Chapter 26 #2
“You think I’m an idiot?” Zach didn’t move, hardly breathed as his father turned on him.
“She obviously wasn’t the one texting me.
She wouldn’t have had an earring ripped out of her head up here, claimed she’d never come up at all, then ended up on a goddamn mountaintop.
No. She was probably already dead when someone sent those texts.
Just who, and how the hell’d he manage it?
Either killed her in the hut, or accidentally dropped the earring here before we arrived after doing it somewhere else.
Either way, he had to get downhill low enough to have reception, then somehow dump her all the way up on Mariah, with her phone back in her pocket.
That’s what doesn’t make sense. All that uphill and downhill and none of us saw anything? It’s like someone else is up here.”
Zach released a panicked whimper. Bram winced, irritated at his train of thought being interrupted. “Jesus kid, what?”
“Last night? I did see—I saw something? On the trail up to the Bowl?”
“What do you mean?”
“I went to use the outhouse, and I heard something moving outside. I thought it was”—a monster, a beast, a creature born from nightmare—“an animal, or the wind.”
“What time?”
“I don’t know. But the fire was still going pretty good when I came down, so probably not too long after bed. Maybe an hour or two? When I came back into the hut, I looked outside and saw—like something was going up toward the ridge? Kind of outlined in the moonlight. But then—”
Bram clapped his hands on Zach’s shoulder as if to physically press information from him. “Who’d you actually see upstairs before you went to the outhouse?”
“You, Russ, and Dave were all in our room. And Steve was in the hall bunk.”
“You didn’t see into the other room?”
“I think the door was closed?”
“And outside, where did you see this person exactly?”
“I—I couldn’t tell that it was a person, so I didn’t wake you up, I—”
“I don’t care,” Bram snapped. “Where was he?”
“On the trail going up to the Bowl. But then the storm started up again and I couldn’t see where they went.”
Bram released his son, and massaged his jaw in thought.
“You didn’t see anyone come back in?”
“I sat down to warm up. I must have fallen asleep on the couch. That was all I saw.”
Expressions flitted and faded across Bram’s face too fast for Zach to read. “No one could’ve survived out there without some kind of shelter. It had to be one of these guys. Had to be.”
“Shane and Jon were here before us,” Zach offered. “Ginny’s car wasn’t at the trailhead. Maybe they drove up with her, and something…happened. Because while you were gone, Shane came back to the hut without Jon, maybe Jon—”
“Wait, Shane came back here alone, while I was trying to reach Ginny?”
“Yeah. He said Jon had ditched him skiing the Bowl.”
“When did Jon come in?”
“I guess, thirty minutes before you? Thirty minutes after Shane?”
Bram resumed his pacing. “Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes. Would he have been able to get downhill far enough to get reception and get back here before me? Without me seeing him?”
Zach knew better than to offer a guess, and stayed quiet.
“It could be. It could be. I dunno that Shane would ever have the balls to get his own hands dirty. If you push a man far enough…. But that stoned hippie? It’s tough to picture.
Though people will sacrifice anything for money.
And Pike.” Bram shook his head, expression contorted with disgust. “He had it bad for that girl. Even after she ended it, he kept coming by the office. Ginny started sneaking out the back when she saw him pop up on the security camera. Number of times I pretended not to see him idling in that midlife crisis of a Porsche outside…”
“Pike got here way after us, though?” Zach said.
“Right,” Bram acknowledged without looking at Zach.
“It probably wasn’t Pike. But Shane didn’t have much of a reason to kill her, you know?
He didn’t seem to care that Ginny was blabbing about their affair.
What’d he say to me?” Bram looked toward the ceiling, searching his memory.
“It was something like, ‘No one ever believes these women, not when you have my kind of money.’ So, yeah, I thought I had something on him, but he was right. Women lie, especially to extort a man as rich as Shane, and everyone knows it. Even if Ginny had proof, who would care? In business it’s an asset to never be satisfied, to always go for the next, better thing.
He’s supposed to turn that off? People understand that.
But this?” Bram cracked his knuckles with grim, energized satisfaction.
“A dead girl? Hell, would people think he needed a reason? Everyone knows a woman can drive anyone to the brink. I have to see what I can shake out of Pike. Make him pay through the nose if he lets something slip. And if there’s any chance Shane was involved, I bet Arlo’d be willing to make a deal to shut me up.
” Bram’s eyes met Zach’s. The look of optimistic ruthlessness on his father’s face daggered deep into Zach’s gut, making him shrink back, making his mouth go sour.
“It could work,” Bram said. “This could be the answer. Because people love a dead girl.”