by Jordan Dane
But with everything that had been happening with Nate in Healy, I’d been totally distracted and had quit worrying about my cell and its lack of bars. With my stash of candy in a bag, I went to the back of the store toward the pay phones to give my best friend a shout out. Using the change I got from Jake, I placed a call to Tanner. He answered on the third ring, without even saying hello.
“Man, I’ve been trying to call you. I left messages in Healy.”
“Yeah, I got the one you left at Miner’s, Silver Scorpion.” Smiling, I pictured Tanner decked out in shiny silver armor and mind-melding with metal.
“Guess you weren’t kidding about the cell service sucking up there,” he said. “You didn’t get any of my text messages, either?”
“No, and I forgot my damned battery charger, like an idiot.” I slumped against the wall. “What’s up?”
After a long silence and a heavy sigh on the other end of the line, I knew the news wouldn’t be good.
“What’s going on, Tanner?”
“It’s about Nate Holden. I mean, maybe I’m jumping the gun and this is nothing, but…”
When I heard Nate’s name, I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Yeah, I heard. His Denali climb got delayed, something about bad weather.”
“Where did you hear that?” Tanner asked.
“From Nate. He’s here in Healy.” I couldn’t hide the smile in my voice. I knew Tanner would understand, but when he didn’t say anything, I had to ask, “Tanner, you still there?”
“Oh, man, I was worried. It’s all over the news, but they haven’t released the names yet. Guess I was wrong.”
“Wrong about what?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”
“If you heard that news from Holden himself, there’s nothing to worry about. That’s just…great.”
Blocking out the noise in the store, I plugged an ear and listened as Tanner told me about the missing climbers on Denali. While he talked, my gaze shifted to the big-screen TV the store had mounted on the wall near the cash register. Set on mute, the captions were working. When a breaking news alert came on the screen after a commercial, I did a double take and knew what Jake Edenshaw had been interested in.
Reading the captions for the latest on the missing guys, two names scrolled over the TV screen. Even with Tanner telling me reporters hadn’t yet identified the climbers, I saw something different on the news. When the names of the missing boys flashed across the screen, I wanted to throw up. I clenched my teeth and glared at the screen, even as a twinge of doubt gnarled deep in my belly.
With other people in the store watching the news unfolding, Jake took the TV off mute and a reporter identified the missing guys again, along with the Denali guide service company they had used, Stellar Mountaineering. Even if I wanted to believe the TV news got the names wrong, Stellar Mountaineering was run by Nate’s father. With the reporter stating they’d been following the breaking story since early that morning, how could they still have it wrong?
The whole thing was there on the screen, playing out in front of my eyes. The news reported Nate Holden and Josh Poole were missing on Denali, but I knew differently—didn’t I?
“Tanner, I gotta…go.” I turned my back on the TV, gripping the phone so hard that my fingers ached.
“You want me to call if—”
“No, just…” I cut him off, but couldn’t finish. “Sorry, there’s something I gotta do. I can’t…”
I hung up the pay phone and leaned my head against it, still gripping the receiver with my eyes shut. All I wanted to do was get somewhere quiet to think. I had to hang up on Tanner. He knew me too well. Hearing something in my voice, he’d never let me brush him off, not without prodding me for more. Tanner was too smart and I couldn’t face that. Not now. I took a deep breath and rushed for the door with everything in a blur.
“Hey, Abbey.” Jake called to me. “Don’t you go to Palmer High?”
“Yeah, Jake.” I didn’t wait for him to ask me any more questions. Without stopping, I shoved open the glass door as Jake yelled after me.
“Hey, you forgot your candy.”
When I hit the cold air outside, I breathed it in as if I’d been suffocating and had come up for air for the first time. I ran from the store, fighting a rush of emotion that hit me like a nasty punch to the gut. After I saw my father waiting in the car, I knew by his expression that I couldn’t hide what I felt.
Dad already knew something was up.
“What’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” When I didn’t answer, he said, “I thought you went in to buy something.”
“They were out.”
“But…”
“Don’t worry about it, Dad. Please.” I softened my tone and slid down in my seat with my arms crossed. “I’m okay. I just need… Can we go?”
“Yeah, okay.”
My father started the car without another word, heading back to the cabin. I acted like a jerk and knew it, but I couldn’t look at him. He probably chalked up my mood to hormones and I let him think that. I wasn’t ready to give him the deets on what bothered me by playing twenty questions.
All I could think about was Nate. Everything he’d said, everything I’d seen—all of it replayed in my head like a waking nightmare. The way we kissed had been real. I felt sure of it…and we’d talked all night. Most of that had been really good, until it wasn’t. But all the good stuff got overshadowed by my undeniable suspicions. I had no idea what any of this had to do with the death of my mother, yet I knew it was connected somehow.
This whole thing was insane!
How could the TV station get their breaking news story wrong and air such tragic details without verifying them? Couldn’t they get sued? And why hadn’t the Holden family or someone else come forward? Even if Nate’s parents were out of town, someone who knew the truth should have seen the story and contacted the news station by now, to set them straight.
The more I questioned what I knew, the more I feared that something was terribly wrong.
Remembering Nate dressed in weird mountaineering gear the last time I’d seen him—looking frozen and nearly dead—was an image I couldn’t explain away or shake from my mind. The way he’d grabbed me before, begging for my help in a voice I barely recognized as his, all of my growing doubts came rushing to the surface until I heard him in my head again—making me a promise that I hoped he’d keep one more time.
If you come to me, I will be here, Abbey.
If Nate had been on Denali for almost a week, who the hell had I been talking to?
Chapter 12
On Denali
Once the Park Service helicopter lowered a team of mountain rescue rangers by hoist, near the spot where Bob Holden stood, one ranger came over and took charge. Until today, Bob had never met Ranger Virgil Lewis, but now this man would commandeer the search for his son and Josh.
“I picked up a beacon signal, where I found something in the snow belonging to my son, Nate.” Pointing up the mountain, Bob raised his voice so he could be heard above the sound of the helicopter. “I marked that spot with a wand. The beep was slow and steady, so I only got a piece of it.”
“Good job. You saved us time,” the ranger said. “Narrowing down the search grid helps.”
“That’s my son up there. Maybe his friend is with him…or nearby.” Bob fixed his gaze on the ranger. “If there’s anything I can do…”
“I understand, sir. I know this can’t be easy.” Ranger Lewis bent over to adjust his harness as he talked. “But my team needs to do their jobs and we work faster on our own. I hope you understand.”
Bob nodded and didn’t say anything more. He moved aside, standing apart from Mike Childers and the rest of his climbing team as he watched the
rangers work the mountain. His jaw clenched tight enough for his teeth to hurt.
The pilot kept in communication with Lewis who guided his team, narrowing the search along the perimeter of the avalanche near Bob’s flag using probe poles and transceivers to track Nate’s beacon. The rangers set ice screws and used snow pickets to secure high-angle snow areas, allowing them to work safely. But once the rescue team hit on a series of steady tracking signals that they could triangulate off of, the rangers converged on a section of the avalanche and moved in. After they tightened the search radius, Lewis waved off the helicopter to allow his men to hear their transceivers and call out coordinates. The helicopter did a second pass overhead before the pilot found a flat section to land and wait for further orders, down trail.
Bob’s heart raced, beating as fast as the digital signals he heard on the wind. Each man called out coordinates. With the signals turning into high-pitched rapid beats, they narrowed the search grid to a central location.
Bob knew they’d found Nate. Without Josh carrying a beacon, it was impossible to tell if they’d find the boys together, but if he knew Nate, Bob felt certain they would. He didn’t want to think of Nate and Josh being separated, suffering through their ordeal scared and alone.
“We have a sunken break in the snow. It looks fresh, not iced over.” Lewis called to his men, pointing to a section of the avalanche where the snow looked uneven and concave. “We may have a crevasse below, covered by the avalanche. Use your probes to find the edge of the ice.”
When Bob heard about the possibility of a crevasse and that Nate’s signal had been isolated in the middle of it, he shut his eyes tight and prayed. If luck was on his side, there’d be a chance the boys had found a pocket of air to breathe, for a while. But if the crevasse was really deep, there’d be a possibility they might never recover them.
Bob wanted to feel like a lucky man.
Palmer, Alaska
After Abbey hung up on him, Tanner sat slumped in his wheelchair and replayed their brief conversation in his head. What the hell just happened? She’d cut him off, midsentence. Then there had been the actual hang-up. Their call could have disconnected by accident, but since she hadn’t called him back, that would make him a delusional pathetic moron to think that. No, Abbey Chandler had hung up on him, abso-frickin-lutely. Since that wasn’t like her, she must’ve had a really solid reason. His Abbey never would’ve done that, not while talking about her favorite subject, Nate Holden.
Something had definitely been up with her.
“Were you watching the news?”
His mom rushed to his bedroom with her face flushed from her scramble up the stairs. She had a Palmer High yearbook in her hand.
“They reported the names of those missing boys,” she said. “Do you know Nate Holden and Josh Poole?”
Tanner couldn’t keep the surprise off his face. Even if he wanted to keep things secret from his mom, she already had her answer.
“So you do know them? I got their pictures right here.”
After she took a corner of his unmade bed, she flipped open the yearbook to pages she’d marked and showed him the class pictures of Holden and Poole.
“Uh, yeah.” He nodded. “They look familiar, I guess.”
Although he heard the words coming from his mouth, the voice didn’t sound like his. He still had his mind on Abbey and their conversation. One minute, she’d been happy talking about Nate. The next, she’d pulled a 180 and ditched him by hanging up the phone.
“When did you hear the names, Mom?” Tanner went on the offensive before his mother quizzed him on everything he knew about Holden and Poole.
“Just now. All the local stations are covering the story, but channel 9 announced the names, not five minutes ago. Why?”
“No reason. I hadn’t heard the latest, that’s all.” He shrugged.
Maybe Abbey had seen the same news, but if she’d been with Nate, why hadn’t she told him that the news had it wrong? That would’ve been really cool to have the inside scoop before the news people did. Her fifteen minutes of fame had called and apparently she’d ignored it, but something in her voice triggered his concern for her.
That he couldn’t ignore.
“It’s a real shame.” His mother sighed, unable to take her eyes off those photos. “Both are such good-looking boys, too.”
Tanner stared at his mom. She had no idea how that sounded to a guy like him, like good looks was a magnet for great things and a promising future. What did that say about him? He’d found out the hard way that shit happened. After it did, a guy had to deal with it. He didn’t have a choice. Taking a deep breath, he shut his eyes and let the moment pass, without saying a word.
“Oh, before I forget. I told Marta Kennedy, down the street, that I’d help her make snacks for our book club tomorrow. I won’t be gone long.” She tossed the yearbook on his bed as she stood and ran fingers through his hair—being a mom. “If you get hungry, I’ve got those pizza things in the freezer. That should hold you until I get back to make dinner.”
His mother sounded like everything had turned back to normal, but that’s not how she looked. She stared down at him for a long time, looking as if she would cry. When that moment came and went, without her saying anything more, she leaned down to kiss him on his forehead.
“I love you, Tanner.” She smiled and stroked his cheek.
“Love you, too.”
Later, when Tanner would think back on that exchange with his mother and wonder what had gone on in his head, he’d have no idea what had flipped his switch. Yet something definitely happened. He’d gotten it in his mind to help Abbey, even though he didn’t have a clue how he’d do that—or even why he felt the strong urge to. She’d always shut him down whenever he brought up the death of her mother. Maybe something else was at play in Healy, something other than her crush on Nate.
He waited until his mom left the house and shut the front door behind her. He even let ten minutes go by—enough time for her to walk down the street to the neighbor’s house—before he decided to cross a line. A very big line with his parents. Something was up with Abbey and from the sound of her voice, it had to be epic.
He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—let her go through it alone. In truth, he didn’t need an excuse. He wanted to be with her, enough said.
After he tossed stuff in a knapsack, he changed into warmer gear and printed out the directions to Abbey’s cabin, the ones he’d saved a few years ago. He didn’t even know exactly what he would do, but when he kept going without hesitation, he realized that he wouldn’t back down. Not now.
He would break the law…for the second time this week.
“Lange, you’re an idiot,” he muttered, but when he checked his computer before he took off, something he read online made him grin and he thought of Abbey again.
“Awesome!”
His high didn’t last long. Tanner headed downstairs to leave his parents a vague note, so they wouldn’t worry more than usual.
Knowing he’d get grounded for life—and beyond—he bolstered his courage by picturing the Silver Scorpion. He grabbed the extra set of keys hanging by the door out to the garage—keys to his mother’s van, the vehicle adapted for him to drive. If he got stopped by the troopers without an adult with him, he’d have his beginner’s permit yanked, but that would be the least of his worries. Whether he got pulled over or not, his mom and dad would come up with something much more inventive to punish him. He wouldn’t talk his way out of it. No chance in hell.
There would be a price to pay for what he was about to do, but it would be a self-inflicted wound and he was good with that. Something had happened in Healy. He felt it and it wasn’t in his nature to sit on the sidelines.
“When I find you, Abbey, please don’t make me feel like more of a major jerk
wad than I already do.”
Abbey
Near Healy, Alaska
When we got back to the cabin, I knew what I had to do—but knowing it and doing it were two very different things. I wanted to believe that Nate would be waiting at the fire pit for me, with a perfectly rational explanation for everything that had gone on, but a part of me suspected that wouldn’t happen.
That’s what scared me. I couldn’t deal with it. Yet I had to, and I had to do it alone.
I told my dad that I wasn’t feeling well and went to my room and locked the door. That hadn’t been a total lie. I sacked out on my bed—hashing things over in my head—until shadows crept into my room. With the sun sinking low on the horizon, a clock in my head ticked louder. If I confronted Nate at our usual spot, I didn’t want to do it in the dark. Not this time. He had enough of an advantage.
I wasn’t ready to do this. I never would be, but I didn’t have a choice.
I put on my jacket and opened my bedroom door, ready to face Dad and the questions I knew he’d have. I found him in the kitchen staring into the fridge with a book in his hand. When he saw me, he closed the door and turned to face me.
Right off, I could tell by the look on his face that he’d ask me easy stuff, like if I wanted dinner after our burger overload, but he must have changed his mind after he saw me. Dad sometimes had a weird sense about what to ask. He could zero in on what really mattered.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
A direct question like that almost always resulted in me telling him a lie. I didn’t even have to think about it. That’s just how my brain was wired. I could have said that I wanted to walk off our big lunch. That wouldn’t have been a lie, exactly. But Dad might ask to come along. No way! I could have said that I wanted to check my cell bars again, but he’d only ask why I hadn’t thought to use a pay phone in town. All these thoughts and more flashed through my head, but what came out of my mouth was something I hadn’t been prepared for.