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I get twenty feet above the route Mark’s taking. There’s an actual path here, presumably from the sheep, and I follow it. It’s not straight—it twists and turns—but it stays relatively level, and it’s easy to follow, and best of all, it’s outside Mark’s line of vision.
Now Idocare how quiet I am, because I’m getting close. If Mark has heard anything before, he’s dismissed it as mountain-dwelling critters. Gunnar has been disabled and is not going to be scampering around anytime soon. He’s especially not going to head up the mountain.
I can hear Mark’s footfalls plainly… right up until something stops him in his tracks. I’m getting close, and I rock on my toes, eager to cover the last few feet. Rock scrapes under his boots. I ease down a few feet and crouch to peer through a bush down at him.
He’s there, closer than I thought, and he’s on the edge doing exactly what I am—peering down. He’d come along a path above Gunnar to get to him faster, and now he needs to descend. He thinks he’s found a good spot to do that, but it requires an actual climb, because he’s on a ledge. He’s thinking it through.
I creep past him and then slide down to land behind him. He wheels, swinging the rifle, which would work so much better ifI weren’t right there. I grab the barrel. Perhaps not my best idea ever—and it would give Dalton heart failure—but I’m less than a foot from Mark. When I grab the barrel, he pulls the trigger, and there’s a moment of sudden heat as the shot flies down the long barrel… and harmlessly past me.
I yank, and that catches him off guard. He lets go of the rifle, and so do I, and it goes goes tumbling down the mountainside.
“Hello, Mark,” I say as I lift my own gun. “Seems you’re having a really shitty night.”
He starts to back up.
“Careful,” I say. “There’s a reason you stopped here. This is where the ledge ends. The only way out is down. Straight down. Or past me but…” I waggle my gun. “I wouldn’t advise it.”
He still eyes my gun. He notices that my finger isn’t on the trigger, and so he’s considering whether he could get past me before I fire.
“The answer is no,” I say. “One sudden step my way, and you’ll see how fast I can pull this trigger.”
He still looks around, searching for another option.
“It’s almost as high as the cliff you pushed Bruno off, huh?” I say.
He only glances my way, and then returns to looking up and down and even behind him. I try not to take offense at that. I really do.
“You should have checked to be sure he was dead,” I say. “Should have also checked on Penny. Or didn’t Bruno tell you where he put her?”
“If this is where I’m supposed to confess all and beg forgiveness, you’re going to be sadly disappointed, Casey.”
“Detective Butler.”
He snorts. “You’re private security. Rent-a-cop.”
“That was my cover. I’m an RCMP investigator for the Yukon division, specializing in mining fraud. Bruno screwed you over. He didn’t trust you, and he realized he was in over his head, and he cut a deal, one that included a payout. Not as much as he’d have gotten from the mine, but this one was guaranteed.”
Mark blanches. Then his face hardens. “I don’t know what Bruno told you, but I’m not mining up here. I’m investigating a possible claim site. That’s what you government assholes insist on, isn’t it? We have to come up here, find a site, stake it out, andthenfile a claim and hope we can get to it before someone sneaks in and cleans it out.”
“I’m beyond caring about the mining fraud,” I say. “I’m far more concerned with the two people you tried to murder. Your partner and an innocent woman who heard too much.”
“I didn’t do anything to that woman. Bruno hit her, and then he took her away and said she’d be fine. We argued—I couldn’t believe he’d hit the poor lady. Next thing I know, he’s swinging at me, like he’s going to knock me out, too. I pushed him away, and over he went.”
“Must have been pretty hard,” I say. “There’s a handprint on his chest.” Now, that’s that biggest whopper I’ve told yet, but Mark flinches.
“I don’t know how I pushed him,” he says. “He was trying to push me off the cliff, and I panicked and did whatever it took. Self-defense.”
I nod slowly. I know he pushed Bruno off that cliff, and I’m sure he’s the one who knocked Penny out. Not being an actual RCMP investigator, I can’t do much about either. Both victims survived their ordeals at his hands, and I’m more concerned with the one who didn’t. But it’s not time for that. Not yet.
“You met Bruno in town the night he died.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You then skirted through town to divert us, make us think whoever he met was from there.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You had nothing to do with what happened to Bruno or Penny?” I say.
