A/N: Loving the reviews, guys! As thanks, here's the next chapter :)
The three friends were gathered in the caf for breakfast while they listened to everything George had found out. Adam had already returned to the hotel room, according to George, after an awkward conversation where she'd tried to gain information while avoiding mention of what she'd found out about him.
Frank had given a summarized report of last night's events to Paul White, the younger, as the elder White wasn't in his office. Though he was congratulated for removing the bomb from the scene, he was also warned that the police had full reigns of the investigation now. While Frank wouldn't be kicked off the case, he was warned that he needed to produce results fast before anyone else could get hurt.
At the present moment, though, Nancy and Frank listened intently as George detailed the events of her night: as they had suspected from the interrupted phone call, she had uncovered evidence that suggested Adam as the saboteur, based on the strong motive he had to sabotage the resort.
"So how did you find all of this out?" Nancy asked curiously.
George shrugged. "It wasn't difficult. The only reason it even took so long in the first place is because the library computer is a dinosaur. So I just read through the emails and found identifying details, then cross-referenced them with online archives of old newspapers. No biggie."
"Okay, so we have his motive. But does he have the means, or opportunity?" Nancy questioned. Adam's family had a strong hatred for the Whites, judging by what George had discovered, but then the Whites themselves had admitted to Frank and Joe that they had a fair number of corporate enemies. It wouldn't be weird that Adam wanted revenge for the downfall of his business and family name.
"Nancy and I found his employee record in those papers we have. He was fired for snooping around, and that was almost two weeks ago. A lot more recent activity has gone on since then, which doesn't exactly fit with his access to the machinery being sabotaged," Frank said.
"Yeah, but working as an employee he would have gained extensive knowledge on rotation schedules of shifts, and the workings of the machinery used on the lifts," she replied. "There's no reason to assume that he couldn't just be sneaking around past them when the employees are off-duty."
"That's assuming he worked on a variety of things before he was fired, though, which we would have to confirm first."
"We need more information about his work duties, and his schedule on the resort. It seems weird that the boy working duty on the ski lift didn't recognize an old colleague, though, so unless Adam was wearing a mask - which I don't think that employee mentioned - it couldn't have been him that knocked him out and stranded all the skiers on the lift."
"Even so, Adam was definitely the one who sent them threats via email. But whether he's working with the bomber or not, it's hard to say. When was the time of those threats, George?" Nancy turned back to look at her friend for the first time, and found George regarding both sleuths with an amused expression.
"Man, you guys can really get going on your speculations sometimes. Now, the emails were sent even before the sabotage started, but they continued up until recently. But, before you guys started going all Nick and Nora on me, I was going to say something else." George paused for a moment and, seeing their blank faces, shook her head in disapproval. "Come on. Nick and Nora Charles? It's a classic! Anyway, I wanted to say that Adam came up to me last night and we talked for a while."
"Did you question him?" Nancy said.
"Not directly, no, but I sent out probes to see his reactions to certain things and I just can't believe he's been working with that other guy, the bomber."
Before George could continue, someone tackled her with blonde hair flying.
"George! And Nancy, and Frank!" Bess exclaimed, helping George back into her seat. "Man, am I ever glad to see that you guys are okay."
Standing beside her was Joe, who promptly pulled up a chair beside Frank and began picking food off the other's almost empty plates."We got snowed in," he explained through a mouthful of french fries.
"Manners, Joe. Heard of them?" Frank snorted.
"George said you might have gotten hypothermia?" Nancy asked Bess.
Bess shrugged and flipped her hair over her shoulder casually. "Minor case. Joe fixed me up, and I'm at 100%, I swear."
"That's actually why it took so long for us to get back - I dragged her over to see the medics crew just in case something was still wrong, but they cleared her so long as she doesn't spend an extended time outdoors for a while."
The blonde groaned upon the reminder, but sat down and shrugged off her coat. Like George, Bess was still dressed in the same ball gown she'd put on the night before. It wasn't an unusual sight - the other party-goers stranded at the lodge still lingered, eating breakfast like all of them were before heading back to their hotel rooms to get dressed.
"Anyway, we finally managed to crack the code on this," Bess said happily, taking the journal and passing it to the center of the table. Nancy gave a wary glance to make sure no one was too close, but found their table/booth surrounded by empty ones.
"It was all Bess, actually. She worked out that the thing is in Vignère cipher, coded under the keyword 'Pierre'," Joe piped up.
"The note in pigpen cipher?" George said with interest. "So that's what that was for."
"Anyway, Joe decoded the rest of it to find out what it said while we were waiting for the cold to let up outside, and he finally found the name of the bomber, our mystery guy," Bess continued.
"Chasseur," Joe said.
Nancy cocked her head to one side. "That means 'hunter', in French, right?"
Joe nodded in agreement. "That's what I thought, too."
"Anyway, the journal details some of the sabotage and proves Haines' had a pretty handy role in this entire case - he was the one that knocked out the ski lift worker, incidentally - but it also references a third partner, that he only calls 'the boss'."
Frank and Nancy shot each other a confused look. "The boss?" Frank asked.
"Because while you guys were doing that, George was stranded at the lodge uncovering the fact that Adam was the guy emailing threats to Jack White, and Nancy and I were checking out his employment records at the lodge," Nancy said.
"And even though he was fired a couple of weeks ago, he's stayed on as a guest since then, giving him opportunity to work some sabotage around the area," Frank replied.
Joe looked at them, confused. "So you think Adam might be the third guy mentioned in this?" He frowned, considering this possibility. "I don't buy it, I have to say. The journal mentioned one other thing: right before he was killed, Haines planned on telling the boss that he was out."
Nancy shook her head. "That can't be. Adam would never-"
"I would never what?" a voice interrupted them. While they had been so engrossed in their conversation, Adam had returned from his room and found them in the cafeteria, huddled around the table secretively. "What are you guys talking about?"
His voice was mild and only vaguely interested, Nancy thought, but he looked tense and wary in posture. She glanced at Frank and Joe, eyeing them carefully before speaking.
"Not much," she said casually. "Just all the problems we've run into on the lodge so far."
"Problems?" Adam asked as he took a place in one of the empty seats beside George. "Is that what you were talking about before, too?" he said to the brunette.
George nodded weakly, and Nancy forged on ahead. "You see, we've run into weird situations: a stopped chair lift and an unconscious employee... machines shutting down on popular slopes during the night... We've even heard rumours of threats towards the owner and manager of the lodge."
She studied Adam carefully as she spoke, watching his reaction to what she said. Surprisingly, he had remained calm and placid as she began. It was only when she mentioned the emails that he gave a slight start and widened his eyes.
"Didn't you mention you used to work here, Adam?" George asked brightly, recovered from her initial shock at seeing him again.
"Yeah, for a while," Adam said, not volunteering any other information.
"So I guess you would have heard all the gossip circulating," Frank said calmly. Adam merely shrugged. It was an awkward moment - all five of them were silent as Adam stared intently at the table, outnumbered.
"You know, I think I should go check if I left the tap in my room on," he said with a stab at a casual air.
Frank stood up as Adam did. "I don't think you did," he said, a dead neutrality in his tone.
"I- I just-" Adam stuttered, looking wildly around for escape.
Bess finally took pity on him. "Adam, we know that you know more than you're letting on. And if you don't fess up to it, right now, you're going to become a suspect in a murder investigation."
At these words, Adam jumped in shock, then sat back down after a moment's hesitation. "M-murder?" he said in disbelief.
"George and I found a body on a hiking trail our first day here," Nancy said. "And we know you have a personal grudge against the White brothers. Maybe you wanted to taint the reputation of their lodge, destroy them the way they destroyed you."
Adam shook his head vehemently. "That's not true, I swear. I had no idea about any kind of body, really."
Joe scrutinized him. His gut feeling, a fairly reliable source, didn't indicate that Adam was lying. But he still hadn't told them the full truth, either. "If you don't want us to go to the authorities, you better start telling us your story," he said.
Adam slumped his shoulders, wearing a look of defeat. "I promise, my only role in this entire thing has been those emails. I threatened them, sure, but I wasn't going to do anything actually illegal. The only thing I was responsible for was the food poisoning, nothing more."
Frank nodded, understanding. "That makes sense. You were acquainted with the head chef?" he asked.
"That's right. We were friends, and when I was fired I managed to sneak in to replace some ingredients with rancid food," he said ashamedly. "But it wasn't Brian's fault! He had no idea what I was going to do, and I figured the whole thing would be blamed on one of the underlings that prepare food normally. I admit, that wasn't exactly a great thing to do."
"So that was all you did?" Nancy asked with doubt.
"Yes! I had no idea about the chair lift thing with the unconscious employee, or the wild animal thing in your cabin," Adam babbled on.
Nancy crossed her arms. "No one mentioned anything about a 'wild animal thing' in our cabin."
Adam hung his head in defeat. "I didn't realize the guy wanted to let it into your cabin. George mentioned something about it in passing at the ball, and I realized what must have happened. When he approached me about my past history with the White family, and realized I was sporting a grudge, he promised that he would give the brothers something to think about if I could trap a wild animal for him."
"So you gave him a wolverine?" George cried in disbelief. "Those things have claws! And teeth!"
"Not my proudest moment either," he winced. "I just thought he would let it loose somewhere on the trails so guests would be frightened and complain to the Whites."
"Wait, but you met this guy in person?" Nancy demanded. "Can you describe him? Where was this? Was there anyone else involved? Did he ask you to drop off the trapped wolverine somewhere?"
He blinked under the barrage of questions, but did his best to answer them. "Um, he told me I could just drop it off at his cabin. And I didn't see anyone else; I only talked to him. He was oldish. Brown hair, brown eyes, kind of portly. He had a strong French accent, hard to understand," Adam described.
Nancy bit her lip. What Adam had said confirmed he'd met with Chasseur himself, and not the boss, but other than that they hadn't learned anything new. But Adam continued talking, trying to fill in the empty silence at the table in the now mostly empty caf.
"I caught the wolverine on one of the trails, and just followed that path behind the lodge til I reached his cabin again-"
"Wait, what?" Nancy asked. "Where was it?"
"Um... just along this small path behind the lodge, a side trail off the Ptarmigan."
Nancy blinked at this revelation. He had two secret cabins, and chances are he was currently holed up in one he had shown Adam.
"Look, I actually really regret the stuff I did. I have a personal vendetta against the Whites, but I shouldn't have let vacationers suffer because of it and I definitely had no idea he was planning on letting the wolverine into out cabin. What I'm trying to say, is that if you need any help catching whoever's doing this stuff, give me a call." This piece said, Adam pushed back his chair and left the caf in a rush, cheeks flaming in embarrassment.
"Woah. This puts a whole new twist on things," Nancy said.
"It actually makes much more sense, though. I was wondering the entire time why he hadn't returned to the cabin in the storm when Bess and I took shelter there. The place is practically designed for outlasting snowstorms - it seemed weird that he was nowhere to be seen," Joe added.
"So what's our next move?" Nancy asked.
The table fell silent for a moment, before Frank spoke up. "I think Joe and I should head over to Chasseur's cabin while the girls stay in their own. We'll outnumber him two to one, so the danger is minimal, but that way none of you will get hurt."
Nancy snorted. "Excuse me? I'm not going to sit in the cabin waiting around while you guys go off investigating. I'm just as capable as either of you, and you could use my help on this."
Joe laughed at this. "Don't try to argue, Frank. You know she won't give up - if we told her to stay in the cabin, she'd just follow us all the way there anyway."
Nancy smiled. "You got that right. So what do you say, Frank?" she asked, looking at him sweetly.
Frank held up his hands in surrender, but there was a smile in his eyes. "Outnumbered, I concede. But George and Bess really should head back - at the very least, they need a change of warmer clothes."
With the matter settled, Bess and George headed back to the cabin on the snowmobile Frank and Nancy had driven over that morning. Meanwhile, Nancy, Frank, and Joe prepared for the hike down Ptarmigan, the trail Adam had mentioned, in search of this new cabin.
"There's a high chance he's hiding out in this cabin right now," Frank said, breath fogging up in the cold. "We need to be careful that he doesn't notice us or he might bail before we can do anything."
"Do we have a game plan?" Nancy asked him. She picked her way over a fallen log and stumbled, Frank catching her at the last moment so she didn't fall. She gave him a grateful smile and resolved to be more careful: it would be idiotic for her to break a leg or twist an ankle just by tripping over a log.
"We need to confront Chasseur. I'm hoping if we can catch him and take him down, we might be able to force him into telling us who the third guy is. And if not, we may be able to deduce the man's identity by what he says."
Joe nodded in agreement. "I just hope he hasn't already left from wherever he is... Woah, what happened here?"
The three sleuths had finally reached the turn in the trail where Frank had thrown a ticking time bomb off of only last night, and a layer of ash had settled and mixed into the freshly fallen snow. A few trees had been turned into sticks, but altogether it looked like nothing had been hurt to Frank and Nancy's relief.
"You don't know, yet, do you?" Frank asked in surprise. "With everything else that's been going on, we forgot to tell you what happened to Nancy and I when you three left for the cabin. Chasseur dropped off a time bomb in a supply closet - he knocked out Nancy because she almost caught him doing it, and it was only luck that let us find it."
"Actually, we found something else in the hotel hallways, too. The entire place reminded me of this old ski château I once worked a case at, and that castle was filled with secret passageways. Literally, there were dead ends and false walls all over that place. So Frank and I were just looking around, for fun, when we actually discovered one," Nancy explained with a smile.
"Secret passageways? Man, I always miss the fun stuff," Joe pouted. "I guess that's why none of us found him, then?"
Frank nodded. "He just hid out of sight while we ran around, then planted the bomb and ran once we'd all cleared out."
Nancy gave a sharp intake of breath and tugged both Frank and Joe down with her to the snowy ground. "It's down there," she said quietly. "We need to make sure we can stop him before he runs if he tries to escape, so any element of surprise will be to our advantage."
They fell silent, with only an occasional chirp of a bird breaking the still air. Frank and Joe crept around to the back of the cabin, keeping themselves hidden by the thick trunks of the towering oak trees and the sap-covered branches of the snow-covered pines. Being the smaller of the three, Nancy went for the front door, silently cursing the contrast of the bright snow against her dark parka.
She waited their, back to the wall of the cabin just left of the door, and heard Frank's signal telling her that he and Joe had the windows all covered. Nancy reached out to test the door knob, and found it yielded to her hand - the door was unlocked, oddly enough. She gave her own signal, a whistle like a Northern Cardinal, then waited three seconds.
On the third beat, she opened the door and burst in, ready to confront Chasseur and/or any accomplices. The plan was simple: burst in, find Chasseur, take down, question. Except there was one small snag in their plan. It wasn't that Chasseur wasn't there, because he was in fact on the bed in the corner of the room, the embers of a dead fire glowing in the wood stove.
The snag was that, judging by the slow and steady drip from the bed to the hard-wood floor, a pool of blood already forming, Chasseur was very much dead.
Nancy backed away, a call for Frank and Joe rising in her throat at the sight of the bloodied wound on the large man's chest, but before she could utter a word the sound of footsteps caught her attention and she whirled around to meet the sight of a ragged cloth with a sickly sweet scent descending upon her.
She didn't even have time to register the scent as chloroform before losing consciousness. The world turned black before her eyes.
AaA
When Joe regained consciousness, the first thing he saw was his older brother on the floor beside him in the cabin, a nasty welt on his forehead that would probably give him a killer headache once he woke up. The second thing he noticed was that both he and Frank were bound in ropes by their ankles and hands, and there was a sharp, cloying smell in the air. The third thing he realized, after hearing a much more feminine groan from behind him somewhere, was that Nancy was there too.
Well. They were all screwed. He gave himself a mental shake and counted to ten. By the time he'd opened his eyes again, he'd found the source of the smell and it was nothing good: the cabin was on fire. As he noticed this, he squinted at the bed for a moment, eyes widening once he saw what lay on it. Chasseur's body, still dripping blood, lay frozen in place atop the small bed.
This revelation sent Joe into action, and he struggled to get himself off the floor. Frank still hadn't moved, but Joe was pretty sure he could hear Nancy gradually waking up. He gave up on sitting up straight and settled for rolling over to face her.
"Nance!" he called out, shimmying his body close enough to give her a light kick on her thigh. "You need to wake up, like, pronto."
She stirred groggily, and Joe let out a breath of relief. He reared back awkwardly, still bound by the ropes on the floor, and kicked her again. Finally, she opened her eyes and blinked hard a few times.
"J-Joe?" she coughed.
"Yup. Frank's here, too, but he's a little bit more unconscious than us right now."
"Joe," she said, suddenly alarmed.
"Also yes - the cabin is currently on fire and we are all tied up inside of it."
"We need to get out," she said frantically. The flames were moving slowly, curling up and spreading out in the far corner of the cabin. The smoke, however, was already filling the cabin and would soon block their lungs.
"Nancy, I need you to roll over here, okay?" Joe said. "Get your hands up to me and I'll try and untie you."
She did as he asked, doing her best to keep calm although one part of her was in panic mode over Frank. Nancy winced as Joe tugged on her bindings, an awkward procedure when his own hands had barely a few centimeters of freedom to move.
Finally, though, her hands fell free and she gave a cry of relief, bringing her chafed wrists to her front and rubbing circulation back into her arms. She wasted no more time: though her feet were still bound, she worked away at Joe's arm bounds, all the time aware of the ever-growing flames, and let out a breath she didn't know she was holding when they finally fell loose. Joe quickly started work on his ankles, hunkering down low to avoid the thick gray smoke that was covering the ceiling.
Once her hands were untied, Nancy wasted no more time on herself. Half dragging, half hopping her way over to Frank, she went through standard first aid procedures while she worked at his bonds, checking for responsiveness and breathing and doing a quick assessment of his forehead. Satisfied that he would live if they could get out of the cabin in time, she began prodding him, calling him and pinching him and doing anything that might possibly wake him up.
"Come on, Frank, come on..." she murmured, now loosening his ankles. "Please, please, please wake up," she implored him. Frank still wasn't responding when Joe returned to Nancy's side and, kitchen knife in hand, cut her ankles free as well.
"Joe, he's not waking up," Nancy said, her eyes filled with fear. "We need to get out, now!"
With Nancy's help, Joe pulled Frank up so that he could drag him behind him, Frank's arms slung around Joe's shoulders. Joe grimaced under the weight. "This is going to be difficult. Nancy - go test the door, see if he locked it up."
The front door in question had escaped the flames so far, but it provided no help to Nancy. They had been locked in. Sweat dripped down her forehead, the searing heat of the fire slowly enveloping her.
She raced around to the windows, avoiding the table with a gasp as a small section of roof fell in just beside her. Her heart raced, but she pushed herself onward. It hadn't hit her, so there was no use in thinking about the what ifs. Although the hole alleviated the smoke by a fraction, the rush of fresh oxygen wasn't doing them any favours in terms of the fire. Nancy needed a solution, fast.
Racing to each of the windows in turn, Nancy let out an oath as she found them all locked tight as well. Punching through would hurt, badly, but she didn't have anything hard to break through the glass and there was no time to search for something in the cabin now.
"Nancy, catch!" Joe called out. She turned just in time to catch Joe's sweatshirt and understood his intent immediately. Wrapping her hand, she braced herself and punched through the glass of the window. Taking care not to slice open her arm, she removed the remaining shards of glass from the window and tossed the shirt back to Joe, who slung it over his shoulder. It was far too hot for it now, anyway, and it would be ridiculous to waste time putting it back on.
"We should get Frank out first," Nancy said to him. As she spoke, Frank's eyelids fluttered ever so slightly and hope blossomed in Nancy's chest. "Can you bring him over here?"
Joe grunted, then struggled across the room, thankful the cabin was so small. He paused for a moment, a hacking cough over taking him, before reaching the window. It was small, but they would all fit through.
"Nancy, go out first," Joe directed. "You can help get Frank through the rest of the way, and I'll follow right after him."
There was no time to argue, so Nancy slid out through the open window and immediately prepared to help Joe get Frank through. It was a tricky business: they started with his feet, in the theory that at least he wouldn't land on his head. Nancy grasped his legs and Joe propped his back up, then gave a hard shove so that Frank fell the rest of the way through.
He heard a muffled gasp and called out an apology to Nancy, who, unprepared for Joe's sudden push, had been pinned down by Frank's limp body. Joe hurried to join them outside, the cold air beckoning to him, when suddenly another section of the roof came down. He jumped back, startled, and then groaned.
Just my luck, he thought to himself. The broken window had been blocked by a thick beam of flaming wood. Joe glanced wildly around the room, assessing his options. Time was running out, and he needed an escape route, fast. The burning table blocked one window, and the other was cut off by the slow flames creeping up the side of the bed, Chasseur's corpse still on it. He was trapped.
AaA
Meanwhile, outside the burning cabin, Nancy felt Frank begin to stir and struggled to push him off her onto the side. She knelt beside him carefully, and cried out in happiness when he slowly opened his eyes. She kissed him quickly, talking him in the hopes of waking him up faster.
"Joe!" she called out happily in a vague direction behind her, eyes never leaving Frank. "He's awake!"
Frank groaned, his head throbbing like he'd been hit by a baseball bat. Thinking back, he was pretty sure he had a fuzzy recollection of actually being hit over the head with a baseball bat, but there were more important issues at hand. His brown eyes widened in shock upon seeing the cabin, and Nancy's soot-covered clothes.
He reached up to stroke Nancy's hair with one hand in concern. "Are you okay? What happened?" he asked. A sudden realization came to him. "Where's Joe?" His alarm grew as Nancy looked at him, confused, before turning back to the cabin.
"He's right behind..." Her blue eyes widened in shock. The window was no more, a burning beam of wood cutting off their sight of the cabin. Frank watched anxiously as she turned back to face him, fear gripping her, and could only manage three words: "Joe's still inside!"
Frank's heart seized as he stared in horror at the collapsing cabin, the flames licking up the walls at an alarming pace.
He needed to save his little brother.