Page 47 of It's a Wonderful Knife

She pointed to a closet across the room. “I put them in a small safe I have in there.”

“Would you mind getting them out?” I really needed to know if they were safe or crushed into pieces in the reindeer barn. I pressed the button on the phone to turn it on, and instead of a dial tone, there was silence. Frowning, I leaned over to see if maybe the main station was unplugged.

“What’s wrong?” Mona asked.

“The phone has no dial tone.”

“Really?” She frowned and got down on her hands and knees to crawl under the desk.

“Did you push the power button?” Ezra asked in a bossy voice.

I smiled politely. “Of course.”

“It’s the one on the left. Did you push that button on the left?”

“I pushed the power button, Ezra.” The stress of the moment had me wanting to scream at him, but that wouldn’t help anything.

“What the heck?” Mona’s muffled voice came from under the desk. She scrambled out, tugging two cords with her. She held up the end of the lines, and they were cut clean through. “I don’t understand.”

Ezra blinked at the cords. “Did you break them, woman?”

“No.” She scowled. “They’ve… they’ve both been sliced. The phone line and the internet cable.”

“So, you’re saying we don’t have internetorphone?” I tried to keep the alarm from my voice.

Mona swallowed. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“Not even Wi-Fi?” Ezra frowned.

I glanced at him. “I believe the Wi-Fi router goes to the modem. Without the modem, there’s no Wi-Fi signal.”

“Oh.” Ezra looked confused.

A wave of panic washed through me, but I did my best not to show it. “Mona, do you think I could see the cell phones you confiscated, please?”

She got up, her face flushed from climbing around under the desk. She too looked extremely alarmed. “Uh, sure.” She hurried over to the closet and opened it. Her mouth fell open as she stared at the safe. The door was wide open, and it was empty. “No. That… that can’t be. I’m the only one who knows the combination to that safe.”

“You sure about that?” I asked.

She looked about ready to pass out. “I think so.”

You think so?

“I mean, sometimes I ask Leo and Jax to get things out of the safe for me, but I always change the combination after.” She sat down in a small chair by the closet and put her head between her knees.

“Are you okay?” I asked, moving over to her.

“I feel like I’m going to pass out.”

Ezra just stared at her, making no attempt to see if she was okay.

“You sure you’re okay?” I rubbed her back.

“I’m… I’m fine,” she whispered, and she started crying.

“Oh, geez.” I sat on my haunches next to her and patted her back awkwardly. “It’s okay, Mona. Everything will be okay.”

She lifted her head, her face stained with tears. “How can you say that? There’s been a murder. A murder, Royce!” She sounded a bit hysterical, something I’d never seen from Mona before. “Someone cut the phone and internet lines. Why? The guests’ phones are gone too? What’s happening? Are we all going to be murdered?”