Jose lowered his gun and turned back to the field. He walked through the trees to the edge of the field. Cole and Trevor glanced at each other, and then they followed Jose out of the woods. Cole could read his brother’s thoughts – Jose is losing it now, just like Needles.

Jose stopped at the edge of the clearing and stared at the cabin which sat in the middle of the field over a hundred yards away. He could see Stella standing on the front porch watching them. Jose wondered why Stella was on the front porch watching them.

She has something to do with all of this, his mind whispered to him.

Jose looked up at the sky which was dark gray with clouds. It looked like a wall of gray snow was heading right for them.

“Come on,” Cole urged Jose on. The wind from the coming storm was already picking up; a wave of even colder and nastier weather was coming, if that was possible. “We need to get back into the cabin. We’ve got other problems to discuss.”

“What other problems?” Trevor asked.

Cole glanced at Trevor, but then he nodded at the snowstorm that was moving in fast. “We need to hurry,” he told Trevor.

The three ran across the front field as the whitewash of a blizzard swept across the back field behind the cabin.

By the time they reached the front porch, the snowstorm was right on top of them. They hurried inside the cabin.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Destroyed?” Trevor asked, his face slack with shock. “What do you mean, destroyed?”

“The engines in both vehicles are destroyed,” Cole told him. He looked at Stella and David but they didn’t seem too surprised to hear the news. He looked at Needles who didn’t seem so surprised either. He looked back at Trevor. “Like someone took an ax to the motors.”

Trevor stared at Cole. His mouth moved, like he was trying to say something, but his voice wasn’t working for a moment. He turned and paced into the kitchen. Then he turned back to Cole. “An ax? Like the ax that’s missing from the fireplace?”

Cole didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

Cole looked at Stella and David. David had a spiral notebook on his lap and a ballpoint pen in his hand. Cole wondered for a split second where David had gotten the notebook and pen, but then he dismissed the thought. He didn’t really care right now. Cole watched David draw something in his notebook for a few moments; David was really concentrating on his drawing, his dark eyes focused like laser beams on the page.

“Is there any way the engines can be fixed?” Trevor asked, breaking Cole’s hypnosis. The tone of Trevor’s voice didn’t sound hopeful.

“No,” Cole answered as he walked into the kitchen to fix himself a cup of coffee. He poured the coffee into his mug and then held his hands around the cup for a second, letting the heat warm his hands up.

Outside, the blizzard was over top of the cabin like a smothering blanket. The wind howled around the eaves and battered the log walls.

“So, Frank takes the ax with him in the middle of the night and destroys our vehicles with it,” Trevor says.

“Frank wouldn’t do that,” Jose grumbled.

“You said you saw him out there in the woods,” Trevor said.

Needles perked up at this news. “Frank’s out there?”

Cole watched Stella when she heard that Jose saw Frank. Something about the way she looked. It was only for a split second, but he saw something in her eyes. A fear. But not a fear of Frank, a fear of something else. She knew something about this, Cole was sure. But what?

“No,” Trevor spat out the word towards Needles. “Frank isn’t out there.”

“I saw him in the woods.”

“You saw a figment of your imagination. There were no tracks in the snow. No sign of him anywhere. You’re tired and scared and your mind’s playing tricks on you.”

“Don’t call me scared, you motherfucker.”

“Come on, you two,” Cole said.

“If Frank’s out there, then why?” Trevor continued on, ignoring Cole’s warning.

“I don’t know,” Jose said. “Maybe he is after the money.”

“If he’s after the money, then why didn’t he just shoot everyone when he left in the middle of the night?” Trevor asked. “He would’ve had the chance. Why didn’t he shoot us in Stella’s truck? Or at the side of the road? Or when we first got off the snowmobiles?”

“Maybe there’s someone else out there,” Jose said. “The same people who killed that guy and stuffed him in the freezer. Maybe Frank went out there and they took him. Maybe it’s the same people who are after that bitch and that kid.” Jose stared at Stella and David. “I think we need to question them. Get some answers out of them.”

“Jose, that’s enough,” Cole said as he stared at him. “We’re not going to interrogate anyone. We’re not torturers.” Cole glanced at Needles. “We’re not murderers.”

“Yeah, but she knows something.”

“If she’s involved with this, then how would Frank know where Stella was going to be in her truck?” Cole asked Jose. “We took a different escape route after Needles killed the old man in the bank. Trevor was the one with the map.”

Jose turned to Trevor. “Yeah, Trevor had the map. He knew where we were going.”

“Oh, so I’m involved with this now?” Trevor said and couldn’t help smiling which only seemed to infuriate Jose even more.

“You and your brother, maybe,” Jose looked at Cole. “How do I know?”

“Like Cole said,” Trevor went on. “We wouldn’t even be here if Needles hadn’t shot that old man in the bank. You think Needles is in on it too? You think all of us joined together with Stella and David to create all of this,” Trevor spread his hands out at the cabin, “just to trick you out of your share of the money?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” Jose grumbled.

“I didn’t have anything to do with this,” Needles said. “That old man in the bank grabbed me! I didn’t grab him, he grabbed me. And I saw things. I saw this place. And he told me the devil was coming. When are you guys going to see what’s really going on here? Something’s following those two,” Needles glanced at Stella and David on the couch, “and it isn’t human; it’s the devil and now he’s after us.”

“Needles,” Cole warned, “we’ve heard enough of your theories.”

“I say we just kick those two outside,” Needles went on. “If the devil’s after them, then let him have them. We’ll be a lot safer.”

“We’re not kicking anyone outside,” Cole said, as the anger seethed through his words. “We’re not torturing anyone. We’re not killing anyone. And we’re not kicking anyone outside in the snow.”

The others stared at Cole in silence.

“We just came across a bad place,” Cole continued, his eyes burning with anger, his patience completely gone now. “A place where a man was murdered, and whether we want to admit it or not, it’s getting to us. Turning us against each other.”

There was an awkward silence hanging over them for a moment.

“So what are we going to do now?” Trevor asked. “Sleep with all of our guns pointed at each other?”

“We’re going to stay here tonight,” Cole said. “We’re going to wait until these snowstorms pass us by. And we may have to walk out of here tomorrow if we can’t get one of these vehicles to work. We’ll have to flag down another vehicle out on the road.”

“Four wanted bank robbers with two suitcases of money and two hostages walking down the side of the road,” Trevor said. “That sounds like a good idea.”

“Trevor,” Cole said through clenched teeth. “You’re not helping the situation.”

Trevor didn’t retort – he knew when he had pushed his big brother too far.

“Before we leave,” Cole went on after he inhaled a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, hoping the deep breath would help his nerves, hoping that it would help the anger building up inside of him. “I think we need to burn this cabin to the ground. There’s a dead body in here and we don’t need to leave behind any evidence that we were here.”