Jake said, “Wait a minute. That could make your alibi airtight. Let Tim phone from here. It’ll show that he was okay while he was here. You’ll be in the clear when they investigate the accident.”

It was the only thing Jake could think of. Let Tim call Lignite. Tell them he’s at the senator’s lodge with Glynis and me. Get them to start up the generator, and at the same time make it known where we are. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

Perez stared at Jake. “You think I’m stupid? He yells for the cops over the phone.”

“He won’t,” Jake promised. Turning to Younger, he said, “You won’t tell them anything, will you, Tim?”

“The hell I won’t,” Younger growled.

Jake’s shoulders slumped. There goes whatever chance we had to get out of this.

Waiting

WAITING

Jake stood in the middle of the shadow-filled room, trying desperately to think of some way to get out of this jam. They’re going to kill us! he thought. They’re going to bundle us into Tim’s Land Rover and drive it off a bridge, make it look like we skidded in the snow.

“You can’t just kill us all,” Jake said.

Perez, still standing off to one side of the spacious room with the two Las Vegas musclemen behind him, chuckled dismissively. “I seen it done, kid.”

Jake turned to Monster. “Are you going to let them do this?”

Monster shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “Hey, Jake, you got yourself into this. Ain’t my fault, what happens.”

“You’ll go to jail for it, just the same as they will.”

“Nobody’s goin’ to jail,” Perez said. “We’re protected.”

“By whom?” Glynis asked.

Perez glared at her. “None of yer business.”

“It’s Senator Leeds, isn’t it? He’s your protection.”

“That cream puff?” Perez scoffed. “He’s just the window dressin’.”

“The front man,” Jake said.

“Yeah.”

“For who?”

With a shake of his head, Perez said, “Somebody you never heard of, kid. He don’t even live in this state.”

“From Nevada?” Glynis asked, eagerly.

Perez grinned at her.

“But why did you have to kill Professor Sinclair?” Jake asked. “I don’t see why you did that.”

“Wasn’t me,” Perez snapped. “The prof was fallin’ apart. What with his wife’s habit and all … he was gonna break up. So we put him out of his misery.”

“And his wife,” Jake said. “And that doctor.”

Perez shrugged. “That’s whatcha call collateral damage.”

“Three murders—”

The phone rang.

Everyone froze where they were.

Perez crossed the room to the bar and picked up the phone. “Yeah?” He listened, then replied, “Yeah, it’s snowin’ like hell and we got no electricity. We’re freezin’ our cojones off up here.”