text: Of all the possibilities Cooper had prepared himself for when rushing after Nielsen and Paul through the locker room and down the dark steps to the basement, Park being shoved up against the wall aggressively by Ranger Beck was not one of them.
  
  "Get off of him," Cooper said immediately, striding toward them. Single-minded fury burned across his skin like wildfire. He had almost reached them when a hand grabbed his arm and tugged him back.
  
  "Wait," Nielsen's voice hissed into his ear. "Just wait."
  
  "...stay out of this. I'll handle it. Is that clear?" Beck was saying, keeping a tight grip to Park's sleeve, near his shoulder.
  
  Park wasn't even looking at him. He was staring intently over Beck's shoulder. Across the dark room, Reggie was doubled over, Dr. Joyce at her side, murmuring something in a calming tone. Even from where Cooper stood, he could see Reggie was trembling. Her back was bent oddly and she seemed to be having a hard time getting her legs under her well enough to stay upright.
  
  Clack.
  
  Cooper almost thought he'd imagined it. But no, there it was again. The distinct, flat sound of rock bumping rock.
  
  "She's losing it," Nielsen murmured. There was a hint of excited fascination in his voice.
  
  Clack.
  
  "For fuck's sake," Paul said hurrying in front of Reggie and Joyce, a vain attempt to block Beck's view. "What is going on here?"
  
  "Mr. Claymont, could you please inform your guest here that he's interfering with a crime scene?"
  
  "Crime scene?" Paul choked.
  
  "Figured out why your generators weren't working." Beck held up a largish clear plastic bag. An evidence bag. Inside Cooper could make out some neon-green fabric. The same neon green Monty had been wearing yesterday. Except this one was torn up and eighty percent stained with rusty, brown blood. "Found this shoved in the cooling system. That's a Montclaire Mill shirt. What do you want to bet it's Lee Llcaj's? Double or nothing it's Llcaj's blood, too."
  
  Another shuddering gasp sound came from Reggie and another clack echoed through the room.
  
  "What the hell is that sound?" Beck muttered, looking around.
  
  "Pipes, maybe," Park said, voice blank. "She's obviously upset. Dr. Joyce, take Reggie outside for some fresh air."
  
  "No, no one's going anywhere," Beck demanded. "There you go playing policeman again. I don't know what you people are trying to hide, but keep in mind that concealing a crime is also a crime."
  
  Park's attention slid coolly to Beck, and Cooper saw the man take an instinctual, hasty step back at the look in Park's eyes. Not angry or frightened as one might expect from someone being manhandled, but devastatingly unbothered. Like a tiger just now noticing a twittering bird pecking at it. "What exactly do you think we're hiding?"
  
  All four wolves had gone eerily still and watchful. Even Reggie was frozen in her bent-over position. Looking up through her lashes, shoulders hunched like this, Cooper could clearly imagine what she'd look like in fur.
  
  "I—" Beck was clearly unnerved by the utter lack of emotion and the different, strange tension in the air. Some subconscious instinct had him looking over at Nielsen and Cooper, but there was no help coming from that end. Even Nielsen was unusually reserved, the hand that had been gripping Cooper suddenly slack. Like he'd been surprised by something.
  
  Beck took another couple of steps away from Park, releasing his arm entirely and some of the tension in the room eased. "Well, I think you're hiding the whereabouts of Thomas Kreuger, to start with," he said, brazenness returning now that he was a fair distance away. He turned to Paul. "You and your wife have refused to cooperate when I was only looking to ask Kreuger some questions. Now that it seems he's guilty of murder, I haven't any choice but to make this official."
  
  "Kreuger wouldn't hurt Lee," Reggie insisted shakily, head down, still hiding most of her face. "He wasn't like that."
  
  "I understand you want to think the best of your friend, miss," Beck said, and it sounded more patronizing than gentle. "But I have multiple witnesses who saw Mr. Kreuger and Mr. Llcaj fighting. I also have an account that you and Mr. Llcaj got into a very public argument the week prior."
  
  Surprisingly, Dr. Joyce spoke up. "I'm sure those same witnesses will also tell you that Llcaj was the one who attacked Kreuger." He didn't say anything about Reggie.
  
  "Well, it certainly looks like he got his revenge," Beck said, waving the bag at them.
  
  Reggie's whole body seemed to shudder, making a stifled, hurt sound.
  
  Park took a step toward Beck, distracting him and forcing his gaze away from her. "The problem is, I was just down here a couple hours ago, and there was no shirt then."
  
  Beck's eyes narrowed in on Park. "How would you know? You examined the generator?"
  
  "Yes," Park lied. "I'm thinking of buying something similar."
  
  "What were you doing down here a couple hours ago?"
  
  Park smiled cheerfully and leaned into his face. "Necking," he enunciated slowly.
  
  Beck jerked back and then scowled as if annoyed at himself for reacting. "A fancy sex retreat like this and you expect me to believe you're getting off in the boiler room and inspecting generators?" he snapped. "Give me a break."
  
  Cooper cleared his throat, interrupting Beck's outrage. "I was here, too. There was no shirt."
  
  "And you are?" Beck asked.
  
  "I'm with him," Cooper said soundly.
  
  Park's expression turned decidedly pleased. A little out of place considering the circumstances. Cooper wondered if he didn't claim Park often enough in public. Wondered if that was something Park liked.
  
  "The point is," Cooper continued. "Unless you're suggesting Kreuger snuck onto the property to hide incriminating evidence in his own office, I think we need to consider the possibility that he's being framed."
  
  "Monty," Paul said immediately. "Of course it is. How convenient. How dramatic. A bloody shirt. Should we look around for muddy footprints, too? Secret compartments? Perhaps a name scratched into the floorboards? Or is that too tacky, even for her?"
  
  "Murder isn't a joke, Mr. Claymont," Beck said.
  
  "Save your sanctimony for Montclaire, officer," Paul spat. "She'd do whatever it takes to ruin us. You like bets, hmm? I bet you anything you want she's paid Llcaj, who has done nothing but harass my staff, to lay low so she can play 'plant the clue' all over the retreat and scare the guests away. If you're so eager for answers, I suggest you take a hard look at her."
  
  It was the most aggressive Paul had ever sounded. Though to be fair, Cooper had only really seen him pandering to Park or even Cooper himself. Seeing this glimpse of another side of him was...odd. It threw into the spotlight just how not himself Paul had been behaving.
  
  "I would be careful about throwing accusations of sabotage around, Mr. Claymont," Beck said in that mock-friendly voice of his. "Not when Ms. Montclaire has provided irrefutable evidence of trespassing on her own business as well as several missing journals."
  
  "We sold Monty that land. Why on earth would I be sneaking around it stealing her diary like an eighth grader?"
  
  "Well, something certainly is," Beck said mildly. Cooper squinted at the odd phrasing of that, but Beck was still talking. "Thomas Kreuger's contact information?"
  
  "I—I can't find it," Paul said, with significantly less steam. "His employee file seems to have been...misplaced."
  
  "Of course it has," Beck said. "This is how it's going to go. I'm taking this evidence back to the station to be analyzed. When it comes back as Llcaj's blood, I'm going to get a warrant and gather some of my guys together to come back here and search the full property." He raised his hand against the anticipated protest. "But first, I'm going to drive up to the mill. So if there's anything you want to say before I take Montclaire's full statement, now is the time."
  
  Paul laughed bitterly. "Would it matter? Or has she got you so wrapped around her finger you'll be here at her bidding no matter what?"
  
  "Paul," Dr. Joyce said, sounding upset, but Paul didn't look at him.
  
  After a long moment of tense silence, Beck finally spoke. "I'm sure you've heard the hurricane warning coming down the coast. We're expected to get hit by the outer bands late tonight or tomorrow morning." He looked at Park and Cooper. "If anyone wants to make it off this mountain before Sunday, I suggest you start packing now."
  
  He tucked the evidence bag under his uniform rain jacket and left the room through the door to the outside. The open door caught on the wind and strained at its hinges long after he'd disappeared.
  
  There was silence in the room, then, "I need to get out of this," Reggie snarled.
  
  She was tugging at her shirt as she said it, but Cooper didn't think she was talking about clothes. She had straightened a bit and now that he could see her face he realized she hadn't been shaking with fear or sadness at all. She was furious.
  
  "Wait," Joyce said, holding a hand to her arm. "Beck might still be—"
  
  But Reggie ripped out of his grip with a warning growl. "Leave me alone. All of you just leave me alone." She stalked outside, kicking her shoes off as she went.
  
  "Bradley, if she tries to go back to the mill..." Paul said.
  
  "I know," Joyce said hastily and followed her.
  
  Cooper caught Park's eye and at his nod slipped out after them. In the time it took Cooper to walk across the boiler room and out the door, Reggie had disappeared, and Joyce was standing in the grass, gathering up the pile of her clothes at his feet. Cooper grabbed a sock he saw, still warm, and moved to stand by Joyce, holding it out to him.
  
  Joyce took it with a strained smile. "Thank you."
  
  "Is she okay?"
  
  Joyce pulled absently at his beard in a nervous, self-soothing sort of way. "I'm afraid Reggie is having the hardest time with all of this. She and Kreuger knew each other before coming to work here. They were quite close, but had a falling out just before Kreuger took off. We all thought that's why he left."
  
  Cooper kept his expression impassive. Reggie had given him the impression that she didn't like Kreuger much and that he was always trying to hang around her. She certainly hadn't mentioned anything about them having history. "What kind of falling out?"
  
  "Oh." Joyce looked guiltily back at the lodge and lowered his voice. "The missing young man. He and Kreuger didn't get along, and I believe Reggie took Llcaj's side."
  
  "Do you think Kreuger killed him?"
  
  Joyce shook his head emphatically. "No, surely not. I mean, that would be terrible. No one here would do something like that. Paul is right, Monty is just playing some sort of game. You said yourself that shirt wasn't there before, and Nielsen may not have our scenting ability, but I still believe he would have noticed something amiss this morning when he was checking that the generators were ready for the storm."
  
  Cooper nodded, but internally his head was spinning. Had Nielsen been the one who had spied on him and Park? What if he'd come back later, after they'd gone upstairs. He could even have been the one to plant it himself. But to what end?
  
  Joyce looked over his shoulder suddenly at the door to the boiler room. "Vanessa's just come down." Cooper just had a moment to wonder what had taken her so long—hadn't she left her office claiming she was going to the check on the generators before?—when Joyce put his hand on Cooper's arm, interrupting his thoughts. "Please don't mention what I told you about Reggie to Vanessa. She...would be quite angry."
  
  Startled, Cooper glanced in the same direction as Joyce. "Why?" He had a hard time imagining Vanessa angry. But then he would have had a hard time imagining Paul as anything but a spineless amoeba man until a few minutes ago.
  
  Joyce looked uncomfortable and lowered his voice even further. "She...forbade Reggie from spending time with Llcaj. There were some rumors and—well, she's very protective. For good reason," he added hastily. "Reggie hasn't had the easiest life and some of her choices can be, ah, childish."
  
  "But she is an adult. Isn't she?" Cooper asked tightly, a little put off by Joyce's tone.
  
  Joyce let go of Cooper's arm and held up his hands apologetically. "Of course. I didn't mean she can't make her own decisions." He hesitated. "But Vanessa lost her family quite young, herself. I think she sees Reggie as almost a daughter."
  
  Joyce caught Cooper's look of vague disapproval and sighed, a resigned sort of sound. "I know as a human it doesn't look like the healthiest response. But this is the curse of our species I'm afraid. This need for making families and packs wherever we are. This terror of losing them. It drives us all a little over the line sometimes."