“You armed?”
Jo gave him a tight look that reminded Elijah she was a federal agent.
“Because I am,” he said.
He lifted his pack and shrugged it back on as he walked up through the trees onto the knoll, in order to bypass the pile of rock and dirt that now blocked the trail. He thought he heard Jo mutter something about Camerons and rules, but when he glanced back, she was right behind him. “I’m not letting you out of my sight,” she said.
“Same here, sweet pea.”
She fell in beside him. “It wasn’t Nora or Devin who set off that landslide. You know it wasn’t. A.J. said Rigby was checking up at the falls, but I didn’t see him. There’s cell phone coverage back there. I tried him a few times. No answer. I don’t trust him, Elijah.”
“Whoever attacked me knows he has company up here.”
“He knows who it is, too,” Jo said. “The storm’s getting worse. If he’s smart, he’s beating a path off the mountain and out of Black Falls. But I never count on bad guys being smart. We need to find Nora and Devin before he does.”
Elijah didn’t respond. He knew he didn’t need to.
Jo moved with assurance, gripping the front straps of her pack as she ducked around the low branches of a hemlock. She’d been hiking for hours and her pack had to be heavy, but she looked tireless, determined. That was the Jo Harper he’d always known. How the hell had she ended up protecting the vice president’s kids?
How had he ever let her go?
But he had, and there was no going back.
They intersected the trail about a quarter-mile out beyond the knoll and took it uphill-no sign of footprints. Both the wind and snow picked up, reducing visibility. Elijah had snowshoes, but Jo didn’t. Luckily, conditions were still fine for boots.
They were close now to where his father’s body had been found by the teenager he’d befriended.
“Elijah.”
Jo touched his arm and slowed her pace, but he’d heard it, too-a moan, a shuffling sound up ahead. He took off his pack, unzipping the outer compartment to locate his weapon, a.45-caliber Smith & Wesson. Her Sig, he’d already observed, was in a belt holster on her waist, under her new jacket.
He heard another moan, this time mixed with a sob, but left his gun where it was in his pack when he saw Devin stagger out from behind a snow-covered balsam fir. He tried to speak. “Nora…” He was ashen and in obvious pain as he clamped one arm to his middle. “He’s after her.”
Elijah heard Jo’s quick intake of breath, but he was closer to Devin and caught him as he fell forward, shutting his eyes, grimacing. He sank against Elijah’s chest. “You’re all right now, Devin. I’ve got you. Who’s after Nora?”
“That big bastard…”
“Rigby?” Jo asked sharply. “Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. Nora…” Devin’s eyes flickered open, and Elijah could see the fear shoot through the teenager as he tried to pull away. “I have to go to her.”
Jo wasn’t having it. “Not a chance.” She shrugged off her pack and set it on a gnarled, snow-covered tree root. “You’re hurt, and you need to be straight with us, so that we can help.”
Elijah got Devin down onto the ground, his clothes already soaked. He moaned, near tears, shivering in pain as snow collected on his bare head.
“What happened?” Elijah asked.
“I spotted Rigby just past this grove of spruce trees. He didn’t see me at first. Nora and I had split up. He was heading straight for where I was supposed to meet her. I pretended to be her-to distract him-and he came after me.” Coughing, sobbing, Devin squeezed his eyes shut again, just for a moment, before he collected himself. “Once he figured out I wasn’t Nora, I tried to warn her and give her time to hide. I was running like hell myself. He whacked me in the side and I went flying, got the wind knocked out of me. I thought he’d come and finish me off. But he didn’t.”
“You’re not his priority,” Jo said with brutal clarity.
Devin stared straight at her. “Nora was right. She said not to trust anyone.”
“Where is she, Devin?” Elijah asked.
“I don’t know. I tried to distract Rigby and lead him away from her. I yelled for her to run.”
“He nailed you with your walking stick?”
“Yeah. I think so. I dropped it when I fell yesterday.”
Elijah studied Devin a moment. The kid was a mess. His pack was gone, and he was injured, wet and cold. Even if Nora was better outfitted and uninjured, she, too, was in danger of hypothermia. Rigby didn’t need to stick around. The treacherous conditions would do his work for him. Hence the mini landslide. Distract, delay, divert. Implicate Devin. Then let time, the cold, the wind and the snow take their toll. Make it look as if two teenagers with a flair for drama, at odds with each other, had come to a bad end on Cameron Mountain.
And make Devin look responsible-desperate for money, desperate to impress wealthy Nora Asher, refusing to take no for an answer.
But would Rigby get out of the storm, or would he make sure his work up here was finished?
Either way, Elijah knew they needed to get Devin warm and find Nora.
Fast.
He became aware of Jo peering at him, but she said nothing as she turned her attention back to Devin. “How long ago were you attacked?” she asked.
Devin’s teeth started to chatter, and he seemed to shrink into the arm he held to his middle, as if to control waves of pain. “I don’t know.” He moaned, shivered. “Half hour? Maybe more.”
Jo unzipped her pack and dug inside. “You helped Drew haul building materials up here last fall. Did you and Nora figure out what he did with them?”
He didn’t answer and went very still, his jaw visibly tensed as he tried to keep his teeth from chattering. Elijah sensed his fear-his terror that he might say or do something that would worsen Nora’s situation. It was what he and Jo needed to penetrate. “We’re out of time, Devin,” he said. “You need to tell us what you know. What if Rigby was up here in April and killed my father? What do you think he’ll do to Nora?”
Devin pounded his fists into Elijah’s chest, but he didn’t have the strength to do any damage. Then he buried his face in his bloodied, bruised hands and cried. “I shouldn’t have left her.”
“Left her where, Devin?” Elijah asked.
He took his hands from his face and pointed up the hill into the trees. “There’s a flat section up there. You go through spruce trees. On the other side-Nora found a cabin. We were both looking, figuring Drew must have built something up here.”
Jo produced a dry fleece pullover from her pack. “You hadn’t searched before?”
“No. I…” Tears streamed down his cheeks. “I couldn’t.”
“I understand,” Jo said. “Did Nora go into the cabin?”
“Yeah. I think so. We were going to look around for a little while, then meet up and hike back down to the lodge and find you. The storm, though…” He looked at Elijah, then Jo, his fear and regret palpable now. “I have to find her. I have to help her.”
Jo shook her head. “Elijah will go,” she said firmly. “He knows these woods better than either of us. You and I will do what we can.”
They would be taking a risk by splitting up, but Elijah knew-as Jo obviously did, too-that it was the only way they stood a chance of finding Nora before either Rigby or the conditions got to her.
Elijah rose, adjusted his pack. “You know what to do, Jo?” he asked, only half-serious, because, of course, she did. “Stay in the cover of the trees. Don’t expose-”
“Yeah.” There was just a hint of amusement in her eyes. “Go. I’ll get Devin to the cabin and meet you there.”
Elijah blew her a kiss and winked at her. “See you soon, sweet pea.”
Color rose in her cheeks, and Devin managed a weak smile at her. “Sweet pea?”
A gust of wind rattled through the trees, and Elijah pushed off in the direction Devin had indicated. He thought of the countless times he’d been up here as a kid with his father, searching for that damn cellar hole.