Death of a Songbird (15 page)

The thought conceived, a streak of lightning shot to the tundra, causing the hair on Lark’s body to stand on end. The air around them crackled with static. The retort of thunder crashed around them.

“Time to move,” she yelled. “Now!”

“What the…?” Jan cringed, burying her face in Buzz’s shoulder.

“Shit.” Norberto pushed Katherine ahead of him, starting her down the path. “Come on. We’re sitting ducks up here.”

The six of them scrambled down the hill as quickly as they could, Norberto propelling Katherine to move and Lark prodding Jan, Paul, and Buzz from behind. The lightning intensified.

Damn
, why hadn’t she paid closer attention to the storm, thought Lark. She had watched the clouds gathering as the storm had rolled in and stacked up behind the mountains. She knew the dangers of the Southwestern monsoons. She just thought they had time.

When they reached the krummholz, Lark breathed easier. At least there were trees here to draw the strikes, and the birders were no longer the tallest things spiking the landscape.

“Can we rest?” Jan asked, panting and scrambling for footing on the rocky trail.

“Just keep going,” ordered Lark. “And tuck your binoculars inside your jacket.”

The warning was barely issued before the rain started. A sprinkle of large drops pelted the ground, then the skies opened up, and the trail became a river of mud. Lark slipped, her ankle twisting beneath her. Falling, she landed full weight on her foot.

Ouch!

Lark tried pushing herself up, gingerly testing her weight on her ankle. A sharp stabbing pain shot up her calf.

Oh, man. Had she rebroken the darn thing?

Clambering to stand, she tried bearing her weight on her right foot again. This time the pain was less intense, and the ankle didn’t buckle.

“Are you okay?” Paul asked, climbing back to where she stood. Rain molded his hair to his head and streamed in rivulets off his face.

“I think I sprained my ankle. I’m hoping that’s all I’ve done.”

“Can you walk?”

“Do I have a choice?”

It had taken them
two hours to descend from the summit. The skies had opened in a gush of water, like God had turned on a faucet. After struggling along for a mile, they sat out the storm beneath a medium-sized boulder, watching the rain pummel the ground. Water puddled in low spots and eddied around stones on the path, creating small rivers of mud.

“Well, we needed the moisture,” she said, attempting to lighten the mood, easing the weight off her aching ankle.

The only one with any humor left was Buzz. He drew in a breath and puffed out his chest. “What a bunch of sticks-in-the-mud. This rain just adds to the adventure.”

“Stick a sock in it, Buzz.” Jan tucked back a drippy strand of blond hair. “Look at us. We look like a soggy band of refugees.”

After the rain let up, Lark led, limping her way out of the forest. Alpine Creek lay dead ahead. She could hear it rushing over the stones impeding its path.

Rushing! Not burbling like normal, but roaring like a technical river made only of rapids.

Reaching the willow tangles, she scanned the opposite bank, wondering where Dorothy and the others were. She yanked the walkie-talkie out of her pocket, turned it on, and hit the Talk button. “Dorothy, are you there?”

Two steps more, and she reached the path through the willows to the bridge. Rounding the corner, she stopped dead. The others plowed into her, like dominoes on the shove. Ahead of her, where the bridge crossed Alpine Creek, lay a chasm. The bank had washed away, leaving only a divot where the bridge had once been. The ground dropped away in a sheer wall.

“Where’s the bridge?” Jan’s hysterical voice pierced the summer afternoon. A yellow warbler flushed from a nearby bush.

Lark inched forward, gimping on her sore ankle, afraid that the land might fall away beneath her feet Against the opposite shore, the bridge lay collapsed and broken on the rocks.

“It looks like it’s collapsed. We’re not going to get back across this way.”

“Why not? We can climb down there,” Buzz said.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “The ground’s unstable. It’s been undercut by water.” Lark knew the trail. Upstream, the creek cascaded down a waterfall, too steep and slippery to traverse. Downstream, the creek ran below steep cliffs of granite. Without ropes and carabineers, they were stuck.

Turning up the volume on the walkie-talkie, she pressed the Talk switch and tried paging Dorothy again. “Come in, Dee. Where are you?”

“How can this be happening?” shrieked Jan. She raised her arms above her head, then slapping them hard against her sides, she whirled on Lark. “This is all your fault.”

“Now calm down, little lady,” Buzz said, stepping in between them. “Lark has no control over Mother Nature. We’re talking mud slides here, probably caused by a flash flood. It happens, especially with a rain like the whopper we just rode out. The creek swells up, the current undercuts the bank, and the land above it scoots way. We’re just lucky no one got hurt.”

Jan glared at Buzz. “Who asked you?”

The radio crackled to life. “Come in, Lark. Over.”

“Dorothy?” Relief flooded Lark’s voice. “Where are you?”

“About a mile from the bus. With the rain, I decided we should go ahead and start back. Over.”

Lark tamped down the feelings of abandonment welling up. “Look, we need help up here. The bridge is washed out.”

“Repeat. Over.”

“I said, the bridge is washed out. It’s gone.”

“Oh my,” Cecilia said in the background.

A long silence followed.

“Dee, get the others down to the bus first, then send up some help.”

“That’s right, we’re headed down to the bus. Over.”

Lark slapped the radio against her hand and tried again. “Send help.”

“I copy. Over.”

The radio protocol was killing her. “Did Margo and the others catch up to you, yet?”

“Yes, they’re here. Over.”

“Good.” One less thing to worry about. “Do me a favor?”

“Ask them to bring a helicopter,” Jan said.

“Hurry!”

“Ten four. We’re about an hour from the bus. Over and out.” Dorothy clicked out, and Lark turned off the walkie-talkie to conserve the batteries. It was after four, and the sun was dropping behind Elk Mountain, casting long shadows across the meadow and valley floor. The clouds swirled back in on a strong wind, dropping a steady drizzle.

Jan and Norberto retreated to the rocks with Katherine. Buzz ambled off on a mission, determined to find a way out. Lark hunkered down in the shelter of a small pine tree next to Paul.

“If the winds don’t let up, they’re not going to get a crew in here tonight, much less a helicopter.”

“That’s what I was thinking.” Worry lines etched deep in Paul’s forehead, crow’s feet crinkled around his eyes.

Lark scribbled an SOS in the mud. “I think we should tell the others to be prepared to spend the night.”

“Before you do that, we have to talk.”

“About what?”

“I know why Esther was killed.”

Lark’s pulse quickened. “You do?”

“Yes.” Paul glanced around furtively, then lowered his voice. “She told me she was going to blow the lid off the Jitters operation during her closing speech this coming Thursday. She said she had proof of a scam involving the company. I didn’t believe her. I thought she was angry over Katherine’s courting of Jan Halloway.” Paul leaned forward, making sure they were still alone. “When you brought up the ledger at dinner, I realized I was wrong, and she was telling me the truth. I need to look at the ledger.” His eyes narrowed. “You still have it, don’t you?”

She decided not to tell him the ledger had been stolen during the break-in. Though, for all she knew, he might have taken it. This could be one giant ruse, an elaborate fishing expedition designed to ferret out how much she knew. Paranoia aside, she couldn’t help feeling that she’d just been stranded on a remote hillside with a killer. “How would Chipe’s records provide information that would harm Jitters in any way?”

“The numbers in the ledger blow the cover on the coffee wars.”

“The coffee wars? You mean as in competition between the coffee companies, or as in the conflict between the coffee growers and the PRI?”

“Both. If she has the information I think she has, the numbers recorded are way too high.”

Lark still had no clue what he was talking about, except she, too, had realized the numbers were off. “I found something else I’d like to ask you about,” she said, steering the subject away from the missing ledger. “A letter you wrote to Esther, dated a couple of years ago.”

He covered his face with his hands. “So you know?”

“I know you were in love with her.” The words tasted bitter, like an admission of guilt. Reading other people’s mail was not just a federal crime, it was a mortal sin.

“It’s true. Two years ago, we were both in Chiapas on business. It happened.”

“Did Vic find out?”

“I don’t think so, but Katherine did. She was dead set against Esther’s and my relationship from the beginning, and she had the power to end it.”

“How so?”

“She has the money. She
is
Migration Alliance.”

“You gave up the love of your life for a job?”

“It’s not just a job to me. I’ve worked a lifetime to get where I am. Even Esther wasn’t worth giving up my dreams.”

“That’s sad.”

“You think I killed her, don’t you?” His tone was edgy. “How could you possibly believe that? Tell me, why would I murder the woman I loved?”

Loved
being the operative word. Lark steeled herself against the pain in his voice. “Money?”

“I don’t need any money. I have Katherine.” The bitterness in the words overshadowed his anguish. Paul picked up a pine needle and carved a white-line heart on his skin. “After Katherine found out about Esther and me, there was an ugly scene. Katherine laid down an ultimatum. I had a choice: Esther, or Migration Alliance and the position of executive director. I’d worked so hard. But, then, so had Katherine. Her father had provided the seed money, but Katherine worked tirelessly to find ways to increase the wealth of the organization in order to insure its work continue. We worked together, as a team. She was so possessive, you’d have thought we were married instead of just partners.” He drew a squiggly line through the heart. “But ours was a commitment and a union that couldn’t be broken. Esther understood that and left.”

“And Vic never found out?”

“It was six months later Esther and Vic moved in together. I don’t think he ever knew about me. If I’d asked her to, she would have left him. It would have killed him.” Paul looked up, pain reflected in his eyes and face. “The truth be told, he loved her more than I did.”

Lark felt no empathy for Paul. For the sake of prestige, he’d squandered love. “What can I say?”

“Hey, it’s life.” Paul threw down the pine needle. “And nothing’s changed. You need to keep your eyes open. Whoever killed Esther knows you’ve seen the ledger, and—”

A cracking of branches from upstream announced Buzz’s arrival, interrupting their conversation. Standing at the edge of the trees, he swept crumbled branches from his flattop and off the shoulders of his jacket. “There’s no way out of there, folks,” announced Buzz. “Not in either direction.”

“I could have told you that,” grumbled Lark, moving out into the clearing.

“Told us what?” asked Norberto, pushing through the bushes behind her. Where had he come from?

“That there’s no way across the creek, either upstream or down,” she said, recovering quickly. “And it’s starting to get late. I think we have to accept the fact that we may have to spend the night up here.”

“Hoo boy,” groaned Buzz.

“I’ll try reaching Dorothy again for their ETA, but…” She let the inference speak for itself.

Norberto turned back toward the overhang. “Jan can’t stop shaking.”

“Then we need to build a fire to get her dry.”

Buzz and Norberto headed out in search of fuel. Lark sent Paul back to check on Jan. He seemed only too happy to oblige. Lark fiddled with the controls on the walkie-talkie and finally got through.

“Dorothy, did you get a call for help through?”

“That’s affirmative. It’s on the way, over.”

“Dee, cut the
over
stuff, and just talk to me. I’m worried Jan Halloway’s developed a case of hypothermia. We need to get her off this mountain. Just tell me what’s going on.”

“Because of the wind and nightfall, Mountain Search and Rescue can’t get a helicopter up to you until morning. Then there’s no place to land it on your side of the Alpine Creek. The storm washed out the trail in spots, so it’s too treacherous to hike up in the dark. They’re talking about coming up in the morning.”

“Ten four,” Lark said. “Over and out.”

Lark’s survival skills were rusty, going back twenty years to her Girl Scout days. Buzz’s were honed to perfection. In no time flat, he’d collected enough dry brush and kindling to start a small fire. Norberto produced some matches, and the two men fanned the flames.

In the meantime, Lark pulled a dry sweatshirt out of her backpack and peeled Jan out of her wet clothing.

“Put this on.”

“I’m fine.” Jan tried pushing Lark’s hand away, but her own hand missed.

“You’re not fine,” Lark said, unzipping Jan’s wet jacket. Underneath, her shirt was soaked and plastered against her skin. “How’s your vision?”

“Fine,” Jan said, rubbing her eyes. “I can see perfectly, except for the smoke.”

Norberto chuckled, watching them with amusement. His cargo pants were now stained with soot, and his black T-shirt whitened with ash, but the grungier he got, the better he looked. And more dangerous, in a Pierce Brosnan sort of way.

“Don’t just stand there enjoying the show,” Lark said. “Help me.”

Together, they stripped Jan down to her bra and forced her arms into the sleeves of the dry sweatshirt. As Norberto’s dark eyes strayed to her breasts, Lark yanked the sweatshirt into place, cutting off the view.

Norberto grinned. “You can’t blame a guy.”

With Jan bundled up in warmer garments, Lark assessed their supplies. Between the six of them, they had four bottles of water and a granola bar stuffed deep in Lark’s pack. She couldn’t vouch for how long it had been there, but they didn’t need food to survive the night.

Shelter was the critical thing. Even though the rain had abated, lightning flashes high on the mountain indicated the storm wasn’t over. Lark glanced up at the darkening sky. “You know, if we want to stay dry, we need to build a shelter.”

Buzz jumped into gear. “She’s right. If we get some stout logs we can construct—”

Paul cut him off. “She said shelter, not cabin.”

“No, he’s right, Paul. If we can find some long branches, we can cut boughs and tie them in place to form a wall to lean up against the overhang.”

Paul looked skeptical. “What are we going to tie them up with?”

“How about shoelaces?” Buzz said.

“What are we going to cut the branches with?”

Lark produced a Swiss Army knife. “It has a saw blade.”

By ten o’clock, the makeshift wall stood in place, and the inside of the Swiss Family Robinson–type shelter felt almost cozy. They had lashed together a wall of tree limbs and boughs strong enough to shield them from the threatening wind and rain. Prying her boots off at last, Lark leaned back against a rock, stretched her legs out in front of her, and dried her socks by the fire. Her ankle throbbed.

“I have a question,” Jan said. Wearing Lark’s blue sweatshirt with her blond hair curling around her ears, she looked like high school cheerleader at a woodsy. “Where does someone go to the bathroom?”

Lark pointed toward the woods.

“In the dark? By myself?”

A walk in the forest alone in the dark wasn’t Lark’s idea of a picnic, either. If only she didn’t feel responsible for the predicament they were in. “Let me put my boots back on, and I’ll go with you.”

“I’ll go, too,” Katherine offered.

“Isn’t one baby-sitter enough?” Buzz asked. “Or is it a woman thing?”

“Stuff a stock in it, Buzz,” Jan said, allowing Norberto to help her to her feet. “And don’t think we’re saying nice things about you.”