Finally I arrived at the small porch. I used the handrails to pull myself up, then hopped through the door with Maverick close behind, closed it, and leaned against its wooden surface. In the gloomy darkness, I could see the room hadn’t been touched since I left. Crossing to the table, I picked up the binoculars still resting next to the fruit basket and moved to the window. No one was moving around that I could see. With the exception of the window shot out last night, the lodge looked the same. I scanned the building from end to end and was about to turn my attention to the rest of the resort when something stopped me—the tiniest glint coming from the corner of the lodge. It took me a moment to find it again.

A knife was jammed sideways into a large crack in the logs. Only the back edge of the blade showed and the point extended slightly beyond the log. That’s what had caught the last rays of the sun. Surrounded by all the places someone could hide something, a crack in a log seemed odd. The good news was that the handle, which might have fingerprints, was protected from the elements.

A final sweep with the binoculars revealed that the horses, having had their run around the resort, had returned to the pasture and were calmly grazing.

After pulling the drapes tightly closed over the window, I did the same for all the windows. A chair jammed under the doorknob blocked that entrance. I could barely see. I turned to the dog, who’d sprawled in the middle of the room. “Maverick, this is the deal. We’re stuck here until help arrives, and you have to guard me if anyone tries to get in, just as you guarded Mae’s body from predators up there in the mountains. Okay?”

Maverick thumped his tail on the floor. A bowl of dog food sealed our agreement. I wished that my luggage, including my iWALK, hadn’t gone over the cliff.

A glass of water and several chocolate pieces later, I was ready to go to work. One final check of the resort with the binoculars revealed light seeping around the curtains in the killer’s cabin. If I needed a light, I’d have to be somewhere it wouldn’t show. The bathroom was at the back of the cabin and had a single window with a blackout blind.

I sought the book Roy loaned me from the International Gem Society, a handful of books from the bookshelf, the stack of magazines, and the packet from Roy. I put everything on the bathroom floor, shut the door, and placed a towel along the crack at the bottom. I made sure I had matches in my hand before pulling the blind. The room disappeared into total darkness.