it when it happened. Stepping out on the porch, I looked over the edge and saw him, lying still and crumpled on the ground. Dark blood pooled by his head. I could smell his body cooling, and his heart was silent.
Of all the stupid, ugly accidents. “He came out here sometimes,” I said weakly. “To watch the sunrise.”
I went down the steps, approached Dorian, looked back at the porch, trying to figure out what had happened. He’d been leaning on the railing. Maybe it had just given way. He fell wrong, hit his head, maybe even hurt his neck. A stupid accident.
“Kitty?” Grant said. He came down the steps to join me, making the same quick examination I did.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “
“He’s heavier. Maybe he just hit a bad spot.”
“A fall like that shouldn’t have killed him. It was only a few feet.” I started crying. I turned away to hide the silent tears running down my cheeks. I’d just gotten to know him. Just gotten to like him. It wasn’t fair.
Grant said, “Provost might have footage from the remote cameras that might explain this.”
But were the cameras still running without power? “Except Provost is gone, along with the phones. We can’t call for help.”
Grant looked around as if he expected some kind of attack, as if searching the treetops for a hidden enemy. “There’s a radio in the airplane.” He marched out, heading toward the path that led from the lodge to the airstrip.
I hurried after him, taking a last look at Dorian. I hated leaving him alone—but I hated leaving Grant alone, too.
Within sight of the airplane parked at the edge of the meadow, I stopped. A breath of air touched my face, and with it came the smell of carrion.
“What is it?” Grant asked. He studied me; I turned my nose to the air to track the scent. It was making me queasy, making me want to howl.
“Bodies,” I whispered. This didn’t smell like meat, like the deer Jerome had dropped in front of the house the other day. This smelled like bodies. “It’s coming from the plane.”
I ran forward, Grant on my heels. The smell grew stronger. I reached the cabin door and rattled the handle, struggling with it a moment before finally wrenching it open.
The three production assistants lay on the floor of the cabin, dead. Side by side, curled up and crammed in, Gordon first, then Skip, then Amy. Purple bruises ringed their necks, as if they’d been garroted. I gripped the door, my heart racing, my breaths stumbling. I wanted to run, and my wolfish instincts howled.
Provost, Valenti, and Cabe were still missing.
“What’s it mean?” I said, catching my breath, struggling to stay calm.
Grant moved to the cockpit and opened the door. “Look at this. It’s the radio,” he said, gesturing to a box that had been gutted, wires hanging out. So much for making contact with the outside world that way.
“What’s going on? Who did this?” And where were they now? I turned, looking out over the meadow and surrounding woods. I walked around the airplane, searching, smelling, trying to find a trail. I smelled people, moving back and forth. The whole path smelled like people, and the airstrip smelled like fuel and tire skids overlaying the natural smell of the valley. Nothing stood out, nothing gave me a clue about who had done this or where they’d gone.
Grant was sitting in the pilot seat, flipping switches—that he’d know anything about flying a plane didn’t surprise me. The engine coughed, sputtered, and died. “Out of fuel,” he said. “Someone’s drained the fuel tank.”
Leaving us good and stuck. I tried to be shocked but felt resigned.
Grant hopped out of the cockpit and closed the door. I returned to staring at the bodies in the cabin. They didn’t deserve this. This had been just another job, and now—
Grant closed the cabin door, blocking my view. I shook myself clear of the image.
“What should we do with them?” I said.
“Leave them for now. We need to wake the others.”
As it turned out, we didn’t have to wake up the others. We heard a loud, shocked scream as we approached the lodge. This one was different than when Tina discovered Jerome’s deer carcass. This one was all about volume and fear.
Ariel had discovered Dorian’s body. She was standing on the front porch, hands over her mouth, looking down. Tina, Jerome, and Jeffrey were with her.
How were we going to tell them that this wasn’t the worst of it? Slowly, I climbed the steps. The group on the porch followed me with shocked, questioning gazes, expecting me to say something. I didn’t know where to start.
“The power’s out,” I said. “The phone’s gone, and the radio in the airplane is busted. We can’t find Provost anywhere.”
“What are you saying?” Jerome demanded, angry. Like being fierce could solve this, could make everything right again. “What the hell’s going on?”
Grant stepped up beside me, his lip curled into a thin smile. “I think we’ve been had.”
The others went inside to wake up Lee and Conrad and gather everyone in the living room. Grant and I examined the area where Dorian had been standing and where he’d fallen. Looking for footprints, odd smells, hints of foul play. Like some kind of detective novel. Didn’t Agatha Christie do this one already?
I smelled Provost. Didn’t mean anything, because he’d been in and out of here all week, on the porch, sitting, standing, walking. I found footprints, but again, Provost and his crew had been going back and forth the whole time we’d been here. I didn’t know enough about forensics to know if the wound on Dorian’s head was caused by the fall or by someone sneaking up on him and hitting him.
Grant found something, a scorch mark at the joint that had held the railing to the post. “A small explosive might have weakened the joint at an opportune time. It wouldn’t even have to be loud enough to hear.”
“So it’s sabotage. Not an accident,” I said.
“Seems reasonable.”
None of us had touched Dorian up to that point. For a second I entertained the thought that maybe he was just unconscious, and if I put my hand to his neck there’d be a pulse and he’d survive. But the Wolf senses knew otherwise, couldn’t be fooled. He smelled dead.
Grant, Jeffrey, and I took a spare blanket, wrapped Dorian in it, and brought him inside to one of the empty bedrooms upstairs. We closed the door softly, out of respect. It seemed almost laughable; we weren’t going to wake anyone up. But the whole situation seemed to call for moving softly, carefully.
Then we gathered in the living room to discuss—to confront—the situation.
“So we’re stranded,” Jeffrey said. “We don’t have any power, and there’s no way to contact anyone.”
“Has anyone checked the generator?” Lee said.
“We were on our way to do that when we found Dorian,” I said. “But do you really think this is just a matter of turning the power back on? We’re on our own here.” I wanted to pace, but I stayed in my chair, my feet tapping nervously. Jerome did pace, back and forth along the picture window, looking out.
“I don’t get this. What does this mean? What are you all saying?” Conrad said, shaking his head. “Because if this is some kind of haunted-house gag for the show, it’s in really poor taste.”
“There are
Grant said, “Until we contact the authorities, I suggest no one go anywhere alone. We should stay in this central area until we come up with a plan to contact the authorities and find out where Provost is.”
“We’re what, sixty miles from the nearest town? If I shifted I could run that in a day,” Jerome said. “Kitty and I both could.”
“There’s another resort lodge even closer than that,” Lee said. “Thirty miles, maybe. I can check the map.”
“That may be our best option,” Grant said.
I couldn’t explain what had happened—what was happening—but we were coming up with plans, and that was good. That made me feel better. This was a good, sensible, talented group of people to be stuck with.
But there was still something making me nervous. I looked at Grant. “We should go around and look for those
