Chapter 11
Gina
Back inside the building, Gina made sure everyone, even George, had something hot to drink. They were reusing Nick’s supply of teabags and instant coffee bags, and each person’s cup was on the light side.
As she handed George’s cup to him, she was tempted to dump it on him, hoping the scalding water might give them the opportunity they needed to overtake him.
She suspected he might have read her thoughts from the way he reached out as she approached, effectively keeping her at arm’s length. She could still throw the hot water in his direction, but it wouldn’t work as well.
Instead, she met his gaze as he met hers. “Why, thank you, Miss Gina,” he said, his tone carrying a note of mocking. “Mighty kind of you.”
Her first instinct was to tell him to drop dead. It’d make her feel better for sure, but antagonizing him would do little to help the situation.
As she turned away from him, her eyes traveled to the hallway where her backpack, along with Brooke’s and Joe’s, sat along the wall. She’d pulled everything they needed to keep warm from her pack, but had left unimportant things inside, including the bear spray.
She scrunched her brow. Where was Kelsey’s pack? She had still been outside when the three of them had dropped theirs. Gina scanned the room with her eyes, finally locating it in the corner behind where they’d set up camp.
She went to the camp stove to fill her cup, the same paper one she’d picked up at a gas station before leaving Irma. It was barely holding together now.
When George first showed up, she’d handed him Nick’s mug, leaving Nick without one. After their trek outside, she knew he needed something hot as much as anyone. She held out her cup toward him.
“Let’s share,” she said quietly.
As he sipped, she tipped her head toward Kelsey’s backpack, widening her eyes. He frowned, so she lifted her chin at the pack again.
His gaze followed, and a small smile tugged at his mouth when he spotted the can of bear spray in the side pocket. Message delivered. Now they just needed a way to get to it.
“Now, where were we?” George set his mug on the floor next to him.
“Stop,” Kelsey said suddenly, her voice barely above a whisper. “Just stop.”
George shifted his gaze. “Stop what?”
“All of this. The waiting, the threats.” Kelsey stood up slowly, her hands shaking. “I’m here, okay? I’m the person you came to meet.”
Gina stared at Kelsey—sweet, nervous Kelsey, who worried about her career and never dated and always brought energy bars for everyone. She tried to process what she’d just heard.
“Kelsey?” Brooke’s voice was small and confused. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the fact that I’m the reason he’s here.” Kelsey wouldn’t look at any of them. “I’m the one with the, uh . . . the merchandise.”
George smiled and leaned back in his chair. “Well, finally.”
“It was you,” Nick said to Kelsey, his voice flat. “You’re the contact.”
“Yes.”
Gina had known Kelsey for a couple of years now. They’d run together dozens of times. Not only as part of their Wednesday night running group, but on occasional weekends too.
She was the one who was always the most willing to join an impromptu run. She’d been to Kelsey’s house, to her office and met her coworkers, listened to her complain about difficult clients and office politics. And all of it had been a lie.
Well, maybe not a lie, but close. She thought back to the original plan that had brought them to these mountains. Brooke had laid out her training program months ago, telling the whole running group about her long runs.
Kelsey hadn’t shown much interest at the time. Even a few weeks ago, when Brooke brought it up again, Kelsey didn’t seem eager to join. It wasn’t until the Wednesday night club run, just days ago, that she suddenly asked if there was still room for her.
That was also the night Joe signed on. Until then, only Gina and Brooke were definite.
Joe told Gina he was willing to go, which gave them a third, the minimum they all knew was smart in bear country, though Brooke often ignored that rule and ran solo.
Others who had considered joining on the run had backed out.
Did Kelsey’s sudden interest in joining the run have to do with this guy and whatever it was she had that he wanted? That seemed the logical explanation.
“What merchandise?” Joe asked.
Kelsey reached into her running pack and pulled out a flash drive. “Client files. Financial records. Everything someone would need to know about the deals my firm handles.”
“You stole from your law firm,” Gina said, not really a question.
“I didn’t have a choice.” Kelsey’s voice cracked. “They have photos. Video. Things that would destroy my career, my reputation, everything.”
“What kind of photos?” Brooke asked.
“The kind that happen when you’re young and stupid and trust the wrong person with your phone.” Kelsey gave a humorless laugh. “Pictures I took in law school. Private pictures. The kind that would get me disbarred if they became public.”
“Disbarred?” Joe shook his head. “I can’t imagine it’s that bad. I’ve known a lot of lawyers, and— ”
“Stop.” Kelsey raised her hand. “I know what they have. You don’t. I’ve worked too hard to get where I am to be destroyed by a stupid mistake made years ago.”
George stood up and held out his hand, a lazy smile on his face. “Flash drive.”
Kelsey hesitated for a moment, then pulled her hand back.
“Don’t mess with me, young lady.”
“I don’t intend to, but I’ll need some assurances. This is the mother lode. The final payment.”
“That was the agreement,” George said. “My employers told me as much.”
“Employers?” Nick asked.
“People who make money when other people’s business deals go badly,” George explained casually. “Inside information is valuable. Especially when it comes to real estate development and mineral rights.”
Gina felt sick. “You’re selling client information to corporate competitors?”
“I’m facilitating information exchange,” George corrected. “Kelsey here is the one selling it.”
“Because you’re blackmailing her,” Gina said.
“No, no.” George shook his head. “I’m not blackmailing her. If you remember, I wasn’t even sure who I was supposed to meet. In fact, if things had gone as they were supposed to, we wouldn’t have met at all, would we, my dear?”
Kelsey shook her head. “I was supposed to leave the information. I don’t .
. . ” She dropped her shoulders with a loud sigh.
“I don’t even know who is blackmailing me or how they got what they got, although I have my suspicions.
But I’m done. This is it. The plan was for me to leave the flash drive at one of the other buildings. I did that first thing this morning.
“Then, when the storm came in and we had to come back, I checked for the drive, thinking it would’ve already been picked up.
But it was still there. I was worried the weather might affect it and, honestly, figured the person who was supposed to retrieve it decided not to come up because of the weather.
” She looked at George. “You were supposed to get it while I was on the trail.”
“And you were supposed to leave it in the agreed-upon location.”
“Wait.” Joe held up a hand. “Dropping a flash drive in an abandoned building over an hour from civilization sounds very . . . 1990’s spy novel.”
Brooke shook her head. “Why not just upload the information to the cloud?”
“Can’t,” Kelsey said. “The files are too sensitive to do that. Even getting it onto a flash drive took some doing. We have all sorts of safeguards in place to prevent digital document theft.”
“So much for those,” Nick murmured.
Gina looked at Kelsey. Her eyes were glistening, and her cheeks were wet from fallen tears. A part of her wanted to feel sorry for her friend, to understand how desperation could drive someone to betray everything they believed in. But a larger part of her was furious.
“How long?” she asked. “How long have you been doing this?”
“Six months, off and on,” Kelsey whispered. “Since they first contacted me.”
“Six months.” Gina tried to process this. “You’ve been stealing from your clients for six months? Lying to all of us for six months?”
“I didn’t want to. I never wanted any of this.”
“But you did it anyway.”
Kelsey nodded miserably. “What choice did I have?”
“You could have told someone. You could have gone to the police. You could have trusted your friends to help you figure out a solution.” Gina’s voice was getting louder. “Instead, you chose to become a criminal.”
“It’s not that simple— ”
“It is that simple,” Nick interrupted. “You had choices, and you chose to betray people who trusted you.”
George watched the exchange with obvious amusement. “Oh, this is rich. The moral outrage. The wounded feelings. You people have no idea how the real world works.”
“The real world doesn’t require putting your friends in danger,” Brooke said.
“Doesn’t it?” George asked. “How about you, Brooke? You’d do anything to avoid failing again, wouldn’t you?
You put everyone’s life in danger by insisting on coming up here when the weather could still be brutal.
What if someone offered you a guaranteed way to finish your race?
What if they could eliminate your competition, give you inside information about course changes, provide you with performance-enhancing substances that couldn’t be detected? ”
“I would never— ”
“Never? What if it meant dodging the sting of one more flop and proving to everyone that you’re not a failure?”
Brooke went pale, and Gina could see his words hitting their mark. The desperation that had driven Brooke’s training obsession, the fear of failing again—George was weaponizing her insecurities.
“That’s different,” Brooke said weakly.