ChapterTwenty-Three
Audrey tucked deep into the hollow in the roots of a large tree and waited for Xavier to settle in beside her before she twisted open the top of the bear canister. She’d peeked inside before they left her Flintstones recliner, and seeing a note along with some pipes and boxes of matches, they’d agreed to move to a less-exposed position to read the letter and figure out the gift George had left for her.
Xavier grabbed the camouflage and orange panel from her pack, but instead of sitting on it this time, he tacked the square to the opening with the mottled-green side facing out to ensure the light from her flashlight wouldn’t be visible. Secure in the knowledge they wouldn’t be easily spotted, she flicked on her headlamp, choosing the dimmest setting as she directed the beam at the piece of folded standard white paper.
She unfolded it and studied what appeared to be a page from a bored high school student’s notebook: quick sketches—line drawings that looked like petroglyphs and pictographs—numbers, letters, random words. And interspersed among it all, a few names.
Familiar names.
Inholding landowners: Harriet Jamison, Jason Caruthers, Bastian Ford.
But wait. Bastian Ford wasn’t an official inholding landowner. He was from the Kalahwamish Tribe. Their reservation was on the shores of Discovery Bay, an inlet of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Many Kalahwamish Tribal members—including George—had family ties to the coastal tribe that claimed Lake Olympus as part of their traditional territory. The Kalahwamish Tribe—which included Bastian—owned a lakeside cabin that had been transferred to the tribe two decades ago when Millie Thorpe Montgomery’s last will and testament had been found nearly sixty years after her death. Millie’s great-grandson, Jason Caruthers—another inholding landowner named on this page—hadn’t waited for the courts to sort out the legalities of the bequest and handed over every property he’d inherited that had been owned by Thorpe Log & Lumber to the tribe, including the lakeside cabin that had been built by Jason’s great-grandfather in the 1920s. The trainers’ vehicles were stored in this cabin’s garage.
Jason remained an inholding landowner, though, because he and his wife, Dr. Simone Atherton, purchased a lakeside cabin several years ago. Simone was a contract archaeologist who did lots of field projects on the peninsula, and Audrey had first met the woman when she was in her teens at a summer archaeology camp run by ONP archaeologist Roy Heller.
Why had George listed these people specifically?
Harriet Jamison. Jason Caruthers. Bastian Ford.
She’d assume he was indicating cabins, except she’d been in the Jamison cabin last night and it wouldn’t be safe to return there. Plus, there was no mention of Jeb, whose cabin they knew George had plundered to build weapons.
Technically, Bastian Ford didn’t even have his own cabin. It was a tribal holding, not personal. Why name him and not someone else in the tribe?
Bastian and George were close, as she’d mentioned to Xavier, due to their tribal and Army ties. Bastian was Special Forces, and when he visited the elder, they would trade stories in the lodge, sometimes with Jeb joining them.
“What does it mean, Aud?” Xavier whispered.
“I’m not sure. There’s a connection here. Meant for me to decipher. I know it.”
Harriet Jamison. Jason Caruthers. Bastian Ford.
They each had long ties to the peninsula. Jason’s and Harriet’s families had owned cabins at the time the lodge was built, before the park even existed. Bastian was Kalahwamish, like George. A soldier, like George.
Think, Audrey. Think. What do these people have in common?
All at once, it hit her.
The Jamison library. The Thorpe—not Caruthers—ballroom. And the Ford dining room. All public rooms in the lodge, named after a patriarch who’d donated money to the park when it was founded. Except, in Bastian’s case, the donor with the last name Ford wasn’t a relative; it was automobile manufacturer Henry Ford. The name was a coincidence, which George had used.
“These are rooms in the lodge,” she whispered. She studied the numbers next to Jason’s name. He represented the Thorpe ballroom. “I think this means there are five hostages in the ballroom.”
“That fits the count for my team, but why do you think the number refers to hostages?”
She pointed to a crude drawing that looked like it was supposed to be a petroglyph. George was a tribal artist, a carver. He had excellent drawing skills. He’d intended to make this look amateur. “This human figure only has four fingers on one hand.”
Xavier sucked in a sharp breath. “He saw what happened in the yurt.”
“Or he watched them move your team to the lodge and saw Cohen’s hand. But yeah, if he saw the men at the site digging up weapons, he might have followed them. Saw them kill Jeb. Watched what he could until he slipped away to make weapons.”
She looked into the bear canister. “What are those, by the way?”
“It looks like he made match guns.”
“What are those?”
“Improvised munitions. Standard in the handbook that was produced during the Vietnam War. You can use match heads as the propellant and shoot projectiles like nails thirty or forty yards with a fair amount of accuracy. That explains Jeb’s stockpile of matchsticks. Could have been a hobby of his.”
There were three homemade guns in the canister, along with a bunch of nails and several boxes of matches.