by Dana Mentink
Her sudden comment startled him. “I know it must seem that way.”
“You still think he’s dead?”
He remained quiet, trying to decide on a gentle way to give voice to his thoughts. “I’m not sure what to make of it.”
“Me, neither, but until they prove me wrong, I’m going to believe he is alive.”
Ava was already out and heading up the trailer steps before he unbuckled his seat belt. A car he hadn’t seen before, a small white SUV, was parked nearby. Even though it was possible he was intruding, Luca followed her in anyway, exercising his “barrel right in, ask for permission later” philosophy.
A slender woman with long black hair woven into a thick braid sprang from a chair. Worry carved deep furrows into her brow and around her mouth. She enveloped Ava in a hug and pressed a kiss on her temple.
“What? Tell me,” Sue Agnoti said, her hands clutching Ava’s. “Did they find him?”
Ava led her back to the chair and gently pushed her into it. “Sue, this is Luca Gage, he’s...helping me work with the police.”
Her gaze settled on Luca for the first time it seemed. She was probably in her mid-fifties, Luca surmised. She offered him a brilliant smile that Luca wondered if she reserved for male acquaintances.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I heard that Paul was in an accident. The police are mum on the details except to say they haven’t found him yet.”
Ava explained what they’d been told.
Sue chewed her lip. After a moment, she sighed. “I knew something was going on.”
Ava sat next to her and Luca settled himself on the couch that was far too low to accommodate his long legs.
“When did you see him last?” Ava demanded.
“When I cooked him poached eggs three days ago.” Sue took in the surprise on their faces.
“He came by Whisper early, just after sunup. He said he wanted to see the place, to check up on things, but that was a lie, of course.” Sue looked at Luca. “Oh, I don’t mean to slander Paul, but he is an excellent liar. I can tell only because I’ve known him for so long.” She smoothed her ribbed sweater across her stomach. “He wouldn’t tell me what was wrong.” A flash of anger lit her eyes. “I’m sorry for saying it, Ava, honey, but your uncle can be a world-class cretin.”
Luca was surprised when Ava smiled. “I know, Sue. I’m sorry.”
They exchanged a look that told Luca there was plenty of history between Sue and Ava. He cleared his throat.
“What do you think Paul was really up to?”
Sue shrugged gracefully. “I wondered...” She waved a manicured hand.
“Wondered what?” Ava said.
“Well, honey, I was afraid you had really decided to sell, and he was saying his last goodbye to the place.”
Ava sagged.
Sue gripped her hand. “It doesn’t have to be that way. I still think we can save Whisper. I know it.”
Ava looked at the hand that held hers.
“Your uncle is not a businessman, Ava. Oh, he’s tried to be all that, a record producer, a car salesman, I think even a cattle baron as I recall, but the man has no head for money, charming as he is.”
Ava cleared her throat. “I know.”
Luca tried to find a more comfortable position on the worn couch. “Mrs. Agnoti,” he began.
“Oh, please, call me Sue. Mrs. Agnoti sounds like a school principal or something.”
“Sue,” he returned, with a smile. “Paul might have left something at Whisper. Would it be okay if we came and took a look around the resort?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Ava can tell you, the place is in terrible condition. Harold and I try to keep it up, but there’s not much two people can manage.”
“Just to look,” Luca said.
Sue smiled. “Can any woman say no to that face?”
He felt himself blush. “Perfect. Let’s figure on tomorrow, if the storm isn’t too violent and pending the search progress.” He struggled free of the couch, intending to give the two women some time to chat, but Sue also rose, following him to the door.
“Storm’s nearly here,” she said, with a practiced eye toward the horizon. “I have just enough time to get up the mountain if I leave now.” She hugged Ava. “We’ll keep the faith, won’t we? We’ll believe that Paul is okay and we’ll save this resort somehow.”
Ava didn’t answer.
Luca knew that deep down, she’d lost hold of that comfort. His heart squeezed. He could see the misery reflected in her soul. He also felt a flood of guilt that his father was considering buying Whisper and he hadn’t said a word about it to Ava. It just didn’t seem like the right time, in view of the bigger picture.
She desperately needed to believe that somehow her uncle was still alive.
Snowflakes flitted through the door as Ava saw them out and her gaze flicked toward the distant mountain ridge. Sue’s did the same.
They were both thinking the same thing, he was sure.
How could a man survive another night alone on Whisper Mountain?
Luca’s practical nature had the answer that no one wanted to hear.
He couldn’t.
* * *
Ava was grateful that she’d packed a small duffel before her disastrous meeting with Uncle Paul. She’d intended to be away from her tiny apartment for only an afternoon, long enough to meet with Uncle Paul and contact a real estate agent, but she could not resist the lure of one more run down the pristine slopes of Whisper Mountain, so a spare set of clothes had made sense.
It was past one, and Ava hadn’t managed to sleep more than a few hours before her mind drove her from bed. Hours of pacing the small kitchen, watching the grainy TV for weather reports and taking as hot a shower as the leaky faucet would allow did nothing to make the dawn come any faster. She almost wished she’d asked for Mack Dog to stay with her instead of Tate and Stephanie, but the dog had taken such a fancy to Tate that she didn’t have the heart to separate them. She wondered if something about Tate reminded Mack Dog of Uncle Paul.
Thankfully, Stephanie had stocked the rattling refrigerator with some staples like orange juice, eggs and bread. She’d also left a half dozen chocolate bars on the counter. Even though Ava appreciated the gesture, she felt the twinge of resentment.
They were here for treasure. Luca had said as much.
He was after a pearl, not Uncle Paul or anyone else.
The muscles in her jaw tightened. Go away, Luca. Find your treasure someplace else.
Something pricked at her, a memory that did not mesh with her current view of Luca Gage. She flashed back on the image of him walking out on the ice toward her, face resolute, not a flicker of doubt. What would it be like to be sure of your choices, to know the right path and follow it with such maddening certainty?
The moment her mother died, all her certainty about everything had evaporated. She was sure of precisely nothing.
With a sigh, Ava opened a candy bar and pulled her legs underneath her, nibbling chocolate with one hand and balancing a notepad on her knee with the other. She made a neat column of notes, precise handwriting spelling out all she knew or thought she knew about her uncle’s situation, so like her mother would have done. Marcia Stanton was an obsessive list maker, a trait manifested just as strongly in her daughter.
When she wrote Taser tag, the words kindled some hope inside her. The tiny metal circle would prove who owned the weapon. They would find out who took Uncle Paul and arrest him.
But would it be for kidnapping?
Or murder?
The chocolate turned to ash in Ava’s mouth. She put down the candy bar and the notes, wrapped herself in a blanket and decided to make a concerted effort to force herself into sleep.
Her body finally overruled her m
ind and she fell into an uneasy slumber. She woke, disoriented, muscles cramped as the clock ticked its way to two-thirty. The trailer was dark except for the bathroom light that she’d left on. The glow did not add any cheer to the desolate space. Uncle Paul’s piles of books stood like crooked old men, a sad reminder of the person who was not there to read them.
Wind rattled against the windows, the trees outside casting eerie shadows on the glass.
She thumbed her phone to life and checked the weather. The Doppler showed the storm was indeed hammering Whisper Mountain, bringing plenty of new snow. In another season she would have celebrated the conditions that brought ski resorts to life. Before her father’s accident, several unusually warm winters had provided such poor snowfall that Whisper had been forced to keep its doors closed. Another nail in the coffin for a small operation without the funds to purchase snow guns like the larger ski runs used to pad their slopes during warmer winters. She didn’t feel like celebrating now.
Where are you, Uncle Paul? She closed her eyes again, determined to rest up. She would attempt another snowshoe exploration before or after their trek to Whisper Mountain.
Luca’s words rang in her ears.
Bad idea.
He was right, of course, but she could think of nothing else to try.
A scuttling noise slithered near her feet.
She bolted up, heart pounding.
Something was crawling across the floor.
Heart in her throat, she snapped on the light on the table next to her. There was nothing on the ugly stained tile. She forced a deep breath. Just her overactive imagination.
Relieved, she leaned back on the sofa again and gathered the blanket around her.
The noise came again, a soft scraping moving the length of the floor. Her mind finally made sense of it. Nerves pricking she realized the sound originated not inside the trailer, but underneath it.
EIGHT
The unit, like all the others, was elevated a foot or so off the ground on raised legs which kept it level. Whatever was making the noise was crawling along slowly in the gap between the trailer floor and the ground.
Ava dismissed her initial panic. It was an animal, perhaps a rabbit or cat, seeking shelter from the storm in the relatively dry space underneath. She shot a look at Mack Dog’s empty bed. Perhaps he’d gotten away from Tate and embarked on another exploration. He was a furry Houdini, her uncle maintained. She listened to the wind-driven snow pattering against the flat trailer roof.
Again her mind returned to Uncle Paul.
Please, God.
And then she stopped. Uncle Paul was a rascal who had cheated countless people. His sister, Ava’s mother, was the epitome of honesty, returning fifteen miles to the store to pay for a travel magazine inadvertently stuck in her pile of groceries. Marcia was dead. The irony was impossible to miss. A woman who attended church faithfully and prayed unceasingly was snatched away. God had not saved her from the crushing depression that worsened after Bruce was crippled and the resort slipped further out of their hands. Ava’s crude prayer for a man who was most definitely a sinner was a waste of time. God wasn’t in the saving business, good or bad.
She squeezed her eyes shut tight and tried to blot out the sound of the storm. The slithering from underneath the trailer came again, louder this time. Ava got up and threw off the blanket. The noise was too loud for a rabbit or raccoon. Dollars to doughnuts it was Mack Dog. Ava had never been much of a dog person, preferring the reserved aloofness of cats. Mack Dog was certainly not the smartest critter, but Uncle Paul loved him, mauled snowshoes notwithstanding.
She pulled on a jacket and boots.
“You’d better come when I call you, dog,” she grumbled, snatching a flashlight from a tiny kitchen drawer.
A blast of super-cooled air hit her like a fist as she stepped carefully through the snow that had accumulated on the porch step. A light fixed on a pole near the office trailer backlit the lacy curtain of flakes that danced down from the blackened sky. The campground was perfectly quiet.
She tottered down the steps and into a shin-deep pile of snow at the bottom. The cold seeped through the thin material of her sweats and made her gasp. She headed for the spot where the wheel was sandwiched between two wooden wedges and beamed her flashlight into the gap underneath, expecting to see the eerie glow of animal eyes peering back at her before whatever it was made a quick retreat.
Only one animal would answer her call and come to the crazy woman clomping around in the snow before sunup.
“Mack Dog?” she whispered. “If that’s you, come out of there right now.”
There was no sound and she could not see anything in the darkened space. Could be the trespasser had taken off, but she had to give it one more try if her conscience was going to allow her some rest before sunup.
“Treat, Mack Dog,” she called, scooting closer to the gap. She bent near to repeat the hopeful suggestion when something grabbed her ankles. She went over on her back, the wind knocked out of her, as she fell into a blanket of snow.
She tried to turn over on her stomach, but the snowy shroud offered no place to grab. She screamed, but the sound seemed to be absorbed, snow falling into her open mouth and blinding her.
The sky shifted and moved before her very eyes.
She was being slowly dragged into the blackness beneath the trailer.
* * *
Luca could not sleep. His legs itched to go for a run. Surely he could find a snowplowed road somewhere. A good run with nothing but the moon and his own thoughts for company. Maybe it was just what he needed to understand how he had managed to wind up with two feet firmly planted in Ava’s world. The truth was, he had nursed a crush on Ava when he was a teen. What red-blooded boy wouldn’t look on that blend of delicate beauty and ferocious athleticism without having his head turned? But he wasn’t a boy any longer, so why did he find her occupying his every thought?
One look out at the swirling storm put the lid on his notion to go for a run. He settled instead on doing sit-ups and pull-ups until he’d fended off the chill in his dingy trailer and restored his mind to some resemblance of calm. It didn’t work completely. Knowing that Ava was a hundred feet away, planning to go search for her uncle again at first light made his nerves jangle. Something drew him to the window and he looked across at her trailer. The falling snow accumulated in airy drifts on her porch steps and everything was still and quiet.
Except for the sudden extinguishing of a small light, as if it had been flung suddenly down in the snow. Muscles tensed, he threw a pair of boots over his sweatpants and ran into the night, pulling on a shirt as he galloped to her trailer. Now that he was closer, he heard muffled gasps, the sound of hands scrabbling for purchase on the snow. He beelined toward the sound.
At first he could not make out what was happening in the dim light. Something was flailing around, but he could not tell who or what it was. He plunged a hand toward the writhing lump and grabbed what felt like a handful of jacket.
Incredibly, he saw Ava’s head rise slightly above the level of the snow, her eyes wide, gasping for breath. She opened her mouth to speak, but he watched in amazement as she was yanked from his grasp, hauled to her knees underneath the trailer.
He didn’t stop to puzzle it out.
He grabbed hold of her shoulders and pulled as hard as he had done at the last Gage family tug-of-war. Her body slid loose and they both tumbled backward. Breath whooshed out of both of them as they wound up sprawled in the snow. He immediately shot to his feet, hauled her upright.
Something scraped and wriggled frantically, heading for the rear of the trailer. He raced around the corner, just in time to see someone emerge from under the trailer and take off toward the tree line.
“Stop!” he shouted. Even though his tone was thunderous, it hardly carried over the
wind. Luca ran faster. He would overtake the guy, no doubt about it, the gap between them was already closing. Head down he sprinted faster, hand outstretched as he came closer, the dark jacket and knit cap now clear in the moonlight.
When he was within inches, the runner suddenly reversed course, zigzagging wide around Luca, leaving him to turn and regain his balance. Now the pursuit changed in the direction of the office trailer. Whoever it was must have a car parked at the entrance or farther beyond, somewhere along the main road.
Luca dug down and moved as fast as his legs would allow. The snow between the trailers was still not very deep due to the plowing it had received the day before. He was able to once again close the distance between them. This time, there was no escaping.
The figure rounded the corner of the trailer and Luca did the same.
Gotcha, he thought.
The momentary celebration was driven from his mind as a wooden bat appeared before him, smashing into his solar plexus before he could alter course.
He went down, face-first, pain lancing through him.
Even in his prone position he tried to get his knees under him, knowing the bat was probably descending to crush his skull. Instead a rough hand reached out and flipped him over. Blinded by the snow, he threw up an arm to ward off the blow he knew was coming.
“No, don’t,” a voice said.
In spite of the gasping of his own breath, he heard Ava repeat it again. “Don’t hit him.”
Luca shook the snow from his eyes and found himself looking into the face of Bully, arms still hoisting a bat overhead.
Bully’s eyes cut from Ava to Luca as he slowly lowered the bat. “What ya running around like that for? I thought you was a rapist or something.”
Luca was still struggling to suck in a breath, so Ava filled him in. “Did you see the other person? The one Luca was chasing?”
“Nah.” Bully scanned the snowy landscape. “Whoever it was is long gone. I was just on my way to get a drink of orange juice and I seen someone running, so I got my bat. Sorry about that, chum.” Bully offered Luca his palm.