Zero-Degree Murder Page 8

  “You okay?” Cashman called back without stopping.

  “Terrific,” Gracie answered, spitting dirt and tiny stones out of her mouth.

  She rolled over to squat on the hillside. “Rob Christian!” she yelled. “Tristan Chambers!”

  Again she heard the voice, louder this time. “I’m here!”

  “Oh, screw it,” Gracie said and slid the last couple hundred feet on her backside. Not pretty, but effective. She reached the bottom at the same time as Cashman.

  “Where are you?” Gracie yelled as she struggled to her feet.

  Cashman zoomed past her.

  “Across the brook,” came the voice, unmistakably British. “Up.”

  With Gracie on Cashman’s heels, the searchers picked their way across the wide, shallow creek that had carved out the canyon, stepping cautiously from rock to rock to rock, then scrambled up the six-foot-high embankment on the other side.

  Two flashlight beams skimmed the hillside. Two pairs of eyes peered in the crisscrossing circles of light to spy anything resembling a human being.

  “There!” Gracie focused her light on where, twenty feet above them, a single man sat on the ground with his back to a tree, one leg outstretched, arms hugged to his chest.

  “It’s Rob,” Cashman said with undisguised excitement.

  Side by side, Gracie and Cashman climbed up the remaining distance to where the man sat. “Rob Christian?” Gracie asked.

  The man’s teeth chattered so violently he could barely speak the single word. “Yes.”

  Fighting not to sound as winded as she was, Gracie said, “Sheriff’s Department. Search and Rescue.” She unclipped the chest and waist buckles of her pack and let it slide off one shoulder to the ground. “I’m Grace Kinkaid,” she said, unfastening her helmet and tossing it on the ground next to the pack. She pulled her beanie from her pocket and stretched it on, then knelt on the ground in front of the actor.

  “How do you do?” was what Gracie supposed the Englishman tried to say, but his words were so slurred they were practically unintelligible. Amazing, Gracie thought. The guy’s half-dead and he still remembers his manners.

  “How you doin’?” Cashman asked, thrusting his hand over Gracie’s shoulder and into the actor’s face. “Steve Cashman.”

  With more aplomb than Gracie could imagine, Rob Christian accepted the outstretched hand in his own. “How do you do?” he mumbled again between clattering teeth.

  “Cashman, why don’t you heat up some water so we can give Mr. Christian something hot to drink?”

  “Sure thing,” he answered. “Goody. I can try out my new stove.”

  Gracie turned her attention back to the actor. “We’ve been looking for you,” she said, extracting a pair of latex gloves from her chest pack.

  “My wife’s a big fan,” Cashman said from behind Gracie. “I’d love to get an autograph.”

  “Glad you found me,” the man slurred. “I’d already made my peace with God.”

  I bet you had, Gracie thought. She stretched on the gloves while identifying herself as an EMT and doing a lightning visual assessment of the man sitting before her.

  Beneath the caked-on layer of dirt and dried blood, Rob’s face was pale. The eyes that followed her every move were shadowed and dull. Several abrasions on his face, neck, and hands had bled and dried. A two-inch laceration on his eyebrow still oozed blood, black and shiny in the dim light. Sea anemones of white down waved from tears here and there in his black down jacket, and a bloody and scratched kneecap showed through a rip in his black jeans which, upon closer scrutiny, Gracie determined were wet.

  Uncontrollable shivering, slurred speech, and poor coordination were classic hypothermia symptoms, most likely the result of spending a good ten or so hours out in the elements, and being wet to boot. But, Gracie considered, some of it could also be manifestations of brain trauma. There was no way to tell which the symptoms represented. The best she could do at the moment was warm the man up, give him some water to drink, treat the superficial injuries, and see which symptoms, if any, remained.

  “Drink this.” Gracie unscrewed the cap from her spare water bottle and handed it to Rob. “It’s only warm, but it’s important to get fluids on board as quickly as possible.”

  “Thank you.” He reached for the bottle, but fumbled, almost dropping it. “C-c-can’t . . . quite . . .” Gracie steadied the bottle as the man gripped it with both hands and took a long, slow drink.

  “Loved Best Enemies,” Cashman said.

  Gracie hauled her sleeping bag from her pack and shook it out from its stuff sack. “Is anyone else here with you? Tristan Chambers?”

  “Who?”

  She settled the sleeping bag around Rob’s shoulders. “Tristan Chambers.”

  “T-Tristan?” He swiped a hand across his forehead, then drew it back, staring at the dark blood on his fingertips as if not quite comprehending what it was.

  “Or Joseph Van Dijk? Or a woman named Diana? Cristina? Carlos?”

  “N-n-no. Why?”

  “We thought maybe they were with you.” Gracie yanked off her glove and grabbed his wrist. His pulse was strong and regular, a positive sign.

  She pulled a granola bar from her parka pocket, tore it open, and handed it to him. “Eat this.”

  Rob took the bar with slow, uncoordinated movements.

  “Do you know what happened to you?” Gracie asked, watching as he aimed the granola bar at his mouth and missed. He tried again more deliberately and took a bite.

  “Had a b-b-bit of a t-t-tumble.” Rob said, chewing slowly. “I c-c-can’t . . . don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember falling?”

  “No.”

  “Looks like you hit your head.”

  “Stings like a son of a b-b-bitch.” He touched the cut on his eyebrow again.

  “Don’t touch the lac—the cut,” Gracie said.

  He dropped his hand.

  “Do you know if you lost consciousness?” she asked.

  “I . . . I must have done.”

  “Any idea for how long? Keep eating.”

  “No.” With a surer aim to the mouth, he took another bite.

  “Any vomiting?”

  “A bit. When I first t-tried to s-stand up.”

  “Can you tell me what day it is?” she asked. Hell, she didn’t even know the answer to that one. Oh, yeah. Thursday. Thanksgiving Day. How could she have forgotten?

  Rob angled his wrist toward the light of her headlamp and looked at his watch—gold and, from all appearances, very expensive.

  A smile nudged Gracie’s mouth. “Without looking at your watch.”

  “Friday, maybe. Or Saturday?”

  “Where besides your head does it hurt?”

  “P-pretty much everywhere.”

  “Any place worse than others?”

  “My ankle. I’m pretty sure I sprained it. C-can’t put any weight on it. Don’t think it’s b-broken though.”

  A bad sprain might be better than a break in the long run, but could be initially more painful.

  Behind her, Cashman rummaged noisily through his pack. Over her shoulder, Gracie could see his Cheshire cat grin with the word hero practically scrawled across his forehead. She dreaded the prospect of having to listen to him crow about this very moment.

  But the thought of Cashman’s future braggadocio did nothing to dampen Gracie’s own spirits. She felt positively giddy herself. There was nothing more satisfying than finding a missing person still breathing. She had had a number of searches go the other way. Bringing them home alive was definitely better. She reminded herself not to get too far ahead of herself. Three other people—maybe five—were still missing.

  The initial medical assessment convinced Gracie that none of Rob’s injuries were life threatening. Getting him
dry and warm emerged as the number one priority.

  “Excuse me,” she said, reaching out to finger the black sweater Rob wore beneath his jacket, trying not to notice the dark chest hair peeking out from the V-neck. “What’s your sweater made of?”

  “Why?”

  “I need to know whether we need you to take it off. What’s it made of?”

  “Cashmere.”

  Naturally. “One hundred percent?”

  He looked at her as if he couldn’t figure out why now was the right time for a conversation about men’s fashion, but answered, “Yes,” anyway.

  “Is it dry?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “But your pants are wet.” A confirmation.

  He nodded. “Fell in the water down below. Mostly it’s the bottom half of me that got wet.”

  “Mr. Christian . . .” Gracie began.

  “Rob. Call me Rob,” he said, which Gracie took as a good sign that there was a trace of irritation in his voice and that he enunciated the words without stuttering.

  “Fair enough, Rob,” she said. “Before I treat your injuries, we’ve got to get you into some dry clothes.”

  “I’ve got extra fleece,” Cashman announced in a loud voice.

  From the looks of it, Rob Christian outweighed Steve by a good twenty, twenty-five pounds. But, as long as the actor could squeeze into the clothes, they would serve their function.

  “I hate to take off your shoe? Boot? Shoe?” She inspected his foot more closely, taking in the black leather over-the-ankle boot. Apparently butt-ugly roach killers had come back into style.

  “Boot,” Rob said.

  “Okay, boot. But at this point I think it’s more important to get you dry and warm. You have gloves. Are they dry?”

  “One is.”

  “Do you have a hat?”

  “I did have.”

  “That’s all right. We have gloves and a hat for you to wear.” Gracie stood up and turned toward Cashman, who, to his enormous credit, already had water heating. “Steve, you want to help Mr., um, Rob out of his hypothermia pants while I make up some soup?”

  “Sure thing.”

  She turned back toward the actor. “Steve will help you change out of those wet pants. We have some dry ones for you to put on.”

  “Terrific.” He sounded as if he really meant it.

  “How does some chicken noodle soup sound?”

  “Brilliant.”

  “Cashman.” Gracie tossed him the plastic vacuum-packed bundle of spare clothes from her own pack, which Steve caught with an exaggerated flourish. “There are fleece socks and a hat in there. And another Polartec shirt. If it fits, have him put it under his sweater. And here’s a pair of down booties. See if they fit.”

  Cashman helped Rob to his feet as Gracie dug into her pack for the Tupperware container that held her food stash. Unsnapping the lid, she picked out a well-worn but intact packet of dehydrated soup, ripped the package open and poured the contents into the steaming water.

  As she stirred the broth, she glanced over her shoulder and did a classic double take.

  In the light of Steve’s headlamp, Rob Christian stood in all his glory, stark raving naked from the waist down. With a hand on Steve’s shoulder to steady himself, he was hopping on one foot, fighting to put his injured foot into the leg of a pair of fleece pants.

  “Holy . . .” Gracie whispered to herself, turning back to hunch over her stove. “Steve, you might want to have Rob sit down,” she said, hardly able to suppress a giggle. “It might be easier that way.” Yikes, is he white! My butt’s not even close to being that white and it hasn’t seen the sun in ten years.

  CHAPTER

  22

  ROB Christian sat inside Gracie’s half-zipped sleeping bag on a twelve-inch-square pad of closed-cell foam insulation. His injured leg stuck out the side, propped up on her pack. She had pulled one of her down booties—which had proven to be too small—over his toes to keep them warm. He was fully clothed in dry fleece and socks, a pair of Cashman’s gloves, and Gracie’s hat with the earflaps pulled over his ears. He cradled a steaming cup of chicken noodle soup in his gloved hands.

  Rob had stopped shivering and had regained complete coordination of his limbs. His speech was fully coherent. Gracie eyed the man surreptitiously and was pleased that in spite of the dirt and dried blood on his face, he appeared to have stepped a couple of paces back from death’s door. There was no doubt that he had been close. As cold as it was, and being as wet, hypothermic and injured as he was, the august Englishman may very well not have lasted the night. She found it mind-boggling that people all over the world would have mourned the loss.

  But even with the actor sitting surreally before her, a gnawing feeling remained in her gut. Where were the others? Had she screwed up big-time and misread the tracks? Had she missed something in their hurry down into the canyon? Would someone die because of her mistake? And how did the blood on the outcropping figure into the story, if at all?

  Gracie questioned Rob further about his hiking partners as she wiped grime and blood from his face and neck, daubed antibiotic cream on the worst of the abrasions, and irrigated and butterfly bandaged the cut on his eyebrow. But whether from the bump on his head or because he simply didn’t know, Rob produced little useful information. No, he didn’t remember why he had left the trail. And, no, he couldn’t remember separating from the others or know where they might be at this moment. The last thing he could remember clearly was eating lunch with the entire group.

  “Excuse us a moment,” Gracie said to Rob. She pushed herself to her feet and drew Cashman a couple of yards down the hill out of hearing distance of the actor.

  She put her mouth inches from Cashman’s ear and breathed, “Really bad idea to separate, but someone needs to radio in to the CP. Let Ralph know where we are. That we’ve found Rob and—”

  “I’ll go.”

  “Okay, good. I’d like to keep an eye on Rob. Tell Ralph we’re bivying for the night. Ask him to page out more teams to look for the other MisPers.” She left unspoken that finding the other missing persons alive was becoming less and less likely with every passing minute.

  Cashman plunked his helmet back on his head and fastened the strap beneath his chin. “I’ll keep an eye peeled for ’em.”

  “Give Ralph as much info as you can so he can plan for the next Ops Period. If it’s still too windy in the morning for an air evac, we’ll need a litter team for the carry-out.”

  Cashman swung up his pack and threaded his arms into the straps.

  “But ask him, Steve. He’s IC.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “I’ll build a shelter while you’re gone.”

  “Not for me.” He fastened the waistband on his pack. “I’ve got my bivy.”

  “Okay.” Gracie thought for a moment, then said, “Cashman?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I always am,” he said with a grin, then jogged off down the hill at a pace Gracie knew was for Rob’s benefit and which would be hard to maintain on the uphill side of the canyon. Still, she had to hand it to Cashman. It looked good.

  Gracie trudged up the hill to sit on the ground a couple of feet away from Rob. “Steve’s going back up to the trail to call in to the Command Post. We’re too low in the canyon here for radio reception. We’re going to bivouac here for the night. Bring you out in the morning.”

  “We’re spending the night out here?”

  Gracie didn’t begrudge the man the merest hint of a whine in his voice. Even she thought sleeping outside in any temperature less than forty degrees sucked. And she wasn’t a city boy, injured and exhausted and mildly hypothermic.

  “I’m sorry,” she said with genuine sympathy. In her best caretaker-to-patient voice, she added, “I’m going to do my best to mak
e sure you’re as warm and comfortable as possible. But I don’t think you’re able to hike out on your own.”

  “What about a helicopter? Can’t they fly in and fetch us out?”

  “Did you finish the soup?”

  As he dutifully scraped at the bottom of the cup with her Lexan spoon, Gracie answered his question. “Sheriff’s Department helicopters don’t fly in the mountains at night. And it’s very windy up top. It’s too dangerous.”

  Rob handed her the empty cup.

  “We’ll most likely airlift you out at first light,” Gracie said. “Don’t worry about being too cold. I’m going to build us a shelter for the night.”

  “You are? You are?”

  Gracie narrowed her eyes at him. Just how much of a male chauvinist was this guy anyway? “You’re injured,” she said, keeping her voice neutral.

  “I’m laid up like a . . .” Rob blustered. “You shouldn’t have to . . . I feel like an effing child!” He threw his hands up in exasperation, then reacted to the movement with a wince. He leaned forward and cupped his hand to the bandaged cut on his eyebrow.

  Ah, Gracie thought. Male pride. She slid over to kneel on the ground in front of Rob and smiled up at him. “This is what I’m trained for,” she said. “First, though, I’d like to take a look at your ankle. May I?”

  He blew out a long breath. “By all means.”

  A wave of unreality washed over her as she plucked off the down bootie and eased the sock from his foot. A lump the size and color of a plum protruded from his porcelain ankle just below the bone. “Tell me where it hurts,” she said and palpated his foot with her fingertips.

  “Bugger!” Rob yelled. He jerked his foot out of her hands and fell back onto his elbows.

  Gracie sat back on her heels and looked at him. “I’m sorry,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “But I have to see how badly your foot is injured.”