The gondola crested the last ridge and a two-story, L-shaped building came into view. Apart from a few Alpine touches, like painted wooden shutters, the heavy, boxy cement structure had all the warmth of a Russian gulag and screamed government building. It was like being back in the Army.
“Homey, huh?” Abe said. “It was a World War Two Army training base.”
“Until some sap bought it thinking he’d turn it into a ski resort,” said Ollie. He looked out at the ridge. “Four thousand feet of witches’ teeth. The rock’s splintery, and it’ll cut you to ribbons if you ain’t careful. Worthless for climbing, too.” He turned back to Jack and fixed his gray eyes on him. “Piece of advice, mate. Check your anchor twice. You don’t, and we’ll be scooping you up with a spoon.” He laughed.
Jack didn’t respond but made a mental note. Anchor twice or die once.
“Uh-oh.” Abe pointed. “Get ready for your talk.”
Jack followed the line of Abe’s outstretched arm. Leah Coleman had stepped out the front door of the lodge and was heading straight for them. Though she’d traded in her pumps and business suit for a fur-lined parka and ski pants, he saw the same take-charge, no-nonsense demeanor she’d shown in Brian Strickland’s office.
“Leah gives all the new crew a rundown of the rules,” Bree explained.
“She lays down the law all right,” Ollie said. “Which reminds me. I forgot. I have to pat you down. Arms out.”
Jack glanced at Abe, who gave a quick nod. “Leah made Ollie security. He’s got the power.”
Jack held his arms out, and Ollie frisked him. “Do you have a phone, camera, or any other type of recording device on you or in your luggage?”
“No.”
“Any weapons?”
“Nope.” Jack smirked.
“What’s the smart-ass grin for?”
“In my gear, I have an ice ax, crampons, and a utility tool that I’d sure as hell classify as weapons. But we’ll just call them tools, right?”
Bree quickly hid her smile.
“Do you have a gun?”
“No.”
Ollie opened Jack’s duffel bag and rifled through it. When he was done, he grunted, then turned to Bree. “Your turn,” he said, a smile slowly spreading across his face.
Jack’s jaw tensed.
Bree held her arms out. “I have Human Resources on speed dial if your hands so much as hesitate.”
“Oh, I take no pleasure in this, love.” Ollie’s hands traveled down Bree’s body. “I’m just doing my job. Now turn around.” He winked at Abe, but the lanky man shook his head and turned his back.
Ollie opened one of the shopping bags in her backpack. “You bought a lot of stuff.”
“Batteries and some personal things.”
Ollie went through a second bag and lifted out a pair of panties.
Bree grabbed the underwear and the bag. “Go ahead, search my tampons.” She lifted out a large package of feminine products and held them under Ollie’s nose.
The gondola settled into the shack with a bump, and Abe pulled the doors open.
“Now I understand why you’re so cranky,” Ollie said. “Like I said, just doing my job.”
Bree pushed by him as Leah walked up. Leah gave Bree a quick hug and then leaned back, keeping both hands on Bree’s arms and staring into her eyes. “Good to see you. Are you okay?”
Bree nodded. “I’m good, really.”
“No hugs for us?” Ollie said. “That doesn’t seem right, does it, Abe?”
“Knock it off, Oliver,” said Leah. “Get the gear into the back room. We’re having a production meeting before lunch. I’ll see you all there in an hour.”
Leah held out a clipboard. “Fill these out.”
Jack glanced down at the stack of papers and raised an eyebrow.
“Safety waivers,” Leah explained. “Everyone’s got to do them.”
He’d already filled out all the paperwork at Brian’s office, so he didn’t know if these were more for show. He waited until the others were out of earshot, initialing the mountain of pages as they clumped in their heavy boots toward the lodge.
“Someone spray-painted a boulder halfway up the gondola route. Another threat. A thick line with a circle underneath it. That’s the Iroquois symbol for death.”
“You’re sure that’s what it means?”
“I’ll have to check with Alice”—she won’t like hearing this—“but I’m positive.”
“Did the crew see it?”
“Yes.”
Leah frowned. “Bree gets flustered easily.”
Leah herself seemed unfazed.
“Death threats have a way of doing that. Ollie said he was going to let the control room operator know about the symbol so he can avoid it in shots. Can you tell Harvey to get a few pictures of it instead?”
“Why?”
“I need to record it and I didn’t have any way of taking a picture.” Jack held up the clipboard. “Do I really have to initial these?”
“No, but we need to make you coming on board look real, so… keep signing.”
After another minute, he handed the papers back.
“Follow me.” Leah tucked the clipboard under her arm and turned on her heel. Jack grabbed his duffel and fell in step beside Leah as she headed to the lodge. He couldn’t get a read on her. Was she bored by the death threats? Did she think they were a joke, all in a day’s work on the set?
“You’re in 104. We’ve got a full day, so I’m going to make this short. You’ve met Ollie, Abe, and Bree. They’re eyes and ears. Camera one, two, and sound. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll meet the rest of the crew in the production meeting. The contestants are scattered over the mountain in their own camps. We keep them separated. We also have half a dozen emergency shelters on the mountain. Each is equipped with medical supplies, blankets, and a radio. They’re off-limits to contestants unless there’s an emergency.”
A gust of wind swept down the side of the mountain, picking up snow and creating a faint wave in the air that shimmered in the sun. Beautiful but deadly.
“We’ve marked several trails around the mountain. Green flags are the main route back to the lodge. Orange, blue, and yellow flags lead to the contest sites. The mountaintop is perfect for taping. It’s a plateau, but there are several cliffs that we use for challenges. Stay the hell away from the slopes on down. We’ve marked the crest line with red flags. Any contestant who crosses into the danger zone is out.”
“For a reality survivor show, you sure have a lot of rules.”
“You can thank your insurance company for most of them,” Leah grumbled.
Above them, what sounded like a thick piece of glass snapping in two echoed off the building. Jack shot forward, slamming Leah into the front door, pressing his body against hers and covering his head with one hand as a huge icicle shattered into big chunks on the steps where they had been standing just a split second earlier. A brick-sized piece careened off the concrete and smashed into Jack’s calf.
Leah let out a muffled cry.
“Are you hurt?” Jack asked as he felt his leg for damage. He’d probably have a large bruise on his calf, but looking at the large, jagged ice chunks scattered around his feet, he was grateful the icicle hadn’t split his head open.
“I’m okay. You?”
“Yeah, but that could’ve been real ugly.” Jack stepped back and looked up. The wide base of the icicle was still clinging to the roof in front of the second-story window. He couldn’t be sure, but the window blinds appeared to be moving. “Is anyone up there?”
Leah glanced up and shook her head. “That room is empty. I’ll have to have Ollie and Abe clear any other icicles over the doorways.”
Jack continued to stare at the window. His attention had been on Leah as they walked up to the lodge. Was the window open when they approached the building? Why would a window be open in this weather? Smoker? He sniffed for cigarette smoke but didn�
�t detect any in the frosty air.
“You sure moved fast.” Leah kicked the largest chunks of ice off the steps. “Most people would have looked up when they heard the icicle break. One that big could kill you.”
Jack wasn’t most people. War had conditioned his reflexes; bombs and bullets had a unique way of doing that. Today it had saved his life. Tomorrow a car backfiring in a parking lot might send him diving for cover. Either way, it wasn’t something he wanted to explain, or felt he could explain to her, so he simply nodded.
Leah pulled open the lodge’s big front door and they entered the warmth of a great room with a fireplace in the back. In front of the hearth, two large couches formed an L, and four mismatched recliners were scattered about haphazardly. In an alcove to one side was a round table surrounded by chairs. There was no one there now, but they could hear sounds from the back—Ollie bickering, thuds, and clatters.
“Only the crew are allowed in the lodge. This place has almost fifty rooms, so we each get our own. The control room is on the second floor. Kitchen is past the main room. Men’s showers are downstairs, women’s upstairs. You’re down here.”
Jack followed Leah down a dimly lit hallway. Her blasé reaction was puzzling. Her emotional temperature was chillier than any icicle.
Leah pointed down the narrow passage. “We’ve all taken rooms at one end of the building or the other, beside the stairwells, because these end rooms are larger than the ones in the middle.” She shoved a door open. “Here’s yours.”
Jack wondered what the “smaller” rooms looked like. Luxury lodge? His dorm room at the police academy had been twice this size. Yet someone had managed to cram in two twin beds and two bureaus. A second door was on the side wall—probably leading directly to the staircase.
“Put your duffel bag down and your arms out.”
“Ollie already frisked me.”
“That’s why I’m doing it again. I run a tight set. Arms out.”
Jack held his arms out, and Leah frisked him. Her hands traveled over every inch of his body, then she turned his pockets out. This kind of treatment would be unnerving to most folks, but not Jack. Between the police force and the Army, he’d frisked more people than he cared to count. Something about Leah reminded him of that time in his life; she had yet to say the word please, and frisking him didn’t seem to bother her at all.
“You didn’t bring a phone?” Leah asked, a bit surprised.
“Nope. It was on your list of banned items.”
“I didn’t think you’d read it, let alone comply.” She went through his duffel thoroughly, removing everything and laying it out on the bed. “Sorry about all this. We can’t take any chances. Any leaks from the set could tank the ratings.”
Well, there was a sorry. Wonder of wonders.
“Have you had an issue with that?” Jack asked, stuffing his pocket lining back into his pockets.
“Not since I took over.” Leah stared down at his gear and nodded, apparently satisfied that he hadn’t brought any contraband. “I’m going to pair you with Abe to start. Stick by him and stay out of the way of everyone else unless I tell you otherwise. These guys know what they’re doing.”
“So you’ve all worked together before?”
“Seven seasons. Same elite crew every year. The show is so specialized, it would be a nightmare trying to swap in anyone new. And we have to run lean; it costs too much to bring on new members. That’s why it’s going to be next to impossible keeping you a secret.”
Ah, the profit motive. Maybe that was what made her tick.
“I’m sure you’ll manage. Just stick to the truth. A local guy you had to bring on.”
“I’m going to treat you the same as everyone else. No outside communication of any kind. No talking to contestants unless it relates directly to your job. And your job is to do whatever you’re told to do.”
“About that. It would be easier if I reported directly to you.”
Her eyes sparkled. “You’re the gofer. If a crew member needs something, anything at all, you do it. Got it?”
Jack nodded. He got it. She didn’t want him here.
“No drinking. No smoking. Breakfast is at five forty-five. Lunch is at noon, dinner is at six. I have a studio breathing down my neck to wrap this season up, so we’ll be shooting around the clock. Grab sleep when you can, because you won’t know when you’ll get it again.”
“Understood.”
“Don’t forget to drink a lot of water today to get acclimated to the altitude. Take an aspirin, too. The production meeting’s in forty-five minutes in the great room.”
“Will do, thanks.”
Leah’s hand hesitated on the doorknob. After a moment, she turned back to Jack. “Remember to be careful. We move fast, but… being on a mountain is dangerous. Running around filming a TV show makes it potentially deadly. The most important thing to remember is to focus on yourself first. I know it’s your job to be watching other people, but if you forget about where you are, it could cost you your life.”
6
Research
Still haunted by the image of the gondola slowly disappearing into the fog, Alice took a seat in front of her laptop and gazed out the apartment window at the distant mountain.
She tried to shake it off. Jack can take care of himself. He always has.
No, that wasn’t true. He hadn’t always taken care of himself. She’d been a big part of helping him out of his last few jams. A reel began to play in Alice’s mind. Jack’s mother’s kidnapping, his father getting shot, the alligator…
She closed her eyes tightly. Please, God, keep Jack safe.
Lady’s cold, wet nose nudged her hand. Alice scratched behind her ear, and Lady drooped her head across Alice’s lap with a little whine.
“I miss him too, Lady. But we’re not just going to sit here feeling helpless. Let’s get to work.”
She had already plugged in the hard drive Brian had given her. She flexed her hands and pulled up the official accident report from last year. She split the computer screen down the middle, with the report on the left and a blank spreadsheet on the right. In the spreadsheet, she listed the names of the eight crew members, the five contestants, the helicopter pilot, and the meteorologist stationed at the weather center.
She would look into all of them eventually, but she wanted to start with the victim on that fateful day. Charlie Parker.
She opened the profile the insurance company had compiled. At the top of the file was a photo. Charlie had been a handsome young man with blue eyes. He was listed as six feet tall, but in the photo, he sat with his shoulders rounded, making him seem smaller. Shy. He was only twenty-seven years old. The same age as Jack.
He’s fine. She stroked Lady’s silky ears and was rewarded with a contented snuffle.
Charlie’s résumé was brief. He’d attended college and majored in music history, but dropped out of school in his junior year to take a job with Planet Survival as assistant sound designer; promoted to sound designer the following year. His obituary listed mother, father, and a sister as survivors, all living in Boise, Idaho.
Alice flipped past the autopsy photos to the summary. The cause of death was listed as suffocation. That can’t be right. But it made sense when she read that Charlie’s avalanche locator beacon had been knocked off, leaving Charlie trapped under the snow for two hours before they found him. And by then he was dead. Suffocated by snow.
Alice shivered and flipped back to an earlier page in the insurance company report. For determination of the settlement with Charlie’s family, Charlie was found partially negligent because his locator beacon wasn’t properly attached to his harness. Way to go, punish him again, why don’tcha?
She went through the details of the accident, carefully reconstructing it. She created a map and marked the placement of each person. The contestants and the weatherman were easy—none of them were anywhere near the accident site. Mack was flying the helicopter that dropped Gavin at the foot of t
he ridge. Harvey Guppy, the control room operator, was back at the lodge. The rest of the crew was waiting two hundred yards downslope for Gavin to ski down and present the show’s introduction. Charlie Parker was directly downhill from the drop-off area, running camera three. The initial investigation questioned why the soundman was running a camera at all, but Planet Survival’s small crew had a history of crew members filling in for many different jobs.
Sad to say, Charlie’s camera might provide the clearest view of the accident. She pulled up the video log and scrolled down to find the video captured by camera three that day, but there was nothing listed, only a note explaining that Charlie’s camera was never recovered.
Alice grabbed a notecard off the table and wrote Camera Three Footage on it, along with a star. This was the second time she’d wanted more information and hit a dead end—she couldn’t reinterview Mack Carson, the helicopter pilot, and now the camera with the best angle of the accident was missing.
Something else was missing, too: Leah Coleman. Alice checked her map again, but there was no location marked on the mountain for the producer at the time of the accident. A quick check of Leah’s brief deposition provided the answer. Leah wasn’t on the mountain at all that day; she’d gone into town for a doctor’s appointment. Reading between the lines, Alice got a better understanding of Leah’s brusqueness—she was lucky she still had a job. The transcript of Leah’s testimony read like that of a ship captain who was sound asleep when the iceberg hit.
Alice laid down her pen and gazed outside once more. She could no longer see the mountain, obscured by silver-gray drizzle. But she knew Jack was out there, and she wanted to join him in the worst way. She thought of a hundred excuses she could use for showing up on set but dismissed them all. Jack had asked her to trust him on this and stay put. Alice didn’t like it, but she knew he was right. She growled in frustration.
Lady replied with a growl of her own.
7
Jack Rabbit
Jack had just finished unpacking—or rather, putting away in the bureaus what Leah had so thoughtfully unpacked for him—when there was a knock at the door.
Jack Frost: Detective Jack Stratton Mystery Thriller Series Page 4