Death at the Summit (10 page)

Brian stood at the entrance to the dining area. Brian’s eyes landed on us, and he headed our way. “Can I speak with you, sir?”

“Sure thing, officer.” M.C. gave us a wink, stood, and started to leave with Brian.

I burst out of my seat. “Brian, wait, can I talk to you for a second? Privately.”

“Sure. Wait here, M.C.”

M.C. leaned against a wall while Brian and I went into the hallway.

“Uh, how did Mac die? Stabbing? Bludgeoning? Shooting? Poisoning?”

Brian shook his head through my questions, but when I got to poisoning, he snorted. “Definitely not poisoning. I told you I’m not telling you how he died. You didn’t find something, did you?”

“No, sir, I have nothing to share with you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m suspicious when you call me ‘sir.’”

“I have nothing to share with you, you big doofus.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “That’s better. Now if you have nothing to share, then let me get back to work.”

I went back to sit with Mary, only to spot Minx hesitating in the doorway. At the far side of the room, Loggin watched her from the edge of his seat.

I scooted my chair around so my back was to him, and patted the seat next to me. Minx came over and sat down.

“How was it?”

Minx sighed dramatically and flopped her head down onto the table.

Mary leaned over to pat her back for the millionth time today. “That good, eh?”

Minx rolled her head to the side so that her cheek was resting on the table. “If I wasn’t feeling crappy before, then let me tell you, I feel awful now. Explaining the whole story to Brian was beyond embarrassing. I really need to get a handle on my life.”

Her voice had a bit more strength to it. Instead of being hollow and wistful, she sounded a bit disgusted.

“Minx, can we speak with you?”

We whipped around to see Elizabeth with Jess behind her. Jess was nervously spinning her phone in her hand.

Minx went a little white. “Yes, ma’am, of course.” She stood up, knocking her chair over backward in her haste. Elizabeth’s face was impossible to read as they quietly left the room.

“Do you think they are going to tell her that she isn’t going to be an OSA?” Mary asked.

I sucked air through my teeth. “Ouch, if that’s the case, I think Minx might win the award for the worst day ever. Well, I mean, after Mac.”

I checked around the room. Loggin was no longer watching us and was instead intent on his phone.

I scooted over next to Mary. “Get out the list, Shaggy.”

She pulled the list out of her pocket with a giggle and smoothed it on the table. Moo shoved his head into the list and gave it a good lick before Mary could move it out of his reach. “I assume that we have already eliminated Orion and Minx, right?”

“Sure, my advanced detective gut tells me that they aren’t killers. But M.C. and Bucky— they are still on the list. I think either of them could have done it.”

“Definitely. I heard that Bucky is a nice guy, but he was so angry, and M.C. was weird.”

“He was pretty casual about the fact that his dad was murdered just a few hours ago. Could he be in shock or something?”

Mar pursed her lips and looked up at the ceiling for a bit before replying, “Maybe. We need to still talk to Loggin.”

I followed her gaze across the room to Loggin. He had made a bad first impression this morning. We would need to see what his deal was.

“I need that memory card back.” A beefy male hand gripped my upper arm hard.

I let out a yip and reared around to see who it was. Cold’s fingers dug into my arm hard, pinching my skin.

“Ouch! Don’t touch me like that!” My voice came out angry and aggressive, but inside, I was startled and scared. Moo leaped to his feet and moved close. He let out a growl.

Cold leaned in and hissed in my ear, “Give it to me.”

“Di, what’s going on here?” Loggin called out as he started to cross the room.

Cold dropped my arm. I rubbed the spot while the two men faced each other. Moo shoved his nose into my face, sniffing me all over while I petted him and spoke softly to him. “It’s okay; everything’s fine.” He pushed his body up against me, pinning me in my chair while placing himself between me and the men.

Cold chuckled while replying, “Hey, no problems, Loggin. I just realized that the memory card I gave them this morning had footage from a friend’s wedding. I need it back right now.”

Mary’s mouth had been hanging open, and she shut it with a snap. “It’s gone.”

He swung back to us with narrowed eyes. “What do you mean? Where is it?”

I swallowed hard. “I flushed it. I knew that even if we deleted the fight off the card, that it was recoverable, so I had to destroy it. The easiest way was to flush it.” Or feed it to a big dog. The hair on Moo’s back was sticking straight up. I grabbed his collar as he pushed forward, growling, his teeth bared.

“So it’s gone? Like
gone
gone, never coming back?” He said it slowly, considering each word.

“Ya, very gone.”

He cast his eyes and seemed to think for a bit before nodding thoughtfully. “That’ll work.”

“What going on? Is there a party and no one invited me?” Orion called out as he, Tiger, and Liam entered the cafeteria.

Cold grabbed Orion’s hand, the palms slapping together loudly, the tendons in their hands and wrists straining visibly in the grip. “No one could have a party without you.”

Liam came to my other side and leaned over. “Everything okay?”

I nodded and rubbed my arm. Would I have a bruise there? “We’re good now. But it was weird for a while. I’ll tell you later.”

“It’s nice here and all, but seriously, how long are we stuck?” Cold had a huge smile slapped on his face. Gone was any hint of the anger.

Orion sucked air through his teeth and shook his head. “Sorry, man, but we’re snowed in. The police can’t even make it here until the plows can clear the roads. The snow is supposed to stop this evening, and they have us high up on the priority list.”

I knew that no one was supposed to leave, but realizing that no one
could
leave was a bit different, especially after the tense interaction with Cold. I stood up and put more space between us. Mary followed suit. Tiger moved in next to us.

“Loggin, we’re ready to meet with you, if you are interested,” Orion suggested.

“Absolutely.”

Orion gave another look around the group. “Before we go, does anyone need anything else?”

I jerked my head toward the hallway. We started to move off, but Cold had one more question.

“Ya, where’s the lost and found? I lost my cell phone earlier.”

Mary stopped dead. I crashed into her back, then Moo bounced into the back of me. With wide eyes, she turned back to Cold. “Camo phone cover? Had initials on the back?”

“Ya, CHF for Cold Hard Facts, my archery show. Did you find it?”

“Someone turned it in. It’s on the center table in the long range. We can go get it.” I pushed Mary gently from behind. If that was Cold’s phone, then what about the picture on the phone?

“No, I’ll go with you to get it. I’d hate for you to accidentally flush it.” He moved to follow us.

CHAPTER TEN

“I can’t believe that’s Cold’s phone,” I burst out the second I closed the conference room door behind Tiger and Mary. We had taken Cold to the center’s table, where he had just identified the missing phone as his. I had made a bee line to a private place where I could discuss the importance of this information.

“I know. Unbelievable.” She threw her hands into the air.

“What’s the big deal about the phone?” Tiger grabbed a chair and spun it around backward to straddle it.

“Don’t tell Cold, but when Mary found the phone, we opened it. There was a picture of…” Suddenly, I felt a bit uncomfortable, but there was no way to explain other than to just say it. “A man’s hand on a woman’s breast. The woman had a pink-and-white tattoo of a lollypop.”

“Kandi,” Tiger said.

“So you noticed that tattoo, eh?” I smirked at him.

“Hey, it’s a foot tall on the advertisement, plus she pointed it out to me. She said she got it a few weeks ago.”

“No way!” I looked at Mary. “That means the photo had to be taken recently. Did you see the way she followed him around? He probably killed Mac, or maybe they did it together.”

Mary nodded. “He is such a douche canoe.”

I nodded. “My gut says he’s dangerous. I don’t want to be alone with him, like ever. I don’t know if we should talk to him.”

Tiger hitched his chin up in the air. “I’m not scared of him.”

“It’s not a matter of being scared” —I thought about the look in his eyes when he grabbed my arm— “not
only
a matter of being scared. Someone killed Mac, violently. We should be cautious. Plus, Cold doesn’t like Mary or me at all. He won’t say anything to us.”

“If only you had a guy Cold liked to investigate him. That would be super awesome.” Moo went to Tiger’s side, and Tiger reached over to scratch behind his ears. “You want a Scooby snack, buddy? Moo’s Scooby and I’m supposed to be Fred, the leader of the investigation, the handsome guy in charge.” Tiger leaned back and balanced on two legs of the chair.

I felt a rush of irritation. “Fred’s not in charge. Velma’s in charge. I’m the clever one. I mean, Velma’s the clever one.”

“Fred’s the man.”

I opened my mouth to protest, then I saw the smirk on his face. “Oh, real funny. So,
man
, you want to talk to Cold? What do you plan on saying?”

He leaned forward and winked. “You’re the brains of this operation. You tell me.”

He was a flatterer, and it was working. I grabbed a chair and an errant pen. Motioning to Mary to join us, I handed her the pen. “Let’s go over what we have so far. We know that Kandi and Cold have something going on.”

Mary pulled the list out of her pocket and uncapped the pen, poised to take notes.

Tiger waggled his eyebrows at us. “I’ll tell you what they have going on. They’re—”

I cut Tiger off. “Having an affair.”

He laughed. “That’s a polite way of saying it. Is that all you’ve figured out?”

“No, we talked to M.C. He says that he won’t receive any inheritance from Mac’s death. He got it already and lives off his salary. But he had a lot to say about everyone else. Oh, and he pays way too much for boots.”

Mary had been staring at Tiger with a goofy smile on her face. When I mentioned the shoes though, she perked up. “Who spend that much on shoes? Even though that was the softest leather I have ever felt and the color was beautiful.” She shook herself. “Who can afford to spend that much on shoes?”

I shrugged. “I guess he gets a nice salary from MacSights. I wonder if that will change now that they are owned by Westmound?”

Mary pursed her lips. “Maybe, I know Westmound pays a fair wage, but I don’t think they pay the kind of salary to buy fourteen-thousand-dollar boots.”

Tiger’s jaw dropped. “Shut the front door! He paid how much for shoes? That’s the stupidest thing I have ever heard. He mentioned that he’s going on a two-week cruise in New Zealand with his girlfriend from the company in a few months.”

I snickered, glad that he agreed M.C.’s spending habits were ludicrous. “Lifestyles of the rich and famous, eh? He said that basically everyone had a motive to kill his dad. That Bucky was mad about losing his company. That Mac made rude remarks to Orion. Minx was mad she couldn’t seduce his dad. Kandi was fooling around. Nothing earth shattering, though he was right about Kandi.”

Tiger’s eyebrows knitted together. “Minx tried to seduce Mac and failed? Neither of those two things sound right. I don’t think Minx would go for him, and I heard he would hit any skirt that let him.”

Mary twirled her pen. “She says that she thought Mac was making a legitimate sponsorship offer. They were looking into starting a recurve sight line at the company. He flew her out, gave her a tour,
et cetera
. Then he made a move on her in his office, and Kandi broke it up when she busted into the room. Then Minx left.”

Thinking of unwanted advances reminded me of something. “I can totally see that happening that way. I didn’t tell you, but when I showed Mac to the room by the bathrooms, he slapped me on the butt and offered me… um… I’m not sure what he was offering exactly, but I’m assuming it was sexual. So I could see him doing something similar to Minx. She’s a cutie.”

Tiger grinned widely and nodded. “Mmm-hmm. What’s the deal with Mac destroying Bucky’s company? That sounds vaguely familiar.”

“Good, maybe you can explain it to me. Bucky says that Mac must have bribed someone in the rules committee for the bowhunting division.”

Tiger cut me off. “Bowhunter division. They aren’t actually hunting. It is just the name of a division. I think I do remember what you are talking about. There was a sudden change of rules right before the season started. Everyone had to buy new equipment, and MacSights was the only place that had sights that really took advantage of the new rules. See, in the bowhunter division there are all these rules about adjust—”