Chapter 27
Aiden wouldn’t let them into Nora’s chalet.
“What do you want?” The wiry man glowered at them from under his mousey mop top.
“We wanted to talk—” Tean began.
Jem pushed past him, ignoring Aiden’s squawk as he pressed through the doorway.
“You can’t do that!” Aiden shouted after him.
“I’m sorry,” Tean said.
But he did squeeze through the opening Jem had left.
“But you have to eat something,” Mckell was saying gently. “You’re going to make yourself sick.”
“I can’t.” Nora’s voice sounded like something inside her head had been unplugged. “Tafton says I’m at my ideal weight.”
Then the group gathered in the chalet seemed to notice Tean and Jem.
Mckell and Nora sat on the couch. Mckell’s blond hair had lost some of its volume—maybe her blow dryer didn’t work on the generators—and Nora’s Utah curls had definitely started to straighten out.
Mckell’s hand was frozen mid-pat on Nora’s shoulder.
Nora stared at Jem and Tean over wadded-up tissues.
Dean, the one Mckell had said was her husband, stood behind the couch, his round face blotchy.
Sawyer—the one Tean was pretty sure was Latino—lounged in an armchair.
He gave them a strangely flat smile. There wasn’t any friendliness in it.
The only people who seemed pleased to see Tean and Jem—or at least not outright hostile—were Quinn and Beckett.
If the men felt any embarrassment at how Tean and Jem had found them the day before, the only sign of it was a slight pinkness to Quinn’s cheeks as he raised a hand in greeting.
Beckett smirked, looked at Quinn’s crotch, and then swung the smirk back to Jem and Tean.
“That’s trespassing,” Aiden said as he came up behind them. “This is unlawful entry. And you hit me—that’s assault and battery and—“
“Be quiet,” Sawyer said.
“But they can’t do that! There are rules!”
“Shut the fuck up!”
Aiden stopped talking. Tean angled himself to keep the wiry man in his peripheral vision, but all Aiden did was hug himself and begin to pace.
“Excuse me,” Mckell said. “This isn’t a good time.”
Jem crossed the room. He yanked shut the curtains over the big window. The light in the room dimmed.
Dean said, “Hey.”
Jem moved to the next window. The curtains rattled along their tracks, and the living room grew darker.
“Jem,” Tean said.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Sawyer asked.
“This is why it’s illegal for someone to come into your house,” Aiden said, but it sounded like he was mostly talking to himself. “This is why we have laws.”
“Why are they here?” Nora asked. She was starting to cry again. “Somebody make them go away. I don’t want them to be here.”
“You heard her—“ Mckell began.
Jem kept moving. On the far side of the room, a sliding door—similar to the one in Brigitte’s chalet—opened onto a patio. Or where a patio would have been, if it hadn’t been buried in snow.
“Hey, dumbass,” Sawyer said. He pushed himself up from the armchair. “Get the fuck out—“
“Why don’t we all take a breath,” Tean said, “and we can—”
Sawyer reached for Jem’s arm.
There wasn’t anything fancy. No complicated move. No secret martial arts.
Jem twisted free and drove the heel of his other hand into Sawyer’s solar plexus.
Air exploded from Sawyer’s lungs, and he stumbled into an end table. The table, the lamp on top of it, and Sawyer all crashed to the floor. In the already dim room, shadows jumped and danced as the lamp rolled. Sawyer tried to rise and then fell back, curled up on his side, wheezing.
“What did you—” Aiden began in a shrill voice.
Jem yanked the final curtain shut.
Aiden cut off.
The only light came from the lamps now. The one on the floor was still rolling, sending a yellow glow washing along the far wall, shadows chasing it.
“Now,” Jem said. “I’m going to ask some questions, and you’re going to answer them.”
Once again, Mckell was the first to respond. She got to her feet, one hand still rubbing Nora’s shoulder, and met Jem’s gaze.
“Where are the kids?” Jem asked.
“What kids?” Mckell asked.
“Maeve and Milo,” Dean mumbled. When Mckell looked at him, he said more loudly, “He means Maeve and Milo.”
“Where are they?” Jem asked.
“I don’t know,” Dean said. When nobody said anything, he repeated, “I don’t know. I just figured that’s who he meant—”
“See, here’s my problem,” Jem said. “You’re all a bunch of world-class liars.
You lie to everybody else. You lie to yourselves.
And most of the time, I wouldn’t give a shithouse fuck because it’s your life, and if that’s what you want, great, have a blast. But now you’re fucking up my life, and that’s a problem. ”
“What happened to Maeve and Milo?” Mckell asked. “Are they okay?”
“Where are they?”
“Are they missing? Did something happen to them?”
“I’m going to ask nicely one more time,” Jem said, “and then shit’s going to get real.”
“That’s a threat!” Aiden squeaked. “You can’t do that!”
“Where,” Jem said slowly, “are they?”
“We don’t know!” Nora screamed. She was on her feet so suddenly that Tean fought the urge to step back. “Nobody knows! Nobody cares! What about me? Tafton is dead! Doesn’t anybody care about that?”
“Okay,” Jem said. He cracked his knuckles, gaze fixed on Dean. “Let’s step into the back room. Have a chat.”
“But I don’t—” Dean said. “I only said—”
For an instant, contempt flashed across Mckell’s face.
And at the corner of Tean’s vision, Aiden smiled.
“Here we go,” Jem said and took a step.
“Jem,” Tean said.
Jem kept moving.
“That’s enough,” Tean said.
Jem didn’t look over at him. Didn’t slow.
Tean stepped into his path. Jem swerved. Tean moved with him. Red made spots in Jem’s cheeks. Finally, he cut his eyes to Tean.
“That’s enough,” Tean said again more quietly.
In the silence that followed, the only sound was Sawyer’s wheezing.
“If they know something—” Jem said.
Tean nodded.
It took one more long moment. Then Jem ran his hand across his mouth, turned his head away, and muttered, “Fuck.”
He stalked over to the chair where Sawyer had been sitting, threw himself into it, and glared into the middle distance.
Mckell cleared her throat. “What happened? What’s going on?”
So, Tean told them. He told them about finding Gerald’s cane in the chalet. He told them about Stephen. He told them about the person with the gun, who had forced Tafton into the tree well. And he told them about Maeve and Milo disappearing from their room.
“How do we know you didn’t kill Tafton?” Sawyer croaked. He was sitting up now, massaging his chest and glowering at Jem.
“Because someone almost killed Jem, too,” Tean said. “And if you don’t want to take my word for it, you can talk to Vaughan Larsen, the head of security.”
“He could be helping you,” Sawyer said, eyes sliding from side to side. When no one took him up on this idea, he mumbled, “You could all be in on it.”
Apparently, the rest of them realized this was too stupid to warrant further discussion.
“I bet it’s Gerald’s gun,” Quinn said.
“What do you mean?” Tean asked.
“Gerald had a concealed carry permit. He was always strapped.”
“Oh my God,” Beckett said. “Don’t say ‘strapped.’”
Quinn only laughed. “What? He was.” To Tean, he added, “He showed me one time.”
“Of course he did,” Beckett said.
“Okay,” Quinn said with a roll of his eyes.
“Because Quinn is so butch,” Beckett said.
“Thanks, babe,” Quinn said dryly. He flinched and froze as soon as he said it, and a blush flooded his face.
Either no one had noticed or no one cared, though, because after a beat of silence, Dean only said, “He showed me once too. We were talking about trying new hobbies.” He seemed to be trying not to look at Mckell when he added, “Like, masculine hobbies.”
“There’s no such thing as a masculine hobby,” Aiden said. “That plays into gendered stereotypes.”
“Yeah, well, sticking your dick in a woman is a gendered stereotype,” Jem said.
Tean raised his eyebrows.
“I don’t know,” Jem mumbled. “I’m in a weird headspace.”
“Gerald didn’t have a gun when the hotel staff found him,” Tean said. “Are you sure he would have been carrying one that night?”
“He was carrying that night,” Sawyer said. When they looked at him, he spent a few extra seconds massaging his chest, apparently to remind them that he was a victim. “You can see it. He always wears a suit, and the way the jacket falls—it’s right there.”
Tean glanced at Jem. The blond man was scratching his beard; his expression was somewhere between exhausted and morose. He didn’t have to say anything for Tean to know they were thinking the same thing: the killer had Gerald’s gun.
“That would explain,” Tean said slowly, “how the killer forced Tafton to write out that confession. And how he forced Tafton out into the storm.” He didn’t add that the gunshot he and Jem had heard that night had most likely been the final threat, to force Tafton into the tree well.
“So, it’d be nice,” Jem said, “if one of you could just fucking confess so we can get this over with.”
“But we didn’t do anything!” Aiden blurted.
Jem rolled a finger in the move-it-along gesture.
“We didn’t!” If anything, Aiden’s voice rose higher. “We all told you where we were. We have alibis. We didn’t do anything wrong!”
“Yeah, well, to recap, you’re all a bunch of fucking liars.” Jem pointed to Dean and Sawyer. “You told me the guys were all studying their scriptures together.”
“We were,” Dean mumbled.
“Not Tafton. Tafton was with Stephen. That’s called a lie, motherfuckers.”
“Maybe Tafton did kill President Fitzpatrick.” Aiden’s voice had a high-wire optimism. “Maybe he was telling the truth in that note. He couldn’t live with what he’d done, and he was going to use the gun, only he fell.”
“Yeah, well, Tafton didn’t push me into that tree well,” Jem said.
“Tafton didn’t kill Gerald,” Nora said. “He never would have hurt anyone! Tafton was the kindest, most wonderful person I’ve ever known in my whole life!”
“Aiden,” Mckell said, “I know you’re trying to help, but be quiet, please.”