Page 75 of Sentinel's Kiss

She opened a bottle of wine and let it breathe on the coffee table. Snuggling into his arms, Ashley turned on the television.

They were both half dozing on the couch, leaning against each other, when her special on the Poconos Hunting Club came on. Ashley liked how they’d cut the session with shots of the property and the interviews with Reynolds and Nurse Leslie. With Reynolds’s remarks about the hazing of members, the shots of the alcohol and weapons, and Leslie’s innuendos, Ashley thought they struck a good balance of interest and sordidness. Guaranteed she was going to get a call from Reynolds in the morning, once he saw that.

Only as soon as her segment was over, there was an immediate breaking news broadcast. Ashley sat straight up in her chair when she recognized Tina St. James, a reporter from their Pennsylvania affiliate station, standing in front of a burned-out shell of the log cabin that was once the hunting club’s infirmary.

“Josh.” She elbowed him and he came awake with a grunt. Turning the volume up, she listened to the newscast.

“We’ve been informed that there was a fire at the Poconos Hunting Club. There have been several confirmed fatalities. Early reports lead toward the oxygen tanks malfunctioning, which started the fire and was exacerbated by liquor and ammunition. The fire happened early this morning, and by the time it was noticed and reported, it was too late to do anything but contain the blaze.”

“We were just there.” Ashley couldn’t believe it. If she hadn’t come home for her father, they might still have been in the area. “Shit,” she said, grabbing her phone. She texted her producer to see if she wanted her to go back down there and talk to Reynolds.

Tina continued her report. “So far we are unable to contact the owner of the hunting club, Peter Reynolds, for comment. But we did manage to talk to a few members as they were packing for home.”

The scene shifted to the parking lot. Tina was talking to a hunter who was sitting in his car. “Are you cutting your vacation short?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s a sad thing. It’s hard to stay here knowing that people died while we were sleeping.”

Another jump cut to a group of men calling out, “No comment.”

Another jump cut and a woman stared into the camera defiantly.

Next to Ashley on the couch, Josh pulled out his phone.

“Can you tell us what happened here?” Tina asked the woman.

“I came to work this morning, and the infirmary was on fire.”

“Did you work there?”

She nodded. “I couldn’t get close to it. The fire was too hot, so I called in the fire department and went to get Peter, but he wasn’t in his room.”

“Get her name!” Ashley yelled at the television screen.

“Do you think he was inside the infirmary?”

The woman thought about it. “Maybe. He had been complaining about his ulcer acting up. It’s possible.” She took a deep breath and hid her face in her hands, sobbing loudly.

“She must have told all that to the police already. She’s faking it,” Ashley said. She texted her producer: Who was that woman Tina interviewed?

Josh was rapidly texting as well, scowling at the screen.

Ashley resisted the urge to peek over to see why he was so fired up. Her phone pinged back.

“My producer said that woman was Dina Kenner. Why do I know that name?” she asked.

Josh stopped mid-text. “Dina was the hooker who was nursing Stan and his two other friends, the other victims’ husbands.”

“Shit.”

She texted that to her producer, knowing she would pass that information on to the police. When her phone rang with a Pennsylvania area code, Ashley almost dropped it.

“Hello?”

“Ashley Carver?” a familiar man’s voice said. She couldn’t quite place who it was.

“Yes, this is she.”

“It’s Stan Stevens.”