Stella just shrugged.

Cole looked up at the sky. Darker clouds were moving in fast, promising a lot more snow. “Let’s get back inside.”

The men sat around the dining room table, all of them sipping cups of coffee. Stella sat beside David on the couch. David had eaten half his bowl of oatmeal, but then he didn’t want any more.

Cole looked at the other men at the table. “I want to know what made Frank get up in the middle of the night and leave.”

“You think those are his footprints?” Trevor asked.

“Who else’s would they be?” Cole asked.

Trevor shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he heard something in the middle of the night. Or he saw something. He went out there to check it out.”

“He would’ve woken us up,” Cole said.

“Then maybe he ran,” Trevor answered.

All eyes were on Trevor. For a moment a tense silence blanketed the room.

“Frank wouldn’t run out on us,” Jose growled.

“Hey, I’m just exploring possibilities,” Trevor said. “Besides, this is a different situation we’re in now.” Trevor’s eyes rested on Needles. “We’ve never had a murder rap hanging over our heads before.”

Needles stared at Trevor, but he didn’t say anything.

“Even with a murder rap,” Jose said, “Frank wouldn’t run.” Jose stared right at Trevor. “But I have a theory – maybe somebody did something to Frank in the middle of the night.” Jose’s eyes were still locked on Trevor. “Somebody with a lot to gain.”

Trevor stared right back at Jose. “You trying to say something, Jose? Go ahead and spit it out.”

“Come on, you two,” Cole said. “Let’s think about this for a minute. Frank leaves in the middle of the night without his hat or coat.”

“Or his share of the money,” Jose offered.

“Or his share of the money,” Cole repeated. “Then he walks straight from the cabin to the woods. And then his footprints just stop.”

“Maybe somebody else got him,” Trevor said. “He heard something, went out there to check it out and someone got him.”

“Have to be a bad motherfucker to take Frank,” Jose stared at Trevor.

“You mean like the bad motherfucker that tore a guy’s eyes out and stuffed him in a freezer?” Trevor answered.

Cole leaned back in his chair and ran his hands through his hair as he exhaled a deep breath. “This shit doesn’t make any sense. There’s no sign of struggle anywhere. If somebody got to Frank, we would’ve heard something. Frank yelling. Gunshots. Something.”

“I slept like a rock,” Trevor told them.

“Me too,” Cole added. “It was like I passed out.”

Needles chuckled. They all looked at him. Needles sat back in his chair, the wood creaking. He laughed harder now. “Nobody’s going to say it, are they?” he said through his laughter.

“Needles …” Cole started.

“No, Cole,” Needles snapped, his laughter cut off suddenly. His eyes blazed with fear and insanity. “People just don’t go out in the middle of the night and walk into the woods. People don’t just disappear in mid-step. Something’s wrong here. Really wrong.”

They were all quiet for a moment. Needles took a deep breath, like he was trying to control himself and he continued. “Something took Frank. Not someone, it was some-thing.”

“Needles, don’t start with that shit again,” Cole warned.

“You guys know it’s the truth,” Needles said, almost under his breath. “You’re going to realize it before long.”

Cole got up and took his coffee cup to the kitchen. He poured another cup of coffee, spooned a few teaspoons of sugar into it and stirred it – the sounds were loud in the quiet cabin.

Trevor glanced at Needles, at Stella and David, then back at Cole. “Cole, maybe Needles is right.”

Cole turned and stared at Trevor. “There’s got to be some kind of rational explanation here,” Cole told him.

“I’m not seeing any rational explanations.” Trevor glanced around at the others for a moment, and then he looked back at Cole. “Maybe it’s time we thought about getting out of here.”

“I think we should look for Frank,” Jose spat out.

“Frank’s gone!” Trevor shouted. “He ran. When are you going to get that through your head?!”

Trevor and Jose jumped to their feet; their chairs tipped backwards and fell over on the hardwood floor. They glared at each other, ready to fight. Cole rushed back into the dining room and stepped in between them. “That’s enough,” he said as he stared at each of them. “We’re not going to fight each other.”

Neither of them said a word as they grabbed their chairs and sat back down. Cole went back to the kitchen counter for his cup of coffee. He took a sip as he walked back into the living room. He stared at Stella and David. “What about you?” he asked Stella. “Did you hear anything last night?”

“No,” Stella answered in a low voice.

Something about her, Cole thought. She’s hiding something. He saw her eyes dart to the fireplace, at the cases of money, and then she looked at him again.

“What?” he asked her. “If you saw something or heard something, you’d better spit it out.”

Stella hesitated, and then finally she said: “None of you noticed that the ax from the fireplace is gone?”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

They all stared at the fireplace.

Cole remembered now that there had been an ax leaning next to the small stack of firewood set on the hearth. He had thought it was odd that someone would have an ax inside the house, but it looked like Tom Gordon had used it to break up the logs into smaller pieces before placing them into the fireplace.

And now the ax was gone.

“What the hell?” Jose whispered.

Nobody answered Jose. They all stared at the fireplace.

“This just keeps getting weirder,” Trevor mumbled.

Cole looked at Stella and David for a moment, and then he looked at the others. “Okay, I’ll go check out her truck; see if it can be fixed.” He looked at Jose. “You come out there with me. Watch my back.”

Trevor jumped to his feet. “You don’t want me to come with you?”

“No. You stay here and watch these two.” Cole pointed at Stella and David.

Cole walked to the kitchen counter and above the end of the counter on the wall was a wooden key holder carved into the shape of a large key. But there were no keys on the key holder. Cole’s eyes scanned the counter where someone might throw a set of keys – but there were no keys on the counter. He opened the first drawer, a junk drawer, and rummaged through it.

“What are you looking for?” Jose asked as he shrugged into his winter coat.

“Probably the keys to Tom Gordon’s truck, genius,” Trevor said to Jose.

“What the hell’s your problem?” Jose said as he took a step towards Trevor.

“Nothing,” Trevor said with a smirk.

Cole found a set of keys, but they couldn’t be the keys to the pickup truck outside, but they did look familiar and he was pretty sure that he knew what these set of keys went to. He palmed the small set of keys inside his hand and continued his search through the drawers for the keys to the pickup truck.

Then a morbid thought occurred to Cole. What if the keys to the pickup were still in Tom Gordon’s pants pocket when he was murdered? What if they were in his pants right now, frozen in there? Cole could imagine pulling the semi-frozen corpse out of the freezer, prying the pockets open or cutting them away with a knife as frozen flesh peeled away with the cloth. He pushed the thoughts away, and moved to the next drawer, opened it and found the truck keys. He closed his hand around the truck keys, collecting them with the small set of keys already in his hand, and he pocketed them both. He turned and looked at Jose. “Found them. Let’s go.”

Cole and Jose walked around the cabin to the back where Stella’s Chevy Suburban was parked under a blanket of snow. Jose trudged through the snow right beside Cole, his gloved hands stuffed into his coat pockets. “I don’t know what your brother’s problem is,” he grumbled.