Trapped with the Blizzard (24 page)

I felt my pulse throbbing in my neck. That familiar flight or fight response prickled my skin. I jumped at every scuff and footstep overhead. I let him think, the silence in the room broken by the
drip drip drip
of water. I nearly screamed just to shatter the tension, but Bryan turned before the shout loosed from my throat.

“This isn’t good.”

I half-laughed and half-cried, the sound coming out like a cough. “No shit!”

“We need to get people on high alert and take this seriously. I don’t think whoever did this is done messing with us yet.”

“So it wasn’t the guy who attacked me? I mean, he’s still locked up over there,” I said, hooking my thumb in his direction.

Bryan nodded solemnly. “We need to see him first, find out if he really does know anything. Maybe being wet and miserable will get him to talk.”

The old man shouted the second Bryan slipped the key into the lock.

“You gotta let me outta here! I’m not supposed to be in here. I was supposed to be long gone by now. Please, you gotta listen to me!”

Bryan moved to unlock the door but I stayed his hand. “Keep him talking,” I whispered.

Catching on quickly, he called through. “What do you mean? Did you know this was going to happen?”

“Come on, man, let me out of here! It’s like a coffin. I’m freakin’ out in here.” He grabbed the doorknob from the other side and violently shook the door.

“I’ll let you out if you promise to talk this time.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you want. Fuck man, come on!”

The urgency in his voice was startling. He sounded like an animal caught in a snare, squealing because it sensed its fate.

Predictably, the old man rushed the door as Bryan unlocked it.

“We have to get outta here! I need to be long gone before…” he repeated. He tried to strong-arm past Bryan but stopped when he saw me standing behind him. After that, he didn’t put up much resistance. He walked backwards to the far wall and sulked. Bryan entered the room while I stayed in the doorway, silently watching.

“We’re going to try this again, okay? Because my gut is telling me you knew this was going to happen.”

The old man nodded, his eyes darting over my shoulder to freedom.

“All right. First, tell me what your name is.”

He smoothed back his wet hair and sighed, almost in defeat. “Gary.”

“Okay, Gary. Where are you from?”

“Here and there,” the old guy shrugged.

The muscles in Bryan’s jaw worked, but he fought to remain calm. “So you’re homeless?”

I saw a glimmer of humor in Gary’s eye as he looked up at us. “Home is where the heart is.”

Bryan pushed a rush of air from his nose. He was losing his patience… and fast. “What were you doing in the basement of our ski lodge?”

The old man cackled this time. I think he enjoyed having the power in the situation, getting people to actually listen to him for a time. “What didn’t I do?”

I stepped forward and put a hand on Bryan’s arm. “Listen shithead, we know you aren’t the arsonist. For one, you aren’t smart enough and two, there have been fires since we locked your ass up. So if you don’t feel like sharing what little you might know, I’m happy to lock that door and ignore you.”

“You wouldn’t…” he started to protest before I shushed him.

I tilted my chin down and used the most menacing expression I could muster. “No one but the people you’ve seen knows you’re down here. If something were to happen to the lodge, it’d be very easy to forget you were down here, what with getting the women and children out first. One scream drowned out in dozens. So, if all that’s perfectly clear, are you sure you don’t want to tell us what you know?”

Gary glared at me with a surprising amount of anger. “He was right about you.”

Although my heart lurched at that sentence, I couldn’t let him see he’d gotten to me. I turned my back to him and practically shoved Bryan out of the door. “Guess he doesn’t care. We’re done here.” My bluff paid off.

“Wait! Goddamnit, just wait a second. I don’t know the guy’s name or nothing, but I can tell you what he looked like.”

With my hands on Bryan’s chest, half way out of the door, we looked at each other. I’d cracked him, but we both knew he might say anything to save his own skin.

Bryan took the lead, playing the good cop again. “Go on.”

The old man crossed his arms as he spoke. “It was in Denver. He came up to me, bought me lunch, asked me if I’d like to earn some money. Wouldn’t tell me what the job was until I agreed to keep my mouth shut.”

“What’d he look like?”

“Older guy, gray hair, nice suit… real nice suit. He’s the sort that looks like he has a manicure every week, ya know? Real rich and fruity.”

“That narrows it down,” I muttered. I wanted to believe this guy was just fucking with us, but my instincts told me otherwise. “He’s bullshitting,” I said as I pulled on Bryan’s arm for dramatic effect.

Gary rummaged around in his pockets, swearing and tossing food wrappers on the floor. “Ha! Here! This is what he gave me… along with five hundred bucks.” He thrust out a soggy piece of paper, which Bryan grabbed. Without another word, we shut the door and locked it again, leaving Gary to pound on the inside. “You pieces of shit! You can’t do this! You can’t keep me in here.”

We studied the letter as we walked away, Gary shouting until he went hoarse. It was a handwritten jumble of instructions, the handwriting all different sizes and colors of ink. I spotted a few addresses, houses I knew had been targeted by the arsonist. There were a few physical descriptions of Bryan and me, and a weird sketch that I think explained how he’d screwed with every sprinkler in the building. The double-sided paper was like a laundry list of mayhem, most of which had already come to pass.

“I have no idea what the hell is going on,” I whispered to Bryan finally.

“Neither do I.” I hated the fear I saw in his eyes. “But we need to work with whatever we have.”

“If this is all he was supposed to do, what comes next? Why doesn’t he want to be in here?”

He pressed his lips together in a tight line and pulled me close, but even in his arms, I found little comfort.

Not that I’m a strong believer in signs from the universe, but some force seemed to be actively reminding us that you can always sink lower than you thought possible. Cramped in a lodge with a hundred other people? What about cramped and soaking wet with a hundred miserable people? What about cramped and soaking wet in a lodge with limited power and three shitty fires to keep us warm?

Every time I thought,
It can’t possibly get worse than this,
the universe intervened to say,
Fuck you, it can. And will.

Buckets had been collected and distributed around the Great Hall so we could wring out our belongings. As I worked through the pile of my own stuff, I was glad to find a few of the clothes deep inside my backpack had managed to escape a complete soaking. After a few minutes drying out by the fire, I took them into the bathroom to get changed.

Amazing what warm, dry clothes in a dire situation can do for your mood, but I still couldn’t meet my eyes in the mirror’s reflection. I hadn’t been entirely blameless in the fight with Marie and I knew I had to apologize to Miah. Even if I couldn’t salvage anything with him, I knew it was something I had to do for myself.

From a distance, I checked the spot where Marie and her family had set up their beds. Like the rest of the lodge, the Goldbergs were busy fixing their things. I checked the rental shop next and found it empty. I idly wondered if Marie was responsible for the charred wall, perhaps a poorly stubbed cigarette.

And then I spotted her across the Great Hall talking to Drew and Trig, but didn’t see Miah anywhere nearby. This actually gave me hope I’d be able to apologize to him without Marie standing beside him, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. I searched the lodge top to bottom and still saw no sign of him.

The longer I looked, the more worried I got. It could’ve been possible I kept missing him, entering a room as he left, but the lodge wasn’t
that
big. There was no way he would’ve been able to dodge me for that long.

When I saw Marie next, she was with her parents. Taking a few deep breaths, I forced myself to go over. When she saw me approach, I nearly turned back.

“Well, well,” she said with a tilt of the head. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Have you seen Miah?”

“Like I’d tell you,” she scoffed.

“Marie!” her father scolded.

I couldn’t stop my smile as she looked suitably admonished, but I kept my mouth shut. “I can’t find him.”

“Well, it’s not like he’s going anywhere.” She put her hands on her hips and looked around. I could tell by her expression she honestly didn’t know where he was either. That’s when the real worry started to set in.

“When was the last time you saw him? After the fire?”

She scrunched up her face and checked to make sure her parents couldn’t hear. “You mean after you were a cunt?” she whispered. “Yeah, we had a smoke and then…”

I bit my tongue but couldn’t help getting a dig in of my own. “So you
were
the one who started the fire. Figures. Nice job almost killing everyone.”

“It wasn’t! I put that thing out. I swear it.”

I waved my hand. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. What happened after?”

“I don’t know. I think he went to take a piss or something. I got hungry, found Mom and Dad…” She frowned at me, obviously reluctant to admit there was cause for concern. “He has to be around here somewhere.”

“So let’s find him.”

It was clear neither of us wanted to be with each other, but together we searched the lodge once more. As we weaved through the building, I felt how drastically the mood had changed. The crowd had been tense before, coping with the situation in a quiet dignity. The water had stripped them of the last shred of patience they’d clung to. It might’ve been uncomfortable before, but now… soaking wet, cold, frightened… the word “arson” was on everyone’s lips. It was like a tide turning. Coming up to the lodge had once felt like a safe option to get through the blizzard. Now, as the storm picked up steam, it became clear.

We were trapped.

After another pass through with no sign of him, I was genuinely scared. “This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t become such a psychopath,” I lashed out. We stood in the center of the Great Hall scanning the faces around us.

“
Me?
You were being such a bitch this morning. He’s my best friend. Of course I’m going to protect him from someone like you.”

“Ugh, you’re infuriating!” I growled. I turned to see Liz and Bryan emerge from the basement and I realized we hadn’t checked all the back corridors. “Come on,” I said as I grabbed her sleeve.

Liz and Bryan’s heads were bent in a low conversation as we approached. If their body language hadn’t already told me enough, Liz felt the need to speak to me like I was a child. She held up a finger.

“Girls, can you just hold on a second? We’re talking about something important.” The dismissal made my blood boil.

“
Seriously?
Do I have a habit of coming over and interrupting you with trivial shit? You don’t think this could possibly be…”