Whether it was fast or slow, he would help Claude in his healing process. Claude could move into the cabin with him and Sam, or maybe Blake could go to British Columbia to Claude’s home. But there was no way he could help Claude with finances, so he had his fingers crossed that Claude had great medical insurance with his profitable job. Canada had universal health care that all their citizens could afford. But that was obviously only available in Canada. He’d read stories of Canadians being bankrupted by needing emergency medical care while vacationing in the United States.

  Finch pulled into the driveway of Sam’s cabin. All the lights inside were blazing, which was disturbing at four in the morning. Both he and Sam tried to conserve energy as often as possible, turning off the lights as soon as they exited a room. His first thought was that Maya had decided to throw a party in their absence. But he heard no music, and then he remembered that they were originally scheduled to return yesterday evening, by eight or nine o’clock at the latest if they all decided to go out to dinner.

  A deer stood at the front of the driveway, blinking uncertainly in the headlights for a moment. When Blake opened the car door, the doe finally made up her mind and trotted away into the darkness. He picked up his ski boots, then tugged Sam’s good right arm around his shoulder, as he pulled her out of the back seat. They both stumbled toward the front door. He wondered if his favorite leather shoes, imprisoned in a dressing room locker in the ski lodge, would ever be returned. Maybe the authorities would organize some sort of lost-and-found system for all the possessions that were now under the snow. Claude had given him those shoes.

  His slipper clattered against something metallic. In the porch light, he noticed the object that spun away was a kitchen knife. Was the blade covered in blood? What the . . .? Biting his lip, he wished that Finch hadn’t already left them. Should he dump Sam on the porch steps and call 9-1-1? But the police would take forever to answer a vague call about a knife found in a driveway.

  As soon as they lurched inside, Sam nearly sank to her knees. Blake deposited her on the only cushion remaining on the couch. The others were lying on the floor, ripped to shreds.

  They both surveyed the room, wide-eyed. The recliner had been slashed, too, and the television screen was bashed in. In the kitchen, drawers were pulled out and contents dumped on the floor, along with what appeared to be maple syrup and ketchup, forming a crazy Jackson Pollock design on the tile.

  Sam finally asked, “What the hell happened here?”

  He had no answer to that. Striding around the cabin, he quickly checked all the rooms, feeling as if he should yell “Clear!” when he discovered each was empty. After making the circuit, he reported to his housemate, “Looks like they didn’t damage the bedrooms, although they dumped out all the drawers in our dressers.”

  “I didn’t have much to steal.” Sam sank into the cushions, resting her head on the back of the couch.

  “Me neither.” He sighed. “The utility room window is broken, and there’s blood.” He decided not to tell her about the bullet hole in the wall and the light moving around in the back woods.

  He could tell that exhaustion had completely overtaken his housemate by how long it took Sam to register his words. After a long moment, she raised her head. “Blood? Simon?”

  “I haven’t seen him.”

  “Maya?”

  “Her tent is still out back, but seems like someone bashed it in with a baseball bat.”

  “Jesus Christ, just shoot me now.” Sam feebly tried to sit up but flopped back against the cushion.

  “Sorry, no bullets. No gun, either.”

  “I can’t,” she complained in frustration, struggling to sit up again. “I need to go look for both Maya and Simon, but I just can’t. Not today.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Is it still today?”

  “I’m going to go out back and see if I can find them.” He found his running shoes in his room, one under the nightstand and one in the closet. After lacing them up, he checked the kitchen drawer. No flashlight. Had the intruders taken that as well? Pulling the largest remaining knife out of the butcher block, he slipped it into his jacket pocket and then located the spare flashlight on a utility room shelf.

  Chapter 28

  “Simon!” Maya’s beam caught a flash of light-colored fur, but the creature quickly ran out of the circle of brightness, dashing into a snag of blackberry vines. Maya knelt and peered into the thicket, searching through the thorns and intertwined hoops of greenery.

  Red eyes stared back at her. A rabbit.

  A coyote howled somewhere close by. Another answered, and then a chorus of yipping ensued, the laughter-like sound making chills run down her spine. Sam didn’t allow her cat out after sundown because coyotes were always on the prowl in the dark. What if a pack of them had cornered the poor injured cat now? She swallowed hard, knowing Sam would never forgive her if Simon was killed that way. And she didn’t deserve forgiveness, did she? She was such a fuck-up.

  “Simon!” She pushed herself to her feet and continued the search. “Kitty, kitty!”

  Why didn’t Sam have a dog, for God’s sake? A dog would come when you called it. Cats? No way. Especially one that had been shot. But you couldn’t blame any animal for that, could you? Maybe Simon couldn’t come at all. Sniffling, Maya moved her flashlight in another sweep through the trees.

  A flash of white. There was the cat, crouched in a heap between the gnarled roots of a Douglas fir, a mound of white and black and red. His green eyes glared at her suspiciously, but he didn’t run when she knelt and extended her hand. “It’s me, Simon. You remember me, right? I’d never hurt you. Really, I wouldn’t. Are you okay?”

  The cat allowed her to place her hand on his head and then gently run it down his backbone. He hissed and spat when her fingers neared his tail. When she pulled her hand away, her fingers were wet with blood. “Shit, boy. I’m sorry. How bad is it?”

  She could tell that the blood came from his back, near his tail, but the dim flashlight and Simon’s curled position didn’t allow her a good look. “I’ve got to get you back to the house.”

  When she curled her hands around him to pick him up, he yowled and stiffened, but she quickly stuffed him inside her rain jacket, closing it over him. Simon dug his claws into her stomach, causing tears to leap to her eyes, but she was determined to keep hold of him. Leaving the flashlight on the ground, she staggered toward the cabin. The back porch light was on. Had she switched it on when she’d left the house? She didn’t remember.

  Then the figure of a man moved into view, silhouetted by the lighted windows behind him.

  Fuck! Was that Eaze? James? Maya had no weapon, and she didn’t want to let loose of Simon. She’d never catch the cat again. Plastering herself against the rough trunk of a tree, she froze as the beam of light swept around her.

  The cat struggled beneath her coat, forcing her to clutch him tighter. Then he yowled his outrage and extended his claws farther into the tender flesh of her stomach. She clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut to keep from crying out.

  “Simon?” a man’s voice called. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”

  Not Eaze, she knew his voice. But she didn’t know James’s well enough to say it wasn’t him. She peeked around the tree trunk. Was that a knife in his hand?

  “Who is out here?” the man asked next. “I saw your flashlight.”

  The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Maya’s heart was pounding so loudly that she could barely make out the words. As his footsteps neared the right side of the tree, she slid around the trunk to the left.

  And then she was blinded by his flashlight beam. “Don’t stab me,” she begged, freezing in place. Her legs threatened to buckle as the cat struggled against her trembling belly. “Kill me later if you have to, but please let me save this cat.”

  The flashlight beam moved away from her eyes. “Maya.”

  The man held the beam under his chin. Although the light gave him a creepy Halloween-killer aspect, she recognized Sam’s housemate. “Blake? Where have you been?”

  “To hell and back.” Focusing the flashlight beam on the ground ahead, Blake led her to the house. After entering through the back door, she noticed that he made a point of closing the door between that utility room and the living area. Sam was on the couch, her head back on the top cushion, her legs extended to the floor. Her pants were ripped and covered in blood on the right side. A sling cradled her left arm. She looked like she’d been in a horrible accident.

  “See who I found sneaking around the backyard,” Blake said in a loud voice.

  Sam’s head snapped up. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her face was raw and red. Across the bridge of her nose was an odd bandage, like one of those stop-snoring devices advertised on television. “Maya. What the hell happened here?”

  Maya struggled to control the sobbing that began instantly. “I—I’ll tell you in a minute, but first, Simon’s hurt.” Opening her jacket, she bent over Sam and dumped the bloody cat into her lap.

  Sam’s arms enclosed her cat immediately, partially trapping him beneath her sling. “What happened to him?”

  “He got shot.” Maya collapsed into the shredded remains of the recliner.

  “Shot?” Sam’s voice was incredulous.

  In her lap, the cat struggled to be free, yowling. Sam grabbed the scruff of Simon’s neck with her right hand as he dug his claws into her thigh.

  Blake knelt beside Sam, placing one hand around the cat’s front legs and running the other gently over the animal’s back. “It looks like a graze, right above his tail.”

  “Shot,” Sam repeated, in a dazed voice. “Who shot him?” She examined the wound as best she could while holding onto the struggling animal.

  “Eaze.”

  “Eaze had a gun? In my house?”

  Maya protested, “It wasn’t my idea. I wasn’t even here to start—”

  Sam cut her off. “I don’t care.”

  Maya had never seen Sam so angry. But she deserved it. “I don’t have any money, but I’ll take him to the emergency vet. Maybe they’ll let me clean cages or something to pay—”

  Pinning the cat under her sling, Sam held up her free hand in a stop gesture. “Go find some peroxide and gauze and antibiotic cream in my bathroom closet.”

  Maya let out another sob. “I don’t know how to explain—”

  “Maya, now!” Sam snapped.

  Wiping her nose with the back of her hand, Maya stood up and stumbled through the litter of objects scattered across the living room carpet. She stepped in something sticky. After rummaging in the bathroom, she found the first aid supplies and brought them back.

  “Not too bad,” Sam was telling Blake. “Lots of blood, but I think the bleeding’s stopped.” She instructed Blake to pour some hydrogen peroxide into the gash.

  When the peroxide hit his skin, Simon nearly levitated off Sam’s lap, but Sam managed to restrain him until Blake wiped a fingerful of antibiotic ointment into the wound. Then she let go, and the cat leaped from her lap, dashed under the dining room table, and sat there, frantically licking the wound on his back.

  “So much for antibiotic cream,” Blake observed.

  “Maybe it’ll work from the inside,” Sam commented wearily. “Could this day get any worse?”

  “It was Eaze,” Maya began. “And this other guy, James. They trashed your house.”

  Wincing, Sam pulled her left arm back into the sling and waved her right hand in the air. “I don’t want to hear it. I can’t take anything more right now.” Her voice cracked after the word “more.”

  “I’ll be right back.” Blake grabbed a dish towel from the mess on the floor and then disappeared out the front door. When he came back, he was holding a knife in his towel-wrapped hand.

  “Care to explain this?” he asked.

  Maya groaned. “When Eaze pulled out his gun to shoot Simon, I stabbed him. But don’t worry, when I called the police, they took off.”

  She looked from Sam to Blake. “Are Chase and Claude okay?”

  Sam’s face crumpled. Blake’s expression was agonized, too. Neither said anything for a more than a minute, then Sam repeated, “I can’t take any more . . .”

  Blake extended a hand to his housemate. “Bed.” He pulled her up from the couch.

  Maya stepped forward. “I’ll help.”

  “Get away from me,” Sam growled.

  Maya froze in place, letting her arms drop back to her sides. Tears slid down her face. From the corner of her eye, she saw Simon dash from beneath the dining room table through Sam’s bedroom door.

  One arm around Sam’s waist, Blake helped her toward her bedroom. “Maya’s tent is ruined,” he murmured in a soft voice.

  “She can sleep on the couch. What’s left of it.”

  Neither Blake nor Sam spoke another word to her, but simply left her standing amid the ruins of the living area as they worked their way to their respective bedrooms and then turned out the lights.

  Staring out the back window into the dark as she wiped the wetness from her eyes, Maya saw the dim glow of the flashlight she’d left behind. Did the beam seem to waver, or was that just the blurring effect of her tears? Was Eaze out there? James? Would they try to kill her next?

  What a small loss that would be. Her mentor Sam and all of Sam’s friends hated her. Maya’s own friends hated her, not that they’d ever been real friends. And she’d nearly gotten Simon killed. She didn’t even have a tent or a sleeping bag now. Could things get worse? Her life was over.

  She lifted the ripped cushions back onto the couch and curled up on top of them as best she could. Yes, Maya suspected, with dawn, things might get much worse.

  Chapter 29

  Sam sat on her bed, propped up against the headboard with pillows. She was so exhausted that she could barely move, but she had no idea when she could get to sleep. Even with painkillers wrapping her in cotton batting, her body was one huge ache, both inside and out. Rain spattered against her window, adding to the dismal atmosphere. Somewhere in the woods behind her home, a barred owl hooted.

  “C’mon out, Simon,” she crooned. “I need a kitty to hold. I need my buddy.”

  Nothing. Continuing in a soft murmur, she told him, “Simon, the world has gone to hell. Well, you know that, don’t you? You must have been terrified last night. I’m glad you survived. But I really need to see you. I really need my best friend right now.” She wiped her nose.

  A black-and-pink nose emerged from beneath the overhang of the quilt, and then he crawled out and sat on the floor, his solemn green eyes fixed on her face. She patted her thigh under the blanket. “C’mon, Simon. I’m sorry you got shot.”

  Just saying those words made bile rise into her throat. She’d never trust Maya to take care of her pet again. Or her house. Or anything else.

  The cat slunk toward her in a crouch, his belly close to the ground as if he were hunting, but she rejoiced when he was able to leap onto the mattress and then crawl into her lap. She could feel the tension in his small warm body. The divot on his back was raw, an insulting bloody slash through the fur and skin just above his tail. She stroked Simon’s head, moving her fingers over the soft velvet fur behind his ears, then massaging his shoulders, careful not to move her hand too close to his injury.

  “Oh, buddy, that has got to hurt. You deserve a Purple Heart. And some raw chicken liver. If the bastards didn’t dump that on the floor, too.” She always checked for his favorite treat at the grocery store. It was surprisingly difficult to score these days. Had people given up eating chicken livers?

  He gazed up at her, and she moved her hand to his throat, gently scratching him under his chin. Slitting his eyes, he purred.

  “I’m amazed that you can do that after all you’ve been through. If I could go back in time, I would, Simon.” She’d make an excuse not to go to the ski area yesterday. If she hadn’t gone at all, Chase and Nicole would have left before the avalanche. Claude and Blake might have, as well. Her house would not have been invaded. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here.” She caressed each of the cat’s rose-petal ears. “I love you, buddy.”

  They sat that way, comforting each other, until they both fell asleep, she with her free hand on Simon’s soft fur, the cat purring, his small body warming her legs.

  * * * * *

  She couldn’t breathe. Snow smothered her face and imprisoned her arms and legs. But something urgently scratched at the back of her thighs. Something hot and alive. With claws. Whimpering. The wolverine! Feisty had fallen into the same hole Sam had. She had to get them both out before the wolverine shredded her, clawing her way up her imprisoned body to get to air.

  The whimpering transformed into small cries, a man’s voice saying “Sam, Sam, Sam.” Clawing at her. Chase? Chase!

  With a gasp, Sam woke up. She was tangled in her bedsheets and quilt, a smaller hot body wrapped up in the bedcovers with her. Simon mewling to be freed. Above her stood Blake. He pulled the quilt from beneath her bandaged leg. The cat slid out with a yelp of indignation and leaped to the top of her bookcase headboard.

  Blake’s fingers grasped her shoulder. “You okay now, Sam? You were moaning.”

  “Wolverine,” she explained, licking her dry lips. Then, “Transformed into Chase.”

  “Uh-huh.” Blake straightened. “Of course.”

  “Bad dream. I’m okay now.” Surveying her dresser, with drawers pulled out and contents on the floor, she amended that. “Well, as okay as I’m going to be for a while.”

  “Good.” Her housemate slipped out through the bedroom door. Sam took a deep breath, alarmed at the daylight streaming in through her bedroom window. Her bedside clock read 10:32 a.m. How could she have slept so late? She needed to call the hospital, find out about Chase. And Nicole. And Claude. Was everyone still alive?