She zipped her coat, pulled her knit cap down over her ears, and followed Jason to the door.
The cold hit like a slap the moment they stepped outside.
The wind howled across the ridge, whipping snow into their faces. Visibility was almost nothing—white in every direction, swirling, shifting, erasing the world.
Jason raised his flashlight, the beam barely cutting through the wall of snow. “Stay close.”
They trudged toward the outbuilding, their boots sinking deep with every step. The snow came up to Olive’s calves, and drifts along the side of the lodge reached even higher.
The generator shed loomed ahead like a shadow. Its door banged weakly against the frame.
They’d closed it earlier. Olive remembered doing so.
“Warren?” Jason’s voice was instantly swallowed.
No answer.
Olive reached the shed first and yanked the door open.
The dim beam of her flashlight swept the interior—tools, fuel cans, the hulking outline of the generator.
Then her light caught something on the floor.
“Jason.”
He followed her beam as it illuminated a footprint in the dirt. “What about it?”
“This wasn’t here before. It has to be Warren’s—and it matches the print I saw beside JJ when we found him out here. It’s the same tread with the same wear marks.”
Jason crouched for a better look before slowly nodding. “You’re right. It does. But we agreed those prints were too large to be Warren’s, right?”
“I did think that initially, but I did notice he has surprisingly large feet for a man of his size.”
“And when he walks, he does favor his right side,” Jason said. “That would explain the wear mark. I didn’t want to believe it . . .”
“Me neither. But if this truly is Warren’s footprint—and I’m nearly positive it is—then that means he was near JJ when he died.”
Jason stood. “His footprints could have been left there earlier. It doesn’t necessarily mean Warren killed JJ.”
“I know,” Olive murmured. “But it doesn’t mean he didn’t either.”
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Olive turned in a slow circle,scanning the ground.
Nothing.
The snow was coming down too fast, blanketing everything in a seamless white sheet.
Where had Warren gone?
If he’d left footprints outside, they were covered now.
She turned toward the tree line. Beyond the edge of the property, the woods were a mass of dark shapes shifting in the storm. Branches creaked under the weight of snow.
Olive’s flashlight beam swept the first few feet of the trees.
