Chapter 40
The camper doorwas halfway open, banging in the wind, when Nick reached it. He swore a thousand vicious curses at the sight of the cast-aside ropes that must have been used to tie up Hailey and Elias. He saw no sign of Vasily or Solomon or anyone else, but he was sure they’d been here.
He checked his phone; no service, of course.
What next? Search the forest by himself? Call in reinforcements from the town? Help Charlie at the lodge?
He decided to join up with Charlie—he might be able to talk sense into the kidnappers, and Charlie might be able to pin down their new location.
At the lodge, he jumped off his Jeep and ran toward the crowd gathered at the edge of the property. He caught sight of the cook, Big Eddie, who came running to meet him, dodging guests as if he was back on a football field.
“Charlie’s with April in the gazebo. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s serious, man. It’s good to have some police around.”
He didn’t bother to correct Big Eddie, just squeezed his arm in thanks and hurtled toward the gazebo.
When he burst through the door, he found April and Charlie in a tense standoff. Charlie whirled around. Her face fell when she saw he didn’t have the kids with him.
“Nothing?” she whispered.
“The camper was empty. I think they were taken somewhere else.” He came to her side, taking hold of her hand. “Are you okay?”
“They’re going to torch the lodge. April refuses to stop them. They sent this photo.” She showed him her phone. He glanced at it, then gave it another look. A closer look.
And just like that, everything fell into place.
The blackmail.
The murder.
The stakes.
He drilled April with a hard stare. She gave it right back; she was tough, he’d give her that. Tough enough to do what she’d done one long-ago Alaska winter.
“He wasn’t supposed to come back, was he?” he said, as if they were just having a conversation. “That was never part of the deal.”
“What are you talking about,” whispered Charlie.
But a telltale muscle in April’s cheek twitched. He was right.
“Did you mean to kill him or was it an accident?” His gears were really turning now. “Vasily wanted to tell his people back in the Soviet Union about the Fire Peak mineral deposits. You and Bulldog didn’t want that. What did you do? Pretend to take him hunting and bonk him on the head?”
He caught Charlie’s sharp intake of breath. She snatched her phone back and looked at the photo again. “This is Vasily?”
“It was. But then Bulldog became Vasily, right, April? He was losing his mind that winter. He wanted to become someone else. Become Vasily. He didn’t like being Chadwick Tudor and everything that represented.”
April seemed to shrivel and shrink under his words. “I thought being Bulldog instead of Chadwick would be enough for him, but it wasn’t.”
“You loved him.”
She ran her tongue over her lips. “Yes. And hated him. I suppose today you’d call it a toxic relationship. It still is.” Nick wondered if it was a relief to finally tell the story. “Chadwick was such a true believer. It was always all or nothing for him. That winter, he came so close to ending his own life. He kept saying he couldn’t live being himself. So after…after Vasily…”
“After Vasily died,” he prompted.
“Yes, after Vasily…no. After we killed him.” She hung her head. When she spoke again, it was in a detached, almost dissociated tone of voice. “He was going back to Russia. We begged him not to say anything about what we’d found. He refused. It turned into a fight, a snowy brawl, and Bulldog knocked him into a boulder. He wasn’t dead, just unconscious. We could have saved him. But we had to protect Fire Peak. So we left him there to freeze.”
Nick glanced at Charlie to see how she was taking these revelations. She squeezed his hand, letting him know she was fine.
“So you helped Bulldog become Vasily after that?”
“Yes. We made a deal. We agreed that I’d assume ownership of Fire Peak, and just leave his name out of it. I told everyone the dead body in the forest was Bulldog’s. Chadwick’s. I notified his parents. Chad took Vasily’s identification and all his things, and disappeared. I never knew where he went. I thought maybe he went to Russia and it turns out I was right. He went to Chechnya and became involved with a separatist movement. That’s his new cause,” she added bitterly, gesturing at the phone in Charlie’s hand. “Fire Peak means nothing to him anymore.”
“Why did he break the deal?” Charlie asked.
“They need funds, him and his group. He remembered that Fire Peak has these unusual minerals, and realized they’re actually worth something now. He wanted me to sell to a group of investors so they could develop a mine, and split the profits with him because we bought the property together. I told him to go fuck himself. Vasily has no rights here. Bulldog might, because we bought the property together. But he couldn’t come forward as Chadwick Tudor since Chadwick’s supposed to be dead.”
Nick remembered the agreement they’d found. “That’s why he needed that mineral rights agreement instead. Vasily’s name is on that one.”
“Yes, but they couldn’t find it. I’d destroyed my copy of it long ago. I didn’t know another copy existed.”
“So they couldn’t find that agreement, since it was moldering away behind the safe. They couldn’t blackmail you, since Bulldog couldn’t risk exposure either. That’s why they tried to scare you,” said Charlie.
Charlie shifted position, her arm brushing against Nick’s. She was getting antsy, he could tell. So was he. But their best bet to stop this disaster was this tiny elderly woman at the heart of all this. They had to let her talk.
Which she did, in that same detached way. “They thought I cared about the lodge. But I care more about the mountain. All I want is to protect it.”
“So why not just sign it over to the federal government, make it part of the national park?”
April shook her head. “You can’t trust them when it comes to resource exploitation. They might put the mining rights up for bid.”
“Okay, then the Nature Conservancy or something. A wilderness preservation group. I know a lot of them.”
“I tried.” April blew out a deep breath. “Believe me. I even reached out to someone at the Nature Conservancy. Bulldog overheard me on another one of his damn listening devices. He threatened to set fire to the whole mountain if I went forward with that. All of these trees, all of the wildlife, burned. It would take a century to recover. I couldn’t bear to see that kind of devastation.”
“I overheard you on the phone!” Charlie exclaimed. “You were talking about an entire something being devastated. That madman threatened to burn all of Fire Peak?”
“I believed him. So I came up with a different plan.”
Charlie’s phone buzzed. “Tell April she has five minutes before the first spark is lit,” she read out loud, then looked up at April and said urgently, “This is our last chance to stop it. You have to tell them something. Tell them…tell them they can increase the amount they’re mining.”
“It won’t be enough. They want to go big.”
“Then tell them… you’ll set up an advisory committee. Find a way to mine it without harming the mountain. Something. Maybe it should be mined, did you ever think about that? It’s safer than lithium.”
“No. Out of the question.”
April drew herself up straight and took one long look out the window, where the custom-crafted timbers of Fire Peak Lodge reflected the golden rays of the afternoon sun. It was a beautiful sight, but she turned away from it. “They can burn it down. They can expose me, ruin me, bankrupt me. I won’t give in to their threats. I can’t let them wreck the sacred mountain. I’ll protect it even if the lodge is gone.”
Charlie and Nick shared a glance. This must be that plan April had mentioned. “How are you going to do that?” he asked warily.
“Did you know that perilium doesn’t burn, it smolders? Those underground fires are nearly impossible to stop. They’ve tried it with coal seams, but coals fires can extend for miles underground. They can burn for decades. Perilium reacts to fire differently. Once fire has touched it, it’s worthless.”
“You’re going to set fire to the perilium?” Charlie cried. “How is that not going to wreck the mountain?”
“It won’t. The perilium will still be there, but it will be unusable. No one will ever try to mine it again.”
“What about the fumes? Solomon said they can be toxic. We saw some dead birds, probably from where they were mining.”
“Mining perilium creates toxic fumes. And sure, once it’s been ignited, there may be some minor off-gassing, but it’s underground. If any fumes reach the surface, they’ll be minimal. We’ll have to cordon off any risky areas, but that’s my work. My mission. Fire Peak will be saved.”
A text came into Nick’s phone.
“It’s Hailey!” he exclaimed as he stared at it. “She took Vasily’s—Bulldog’s—sat phone from him, and barely got a chance to text. She says they’re with Solomon and he’s taking them to some kind of cave. But there’s no signal now.” He looked up at Charlie. “Can you track it anyway?”
“Yes, let me get my laptop.” She slid it from her messenger bag, flipped it open, and tapped the keys at a frantic pace.
April’s urgent voice made them both look up. “You said they’re with Solomon?”
“Yes, why?” Nick strode to her and gripped her by the shoulders. “What does Solomon have to do with this?”
”We made a deal. He always had a soft spot for me.” She grabbed onto one of Nick’s wrists, and he felt her panic. “He’s going to ignite the perilium. Those kids shouldn’t be around the fumes. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. I never wanted that.”
“You have to stop it then. Tell Solomon to let the kids go and put an end to this.”
“There’s no service down there. I can’t get word to him.”
“Goddamn the service here!” He just about exploded from frustration.
The timer on Charlie’s phone went off. “The five minutes is up. What should I tell them, April?”
“It’s too late now,” April said in a fearful tone. “Look.”
She pointed out the gazebo’s window. Nick followed her gaze to the back wall of the kitchen, where a low line of flames flickered along the grass, clearly following a line of accelerant.
Charlie’s laptop pinged. “Nick, I located them,” she cried. “They’re on the edge of Chilkoot land, by the creek.”
“Let’s go.” Nick pulled away from April’s grip and headed for the door, with Charlie scrambling after him, laptop in hand.
“What about the fire?” she asked, breathless.
April wrenched her gaze away from her lodge and flung her arm toward the door. “You two grab a four-wheeler and get the kids. I’ll deal with the fire. Go!”