Chapter Eighteen #2
So much of this night had been like a bad dream, and the next few moments were no exception.
She fought her way through ever deeper snow, moving in slow motion, seeming to make little progress, despite exertions that left her breathless and aching.
Nicholson’s shouts grew ever closer, while the snowmobile remained far away.
She was crying now, tears of frustration freezing on her cheeks. “Liam!” she shouted.
“Nina!” Nicholson raged. “You won’t get away from me.”
Then the snowmobile raced into sight. Nina waved her arms over her head, directing Liam to her. He raced toward her, the single headlight almost blinding her so that she had to squint against the glare.
Then an arm came around her neck, and Nicholson was pulling her backward. The idea that he had captured her when she was so close to escape enraged her. She shot her elbow back, driving it hard into his ribs, then reached up one gloved hand to slam her fist into his eye.
His grip loosened enough for her to break free.
Liam drew alongside her, and she leaped onto the snowmobile, scrambling to stay aboard as he swerved away from Nicholson.
She wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face against his back as they roared over the snow, Nicholson’s howls swallowed up behind them by the cold and darkness.
Liam followed his and Nicholson’s tracks back to the ski hut, not daring to slow the snowmobile all the way.
He said a prayer they wouldn’t run out of gas before they made it back, but didn’t share this fear with Nina.
From time to time he looked back over his shoulder, half expecting to see Nicholson coming after them.
But the snow behind them remained empty.
Nina stayed pressed against him, frightfully still but breathing evenly, her warm presence reassuring.
The engine began to cough within sight of the ski hut. Nina lifted her head. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re out of gas.” He slowed and coasted as far as he could, before the snowmobile quit altogether and stopped. “We’ll have to walk from here,” he said. “But it’s not far.”
“You have your skis,” she said. He had made a point of picking up the skis on the way to retrieve Nina, not wanting to leave them behind for Nicholson.
“We’ll both walk,” he said, and rested the skis on one shoulder.
They set out, every step in the deep snow a misery. He took Nina’s hand and tugged her along when she faltered. They were within ten feet of the hut when they heard barking. “The dogs must have heard us,” Nina said.
They both moved faster. He found the key to the hut in his jacket pocket, but his fingers were too frozen to work properly. He cursed, fearful of dropping the key and having it fall between the boards on the small deck in front of the door.
“Give it to me,” Nina said, and took the key and fit it in the lock.
Warmth hit them like a gloved hand, followed by two cannonballing dogs, who leaped onto them, barking and whining.
Nina sank to her knees and gathered the dogs close, and Liam followed suit.
Angel licked his face and whimpered, then tried to climb his torso.
Sky ran in circles around them, returning over and over to lick Nina’s hands or her cheeks.
After several minutes Liam made himself stand and close and lock the door, then he fed more logs into the fire. He stripped down to his long underwear, then helped Nina do the same. “Your neck!” she cried, and gingerly touched a raw place above his Adam’s apple.
“Nicholson tried to strangle me,” he said. “I passed out and he must have thought he succeeded, but the dogs managed to rouse me, and I was able to break the cord he used.” He pushed her gently away. “Come on. We need to get warm.”
He set water to boil on the stove. His fingers and toes burned painfully as warmth returned to them, but he ignored the pain. Nina sat on the sofa, a blanket pulled around her, a dog on either side of her. “Do you think he’ll come after us?” she asked. “He knows where we are.”
“He doesn’t have a snowmobile or skis,” Liam said. “He’s miles away. Even if he had the stamina to make the trek on foot, it would take him hours. And he’d freeze to death.”
“He said he had a heated vest. When I complained about being cold, he said I should get one, too. It was all I could do not to scream at him. But anyway, he said the vest kept him warm.”
“Those things use batteries,” Liam said. “I doubt they’d work all night in below-zero temperatures.”
“Then he’ll probably go back to the cabin where he took me and spend the night, and try to come here tomorrow,” she said.
“We’ll leave early,” he said. “We’ll have to go on skis, but it’s only a couple of hours to the trailhead, moving downhill. I’ll disable the snowmobile, just in case he has more gas stashed somewhere.”
She closed her eyes. “This feels like a nightmare that will never end.”
He dumped chocolate powder into two mugs, then added hot water and a slug of peppermint schnapps and brought the drinks to the sofa, shifting Angel over so that he could sit beside Nina. She opened her eyes and accepted one of the cups. “How are you doing?” he asked. “Did he hurt you?”
She sipped the cocoa. “He didn’t hurt me. Not really. He slapped me once and chained me to the wall in that cabin, then told me how we were fated to be together and had been through a bunch of past lives. He said we were going to drive to Mexico and get married.”
Liam almost choked on his cocoa. “Married?”
“I think he’s lost touch with reality. Which makes him all the more frightening.”
He set aside his mug and pulled her close. She laid her head on his shoulder. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t showed up when you did,” she said.
“You’d have kept fighting,” he said. “You’d already gotten away from him, just like you did the last time.”
“I don’t want there to be a next time.”
“No. We won’t let that happen.”
She raised her head to look at him. “He told me you couldn’t help me. I thought that meant you were dead. I was so terrified. And I had no idea what happened to the dogs.”
“I heard you scream right after I came to,” he said. “I tried to get to you, but he had you out of the hut and onto that snowmobile before I could get close enough to stop him.”
“So you followed us.”
“There was no time to get anyone else up here to help,” he said. “It was me or nobody.”
“No one would have blamed you if you waited for law enforcement to arrive. You could have frozen to death. Or Nicholson could have killed you when you did find us.”
He took her cold hand and warmed it between his own. “I love you,” he said. “I don’t want to think about a world without you in it.”
She set aside her mug, then pulled his head down and kissed him. “As much as I hate other things about this marketing campaign, I’m so glad it put us back in touch and that you gave me a second chance.”
“I feel like the luckiest guy in the world,” he said.
No matter his neck would ache for days and he was still half frozen.
He had Nina back, and they and the dogs were safe.
They were going to get out of here in the morning.
He went in for another kiss. No more fretting over the past or worrying about the future.
He was going to focus on every moment they could spend together.
* * *
Raz had just squeezed in next to Renee in the crowded ski patrol office the next morning when the door opened again and the sheriff walked in.
He wasn’t tall or burly, and he sure wasn’t good-looking, but she had to admit the lawman had presence in spades.
Maybe it was the uniform, but more likely the bulldog expression he wore, and the swagger in his walk as he moved to the front of the room.
Everyone fell silent as he surveyed them. “Where’s Nina Rose?” he asked.
“Nina’s been put on leave by the resort,” Connor said.
The lines around the sheriff’s mouth and eyes deepened. He looked like a walnut. Raz bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing at this thought.
“She’s not at her house,” the sheriff said. “Her car’s in the garage, but she isn’t answering her phone.”
Raz put her hand up. “Nina and Liam are spending a couple of days at a backcountry ski hut,” she said. “There’s no phone service up there, and they probably took Liam’s rental car.”
The sheriff nodded. “That’s good. Nicholson’s not likely to find them up there.”
“Do you have any more information about Nicholson?” Connor asked. “Have you managed to track him down?”
“A man fitting his description rented a snowmobile yesterday evening,” the sheriff said.
“He said he wanted to try out the trails over in Rabbit Basin. We’ve got a couple of deputies there watching for him.
If Ms. Rose gets in touch with you, you can let her know we’re on this.
” He nodded to them and started back toward the door.
Raz jumped to her feet. “Wait!”
The sheriff stopped and looked at her, silent.
Everyone was staring at her, and her face grew hot, but she pushed on.
“Last night, at the Trail’s End, some of us were talking about Nina and Liam and their plans to stay at the ski hut.
And right after that, we saw a guy in a black ski helmet with a Mt.
Hood Meadows sticker—the same kind of helmet Nina said her stalker was wearing.
We tried to follow him, but he ditched us in the crowd. ”
“What time was this?” the sheriff asked.
“Maybe, uh, five thirty?” She looked to Connor for confirmation.
“The man fitting Nicholson’s description rented the snowmobile at six.”
“Who rents a snowmobile at night?” Brian asked.
“Some people rent them at night to do some night riding on the lighted course the rental place has behind their store, or they want to get an early start in the morning,” the sheriff said.
“What if Nicholson rented it intending to follow Nina and Liam to the hut where they were staying?” Renee asked.
“How would he even know how to find the hut?” the sheriff asked.