Back in the living room, I went through the desk drawers more thoroughly. One piece of paper in particular caught my eye. It was a pay stub from Snake River Rafting Company. The check had been cut on September 15 of last year, and made out to Calvin, weeks after he supposedly left for college.
I shut my eyes, trying to sort through the horrible, half-formed suspicion pounding at the back of my brain. Cal? No, no, no.
Macie O'Keeffe, the rafting guide who'd disappeared last September, had worked for Snake River Rafting. Was that how Calvin met her? Was she the reason Calvin had stopped calling me and eventually broke up with me? Had they dated, quarreled, and one night after their shift, had he . . .
I couldn't finish the thought. I couldn't think it. Cal had been away at school for eight months. He couldn't have killed Macie last September-he couldn't have killed anyone.
I pinched the bridge of my nose to fend off a dizzy spell. The moment felt unreal, as convoluted and visceral as a nightmare. How could Calvin be a killer?
I dug more frantically through the drawers. I lifted out a rumpled flyer with the bold letters MISSING! printed across the top. I smoothed away the creases over Lauren Huntsman's smiling face. The hole at the top of the flyer led me to believe it had been nailed to a tree or telephone pole. It made sense that search parties had combed Jackson Hole, and the surrounding area, looking for her.
All those people hunting tirelessly for a missing girl, and Calvin had taken the flyer as a keepsake.
A keepsake of what he'd done.
It was true, I thought dazedly. He'd been hiding at Idlewilde. No wonder he'd tried to dissuade Korbie and me from coming. His secrets were here.
His lie seemed to yawn open, swallowing me whole. Calvin, a liar. Calvin, a stranger.
Calvin, a killer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I had to get Jude out of Idlewilde.
I had to get all of us out of the cabin. We weren't safe with Calvin.
Calvin.
The horrible crimes he'd committed-oh, God, let them be a mistake. There had to be an explanation. He must have had a reason. I was missing some vital piece of information. I wasn't too late to help him.
At the top of the stairs, I found the bedroom door cracked. Calvin's voice carried through it as he spoke to Jude, his voice choked with fury.
"Where's the map?"
He sat on the mattress beside Jude, his back turned to me. In the low flicker of light from the candle on the nightstand, I could see Jude shivering violently, causing the ropes that kept his arms and legs pinned straight to quiver. Calvin had bandaged Jude's shoulder, but that was the end of his service to him. Cal had opened the window; the draft rushed under the door, wrapping around my ankles. In a matter of minutes, the room would be as cold as the wintry air outside. I had the sickening feeling that this was only the beginning of the suffering Calvin had in mind to inflict.
"Why so interested in the map?" Jude's voice was weary with pain. His breathing came in short, uneven rasps.
Calvin laughed softly, harshly, and it made my scalp prickle. "You don't get to ask questions."
Peering through the door crack, I watched Calvin tip the candle over Jude's unbuttoned shirt. Jude let out a sharp gasp that trailed into a low, pained groan.
"Once more, where is the map?"
Jude arched his back, straining to free himself, but it was no use; the rope was industry-grade. "I hid it."
"Where?"
"You really think I'm going to tell you?" Jude fired back, his defiance admirable considering he was at Calvin's mercy and had to be in a great deal of agony. Admirable or not, it was the wrong thing to say. Calvin tipped the candle a second time, wax dripping onto Jude's bare chest. His entire body stiffened before he uttered another moan. Sweat glistened along his temples and into the grooves of his neck, but the rest of his body continued to convulse in shivers.
"Three green dots on the map,” Jude panted hoarsely. "You forgot to label them."
This time it was Calvin's spine that went rigid. He didn't respond, but the deep rise and fall of his shoulders told me he was upset by Jude's comment.
"Three green dots, three abandoned shelters, three dead girls. See a connection?" Jude's hardened intonation made it clear he wasn't asking a question.
At last Calvin found his voice. "So the kidnapper is trying to pin a few murders on me?"
"One of the green dots on your map marks a trapper's hut where Kimani Yowell's strangled body was found by hikers. The other two dots mark abandoned cabins. While we're on the subject of theories, here's another. I don't think Kimani's boyfriend murdered her, and I don't think Macie O'Keeffe was killed by drifters along the river where she worked as a rafting guide. And I don't think Lauren Huntsman got drunk and accidentally drowned in a lake." Jude's voice caught as he spoke his sister's name. Swallowing, he disguised his emotion with a piercing black look. "I think you killed them, then dumped their bodies where they wouldn't be found."
Calvin did not speak. His back rose as his breathing came faster; he was still trying to gather his words.
"What kind of idiot killer creates physical evidence against himself?" Jude asked.
"Have you shared your theory with Britt?" Calvin finally said, almost achieving an ordinary voice.
"Why? How far are you willing to go to keep your secret? Would you kill Britt, if she knew?"
Calvin shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Britt would never believe you over me."
My whole body seemed to tighten. I pressed back against the wall, vibrating with fear. I felt sick. This wasn't the Calvin I knew. What had happened to him?
"Don't count on it. I've got a pretty convincing story." Jude's eyes glittered savagely. "At first I thought Shaun was the killer. When you shot him, my first reaction was despair-I'd lost the one person who could give me answers. My second reaction was to wonder why you killed him. It came out of left held. You could have tied Shaun up and left him for the authorities, but instead you shot him. You didn't even flinch. I knew it wasn't your first time killing. It made me suspicious of you, but I didn't know anything for sure until I saw the Cardinals ball cap you gave Britt. And your map."
The ground slid out beneath me. My legs were shaking. I had to get out of the cabin. I had to go for help. But the thought of going back into the bitterly cold forest, so dark and haunted, made my blood race. How far would I make it? One, maybe two miles? I'd freeze to death before the sun rose.
"Who are you?" Calvin asked, intrigued. "You're not law enforcement-you'd have a weapon and a badge."He rose to stand over Jude. "What are you?"