“Mr. Ritt!?
? she exclaimed.
He pushed back his fur-lined hood, removed his gloves, crouched down in front of her, and looked at the handcuffs. “Dutch and Wes haven’t been here?”
“No.”
“They were coming after you and Tierney.”
“He’s Blue. As I think you must know. He said he heard it on the radio.”
“Who said?”
“Tierney.”
“So he knows they’re after him?”
“Yes. Do you see the key for these things?”
As he moved about the cabin searching for the key to the handcuffs, she asked how Tierney had come under suspicion.
William Ritt gave her a rushed account of the two FBI agents coming into his drugstore the day before. “I’m not sure what kind of evidence they have on him, but it must be incriminating. They kicked into high gear when they learned you were trapped up here with him. A rescue party was organized, but there was an accident, and the road became hopelessly blocked.
“This morning I volunteered my snowmobiles. Wes and Dutch took off on them, but they left this behind.” He took some sort of transmitter from one of his pockets. “It’s a two-way radio. I heard Dutch say they’d need it to stay in contact with each other. So I followed, thinking I’d catch up with them.”
“But you didn’t?”
He shook his head. “Only the snowmobiles. They’ve been abandoned on the west road. It looks like they set off on foot. Do you think they went after Tierney?”
“Possibly. The only way he could get down the mountain is on foot. Both our cars . . .” She shook her head with impatience. “It’s too long a story.”
“Dutch and Wes must have spotted him.” He stopped his search for the handcuff key. “I don’t see it anywhere. He must have taken it with him.”
“It’s okay. Now that someone’s here, I can stand it.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“Not really. Except for knocking me out this morning.” She closed her eyes briefly, then said, “I found Millicent Gunn’s body in our shed.”
“Oh. Gosh, how awful.”
“I think she’d been dead for several days. The storm probably prevented Tierney from disposing of her body.” She told him about striking Tierney with her car and returning to the cabin to wait out the blizzard. “He was concerned about our survival, certainly. He seemed nice, nonthreatening. But some things he said didn’t add up.”
“Like what?”
She gave him several examples of Tierney’s half-truths. “I got suspicious and searched his backpack. I found these handcuffs and a length of blue ribbon.” She motioned with her chin. “There.”
William picked up the backpack and withdrew the blue velvet ribbon from one of the zippered compartments. “This is definitely evidence against him.”
“Indisputable evidence.”
“So why did he leave it here?”
Before Lilly could arrive at an answer to what was a very good question, her ears picked up a sound. “Is that a helicopter?”
“That was the FBI’s plan.”
A tide of relief surged through her. She’d been glad to see William Ritt and to learn that Tierney’s capture was imminent. But if he’d somehow managed to elude Dutch and Wes and return to the cabin, the pharmacist would’ve posed no threat to him.