Cam chuckled. “If Joel doesn’t tick him off.”
Very true. “Well, there’s that.”
They walked to Mark’s cabin. The men’s footsteps matched and she had to push her gait to keep up. They had long legs and moved quickly and quietly. She had a case of nerves that shook her hard enough to knock her over. She wanted to believe there was a reasonable explanation, but as the minutes passed her faith waned.
She used her master key to open the lock. All three of them stepped inside and stopped. Their shoulders touched and they still took up most of the open space.
They kept silent as their gazes scanned from wall to wall. The room consisted of two double beds and a small sitting area. With only a few suitcases, a coffeepot on a hot plate and rows of clothes on hangers inside the open closet, the visual inventory didn’t take long. There was one door, which went to a bathroom only slightly larger than a closet because the shower was outside the cabin in every building but hers.
Joel’s shoes scraped against the wood floor as he stepped farther inside. “There’s not much here.”
She had to take the blame for that one. “I found I have to really limit what they can bring along or some folks come out here with laptops and three suitcases and think someone else will drag it along.”
“Very practical.” Joel rummaged through a duffel bag on the floor and peeked under the cushions on the loveseat.
Metal screeched as she slid the hangers on the old rod. She spotted a few shirts and extra sneakers on the floor. There wasn’t as much as a chest of drawers in the place.
“Blood.” Cam didn’t add anything else. One word and so deathly serious.
She spun around to find Cam standing by the bed closest to the door. “What?”
Joel got there first, but she was right behind. They all crowded around the bed, staring and unmoving. No one touched anything.
She tried not to state the obvious, but she didn’t see anything except crumpled white sheets and a stack of pillows with a clear head indent in them. “What am I looking at?”
Cam nodded in the direction of the bottom of the bed. “The underside of the cover.”
Before she could reach over, Joel put out an arm and held her back. Two steps put him at the small table on the other side of the room. He was back in a flash with a pen in his hand.
With the tip, he lifted off the cover and flipped it back. Dark streaks ran about a foot along the underside. Splotches stained the navy blue blanket underneath. The dark shade hid the color. But she knew.
The dizziness hit her full force and the room spun. She would have grabbed for Joel but he’d crouched down to study the bed close up.
“It’s not a lot,” she said, looking for any positive spin on this horrible find.
“Well, it’s more than a few drops,” Joel said. “Almost like the spill of a glass of something.”
“Are you sure it’s blood?” She wanted them to say no, but she knew they wouldn’t.
Joel stood back up. “Not without tests, but I think we should assume it is until we see Mark walking around here.”
“Maybe he cut himself and didn’t tell me?” She was willing to believe anything at this point, so long as the man was healthy and fine.
“What about this gun?” Joel asked.
The question shot out of nowhere and slammed into her with the force of a body blow. They could add the weapon to the list of things suddenly gone missing.
Dread washed over her and she would have sat down hard on the floor, but Joel reached over and settled a hand on her elbow. Technically, he wasn’t holding her up, but inside she felt as if he were holding her together.
She tried to explain over the knot of anxiety wedged in her throat. “Unbeknownst to me, he brought it along. He waved it around at dinner, acting like a big shot.”
“Guy sounds like a jerk,” Cam said.
She felt obligated to defend him on some level. “He was showing off, but my rules are clear. No weapons.”
Joel shrugged. “I’m armed.”
“So am I,” Cam agreed.
They acted as if they were the only ones concerned with safety. “Yeah, well, that makes three of us.”
Cam smiled. “Really?”
“We all know the most dangerous person in a situation like this is the nervous novice with the gun.” Joel nodded and she took that as approval and kept going. “I can’t have people out here with weapons, or sooner or later one of them will shoot off a hand by accident.”
He looked around the room. Even opened the bathroom door. “So where is it?”
“What?”
“The gun.”
“I have it.” She remembered the fight and what she did. “It’s in a small lockbox in my cabin.” But somehow deep down, she knew it was gone.