It’ll be dawn in an hour, and there’s no time to waste, but we need to make one stop first. Dalton goes to fetch Storm and gather supplies while I stop in to see Maryanne. Despite the hour, she’s gracious, inviting me in.
I give her the briefest rundown on our hostile encounter. As soon as I mention the young man, she shakes her head.
“That isn’t my group,” she says. “There was no one nearly that young. I’d have mentioned it.”
“That’s what I thought.”
I describe the dead hostile, and there’s a flicker of potential recognition, but when I describe the woman I shot, her eyes round.
“That’s the shaman,” she says.
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.” She shivers. “You were lucky. She’s the worst of them. Brutal and smart. I always got the sense she drank less of that narcotic than the others, to keep her wits sharper.”
I tell her about our brief conversation, which was clearer and more lucid than I expected.
She nods. “That is undeniably her, then. That means I do know the man who was killed. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was her new husband, though he’d never have been the leader. Once she seized the reins, she’d hold them tight.”
“Then the young man?” I say. “Either the two groups have joined or he’s new.”
“New…” she murmurs. “I didn’t consider that, but it makes sense. He must have joined after I left. Perhaps recently, which explains why he isn’t as indoctrinated. He could be an ally, but be careful, please. The shaman will not hesitate to use him against you.”
I thank her, and she gives me more advice plus all possible details about the two groups. When I step outside, Dalton is sitting on the front step, sipping steaming coffee as Storm wanders off toward the woods to do her morning business.
I settle in beside him to await the dog’s return, and he fills a tin mug from the thermos. I tell him what Maryanne said.
“That’s what you figured, right?” he says. “That this woman was the shaman?”
“It is. I just wanted independent corroboration. I still don’t know whether these people have Felicity and Edwin. I have no idea who does. So my focus will be on Petra, though by now I’m sure Victor has her on a plane to Whitehorse.”
“Nah.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a set of keys. “Our pilot’s not going anywhere.”
“Nicely done. You suspected his story, then.”
He pauses, mug halfway to his lips.
“You can tell me if you did,” I say. “In the future, I’d rather you shared that right away, but I’ve been guilty of the same thing. We need to share our hunches, even when they seem far-fetched.”
“That’s not it. I hesitated because I’d love to say I suspected the guy. Truth is…” He shrugs. “When I peeked into his pack, I just grabbed these. I figured if I found his plane, there might be first-aid supplies you could use, and with him being blind, it wasn’t like he needed the keys.”
“Huh. Well, good call either way. And may I suggest, when we tell this story to the council, we say that we took the keys because we doubted his story?”
“Works for me.”
“Then Victor is in the woods, trying to figure out his next move. He has Petra and his backpack, with a few days’ supplies. He probably has a gun, too. That’s why I didn’t find one. He’d have hidden it when he heard us coming. He can also summon help. He has a…”
I turn to Dalton.
“Sat phone,” he murmurs. “Victor has a sat phone, and so does Émilie. We may not need to go poking around the forest after all.” He pushes to his feet. “Let’s go see if there’s any way we can broker a deal.”
THIRTY-FOUR
The problem is, of course, that we need Victor’s number. We bring Émilie on board, in hopes she can obtain it. We also bring in Phil. If either of those choices is a mistake, well, right now, we’re on a sinking ship hailing passing vessels. They might help … or they might fire another shot through our bow, and it’ll only speed up the inevitable.
Émilie tells us that she flew to Rockton as soon as she heard about the “Danish tourists.” Finding a newcomer whose application had been rushed through—and who conveniently speaks Danish—she had a good idea what Jay had been up to, but by that time, he was in a coma and Sophie was dead.
She’d resorted to investigating on her o