Chapter 18
Jojo dashed across the open space and up the hill to the patio.
Taking the steps from the patio to the big double doors leading into the building two at a time, she yanked a door open, lurched inside, looked around …
and saw no one. The Royal Oaks Resort was deserted; it wouldn’t be open for business until this weekend.
She raced to the board on the wall that listed rooms, with arrows pointing down different hallways: the Royal Pines Room, the Royal Hickory Room, the Royal Sycamore Room—places to rent out for gatherings. There were no listings for mechanical rooms, maintenance staff rooms, not even the offices.
She could feel panic rising up in her belly.
“That’s what it’s about, Sweetheart, controlling panic.”
“So … don’t be scared.”
“No, don’t let fear control you.”
She wants really bad to understand what he’s saying. She has to understand so she can learn how to hold her breath for like four or five or ten minutes like he can. But what he’s saying doesn’t make sense.
“Your body does things automatically sometimes. Like, if you touch something hot, you don’t have to think, ‘I need to move my finger.’ You do it automatically before you have time to think.”
She nods that she understands.
“Another thing your body does automatically happens when you hold your breath. High levels of carbon dioxide and low levels of oxygen make you feel terror, like you have to breathe or you’ll die—which you really won’t.”
Jojo knows what oxygen is but has no idea what carbon dioxide might be but she pretends she knows.
“If you’ve practiced and practiced breath-holding drills—like for years—your body gets used to functioning with high CO2 and low O2, but even then you still feel the terror.
If you panic, you’ve lost the battle. You’re out of control.
You’ve handed the reins over to a green monster with big black eyes and?—”
“What?”
“I’m speaking metaphorically.”
She doesn’t know what that means, but doesn’t ask questions because she’s afraid he’ll get frustrated with how stupid she is, and he’ll give up trying to teach her.
“Panic is a monster. When you hand over control of your body to that monster, you’re not in charge anymore.
You don’t get to decide what happens. It just happens.
If you stay in control, you can decide ‘I’m not going to breathe right now.
I know that my body is telling me I need to breathe, that I’m desperate for air, that I’m dying, but I’m not gonna listen to my body.
I’m gonna listen to my brain, and my brain is telling me that I do not have to breathe if I choose not to. ’ Do you understand?”
She looks at him, wants so desperately to understand.
“Kinda.”
“I told you it’s all about mental toughness. It’s not something a little girl can learn.”
“I’ll try. I’ll try reeeeally hard. I’ll learn how to tell panic to leave me alone!”
“Just tell it, ‘bug off, Monster!’”
The scene flashed before her eyes in a millisecond and was gone, and she choked down the panic in her chest in one big gulp.
Her breathing returned to normal, her heart rate slowed.
Now, she could think. In the huge resort building, what was the fastest way to find the switches for the outdoor LED lights on the ski slope?
She knew that on some slopes the switches were on each individual light pole, and members of the ski patrol went from pole to pole turning them on.
But she’d noticed no switch boxes on these poles.
They were all on a central switch somewhere.
Her eyes unfocused as her mind filed through one dumb solution after another.
When she focused again, she happened to be looking up …
and spotted a security camera in the corner of the room.
Somewhere in the building there was a security camera control room, with monitors showing the feed from each camera.
Somebody was monitoring the monitors. Reaching her hand down into her holster she pulled out her Glock 19, walked to the camera, pointed the gun at it and mouthed, “bang,” jerking the gun back as if it had recoiled.
Then she fired again, and again, and again …
waiting, trying not to think that every second she waited was costing someone their life.
When she heard running footsteps, she knew that some poor security guard at the not-yet-open ski resort had been dispatched to find the lunatic who was pointing a gun at the camera.
It was probably his first day on the job.
She slipped into a recessed doorway and waited. Within seconds, a young man in a blue uniform came running down the empty hallway. He had his hand on the butt of his gun, but he hadn’t drawn it. Jojo waited until he had passed, then stepped out and pointed her pistol at his back.
“Freeze!”
The kid froze.
“Hands in the air.”
The kid put up his hands.
“I won’t hurt you if you take me to the control room where the switches turn off the LED lights on the slope.”
“Ma’am, you need to put that gun away.” His voice was squeaky. Either from terror or … shoot, he was so young it might still be changing.
“No, you need to listen to me. Take me to the control room where the LED light switches are.” She racked the slide. “Or as God is my witness, I will shoot you.”
All the color drained out of his face and for a moment Jojo thought he might pass out on the spot.
“I’m not going to kill you,” she hurriedly added. “I’ll just take out a knee. Then you’ll tell me.”
“Okay, all right, I’ll show you.”
She followed the young man with his hands in the air down one hallway and then another.
“You better not be stalling, son, unless you want to spend the rest of your life with a limp.”
“No, no. It’s down here.”
They finally reached a room that said “mechanical” on the door, and he pointed. “It’s in there.”
She opened the door and gestured with her chin for the young man to go in. He went inside, and she turned, scanning, looking at all the buttons and dials and knobs and monitors.
“The lights outside, where are they controlled?”
The boy must have dug up some courage as he ran down the hallways because he pressed his lips together in a tight line and wouldn’t make a sound. But like most people who are trying to hide something, he gave her a tell. His eyes slid to a big black fusebox on the back wall and then back to her.
Jojo ran to the box, opened the casing, and began throwing the switches from the on position to the off position.
“Ma’am, you can’t do that. You’re turning all the outside lights off.”
“God, I hope so.” She kept flipping switches until she’d flipped them all.
“Now. Tell me how to kill the snowmaking machines.” He put up no protest this time. Just pointed to the bank of switches, and she flipped them.
“Come on,” she said, making another motion with the barrel of the gun. “We’re gonna go look. Take me where there are some windows.”
The young man hurried down the hallway to a cross hallway where there was a large room that had windows looking out on the ski slopes. They were dark. She took a step back. She’d done all she could do. And knowing that, the air drained out of her.
Then she looked at the terrified young man and sighed. “I need you to take your pistol out of your holster with your left hand and put it on the table.”
He did as she instructed. She pointed the gun at him from only a few feet away.
“Now, unload it.”
“It’s … already unloaded.”
Of course it wasn’t loaded. Duh. What idiot would give a teenage security guard at a ski resort a loaded weapon? She drew in a breath.
“Well, this one is.” She slipped her Glock back into her holster. “Now, I need to get down to the bottom of the slopes. What’s the fastest route?”
She no longer had a gun on him, but the young man didn’t drop a beat, turned and hurried away from the windows to the door that said “exit.” Down a flight of stairs and around and around the mulberry bush, and finally Jojo came to some big metal doors.
She stepped outside into an eerie silence.
The background rumble of the snow machines was gone.
The slopes were dark. Red and blue emergency lights winked around the buildings.
And the crowd at the base of the mountain where Trident held the lift operator captive was hushed—probably by the sudden darkness.
But they hadn’t yet figured out there was danger.
They were surprised and confused and didn’t understand what was going on, but they weren’t scared yet.
Then she heard it. The rise and fall of the melody.
And she slumped back against the railing in relief as the sounds of sirens filled the night.