I really didn’t want to think I’d need it, but something told me I would.
Chapter 30
Lana
Ibatted the gauzy cream curtains away from my face as my phone trilled from my back pocket. I’d been at the inn since seven this morning, fighting with the window dressings. The Overlook opened in five weeks, and Luke and Mina’s wedding would christen the place barely a month after that. I had a hundred things half-finished but was accomplishing nothing else today except the windows. Getting the mountains of sheers up on the tall windows was a chore. I should have asked someone to help, but it was too late now. I was already half done with the project. By the time someone could get here, I’d probably only have a window or two left.
Holding the curtain rod in one hand, I pulled my phone free and glanced at the screen.
It was Luke.
I tapped the button to answer and put him on speaker. “Hey. If you’re calling to tell me the landscaper delayed things again, I swear?—”
“Lana.” Something in his voice stopped me cold. His normal, easygoing tone was gone, replaced by that flat, careful voice he used when he had something to tell me I wouldn’t like.
“Where are you right now?” he asked.
I frowned. “At the inn, hanging curtains. Why?”
A short pause came over the line, but it was long enough to send a chill down my spine. “Is it Dad? Is he okay?” Several months back our dad had a heart attack. Every time Luke or Mom called, I had a split-second of sheer panic that he’d had another.
“No, he’s fine.” I heard him inhale. “I talked to Ozzie just a little while ago. A couple of hikers found a body this morning. Up off Forest Service Road 12, past the old quarry.”
The curtain slid from fingers and the rod hung, lopsided, from the stanchion on one side of the window. “Why are you telling me this? Who is it?”
“Ozzie thinks, based on your description, that it’s one of the poachers. Vic. He also had an ID in his pocket that said his name is Victor Campbell.”
I stepped down off the ladder and leaned against the wall. “Well, hell.”
“Yeah. He called me and asked me to tell you before you heard it somewhere in town. I’d have done it in person, but I’m stuck in meetings for the new hospital wing build in Juneau and can’t drive up there until later.”
I pressed my free hand flat against my cheek. I didn’t care that he told me over the phone. I was just happy to be alone when I heard the news. “How did he die?” It would be poetic justice if a bear took him out, but I didn’t think we could be that lucky.
“He was shot. Ozzie wouldn’t give me too many details, but he said it wasn’t self-inflicted. He also doubts it was an accident. Somebody likely did it on purpose.”
“Deke,” I breathed. My gaze darted around the inn’s lobby, not really seeing it. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Deke caught up to his former partner and silenced him.
“Probably, yeah. I mean, who else would it be?”
“I don’t know. But having spent some time around him, he wasn’t much better than Deke in terms of his conscience, so who knows who else he’s pissed off?”
I actually hoped that was the case. That Vic had done something to anger someone enough they killed him and left him for the scavengers to dispose of. Because the alternative meant Deke hadn’t cut his losses and disappeared to start over under a new name like everyone kept insisting. He was here. Tying off loose ends.
Like Vic.
Toby, if he could get to him.
Me.
And Toren. Who at this very moment was alone at his isolated cabin, hobbling around on his booted foot, one hand in a cast, with only his rifle and his mean old chicken, Eloise, as defense.
I pushed away from the wall, bumping into the stepladder.
“Lana?” Luke’s voice sharpened. “What was that?”
“I bumped into the ladder. Look, I need to go. I need to get a hold of Toren, warn him?—”
“Ozzie was going to try to call?—”
