Death Cache

by Tiffinie Helmer

  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.

  She wetted her lips and swallowed before beginning. “You were taking first watch with—” She wiped away a few tears and cleared her throat. “I was worried about both of you being alone out there. I wanted to stay but returned to the cabin. I saw Nadia in bed, reading. I think we exchanged a few words.”

  She dragged a stuttering breath into her lungs and he reached out for her hand to hopefully give her strength. His heart warmed when she returned his squeeze.

  “I don’t remember much after that. I do remember feeling like my eyes were taped shut and my legs were heavy. Then nothing.”

  Gage turned to Nadia.

  “It was much the same. I was in bed reading but I don’t remember putting my book away.”

  “You didn’t,” Tern said. “I found you with your book open on your chest. I put your book away.”

  Gage glanced at Robert.

  “Similar experience. I remember Mac saying how tired he was. His yawns were contagious, and I thought it was just because of the day we’d had with Lucky and all. Actually, I had started feeling groggy earlier after eating dinner.” He arrowed in on Tern. “Just what was in those plants you had me cook up? Did you drug us?”

  “Hold off there, Robert,” Gage said.

  “There was nothing in the plants I picked that would have hurt us. Besides, I ate everything you did. You sure you didn’t add anything to the food since you were the one who cook dinner?”

  “Hey,” Robert objected.

  “It’s a valid question.”

  “Nadia can vouch for me. She helped with dinner and there wasn’t anything we cooked that you didn’t hand us.”

  “Then what the hell were we drugged with and how?” Tern asked.

  “I have a theory,” Gage said. “I think we were given sleeping pills. Strong ones or at least a heavy dose. Mac was a Ranger. There’s no way anyone would have gotten the jump on him if he wasn’t impaired. The only way to take him out was to incapacitate him.”

  “Sleeping pills?” Tern swung her gaze to Nadia.

  “Oh my goodness.” Nadia got up and moved to the dresser. On top was a makeup bag. She grabbed it, sat down and rummaged through the contents. Not finding what she searched for, she upended her bag and dumped out all the contents. “They aren’t here.” She raised her head and met their eyes. “They’re gone. My prescription sleeping pills are gone. Someone took them.”

  Gage sat back. “That explains the what but not the how.”

  “The food,” Robert said. “We all ate. So how did he get the pills in our food?”

  “Or drink?” Tern added. “The water we boiled for drinking. That would explain why we reacted differently. Those who drank more would have gotten a stronger dose.”

  “The pills would have left a bitter taste in the water,” Gage said. “The coffee.” He looked at Nadia. “You made the coffee we all drank after dinner.”

  She reacted as though he’d slapped her and in a way he had. “I just made the coffee like regular. You were all there. One of you guys would have noticed if I had opened a bottle of pills and dropped them in. Get real. And why would I have drugged myself?”

  “To throw off suspicion,” Gage said.

  “All right, cool it.” Tern dropped his hand. “Putting the pills in the coffee makes the best sense. We need to look at the coffee grounds. Think about it. How easy would it be to grind up pills into a powder and then mix them in with the grounds? It’s brilliant, really.”

  “Robert?”

  “On it.” Robert went for the coffee, leaving the cabin door open. He quickly returned and shut the door behind him. “Here.” He offered up the tin.

  Gage opened it and huffed out an angry breath. “The son of a bitch emptied the container.” He showed the sparkly clean tin. There wasn’t one coffee ground remaining. “He must have washed this out.”

  “He’s covering his trail,” Robert said.

  “What now?” Tern asked.

  The other two also looked at him. Guess he’d taken over Mac’s spot as leader. He dragged in a deep breath as the heavy burden of responsibility settled on his shoulders. “We stick to the plan Mac had mapped out. Let’s break camp. Pack only what you can’t live without and keep in mind weight. We need to move fast.”

  “What about Mac?” Tern asked, blinking away tears that had refilled her eyes.

  “Robert and I are going to take him up to the glacier and put him next to Lucky.”

  A smile trembled on her lips. “He wouldn’t like that. He didn’t have a lot of use for Lucky.”

  “Their spirits are going to have to come to some sort of understanding.” He shared her smile, and then turned to Robert. “Ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  “Wait a minute,” Nadia said. “We need to rethink this. Two of us are dead. We need to stay and defend ourselves until the plane gets here. We have water, bathroom facilities, food as long as Tern can continue to spear-fish, and roofs over our heads. We have none of that out there.” She gestured to the wilderness, her voice rising.

  “Nadia,” Gage said, “we’ve been over this.”

  “Yeah, with Mac making the decisions. Now you’re going to jump right into his shoes and decide for us? We need to think about this again.”

  “Do the math,” Gage said. “We’ve been here three days and two people are dead. If we wait for the plane, that gives the killer four days to kill the four of us.”

  “He’s got a point,” Tern said.

  “Of course, you’re going to agree with him. You’re sleeping with him.”

  “I am not,” Tern said, with a telling blush.

  Nadia scoffed.

  “Come on, Nadia,” Tern stressed her point. “We stay, we’re easy targets.”

  “Unless it’s one of us,” Nadia said, staring at each of them. “Then we just take the killer along with us.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Tern laid her hand on Gage’s forearm. He and Robert had fashioned a type of pack board out of branches and pine tree boughs as a carrier for Mac’s body, and were getting ready to put Mac on it and hike up the glacier.

  “I need a moment to say good-bye,” she said.

  Gage stepped back from the door to Mac’s cabin. “Do you want me to come in there with you?”

  “No, I need to be alone with him,” she said, hoping she would be all right when she saw Mac again.

  “Just so you know, we haven’
t touched him yet.” Gage tightened his lips. “He still has the knife in his chest. I felt it best not to disturb the body, in order to retain as much evidence as we can for the authorities.”

  She gave him a jerky nod and reached for the doorknob. His hand covered hers.

  “Tern, I didn’t want you to have to know this, but the killer cut out his tongue.”

  She gasped. “Why? Why would he do such a thing?”

  “Because he or she didn’t like whatever Mac had said.”

  “She?” Tern realized, for the first time, that they’d been referring to the killer as being a man. But the killer could as easily be a woman except that cutting off someone’s head would have taken a lot of strength. Could a woman do that? She couldn’t imagine being able to do it herself.

  “When you are finished with your good-byes, I’d like a few minutes to talk with you before Robert and I take off.”

  Once again she nodded. Questions skipped through her mind like pebbles on a pond’s surface.

  Gage released his hold on her hand and she turned the knob and entered the darkened cabin, shutting the door behind her.

  There was an unnatural stillness in the air. Goose bumps rose on her skin and she rubbed her arms. A few steps brought her closer to Mac. He hadn’t moved since she’d first seen him this morning. Of course he hadn’t moved. He was dead.

  It seemed impossible that he was no longer of this earth. He’d been so full of life. Tern slowly lowered herself onto the edge of Robert’s cot, clasping her hands in front of her almost in a prayer-like position. She wasn’t one who believed in traditional religion. Her Athabascan heritage had a way of messing with that. Like now, she knew she wasn’t alone in this room. She’d wondered if she would still feel him or if he’d already moved on. She had her answer in the brushing of icy fingers along her cheek. Tears burned her already cried-out eyes.

  “Mac, I wish you could tell me who did this to you.” Whoever had killed him did so because of her. She might as well have been the one to plunge the knife into his chest. The room temperature dropped abruptly, and she choked out a laugh, wiping away a tear at the edge of her lashes. “Okay, I’ll try not to blame myself. But don’t you stay on this plane, Mac. Move on. Find Shannon and be happy.”

  Many of the Native Alaskan tribes believed that to stay on this plane after death trapped you and kept you from living the next step in your spiritual evolvement. The Northern Lights were believed to be spirits of their ancestors trapped in this realm, turning evil with time and reaching down from the skies to steal souls. Mac believed in God and heaven and that was what she wanted for him.

  A peacefulness settled over her, and she knew Mac heeded her advice. “You’ll always own a piece of my heart, Addison MacFearson. I love you.” She stood, pressed a kiss to her fingers and lightly laid them to his cold lips in a final farewell. She gazed down at him, not seeing the man she knew before her. Mac no longer inhabited this shell. That was all it was—just a shell, a container. One that needed to be preserved for evidence and then made one with the earth again.

  Damn, she would miss him.

  She turned and walked out of the cabin. Gage waited where she had left him, his eyes full of concern.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She wiped away the tears that seemed to be on a constant trickle. “I will be.” She shut her eyes as a wave of energy past through her. When she opened them and gazed up at the sky, it was the bluest, clearest sky she’d ever beheld. The sun glinted down and warmed the raised flesh on her arms. They’d need sunscreen today. It was hard to believe it had snowed yesterday.

  She returned her attention to Gage. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  He glanced around. Both Robert and Nadia were on guard around the campfire, armed and looking spooked. Breakfast had been the last of the rice and dry biscuits without coffee to swallow them down with. They could all benefit from some caffeine.

  “Come with me.” Gage took her arm and led her toward his cabin.

  Tern wanted to put on the brakes, but to do so would draw more attention to them.

  “Drop your head and act like you’re grieving,” Gage whispered under his breath.

  Act? She did what he said, sagging against him for the hell of it. He grunted when her weight hit him, but then he wrapped his arm around her and held her close as they ambled toward his cabin. The friction between their bodies as they moved together had sparks flaring to life.

  What the hell was wrong with her? Mac had just been killed, Lucky twenty-four hours before, and her body was sending up sex signals? Was there something to that need to reaffirm that you were still alive? Nadia and Robert had succumbed to it without much of a fight. For a moment, Tern wished she could throw Gage down on his bunk, tear off their clothes, and climb on top of him. That would be too easy, and she didn’t want to look back at Mac’s death and have orgasms with Gage clouding the memory.

  They entered Gage’s cabin, Tern coming up short to see all of Lucky’s things neatly packed and sitting on the bare cot. Gage must have done it. She was both mad and relieved that he had done so. She should have been the one to have taken care of his belongings, but she hadn’t even thought of them.

  “Thank you for packing up Lucky’s stuff,” she murmured, fingering the straps of his well-used backpack.

  “You’re welcome.” Gage ran a hand through hair that had been tousled all morning. “How well do you know Nadia?”

  She looked at him stunned for a moment. “Huh?”

  “Nadia? How well do you know her?”

  “Oh, come on. You can’t mean to think…no, I won’t even say it. Nadia is not behind this. She could never kill anyone.” The idea was preposterous.

  “Humor me, okay?”

  “No, absolutely not.” She turned to leave.

  “Tern, listen.” He grabbed her arm before she reached the door. “Nadia’s pills. She made the coffee. With Mac in a drug-induced sleep, she could have easily snuck in there and killed him.”

  “Anyone could have stolen those pills out of her bag, crushed them, and hid them in the coffee. You could have made the coffee last night, for that matter, so could I. We’ve had coffee after dinner every damn night we’ve been here.” Her tone increased with each explanation.

  “Lower your voice or they’ll hear you.”

  She wanted to scream that she didn’t fucking care. Two people were dead. Two people that she deeply cared for.

  “Fine. You want to know about Nadia, ask away.” The fastest way through this was obviously Gage’s way.

  “Has she ever shown any jealousy toward you?”

  “What? No. She’s my friend.”

  “Friends can be jealous of each other. She did hook up with Lucky, and then with Robert. Two men you have also been with.” This last bit was said through his teeth.

  “Who’s jealous?” She cocked a brow.

  “Yes, I’m jealous. I’ve been green with it since we left Fairbanks. But I wouldn’t kill anyone over jealousy.”

  Interesting that he said ‘over jealousy’. He’d admitted to killing his brother-in-law. Could she trust that he hadn’t killed Lucky and Mac?

  “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “You brought it up. What would make you kill someone, Gage?”

  “We aren’t going there.”

  “Why not? You opened the subject.”

  “Damn it, Tern. I know what you’re doing. You don’t want to entertain the idea that Nadia could be responsible.”

  “Big gold star for you. Of course, I don’t want to think my best friend is capable of murdering people who are close to me. Nadia knows everything about me. We’ve been friends for years. No way could she have done this.” It was mind boggling to even contemplate.

  “Everyone here is a suspect, even you, Tern. You knew she had those sleeping pills. You had easy access to them too.”

  His accusations stabbed at her like a dull knife. “You think I could be capable of killing Mac?
He was like a father to me.”

  “I have a hard time wrapping my brain around that since you’ve slept with him.”

  She sucked in her breath but it didn’t help divert the blow he’d just delivered. “You son of a bitch. You’re twisting my words. You have no idea what kind of relationship Mac and I had.” She swiveled and swung the door open.

  “Tern—”

  She whipped around. “Go to hell.”

  “Tern, shit.” He grabbed her arm, bringing her to a halt. He hissed low as not to be overheard. “I don’t want to leave you here with Nadia unprotected while Robert and I take care of Mac.”

  “If she was the killer, I’d choose to spend the afternoon with her rather than you at this point.” She yanked her arm out of his hold.

  “Is there a problem here?” Robert asked, standing a few feet away, Nadia right behind him. “Tern, you okay?”

  “Peachy.” She shot Gage one last scathing glare and turned to Nadia. “Let’s pack up.”

  “All of us are going to hike up to the glacier with Mac’s body,” Gage said through a tightened jaw.

  “What?” All three of them answered together.

  “It’s safer if we stay together, even if one of us is the killer.”

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” Nadia asked. “I don’t want to climb that glacier and then traipse down this mountain. You push us like that and we won’t have to worry about a killer taking us out. The trek will.” She cocked her head to the side. “Unless that’s your plan.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Gage said, twisting his lips in disgust. “I’m trying to keep us alive.”

  “Unless you’re the killer,” she said. “Killing Lucky would have been a piece of cake for you. Heck, even Mac probably wouldn’t have stood a chance against you even without being drugged.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone,” Gage said.

  “Neither did I,” Nadia yelled.

  “Everyone calm the fuck down,” Robert said, moving to stand between Gage and Nadia. “Back up, Nadia. Gage, you too.” He gave them a minute to get themselves under control. “If the killer is out there watching us, I’m sure he’s laughing his ass off enjoying the spectacle. Holy shit this is twisted.” He paused a minute and ran his hand through his hair. “Gage is right. We need to stay together.”