Chapter Ten #2
The damage today. But there were ninety-five cast boosters still missing, with the potential for real disaster.
Stacy crossed the ski village plaza, heading for patrol headquarters.
She told herself she wasn’t going to hide from Connor.
Just because she had misread the signals and embarrassed herself last night didn’t mean she needed to avoid him.
She would be sure to keep things strictly professional between them from now on.
The door to ski patrol headquarters was locked.
No surprise. Connor was probably out patrolling.
He would be back sooner or later, though, so all she had to was hang around the base area until she spotted him.
She could get her skis and do a few runs.
Or revisit the powder magazine in search of new insight about the theft of the explosives.
Was it possible Shane and his people mistook the cast boosters for fireworks? Could it really be something that innocent? She pulled out her phone and tried to look up photographs to compare the various types of explosives, but snow kept landing on her phone screen, obscuring the picture.
She stood in front of the ski patrol office, trying to decide on her next move, when a familiar figure hurried toward her. “Oh, uh, hi.” Jace stopped short in front of her, then glanced toward the Closed sign on the patrol headquarters door. “I’m, uh, looking for Connor,” he said.
“Are you okay?” Stacy asked. The young man was pale, eyes darting from side to side.
“I just need to talk to Connor about something.” He glanced at the Closed sign again. “Could you maybe tell him I stopped by?”
“Of course.” She pulled out her phone. “What’s the best way for him to get a hold of you?”
“I have to work tonight. Bagel Bistro. He can stop by there after four.”
“Sure.” She made a note, then pocketed her phone. “You could tell me what this is about.”
Jace shook his head. “I’d better go now.” He hurried away, snowboard under one arm.
Stacy headed for the row of shops across from the lift—a café, two boutiques, a ski rental shop and a real estate office.
She browsed the boutiques but purchased nothing.
Her government salary didn’t stretch to $500 ski jackets, and the faux-fur après-ski boots were adorable but didn’t really fit her lifestyle.
She was crossing the plaza once more when a distant reverberation shook the air. Stacy froze. “What was that?” she asked a man walking past.
He looked up the mountain. “Sounded like ski patrol set off a charge to release snow.” He shrugged. “They do that sometimes.”
In the middle of the afternoon? Stacy wondered.
She headed for the lift, but a lift tech stopped her. “You can’t ride the lift without skis, ma’am,” he said.
“I need to get up the mountain,” she said.
“You can’t ride the lift without skis.”
Something was happening. A new tension filled the air around the lift. Several people jogged to snowmobiles and headed up the mountain. The liftie who had reprimanded her moved to a whiteboard in front of the lift and wrote Lift Ten Closed.
“Why is Ten closed?” someone asked.
The liftie shrugged. “No idea. Probably some malfunction or something.”
A skier came flying down the mountain in a racer’s tuck and didn’t stop until they reached the ski patrol shack.
Stacy recognized Nina and ran up to her. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“I can’t talk now,” Nina said. She unlocked the door and pushed into the room.
Stacy followed her inside.
Nina was unlocking her dog’s kennel. “Come on, Sky,” she said. “We have work to do.”
“Is there an avalanche?” Stacy asked.
“I really can’t talk.” Nina pushed past her. “And you have to leave. I have to lock up again.”
Stacy moved outside. “I heard the explosion,” she said. “Is Connor all right?”
“Connor is fine.” Nina locked the door, then jogged away, somewhere off to the left of the building. Moments later she emerged from around the corner at the controls of a snowmobile, the dog riding behind her.
Stacy hurried to collect her own skis, then returned to ride the lift.
She skied to Lift Ten but could see no reason the lift would be closed.
There were a lot of people milling around, staring glumly at the Closed sign.
“What happened?” she asked the man who stood next to her. “Why is the lift closed?”
“Supposedly, there’s been an inbounds avalanche,” said the man. He was tall, with a bushy red beard.
“I thought I heard an explosion,” Stacy said.
“Yeah, ski patrol probably lost track of one of their bombs, and it went off accidentally,” a lanky teenage boy said. “Somebody is going to be in trouble over that.”
Her phone beeped with a message. Where R U? from her dad.
Working.
There was an inbounds avalanche.
I know. I’m on the mountain.
Where?
Bottom of Lift Ten. The lift is closed.
I know.
Frowning, she pocketed the phone once more and looked around. There had to be a way to get up to the avalanche area. She would flash her badge if she had to. But the roar of a fast-approaching snowmobile drew her attention.
The machine slowed as it neared the crowd at the bottom of the lift and stopped a few feet from her. “Stacy!” her father called and waved.
She jogged over to him.
“Get on,” he said. “I’ll give you a ride to the top.”
She climbed on, then grabbed his shoulders as the machine surged forward. “Dad, where did you get this thing?”
“There’s a whole bunch of them parked behind ski patrol, keys and everything.”
“But who gave you permission?”
“I figure your badge is my permission.”
She rested her chin against his back.
“You’re not going to fuss?” her dad called.
“No,” she said. “I’m wishing I’d thought of it first.”
The cluster of ski patrollers and dogs was easy to spot. George steered the snowmobile to them and cut the engine.
“What are you two doing up here?” Nina was the first to speak.
Stacy hurried toward Connor. “I heard the explosion,” she said. “What’s going on?”
He gestured toward the snowfield in front of them. “Inbounds avalanche.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“One guy has a broken leg. We don’t think there was anyone else around.”
“Did anyone see anything? Was anyone where they shouldn’t have been?”
“No one saw anything,” Connor said. “How did you get here so quickly?”
“I was at the base area when I heard the explosion,” she said. “Someone said it was ski patrol doing avalanche mitigation, but I didn’t think you did that in the middle of the afternoon.”
“What else did you hear? Does anyone know anything?”
“Someone standing around the bottom of Lift Ten speculated it was a charge ski patrol lost track of, that detonated on its own.”
“We didn’t lose track of anything,” he said, a hard edge to the words. “No way are we going to take the fall for this.”
“So you think this was one of the stolen cast boosters,” she said.
“How do you know about that?” One of the other patrollers—Brian, a golden retriever by his side—spoke up. He sent Connor an accusing look.
“I know because I need to know,” Stacy said.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Brian asked.
“She’s law enforcement,” Nina said.
Brian turned to her. “How do you know that?”
“Come on,” Nina said. “Just look at her.”
Connor didn’t need Nina to tell him to look at Stacy, since he had a hard time keeping his eyes off of her.
He couldn’t remember the last time he found a woman so distracting.
As he focused on her now, he saw an attractive brunette who gazed back at them with a hint of a challenge in her expression.
Then Stacy nodded. “Right. Now that we have that cleared up.” She turned to Connor. “Did anyone see anything suspicious?”
“No,” he said. “And no one we talked to immediately afterward reported seeing anything. The only person who was injured said he was by himself on the ridge.”
“I’ll need his name,” she said. “It’s possible he was up on that ridge to launch the cast booster.”
“I’ll get his name to you,” Connor said.
“We need to put out an appeal to the public,” Stacy said. “Someone knows something—we just have to find them.”
“Doug isn’t going to like that,” Connor said. “He won’t want to upset potential visitors.”
“I can overrule Doug,” she said.
Her father moved in beside her. “Maybe if we can figure out why this was done, that will help determine who,” he said.
“To frighten people?” Lily suggested.
“Or to hurt people,” Brian said.
“I think they were practicing,” Connor said.
“Practicing for what?” Anders asked.
“They didn’t steal one cast booster,” Connor said.
“They stole four boxes. They must want to blow something up. Or a lot of somethings. But if you’ve never used this stuff before, you don’t know its capabilities.
I think whoever did this today was testing, seeing what it took to set off a snowslide.
They chose a steep but out of the way area, but it’s just luck they didn’t do more damage.
Next time they’ll know to adjust their aim. ”
“What are you doing to make sure there isn’t a next time?” Nina addressed the question to Stacy and George.
Stacy glared at her, then pulled Connor away from the group. “I think Dad and I should talk to Shane.”
“Undercover?” George asked. “Or as law enforcement?”
“Undercover,” she said. “I’ll tell him we heard about the stolen explosives and were here today when the avalanche triggered. I’ll ask if his people had anything to do with this.”
“Do you really think he would just tell you?” Connor asked.
“Some people would brag about it, to anyone they thought was on their side,” George said.
“Shane didn’t strike me as the type to brag,” Connor said. “He wouldn’t even reveal his last name until he met with us a second time.”
“I could point out to him that Dad and I aren’t the only people who’ve made the connection,” Stacy said. “I could claim I don’t want to jeopardize the success of the opposition movement.”
“Do you really think a man who would orchestrate the theft of a boxes of explosives would thank you for your concern and send you on your way?” Connor asked.
“So maybe I wouldn’t mention the explosives outright,” she said. “But if I ask the right questions, I should be able to find out how much he knows.”
“You can’t go out there by yourself,” Connor said. “It’s too dangerous. Someone who would do this wouldn’t think twice about killing you.”
“She wouldn’t be by herself,” George said. “I’d be with her.”
“Then I’d have to worry about you, too,” Connor said.
“I’ll be careful,” Stacy said.
“Wait until I can go with you.” Though he had been reluctant to get involved before, he was in too deep now. And he couldn’t leave her unprotected, no matter how tough of an agent she was.
She looked alarmed. “Forget I said anything.” She backed away. “You have a job to do here. I’ll talk to you later.”
He started to follow as she turned to leave, then his radio crackled. “Wait!” he called. “Let me answer this, then we’ll talk.”
“Come on, Dad.”
But George remained where he was, watching Connor.
Connor turned his back to them, speaking into the radio, the wind and swirling snow carrying away the sound of his words, making it hard to hear the transmission from the lift tech who had called.
But what he heard sent ice to the pit of his stomach.
He ended the call, then headed toward the snowmobile George had ridden up the mountain.
“I need this,” he said and climbed on. “Farley, come!”
The dog hopped onto the machine behind him.
“What’s going on?” Stacy asked.
“Anders! Nina!” Connor called. “Head down to Tessa’s Trees. We’ve got a snowboarder in a tree well.” Then he started up the snowmobile and took off.