Death Cache (22 page)

“I hope to hell there’s food in here,” Robert said, flipping out his knife to cut the tape keeping the box closed.

They all leaned in as he opened the top.

Nadia gagged and covered her mouth. “Oh, God, I’m going to be sick.”

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Inside the box were six dead arctic terns, their beautiful white and black-tipped wings displayed like fans as though still in flight.

Tern stood there in shock. This couldn’t be real. What kind of sick bastard could have done this? She swayed and then locked her knees.

The arctic tern was her namesake, her spirit totem.

“Son of a bitch,” Gage said, moving over to wrap an arm around Tern.

“This is sick,” Robert said, backing away from the grisly contents of the box. “We are dealing with a really sick puppy here.”

“You just now getting that idea?” Tern asked. Her voice broke.

“Everyone keep your wits,” Gage said. “There might be a note inside—”

“I’m not touching anything in that box,” Robert said. “You want to dive in there, be my guest.”

“I thought you were a hunter?” Gage scoffed. “Dead animals shouldn’t gross you out.”

“This is creepy. I don’t do creepy.” Robert stepped farther back as though the box would explode any moment.

Nadia rejoined them, but stood off to the side. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to act like such a girl.” She rubbed a hand up and down Tern’s arm. “You okay?”

Tern straightened her spine. “I’ll have to be.” They’d already figured out that this whole invite had to do with her, but this was the most personal evidence of it.

Gage found a stick. At least the birds had been dead long enough not to be mushy, Tern thought. No maggots squirmed around the dead carcasses. They were just dried husks of their former free selves. Gage used the stick to move the birds around.

“Who cares what else is in there?” Robert said. “I say leave it. Even if there was something worth keeping, who would want it?”

“Stop! There.” Tern pointed. “Oh no. How?” Her voice failed. She dropped to her knees alongside the box, reached in and carefully picked up the intricate hand-carved ivory arctic tern. Tears choked her as she clutched the little ivory tern to her chest, right over her heart, and began to rock back and forth as tears ran hot and unchecked down her face.

“Tern, honey, what is it?” Gage wrapped both arms around her and held her close to him. “Come on, baby, talk to me.”

She heard the worry in his voice but how could she reassure him when her life was so upside down?

Gage picked her up and carried her to a fallen log. “Nadia, cover that up.” He sat down and cradled her on his lap. “Tern, tell me what’s wrong.”

What’s wrong? Everything was wrong. So horribly wrong. “This is mine.”

“Can you let us see it?”

Carefully, she moved her hands in front of her. Cradled in her palms was her priceless arctic tern, carved in flight, its wings out to catch the wind’s kisses–her father’s name for thermals. Terns were the foremost migratory bird on the planet, traveling from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back every year. They spent more time in flight than on the ground, which her father had said explained Tern’s compulsive need to always be doing something.

“
You don’t have to catch every meal on the wing. Now sit with your father and tell him all the wondrous things you have discovered today
.”

God, she missed him.

“It’s beautiful,” Gage said. “What’s it mean?”

“It’s mine. I keep it in my bedroom so I can see it every day.” She swallowed more tears as they rushed up her throat. “M-my dad carved it for me. It’s the most personal item I own.” The memories attached to the arctic tern were those of her childhood, before the nightmare started. “Someone broke into my house, stole it, and put it here. What if I never knew what happened to it? I can’t lose this.” She clutched it to her heart again.

“Who knows this about you?” Gage asked. “Who knows about the tern?”

She lifted her head and looked around. “I don’t know.” She wanted to curl into the fetal position and cry. Losing Mac today, Lucky yesterday, and now this?

“Tern, snap out of it. Arctic terns are determined, tenacious little creatures. You’re the same.”

“Gage,” Nadia said, “her father made that for her. It’s one of the only things left that she has of him.”

“Robert, what about you? Did you know?”

“Uh, yeah. I remember her once talking about it, but I seriously didn’t get a clue how much it meant to her.”

That was because the only thing Robert had been interested in when he was at her house was getting her into bed.

“Tern, you need to remember how many others knew,” Gage said.

Her head hurt. So did her heart. She didn’t want to do this. Gage must have read what she was thinking.

“The person who killed Mac and Lucky stole the arctic tern from you as a warning. This person can get close to you, has gotten close, and he knows you very well. Your life, our lives depend on you remembering who could have taken this and placed it here.”

Gage worried over the pallor of Tern’s skin. How much more could she take? He couldn’t wait to get his hands around this son of a bitch’s throat.

“We need to get out of here,” Nadia said, glancing quickly around. “What if the killer is out there waiting, watching the scene unfold?”

“Nadia’s right,” Robert said.

Gage agreed. Thinking about being watched made his skin crawl. He studied the surrounding forest. This was a bad spot to get caught. They wouldn’t see the danger until it was over with. The thick mix of birch and spruce and forest floor vegetation made defending themselves almost impossible. He pulled Tern to her feet and helped steady her.

“Let’s move. Robert, take up the rear. I want the girls in the middle for better protection.” He eyed Tern warily. She had to bounce out of this. Fast. He needed her on her game, because if the killer got inside her head, the game was over.

He nudged her to move. For a while he had to put her in front of him to prod her forward. As soon as she got the hang of it, he moved to pass and break a faster trail. “Nadia, make sure she doesn’t fall behind.”

“Got it.”

He wanted to push Tern into remembering who could have gotten into her house and taken the bird from her. She obviously hadn’t noticed it missing, so the ivory carving hadn’t been gone long. Who knew her well enough, and hated her enough, to set this charade of a competition up to kill her? Tern was at the heart of it. Either the killer wanted her dead, or those she cared about dead. He’d bet money they were all marked.

They were prey.

Hours hitched by as they hiked. The birch had begun to thin, and they’d left the spruce behind miles ago.. The terrain was changing and he didn’t like it. They would be in the open soon, without the cover of the forest, but then so would the killer.

“I don’t like this,” Robert hollered from the back, echoing Gage’s thoughts.

“There’s no other way down without climbing gear.”

“I need a break, if you know what I mean,” Nadia said.

Living outdoors was more complicated for women. Gage made a note of it. “You’ll need to hold it for a bit.”

“I need something to eat, or I’m going to drop,” Robert said.

Obviously the biggest issue about taking lead was the complaints from the ranks. Did he have to figure it all out for them? The only one not complaining was Tern. She’d yet to comment on anything since they had left that last geocache. He wished she would complain about something. At least make some noise.

Her silence was killing him.

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Tern traipsed behind Gage, automatically placing one foot in front of the other.

Someone had been in her house. When? Why hadn’t she noticed her little arctic tern was missing? In a way it was as if by not noticing she’d forgotten her father. She could still remember him placing the little bird in her hand and telling her all the special qualities that terns carried, qualities that he could see in her. His belief in her and her siblings had been absolute. As her beliefs in him had been. Anger at his wasted death stole over her, and had her seeing red.

He’d been killed for treasure. Money plain and simple. Her father had been a geologist and couldn’t resist the pull of gold fever. The land in and around Chatanika, where she’d grown up was just thirty or so miles north of Fairbanks. Chatanika had been one of the largest gold finds in the early 1900s. Billions had been mined, dredged, or picked up off the ground back then. Around the late 1950s people pulled out thinking the mining town was dried up. But her father thought he knew better.

He’d been digging for years without ever finding much more than nuggets to put on a chain and hang around her mother’s neck. He’d always been good at the ‘just because’ gifts.

The real treasure had been him.

Tern scrubbed at the tears silently wetting her face. It had been a long time since she’d allowed herself to revisit the memories of that time when everything had been rosy and warm. Then there had been the explosion, the landslide, and the rocks crushing the life from him. All because he’d found the gold and someone had been watching.

Like now. Someone was watching.

But why? She didn’t have anything. Yes, she had her share of the gold and was very wealthy in her own right, but that didn’t matter. Plus, if something happened to her, the share of the gold would go to her family. Her siblings Raven, Lynx, and Chickadee would split her share.

Who had anything to gain from her death other than them? Her brother and sisters wouldn’t be out here hunting her down. They loved her. She was part of a close-knit family. They were all rolling in money, but none of them knew how to live like they were wealthy. So they didn’t. No one outside the small circle of friends and family had a clue how much they were worth.

There was Raven’s new husband Aidan, whose father had actually killed theirs, but that was another story and fully resolved now. No, there wasn’t anyone Tern could think of who would want to harm her or those she loved.

Could this person have targeted her family too? Oh God. She stumbled. What if this demented person had gone after them? What if they were dead?

Damn it, think it through.

Her family had been fine when she’d left on this crazy geocache trip. She’d had dinner with them the night before she left. The trouble had started here. So the killer was here. Most likely one of them.

She glanced at Gage in front of her, cutting a trail through the thick underbrush. Could he have done this?

Six months ago she’d have laughed at the idea of Gage being a killer. Then he’d admitted to killing his brother-in-law. But those were extenuating circumstances. If someone had done to one of her sisters what his brother-in-law had, she wouldn’t be surprised at what she could do either.

They’d only heard his side of the story. Had he told them the full truth? She thought she’d known Gage before he’d left her with no word. Did he have a demented side that wanted her to suffer for some unknown reason?

He’d never displayed any reason to hate her. He admitted that he’d stayed away from her was because he was afraid she’d enslave him. Was that enough of a reason to kill her? If in some bizarre way that made sense, it didn’t make sense to kill Mac and Lucky.

No, Gage as the killer didn’t fit.

But what about Robert? He’d displayed jealousy, and his temper had more control over him than he had over it. He hated Lucky. She hadn’t helped there, when their relationship was ending and Lucky had shown up in town.

Robert had been scary with his anger that night. She’d truly been frightened. He’d apologized the next day, but what did that really mean? Weren’t his actions the night before more telling of his true nature?

Robert hadn’t liked Mac either. He’d complained over Mac taking charge, like he had earlier with Gage. Would that have been enough of a reason to kill Mac? She never would have believed Robert would’ve taken his anger that far, but weren’t most murders done in the heat of anger?