“You’re still lying.” Shane pulled a pistol and aimed it at her. Some of the others took a step back. “Take her to the chicken house,” he said. “When I have more time, I’ll see if I can get the truth out of her.”
Shane’s men shovedStacy and George into a small wooden building and fit a padlock on the door. Father and daughter sat on the floor where they had fallen, hands tied behind their backs. She listened to the men outside move away and wondered if one of them had stayed behind to guard them.
She looked around at the straw-filled nesting boxes and overhead perches. “I think this is really a chicken house,” she said.
“There’s plenty of chicken manure.” George made a face and scooted over a few inches. “I wonder what happened to the chickens?”
“They probably ate them,” Stacy said. Her face ached where Shane had struck her, and she couldn’t stop thinking about what he had said aboutgetting ridof the snowboarder. With effort, she got up on her knees. “If we can find a sharp edge in here somewhere, we can get these zip ties off our wrists,” she said.
“I don’t see anything,” George said. “They probably filed everything down, not wanting the chickens to get hurt.”
“How thoughtful of them.” She turned her attention from the walls to her father. “How’s your eye?”
“Stings a little, but I’ll be okay. The guy who jumped me looks worse, believe me.”
“What happened? When I left, you had them all charmed.”
“The folks at the quarry didn’t give me any trouble,” he said. “But after they left, I wandered over to the garage to see if I could find anything interesting. That big guy and his friends must have heard me in there and came in and jumped me.”
“What happened at the quarry after I left?”
“The guy with the accent, Bruce, said he was in the military in South Africa and knew about explosives. I showed him I knew how to throw them and hit the target, and I was his new favorite student.”
“Since when do you know how to launch explosives?” she asked.
“They taught us to throw grenades in boot camp. And I played baseball in high school and college. Third base. I was on rec leagues a few times over the years. I’ve still got a pretty good arm.”
“I recognized the young dark-haired guy. Nate,” Stacy said. “He was Jace Dennison’s friend. Connor and I saw them at the Trail’s End together.”
“Jace is the snowboarder who died?”
“Yeah. But I’m thinking maybe Nate wasn’t such a good friend. I overheard Shane talking to Bruce, saying they had ‘gotten rid’ of a snowboarder because he was threatening to talk.”
“Nate struck me as someone with a mean personality,” George said. “What happened in the house? Did they catch you eavesdropping?”
“I waited too long to leave, and Shane and Bruce caught me coming down the stairs.” For a few seconds there, she had believed she was going to die. “You coming in when you did may have saved me.”
“I don’t like the idea of sticking around until Shane comes back to question you,” George said.
She studied the chicken house again. It was large enough for a big flock, easily eight foot on each side, with a tall ceiling. There must be something in here she could use to saw through these bindings. If she moved over to the wall, she could probably stand and look around more.
“What did you find in the house?” her father asked.
“A map of the resort, with lots of places marked with X’s. The ridges above ski runs and several ski lifts. From what I can tell, they plan to hit all those places Friday. Dad, do you have anything in your pocket we could use to cut these ties?”
“They took my phone, my gun, my wallet and the Jeep keys,” he said. “The only thing left is lint.”
“They took my phone and gun, too. If this was a movie, I’d have a razor blade secreted in my shoe or something.” Instead, that was where she had hidden her FBI identification.
“I saw a video online where a woman demonstrated how to break zip ties by contorting yourself like a pretzel and exerting pressure with your feet. Or something like that.”
“No pretzels here,” she said and slid on her bottom to the wall. “I’m going to try to stand up.” She pressed her back tothe wall and maneuvered her feet underneath her. Grunting and straining, scraping her back painfully against the wall, she managed to get to her feet. She stood for a moment, catching her breath.
“What now?” her dad asked.
“Now all I need is a knife.”
“I need a cup of coffee.” He closed his eyes and rested his head against the wall. His eye was an ugly purple, dried blood crusted on one cheek. He needed a shave, white whiskers glinting in the waning sunlight from the single window high overhead.
