Death Cache (19 page)

What if whoever had drugged them was watching her right now? Was he getting a kick out of her trying to wake up Gage? What if she couldn’t get Gage to wake up?

Oh God. Had the killer given more of the drug to Gage since he was such a big man?

“Goddamn it, Gage,” she cried. “Wake up!” She slapped him across his face with her open palm, swearing at the pain. Her hand went numb, but Gage groaned. “Oh thank God. Come on, Gage. Snap out of it.”

She hit him again, not as hard as before.

His lids stuttered open and his fuzzy eyes blinked into focus. “Ouch,” he mumbled.

“Get up,” she said, her voice ringing with panic. She scanned the campsite again. Still nothing. No one else was up either, and that scared the shit out of her. “Please, Gage, you have to get up. We’ve been drugged. I don’t know who or how, but I’m terrified.”

He caught on and struggled to sit. “Water,” he said.

“Good idea.” Water would help dilute whatever was in their system. She stood, moved too quickly, stumbled, and grabbed onto one of the stumps as everything spun like a kaleidoscope. She reached the bucket of lake water they’d boiled for drinking and dipped a cup in it for him. She grabbed a cup for herself and downed it. Carefully, she brought the cup to him. He took it from her and instead of drinking it, splashed the water over his face, and then held the empty out to her. “More,” he said.

This time she brought him the bucket, dipping her cup and splashing water on her face. It didn’t help as much as she’d hoped. Everything was slower, every thought and action took longer than it should have done.

“Nadia?” Gage asked.

“Sleeping. At least, I think she is.” What if Nadia had been given too much of the drug? Gage was struggling to stay conscious. Nadia was much smaller and weighed at least a hundred pounds less than Gage.

“The others?” he asked, rubbing his face.

She bit her lip with worry. “I haven’t checked on Robert. Wasn’t Mac supposed to be out here with you? I saw you out here—oh God.”

“Don’t panic. We don’t know anything.” He crawled toward a log and used it to get on his knees. He stood, shaky as a newborn moose calf. Tern reached out and wrapped her arm around his back. He leaned on her, and she on him, and between the two of them they were able to prop each other up. “Can you grab the rifle?” Gage asked.

“Yeah.” Tern reached down and picked it up, almost losing Gage in the process. “Steady.”

“Damn, what the hell were we given?”

“I don’t know.” She just prayed it would work out of their systems fast.

They walked to Mac and Robert’s cabin. “Did Robert relieve you on watch?”

“All I remember is you saying goodnight to me, and Mac needing something from his bunk.”

They reached the door, turned the knob, and pushed it open. Robert was revealed in the light entering the cabin. He was on his cot, sleeping bag pulled up to his chin, looking a lot like Nadia had when Tern had woken up. His chest rose and fell slowly but steadily.

Tern moved into the cabin to get a look at Mac. His bed was hidden in the shadows. Gage grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

“Don’t,” he said his voice raspy.

“No.” She moaned and pushed at Gage to let her go. In his weakened state, his grip loosened and she stumbled toward Mac, her eyes adjusting to the the cabin’s dark interior.

Mac lay on his bunk, just like Robert except for the knife sticking out of his chest and the words, “Play or Die” carved into his forehead.

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

Tern’s tortured cry broke Gage’s heart. He’d tried to pull her back when he’d caught the hint of death on the air. But he hadn’t been strong enough to spare her. He pulled her into his arms, and turned her so that her face was pressed into his chest and she could no longer see what the bastard had done to Mac.

The sobs wrenching from deep within her soul had tears springing to his eyes. He just held her as her body shook with spasms of pain and grief.

The sounds of torment woke Robert from his drug-induced state. He opened his eyes and stared unseeing at the rafters. Slowly he began to focus. He stared for a few moments at Gage holding Tern as she crumbled in his arms before things seemed to click into place. He struggled to sit up, grabbing onto the log wall to help pull himself into a sitting position. Then he looked over at Mac. His skin blanched as white as birch bark.

Robert swallowed. “He’s…”

“Yes,” Gage answered passed the lump in his throat.

“How?”

“Near as we can tell, we were drugged.”

Robert swallowed again, his scared eyes flicking up to meet Gage’s. “Drugged? How?” he asked again. He tossed back the sleeping bag and tried to stand. It took him a few tries before he managed it.

Tern continued to weep in Gage’s arms. Her sobs were full of despair and he didn’t know how to comfort her so he just held her.

Robert got dressed as quickly as he could manage, looking everywhere but at Mac’s dead body. He gestured toward the door. “Can we…”

“Yes. Help me with Tern.” Gage knew he couldn’t move her by himself in this condition. “Bring your gun.” They’d better be prepared for whatever awaited them outside. If Robert were the one killing off this group, now would be the time to take them out. Except for the perfect opportunity when they had all been unconscious. Why hadn’t he killed them then?

What game was the killer playing? And for Hell’s sake why?

He and Robert carried Tern outside. Gage scanned the open area, trying to see deep within the trees. Nothing seemed out of place.

“Tern’s cabin,” he said. No way was he staying out here with her grieving, unable to help herself, and him and Robert not up to snuff. “We need to double-check that Nadia’s all right.”

“Goddamn, what a fucking nightmare,” Robert said.

They made quick work of getting Tern back into her cabin. Gage dropped with her onto her cot, cocooning her as best as he could while Robert bent over Nadia, checking her vitals.

“She’s breathing fine.” He shook her. No response. He shook her again and her head rolled on her shoulders, but still no response. Robert shared a glance that silently said the same thing Gage worried about. What if Nadia had been given too much of the drug? She might be breathing now, but what if the drug had started shutting down her organs? They had to get her to wake up.

“Should we make some coffee?” Robert asked.

“She’s got to be awake enough to swallow it.”

“Oh, right.”

“The lake,” Tern murmured, pulling back from Gage and wiping her tears. “We need to get her into the cold water.”

Gage looked at her. Sorrow swam thick in her eyes, her face wet with tears. He could see the guilt and grief eating her up inside, but she’d yanked herself back from the brink of despair to help save her friend. What a hell of a woman.

Working together, they unzipped Nadia from her sleeping bag, and stripped her down to her underwear and tank top.

“Tern, you keep watch while Robert and I carry her,” Gage instructed.

Tern wiped her nose and stood a little taller. She checked her pistol to make sure it was loaded and did the same to his rifle. Once satisfied, she looped the strap of the rifle over her shoulder and palmed the pistol. “Ready.”

“Robert?”

“Ready,” he said. His color had returned some with the physical excursion, but he was pale and sickly looking.

Together he and Robert lifted Nadia’s slight frame. Tern grabbed the door, checking to see if it was clear before holding it open for them. They hurried, though it seemed like they were working at a snail’s pace, down the path toward the lake. Once there, they didn’t stop, just continued walking into the frigid, glacial-fed waters.

Needles of pain hit his legs as the cold water washed over him. From the grimace on Robert’s face, he was feeling the same. Tern stayed on the bank, her eyes rapidly taking in their surroundings searching for a threat. When they were waist-deep, they lowered Nadia into the water. Panic crawled up his spine when she didn’t immediately react. Was she too far gone? Had they lost two members of their group during the night?

Nadia screamed, her arms flaying clumsily to the side and her legs attempting to kick.

“Oh, thank God,” Tern said from the bank.

Nadia screamed again and started to struggle, the sound a huge relief to Gage.

“Hold on, Nadia,” Gage said. “We got you.”

“What the hell is going on?” She shivered, her arms going around him as Robert lost his hold on her squirming, slick body.

“Can you stand?” he asked, his arms aching not to drop her.

She stood in the water and promptly sagged against him. “What’s wrong with me?”

“We’ve been drugged,” Robert answered, grabbing her other side. Together, he and Robert maneuvered her to shore. They were all shivering from the cold, but his head had cleared and he welcomed the return of his faculties.

“D-drugged?” Nadia said. “H-how?”

“We don’t know,” Gage said. “Let’s get back to the cabin. I don’t like being in the open like this.”

They struggled to climb back up the path in their wet clothes while holding and carrying Nadia. She still wasn’t able to support herself.

Once back inside Tern’s cabin, Gage and Robert lowered Nadia onto her bunk. Tern grabbed a towel and helped Nadia dry off. “I need to help Nadia change her clothes.” Tern glanced at both men. “You guys need to get into dry clothes too.” Her tone was defeated but she was functioning. Gage didn’t want to leave her but saw the wisdom in her words. He took the rifle from her but made sure she had her pistol handy. “If anyone enters this cabin besides us, shoot first and ask questions later.”

She nodded.

Robert followed him out. “What are we going to do about…Mac?”

“I need to take another look at him,” Gage said, not liking the idea one bit. He’d really connected with Mac. Even though he’d been jealous of that special bond between Mac and Tern, he still liked the guy.

They entered Robert’s cabin. Mac was just as they’d found him. Gage’s chest constricted and it was hard to breathe.

“What are we going to do with the body?” Robert gestured toward Mac. “We can’t leave him like this.”

“We’ll have to do the same thing we did with Lucky.”

“The glacier? Hell, man, that’s going to take some serious work.”

“We need to preserve the body as best as we can for evidence. Change your clothes.”

Gage walked out, scanning the open area of the camp again and still didn’t see anything out of order. What he wouldn’t give for a face-to-face confrontation with whoever the hell was out there.

He returned after a quick change into dry jeans and t-shirt. He had his camera in hand to help document Mac’s murder the best he could. They needed to hike down to the river and locate help. He was following Mac’s plan. There was no way they were staying in this death camp another night.

He knocked on Robert’s door and identified himself before pushing it opened. He was glad to see Robert with his gun in hand, taking everything as serious as Gage was.

He nodded and propped open the door for more lighting and started taking pictures of Mac, trying to detach himself from the fact that this man had been a friend. For the short few days he’d known him, Gage had recognized a kindred spirit.

He snapped shots from every angle he could think of. Close up shots, far away shots, hoping the troopers could find something on the digital film to give them a clue as to who had murdered him. Gage wanted the person punished to the full extent of the law and then some.

Robert had thankfully stayed quiet during the tedious process. Now he started to ramble.

“Mac was killed while I was sleeping, wasn’t he?” Robert didn’t wait for answer. “I was right here while it happened and I didn’t have a clue.”

Or he’d been the son of a bitch who had drugged Mac, killed him, and then drugged himself to make it look like he hadn’t done it.

Gage’s thoughts must have come across loud and clear to Robert, who shuddered.

“I didn’t kill him. No way could I have slept, drugged or not, in the same room with a dead man. No fucking way.” He shuddered again. “I’m getting the heebie-jeebies standing here right now.”

Gage wanted to tell him to suck it up but he was feeling the same. “Come on. Let’s check on the girls. We’ll move him later when more of the drug is out of our system.”

They left, Gage making a quick sweep of the campsite before venturing out of the cabin. He knocked on the girls’ cabin, identified himself, and waited. Tern opened the door. His heart clenched at the despair and grief shadowing her eyes. She looked as though her spirit was broken and it tore at his heart. It also made him angry. He wanted to find whoever was doing this to them—to Tern—and take them out.

He entered with Robert and shut the door behind him. He was glad to see Nadia’s color was better. Tern must have told her about Mac. She seemed to be handling it about the same as the rest of them.

Robert took a seat next to Nadia and Gage sat on Tern’s cot. “What is the last thing everyone remembers?” Gage asked, starting with Tern.