Death Cache (35 page)

Gage had a staring contest with Robert. After a period of time, he rolled his shoulders, coming to a decision, and dropped his hold on Tern’s legs. She gained her feet and pushed out of his grasp. Her insides trembled but thankfully her backbone snapped in place and she stood tall, faking some self-control she’d secured from somewhere. She turned back to the porcupine stew. It wasn’t going to taste any better with more stirring, so she grabbed some bowls that she’d cleaned earlier and filled them.

They ate in silence. The porcupine was tough and chewy and had a strong gamey taste, but it was better than going hungry.

“We’d better get some sleep.” Robert stood and set his bowl on the counter. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”

“Every day here has been freaking long,” Nadia muttered. The three of them stared at her. “What? It’s the truth.”

“One you don’t have to constantly point out,” Robert said. He faced Tern. “Thanks for dinner. It was…filling.”

“You’re welcome.” Not a bad compliment considering how the stew sat like a stone in her stomach. Tern took the empty bowls and washed them in the heated water and set them out to dry.

“I say we stay here,” Nadia said. “It’s comfortable, out of the weather. We can hunt for food, there’s water. Besides, in another couple of days, when we don’t return to Fairbanks, they’ll send a rescue party looking for us.”

“No one knows where the hell we are,” Robert said. “If they did, they would have sent out Search and Rescue when the pilot never returned to Fairbanks. Obviously, he hadn’t filed a flight plan.”

“He had to have gotten off a mayday or something. We should stay here.”

“You are fucking crazy,” Robert said. “We’re a day away from the river.”

“Don’t call me crazy!” She half rose to her feet, the look in her eyes downright freaky.

“Oh my hell,” Tern said, hoping to inject some sense. “We need some rest. I’ll take first watch.” She didn’t think she could sleep anyway, not with Gage staring at her as though trying to convey some secret message. Didn’t matter how much he tried, she didn’t understand him. Didn’t even want to right now.

“She’s right,” Gage finally spoke up. “Nadia and Tern take the bed. Robert, you and I will bunk down on the floor.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice. I’m dead on my feet.” Robert was already unrolling his sleeping bag. “Can’t remember when I’ve been this dog-tired,” he muttered.

“Tern, get some sleep,” Gage said, standing. “You cooked dinner and cleaned up. I’ll take first watch.”

She wasn’t going to fight him for it. While her mind refused to quit its racing, her bones seemed to liquefy. Any minute now and her body would collapse.

Gage stopped in front of her and took her chin in his hand. “How’s the head?” His fingers trailed over the goose egg near her temple.

“It’s fine.” The concern in his stare and the gentleness in his fingers had tears threatening.

“Are you okay to sleep?”

Like she was going to sleep. She was too tired and worked up to sleep.

“I’ll be fine,” she repeated. He let go of her and stepped back. It was all she could do not to reach out for him. She fisted her hands to keep from doing just that.

“No one’s asked me how my head feels,” Nadia muttered.

“We all know how you feel, since you keep telling us,” Robert returned.

That took Tern’s mind off Gage. She grabbed her sleeping bag, laid it next to Nadia’s, and carefully eased herself onto the old bed. It took her weight with a few groans.

Gage took the chair and positioned it in front of the cabin door and laid his shotgun across his knees. Robert extinguished the candle and plunged them all into darkness. A few cracks of midnight sun eased through the chinking of the logs.

Robert rotated in his sleeping bag, left and right, trying to get comfortable. The bed squeaked as Nadia rustled around and the wooden chair creaked under Gage’s weight. She heard the brush of tree branches against the cabin walls. A cry of a bird, howl of a wolf, the slap of the wind as it pelted rain at the cabin. All the noise seemed to escalate into a racket she couldn’t escape. Tern twisted onto her side and sank farther into her sleeping bag, laying her upper arm over her ears. The noise turned to a drone of static. Who said sleeping in the wilderness was relaxing? She used to think it was. Now she just wanted to get home and away from these people. Nadia made the bed squeak again as she adjusted her position.

How could Nadia have lied to her like this? She’d thought they’d been friends, good friends, best friends. But all this time Nadia had slept with Gage and never told her? What did that say about the type of person she was? What other deep dark secrets did Nadia have?

Tern inched away from her to the edge of the bed. What if right now she was sleeping beside a killer? Nadia could have taken Lucky down if she’d gotten the jump on him, surprised him. They were having sex, could she have killed him then, when his guard was down?

Oh, God. How could she even suspect Nadia of such a thing? But then she’d suspected Robert of the same until he’d been grazed by a bullet. A bullet that Nadia could’ve shot at him. No, her. Robert had saved Tern from being shot. He’d tackled her to the ground and had been winged for his trouble.

She was going round and round until the thoughts were knocking at the roof of her skull, making her head pound. She’d had enough head pounding today. She needed to examine the possibility that Gage was behind this. She didn’t want to, but then if she didn’t at least consider him it could be the death of her.

Obviously Gage wasn’t the man she thought him to be. First he’d left her without a word, kept secrets from her. Could he be willing to kill her too? Whoever had set this up wanted her dead.

Wanted all of them dead.

A hand fell on her shoulder and she jumped.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Nadia whispered. “It’s just me.”

And that was supposed to reassure her?

By the direction of light flittering into the cabin, she’d been playing round robin with her thoughts for some time. She heard Robert’s soft snoring on the opposite side of the room. But nothing from the chair where Gage kept watch. Was he still awake? Was he even still there? The shadows were deeper where he’d taken up his position. She would have heard him leave. Right?

“Listen,” Nadia continued to whisper. “I’m really sorry you had to find out about Gage and me that way. I didn’t mean to hurt you or blurt it out like that. It’s just that this whole situation is so messed up that I’m saying and doing things I wouldn’t normally do.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Nadia.” She wanted peace. She wanted sleep. Escape. Above all, she wanted this burning in her heart to stop.

“I don’t like you being mad at me.” The whine was back in Nadia’s voice, and it had Tern grinding her teeth.

“You should have told me about you and Gage way before now.” And why had she told her when she’d caught them together. That spoke of jealously. Which had Tern rethinking how Nadia could be behind all this.

“Can’t we work it out? You have to forgive me.”

Not going to happen tonight or anytime soon. “Nadia, right now you need to stay the hell away from me. I’ll let you know when and if I’m ready to talk.”

“Okay, but you might want to consider something I’ve been bothered about. Robert’s been shot, you’ve been knocked out, me too, but nothing has happened to Gage. I think there’s something fishy about that.” Nadia turned and lay on her back. “Just know that I love you Tern.”

Sure, twist the knife in her heart.

How did Nadia love her and then betray her like this? For that matter how did Gage? And damn it, Nadia had a good point.

Why hadn’t Gage been attacked, when the rest of them had?

Gage sat in the dark, listening to Nadia beg Tern to forgive her. If Tern was smart, Nadia had lost her position as friend. It didn’t miss his attention that he sat where he could see the bed, see Tern, and that his shotgun was more trained on Nadia than the front door.

Telling Tern that they’d slept together one night when they’d both drank too much had been vicious and possibly cunning. There was more to Nadia than she’d let on.

She’d come on to him strong when they’d first met at UAF. They worked in different departments, she a professor of mathematics, he a scientist for the Geophysical Institute specializing in the study of the aurora borealis. Most of his time was spent outside Fairbanks in Poker Flats, Normally, they wouldn’t have met even professionally, but the University was small and Fairbanks, while the second largest city in Alaska, was by no means a major metropolis. Yet, they’d kept ‘running’ into each other. He wouldn’t put it past Nadia to have hunted him out.

Could she have stalked him? Or was he completely losing it?

She’d been sweet. Too sweet. Too accommodating. In a moment of weakness, he’d ignored his big brain for his smaller one and taken her up on her blatant invitation. He’d regretted it immediately. As kindly as he could, he explained that a relationship was not for him. Had he been the trigger?

Didn’t they say with every psychopath, there was a trigger that started them on a killing spree?

What if him hooking up with Tern had flipped something inside Nadia? But then he’d left Tern. He was ashamed to admit it now, but he’d run from Tern like a scared hare from a hungry wolf. Yes, the situation with his sister, and his incarceration, were valid reasons to have left and stayed gone, but he should have called and explained things to her.

It didn’t make sense for Nadia to have flipped over that. What kind of proof did he have that she was a psychopath other than she was a bitch and bothered the shit out of him?

It wasn’t like Tern hadn’t slept with anyone before him. Hell, he faced them all on this trip. What was the big deal that she found out about Nadia?

Oh, this was so not the way to go.

Lucky must have been her experimental stage. God knew that man had more thrill genes than brains. Robert must have been a rebound. He represented family and Gage knew how important family was to Tern and how much she wanted children of her own. Mac was easy. He was the father figure. Gage couldn’t find anything negative to say about Mac. He’d respected the man, had looked forward to getting to know him better.

The bed squeaked as Tern adjusted her position. How he wanted to lie next to her. It had been too long since they had actually shared a bed, and he wanted time. Time to be with her, explore her, and make amends that were long overdue. He was such an idiot not to see what he had. She was his match. His soulmate. It was so sappy, but that was how he felt. He was complete with her, fulfilled, and not just in a sexual way. Though the sex rocked.

He’d done nothing but fuck up his chances with her from the beginning. Not telling her the full truth about his acquaintance with Nadia. Because of that, he might have lost her completely. She loved him, but did she love him enough to forgive his sorry ass?

His hands tightened around the shotgun. He had to keep them all alive, prove to Tern that he was worthy of her love, her respect. Then maybe she’d give him a chance to grovel at her feet.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-
S
EVEN

Tern looked around the quiet cabin once more before shutting the door. Was it weird of her to GPS this location for future reference? She wanted to know who had lived here and what happened to them. Hopefully she’d be given the chance to find out if they made it out of here alive. She’d like to return to this spot, even though her memories of it were bittersweet.

She glanced at the pond with longing as they traipsed by on their way into the forest. If only Nadia had kept her mouth shut. But then she’d rather know the truth than be deceived, right? Of course she wanted the truth.

She watched the movements of Gage’s broad shoulders in front of her. He still insisted on carrying her pack. She’d told him she was fine, but he’d taken it from her anyway. She kind of felt bad because no one offered to help Nadia’s with hers. Thankfully, Nadia had stopped bitching about it, but insisted she take the rear and Robert at least break the trail for her.

The weather had cleared. Bringing heat that filtered through the birch leaves and helped keep the buzzing mosquitoes down to a slower slapping level. They didn’t seem to bother her as much as the men and Nadia.