Zero-Degree Murder (A Search and Rescue Mystery) (9 page)

“Any place worse than others?”

“My ankle. I’m pretty sure I sprained it. C-can’t put any weight on it. Don’t think it’s b-broken though.”

A bad sprain might be better than a break in the long run, but could be initially more painful.

Behind her, Cashman rummaged noisily through his pack. Over her shoulder, Gracie could see his Cheshire cat grin with the word
hero
practically scrawled across his forehead. She dreaded the prospect of having to listen to him crow about this very moment.

But the thought of Cashman’s future braggadocio did nothing to dampen Gracie’s own spirits. She felt positively giddy herself. There was nothing more satisfying than finding a missing person still breathing. She had had a number of searches go the other way. Bringing them home alive was definitely better. She reminded herself not to get too far ahead of herself. Three other people—maybe five—were still missing.

The initial medical assessment convinced Gracie that none of Rob’s injuries were life threatening. Getting him dry and warm emerged as the number one priority.

“Excuse me,” she said, reaching out to finger the black sweater Rob wore beneath his jacket, trying not to notice the dark chest hair peeking out from the V-neck. “What’s your sweater made of?”

“Why?”

“I need to know whether we need you to take it off. What’s it made of?”

“Cashmere.”

Naturally. “One hundred percent?”

He looked at her as if he couldn’t figure out why now was the right time for a conversation about men’s fashion, but answered, “Yes,” anyway.

“Is it dry?”

“Pretty much.”

“But your pants are wet.” A confirmation.

He nodded. “Fell in the water down below. Mostly it’s the bottom half of me that got wet.”

“Mr. Christian . . .” Gracie began.

“Rob. Call me Rob,” he said, which Gracie took as a good sign that there was a trace of irritation in his voice and that he enunciated the words without stuttering.

“Fair enough, Rob,” she said. “Before I treat your injuries, we’ve got to get you into some dry clothes.”

“I’ve got extra fleece,” Cashman announced in a loud voice.

From the looks of it, Rob Christian outweighed Steve by a good twenty, twenty-five pounds. But, as long as the actor could squeeze into the clothes, they would serve their function.

“I hate to take off your shoe? Boot? Shoe?” She inspected his foot more closely, taking in the black leather over-the-ankle boot. Apparently butt-ugly roach killers had come back into style.

“Boot,” Rob said.

“Okay, boot. But at this point I think it’s more important to get you dry and warm. You have gloves. Are they dry?”

“One is.”

“Do you have a hat?”

“I did have.”

“That’s all right. We have gloves and a hat for you to wear.” Gracie stood up and turned toward Cashman, who, to his enormous credit, already had water heating. “Steve, you want to help Mr., um, Rob out of his hypothermia pants while I make up some soup?”

“Sure thing.”

She turned back toward the actor. “Steve will help you change out of those wet pants. We have some dry ones for you to put on.”

“Terrific.” He sounded as if he really meant it.

“How does some chicken noodle soup sound?”

“Brilliant.”

“Cashman.” Gracie tossed him the plastic vacuum-packed bundle of spare clothes from her own pack, which Steve caught with an exaggerated flourish. “There are fleece socks and a hat in there. And another Polartec shirt. If it fits, have him put it under his sweater. And here’s a pair of down booties. See if they fit.”

Cashman helped Rob to his feet as Gracie dug into her pack for the Tupperware container that held her food stash. Unsnapping the lid, she picked out a well-worn but intact packet of dehydrated soup, ripped the package open and poured the contents into the steaming water.

As she stirred the broth, she glanced over her shoulder and did a classic double take.

In the light of Steve’s headlamp, Rob Christian stood in all his glory, stark raving naked from the waist down. With a hand on Steve’s shoulder to steady himself, he was hopping on one foot, fighting to put his injured foot into the leg of a pair of fleece pants.

“Holy . . .” Gracie whispered to herself, turning back to hunch over her stove. “Steve, you might want to have Rob sit down,” she said, hardly able to suppress a giggle. “It might be easier that way.”
Yikes, is he white! My butt’s not even close to being that white and it hasn’t seen the sun in ten years.

CHAPTER

R
OB
Christian sat inside Gracie’s half-zipped sleeping bag on a twelve-inch-square pad of closed-cell foam insulation. His injured leg stuck out the side, propped up on her pack. She had pulled one of her down booties—which had proven to be too small—over his toes to keep them warm. He was fully clothed in dry fleece and socks, a pair of Cashman’s gloves, and Gracie’s hat with the earflaps pulled over his ears. He cradled a steaming cup of chicken noodle soup in his gloved hands.

Rob had stopped shivering and had regained complete coordination of his limbs. His speech was fully coherent. Gracie eyed the man surreptitiously and was pleased that in spite of the dirt and dried blood on his face, he appeared to have stepped a couple of paces back from death’s door. There was no doubt that he had been close. As cold as it was, and being as wet, hypothermic and injured as he was, the august Englishman may very well not have lasted the night. She found it mind-boggling that people all over the world would have mourned the loss.

But even with the actor sitting surreally before her, a gnawing feeling remained in her gut. Where were the others? Had she screwed up big-time and misread the tracks? Had she missed something in their hurry down into the canyon? Would someone die because of her mistake? And how did the blood on the outcropping figure into the story, if at all?

Gracie questioned Rob further about his hiking partners as she wiped grime and blood from his face and neck, daubed antibiotic cream on the worst of the abrasions, and irrigated and butterfly bandaged the cut on his eyebrow. But whether from the bump on his head or because he simply didn’t know, Rob produced little useful information. No, he didn’t remember why he had left the trail. And, no, he couldn’t remember separating from the others or know where they might be at this moment. The last thing he could remember clearly was eating lunch with the entire group.

“Excuse us a moment,” Gracie said to Rob. She pushed herself to her feet and drew Cashman a couple of yards down the hill out of hearing distance of the actor.

She put her mouth inches from Cashman’s ear and breathed, “Really bad idea to separate, but someone needs to radio in to the CP. Let Ralph know where we are. That we’ve found Rob and—”

“I’ll go.”

“Okay, good. I’d like to keep an eye on Rob. Tell Ralph we’re bivying for the night. Ask him to page out more teams to look for the other MisPers.”
She left unspoken that finding the other missing persons alive was becoming less and less likely with every passing minute.

Cashman plunked his helmet back on his head and fastened the strap beneath his chin. “I’ll keep an eye peeled for ’em.”

“Give Ralph as much info as you can so he can plan for the next Ops Period. If it’s still too windy in the morning for an air evac, we’ll need a litter team for the carry-out.”

Cashman swung up his pack and threaded his arms into the straps.

“But
ask
him, Steve. He’s IC.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I’ll build a shelter while you’re gone.”

“Not for me.” He fastened the waistband on his pack. “I’ve got my bivy.”

“Okay.” Gracie thought for a moment, then said, “Cashman?”

“Yeah.”

“Be careful.”

“I always am,” he said with a grin, then jogged off down the hill at a pace Gracie knew was for Rob’s benefit and which would be hard to maintain on the uphill side of the canyon. Still, she had to hand it to Cashman. It looked good.

Gracie trudged up the hill to sit on the ground a couple of feet away from Rob. “Steve’s going back up to the trail to call in to the Command Post. We’re too low in the canyon here for radio reception. We’re going to bivouac here for the night. Bring you out in the morning.”

“We’re spending the night out here?”

Gracie didn’t begrudge the man the merest hint of a whine in his voice. Even she thought sleeping outside in any temperature less than forty degrees sucked. And she wasn’t a city boy, injured and exhausted and mildly hypothermic.

“I’m sorry,” she said with genuine sympathy. In her best caretaker-to-patient voice, she added, “I’m going to do my best to make sure you’re as warm and comfortable as possible. But I don’t think you’re able to hike out on your own.”

“What about a helicopter? Can’t they fly in and fetch us out?”

“Did you finish the soup?”

As he dutifully scraped at the bottom of the cup with her Lexan spoon, Gracie answered his question. “Sheriff’s Department helicopters don’t fly in the mountains at night. And it’s very windy up top. It’s too dangerous.”

Rob handed her the empty cup.

“We’ll most likely airlift you out at first light,” Gracie said. “Don’t worry about being too cold. I’m going to build us a shelter for the night.”

“You are?
You
are?”

Gracie narrowed her eyes at him. Just how much of a male chauvinist was this guy anyway? “You’re injured,” she said, keeping her voice neutral.

“I’m laid up like a . . .” Rob blustered. “You shouldn’t have to . . . I feel like an effing child!” He threw his hands up in exasperation, then reacted to the movement with a wince. He leaned forward and cupped his hand to the bandaged cut on his eyebrow.

Ah
, Gracie thought.
Male pride.
She slid over to kneel on the ground in front of Rob and smiled up at him. “This is what I’m trained for,” she said. “First, though, I’d like to take a look at your ankle. May I?”

He blew out a long breath. “By all means.”

A wave of unreality washed over her as she plucked off the down bootie and eased the sock from his foot. A lump the size and color of a plum protruded from his porcelain ankle just below the bone. “Tell me where it hurts,” she said and palpated his foot with her fingertips.

“Bugger!” Rob yelled. He jerked his foot out of her hands and fell back onto his elbows.

Gracie sat back on her heels and looked at him. “I’m sorry,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “But I have to see how badly your foot is injured.”

She lifted his foot again, resting it in her lap, and started feeling around the ankle again.

“Bloody hell, woman!” Rob yelled again and yanked his foot away from her so hard she tipped over sideways.

This guy is starting to get on my nerves
.

Gracie shoved herself upright and grabbed up her first-aid kit. “I don’t think your ankle is broken,” she said. “But I don’t have X-ray eyes and an X ray is the only way to conclusively determine whether you have a bad sprain or a fracture. Both are incredibly painful.”

“No bloody shit,” Rob said.

“First I’m going to put a wet bandana on it. It’ll be cold, but it’ll help with the swelling and hopefully it won’t be quite as sore tomorrow. Then later I’ll wrap it tight with an elastic bandage to ease the pain some and make it more stable.”

Down at the creek Gracie soaked her cotton bandana in the icy water, then kneeling in front of Rob again, draped the folded cloth on the injured ankle.

Rob yelped and fell back again, which made him groan again with pain.

“I am sorry,” Gracie said. “This is going to hurt a lot right now, but, please, trust me that it will make it feel better tomorrow.”

When Gracie placed the cold bandana around his ankle, Rob said, “Effing hell!” through clenched teeth, but kept his foot still. “So, what should I call you?” he asked. “Florence?”

Gracie couldn’t tell if what she heard in his voice was disdain or amusement or something else. “As in Nightingale?” she returned as she tied off the bandana. With Rob’s eyes burning the top of her head, she concentrated on not dropping his foot as she lifted it up to place it gingerly on her pack.

“Quick, aren’t you?” he asked, then groaned as she tugged the down bootie over his toes.

“Sorry again.”

From her first-aid kit, she pulled a plastic film canister. “My mini-pharmacy,” she announced holding it up. She flipped off the lid and poured a multicolored pile of pills into her hand. “You name it. I carry it. If it’s legal, that is.”

She extracted two white caplets and dropped them into Rob’s open hand. “Acetaminophen. Tylenol. They’ll take the edge off the pain.” She funneled the rest of the pills back into the canister. “I’m not supposed to dispense medication, but I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“Thank you,” Rob said so quietly Gracie hardly heard him.

She handed him the water bottle. “You’re welcome.”

As he tossed the pills into his mouth and tipped back the bottle to drain the rest of the water, Gracie grabbed the seconds to study the man before her.

So far, she decided, Rob Christian wasn’t all that bad. She’d had better patients. She’d definitely had worse. Preconceived ideas of how an über-wealthy, high-maintenance megastar would act had prepared her not to like him. But he wasn’t acting out nearly as badly as she had anticipated he would.

At the moment he didn’t even look much like a mega-star. In fact, in the unforgiving light of Gracie’s LED headlamp, Rob Christian looked like a thoroughly grimy half-drowned pack rat in need of a long, hot soak and a tall brewsky.