Chapter Eight #2
“Good morning,” Lily said. “My car is over here.” She led the way two rows over to a blue Subaru Outback, and stood on tiptoe to heft her skis into the rack on the car’s roof.
Scott followed and added his own skis, then they shoved packs, boots and poles in to the back of the vehicle. “Do you have your beacon?” he asked.
“Yes. And it’s fully charged.”
“Just checking.”
She grinned. Was she amused at his inability to stop being the boss? Or because he was so predictable she had anticipated what he would say?
She pulled an insulated mug from the side of her pack, slid the top open and sipped. The tantalizing aroma of cinnamon filled the air.
“What are you drinking?” he asked.
“Black tea with cinnamon and cloves.” She tilted her head and considered him. “Let me guess—you drink black coffee.”
She wasn’t wrong. “Let’s go,” he said.
She slid into the driver’s seat and buckled her safety belt. Shelby arranged herself on the back seat next to Hunter. “Have you heard anything from the sheriff?” she asked as he settled into the passenger seat.
“No. I called Doug last night and he said a couple of agents from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation interviewed him, but they wouldn’t say anything about the case.”
She started the car and backed out of her parking space. “I called the Endicott house last night,” she said. “The man who answered said they weren’t taking calls and there was no news. I didn’t recognize his voice, so I thought maybe he was a cop.”
“We may get to Pandora and find the place crawling with cops,” Scott said.
“What are we going to tell them if they ask what we’re doing?” She turned onto the road that led to the back country.
“We tell them we came to ski,” he said. “Plead ignorance.”
She chuckled softly.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“You don’t look that clueless.”
“What do you mean?”
“Everything about your screams ‘competent and informed.’ I mean that as a compliment, but no cop is going to believe you live in a cave and haven’t heard a thing about a boy being kidnapped. You can’t help looking like you know exactly what you’re doing.”
“Then I’ve fooled you,” he said. “I have no idea if we’ll find Jackson or not, but I have a hard time sitting around doing nothing.”
“Then you and Shelby have a lot in common.”
There she went, making him the butt of a joke again. “I’m glad you find me so entertaining,” he said.
“Would you rather I be intimidated?” She sipped her tea.
“I’m not trying to intimidate anyone.”
“When I first started work here, you were pretty forbidding,” she said. “Until I figured you out.”
“Oh, you figured me out, did you?” Whereas she confounded him more every minute.
“You’re like a lot of guys I’ve met—cool and detached on the outside, but inside you care deeply about things. I think it frustrates you when other people don’t care as much, like with the avalanche dog program.”
The assessment hit him like a punch in the gut—he didn’t like being so transparent. “Were you a psychology major?” he asked.
“No, but I pay attention to people.” Another sip of tea. “It’s my superpower.”
“Too bad your superpower can’t tell us what happened to Jackson.”
She sighed. “Yeah. Too bad.”
They both grew quiet, though he was aware of her, only a few inches away, focused on her driving. He had seldom been around someone so self-contained, content with silence.
She turned the car onto the snow-packed Forest Service road that led to the trail they wanted. “Have you been here before?” he asked.
“No. I looked up the directions last night online. And I read about Pandora. Apparently, it used to be a gold mining town.”
“Right. There are half a dozen log buildings still standing, some of them in pretty good shape. It’s a popular destination for hikers in the summer, and there are a few more modern summer cabins near the town site that are still kept up, but hardly anyone comes up here in winter, except occasional cross-country skiers. ”
At the end of the road, she parked at a locked gate. “It looks like a lot of people were parked here recently,” she said, pointing to the packed snow on either side of the road.
They let the dogs out to run around while they collected their gear. They both donned packs, boots and skis. “It’s about two hours, maybe a little less, to Pandora from here,” he said.
“Should we turn on our beacons?” she asked.
“Not yet. We have to go a ways before needing to worry about avalanche danger.” He took a pistol from his pack and slid it into the pocket of his jacket. She watched him, eyes wide. “We don’t know what we might be up against here, or who we might run into,” he said. “I want to be ready.”
“Okay.” He couldn’t read the emotion behind that single word.
“I was military police,” he added.
“Ah. That explains a lot.”
It explained the gun, maybe. He wasn’t sure what else she meant, and he hesitated to ask. No doubt she would have an interesting explanation, but he wasn’t ready for more dissecting of his character right now. “Come on.”
They squeezed around the gate and set out skiing side by side down the closed roadway.
Dark green firs and the bare white trunks of aspen thickly lined the road on either side.
They had been skiing about fifteen minutes when the road curved and the woods opened onto a view across a meadow up against the mountains.
Rosy light bathed the snow-filled meadow in a pink glow and painted the mountain peaks in gold.
Lily stopped and stared, her lips parted.
He skied up beside her. “What is it?” he asked. “What do you see?”
She turned toward him. She hadn’t lowered her goggles yet, and her eyes were damp. “It’s so beautiful,” she said.
She was beautiful, her face flushed from exertion and cold, lips so soft and inviting. Had he ever felt as awed as she looked now?
He forced his gaze away. “It’s too cold to stand around,” he said, and skied off.
She caught up with him, and they skied hard for the next mile, the dogs running ahead, then falling back to lope along in their tracks.
After another half hour, they stopped and put on their avalanche beacons.
They left the trees behind and steadily climbed, the only sound the squeak of their skis on the snow and their own labored breathing.
The sun was climbing overhead before they came to a wooden signpost that directed them to Pandora.
The town itself was tucked into an open flat, or park, between two peaks.
The buildings sat in the shadow of the mountains, snow piled halfway up the sides of most of the structures.
The largest building, a former dormitory for miners, was missing half its roof and leaned precariously to one side, but several of the smaller structures—mine offices and miners’ homes—appeared intact except for a few broken windows.
“Why isn’t there anyone here?” Lily asked. She turned to him. “The sheriff’s deputies should be here, and Colorado Bureau of Investigation people. This should have been the first place they came.”
“Maybe they were here and left when they didn’t find anyone,” he said.
She turned to study the scene again. “I don’t see any tracks. It doesn’t look like anyone has been here since it snowed on Sunday.”
“Maybe this elevation got more snow last night,” he said.
She moved forward on skis, sliding right up to the front of the closest building. She leaned forward to peer into the window.
“See anything?” he called.
She shook her head. “And I don’t smell smoke. If someone was sheltering here, they’d have to build a fire, wouldn’t they, as cold as it’s been at night.”
It was still cold. Well below freezing, he guessed. The arctic chill stung his bare cheeks and had him tucking his gloved fingers into his jacket to try to thaw them.
They skied all the way around the ruins, but found nothing but a set of fox tracks and the smaller imprints of rodents.
“How did people ever live up here in the winter?” she asked when they were back at the entrance to the town. She glanced at the steep slopes on three sides. “Weren’t they worried about avalanches?”
“Avalanches are what finally drove people to abandon the town,” he said. “For a while I think they worked the mines in summer only, but then the gold played out completely. Everyone left shortly after the turn of the twentieth century.”
She hugged her arms across her chest and rubbed her shoulders. “It’s creepy.”
“Maybe we should go back,” he said. Initially, he had planned to ski past the town, maybe even over the ridge above.
They might spot Jackson or his kidnapper.
But looking up that steep slope, with its heavy blanket of snow, sent danger warnings through him.
Steep slopes and fresh, heavy snow were prime conditions for an avalanche.
He wouldn’t risk his life—much less Lily’s—on such a reckless foray.
“I’m ready to get out of here,” she said, and turned toward the trail back to her car.
The return trip took less time. They were traveling downhill and said little.
As she was unlocking the car, Scott’s phone rang.
He waited until they were inside, engine on and heater running, before he looked at the missed call.
“I’ve got a message from Doug Elam,” he said. “I’d better see what he wants.”
He called his voicemail. Doug’s Georgia drawl was thick with agitation. “If you get this in the next five minutes, I need you and Hunter to the staging area below Axis Ridge. We’ve got a big slide, two people potentially involved.”