Justin in this situation, she’s going to die.”
“Ah, man…”
He glanced up. “We’ve got Gannon for testimony. We don’t need her to make the case.”
“Cuff her,” Larry said. “Bring her in. Hell, I want to meet this dame and look into her eyes. I want to see for myself what’s there.”
Cody walked toward his horse. Mitchell was clearly getting impatient. Cody said, “Larry, one more thing. I called that cell number you gave me earlier today. Somebody picked up but wouldn’t say anything. What was that about?”
A long pause. “Shit, Cody, I don’t know. When did you call?”
“Around ten.”
“That’s when I was in Tubman’s office getting my skin peeled off for not telling him you’d left Helena.”
“Where was the phone?”
“In my briefcase. Next to my desk. Oh shit,” Larry said.
“Somebody answered your phone,” Cody said. “Somebody listened to me. Somehow they know I’m here.”
“I can’t imagine who…,” Larry said. Then: “Hold on a second. Somebody’s banging on my door. I’ll be right back.”
Cody said, “Somebody’s been tracking me, Larry. Someone tried to burn me alive on the way here.”
He realized Larry had stepped away.
Cody heard the receiver thunk on Larry’s kitchen table. He heard a greeting, a shout, and a gunshot. Then someone picked up the phone. Cody heard breathing. Like before.
“Larry?” Cody asked.
The connection ended.
39
Gracie asked Rachel, “How did you and my dad meet?” She couldn’t get him, or what Rachel had told them, out of her mind.
They were riding down the trail Jed had taken, following his hoofprints. Rachel, Gracie, Danielle, and Justin. They’d left the camp under Rachel’s direction, and they’d moved quickly and quietly. Rachel made a quick trip to her tent to retrieve a backpack that was now lashed to the skirt of her saddle and hung low like there was something heavy in it.
The last moments of the evening sun reached through the trees and lit the snowcapped peaks of the eastern mountains, fusing them with a good-bye wink of neon orange and pink. Gracie had barely had enough time to retrieve her hoodie before they left and she was glad she had. It seemed cooler than it had the night before and she was grateful for the warmth from Strawberry between her thighs.
“I said-”
“I heard you,” Rachel replied. There was a cool businesslike edge to her voice, and Gracie recoiled.
“Probably the wrong time to ask,” Gracie said. “I’m sorry.”
Rachel rode ahead, her face set into the mask Gracie had seen earlier. Gracie thought,
“It seems awful to just leave him like that,” Gracie said, as much to herself as to Rachel.
“It’s what he wanted. Would you rather go back?” Rachel said with the same edge in her voice as before. “You can go back there if you want to. I told you what happened.”
“No,” Gracie said softly.
“I just had a human being die in my arms,” Rachel said, not looking over her shoulder at Gracie or trying to soften her tone. “And I saw the man who did it.”
Gracie felt sick.
“We’ve got to find help,” Rachel said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
From behind, Justin said, “Excuse me, Miss Mina?”
Rachel jerked around in the saddle and looked past Gracie to Justin. “Yes?”
“I’m wondering why we’re on this trail? If we’re headed back to the trailhead this is the wrong direction, I’m pretty sure.”
“It’s the trail we’re taking,” Rachel said.
“I don’t get it,” Justin said, undeterred. “Seems like we’re going the wrong way.”
Gracie looked ahead for the first time at the trail itself. It was unmarked except for a single set of horse tracks. She was confused.
“What’s going on?” Danielle asked from behind them.
“Nothing,” Rachel said sharply. “Just please keep quiet, all of you.”
Danielle rode up beside Gracie and leaned in to her. “I’ve been thinking,” she said.
Gracie refrained from expressing surprise.
“Remember when we got to the airport in Bozeman? Dad wasn’t there.”
“I remember.”
“Where do you suppose he was?”
Gracie shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t know either. But he’s the one who made such a big deal out of this trip. Knowing him, he should have been there three hours early pacing around and getting all worried about us.”
Gracie nodded. “That does sound more like him.”
“There’s been something going on since the beginning,” Danielle said. “He’s been up to something. And why wasn’t he in camp like he was supposed to be?”
“There has to be an explanation,” Gracie said, unsure of her own words.
“Tell me when you come up with one,” Danielle said, and slipped back into line.
Ten minutes later, Rachel said, “Here he goes,” and turned her horse from the trail onto a faint game route that went west into the trees. She looked back to make sure everyone was with her. Gracie refused to meet her eyes and kept her head down. She couldn’t stop thinking of what Rachel said she saw, and the fuel Danielle had added to the fire.
“This way,” Rachel said, spurring her horse onto the new trail.
“Now I’m sure we’re headed the wrong way,” Justin said.
Gracie watched Rachel carefully. How her chest swelled with a big intake of breath, how her mouth was set, how her eyes looked like slits because the skin on her face was pulled back tight. She turned her head and glared at Justin and seemed to be holding back her words.
“Stay in line,” Rachel said to Justin. “And stop talking. I’m trying to save us all.”
“It just doesn’t make sense to me,” Justin said. “I mean, we want to go back to the vehicles and we’re heading up into the trees on the side of a mountain. I just don’t get it.”
“No,” Rachel Mina said, “you don’t.”
“Danielle?” Justin said.
“Don’t ask me,” Danielle said.
Gracie wondered exactly who was leading them and who Rachel had become. She felt sick to her stomach and wished she’d talked to her father and at least said good-bye.
And as she watched Rachel ride ahead, she noticed the bulge on her right calf where the top of her boot was. Something pushed out against the fabric of her jeans. Gracie leaned over to her left to confirm Rachel’s left calf
