longer hear it, it sounded like jaws snapping.
A knock at the door made him bolt upright.
The fire.
The wind.
Lamplight. The shape of the room. He was sweating.
“It’s okay,” Tean said from the door. “It’s Vaughan. Go back to sleep.”
Then it came back to Jem: the room that wasn’t their room. The day that wouldn’t end. He wanted to close his eyes. Instead, he made himself sit up. “What time is it?”
“It’s only seven,” Tean said. “You’re tired. Go back to sleep.”
“Open it on the chain,” Jem said.
Tean glanced at him over his shoulder. The door didn’t have a chain, Jem realized a moment too late—fancy places like this probably never had them.
But it did have a swing bar, and that was better than nothing.
Tean followed his advice, opening the door with the bar still in place.
Then he said through the opening. “Jem’s trying to rest. Let’s talk in the hall. ”
“No,” Jem said. “Tell him to come in here.”
Tean was silent in that way he had—the decision-making way, the way he sometimes had when things got serious.
But finally he eased the door off the lock, opened it the rest of the way, and waved Vaughan into the room.
The head of security had changed his suit for jeans and a sweatshirt a lot like Tean’s.
Which, Jem was now realizing, probably meant they’d come from the lodge’s gift shop, or whatever a fancy place like this had.
Vaughan’s cheeks were red, his nose shiny from the cold, and he was finger-combing hair that was still wet with snow.
He looked like he needed to sleep, and soon.
“How’s he doing?” Vaughan asked quietly.
“He’s doing fine,” Jem said. “He’s made a full recovery.”
Tean grimaced, but when he spoke, it was to Jem. “Vaughan is the one who found us. He’s the reason we’re alive.”
Jem hadn’t thought about that. About Tean dragging him out of the tree well, about the weight of his unconscious body, about the fact that they were lost in a blizzard and might have frozen to death even if they were both in top condition—which by that point, they definitely weren’t.
“Sorry,” Jem said. “Kind of a messed-up day, you know?”
Vaughan waved the words away. “I can’t take any credit. It was luck. We had a couple of alarms go off on outbuildings.”
“This place must really care about its property if they’re sending you out in a blizzard to see if the locals are trying to steal their snowmobiles.”
“Jem,” Tean said.
“No, he’s right.” To Jem, Vaughan said, “Normally, it would be kids messing around out there. Some of them local. Some of them not. But with the storm this bad, I thought maybe someone was trying to find shelter.”
“Did you find anyone?” Tean asked.
Vaughan shook his head. “Someone had been in there. Stole a few things—tarps, plastic sheeting, propane tanks. Trying to stay warm, it looks like.” Exhaustion made the next words heavy. “I’ll take another pass later tonight and see if I can find where they’re holed up.”
He didn’t say before it’s too late.
“What about Stephen?” Jem asked.
“I wanted to talk to you about that. His stuff is still in his room, and we deactivated his key. Maybe that’ll force him to the surface. He’s not going anywhere in this storm, but it’s a big property, and there are lots of places he might hide.”
“And Nora?”
“She says she spent the day shopping.” He hesitated. “She didn’t buy anything, and the cameras still aren’t working.”
“So, nobody knows where Stephen is,” Jem said. “And nobody can confirm Nora’s story. That’s the update.”
“I also wanted to talk to you. I’d like to hear your version of things.”
Jem told him everything: from finding the door to the chalet with the latch taped back to falling into the tree well.
Vaughan nodded, but he said, “When I checked that lock, I didn’t find any tape.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? I’m lying?”
“Jem,” Tean said.
“It means what I said,” Vaughan said. “The lock wasn’t taped. What does that sound like to you?”
“It sounds like someone went back,” Tean said. “Removed the tape.”
Jem rubbed his mouth. It took him a moment before he trusted his voice to be even. “Who?” But he answered his own question a moment later. “Whoever killed Tafton.”
“Right now,” Vaughan said, “we don’t know that anyone killed Mr. Ahlstrom. There’s a suicide note. It’s handwritten.”
“Yeah,” Jem said, “because someone forced him to write it at gunpoint, and then they marched him out there to die!”
Tean grabbed Jem’s wrist and squeezed.
Jem wiped his face. He was still sweating.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Vaughan said. “But I’ve got a responsibility here, and there are two people who are dead, and that means I need to do my job the best way I know how. That’s keeping everybody else safe until the sheriff can get here and sort this out.”
“What are you saying?” Jem asked. He turned to Tean. “What’s going on?”
“I’m saying the safest thing for everybody is to circle up and hold position until the storm breaks.”
It took a few seconds longer than it should have—maybe because Jem was still waking up, maybe because of the day he’d had. “You want us to stop trying to find whoever’s doing this?”
“You almost died today, Mr. Berger. You would have died if Dr. Leon hadn’t pulled you out of that tree well. When I said it’s the safest thing for everybody, that includes you.”
“But he’s killing people. He killed Gerald. He killed Tafton. He’s not going to stop now. And as soon as there’s a way out of here, he’s going to take it and disappear.”
“Who?”
“Whoever’s doing this! Stephen! I don’t fucking know!”
Vaughan looked at Tean.
“I understand,” Tean said.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Jem asked.
“Lock this door,” Vaughan said to Tean. “Let me know if you need anything.”
He threw a last, considering glance at Jem, as though he might say more. And then he left.