Free Frosted by Allison Brennan, Laura Griffin Page A

should just leave the car here and go inside, secure Adam in his room.”
    “Hold up a minute.” She had an idea. She pocketed her phone and ran across the lobby to the staircase. She tried to use her card key to unlock the door.
    It didn’t work.
    Well, shit. The power goes out and the electronic keys don’t work. If someone was planning an ambush, it wasn’t in the stairwell.
    She went back to the main doors. She opened them slowly, looked around.
    Movement to her left had her both ducking and pushing open the door, using it as a shield in case someone had a weapon.
    The movement startled whoever was standing on the veranda. He turned and ran in the opposite direction. Scarlet pursued. The guy leaped over the edge of the railing and down into the snow bank. He wore black, and as she reached the edge she lost visual as he disappeared among the trees.
    “Shit, shit, shit!”
    She wanted to follow him, but visibility sucked in the light snowfall. Now, his tracks would be visible, but she didn’t know if they would be in the morning.
    She needed a flashlight and better shoes. And back-up. It would be foolish to track that bastard at night by herself, especially when she didn’t know the area well.
    Frustrated, she walked back to the car.
    Krista rolled down the window and said, “I saw someone run toward the garage.”
    “He jumped off the porch. I didn’t want to follow when I don’t know where the hell he’s going, but I want to track him.”
    “Let’s get Adam upstairs and secured first.”
    “With the power out, the elevator and the card keys don’t work. Pull over to the side under the awning. We’ll hunt down Mr. Oliver and get the power back on.”
    No sooner had Scarlet spoken when all the lights in the lodge turned on.
    “And that concludes the evening’s power outage,” Krista said, glancing around. “Now it’s time to find out what the hell’s going on.”

 
    Chapter Six
     
    They settled Adam into the suite with Trina and Dave and instructed them all to stay put. After changing into heavy-duty boots, Scarlet and Krista went downstairs in search of Mr. Oliver.
    They found him behind the front desk. His cheeks looked flushed and his tie was askew. Clearly, the power outage had rattled him.
    “What happened?” Krista asked him. “The power was out for fifteen minutes.”
    “I don’t really know.” He looked older than Scarlet had remembered and had a tremor in his voice. “I was in my room working on the books when the lights went out. I waited a minute—we have an automatic back-up generator. It’s not uncommon for the power to go out on occasion. But the back-up didn’t go on. I first went to the control room to check the fuses and the first thing I noticed was that the back-up generator switch had been turned off. We only do that during maintenance of the system. But that means that if the power goes out, the generator doesn’t know and won’t turn on.”
    “So someone knows how your system works.”
    He straightened his tie and seemed to get back some of his composure. “It’s a standard system,” he said stiffly.
    “But it means,” Krista added, “that someone intentionally turned it off.”
    “How many people work here, Mr. Oliver?” Scarlet asked.
    “We have six full-time employees who live here. More during our peak season, in both summer and winter. My parents bought this lodge forty years ago. They couldn’t run it anymore, so I took over.”
    He owned the place? And had been so rude? Scarlet didn’t get that.
    “But you don’t like it,” Scarlet said.
    “My parents were extroverts,” he said. “They liked people. I’m happier working with numbers. But I’m an only child. There was no one else to take over, and I can’t sell it—not with both of them still alive. It would break their hearts.”
    Scarlet didn’t want to like Mr. Oliver, but she didn’t hate him anymore.
    “How could the power go back on like that?”
    “The main power breaker,