by Addison Fox
Decker turned toward Trey. “This is Sheriff Colton. He has a few questions. I’d like you to answer anything he asks.”
Aisha kept up her close watch. A few nervous laughs and shuffling feet began after Decker’s announcement, but other than that, no one had the trapped-animal look so often associated with panic and fear.
“I have a few questions about the avalanche that came so late this past spring.”
“The big one?” A man who wore a different-colored shirt and that further identified him as the head groundskeeper with a small badge over his chest pocket spoke up. “That helped them find the bodies?”
Decker nodded. “That’s the one, Rick.”
“Bad business that.” Rick shook his head. “We’ve been trying to figure it out ever since, but it doesn’t make sense. We keep up with that run. We keep up with all of ’em.”
“You find it strange?” Trey asked. “That there was an avalanche.”
The groundskeeper shrugged at that. “The nature part’s always unpredictable. That’s almost always true with a late snow like that. But the size of that one? It’s not how she behaves.”
“She?” Trey probed. “She who?”
Rick hiked a thumb over his shoulder. “Her. The mountain. Wicked. She’s a bitch but she’s too big to hide her secrets, you know?”
Fascinated, Aisha moved a bit closer. Rick talked of the mountain like it was a person. Which, she considered, for those who made their living on her, perhaps it was.
“You were surprised by the avalanche?” Trey queried.
“Don’t mistake my meaning, sir. The danger on the mountain is real and no matter how much work we do, she can get a mind of her own. But the severity and the absolute destruction? It’s not usual. Not at all. We’re still finding areas we need to clean up.”
Decker finally spoke. “Why haven’t you said anything, Rick?”
“Not my place. Sheriff’s deputies came up and asked questions. Federal guy did, too, flashing his badge good and solid, like it was some sort of diamond.” Rick spat on the ground. “Yet when we tried to explain how she works, everyone’s eyes glazed over. Figured once no one came back it was done.”
Aisha knew Trey well enough to know a few of his deputies were going to get a drubbing back at the station, but Trey kept his tone level with Rick. “I’d like to understand it. And I can promise you, my eyes won’t glaze over.”
“Okay.” Rick pointed once more toward the mountain. “Let’s go up on her.”
* * *
Trey was still struggling with the news that his deputies had fallen down on the job but he’d worry about that later. After he was done kicking his own ass for not pushing harder on this angle.
The grizzled groundskeeper might think mountains had a gender and mutter about them like they were pissed-off people, but the man knew his stuff. He’d already pointed out several key attributes of the land that helped explain how they set the charges to groom the runs, shifting and moving snow to make the mountain as safe and passable as possible.
Or as safe as a mountain identified as a double black and regularly used for ski competitions could be.
Trey had left the rest of Rick’s team to go back to their job and now tromped up the side of the mountain with Decker and Aisha. She’d been a trouper, following quietly. She had even gone along with the engagement announcement that he’d sprung on his cousin to change the subject a bit.
It had felt strange to do it—and his motives hadn’t been entirely pure—but it had also felt good.
And truth be told, Decker’s warm response—and hearty welcome to the family—had filled him with pride.
Welcome to the family... Or should I say, finally?
Was that how everyone saw Aisha? He knew she was a fixture in his life, but he’d had little understanding of how his extended family perceived her. It made sense, though. She’d attended pretty much every picnic or holiday party his parents had hosted in the last twenty-five years. He’d brought her to several family events hosted by other family members and she’d regularly acted as his plus-one to the obligatory Colton Empire events held by his uncle Russ and aunt Mara.
She belonged with him.
Didn’t she?
And wasn’t that the heart of it all? Faking the engagement with her was an easy ask because it wasn’t all that fake. Put aside the fact they weren’t dating, they had every other attribute of a couple on the brink of marriage. Affection. Shared confidences. Friendship.
Love.
As friends, he quickly amended. He loved Aisha and had since he was young. He made no secret of that, nor did the idea scare him.
That didn’t make him in love with her. Decker and Kendall were in love. His sister and Rylan were in love. Hell, his parents were in love, the great, golden shining example of in love as a permanent state.
He and Aisha weren’t there.
“You see this here?” Rick’s voice pulled Trey from thoughts that had no business meandering through his mind, let alone settling in and taking up space, and he tried to focus on the head groundskeeper.
“The divots in the mud?”
“Yep. Those. The charges were dropped there. When they detonated it left that small depression from the blast.”
“I see it.”
“We place ’em strategically when we need to remove unstable snowpack.”
“Makes sense.” Trey had a mental image of Rick and his crew moving around on the side of the mountain like ants on a mound and suspected the work was a bit more scientific than that.
“How do you know where to detonate?”
“An experienced team gets a sense when they’re out working with the grooming equipment. Areas that feel loose. Anything they experience out skiing. The patrol and the teachers are instructed to report in anything suspicious, as well.”
“But no one reported anything on Wicked?”
Rick shook his head, deep grooves forming around his squint as he stared up the face of the mountain. “Nope. She was on the list for the next night’s runs but nothing seemed off.”
Trey glanced over at Aisha, but she didn’t say anything, just nodded toward Rick as the man continued on up the steady slope of the mountain.
“Where did the teams who came out to visit with you look?”
“Base of the mountain. A few thousand feet up.”
“Where did the avalanche start?” Aisha piped up from behind him.
“Higher up.” Rick gestured with his hand as he kept trudging up the slope. “Around four thousand feet.”
“And no one looked there?” Trey asked, the team meeting he was going to have back in his office already taking shape in his mind.
“It was a freak accident, Sheriff. Mountain’s unpredictable and like I said earlier, the late snows are the worst. Never know what you’re going to get. There’s a lot of ice and heavy wetness mixed in. It doesn’t take much for gravity to take hold.”
“How much force is needed to dislodge the snow?” Aisha moved up the slope, her breathing steady and even as she kept pace with the apparently indefatigable Rick.
“That’s the hard part. There are lots of scientists who come up here and try to run computer models. Simulations.” Rick tugged his hat that proudly displayed The Lodge logo off his head and scratched at his temple. “It’s all well and good and helpful sometimes. But it can’t model everything. Nature has its own rules. A simulation might be right ninety-nine percent of the time and then something isn’t accounted for. A large rock in the way. A portion of snowpack that’s extra tight so the snow has to work around it. You name it.”
Trey followed behind them, intrigued by the questions Aisha asked. Gravity. Slope. Wind velocity. He was fascinated by the way she used her limited knowledge of each as a method to pull out Rick’s expertise and natural understanding of the land. Where the man’s prio
r experiences with the police had obviously left him cold and feeling dismissed, Aisha used the simple gift of interest to bring the man’s talents to the forefront.
Amazing.
That lone thought drifted through his mind, over and over, as she slowly shifted the conversation from one of modest distrust to potentially game changing.
“It’s far more simple than I could have imagined,” Aisha said, laying a hand on Rick’s offered arm to get over a particularly wide gully. “Inclines and gravity.”
“That’s all there is.” Rick helped her another few steps before he pointed toward a line of snow that still sat at the very top of the mountain. “Old skiers warning. If the slope is steep enough to ski, it’s steep enough to get an avalanche. Visitors don’t want to hear that. They want to come out and have fun and not worry about it. Mr. Colton feels the same way. So we take as many precautions as we can to manage the land. We also have emergency response in place when something comes up that we haven’t controlled for or couldn’t control for.”
“How do you—” Trey’s words vanished on the summer breeze as he fell forward, barely catching himself. Although he narrowly avoided falling flat on his face, the momentum was enough to trip him forward and he tumbled straight for Aisha and Rick. Her arms came around him and Rick’s reactions were steadier than his grizzled features might have indicated, steadying both of them with a loud, “Whoa.”
“Are you alright?” Trey had already gained his balance, his hands reaching for Aisha’s waist to hold her still.
“I’m good.” Her hands came over his, still gripping her waist. “Fine. I’m okay.”
Satisfied his clumsy oaf routine hadn’t hurt anyone, Trey reluctantly dropped his hands from Aisha’s waist. Not, however, before noticing the soft skin that peeked out over her shorts and tantalized his fingertips.
“What was that?” He turned quickly, his embarrassment at his slip and the lingering heat of her body churning through him with its own force of nature.
Rick’s broad smile faded as he took in the ground where Trey had stumbled. “I’m not sure.” The groundskeeper dropped to his knees, his focus on the deep divot that Trey had stumbled through.
“Rick?” Aisha asked softly, moving up beside the man. “What do you see?”
“This. Here.” Rick pointed toward the edge of a deep depression in the earth. “See how this craters like this?”
Trey dropped into a squat, his gaze tracing the area Rick pointed out. “It looks like the divots before. The ones you showed us farther down the mountain.”
“It does. Only see how deep this one is? And how there are two craters seeming on top of each other.”
Trey watched how the man traced the outlines, two circles forming half-moons on top of one another from the way their shape indented the ground. “Yeah, I see it.”
“That’s two charges, set off on top of each other. Like they had to compete for space.”
“Do you drop two at a time?”
“Sure. But not one on top of the other. Too much is moving for that to work.”
Trey leaned in closer, the twin outlines like mirrors of each other. “Why would anyone even drop two so perfectly close together?”
“They don’t.” Rick sat back on his heels. “These were set. Likely put in place and detonated remotely.”
Trey narrowed his eyes. “You know that for sure?”
“Yes, I do. And we didn’t set any charges before that avalanche.”
The certainty of Rick’s words left little room for questions, but still Trey did his job. “You keep a record of that?”
“Sure do. Lodge policy. All detonations are posted on the schedule and counted off. If something comes up and is unplanned while out managing runs it gets reported after. We have to keep track of the ammo and make sure nothing gets left on the mountain that doesn’t detonate.”
With The Lodge being one of the premier ski resorts in all of Colorado, Trey knew his family ran a tight ship. And the level of security was equally impressive. A proper accounting of their work was essential to guest safety and it was clear Decker and the entire staff took that seriously.
Rick had radioed in his discovery, quickly gaining confirmation back from one of his staff members that the charts were up to date, all logged and filed against The Lodge’s safety protocols.
“Trey.” Aisha moved up close to them, her hand wrapping around his in support. “If The Lodge didn’t do this, that means the charges were deliberately set.”
Since she’d voiced what already concerned him, he only nodded and squeezed her hand.
“Rick. I want to close off this area and search it. We need to see if there are any more.”
Rick nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Then he radioed for more help.
* * *
Aisha stared at the photos spread out on the conference room table and mapped it to images of Wicked Mountain still fresh in her mind. Trey’s team’s search had, unfortunately, produced fruit and they’d discovered three other charge sites after spending all day on the mountain. Each had that same overlapping pattern of charge detonation and the combined impact of two charges going off at once.
And it was all because Trey tripped.
What were the odds?
That thought had kept her steady company since leaving The Lodge. She needed to get back to work, and Decker’s wife, Kendall, had offered her a ride. Kendall’s own recent brush with danger had clearly left the woman ruffled, and Aisha was glad to have a few minutes with her.
Although she couldn’t take credit for fully calming her, Kendall did seem less scared when she’d dropped Aisha off at her apartment and headed back out to her animal sanctuary. Kendall had even secured a promise from Aisha to come out that weekend for a bit of time caring for the animals and Aisha was glad to see that talking about Kendall’s life’s work had gone a long way toward calming the woman down and restoring her equilibrium.
“What about your own?” Aisha murmured to herself, tracing the detonation pattern on the photos with her fingertip. “What about Trey?”
He’d gathered his team in his office for an update on the findings, then asked two of his deputies to stay after. Although she hadn’t been present for either, Daria had given her the update on the team meeting and the tersely worded order to stay at the end for Tom and Jeff when she’d dropped off the copies of the photos.
Aisha didn’t envy the deputies the tongue-lashing they were no doubt receiving. And she really didn’t want to think about the renewed attacks from Barton Evigan when it came out that the deputies had fallen down on their jobs.
Even if it had been dumb luck that had Trey tripping over the charge site, the news that the team hadn’t looked very hard shortly after the avalanche occurred was a dark mark on the department. The fact that the Feds missed it—Daria’s parting shot at their competition when she brought the photos—wouldn’t slow down Evigan.
“No pizza?” Trey’s face was grim, his mouth a firm slash beneath a day’s growth of beard. “I figured you’d be all over Bruno’s by now.”
“We’ve had a lot of pizza this week. I ordered in salads instead. That new place downtown delivers and I got a few spring mixes.”
“Great. Rabbit food.” Trey tossed a slim folder onto the table, his motions stiff with irritation. “Just what I was hoping for.”
Aisha had been more than prepared to give him a wide lead after the day he’d had. It had been long and tedious and full of potential embarrassment—whether deserved or not—to his campaign. But last time she checked, she wasn’t his dinner lackey. “I think your fingers work just fine. Dial up Bruno’s if you want pizza.”
“I don’t want any damn pizza.”
“You look like you don’t want help, either. I’ll get out of your way.”
“Aish—” A hand snaked out and snagged her elbow, jus
t as she was working up her own head of steam to walk out of the room. “Come on.”
Although his hold was gentle—a plea to stay more than force—she was shaken enough for both of them. The killer’s work was disturbing enough. But the deliberate charges set on the mountain?
What had been dubbed an accident of Mother Nature now had taken a sinister turn, and Aisha couldn’t hide her fear at what Trey was dealing with.
At what their small town faced.
What was someone up to? Was it possible there were two killers on the loose? One who targeted women and another who was determined to mimic that behavior or hide behind it for gains of their own.
“Leave me be, Trey.”
“Why? So you can go home and brood over what an ass I’m being?”
“Yes.”
He dropped his hand. “Not that I can blame you, then.”
The events of the past few days hung heavy between them and somewhere deep inside, even as she knew it was a bad idea, a small ember began to burn.
She might not be his real fiancée, but for all the rest of Roaring Springs knew, she was right now.
Maybe it was time she began acting like it.
“Don’t shut me out on this.”
“I’m not,” he retorted.
“Yes, you are. I can see it in your eyes. In the bad mood you walked in with. You’re not unkind and you rarely show your anger to others. So the fact that it’s so close to the surface suggests something.”
“Come on, Aish. Don’t analyze me.”
“Then don’t give me something to analyze.”
Trey pulled out a chair and dropped into it. “What do you expect? This is all on me. The Feds can swoop in and say it’s their case, but this is my jurisdiction.”