penis-shaped ice skewers because my legs were too worn out from a sex marathon to keep me upright.
I giggled, trying to imagine how my obituary would read. I just lay there and laughed like an idiot in the snow for a full five minutes before going into the garage to break open my brand-new bag of rock salt.
I was so glad Cooper wasn’t around to see this. I would never live it down.
AMONG OTHER THINGS, the first big snow showed me how woefully unprepared I’d been for winter, clothing-wise. I stepped into my first ankle-deep snow drift while climbing into my truck and realized exactly how permeable my three-hundred-dollar hiking boots were. Faced with an entire day of running around the kitchen in soaking-wet, squeaking boots, I knew I had to replace them and fast. And if I was honest, I was going to need two or three pairs, plus a load of sweaters, thermal shirts, snow pants, and winter-weight jeans. I really wanted to do it while Cooper was out of town, so he wouldn’t be able to do the “I Told You So” dance.
All Evie had to hear was “shopping” and she planned yet another girly-day extravaganza for the following afternoon, featuring outlet malls and facials. I tried to put her B-52s CD in the stereo as we reached the town limits, but she turned the volume all the way down and gave me a pointed look.
“OK, spill,” she said.
“I’m sorry?”
“Something’s different about you. Your eyes are bright. You’ve had a big, stupid smile on your face for days.” Evie’s eyes narrowed at me. “You’ve had sex.”
I blanched but tried to play off my surprise with a smirk. “Yes, I’m thirty years old. Being a virgin at this point would be rather sad.”
“I mean recently,” she accused. “You have had sex recently. And you didn’t tell me!”
“Evie, I must confess,” I said in mock solemnity. Evie’s grin was a mile wide and quite smug. “I finally succumbed to the charms of Leonard Tremblay. The dark delights of his hot tub were simply too delicious to resist any longer.”
Evie’s mouth drooped to one side as she shuddered. “Ew.”
“Let that be a lesson to you about asking prying questions,” I scolded.
She shook her head in horror, focusing her eyes on the road. “The images you just put in my head will never go away. That’s pure evil.”
“Is this why you agreed to come with me today, because you want to rip answers from my tongue?”
“No. I really do need some new clothes, and Buzz hates shopping with a passion. This is just a clever use of our driving time.” She shrugged, turning back toward the wheel and staring out the windshield. She didn’t speak for a long moment.
I glared at her. “So. . . you turned my girls’ day out, a rare treat that I’ve been looking forward to all day, into an ambush interrogation. And you’ve made me very uncomfortable and spoiled my mood—not that I’m trying to make you feel bad.”
“So, I guess I’m paying for the facials, huh?” she muttered.
“And maybe some waxing,” I said primly.
“I am not getting a Brazilian,” she told me. “Even my guilt has its limits.”
Evie managed to protect her nether regions from hot wax, but she did get the technician to “surprise” me with an eyebrow shaping while I was in the facial chair. She laughed more than should be legal in a hair-removal situation.
“I DON’T SEE why you’re still bitching,” Evie snickered as we hauled a few shopping bags in through the kitchen entrance of the saloon. It was just after closing time, and the bar was empty. Buzz was supposed to be waiting for us so Evie could give him a ride home. “You had a beautiful natural arch to your brow that was just begging to be set free.”
“It’s all fun and games until I end up looking permanently surprised,” I countered.
The saloon was unnaturally still and quiet without customers. All I could hear was the faint echo of the jukebox playing some old Waylon Jennings song.
Evie called, “Buzz, there are two ladies in need of assistance out here!”
Pete popped his head around the corner from the bar. “Hey, Evie, let me take those.”
Evie quirked her lips. “What are you doing here, sweetie?”
“Buzz asked me to wait for you. Alan got a call from the state police,” he said. “Some hikers went missing on the far northwest edge of the preserve. You remember those kids from ASU who came in the other day, tried to show fake ID for beer? They were planning to go up the mountain and play Survivor Man before the big weather hit.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t remember a specific pair of hikers over the last couple of days. So many tourists filtered through town that I’d stopped paying attention. The guilt of not being able to remember their faces gnawed at me. I’d started to see the world the way most people in town did. People who were from Grundy and people who weren’t.
Pete shrugged. “They were supposed to check in with friends today, but the last time anybody heard from them was three days ago. Buzz and a couple of the other guys from town went to help with the search. He asked me to stick around.”
“The far northwest side of the preserve,” I said, doing some distance calculations in my head. “Near my house?”
“Yeah,” Pete said, shrugging.
“We’d better put some coffee on.” Evie sighed. “When they wrap up for the night, they’ll head back here. Alan’s place is too small for a debriefing.”
“That’s a scary, official-sounding word.” I grimaced.
Pete nodded, patting my shoulder. “We take missing people seriously around here. All it takes is a turn in the weather, a minor injury, or a fall, and people can die after just a day’s exposure.”
“They probably just got off the trail and got a little lost,” Evie assured me, though she didn’t sound convinced herself.
I stuck around to help prepare for the search party. The temperatures hovered in the twenties, and I worried about Alan, Buzz, and my friends. I wondered what manner of idiot would want to hike in weather like this and whether it was worth the risk of my friends’ safety to look for people who’d put themselves in such danger.
I made biscuits because I couldn’t think of anything better to do. Folding the dough, rolling it, and punching through the buttered surface with a cup seemed to ease the tension in my head. Long after it turned dark, Buzz led the charge into the saloon, the men coughing and groaning and stomping the icy mud from their boots. Evie and I passed out mugs of coffee as if they were lifelines.
“Are you all right?” I asked as I nudged a mug toward a pale, exhausted Alan. He’d been atypically distant for the last few days. I’d been prepared for him to ramp up his flirting, with Cooper out of town, but he’d hardly spoken to me, keeping his eyes wary and downcast whenever I approached. I worried that he sensed that something had happened between Cooper and me, that he was going to give up any pretense of being friends now. But he seemed happy to see me as I plied him with caffeine and buttery carbs. His tired smile was genuine, if a bit apprehensive.
“I’m better now,” he admitted, drinking deeply and wrapping his hands around the warm mug as I poured a cup for Abner.
“Any sign of them?” I asked, giving him a refill.
Alan grimaced. “The kids who reported them missing gave us directions to where the boys planned to camp. We found their site. The tent was torn to hell. Sleeping bags, food, everything they had was thrown around like a tornado had swept through. There were tracks, big tracks.”
My stomach dropped, and I had a heavy feeling of deja vu. I tried to concentrate on breathing deeply, on the musical clanking of spoons and cups and male grunts as my neighbors warmed their bellies.
“Wolf tracks?” I asked, not really wanting the answer. Alan nodded. “Like the wolf that attacked Susie Q?”
Alan nodded again, looking stricken. “There were smears of blood all over that campsite. But no bodies, not even, uh, parts. It’s like the kids put up a fight and were dragged out of the site, kicking and screaming. They had rifles with them. There would have to be more than one wolf to surprise and then kill two full-grown boys like that. But you normally don’t see packs behaving this way. Even packs of wolves will shy away from humans if given the opportunity to run. Normally, when a human is attacked, it’s by one sick or scared animal. This seems . . .
