Final Resort

by Dana Mentink

  No way down...but maybe another way out.

  It was crazy, too crazy to work. Victor had chided Luca endlessly over the years about his tendency to rush in first and worry about the consequences later.

  Think it through, examine all the various possible outcomes, his brother would say.

  Luca was the kid who would watch old black-and-white movies with his dad, admiring the swashbuckling daring and bravado of the many heroes who came to life there.

  Sorry, Victor. It’s time for some old-fashioned white-knuckle courage.

  He stripped off his jacket, too amped to care about the stinging chill and carefully climbed on the still-bucking gondola seat. He lost his footing and went down to one knee, the car spiraling so rapidly he was dizzied.

  He looked up for a moment, gaining equilibrium from the tranquil sky. When his vision steadied, he climbed out the window, hands clutched tightly to the freezing metal. It was like trying to stand on top of a moving train, so the best he could do was to stay low and grip with his feet and one hand, the other still clutching the jacket.

  When he reached the roof of the gondola, he clung to the metal arm, extending his body along the length of it until he was close enough to reach.

  He hoped.

  Giving himself a mental countdown, he tossed one end of the jacket over the cable, while holding onto a sleeve. Somehow he manage to get the fabric up and over, until he could clasp both sleeves, tying them into as tight a knot as he was able.

  He desperately hoped the nylon fabric would be enough, the cable would hold, the gondola would not careen down the cable and crush him at the bottom. Before he could ponder any more of the violent conclusions, he grabbed hold of his makeshift zip line and pushed off the gondola.

  The jacket slid over the icy cable. Luca’s body weight pulled frighteningly against the fabric, and he was sure it would rip in half, plummeting him down into the snow. It held, and he continued his downward progress back toward the shed. Every foot, every precious inch even, would bring him closer to the ground and farther away from the possibility that the fall would kill him.

  The cable dipped as another strand let go. He was still a good thirty feet above the ground. His progress slowed to a stop as the jacket encountered friction probably caused by the deterioration of the cable.

  He grabbed it, cutting his hands as he maneuvered his way over the rough patch until he was able to slide again, his progress slower now.

  Thirty feet to the shed, he estimated.

  Down below he saw something moving, dark against the snow.

  Ava.

  The breath whooshed out of him.

  She’d not been hurt in her fall.

  The knowledge gave him a surge of new energy as he worked his way across another rough patch on the cable.

  In another fifteen feet he’d be through the worst of it.

  His nerves relaxed just for a moment.

  Until he heard the sound of tearing fabric.

  NINETEEN

  He was crazy. Or she was hallucinating. She wiped her eyes, but Luca was still there, sliding down the cable toward the shed, using his jacket as a harness. He’d stopped to wriggle past several sticking points along the wire and each time, her heart convulsed. The cable quivered violently now, the gondola shuddering, and Luca made tedious progress toward the shed.

  She texted Stephanie, not really thinking there was much Luca’s sister could do save what Ava was doing, standing, heart pounding, praying. Could Luca actually make it back to the shed with a flimsy improvised harness? Her emotions alternated between terror and exhilaration as he moved along the cable.

  He stopped suddenly, and Ava’s heart thumped. Legs flailing, Luca appeared to be fighting against some problem she could not identify. One of his hands came loose and he hung by one fist to the cable.

  “Luca,” she screamed.

  He didn’t answer, but his jacket fluttered down through the air in tatters.

  Of course the wire had cut through it.

  She looked upslope. The cable would not hold much longer, and Luca was still thirty feet or so in the air. In the distance she saw Stephanie appear over the top of the hill, Tate and Mack Dog at her heels. She stopped suddenly, and Ava knew that she saw immediately the danger her brother was in.

  She took off toward them at a run, the heavy snow impeding her progress.

  Ava turned again to Luca.

  “It’s going to break, Luca,” she screamed.

  He dropped down lower, now suspended from both hands and she almost screamed again. Then he began hand over hand to make his way down the cable toward the shed, as if he was a kid on the playground monkey bars.

  He moved and she kept pace below as he closed the gap between them.

  The blood roared loudly in her ears but not loud enough to drown out the horrendous snap of the cable giving way. The sound went through her like a gunshot as the gondola plummeted to the ground and Luca began to free fall.

  Ava had heard people say that accidents sometimes unrolled in slow motion to the horrified observer. She now understood what they meant. Luca hung there motionless for a long moment until the recoil of the wire made him jerk like a helpless rag doll. He fell along with the cable until he was snapped free and flung to the ground, his body somersaulting over and over until he disappeared into the snow some distance away. Mercifully, he was tossed clear from the wreckage of the gondola car which was now imprisoned in a deep crater of snow.

  She ran.

  It was rough going in the freshly fallen snow and she repeatedly broke through the crust of snow before hauling herself up again. She saw no sign of Luca.

  Stephanie caught up, panting. “Where is he?”

  Tate was still a ways off, his weak leg slowing him down. Mack Dog, however, crossed the snow easily, leaping when the surface was too soft and scrambling through the troughs Stephanie had made in her approach.

  The dog stiffened at some sound they could not hear and made his ungainly way over to the mountain of snow that had collected along the supports for the shed. Ava could see now that the snow was disturbed, plowed into a deep trough as if a mole had made its way through the thick blanket.

  Stephanie and Ava flailed around in Mack Dog’s wake, calling Luca’s name.

  They followed after the excited barking until Stephanie yelled out.

  “Here. He’s here.”

  She had a grip on the hem of his jeans. Ava could see nothing else of Luca due to his shroud of snow. She felt around for his other ankle and they began to pull him out of the snowbank.

  “Try not to twist his body,” Stephanie said.

  Ava didn’t remind her she’d had enough ski patrol experience to know not to move a patient unnecessarily. They had no choice but to free him from the freezing shroud.

  His body easily slid away from the burrow, and they were able to get him onto a relatively solid patch of snow. Stephanie feverishly brushed the icy piles away, and Ava knelt with trembling fingers to check for a pulse.

  “Called for an ambulance,” Tate said as he arrived. “They’ve got to get a plow through first. Chopper’s out on another call.”

  Ava’s fingers still sought the steady beat on Luca’s throat. As far as she could see, there was no trauma to his head under which Tate was gingerly sliding his jacket to separate Luca’s torso from the freezing ground.

  Please, please, please.

  She was afraid to believe there could be another outcome different than the terrible stillness that seemed to fall over her life when her mother died.

  People died.

  No, people were taken.

  Violently.

  Unexpectedly.

  Tragically.

  She’d learned the angry truth of that and tutored her heart in t
he lesson.

  Yet, she still found herself straining to feel that precious beat, her spirit seized with some illogical hope that she could not explain. In that moment, she knew that if Luca was lost, her heart would be, too.

  She pressed the pads of her fingers against his windpipe and traced them up to the hollow of his throat.

  Stephanie was leaning over her now, her lips trembling.

  And Ava felt a pulse.

  “He’s alive,” she said, putting her cheek to his mouth to confirm he was still breathing.

  Ava began checking his extremities for obvious injuries. He groaned when she touched his shoulder. She’d never been more thrilled at a sound before.

  “Ambulance is stuck at the bottom of the mountain, waiting for a snowplow,” Tate said, one hand over his phone. “They’ll reroute the chopper as soon as they can.”

  Ava almost wailed aloud. “He can’t wait. We’ve got to get him off the snow.”

  The revving of an engine made them all turn. A big bear of a man roared up on a snowmobile.

  “Bully,” Ava cried, “how did you get up here?”

  He climbed off. “I was out for a spin. Thought I’d check in because I hadn’t heard from you for a couple of days. Got here just in time to see the gondola come down. What were you doing on that death trap anyway?”

  “Never mind that now,” Stephanie said. “I saw a toboggan in the garage. You can take him down the road to meet the ambulance.”

  “Sure,” Bully said. “Glad to help.”

  By the time Stephanie and Tate retrieved the toboggan, Sue and Goren arrived, panting. Ava filled them in.

  “Is he badly hurt?” Sue asked, eyes huge.

  “I don’t know,” Ava answered.

  Goren shook his head. “I can’t wait to get off this mountain.”

  They attached the toboggan to the snowmobile and loaded Luca aboard as carefully as possible. Stephanie climbed on behind Bully. “Meet me at the hospital as soon as you can,” she said before they took off.

  Ava did not think of it until a moment later.

  The snowmobile tracks that she and Luca had seen earlier before they’d ascended to the shed. Bully said he had arrived only just in time to see Luca fall, but maybe he was lying.

  * * *

  Luca opened his eyes to see a blurry face staring at him. At first he thought he was dreaming, but the face steadied and drew clearer.

  Ava peered at him, Stephanie and Tate pressed in close behind her. He jerked causing them all to jump, wincing as a lancing pain cut through his shoulder.

  Ava smiled widely.

  “What are you grinning for?” he demanded. “My shoulder is killing me.”

  “Because, aside from a concussion and a dislocated shoulder which the doctor fixed,” Stephanie cut in, “you are perfectly fine.”

  He blinked as the memory came back. The cable failing. His spectacular plummet to earth after his jacket ripped to shreds. “Of course I’m fine. I had an excellent escape plan.”

  Ava laughed loud and long. He would have taken offense if he hadn’t enjoyed the sound so much.

  “How did I get here?”

  Ava explained about Bully. Her furrowed brow made him further question her.

  “I’m going to go to the trailer park and talk to him,” she said. “To find out what he was really doing there.”

  Luca nodded and edged to the side of the bed. “I’ll go, too.”

  “Oh, no,” Ava and Stephanie said in unison.

  “You’re not going anywhere until tomorrow morning,” Stephanie finished. “Doctor’s orders.”

  He eyed both women. “There is no way I’m staying overnight.” So maybe his head was pounding like someone was beating his skull with a mallet, but he was not going to be imprisoned in a hospital.

  Stephanie put a hand on his chest. “You can’t leave until the doctor releases you,” she repeated.

  “That’s not how it works. This is a hospital, not a jail.” He tried to scoot off the bed again.

  Stephanie folded her arms across her chest. “It is if you’re in restraints. They do that if they think you might be a danger to yourself, you know, pending a psychological workup.”

  He stared. “And who exactly is going to put me in restraints?”

  She eyed him placidly. “Dad donated the money for the trauma unit. One phone call and I’m sure I could have you held here for an evaluation. You are just crazy enough to do yourself bodily harm.”

  “You wouldn’t do that,” he rasped.

  “Don’t try me.” Stephanie settled gracefully in the chair. “We’re both staying here until you get a clean bill of health. There are still a few more tests that haven’t come back.”

  Luca shot an exasperated look at Tate. “Are you going to let your wife get away with this?”

  Tate shrugged. “She doesn’t need my permission to keep you from doing something dumb.”

  Luca fumed, his mood made even fouler by the sparking pain in his shoulder. “This is unbelievable.”

  Even though he protested loudly and vigorously to everyone within earshot, it did no good. The best he could do was make Ava promise not to go speak to Bully until he was released.

  “The police are waiting to talk to me and then I have to go finalize arrangements for my uncle’s memorial service anyway,” she said, a wave of sadness passing across her face that momentarily derailed his ire.

  She came to the edge of the bed and pressed a kiss to his forehead, her lips soft and gentle. He could not stop himself from tipping his face up, his mouth in search of hers, but she had moved away.

  “That was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen, and I’m glad you’re okay,” she said before she left.

  Then she was gone.

  For a second, his heart felt light, dancing above the pain that rolled through his body.

  Sergeant Towers came in, expression unruffled as ever, listening attentively as Luca gave his account. “So you figure the person who pushed you was Sue, Harold or Goren?”

  “Or Bully,” Luca added.

  Towers did not seem surprised by the addition to the list. “I’ve known Sue and Harold a long time. Bully, too.”

  “And you think they wouldn’t have done such a thing.”

  His mouth quirked at the corner. “I’ve learned in this job that even normal, average people can do the unthinkable if they believe they have a good reason.” He paused. “Passions can run high.”

  Stephanie stood. “What kind of passions?”

  “The usual. Money, power, love.”

  “Was Sue still in love with Paul?”

  The officer frowned. “Not Paul.”

  Luca heard the slight hesitation in his voice. “Who, then?”

  Towers zipped his jacket. “If you want to know all the dirt, you’ll have to rake it up yourself. I’m not a gossip columnist. Have a nice afternoon.” The door closed softly behind him.

  Luca shifted, causing his shoulder to throb. “What do you make of that?”

  “I don’t know, but maybe we better take a closer look at Sue Agnoti,” she said. “For now,” Stephanie said, opening the laptop Tate brought from the lodge after the plow cleared the road, “because we’re going to be here a while, we might as well solve this treasure mystery, don’t you think?”

  As much as he wanted to turn his back on his infuriating sister, he tried to put it behind him. “What do you hear from Victor?”

  “Glad you asked,” she said. “He said to tell you that he’s always suspected you’re certifiably insane.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Luca grumped. “What about the printing press business?”

  “Victor is a wealth of information, as he promised. He credits the invention of the first real successful press t
o the German Johannes Gutenberg around 1440. The man was actually a goldsmith, ironically, and he created an alloy of lead, tin and antinomy that was durable enough to be used in the press. The separate pieces of type could be reused and rearranged.”

  Luca wished his head would stop pounding long enough for him to think it through. “Maybe Paul got hold of a part of the press, some of the original movable type. It would be worth a fortune. That would explain the size of the box and the book about printing presses.”

  “I’ll do a search and see if I can figure out what something like that would cost.”

  “Could be he got his hands on an old book, one of Gutenberg’s early efforts.”

  “I thought we were looking for the Sunset Star,” Tate put in. “What does this all have to do with a pearl?”

  Luca closed his eyes and pictured the verse from Matthew and half mumbled to himself, “One pearl of great price.” He looked up to find Tate and Stephanie staring at him. “Maybe Paul found that pearl.”

  “Only it isn’t a pearl at all,” Stephanie finished.

  “And someone else is after it.” Luca thought of Ava. She would not be safe until they found the treasure.

  And he had to make sure they found it before Paul’s killer did.

  TWENTY

  Ava felt a twinge of guilt after bumming a ride off a local and heading to Peak Season late that afternoon. She’d promised Luca, but she could not keep her word. Her heart still echoed with the terror of seeing him hanging on the cable, awakening feelings she could not tolerate. The twin urges to both run from Whisper Mountain and the ludicrous hope that she might find a treasure that would save her family home warred inside her, too.

  She could make sense of none of it except the knowledge that she needed to immediately put an end to the spiraling chaos, before anyone else got hurt.

  Her fingers curled into tight fists at the memory of frantically searching for a pulse on Luca’s cold, still body. She would not allow anyone else to die on Whisper Mountain, especially Luca.