Gus’ sense of well-being began to drain away as he realized that for all the noise coming from the table, there were only four people sitting there. Mathis was nowhere to be seen.
Neither was Shawn.
Gus made a conscious effort to slow his heart rate before it started accelerating. This was probably a good thing. Shawn had undoubtedly seen an opening and taken Mathis aside to trick a confession out of him. Then he’d saunter back to the packs, flip on one of the emergency beacons, and they’d both enjoy this fabulous dinner while they waited for the helicopter to come.
That sounded like a brilliant plan. There was only one problem with it. It wasn’t Shawn. There was simply no way that Shawn could bring himself to solve a case like this without an audience. If Shawn was going to expose Mathis, he’d do it in front of the other lawyers. Or at the very least wait until Gus was back to see it.
So where was he?
Gus scanned every inch of the meadow. Cody and the other male servers were polishing the plates before dinner service. The chef was carving the roast. Server Maggie was refilling Balowsky’s glass.
That left the tents. There were three of them besides the one he’d just left. Gus crept over to the nearest tent, a blue-and-white-striped pavilion, and peered in. There were three low beds on the ground, complete with feather beds and down comforters. Three fluffy cotton robes hung from hooks, and there were men’s pajamas laid out on a low table. But there was no one inside. Gus moved quickly to the green-and-white-striped tent. Two more beds, two more robes, and two sheer nightgowns on hooks. Clearly this tent was intended for Gwendolyn and Jade, although Gus suspected that they might both prefer sleeping alone on rocks to rooming together, no matter how splendid the accommodation. The yellow-and-white-striped tent at the other end of the camp also contained two beds and two sets of men’s pajamas.
There was no one inside.
Gus came out of the tent and checked the dining table, hoping that Shawn and Mathis had reappeared there while he was checking the sleeping quarters. They hadn’t.
Moving around the yellow pavilion, Gus discovered that there was one other tent he hadn’t noticed before. No surprise there-unlike the grand sleeping quarters, this was a small, olive drab lean-to, probably the cheapest shelter you could find at any army surplus store. Gus approached it nervously. It was just about the right size to hide a body. He lifted the flap and peered in. And his heart stopped.
The tent was dark and close. Something lay sprawled on the ground. In the dim light it looked like a body. Gus forced himself to reach in and touch it. The form sank under his fingers.
Gus almost let out a laugh in relief. It wasn’t a body. It was just a few spare pillows that had tumbled down from a stack on the left side of the tent. Gus had fallen for the same trick he’d used on his parents when he wanted to sneak out with Shawn when they were kids-he’d arrange his pillows under the covers on his bed so that when his parents looked in on him they’d see what they’d think was a sleeping boy. The only difference was that his parents had never fallen for this subterfuge-apparently a good mother could tell the difference between the child she’d borne and a cotton rectangle filled with foam-and Gus just had.
He pushed the pillows out of the way and checked the rest of the tent’s contents. There were coolers filled with eggs and oranges, not doubt to be scrambled and juiced in the morning, a sack of potatoes, bags of whole-bean coffee, several restaurant-sized cans of ketchup, what looked like an entire pig’s worth of bacon and a second swine of sausage, and pink bakery boxes filled with croissants, brioche, and Danishes. Gus didn’t know what seemed more surprising to him-that they had brought enough food to feed the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, or that they’d flown in the pastries pre-made, instead of baking them fresh.
There were more crates stacked behind the breakfast supplies, but Gus didn’t bother to check through them. None of them was big enough to hold a body. He crawled back out of the lean-to and let the flap fall shut behind him.
There was still no sign of Shawn or Mathis at the dining table. Gus forced himself to keep calm. Mathis wouldn’t do anything obvious. He couldn’t. He’d have to figure that Gus knew everything Shawn did. Even if he managed to get rid of Shawn and make it look like an accident-for the first time since the helicopter landed, Gus replayed that old dream image of his best friend’s body broken and bloody at the bottom of a cliff-he couldn’t possibly hope to get rid of Gus the same way.
Whatever Mathis was up to, Gus had to figure it out fast. The sun was dropping behind the peak of the mountain, and the shadows had disappeared. There was probably another fifteen or twenty minutes before it got too dark to see, but that wasn’t a lot of time. The servers were already moving around the camp lighting oil lamps. Once the sunlight was gone, so was any chance of finding Shawn.
There was one way out. The emergency beacons. He could use one of them, send out the signal for help. Whoever showed up would be prepared to find people lost in the wilderness. It would be career suicide, but Shawn would have to find that preferable to actual homicide.
No need for that extreme measure just yet, though. Gus would give it a few more minutes, wait at least until it was dark. And if he’d heard nothing from Shawn by then, he’d do it.
Gus was moving towards the backpacks to position himself near the beacons when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.
He wheeled around towards the motion and saw Shawn walking away from him at the far end of meadow. He was about to call out, to wave his hands over his head and jump and scream to let Shawn know he was heading in the wrong direction. Until he noticed two small details that had escaped him in the first blush of excitement:
Shawn wasn’t alone in the meadow. Morton Mathis was walking directly behind him.
And Shawn’s hands were up in the air.
Chapter Thirty-Six
He was a savage jungle cat moving swiftly and silently through the tall grasses of the meadow. The sun was completely hidden behind the mountain now, and the last glimmerings of daylight were fading into dark gray. But jungle cat Gus didn’t need light to find his way. He was moving on smell, on touch, on instinct.
He was going to save his friend.
As he tracked his prey, Gus tried to figure out what exactly was going on. Clearly Mathis was armed. He must have been holding a gun on Shawn. He hadn’t used it yet, though. The shot would have echoed through this wilderness like an avalanche; if he wanted to kill Shawn and rejoin the other lawyers he’d have to do it silently. And that meant getting far enough away from the camp so that the others wouldn’t hear even if Shawn cried out.
This gave Gus a small advantage. Mathis had to keep this quiet; Gus could yell for help at any time. Even if the other lawyers wouldn’t necessarily come running, odds were at least some of the servers would try to help.
There was only one thing stopping Gus from crying out right now, and that was the fact that Shawn must have come to the same conclusion. He would have known that Mathis couldn’t afford for him to shout for help-so why didn’t he?
Gus crouched at the edge of the meadow and peered into the gathering darkness. Just ahead of him the ground began to slope up sharply and the wildflowers gave way to the kind of rocky wasteland they’d spent the morning walking through. Large boulders spotted the landscape, which would give Gus cover once he started to move forward again. But they were also cover for Mathis-he and Shawn could be behind any one of a dozen large enough to hide two men.