01 Storm Peak

by John Flanagan

  “That’s right,” she said. “Midday flight to Denver.”

  The radio crackled briefly and he reached forward quickly to turn it off. She was glad he had. It was a good forty-minute drive to the airport and she could do without the constant one-way chatter of the dispatcher talking to other cars whose replies she couldn’t hear. They hit the main road and he turned left, not right. He was heading away from the airport, toward Mount Werner.

  Abby pursed her lips with annoyance. Obviously, the driver had another pickup to make. Leastways, she hoped there was only one more. She always preferred to be the last person to join a cab like this. It seemed like an inescapable law of nature that other people were never ready when a cab arrived for them-even one running ten to fifteen minutes late, like this one.

  “Someone else traveling?” she asked. The driver nodded, glancing up at the rearview mirror to make eye contact.

  “Couple up on Ski Trail Lane as well,” he said easily. She saw his eyes on her in the mirror once more. “Plenty of time,” he added. She glanced at her watch again.

  “Not all that much,” she muttered. The puddle jumpers that flew to Denver from Steamboat had to be hand-loaded. There was no sophisticated luggage handling gear, like on the larger aircraft that flew back to the East or West Coast. Consequently, they needed people to check in early. And they tended to close the flights early as well.

  “We’ll make it fine,” the driver replied, with the confident air of someone who didn’t have to get on a flight.

  Shit, Abby thought to herself, and glanced morosely out the window. There was nothing she could do about it, in any case. Deep down, she realized that she would actually be on time for the flight. But she’d always been a person who liked to be early, who hated last-minute rushes, particularly in the disorganized chaos of a small-town airline feeding a popular ski resort in the middle of the season.

  The wind had freshened, she could see. People on the street were leaning into it as they walked. They had that head-down look of people who were anxious to get back to the warmth and shelter of their cars or their houses. She craned to see up. Clouds were scudding fast and low across the sky. The last traces of blue were rapidly disappearing. Typical mountain weather, she thought. Bright and sunny one moment, overcast and blowing the next.

  “More snow coming by the look of it,” said the driver.

  She said nothing, wondered why taxi drivers inevitably seemed to be possessed of the ability to state the goddamn obvious.

  Jesse punched Felix Obermeyer’s number into the cell phone. He drummed his fingers impatiently, waiting for the police chief to pick up. He glanced up at Lee.

  “I should have realized it,” he told her. “He was in the gondola with us the other night, listening to every word we said.”

  “That could have been coincidence.”

  “Maybe, but—”

  The phone answered at the other end and he held up a hand in apology to her. “Felix? Jesse here. This is a bust. Can you guys get up to the Munsing house right away?”

  She heard the brief crackle of Felix’s voice in the earpiece, as the town police chief obviously asked a question. Jesse hesitated for a moment, then made a decision.

  “No,” he said. “Leave the other guys in place for the moment. Just you and Frank.” Another question from Felix and she saw Jesse’s shoulders drop slightly in defeat.

  He flicked the phone shut and turned back to her. For the moment, he’d forgotten her last comment. She began to restate it.

  “Just because he was in the gondola doesn’t—” she began. But now he remembered what he’d been about to say. He stopped her again with a quick hand gesture.

  “He was stalking her,” he said. “He didn’t get in with us. He was already in there with Abby when I boarded. We’d sort of … had an argument and she walked out,” he added. There was an awkwardness in his voice as he mentioned the evening with Abby. Lee suddenly knew, without knowing how, that they’d been talking about her. She felt her face starting to heat up, realized how damn ridiculous that was in a grown woman. For a moment, there was a tangible shroud of embarrassment hanging between them. Then Jesse went on.

  “I had to stop the gondola to catch up,” he explained. “She was already in there. So was he.”

  “They let two people travel together?” Lee asked. “I thought we—”

  “The ski patrol uniform,” he explained. “That’s why he stole it. Remember what we said? Nobody notices a ski patroller. They just automatically jump lift lines whenever they want. And everyone trusts them.”

  “So you think he’d targeted Abby as his next victim?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe not specifically.” He frowned, trying to remember. Something was coming back to him as he tried to reconstruct the scene at Hazie’s the night before. Then he had it.

  “He was in the bar,” he said slowly. “He was in the bar when we arrived. He must have been waiting for someone—anyone, maybe—to board the gondola alone.”

  “And Abby was his first chance?” Lee asked. Again, he nodded, reconstructing the probable chain of events in his mind.

  “She left … must have gone straight past him in the bar, and he simply followed her out. Then all he had to do was hang back till she was about to board the gondola. The lift guys would have let him through, no problem.”

  “Particularly if he only made it at the last minute and they didn’t have time to think it through,” Lee put in.

  “And then I spoiled things for him,” he went on. “I came running out to catch up with her … I had to hit the emergency stop.”

  In spite of the bigger picture, Lee couldn’t help herself feeling a small shaft of pain as he mentioned the fact that he’d come running out after Abby. Angrily, she pushed the thought aside. Jesse’s eyes were far away now as he remembered the scene in the cabin.

  “Jesus!” he said abruptly. “No wonder he kept staring at me!” He looked up at her and explained, “I kept turning around to see him looking at me—you know?” Another thought filtered back. “And he kept fiddling with the zipper on his parka. Damn me. Probably had a gun in there and couldn’t quite make up his mind if he had time to use it or not.”

  He broke off as a car pulled up to the front of the house. They both looked out the window and recognized Felix Obermeyer’s Trans Am. The police chief was on his second divorce and, as a direct result, his first sports car.

  Jesse led the way out of the bedroom to the front door. Felix and one of his senior officers, Frank Latimer, came into the Munsings’ small parlor, where Jesse quickly filled them in on what he and Lee had been discussing.

  “So, Jess, what makes you think he’s abducted Abby?” Felix asked. “It’s a pretty long bow to draw, isn’t it—just because somebody’s hijacked a taxi?”

  Jesse shook his head impatiently.

  “Don’t you see?” he said. “He sat there listening while Abby told me she was leaving this morning, going back to Denver. Jesus, she even told me she had a taxi booked and she was going on the midday flight!”

  The others fell silent. They all shared the growing conviction that Jesse was right about this, and none of them liked the feeling. His next comment finalized things.

  “And the key point is, a taxi did arrive to pick her up this morning, although Alpine Taxis didn’t send a replacement.”

  “Jesus,” said Lee quietly. “I think you’re right, Jess.”

  He looked at her, then at the other two.

  “I know I am,” he said.

  There was a moment’s silence, then Felix gathered himself. “So, what do we do now?” he asked.

  Lee was already hitting the numbers on the cell phone.

  “Four ways he can go,” she said briefly. “Highway 40 to Kremmling, 131 to Stagecoach and Vail, 129 to Hahn’s Peak or US 40 west to the airport. Let’s get roadblocks on all those routes.” She looked up at Jesse. “Try calling her. She’s got a cell phone, surely.”

  Jesse nodded. Abby had given
him the number on the first night she’d arrived in town. He’d written it in his notebook. He picked up the landline phone on the parlor side table and punched in the numbers. He heard a singsong electronic tone followed by a female voice and hung up.

  “Out of reach or switched off,” he said angrily. Felix nodded.

  “Lot of dead spots around here. The mountains tend to block the signal.”

  Lee had reached Denise and was instructing her to put out requests to the state police and highway patrol for the roadblocks. Jesse left her to it and led the other two men to one side a little.

  “Roadblocks shouldn’t have too much trouble spotting a taxi,” Frank Latimer said.

  “That’s assuming he’s left town,” Jesse replied, and Latimer looked at him curiously.

  “You think it’d make any sense for him to stick around here, Jess?”

  “Frank,” Jesse replied, “nothing this guy does has made any sense. We’re dealing with a killer here. Look at last night. He was obviously planning to kill Abby in the gondola and just get out at the other end and walk away. He didn’t have any abseiling gear on him—and I assume that’s how he got out of the damn thing the previous time.”

  “Maybe,” Felix said thoughtfully, “he realized he didn’t need to abseil out. After all, just walking away from it all worked pretty well for him on the chairlift, didn’t it?”

  Jesse nodded his agreement. But there was something else in his mind. A feeling he couldn’t explain that convinced him that Mikkelitz hadn’t left the Steamboat Springs area.

  “There’s something else, Felix,” he said. “This guy knows Abby was with me. And I guess he knows I’ve been running this case. I think this has gotten personal. I think he’s doing this to mess with my head.”

  FIFTY-NINE

  The taxi had wound its way up the steep hill beside the ski slope, past the condominiums and private homes that had been built to offer the coveted “ski-in, ski-out” facility to prospective renters.

  Abby tried to contain her impatience. She had the feeling that the driver had slowed to a crawl, just to piss her off. With a great effort, she restrained herself from checking her watch again. She could sense his eyes on her in the rearview mirror.

  At last, the van pulled into the driveway of one of the larger condo blocks, nearly at the top of the hill. There was a wide, aspen-lined snow trail leading from the back of the building to the ski slopes. That, she recognized, was the “ski-out” facility. Another narrower trail wound down from a point farther up the mountain. That was where residents could ski back in the evening.

  The driver reversed the van into a parking spot in the building’s forecourt. He cut the engine and leaned around to talk to her.

  “Just be a minute, Ms. Parker-Taft,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll help the people here with their luggage, then we’ll be going.”

  He opened his door and stepped out, hurrying toward the entrance to the condo block. Abby shook her head in annoyance, then huddled a little deeper into the fur collar of her parka. The sun had disappeared behind low, driving clouds now and the temperature had dropped accordingly. She let go a deep breath, trying to hold her impatience in check. Abby was always impatient. Once she made up her mind to go somewhere, she simply hated to be delayed. For the fifth time, she checked her wristwatch, frowned a little.

  They still had time to make the flight, she reasoned. But it was going to be close. Particularly if there were two or three flights going out around the same time-as there usually were.

  She was roused from her thoughts by a tap on the window glass next to her head. Looking up, startled, she saw the grinning face of the driver, only a few feet away. He made a motion for her to unlock the sliding door, and she reached forward and pulled up the lock button.

  He nodded his thanks, heaved the door back on its track and gestured with one thumb toward the building.

  “Ms. Parker-Taft,” he said, and she thought how his constant use of both surnames was starting to get under her skin. Although Abby was usually identified visually as Abby Parker-Taft when she did a report, most of the time she simply signed off as “Abby Taft.” Most people who watched her knew that. She sensed that the driver knew it too, somehow, and was only using the full name to annoy her. She didn’t know how she sensed that. There was just something in his manner.

  “What is it?” she said, doing her damnedest not to show that she was annoyed. He grinned at her again.

  “There’s a phone call for you inside,” he said, and this time, she frowned in surprise.

  “For me? You’re sure?” she said, and he nodded, shrugging.

  “That’s what they said. They phoned the Barretts—they’re the people I’m here to pick up. Must have got the number from the dispatcher at the taxi company,” he added, by way of explanation.

  Abby still couldn’t understand it. “Why would they call me here?” she asked. “Why didn’t they call my cell phone?” Like all reporters, she was never without one.

  Again, the taxi driver shrugged. “This whole side of the mountain is a dead spot,” he said. “They’d know that at the office.”

  She rummaged in her shoulder bag for the cell. When she found it, she saw he was right. The power was switched on but there was no corresponding row of bars showing network coverage.

  “They sounded like it was urgent, you know?” the driver prompted, gesturing toward the building. Abby sighed with annoyance. Another damn delay was all she needed this morning, she thought. Abruptly, she swung down from the van and hurried across the parking lot to the building.

  It was dim inside and her eyes took a few seconds to adjust. Even though the day was overcast now, they were close to the ski mountain and the snow-covered terrain seemed to create its own light source. She knew that wasn’t possible. Knew the snow simply reflected whatever ambient light was there. But somehow, it seemed like there was an inner light on the mountain.

  The driver gestured her toward a flight of wooden stairs leading down.

  “This way, Ms. Parker-Taft,” he said, standing aside to let her go first. She hesitated. She’d been expecting to go up to one of the condos.

  “Down here?” she queried, and he nodded confirmation.

  “They’ve got a basement apartment,” he offered by way of explanation. Impatiently, Abby shrugged and started down the stairs. There was a heavy wooden door at the bottom of the flight. She pushed against it, felt it give and went in.

  She found herself in a ski room. Racks of skis stood around the walls. To one side there was a workbench with an old electric iron standing on its end. The smell of wax was strong in the room. At the far end, she could see ski boots resting on long pegs set into the wall.

  Wherever they were, it wasn’t an apartment, she thought angrily. She started to turn to let the driver know, when she felt an arm go around her throat from behind, and the hard pressure of something cold pressing into the skin of her neck, just below the base of her skull.

  She opened her mouth to scream and felt the arm tighten painfully on her throat. There was no need. The scream never came. It froze in the back of her throat, stillborn. Abby knew she was in trouble—and in a big way.

  “That’s a gun you can feel,” the driver said softly, right next to her ear. “You scream or try to fight me and I’ll blow your fucking head off, okay?”

  She said nothing. Her voice seemed to be paralyzed. He shook her roughly, then jabbed the gun harder into her neck.

  “I said, okay?” he repeated, and she finally found her voice. Only a whisper, but enough to say, “Okay.”

  The pressure around her throat relaxed a little and he shoved her across the room to a door set in one of the side walls. They paused before it.

  “Open it,” he said, jabbing again with the gun. She reached down, turned the knob and pulled the door open. He shoved her through.

  They were in a garage. That much she could see, even though there was very little light. The shapes of cars were unmistakable.

/>   Close to them was another shape—a snowmobile. A two-seater, she saw now. He shoved her toward it, one arm around her throat and the gun still forced into her neck. She wished to God he’d move that gun. She knew enough about guns to know that they have an unfortunate tendency to go off by accident, and stumbling and shoving someone else in front of you seemed like one hell of a way to have yourself an accident, she thought.

  She gasped in relief as the arm released its grip on her throat. Before she could turn-even if she’d had a mind to—her left hand was seized in a hard grip. The gun left her neck and she heard a click of metal. The something cold was on her left wrist and there was the rapid clicking of a ratchet and she realized he’d snapped a handcuff onto her wrist. And snapped it tight. The skin was pinched and painful underneath it. She cried out in pain.

  “Shut up,” he said roughly, and dragged her forward and down by the handcuff. There was a metal handhold in front of the pillion seat on the snowmobile—a half circle of leather-covered chrome steel. He whipped the other handcuff around it and fastened her securely to the little vehicle.

  He took a few quick steps to the wall and hit a switch. Cold fluorescent light flooded the parking bays around them. She could see him clearly now and she realized why she’d thought he was familiar. He was the ski patroller who’d traveled down with her and Jesse the night before.

  And suddenly, she knew he wasn’t a ski patroller. She knew who he was and she knew what he wanted. The realization hit her like a physical blow. It turned her knees weak and for one awful moment she thought her bladder was going to let go.

  “Now, here’s the deal,” he said softly, putting his face barely a foot from hers. “We’re going out of here on this snowmobile. You’ll be handcuffed to that handle there so there’s no way you can get away. Got it?”

  He paused, looked at her angrily for some sign that she understood. She nodded dumbly. That seemed to satisfy him.