THE CASCADE DINNER Chapter 7
The Things They Carried
Leo found Otis at twenty-two minutes past nine, and the finding was not a finding at all but a discovery, and the discovery was not a discovery but a confirmation of every fear that had been crawling up his spine since the note first appeared in his breast pocket.
He had gone looking for the old security guard because the silence from Otis’s radio had grown from a concern to a dread. Eleven years at Timberline had taught Leo that silence in a building this old was never empty. Walls settled. Pipes groaned. Generators hummed. Snow pressed against windows with a soft, constant pressure that was almost audible if you listened closely enough. Silence—real silence, the absence of those small, living sounds—meant that something had stopped breathing.
Leo had checked the security desk first. The monitors were still dark, but now he noticed something he had missed earlier: a coffee cup on the desk, half-full, cold to the touch. Otis drank his coffee black, two sugars, and he never left a cup unfinished. Never. Leo had seen Otis drink coffee that had gone cold hours earlier rather than waste it. The half-full cup meant Otis had been interrupted. Pulled away from his post. Called somewhere by someone or something he trusted.
From the security desk, Leo had followed the path Otis would have taken on his nightly rounds: down the main hallway, past the kitchen, past the staff break room, past the laundry facilities, to the narrow stairwell that led to the basement. The basement was Otis’s domain. He had been born in this lodge when it was still a private residence, and he knew its bones better than anyone. The basement contained the building’s mechanical heart—the furnace, the water heater, the electrical panels, the ancient backup generator that Leo had been meaning to replace for three years. Otis checked these things every night at precisely eight o’clock, because Otis believed that machines, like people, needed attention to stay alive.
Leo had descended the basement stairs slowly, his footsteps loud on the concrete, his breath visible in the cold. The basement was always cold, even when the rest of the lodge was warm. Something about the stone foundations, Otis had explained once. The earth remembers winter even in July.
The door to the generator room was open.
Leo had pushed it wider and stepped inside.
And there was Otis.
He was sitting on the floor with his back against the generator, his legs stretched out in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest. His eyes were closed. His mouth was slightly open. His skin was the color of old paper.
At first, Leo thought he was sleeping. A small, desperate part of his brain clung to that possibility for a full three seconds—Otis is sleeping, Otis fell asleep on the job for the first time in fifty-two years, Otis will wake up embarrassed and apologetic and everything will be fine.
Then Leo saw the blood.
It was a small amount, barely noticeable against the dark fabric of Otis’s uniform. A stain on his chest, just below his crossed arms, no larger than a coin. But it was fresh. Still wet. Still seeping.
Leo knelt beside him. Pressed two fingers to Otis’s neck, feeling for a pulse he knew he wouldn’t find. The skin was cool but not cold. The body was still warm.
Otis had been dead for less than an hour.
Leo sat back on his heels and forced himself to look.
The wound was small—a puncture, not a slash. Something thin and sharp had entered Otis’s chest between the third and fourth ribs, angled upward, toward the heart. A knife, perhaps. Or an ice pick. Or something improvised, something that had been close at hand when the killer made their decision.
There was no weapon in sight. No sign of a struggle. Otis’s hands were clean, his fingernails unbroken. He hadn’t fought back. Either he hadn’t seen the attack coming, or he had known his attacker and hadn’t raised his hands in time.
Leo closed Otis’s eyes. The lids were still pliable, the muscles not yet stiff with death. He had been a good man, Otis. Quiet. Loyal. He had never asked for much—just a paycheck, a warm place to sleep, and the occasional crossword puzzle. He had outlived his wife by twelve years and his only son by thirty. The lodge had been his family. And now the lodge had killed him.
Leo stood up. His knees cracked. His hands were steady, which surprised him. He had never seen a dead body before—not a real one, not like this, not someone he knew. He had expected to feel shock, or horror, or grief. Instead, he felt a cold, clear certainty.
Someone in this building had murdered Otis.
And that same someone had written the note, commissioned the cake, and lured eight wealthy criminals to a remote lodge during a blizzard.
The question was no longer if someone would die tonight.
Someone already had.
Leo did not tell the guests about Otis.
He returned to the dining room and stood in the archway, looking at the twelve people seated around the table. They had not moved. The lamb chops sat untouched on their plates, the fat congealing, the herbs wilting. The candles had burned down by another inch. The wine in the glasses had gone flat.
They were still waiting. Waiting for the hour to pass. Waiting for the killer to confess. Waiting for Julian Cross to speak again.
They did not know that one of them—or someone connected to one of them—had already added a second body to the night’s tally. They did not know that the storm outside was no longer the only thing trapping them here. Death had joined them at the table. Death had been there all along, wearing a different face each time Leo looked.
Elena was standing near the kitchen door, her hands clasped behind her back, her face pale. She caught Leo’s eye and raised an eyebrow. Well?
Leo shook his head slightly. Not now.
She understood. She always understood.
Leo walked to his chair and sat down. The movement drew glances from several guests—Harold, Mira, Celeste—but no one spoke. They had retreated into themselves, each one lost in their own calculations, their own fears, their own memories of what they had done ten years ago.
Julian Cross was watching Leo. His gray eyes were sharp, assessing. He knew something had changed. He didn’t know what—but he knew.
Leo held his gaze for a moment, then looked away.
Not yet. He couldn’t tell them about Otis yet. Not until he understood more. Not until he had figured out who was lying and who was telling the truth and who was capable of driving a thin blade into an old man’s heart.
Because the killer was in this room. Or in the kitchen. Or in the staff quarters. Or hiding in one of the guest suites, waiting for the right moment to strike again.
But Leo didn’t think so.
The killer was at the table. He could feel it. The same way he could feel the cold seeping through the walls, the snow piling against the windows, the weight of the building pressing down on all of them.
The killer was eating the lamb chops. Or pretending to. Or pushing the food around the plate while their mind raced ahead to the next murder.
Leo looked at each face in turn.
Harold Pender. Still pale, still shaken, still radiating the desperate energy of a man who had been exposed and didn’t know how to recover. But was he a killer? Leo didn’t think so. Harold was a coward. Cowards could kill, of course—fear made people do terrible things—but cowards usually killed from a distance, with planning, with deniability. A knife to the chest in a dark basement required proximity. Required nerve. Required the willingness to look someone in the eyes as they died.
Mira Vance. The Shark in Silk. She had the nerve, certainly. She had built her career on making difficult decisions that ruined other people’s lives. But Mira was also a creature of control. She preferred boardrooms and legal documents and the kind of violence that left no blood on her hands. A knife seemed beneath her. Too messy. Too personal. If Mira wanted someone dead, she would hire someone to do it. And she would make sure that person was far away before the body was found.
Daniel Vance. Mira’s husband. The enigma. He had sat through the entire dinner with the same pleasant, neutral expression, speaking only when spoken to, revealing nothing. But Leo had seen the smile when Harold was accused. The small, private curl of the lips. Daniel Vance was enjoying this. And a man who enjoyed other people’s suffering was a man capable of inflicting it.
Marcus Thorne. The media mogul. He had been quiet since Julian’s arrival, letting others speak, absorbing information. But Leo had noticed the way Marcus’s eyes moved—always tracking, always calculating. He was a man who had built an empire on information. He knew things. And he knew how to use those things to destroy people. Was he capable of physical violence? Possibly. But Marcus would prefer a different kind of weapon. A leaked document. A whispered rumor. A story that ruined a reputation beyond repair.
Celeste Thorne. Marcus’s daughter. The youngest person in the room. She had been writing in her notebook since she arrived, documenting everything, saying almost nothing. Leo had assumed she was an observer—a journalist, perhaps, or a scholar. But what if she was more than that? What if she was the reason Marcus had brought her? What if she was the sharp edge of a blade that her father preferred not to wield himself?
Kaelen Wu. The tech founder. He had been on his phone constantly, even when there was no signal. Recording. Typing. Preserving. Kaelen was a man who believed in evidence. He had made his fortune by capturing faces, by building databases, by creating a world in which no one could hide. Did that make him a killer? Or did it make him the person most likely to document a killing?
Priya Chandrasekhar. The biotech scientist. She had barely spoken, barely eaten, barely moved. But her grief for Sonali Mehta was real—Leo was certain of that. The tears, the shaking hands, the raw fury in her voice when she confronted Harold—none of that was performance. Priya was mourning. And mourning could become violence. Grief could sharpen into a blade. A woman who had lost her partner, her work, her reputation, all because of the people at this table—that woman might decide that justice required a more direct intervention.
Reggie Foss. The old man. Eighty-one years old, trembling, tearful, defeated. He looked like a victim, not a killer. But Leo had learned long ago that appearances meant nothing. The weakest person in the room was sometimes the most dangerous. Because no one suspected them. No one watched them. No one noticed when they slipped away from the table and walked down the basement stairs with a knife in their pocket.
And then there was Julian Cross. The ghost. The avenger. The man who had gathered them all here, or claimed that someone else had gathered them, or was lying about everything. Leo did not trust Julian. Not because of anything Julian had said or done, but because trust itself was a luxury that murders did not permit.
Leo looked at the clock on the wall.
Nine-thirty.
Thirty minutes until Julian’s deadline. Thirty minutes until the killer was supposed to confess.
Thirty minutes until something else happened—something worse.
Elena appeared at Leo’s elbow. She was holding a folded piece of paper.
“This was just slipped under the kitchen door,” she whispered. “No one saw who did it.”
Leo took the paper. It was the same heavy, cream-colored stock as the first note. The same elegant handwriting.
He unfolded it.
Mr. Maeda—
You found Otis. Good. I was wondering when you would.
Don’t tell the others. Not yet. The knowledge that there is already a body will only make them more cautious, and I need them scared. Fear makes people sloppy. Fear makes people reveal themselves.
The next death will be at midnight. One of the guests. I haven’t decided which one yet. It depends on who confesses—and who doesn’t.
You have until midnight to figure out who I am. If you do, I will stop. If you don’t… well. You saw what happened to Otis.
One more thing. Check the wine cellar. There’s something there you need to see.
— Your Friend
Leo read the note twice. Then he folded it and put it in his breast pocket, next to the first note.
“Elena,” he said quietly. “Where’s the wine cellar?”
“Behind the kitchen. Down the stairs. Why?”
“I need you to do something for me. I need you to go back to the kitchen, lock the door behind you, and not open it for anyone except me. Not Greta. Not Carlos. Not any of the guests. Only me. Do you understand?”
Elena’s dark eyes widened. “Leo, what’s going on? What was in that note?”
“Please, Elena. Just do what I ask.”
She hesitated. Then she nodded and walked back toward the kitchen, her footsteps quick and determined.
Leo stood up. The guests barely glanced at him. He walked to the archway, then paused.
“Julian,” he said.
Julian Cross looked up. “Yes?”
“The hour isn’t up yet. But I need to ask you something.”
“Ask.”
“Did you know Sonali Mehta personally? Before the summit?”
Julian’s expression flickered. For a moment, just a moment, the mask slipped. Leo saw something raw underneath. Something wounded.
“Yes,” Julian said. “I knew her. Very well.”
“What was she to you?”
Julian was silent for a long moment. The candles flickered. The wind outside pushed against the windows, rattling the frames.
“She was my daughter,” Julian said.
The room went still.
“My daughter,” Julian repeated. “The daughter no one knew about. The daughter I kept hidden because I was afraid of what would happen to her if the world found out. The daughter who died because of something I did. Something all of us did.”
He looked around the table, his gray eyes burning.
“That’s why I’m here. Not for justice. Not for revenge. For her. For Sonali. For the girl I loved and failed and buried in a grave that should have been mine.”
He sat back in his chair.
“Now you know. Now you all know. And now there’s no more pretending.”
The grandfather clock began to chime the half-hour.
Nine-thirty.
Thirty minutes until the deadline.
And somewhere in the wine cellar, something waited for Leo to find it.e middle of it.