Snowblind Justice

by Cindi Myers

  “That doesn’t help us,” Nate said. “If we try to start the lift, he’ll just shoot us. He can let us get almost to him and pick us off.”

  “Maybe we could lure him out of the shack and pick him off with sniper fire,” Ryder said.

  “He’d never come out of that lift shack,” Gage said. “Not without Emily as a shield. He’s too smart for that.”

  “I still say we need to get Travis here to talk to him,” Dwight said.

  Brodie studied the scene below him while those around him debated the best approach. “What if instead of climbing up to him, we climb down?” he asked after a moment.

  “Climb down from where?” Jamie asked.

  “From above the lift shack.” He indicated the cliff that rose behind the shack, part of a long ridge that formed the east side of the pass. “That may be how Alex got down there in the first place. He’s a rock climber, right?”

  “How would you even get there?” Gage asked, squinting at the mountain that rose above the lift shack.

  “There’s an old mining road that runs along there, just above the ski area,” Nate said. “See that narrow ledge.” He pointed, and Brodie thought he could make out the relatively horizontal path along the cliff face. “Climbers use it in the summer. You can take a Jeep up there then, but you’d have to snowshoe in now.”

  “And if Alex did turn around and see someone up there, he could pick them off with that rifle.” Gage shook his head. “It’s too risky.”

  “He hasn’t got a view of the slope behind him from the lift shack,” Brodie said. “He’d have to step outside to see anyone up there, and we’ve already established he’s unlikely to do that. The thing we need to do is keep him distracted.”

  “How?” Jamie asked.

  “We could take turns approaching behind cover and taking potshots at him,” Dwight said. “Or launch flares at him.”

  “Have to be careful with that,” Nate said. “You don’t want to set off another avalanche.”

  “Okay, so we could probably distract him,” Dwight said. “But who are we going to get to make the climb? It looks pretty technical.”

  “I’ve done some climbing,” Brodie said. All of it in a gym, but they didn’t have to know that. He knew how to use the equipment, and he was desperate to get Emily out of there before she suffered even more than she already had.

  “It’s too risky.” Gage shook his head.

  “It’s our best chance of getting to him,” Brodie said. “He won’t be expecting it because he sees himself as the expert and we’re all the amateurs. He’s probably made the climb, but he believes we’d never attempt it.”

  “He’s right. You shouldn’t attempt it,” Dwight said.

  “If it was Brenda trapped there, would you do it?” Brodie asked.

  Dwight compressed his lips together. “I don’t know,” he said after a moment. “I’m just glad my wife isn’t in there with him.”

  Emily wasn’t Brodie’s wife, but if things had worked out differently, she might have been. He wasn’t going to let her die if he could do something—even a crazy, reckless stunt like rappelling down an icy cliff—to save her.

  He turned to Gage. “Where can I get climbing gear?”

  Nate clapped Brodie on the shoulder. “I’ve got a friend who can fix you up.”

  “Then let’s go. We don’t have any time to waste.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Alex paced back and forth across the floor of the lift shack, alternately cursing to himself and stopping to stare out the window. “Why aren’t they doing anything?” he asked. “Nobody up there has moved for the past half an hour.” He turned back to Emily. “Maybe they’ve decided to just let you die. What do you think about that?”

  She swallowed and held her head up, though every movement sent pain shooting through her. Alex had let the fire go out and the cold made the pain worse. She couldn’t stop shivering, but Alex, dressed in a fleece top and jeans, didn’t seem to notice. “Maybe they went to get Travis,” she said. “You burned my phone, so they don’t have any way of letting you know.”

  “They better not be planning any tricks. They’ll find out soon enough they can’t trick me. Do you know why I chose this place for this standoff?” He put his face very close to hers, so that she could smell his stale body odor. It must have been a while since he had showered. How long had he been living up here in this primitive shack? “Do you know?” he demanded.

  “No.”

  “It’s because that road up there—” he gestured with the rifle he still held “—that road is the only way in here.” He laughed. “Unless they decided to try to land a helicopter down here. Not easy, and if they do, I’ll just set off the explosives as soon as it touches down.” He returned to watching out the window. “They can’t get at me any other way.”

  “If they can’t get in, how are you going to get out?” she asked.

  He grinned, the expression in his eyes telling her he was long past any concrete grip on reality. “I’m going to climb out.” He gestured behind them. “That cliff is a 5.9, maybe a 5.10 route. Expert only. But I’ve done it half a dozen times. I could do it with my eyes closed. By the time I make it to the top, they’ll be trapped down here under tons of rock. I’ll be far away from here, with a new identity, before anyone even starts to look for me.”

  “It sounds like you’ve thought of everything.” She was back to flattery—anything to keep him talking and get on his good side.

  “Of course I have. It’s how I’ve been so successful so far. These country rubes aren’t used to dealing with genius.”

  “You told them on the phone that you had a game for them to play,” she said.

  “For the sheriff. Of course, it’s a game he can’t win. I’m not stupid enough to design it any other way.”

  She wet her dry, cracking lips. “What is the game?”

  “He has to guess the way I’ve planned for him to die.”

  “Why would he want to play a game like that?”

  “If he guesses right, I’ll slit your throat and you’ll die quickly. If he guesses wrong...” He let the words trail away, leaving her to imagine the dozens of ways he might choose to make her suffer. She pushed the thoughts away. She wasn’t dead yet. She wasn’t going to give up hope. A person could live a long time on hope, or so she had read.

  Hurry, she sent the thought to whatever rescuers might be mustering to help her. Hurry, because I don’t know how much longer I can hang on.

  * * *

  “I’VE DONE THIS climb before, but not with the snow and ice.” Nate’s friend, a wiry thirtysomething who went by the single name Truman, handed Brodie a climbing helmet. “You’re certifiable if you want to do it now.”

  “I don’t have any choice.” Brodie tugged the helmet on and fastened the chin strap, then reached for a pair of climbing gloves.

  “We could try to bring in a helicopter,” Nate said. “I bet he’d come outside when he heard that. We could probably get a good shot at him from inside the chopper.”

  “Or he could decide to kill Emily then and there.” Brodie pulled a down jacket over his wool sweater. A Kevlar vest and thermal underwear added extra protection from the cold and gunfire, though he had doubts the vest would stop a bullet from a high-powered rifle—or prevent him from breaking every bone in his body if he fell from the cliff.

  “The safety harness should protect you from a fall.” Truman demonstrated hooking into the safety line. “It won’t help if you bash into the rocks while you’re swinging there, but if you lose contact with the cliff, we’ll do our best to haul you up.”

  “I feel so much better now,” Brodie said.

  Truman made a face and ran through a checklist of the gear. None of the terms were new to Brodie, and he was beginning to feel more confident. “Come on,” he said. “We need to get to the site where I�
�ll start the downclimb.” Every minute that passed was another minute that might cause Alex to lose patience and take his frustration out on Emily.

  They drove as far as they could in Truman’s Jeep, then strapped on snowshoes for the rest of the journey. They had to snowshoe almost two miles until they reached a point directly above the lift shack. Brodie peered down at the little tin-roofed building. “There’s no smoke coming out of the stovepipe now,” he said.

  Nate was on the phone with Gage and relayed Brodie’s observation. “Gage says Alex and Emily are still in there. He can see them through his binoculars.”

  “What are they doing?” Brodie asked.

  “Just sitting there, he says. Waiting.”

  “Somebody’s been climbing this route recently.” Truman pulled back a tarp underneath a spindly fir to reveal a pair of snowshoes.

  “Alex,” Brodie said. “I figured he had to be getting to and from the shack this way, at least part of the time.”

  “Then you might be in luck,” Truman said. “He may have set anchors in the rock that you can hook on to. Watch for areas cleared of snow—that might mark his hand-and footholds.”

  Brodie nodded and focused on checking and double-checking his safety harness.

  “Why can’t he just rappel down?” Nate asked. “It seems like that would be a lot faster.”

  “It would, if the cliff was straight down,” Truman said. “But it’s not. There are a lot of rocks and trees and stuff that stick out. Try to rappel that and you’ll just smash into stuff. No, our man is going to have to downclimb.” He grinned at Brodie. “Sucks to be you, dude.”

  Brodie grunted and moved to the edge of the cliff. “You two just hang on if I slip.”

  Truman moved up beside him. “The route is hard to see from this angle,” he said. “We’re sort of jutting out over most of the area you’ll be descending. But there’s a ledge about fifteen feet down that will be a good place to stop and rest.”

  “If we can’t see him, how are we going to know what to do to help him?” Nate asked.

  “You can get a good idea of what’s happening by the feel of the ropes.” Truman clapped Brodie on the back. “Ready?”

  Brodie nodded. His brain was telling him he was crazy to risk his life this way, but he was ignoring his brain. His heart was saying he didn’t have a choice, and he was choosing to go with his heart. “Tell the others it’s time to start whatever they’ve come up with to distract Alex.”

  “I’ve told them,” Nate said. “Good luck.”

  The first step off the cliff, blindly groping for a foothold in the slick rock, was the worst. Relief surged through him as his foot found purchase and he was able to steady himself, but he couldn’t stop to enjoy the sensation. He had to keep going. Glancing down, he could see the shallow rock ledge Truman had mentioned, and he focused on getting to it. One foot here, one hand there. Test the next foothold to see if it would support his weight. Reject another foothold as too weak or too slick. He wedged his foot into a niche in the rock. It felt secure, so he lowered himself down, searching for the next foothold.

  Then the rock gave way. He flailed around, seeking purchase and finding none, swinging free against the rock face, like a pendulum in a crazy clock. Truman, very pale and very far away, looked over from the top. They had agreed that they couldn’t shout to one another for fear of attracting Alex’s attention. Nate also leaned out and gave him a thumbs-up. Truman pointed to the ledge and pantomimed lowering the rope. Brodie nodded. They were going to lower him to the ledge. Good idea.

  Once safely on the ledge, he rested a moment, his body plastered to the rock, the cold seeping into him despite the layers of clothing. In contrast, the sun at his back burned. When he was breathing more or less regularly again, he tugged on the rope, a signal that he was ready to start down once more.

  He fell three more times on the way down, each time the safety harness catching him, the rope stretching and bouncing him slightly. He learned to relax until the swaying slowed, then to find purchase in the rock once more. As Truman had guessed, Alex had hammered pitons into the rock face, allowing Brodie to clip into these as he moved down the cliff, untethering from Truman and Nate above.

  About three-quarters of the way down he realized he was no longer afraid. He was actually doing this. The adrenaline rush was exhilarating, and if what awaited him at the end of the climb wasn’t so important, he might have lingered to enjoy himself.

  But he had no time to indulge himself. He moved as quickly as possible. When he touched ground only a dozen feet behind the lift shack, his hand shook as he unhooked from the safety rope and climbed out of the harness. He took the time to roll up everything and stash it underneath a tree, not wanting to provide an escape route if Alex managed to make it out of the lift shack before Brodie got to him.

  He straightened, drew his weapon and started toward the shack. His plan was to go in, surprise Alex and make an arrest with no one getting hurt. It was a good plan, but he had no idea if it would really work.

  * * *

  EMILY HAD FALLEN into a kind of stupor on the old car seat, while Alex slumped on a stool in front of the window, the rifle propped against the wall beside him. Earlier, she had spent some time groping around the seat, hoping to find a popped spring or a protruding bit of metal to cut the tape at her wrists or ankles, but no such luck. All she could do was wait and pray. She tried asking Alex questions about himself, but after a while he had stopped answering her.

  Suddenly, he shoved back the stool and stood. “It’s about time,” he said.

  Emily pushed herself up straighter. “What’s happening?” she asked.

  Alex gestured toward the window. “They’ve found a way to communicate.”

  By arching her back and craning her neck, Emily was able to make out someone holding what looked like a poster with writing on it. But it was too far away to read. “What does it say?” she asked.

  Alex pulled out a pair of binoculars and studied the sign. “THE SHERIFF IS READY TO TALK.”

  “Travis is there?” Emily’s heart pounded. Travis shouldn’t be here! He should be with Lacy, getting married.

  Alex scowled. “There’s someone there in a sheriff’s department uniform, with a big hat and a star on his chest, but I can’t tell if it’s your brother.” He set down the binoculars and looked around the lift shack. “I need something to write on. I need to tell him to move in closer—and to take off the stupid hat.”

  “You should have thought of that before you burned up my phone.” Emily braced herself for another blow, but Alex only scowled at her and began digging through the debris against the walls of the shack. Amazingly, he came up with a small whiteboard, roughly two-foot square. Emily recalled seeing similar boards at lift shacks at other resorts, used to convey messages such as “Mr. Reynolds, contact child care” or “New snow overnight 4 inches!”

  In a drawer, Alex found a set of dry-erase markers. He scrawled his message, COME CLOSER AND TAKE OFF THE HAT.

  “They’re not going to be able to see that from in here,” Emily said. “You’ll have to go outside.”

  “And give them a clear shot at me?” Alex shook his head. “No, you’ll go out.” He pulled the knife from his belt and she shrank back in fear. But he bent and cut the tape from her ankles, then did the same for her wrists.

  She cried out as she brought her hands in front of her again, the stabbing pain doubling her over. Alex chafed her ankles between his hands. “You’ll be fine in a minute.” He straightened and thrust the sign and the marker at her. “Go out there and hold this up. And don’t try anything. If you run, I’ll shoot you in the back.” He held up the rifle.

  She gripped the board with numb, aching fingers and he tucked the marker into the pocket of her jeans and hauled her to her feet. She could barely walk, much less run. Alex took her arm and dragged her toward the door of the lift
shack. “Get out there!” he called, and thrust her out the door.

  She landed sprawling in the snow, the sign facedown beside her. “Get up!” Alex shouted, and she looked back to see the rifle pointed at her.

  Clenching her teeth, she shoved to her knees, then slowly stood, bringing the sign with her. Holding on to the lift shack for support, she made her way around to the side facing the road, moving through snow that came past her knees. Finally she stopped and held up the sign. Seconds later, an answer appeared: YOU OKAY? in letters large enough to be seen clearly even at that distance.

  She nodded, hoping someone was watching through binoculars. Then she scrawled YES beneath Alex’s message. A cold wind buffeted her, and she was shaking so badly she had trouble holding on to the sign. “Get back in here!” Alex shouted.

  She wanted to ignore the command, to run as fast and as far as she could. But that wouldn’t be very far. The snow here was several feet deep and she could scarcely move. She would be dead before she took more than a few steps.

  “Get in!” Alex shouted again.

  Instead, she moved up against the lift shack once more, the thick logs providing a barrier to the wind and, she hoped, bullets from the man inside. She sank into the snow and sat, arms wrapped around her knees. Alex couldn’t see her from here, and he wouldn’t be able to shoot her without coming outside—something he apparently was loath to do. She would sit here until her strength returned and some of the pain in her limbs subsided. By then, maybe someone below would have come up here to her, or found a way to get to her. Having her out of the way might even help them.

  Alex was screaming now, a stream of profanities aimed at her. She closed her eyes and shut him out, focusing instead on the whistle of the wind around the corner of the lift shack, and the creak of the chair on the overhead cable.

  And the sound of footsteps moving through the snow.

  Her eyes snapped open, fear choking her. Alex’s rage at her must have overcome his fear of leaving the shack. But instead of Alex, she was amazed to see Brodie standing at the corner of the shack, one finger to his lips. “How?” She had scarcely uttered the single syllable before he shook his head. He motioned for her to stay where she was, and indicated he intended to go inside the shack.