“You’re barely able to stand up.”
“Headlights,” her father said. “Headed this way.”
They ducked to the side of the drive, into the deep shadow of the woods. A white truck rumbled toward them, Shane at the wheel, Bruce and Nate with him. “Where are they going this time of night?” Stacy asked.
“Maybe they’re going to dinner,” George said. “It doesn’t matter. With them out of the way, it’s our best chance to get to the house and retrieve our phones and weapons.”
They made their way to the house, moving as fast as George’s injuries would permit. Every light in the house was on, but no one moved behind the windows. Stacy tried the back door and found it unlocked.
“Maybe the door isn’t locked because someone is inside,” George said.
“If anyone stops us, we’ll pretend to be drunk partiers,” she said. “We know Shane, Bruce and Nate are gone. No one else is likely to recognize us.”
They made their way unmolested to the front room and the dresser by the door. The phones were there in the top drawer, along with her Glock, resting on top of a pile of winter gloves and hats.
“Careless, leaving a weapon like that where anyone could find it,” George said as Stacy slipped the gun into her coat pocket. He took her arm. “Let’s get out of here. You can call from the road.”
“Just a minute,” she said. She turned toward the stairs.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to take a picture of that map with the targets marked. I should have done it before. If Shane decides to destroy it, we’ll still have the photo. Wait down here. Whistle if anyone else shows up.”
Not waiting for an answer, she took the stairs two at a time. The door to the office was open, the desk cleared of papers and books. She opened the drawer where the plans had been. Nothing. She rifled the rest of the drawers. The plans were gone. Had he already destroyed them?
A sick heaviness settled in her stomach. Or maybe he had taken the plans with him. Maybe that had been the scheme all along—to sneak onto the resort and plant the bombs, with some kind of timer to go off tomorrow, when the crowds were their heaviest.
She started down the stairs but stopped when she heard voices. Her father was talking, his words loud and insistent. “I just came here to see if I could get a drink. The boss man must have booze somewhere.”
“There’s no booze here, old man,” a woman’s voice said. “You need to go back to your tent and sleep it off.”
“Back to my tent. Good idea.” He turned toward the stairs.
“Not that way,” the woman said. “Come here. I’ll show you out the front door.”
The rustle of shuffling feet. The door opening and closing. Stacy hurried down the stairs, past the open front door, into the kitchen and out the back. Her father met her on the side of the house.
“You were lucky to run into such a helpful woman,” Stacy said.
“Helpful my foot. She tried to pick my pocket. Probably disappointed when she didn’t find a wallet. And drunk as I might have appeared, I had a death grip on my phone.”
She took his arm. “Come on, Dad. We need to get out of here.”
They set off, skirting crowds of revelers. George detoured to a campfire and helped himself to a beer from an open cooler.
“Dad!”
“I’m thirsty.” He twisted the cap off the bottle and took a long swig, then offered the bottle to her. “Would you like some?”
“No, thank you. Though I wish I had some water.”
“I knew you’d say that, so I snagged a bottle for you.” He pulled a bottle of water from beneath his jacket and offered it to her.
She cracked it open and took a long drink. “Ahhh.” She sighed. “I might actually make it to civilization.”
They made it to the end of the driveway. She pulled out her phone to call Connor. The phone rang and rang, then went to voicemail. Instead of leaving a message, she texted.I’m at Shane’s ranch with Dad. Meet me at the highway intersection.
She tried calling Doug but got no answer.
