“You find anything unusual?” Mark asked, and his charm snapped like a fishing line.
Fear showed in the men’s faces. Mark realized whatever they’d hidden was gone. If the torc was missing, he understood that a lot of people would be out for blood — his customers didn’t excuse mistakes. He stepped toward Tom the way a predator steps toward its prey.
Tom kept his face a stoic, stubborn blank. He told Mark he hadn’t seen anything but the hog and the ripped dirt, that his job was to dispatch problem animals, then pack up and leave.
Mark didn’t believe him. He had his men dig. Two of them dropped to their knees and started clawing at the ground like wolves. After a desperate minute they came up with nothing but shredded black plastic — no container, no metal, just scraps.
“Empty,” one of them cursed. Mark’s jaw tightened. He stepped up to Tom, nearly close enough to feel the breath from his lips.
“When did you shoot it?” he asked quietly.
“About forty minutes ago, just before dusk,” Tom said, keeping his tone flat.
Mark smirked, and the smirk was colder than any winter wind. “We buried that thing only five hours ago, at noon. So someone either found and took it — or you’re lying.”
He barked an order and his men lunged at the hog. They shoved Tom aside and started cutting into the carcass, raking through the steaming entrails looking for what wasn’t there. Tom knew that when they noticed the incision — a clean straight cut made with a knife and not teeth — they’d put two and two together.
Tom’s heart kicked. He wasn’t going to wait for them to notice that the animal had been opened by a human before they’d start shooting.
He didn’t think — his training took over. He slammed a ski pole into a low spruce branch and sent a curtain of snow and needles down over the men. It bought him a second or two. He darted to his skis.
