The Call of the Mild p-3 Read online

  “Everything you’re saying is an argument for why Jade Greenway isn’t the killer,” Gus said.

  “Exactly,” Shawn said. “You don’t get a lot less obvious than that. Which all adds up to make her the obvious suspect.”

  “If you’re living in a nuthouse,” Gus said. “Or a Joe Eszterhas movie.”

  “I’m going with the nuthouse,” Shawn said. “Unless Jade and Gwendolyn throw off their tops and start dancing around the trees.”

  Gus could feel his legs beginning to tremble beneath him. Since his only choice was to fall over and die right here or start walking again, he set out along the trail. He could hear Shawn crunching through the pine needles behind him.

  “Okay, fine, don’t believe me,” Shawn said. “But when she sneaks up on you in the night, and you have only one second to cry out before your life is over, I hope you’ll have the common decency to use that time to say I was right.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Gus said. “In the meantime, whether it’s Jade or Gwendolyn or Savage or Balowsky or even Joe Eszterhas, how do we keep the rest of us alive for the next few days?”

  “I’ve been working on a plan,” Shawn said. “To start with, it’s absolutely crucial that the six of us stay together at all times. As long as we’re all in each other’s sight, there’s no way the killer can start to pick us off one by one.”

  “That is a good plan,” Gus said. “I do see one little hole in it, though.”

  “It’s true that the killer could tell everyone their shoes are untied, and then when we all bend down to look, in that instant he strikes,” Shawn said. “I recommend we keep our laces tightly tied at all times.”

  “The killer could still drop to the back of the line, pull out a gun, and take us all out,” Gus said. “With these packs on, it’s almost impossible to see anything that’s behind you.”

  “I’ve got a two-pronged solution to that,” Shawn said. “The first prong is you, although I’ve always considered you more of a tine. You’ll stay at the end of the line at all times.”

  “How do I keep someone from dropping behind me?” Gus said.

  “Whatever you’ve been doing so far has worked just fine,” Shawn said. “You’ve been dead last since we started out.”

  Gus stopped short, braced himself against a tree, then waited for the satisfying thwock of Shawn’s nose hitting his pack. Then he moved on again. “Until now,” he said. “You’re behind me as we speak because you chose to wait for me. Couldn’t the killer do exactly the same thing?”

  Shawn rubbed his bruised nose, then started off after Gus. “That’s what the second prong is for,” he said. “And in this case the prong is a rope, which wouldn’t be very useful if we needed a pitchfork, but is pretty good as a way to keep us from getting killed.”

  “You’re going to tie us all together?” Gus said.

  “Mountain climbers do it,” Shawn says. “That way if one person falls off a cliff, he doesn’t have to worry about the others making fun of him after he’s dead, because he’ll drag them all down with them.”

  “I don’t think that’s the actual purpose,” Gus said. “But it’s not a bad idea. If we can get the others to go along with it.”

  “Oh, we will,” Shawn said. “And even if we don’t, the exercise will serve a useful purpose. It might even reveal the killer.”

  “Because the killer won’t want to be roped together with us,” Gus said. “So the one who fights hardest against the idea is our murderer.”

  “Except that he knows that we’ll be thinking that,” Shawn said. “So he might try to throw off suspicion by being the first and most energetic supporter of the plan.”

  “Or maybe he’ll know that we’re thinking that way, too,” Gus said. “And he’ll stay neutral during the entire debate and let the others fight it out.”

  “Exactly,” Shawn said. “So all we need to do is look for the one who is for, against, or neutral about the plan, and that’s our killer.”

  This part of the plan didn’t seem promising to Gus, but he did like the idea of their all being roped together. It would keep the killer from being able to pick them off one by one. And even better, it would rule out any possibility that he himself would get separated from the pack and become hopelessly lost in the wilderness. In all the times he’d had that nightmare, not once had he been bound to a group of bickering lawyers in it.

  “Sounds good,” Gus said. “It would be even better if there were any lawyers around here to tie ourselves to.”

  “Don’t worry,” Shawn said. “We’ll catch up to them pretty soon. I remember from the map that there’s a fork in the trail a couple miles ahead. And since I’m the only one who’s got the map, the others are going to have to wait for us to know which route to take.”

  Gus nodded, even though there was no way Shawn could see his head bobbing with the pack between them. For one moment, Gus felt the terror oozing out of him..

  And then, just as suddenly, it came rushing back.

  Somewhere up ahead a woman was screaming.

  “Did you hear that?” Gus said.

  “It’s Jade,” Shawn said. “And I don’t think she just discovered another campsite.”

  Gus’ feet started to run before his mind was even aware it had sent out the signal. Pain ricocheted up his legs with every step, but he ignored it. He’d heard Jade scream twice before-once had been a cry of delight at the discovery of Bron Helstrom’s outdoor restaurant; the other had been a shriek of terror when she was kidnapped by Helstrom’s killer commandos.

  But this was worse than either of the others. There was something particularly piercing about this scream. Gus didn’t know what could have frightened Jade more than being rousted from her tent by four armed, masked men, and deep down he never wanted to find out. But if she was in danger, they were all in danger, and it was his duty to save her and the rest.

  Gus rounded a bend, and now he heard something else-the sound of water crashing far below him. Right in front of him, the ground dropped away in a steep cliff. Far below, a churning river plummeted over a waterfall and down a series of white-water rapids.

  It wasn’t the sight of the drop that filled Gus with horror, or the pale faces of Gwendolyn, Savage, and Balowsky as they stared down at the river.

  It was the pack. The bright green pack hanging off a tree branch upside down, spilling its contents down the cliff.

  It was Jade’s pack. And Jade was nowhere to be seen.

  Gus could feel Shawn pressing up beside him as he moved to join the lawyers.

  “I heard her scream,” Balowsky. “I ran back as fast as I could.”

  “We all did,” Savage said. “We were too late.”

  “One of us wasn’t,” Gwendolyn said.

  Shawn and Gus peered over the cliff’s edge to the white water pounding far below. The contents of Jade’s pack were churning under the pounding of the waterfall. Gus could see packets of freeze-dried food bob to the surface, then disappear again. And something else. Gus wanted to believe that the flash of bright green was nothing but a large leaf from some kind of tree they simply hadn’t noticed along the way. But he knew there were no green leaves here; all the trees up the river produced only needles. That flash of green could be only one thing: Jade’s dress.

  Shawn stared down at the dress until it disappeared under the water. “I guess she wasn’t so obvious after all,” he said.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  There was a fire. Gwendolyn had built a stone ring, then laid dry wood and kindling in it, demonstrating an understanding of woodsmanship that would have put a troop of Boy Scouts to shame, although she used the lighter from her pack instead of rubbing sticks together to produce the first flame.

  The fire was meant to provide comfort, as well as to allow them to heat water to rehydrate their dinners. And its warmth was certainly welcome. Although the day had been uncomfortably hot, once the sun went down the temperature started to plummet, and now it felt like it was close to
freezing.

  But comfort was the last thing the fire was bringing Gus. Its jumping, flickering light gave their campsite the look of the main set in a slasher movie, and it turned the people sitting around it into malevolent specters. Even Shawn, who sat directly across the campfire from Gus, looked like an evil troll. Savage and Balowsky were on Gus’ left side and Gwendolyn on his right; apparently neither of the other lawyers felt comfortable being too close to her.

  They had been sitting like this for what felt like hours, sitting and staring at one another. Waiting for someone else to make a move. To reveal himself as a threat.

  Because there was no doubt now that they were all on the killer’s hit list. Balowsky had tried to convince the others-or maybe himself-that Jade’s fatal plunge could have been an accident. After all, he’d pointed out, the trail jagged away from the cliff’s edge at the last possible moment. If Jade had been too tired to pay attention to where she was walking, if she’d even been hiking with her eyes half closed, as he’d found himself doing, she could have marched right off the mountain.

  Gus had thought it would have been nice to be able to believe that. But when Shawn looked around the place Jade had fallen, he noticed a small smear of blood on a nearby tree. She’d been hurt before she went over the cliff, and if she had been sleep-hiking, the pain would have woken her up. And there was no way she could have stumbled from the bloodied tree and off the trail.

  Shawn didn’t communicate his findings by pointing out the blood. Instead he received a telepathic communication from Jade that came in the form of verse one from the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ song “Green Heaven.” But none of the other lawyers felt like arguing the point. Two of them accepted that their colleague had been murdered, and the third knew from firsthand experience.

  They had spent the rest of the day hiking together in silence. At least they were in silence once Savage had run out of ways to say, “Why didn’t I stay with her? Why did I let her go off on her own?” and Gwendolyn had run out of ways to tell him to shut up.

  By the time the sun was disappearing behind the mountain, they’d reached a small meadow split by the river. It had enough flat ground to lay out their sleeping bags, and they could refill their water bottles in the morning. Gwendolyn and Balowsky set out to gather firewood, while Shawn, Gus, and Savage set up the camp and collected the stones for the fire ring.

  That was the new rule: No one was allowed to wander off alone. The killer would not be allowed the chance to strike again.

  They’d been sitting in front of the fire for what seemed like hours when Gwendolyn started to fidget. She crossed her legs, then uncrossed them and crossed them again. Finally she got up and started to move outside the ring of firelight.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Balowsky said.

  “Where do you think?” she snapped.

  “For all I know you’re going to step behind a tree, whittle sticks into spears, and start picking us off one by one,” Savage said.

  “You’ve got the first part right,” Gwendolyn said. “I am going to step behind a tree. But what I do after that is a lot more urgent and a lot more useful than killing any number of you.”

  She started towards the forest again. Until a rock thumped into the ground at her feet.

  “The next one doesn’t miss,” Savage said. “Do not take another step.”

  “Do you want me to pull down my pants right here?” she said. “Because I can’t guarantee my stream isn’t going to run right into the sleeping bags.”

  “You can go,” Shawn said. “Just take someone with you.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Gwendolyn said with mock brightness. “We gals like to go to the bathroom together, anyway. I’ll just take one of the other girls with me. Which one should I take?”

  Savage stared sadly into the fire, either thinking fond thoughts of the girlfriend to whom he never got to say good-bye or wishing he’d murdered the other female lawyer first. After a moment, Balowsky got to his feet. “I’ll go,” he said.

  “Like hell you will,” Gwendolyn said.

  “He promises not to peek,” Shawn said.

  “You’ve got that right,” Balowsky said.

  “I’d find that easier to believe if I didn’t have to wash off the slime tracks from his eyeballs every time I wore a low-cut blouse to the office,” Gwendolyn said.

  Shawn took a burning stick from the fire and handed it to Balowsky to use as a torch. “It’s this easy,” he said. “Either you take Reggie with you, or you sit there and pee in your pants. I know which I prefer, but we’ll leave the decision up to you.”

  She glared at them all, then turned back to the woods. “Come on, then,” she said to Balowsky as she disappeared into the darkness.

  Gwendolyn and Balowsky were gone for hours. Or maybe it was seconds. In the darkness Gus couldn’t keep track of time. He was about to propose that the rest of them go out and search for the missing lawyers when the nearest trees were lit by the orange glow from a torch.

  Gwendolyn tossed the flaming brand into the fire.

  “Where’s Reggie?” Shawn said. His hands closed around a rock as he waited for the answer.

  “Maybe he tried to kill me and I had to knock him out in self-defense,” Gwendolyn said. “Or maybe I made him turn his head and then slit his throat with a sharpened twig.”

  Around the campfire, everyone stared at her, waiting. Until they heard the sound of legs crashing through underbrush and Balowsky stumbled out of the woods behind her.

  “Or maybe his legs are even slower than his mind,” Gwendolyn said, and took her place by the fire.

  “I figured as long as I was out there I might as well take care of my own business,” Balowsky said. “So I turned my back on her for one second. And when I turned back, I saw the torch disappearing into the woods.”

  “Your prostate problems are your own,” Gwendolyn said. “I was cold.”

  “Enough!” Gus shouted.

  They all turned to look at him. Shawn looked particularly concerned.

  “We can’t keep bickering like this,” Gus said. “We’re just using up all our energy in meaningless backbiting. Meanwhile the killer is plotting how to take us out.”

  “That’s not entirely true,” Shawn said. “I mean, unless you or I turn out to be behind it all, then the real killer is using up his energy in meaningless backbiting, too. So it’s not all bad.”

  “It’s bad enough,” Gus said.

  “It could be worse,” Shawn said.

  Now the lawyers all turned to stare at him.

  “How?” Gwendolyn asked in a tone that was less a question and more a dagger aimed directly at him.

  “We’re all sitting around this fire not knowing which one among us is the person who has been systematically picking us off,” Shawn said. “Now imagine that while we’re sitting here, Reggie’s head falls off his body, grows spider legs, and runs away into the darkness.”

  The silence following Shawn’s remark was the quietest Gus had ever heard. Even the fire stopped popping and sparking for a moment.

  “Well,” Shawn said cheerily as he stood and stretched, “this is fun, but I’m going to bed. Who wants first watch?”

  “I’ll take it,” Gus said. He didn’t think he was going to sleep anyway, not with the image of the monster from The Thing in his mind. And if he did manage to doze off, there was a bigger threat. The dream.

  “I’ll stay up, too,” Savage said. “Two people on watch at all times, right?”

  “Right,” Shawn said. “You and Gus go first; then in six hours wake Reggie and Gwendolyn.”

  “What about you?” Balowsky demanded.

  “Can I help it if we have an odd number of potential victims here?” Shawn said. “If the one of you who is trying to kill us had done a better job today, we could divvy up the watches a little more fairly.”

  Shawn took the two steps from his seat to his sleeping bag, lay down, and started snoring within seconds. Savage and Gwendolyn
followed him to their own beds.

  The next few hours passed surprisingly quickly for Gus. If Savage was the killer, he was doing an excellent job of pretending to be terrified. And while Gus envied Shawn just a little bit for his ability to sleep so easily, he was also happy that he hadn’t felt tired since they discovered what had happened to Jade. He knew that the next day’s march was going to be long and hard, and much more so if he didn’t get any sleep tonight. But he liked being awake. He liked being able to see what was going on around the fire-or what wasn’t going on.

  When Balowsky’s watch alarm went off and he woke up Gwendolyn and Savage so they could take their turn, Gus relinquished his job without much enthusiasm. He felt so much safer here by the fire. But he went to his sleeping bag and closed his eyes, and when he opened them again the sun was breaking over the mountains.

  Except as the sun rose, it didn’t seem to give off any light. It shone hot and yellow in the sky, but the campsite stayed dark. Gus sat up in his sleeping bag to ask the others if they saw what he was seeing.

  The others were gone.

  Chapter Fifty

  It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet and Heidi Sansome was already having a terrible day. She’d slept through her alarm and had been so freaked about being late she was nailed for a speeding ticket on the way to work. That got her to the reception desk ten minutes late. She’d be lucky if she wasn’t fired before lunch.

  And to make everything worse, there was this ridiculous lifeguard in her waiting room. At least he was dressed like a lifeguard. He kept pointing at an insignia on his shirt and insisting he had something to do with feet, then demanding to speak to Mr. Rushton immediately. She’d explained a dozen times that Mr. Rushton saw no one without an appointment, which she would be happy to schedule for him. He just pointed at his chest and insisted he needed to see the boss now.