Supernatural Fresh Meat - By Alice Henderson Page 0,55
the fluffy fleece jacket she wore underneath.
“You certainly have a lot of layers.”
“Always be prepared for anything up here.”
He stared down at her snowshoes. “Well, I could have used a pair of those out there today.”
She glanced around. “Whose cabin is this, anyway?”
Dean shrugged. “I have no idea. I happened across it, too. There are no photos, no personal mementos. Haven’t you been up this way before?”
She shook her head. “To be honest, I’m not entirely sure where ‘this way’ is. Batteries on my GPS went out two hours ago, and the replacement ones went dead in the cold. I have a map, but with the cloud ceiling so low, I couldn’t get my bearings by finding any landmarks.” She studied the layout of the place. “It’s probably a rental if it’s so anonymous. There are a few up here.” She wiggled her fingers in the heat of the fire. “That’s good for you. It means they probably have a storage shed with skis, toboggans, snowshoes, all kinds of stuff for the tourists.”
Dean hoped she was right. Come dawn, he’d look around the place for any outbuildings.
She sighed, leaning back against the stones. “Man, I’m glad I found you. I can’t tell you how many times I kept thinking about being out there, lost, with that killer on the loose. Overactive imaginations and backcountry rangers are a bad combination.” She glanced around. “Where are your partners?”
Dean thought of an easy lie. “They had to chase down another lead on the coast. Lucky bastards missed the storm.”
He sat on the other side of the fireplace, watching Grace. She was calm for someone who had come so close to spending a night out in the storm. Maybe that was due to her training.
He let his shoulders relax. His arm where he’d gotten stitches pulsed with pain.
She closed her eyes, tilting her head back. “I didn’t relish the thought of building a snow cave. This is much better.”
Feeling incredibly drowsy suddenly, Dean stood up, pulling a quilt off the back of the couch.
“What are you doing?”
He nodded toward the broken window. “I need to do something about this, or soon it won’t be that much warmer in here than outside.”
She stood up. “Let me help you.”
Dean retrieved some nails and a hammer he’d seen earlier in one of the kitchen drawers, and they nailed the blanket around the window frame. He stepped back, admiring their work. “Good as new.”
She wrinkled her brow. “Yeah. Good as new.”
She lay down on the couch then, crossing her legs. “I’m going to get some shut-eye.”
Dean noticed her pack. “Hey, you have a radio, right? I need to get a message out to my colleagues. My phone died.”
She crossed her arms behind her head and looked at him regretfully. “I wish. I was crossing a snow bank and fell through into a hidden stream. Had my radio out in the middle of a transmission, and it washed away.” She frowned. “Searched for it till my hands went numb in the water, but it was gone.”
Dean couldn’t disguise his disappointment.
She lifted her head to look at him. “Hey, we’ll be okay. We’re both fit as a fiddle. We’ll hike out ourselves tomorrow.”
Dean nodded, turning back toward the fire. He watched the gold and blue flames wrap around the wood, flickering up the sides in tendrils. He hoped she was right. But the wintry scene he’d witnessed while nailing up the makeshift curtain didn’t look like it was going to end tomorrow.
The wind howled, pressing in on the quilt and making it billow. With it came a tremendously cold gust that curled around Dean and made him shiver in spite of the fire. He shoved a chair in front of the curtain to keep it from blowing into the room. Then he prepared himself for a long, cold night of vigilance.
THIRTY-THREE
Bobby pulled up outside the ranger station on the outskirts of Truckee. It was a simple brown wooden building, and the lights were still on inside. They tried the door but found it locked, so Bobby knocked.
A few minutes later the door opened, and a burly ranger in his fifties appeared. He stared at them a little impatiently from beneath a crop of short brown hair. Sam recognized the red-faced man, especially his impressive Grizzly Adams beard. “Yes?”
“Ranger McGovern,” Sam started amiably. He flashed his F.B.I. badge. “Do you remember me?”
The ranger nodded.
“We were told by the sheriff’s deputy that some hikers were brought out of the Tahoe National Forest?”