Chapter Two #2
She must have dozed off. Shelby’s low growl woke her, and she sat up as headlights played across the home’s front windows.
She waited, tensed, until she heard a key in the lock of the back door.
It opened, then the beeping of the alarm keypad told her Denny was shutting off the alarm.
She moved to the front hallway, smiling, intending to offer a cheerful greeting.
But the smile faded as she stared at Denton Endicott.
The normally impeccably put-together businessman slumped against the wall, his navy-blue suit rumpled, one sleeve hanging loose, his thick graying hair in disarray.
He glanced at her, and she gasped—one eye was swollen shut, the skin around it purple, his bottom lip puffy and bloody.
“What happened?” she asked, rushing forward, hands outstretched.
But she stopped short of touching him. With effort, he straightened and waved her away. He stood over six feet, and though he had developed a paunch over the years, he still conveyed power. “It’s nothing,” he said.
He started to move past her, but she blocked his path. “You’re hurt,” she said. “Do you want me to call an ambulance?”
“No!” His voice was sharp, angry.
She drew back, and his expression softened. “Really, I fell,” he said. “I probably had too much to drink.” He pulled a wallet from his pocket, opened it and thrust a sheaf of bills at her.
She stared at the wad of twenties—at least two hundred dollars. “This is too much,” she protested.
“Go on. Take it. You’re always so good with Jackson, and he’s crazy about you. In fact, could you come again next Friday night? I have to go out again.”
“Of course.” She was still staring at the money, afraid to look at his damaged face again.
“Now go on,” he said. “I’ll be fine.” He moved past her, and she stared at his back, still frozen in place. At the bottom of the steps, he turned toward her once more. “No need to tell anyone about this,” he said. “It would be too embarrassing.”
“Of course not,” she said. The last thing she wanted was to embarrass this man who had been so nice to her.
“Go home now, Lily,” he said, and even smiled, though at the cost of a fresh trickle of blood from his swollen lip. “I’ll be fine. I’ll wait and set the alarm as soon as you’re out.”
She pocketed the money, collected her things, and let herself and Shelby out.
In the six years she had known Denny Endicott, he had never been anything but perfectly polished and calm.
She had never seen him even tipsy. Had never smelled alcohol on him.
She had looked up to him, as a kind of father figure even.
But he was only human, and humans did drink too much. They fell down. But who got a black eye and a busted lip from a fall? And why hadn’t the clients he had been entertaining made sure his injuries were treated?
But it was none of her business. Though she thought of Denny Endicott as her friend, he operated in a world far removed from her own. His problems involved billions of dollars and how to raise his son as a single father.
All she had to worry about was training her dog, doing her job as a ski patroller and dealing with an exacting boss. It was enough for any one person—right?
“WE’LL DO SHELBY’S Level B certification tomorrow before the lifts open,” Scott informed Lily after morning meeting the next Thursday. “Be at the back bowl off of Lift 12 at seven a.m.”
Lily wanted to protest this was a waste of everyone’s time, but she knew that wouldn’t get her anywhere. “All right,” she said.
Shelby had aced her first Level B test, less than eight months ago.
There was no reason to think she wouldn’t do well this time, either, unless Scott had done something to make the test harder.
Did he resent Lily’s presence on the team so much he would engineer her failure?
She shook her head. Even if Scott had been reluctant to have her as part of his group, he hadn’t done anything to make her think he was that vindictive.
So Friday morning found her and Shelby at the appointed location a few minutes before 7:00 a.m. The sun had barely risen over the ridge, casting long shadows over the pristine snow. Lily’s teeth chattered, and she swung her arms and stamped her feet, trying to generate warmth.
A tall figure skied up beside her and skid to a stop, snow flying. Fellow patroller Nina Rose grinned at Lily as she stepped out of her skis. “Are you ready for this?” she asked.
“We’re ready.” Lily tried not to feel self-conscious around Nina, but she, along with everyone else she knew, had been glued to their televisions the last winter Olympic games.
They had all seen Nina claim a silver medal in the giant slalom.
A few months later she had graced the cover of Vanity Fair, wearing a whisper of a gown that showed off her athletic figure.
Nina looked past Lily. “Here comes everyone else.”
Lily turned, expecting to see Scott and maybe one other person he had recruited to serve as a judge for this test. Instead, she was startled to see all of the other dog handlers—Brian, Anders and Connor skied up just ahead of Scott. “I didn’t expect to see you all here so early,” she said.
“We came to cheer you and Shelby on,” Connor said.
Scott skied up with a tall man dressed all in black, a full ginger beard obscuring most of his face. “Hello, Lily,” Adam Derocher said. “How are you?”
“I’m good,” she said. “It’s good to see you.” She meant the words—Adam had been one of her trainers with C-RAD.
“We’re all here. Let’s get started,” Scott said, without preliminaries. “Adam will be the judge. Lily, are you and Shelby ready?”
“We’re ready.” She ignored the flutter in her stomach.
Shelby had performed well at every trial so far, but she was still a young dog.
If she wasn’t in the mood to work this morning, they could end up embarrassed in front of friends and people she respected.
Not to mention they would probably be kicked off the avy dog team.
Adam stepped forward. “Who are our volunteers?”
A man and a woman held up their hands. “This is Marion and Pete,” Scott said. “They live here in town and volunteered to be our victims this morning.”
“Great,” Adam said. “We’ll get a couple of people to show you what to do.”
Connor and Nina left with the couple. After the lifts closed yesterday they had dug snow caves where the volunteers would wait for Shelby to find them.
Despite the cold and discomfort involved, there was no shortage of other resort employees and townspeople who were willing to volunteer to be buried in the snow for training exercises or certification tests like this one.
“We’ll run the obedience test while we wait,” Adam said.
“Sure.” Lily called Shelby to her side. The dog sat, eyes bright, ears up, the picture of attentiveness.
Lily ran through all the basic obedience commands—sit, stay, lie down, heel and come. “She can fetch, shake hands and bow, if you want to see those,” she volunteered.
“Nah, that’s good.” Adam marked the paper on his clipboard. “Let’s go see if the others are ready.”
Anders and Brian met them halfway across the wide bowl. “Everything’s set,” Brian said. “Let’s see Shelby do her stuff.”
The dog danced around, clearly sensing something was up.
Lily asked her to sit and she did, though she practically vibrated with anticipation.
“You know the drill,” Adam said. “The dog has to find two buried volunteers within twenty minutes.” He consulted his watch.
“The time is seven ten. She has until seven thirty.”
Lily took a deep breath. This was it. The snowfield they were in was the size of a football field. The two volunteers could be hidden anywhere in this expanse of white. “Shelby?”
The dog fixed her gaze on Lily. “Go find!”
Shelby faced the snow, but didn’t move. Lily’s heart sank. She was about to give the command a second time when the dog took off, racing across the field, snow flying behind her.
Lily ran after the dog, aware of the others behind her.
Shelby had her nose to the ground, “casting” back and forth for scent.
Unlike search-and-rescue dogs, avalanche dogs weren’t trained to fix on one particular person’s scent.
Rather, they detected any human scent and focused in on it.
Supposedly, they could smell a person buried even thirty or forty feet deep.
Shelby let out a bark and began digging. Moments later a hand stuck up from the snow and waved. “Time, six minutes,” Adam said.
Lily laughed and rushed to pet Shelby as others pulled Marion from the pit where she had been hiding.
“Good girl!” Marion declared, and hugged Shelby.
“One more to find,” Adam reminded them.
“Shelby, go find!” Lily said.
Shelby took off again. She sniffed around Marion’s hiding place for a few minutes, then moved farther away. Lily made her hands into fists and tried not to think about the time passing as the dog searched, but found nothing.
“Five minutes.” Adam said.
Lily’s stomach was in knots. Come on! she silently encouraged her dog. You can do this.
“Three minutes.”
Lily turned to glare at Adam. His countdown wasn’t helping.
A bark, then a shout from Brian. Shelby was all the way across the field. Lily hurried to the location as the dog dug frantically. Adam jogged up to her side. “Only one minute left,” he said.
Just then, the snow collapsed in front of the dog and Pete poked his head out. “Good girl!” he cried, and patted the dog, who continued to dig at the snow.
“We’ll take it from here,” Brian said, and gently moved the dog aside and began digging out the grinning volunteer.
Lily took a well-worn rope toy from her pack. Shelby barked and leaped at the toy, then tugged hard in her favorite game—her reward for a job well done.
“Congratulations. You passed.” Lily looked up to see Scott standing beside her. “I was a little worried there at the end, but Shelby came through.”
“She was great,” Lily said.
“Good job,” Scott said. “Now let’s get to work.”
He headed for the lift. Adam moved in where Scott had been standing. “I think Scott was more nervous than you were,” he said.
“Why would he be nervous?” she asked.
“Probably because he knew if Shelby failed the certification, he’d have to remove you from the program. He didn’t want to do that.”
She wasn’t sure she believed that. “I suppose it would look bad to lose me when I just joined the team,” she said.
“I don’t know anyone who takes this work more personally,” Adam said. “Frankly, I’d love to have him on my team. But whenever I’ve asked about hiring him, he talks about how much this program means to him. Anyway, congratulations. Shelby did great. You should be proud. How old is she now?”
“Sixteen months.”
“She should be ready for her Level A test by the time she’s eighteen months. That’s the minimum age we can certify her.”
“I’ll be in touch.” She shook the hand he offered, then put on her skis and headed back toward the base area.
She was greeted by a chorus of “Congratulations!” when she entered patrol headquarters, and Shelby received plenty of pats on her way to her kennel.
“Settle down, everyone,” Scott called. “We’ve got a lot on our schedule today.”
And that was it. Another accomplishment ticked off, but just another day on the job. Maybe she and Jackson could raise a toast when she babysat for him tonight.
The rest of the day was a typical busy day.
The snow was good and the sun was out, so the resort was packed.
Lily helped transport a woman with a knee injury from a steep black run on the back side of the resort to the clinic at the base area, helped move a bunch of fencing to a storage area behind the terrain park, answered questions from tourists, took Shelby out for some exercise and obedience drills, and ran general patrols.
When she stopped for lunch at twelve thirty, she saw she had missed a call from Denny Endicott. He had left a voicemail. “We won’t need you to babysit tonight. Change of plans. Thanks.”
She wished she had been able to talk to him. She wanted to know how he was doing. But maybe he would have thought she was being too personal. She thought of him as a friend but really, to him she was probably just the babysitter.
She was collecting her belongings at the end of the day when Nina stopped by her locker.
“Big plans for tonight?” Nina asked. She had freed her long blond hair from the braid she usually wore, and it fell about her face in attractive waves.
She looked runway-ready in black leggings and a black turtleneck that accentuated every curve.
“I was supposed to babysit, but that got canceled,” Lily said.
“Then come out with me. We can celebrate Shelby’s certification.”
At the mention of her name, the dog nuzzled Nina’s hand. Nina obliged by rubbing the dog’s ears.
“Where would we go?” Lily asked.
“Just to the Trail’s End for a few drinks and something to eat. Nothing fancy. Some of the other patrollers will probably be there. The dogs will be fine here for the few hours we’re gone. You can ride with me.”
“Thanks. I’d like that. Just give me a sec.” Though she had been part of this ski patrol team for a month now, she hadn’t socialized much after work. It would be good to have a night out and get to know people better.