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.”