“Miss Avery,” he said, clearly growing agitated as well, “I don’t know what to tell you. Our reports say that while the cameras upstairs did an automatic click-off, the cameras downstairs were working away.”
“Maybe there are ways into the house that aren’t within camera range,” she said.
“That is possible,” he said.
Possible.
But it didn’t sound as if he believed it—not in the least.
She let out a sound of frustration and anger. “Stop playing hard-core Fed—I mean, you did see a ghost, too!—and pay attention to what I’m saying. Someone was in that house. Right now, you have a dead woman in a hotel room and a dead woman in the snow—two different places. You don’t know how either one of them wound up dead, by whose hand or why. Or even when! And I’m telling you—I heard someone in that house. It wasn’t Ralph, Simon or Larry, because they’d already been gotten. And apparently, the film crew were here, greeting them when they came screaming their way inside. And I’m assuming Magda and Justin Crowley were here, as well. So, that would mean that your killer is on the island somewhere.”
“And law enforcement officers continue to scour the area,” he told her.
“You’ll never find him,” she murmured suddenly. “This island... I’ve only seen it once before, but we all know it’s full of hiding places.”
He stood up abruptly and walked over to her. For a moment, his sheer size and the heat that swept off him scared her.
But he didn’t touch her. He stopped at the couch.
“We’ll catch him,” he said. “If it’s the last thing I do in this life, I will catch the bastard,” he swore.
Before she could respond, they both heard a thumping sound—as if someone or something had banged against the outer log wall of the office.
She definitely didn’t imagine it. She saw his frown and the tensing of his body. He turned and headed for the door.
She was up and after him in a flash.
“Get back in there!” he told her.
“I am not staying in there alone!” she said.
Jackson had been sleeping on the sofa in the living room; he was up in an instant. The officers in the hallways came heading toward them, along with Mike. By then, Thor was exiting by the front door. Clara ran after him, terrified of being alone.
He was already walking down the length of the porch and into the surrounding snow. She and the others were behind him.
He stopped and she slammed into his back. “Get back in, please, for the love of God, will you?” he demanded, shouting to the others next. “Fan out around the house. Someone was out here!”
“I’m not staying alone!” she told him as he glared at her.
“Go in with one of your friends.”
“I’ll stay directly behind you!”
“You’re going to make me lose him!”
She stood still at that, wincing, and then turned around and returned to the house. She stood just inside the door, watching the night. One officer remained in front. The others had vanished into the darkness and shadows surrounding the house. The moon had disappeared behind a cloud—only the dim lights from within the house afforded illumination, and then seemed to play tricks on the mind, as well.
Clara was shivering.
It seemed that she stayed there for hours, keeping her eyes on the one officer left in front—afraid to look around in any direction.
If she did...she might find herself alone with a dead woman.
And then the men returned to the house in disgust.
“There was no one out there?” she asked anxiously. “Nothing?”
“Yes, there was something,” Mike said.
She looked at him, frowning.
“Bear,” he told her. “Some kind of bear, by the tracks. It made off into the woods.”
She nodded, swallowing. Just an animal.
So, besides a crazy killer, she might have met up with a pissed-off bear out here, as well!
But Thor was shaking his head, oblivious to Clara. He looked at Jackson. “Something about it I just don’t like. A bear doesn’t listen at windows.”
“They were bear tracks, for sure,” Mike said.
“They appeared to be,” Thor said.
“You think someone has some kind of a snowshoe that emulates a bear track?” Jackson asked him.
“Well, hell, idiots come up here to try to emulate Big Foot or abominable snowman tracks now and then—why not a bear?” Mike mused.
“It’s impossible to search the forests in the dark,” Jackson said. “We’ll get all the crews started again in the morning.”
He was the first to really note Clara then. He touched her cheek. “Hey, you’re okay. The place is surrounded by law enforcement—guys who know how to use guns,” he assured her.
Thor glanced at her, annoyance in his eyes. She was sure that he saw her as the person who “possibly” imagined things, and had slowed him down on his hunt.
She really didn’t give a damn.
“Jackson, I need to get to the Mansion in the morning.”
“Oh?” he asked, frowning.
“Miss Avery is certain that there’s another way inside—that someone was in the Mansion when she was,” Thor said.