“Stacy! It’s me, Connor.”
“Connor?” Her voice was nearby but above the level of the door. “What are you doing here?”
“I got worried when you didn’t come home last night.”
“That wasn’t me who answered your text last night,” she said. “That was Shane. He has my phone.”
“Are you and your dad okay?”
“We’re okay,” she said. “But we have to get out of here. Shane is planning to set at least half a dozen bombs at the resort tomorrow. He wants to set off avalanches and blow up lifts. Hundreds of people could be hurt.”
“A lift tech found a fake bomb yesterday morning,” he said. “I figured someone was practicing, the way they did when they set off the avalanche.”
“Shane is big on training for the mission,” George said. “Bruce told me that he had his ‘soldiers’—he actually refers to them as soldiers—practice everything before they go live with the mission. It’s why he had Nate and some of the others launching cast boosters in that old quarry.”
“You’ll have to explain who all those people are later,” Connor said. “First, I have to get you out of here.”
“No,” Stacy said. “You have to go back to SkyCrest and find Damien Anthony.”
“Anthony practically accused me of stealing the cast boosters and detonators and faking the burglary,” Connor said. “He wanted to search my apartment and my car.”
“Tell him Dad and I are being held captive and Shane is planning to blow up the resort. Maybe as soon as tomorrow. He won’t be able to ignore that.”
“I’d feel better if you could come with me to tell him.”
“We’re fine here until you come back,” she said. “Just go. Hurry. If you stick around and get caught, too, we’re sunk.”
He didn’t like the idea, but she was right that the longer he stayed here talking to her, the greater the risk that someonewould hear and come to investigate. And Anthony had the authority, and presumably the resources, to rescue her right away. “All right,” he said. “But I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Wait. Before you go. Do you have a pocket knife?”
“No. What for? To use as a weapon?”
“It would be good for that, too. But I want to cut off these ties around mine and Dad’s wrists.”
“I don’t have a knife, but I have a multi-tool. Essential equipment for ski patrol.”
“Even better,” she said. “But how are you going to get it to us?”
“Are you near the chicken door?” he asked.
“The chicken door?”
“Look down near the floor. It’s a chicken-size exit.”
“Oh. That’s a door? I thought it was where they had patched a hole.”
“It’s a door so chickens can go in and out. That panel should raise and lower.”
More sounds of movement from inside. “It looks like it’s nailed shut. And even if we could get it open, it’s too small for me to squeeze through.”
Even Farley would have trouble squeezing through the small opening, but it was big enough for Connor to pass her the tool. “Move back,” he said. “I’m going to break the door open.”
“I’m away from the door.”
He sized up the small wood panel inset into the side of the building, then took a step back and kicked the center of the panel, hard. The wood splintered against the toe of his boot. He kicked a second time, then a third, until a hole opened into the chicken house.
“Here’s the multi-tool,” he said and passed the folding tool with its multiple blades through the hole.
