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Frost Bite

A Chase Adams FBI Thriller

Book 15

Patrick Logan

Frost Bite

Prologue

March 14th, 1993

Brackenridge Ski Resort, Denver, Colorado

The biting cold doesn’t slow the man down.

It never does.

He’s a product of the ice and snow. Born in it.

Thrives in it.

The girl is a different story. She barely made it an hour in the blizzard before her lips turned blue. At least when the frostbite numbed her fingers and toes, she stopped complaining.

He hated her whining. That incessant whine.

Please, I just want to see my mommy. Please, it’s soooo cold. Please, please.

Please.

He took a step back and observed his handiwork. It wasn’t… bad.

It wasn’t his best, either.

The problem was that it was too cold. Not for him, but for the snow. The weather had taken a turn over the past few days and as much as he wanted to wait for it to warm up, the urge to kill had grown strong.

It had been nearly a year since his last murder.

Too long.

Far too long.

The warmer weather would have moistened the snow, making his job significantly more manageable.

Still, he persevered.

The man cocked his head.

The bottom snowball had been the most difficult and he’d been forced to melt snow with a blowtorch to render it slushy enough to roll.

The second had been less troublesome.

Like all of his victims, he stood them upright, a task that he’d learned long ago was far easier the more frozen their little bodies became. He encased the girl’s lower half in the first snowball, packing it hard against both her snowsuit and the icy ground to ensure a solid base.

The middle section was only slightly smaller than the bottom but required significantly less snow to complete. He pulled her arms out of the ball, spread them wide. They stayed that way and would stay that way, forever.

Next, the man packed snow directly on the girl’s head, pressing it against her woolen cap, against her hood.

This proved difficult as the coat was made of some sort of synthetic material designed to retard accumulation.

But even this was only a minor inconvenience. He was experienced, proficient.

In the end, the only exposed flesh was the girl’s face, her small features frozen solid. Ice crystals had built up on her eyelashes and eyebrows, giving her an almost ethereal appearance.

Her eyes had been brown, but they soon turned gray, first with the cold, then in death.

With his first kill, this had surprised him.

The man liked to think that the way the color drained from their features was a reflection of their soul leaving their body. Sucked out by the cold.

By him.

The man stared at the girl’s face for a few more moments, imprinting her frozen expression of terror on his memory.

Is that what she looks like now, wherever she is? Is that what they all look like?

He would’ve stayed there for longer, much longer, but they were waiting for him.

The man sighed, his warm breath visible in front of him.

“Goodbye, my little snowman,” he whispered. “I’ll see you again next year.”

And the year after that.

And the year after that…

PART I – The Wedding

Chapter 1

In many ways, second weddings are better than the first. For one, the bride and groom tended to be more mature. They weren’t drowning in lust, unable to appreciate the nuances and significance of the day. The only downside was that the fiery ardor typical of newlyweds was often absent.

This wasn’t the case for Tate Abernathy.

He’d managed to catch a glimpse of Chase in her ‘wedding dress’. Foregoing the typical white gown, she’d chosen for a short, strapless, navy dress—one of just a few of the traditions they’d opted out of.

And she was absolutely stunning.

Tate had wanted to go to her then, hold her, kiss her, do other more nefarious things, but she’d just smiled and ushered him away.

Told him to get his ass ready.

Tate stared at himself in the mirror as he adjusted his tie. He wasn’t as good-looking as Chase, not even close, but was by no means ugly, and the exercise that his wife-to-be had forced him to partake in over the past few years had drastically improved his appearance. He would never have what his daughter referred to as an Instagram body, but he was no longer flabby and out of shape. Some of the dark circles around his eyes had lightened and what had once been loose skin beneath his chin had tightened significantly.

His flesh lacked the springiness of youth, but it was no longer hanging off his body.

Still, Tate’s job, stressful as it was, made it so that he would never have a vibrant appearance. He did the best with what he had—what more could one ask for?

Tate ran a hand through his hair and then cringed at the result. He was desperately trying to smooth it back into place when he heard the door open behind him. In the mirror, he caught Rachel’s reflection as she entered. She, too, looked beautiful. Looked a lot like her mother, in fact. Unlike him, her dark locks were expertly coiffed so that they curled and hung in great loops in front of her shoulders. She was wearing a dark spaghetti-strap dress that had a slight sheen to it.

Tate found himself smiling without even thinking about it. But then he noticed his daughter’s expression and his grin faded.

“Honey? What’s wrong?”

Rachel lowered her eyes and opened her mouth as if to speak, but then thought better of it. Her cheeks were slack, her bare shoulders rolled forward. Tate walked over to her, hugged her close.

She was shuddering slightly.

“Rachel? What’s wrong?”

“I miss mom,” the girl said, her voice hitching.

The comment surprised Tate.

Rachel didn’t talk much about Robin—neither of them did. In a way, this was similar to Chase’s silence when it came to her sister. True, Robin Levine—after their divorce had been finalized, she’s dropped the Abernathy and now went by her maiden name—was still alive, while the elder Georgina Adams was not. Robin was, however, out of the picture. Being incarcerated had a way of rendering true the old adage ‘out of sight, out of mind’.

“I miss her, too,” Tate said. His initial motivation for the comment was to comfort his daughter, but as soon as the words left his mouth, Tate realized that they were true.

He missed Robin.

Before the accident, his relationship with his wife had been healthy enough. Over the nearly twenty years that they’d been together, things hadn’t always been this way. Most of their issues stemmed from Tate’s job. Like almost all people in law enforcement, Tate had done his best to keep the horrors that he witnessed on a near-daily basis out of his personal life.

Shielded Robin from them.

But complete separation was next to impossible.

The worst of it had been when he’d been hunting The Sandman. Tate had been torn between two worlds, a young FBI agent with a toddler at home, Robin suffering from delayed postpartum depression. And his partner Constantine Striker… Tate spent a lot of his working hours babysitting the man, trying to ensure that he didn’t completely go off the rails.

Whether or not he’d succeeded—likely not—was irrelevant; the strain on his and Robin’s relationship had been considerable.

The only way they’d managed to get through it had been to put physical space between himself and Con and the State of California.

Did Tate feel guilty about getting married to Chase?

He did.

He often wondered if he would feel the same if Robin’s incarceration had been her fault and not because she was just covering for Rachel.

Perhaps.

Either way, the fact that he was free, living his life, getting remarried of all things and forming a blended family, while his ex-wife was rotting away in a jail cell, ate at him. But what he felt for Chase couldn’t be denied. Things were different with her, too, different than even how it had been with Robin at the very beginning.

For one, they were both in the FBI, which meant they had a level of understanding that Tate had never experienced with Robin. Two, Chase was… unique. He loved Robin, still did, but what he had with Chase was something special.

She was special.

Tate and Robin had attended the same high school in California in a small suburban town called Mill Valley. The high school catered to just over fourteen hundred students, and Tate had been two years above Robin. He’d seen her around enough to recognize her, but they never really spoke.

It wasn’t until after he’d graduated when Tate turned 21 and entered the bar scene did they have their first encounter.

Tate knew Robin was underage when he spotted her during his break from a degree in Psychology from Mills College.

Already a handful of pints deep, Tate approached her and joked that he was going to tell the bouncer that she had a fake ID. She’d flirted, told him that if he did that, it would be his loss.

They hung out that night, consuming God only knew how many drinks, but nothing happened.

Knowing only her first name, Tate, who was nursing a wicked hangover, had gone back to the bar the following night in the hopes of running into her again. Robin must have had the same idea because there she was.

Nearly dead and drinking nothing but soda water, but present.

Their relationship had blossomed. Not long after, they’d gotten married.

And they’d been happy.

If the accident had never occurred, Tate imagined that his life would be very different.

Not better, not worse, just different.

Guilt was an emotion that he didn’t usually have much time for, but every once in a while, it reared its ugly head.

Today, however, was supposed to be a happy day.

Guilt was supposed to know its place and remain in hiding.

“Rach, I spoke to your mom,” Tate said at last, easing back from his daughter and raising her chin with his thumb. “She’s okay with this, you know.”

Rachel had tears in her eyes as she nodded.

“I know.”

It was true; Tate had asked his ex-wife permission to date Chase, in a roundabout way, which, in retrospect, hadn’t been necessary. Robin had known that he’d been in love just by looking at his face. That’s what being together for twenty-odd years did.

And then, when Chase had finally decided to surprise him with an actual wedding date and put an end to years of procrastination, Tate had again gone to Robin.

She’d smiled, said she was happy for him.

It was unfair, but no one promised that life would be fair.

“Don’t cry, sweetie, you’ll ruin your makeup.”

Rachel grinned. Once more, Tate took a step back to observe his daughter. He recalled how she’d looked while he was hunting The Sandman with Con.

Big eyes, bigger smile.

Now she was a full-grown woman. It was clichéd, but they really did grow up way faster than anyone expected.

When Rachel didn’t say anything, Tate added, “Look, if you don’t want me to go through this, I won’t.” The words hurt, but he stuck by them. He loved Chase, loved Georgina, but his priority was, and always would be, Rachel.

“No,” she said. And then she beamed. It was no longer that big goofy grin that she had had as a toddler, but a more mature look. And it reminded him a lot of Robin.

Tate felt tears welling in his own eyes and he forced them away.

“I just want you to be happy.”

She sounded like Robin, too. Same voice, same words.

Tate leaned down and kissed Rachel on the forehead.

“I am happy, Rachel. I’m very happy. Now, go get ready. We don’t have much time. And Chase will go absolutely apoplectic if either of us are late.”

Chapter 2

Another major difference with second weddings is that you could do away with most of the first wedding bullshit.

Chase’s first wedding had been very traditional. Her father had walked her down the aisle to the tune of typical wedding music played. A priest read a sermon.

Her first dance had been with her father, her second with Brad’s dad.

They’d stayed up late, drank too much, Chase had pressed cake into her husband’s face.

Laughed.

Cried.

Had sloppy sex. Woke up with a headache for the first time next to the man she now called her husband.

The guest list had been mixed. Half friends of hers and Brad’s, half their parents’, who had collectively footed the bill. Chase knew only a handful of these people, and even then, only in passing.

Today was different.

For one, her parents weren’t in attendance. Her father was dead, and her mother was fully demented. Both of Tate’s parents were present, but they were advanced in their years and his father was in no shape to dance.

Then there was Georgina and Rachel.

There were no kids at that first wedding.

As for friends, well, not a single person from her first time around was in attendance today. This didn’t bother Chase as it might have others. The truth was that none of those friends stuck around. None of them remained by her side when her father had taken his own life or when her mother had gotten ill.

Or when she finally found Georgina.

Chase knew full well that this was as much her own fault as theirs. She was terrible at maintaining relationships. There was also the fact that bad things seemed to happen to people who got too close to her.

Still, despite everything, Chase was a tad nervous.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

She was standing alone behind the large wooden doors of the hall that she and Tate had rented for the occasion.

Chase raised her lids and peered through the glass insert. If it had been completely up to her, she would’ve chosen a town hall wedding and a small party afterward.

Tate would’ve been okay with that too, she knew.

But Georgina and Rachel wouldn’t even hear of it. So, she humored them, allowed the girls to plan almost everything.

She only vetoed a priest and a church.

But now, as Chase looked at the rows of chairs, recognizing the backs of the guests’ heads that were trained on the small stage, she felt a wave of nostalgia.

None of her friends from the first wedding were there, but some of her true friends had shown up today.

Director Hampton was seated near the back by himself. Stu Barnes, sporting a suit that was probably more expensive than the entire wedding, was also there. Chase spotted Floyd sitting next to Stitts, their presence bringing a smile to her colored lips.

Two others sat on her side of the aisle—a tradition that Georgina had insisted they honor—and it took her a moment to place them.

The first was a thin man with a shaved head and ratty blond goatee. The second was black, broad-shouldered, his suit struggling to contain his burly muscles.

Screech and Leroy, two members of the now-defunct PI firm DSLH Investigations. As much as Chase was pleased to see them, the fact that the two other members were missing caused her face to drop.

Drake and Hanna.

The last she’d heard of Hanna, the woman was on the lam following the death of The Straw Man killer who turned his victims into human skin suits.

As for Drake?

A pang of guilt tore through her insides.

Drake had been incarcerated, something to do with importing heroin into the United States.

Chase had worked with Drake years ago—Shit, was it really years?—back in New York City when they’d both been detectives. Their lives had diverged considerably since that time, with Drake going into private investigating after being kicked out of the NYPD, and Chase joining the FBI.

They’d collaborated on several cases over the intervening years, and each time, it felt as if their relationship hadn’t skipped a beat. It was always contentious, but every relationship Chase had was contentious. It was part of the package, take it or leave it.

Damien Drake was a lot of things, least of all an alcoholic. He was rash, he was impulsive, and he was a loose cannon.

Chase shook her head, thinking that this was an apt description of herself as well.

But he was loyal. Importing drugs after spending the majority of his career hunting and eventually bringing down the mayor of New York for the very same thing?

Impossible.

Which meant that Drake had taken the fall for someone. A fall that had landed him in prison for four years.

How long ago had that been? Three years? Five? She couldn’t remember.

Chase had been so wrapped up in her own problems that she hadn’t once reached out to the man she’d called a friend.

The twisting in her guts became a knot as she attempted to assuage her guilt by observing the rest of the guests.

Two notable absences were Brad and Felix. Tate had insisted that she invite them, and Chase had reluctantly agreed.

They couldn’t make it but sent their best. Chase was relieved. The last thing she wanted was to put her son in danger… again.

The other side of the room was occupied by Tate’s friends and family. She noted the two gray-haired people at the front, his parents, their chins lifted. She spotted a man with stark black hair, seated next to a woman she didn’t recognize.

There were also a handful of college buddies and colleagues Tate had worked with over the years.

All in all, a small crowd.

Just the way Chase wanted it.

Her eyes naturally drifted from the people seated in their seats to the stage itself.

Flanking her husband-to-be were their two girls.

To the left, Rachel Abernathy.

Chase knew firsthand what time could do a person, how it could change you, usually for the worse.

This wasn’t the case with Rachel.

She was very different now than when they’d first met. Then, she’d been a girl confined to a wheelchair, her depression exacerbated by the fact that her night terrors, brought on by the accident, kept her up most nights. Tate would comfort her, sit in a chair, and wait until the morning.

Today, Rachel was standing tall and proud, beautiful in a shimmering dress. She no longer required her support poles let alone a wheelchair.

And then there was Georgina. Georgina Adams, a spitting image of Chase’s late sister of the same name. Her bright orange hair had been cut a little on the shorter side, which made it wavy.

She, too, was a woman now. Although only barely fifteen, Georgina was fully developed. She wore a classy flower print dress that came down to just above her ankles, and her feet had been jammed into high heels that Chase had reluctantly paid a couple hundred dollars for.

Seeing Georgina now made Chase’s heart sink.

Her sister hadn’t attended her first wedding for obvious reasons.

Now, she wasn’t here because she was dead.

Chase closed her eyes again.

Georgina, I miss you. I fucking miss you.

A series of memories flashed in her mind. First of her sister as Riley in the white dress.

Then of Tim Jalston, blood everywhere, his throat slit by Chase’s hand.

Then Brian.

The brothers had indoctrinated Georgina and others, turning them into their wives before impregnating them.

A horrible, false existence.

But at least it was an existence.

One that Chase had stolen from her sister.

If it hadn’t been for her, Georgina would still be alive.

Chase looked down, taking in her navy dress.

She suddenly felt stupid in it.

I hate this, Chase thought. I really hate this.

Anger bubbled up inside her then, anger that she’d been so good at keeping at bay for so long.

But anger was like a jilted lover. It inevitably came back into your life and no matter how many times it abused you in the past, you fell into its same rhythm, its same destructive pattern.

“Fuck this,” she said out loud.

Chase spun and hurried away from the doors, kicking off her high-heeled shoes—white, not nearly as expensive as Georgina’s but equally as nice—as she headed for the exit.

She was reaching for the exit when the door unexpectedly opened.

A man blocked her path and, at first, Chase, vision watery and head down, didn’t look at him. She just gestured for him to move out of the way so she could leave.

The man didn’t move. Chase shifted to one side and now he deliberately blocked her path.

Fuming, Chase finally raised her head. She instantly recognized him.

“Chase? I’m sorry I’m late. Had a couple of patients who—what’s wrong?”

Chase forced back tears.

“I don’t think I can do this.”

She expected Dr. Matteo to utter his stupid mantra about living in the moment, in the present, but he didn’t. Dr. Matteo just looked at her through his round spectacles.

He didn’t have to say anything because everything had already been said.

Since the events at the Williamsburg Collegiate Institute and the hospital, Chase had been attending regular sessions with her niece and the psychiatrist.

This had been at Georgina’s behest but, quite frankly, they’d been helpful for Chase, too. While the focus was primarily on the young girl, they broached many subjects during these sessions, and as it got closer to the wedding date, this frequently became a topic of interest.

Dr. Matteo tried his best to never take a firm stance on anything, just resigned himself to asking annoying questions that forced you to reach a conclusion on your own.

And the conclusion that Chase had reached in regard to her wedding was that it was, indeed, something she wanted.

“I don’t deserve this,” she said flatly.

“Chase, I know you feel that—”

Chase hadn’t been talking to Dr. Matteo—she’d just been musing aloud.

“I don’t deserve this,” she repeated with more conviction. “But they do.” They, meaning Tate and Rachel and Georgina. “Fuck it.”

Barefooted, Chase returned to the wedding hall and opened the door.

The moment she did, a piano began to play.

Chapter 3

Tate leaned down and kissed Chase on the mouth. It was difficult to do, considering how big his smile was. Chase kissed him back, reserved at first. But Tate ran his hand through her hair and held this pose for a good thirty seconds. About halfway through, Chase reciprocated his fervor.

Tate only let go of the liplock after the crowd started hollering and clapping.

“Congrats dad,” Rachel said.

Georgina whispered something in Chase’s ear, which Tate suspected was something along the same lines.

All four of them linked hands and they performed a cheesy bow.

“All right, enough of this,” Tate said, still grinning. “Let’s go get drunk.”

The crowd remained on their feet and continued to clap as Tate and Chase left first, followed by a giggling Rachel and Georgina.

They’d chosen to use the large conference room in the building for the wedding and a smaller one for the reception, thinking that this would force people to actually interact while enjoying something to eat and drink. They were on their way to the second room when Tate suddenly noticed something.

“What the hell happened to your shoes?”

Chase shrugged.

“They hurt my feet.”

A lie, but so be it.

Chase had her reasons, she always did.

As they walked, he saw her high heels lying in the middle of the hallway. He pointed them out, but Chase shrugged again and kept on going.

One of the traditions that thankfully Georgina and Rachel had decided to forgo was the whole wedding reception entrance where everyone did a stupid dance while the guests cheered and pretended that it wasn’t incredibly awkward.

Instead, the guests were instructed to follow them to the room. Tate and Chase went directly to the bar and grabbed themselves a drink.

Moments later, the guests filed in, some of them heading to the buffet off to the right, while others joined them at the bar.

Soon, Tate found himself separated from his wife. As he listened to people tell him how wonderful the ceremony was, he found himself searching the crowd for Chase.

He spotted her engaged with Director Hampton and he couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

She was beautiful. So beautiful.

“Tate,” a man said as he approached.

He recognized the voice, and this familiarity was enough to finally get him to look away from Chase.

The man was not alone; at his side was a young woman with shoulder-length brown hair.

“I just wanted to say congrats,” FBI Agent Constantine Striker said. He held out his hand, and for a split second, Tate flashed back to all those years ago, when he, despite being older than Con by a number of years, was still considered the junior agent.

He thought about their first case together, about hunting a killer targeting men who used an online dating service to cheat on their wives. The media dubbed him the Ashley Madison killer.

And then there was The Sandman.

There had been a time when Tate envisioned working with Con indefinitely. Becoming partners, their friendship growing into something that was both personal and professional.

But things had gone south fast.

Instead of grabbing Con’s hand, Tate embraced the man. There was an awkward two seconds before Con hugged him back.

He reeked of cigarettes.

The woman beside Con was pretty, with hair reminiscent of Chase’s before she’d ingested Cerebrum. She was short, maybe a few inches taller than Chase’s 5’5 frame.

And young.

Twenty-five, he guessed.

“This is Agent Alex Frost,” Con said.

Tate found himself staring awkwardly at Alex and blushed.

“It’s nice to meet you, Tate,” the woman said in a sweet voice. She held out her hand and Tate shook it.

“Alex is my new partner.”

Tate’s eyes widened a little. Con had a reputation with partners that preceded him.

And it wasn’t a good one.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Alex said.

And I’ve heard nothing about you, Tate thought.

“I—”

Con cut him off.

“We can’t stay long, just wanted to stop in and say congratulations.”

“You have a case?”

Con nodded and Tate urged him to elaborate.

“Brutal case,” he continued. “Bunch of dead prostitutes. Bludgeoned to death.”

“Con…” Alex said. “It’s his wedding. He doesn’t want to hear this.”

“Sorry.”

This interaction surprised Tate. Their last few weeks together before locating The Sandman had been like walking on eggshells. If Tate had so much as suggested that Con take it easy, the man exploded at him.

“I get it, but before you go, you have to meet Chase.”

Con grew uncomfortable and Alex gave him a nudge.

Another oddity.

“C’mon.”

Tate weaved through the guests and located Chase speaking to two men, one white with a shaved head, the other black, also with a shaved head.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Tate said, sidling up to his new wife. “You know Con, right?”

Chase turned.

“Yeah. Thanks for coming.”

“Congratulations,” Con said.

No embrace or handshake this time.

Just a nod.

“Thanks.”

“This is my partner, Alex Frost.”

Seeing the two women side by side was like looking into the past. The similarities between them were uncanny.

Alex appeared bashful when she said, “I’m so excited to finally meet you.”

This, Tate knew, had little if anything to do with something that Con might have told his partner about Chase in passing.

It would be in poor taste to describe Chase Adams as being famous, but you couldn’t overlook the fact that dying and coming back from the dead on multiple occasions was exceedingly rare.

Perhaps rarer still was taking down nearly a dozen sadistic killers over the course of a short career.

“How long have you been with the Bureau?” Chase asked. If she noticed the younger version of herself fawning over her, it didn’t show on her face.

“Not long. Still a rookie, I guess,” Alex said sheepishly.

“Well, good luck to you. Maybe one day we’ll collaborate.”

Alex beamed.

“I really hope so.”

“Listen,” Con interrupted, “I hate to do this, but we have to run.”

“I get it. Thanks for coming.”

Con nodded at Tate, then he and Alex walked off.

I hope he’s better to her than he was the me, Tate thought, then Chase grabbed his arm and spun him around.

“You remember Leroy and Screech?”

“Of course. What’s up, fellas?”

He shook Screech’s hand first, nearly crushing the man’s narrow fingers. The situation was reversed when he grabbed Leroy’s massive mitt.

“Congrats to both of you,” Screech said. “This is a great party.”

“It would be better if I had a drink in my hand,” Tate remarked.

Chase, rolling her eyes, said, “Oh, allow me to fetch you one, ye patriarch.”

Tate smiled.

“What you guys up to now?” he asked while he waited for Chase to return.

“I run my own small PI firm,” Screech said with a hint of pride.

“Good for you. If we’re ever in New York, I’ll be sure to look you up.” He turned to Leroy next. “What about you?”

“About halfway through a PhD in chemistry. I also run a boxing gym.”

Tate reached out and squeezed one of the man’s boulder-like shoulder.

“Well, whatever you’re doing, it looks like it’s working. Enjoy the party guys.”

Chase appeared at his side, drink in hand. He took it and sipped.

Then Tate smacked his lips.

“Shit, that’s good stuff. Let me guess, Stu’s contribution?”

“One of many.”

She didn’t need to remind him that the man had not only helped pay for the venue but had also footed the bill for the entire honeymoon, including their flights. He’d even offered to charter a private jet for them, but they’d politely declined.

That was too much.

“Where is the man, anyway?”

“He’s around.”

Tate took another drink of scotch, a bigger one this time.

“Hey, take it easy on that.”

Tate raised an eyebrow.

“It’s my wedding, I can drink as much as I want to,” he joked.

“Just as long as you can perform later.”

Tate not so subtly looked Chase up and down.

“Oh, that won’t be a problem.”

Chase laughed.

“And we have that early flight.”

“Nothing a blue pill and an ibuprofen won’t be able to fix.”

“Just one?”

Chase laughed, and while her mouth was still open, Tate kissed her again.

“Fine, two ibuprofen,” he said.

Yeah, I really do love Chase Adams.

Chapter 4

Even though Chase had been the one to tell Tate to monitor his consumption, she was beyond pleasantly buzzed.

This came as a surprise. She wasn’t sure how she’d feel at her wedding, but the prospect of having an incredible time was near the bottom of the list of possibilities.

But that’s exactly what happened.

She was truly enjoying herself and, consequently, drank more than she probably should have.

Perhaps more importantly, Georgina and Rachel seemed to be having a great time, as well. Chase had never been one to seek comfort in the presence of others, but she wasn’t so jaded that she couldn’t admit that it was something that everyone needed once in a while.

Chase also wasn’t much of a dancer, but this was a day of firsts, it seemed.

Ironic, considering that this was her second wedding.

She broke a sweat on the dance floor with Tate and several other guests.

After trying Stu’s expensive scotch, Chase switched to beer, which flowed right through her. She told Tate that she was going to the bathroom, to which he coyly replied, “Want me to join?”

Chase was grinning and shaking her head as she backed into the hallway.

This is what normal life is like.

There was a time when she would have considered such a thought sacrilege.

Not today.

Deep down, she knew that this feeling wouldn’t last but Chase refused to let this understanding ruin her mood.

Chase, still barefoot, was bopping her head to the music that reached her through the walls when she turned the corner leading to the bathroom.

And then she stopped cold.

A man and a woman stood before her. Unlike the other guests, these two weren’t wearing fancy outfits. The man was sporting a hooded sweatshirt, black, the woman a plain T-shirt.

The man pulled the hood off his head and tousled his short blond hair.

H was grinning wildly.

“Beckett?” Chase said, unable to believe the name that came out of her mouth.

“I go by Don Keedic now. And this is my partner, Amanda Lick.”

The woman punched Beckett in the shoulder, and he winced.

“We changed those stupid ass names, you dork,” Suzan Cuthbert said.

“I-I-I-” Chase stammered.

“You-you-you… missed us?” Beckett mocked, still grinning like a madman.

Chase just gaped.

“C’mon, give your favorite dead pathologist a hug.”

Chase was like a limp rag in the man’s arms.

“What are you doing here?” she finally managed.

Beckett’s eyes narrowed.

“I’m not killing anybody if that’s what you’re asking. But the night is young.”

Chase couldn’t tell if he was being serious.

“We’re just passing through,” Suzan said. “A little birdie told us about your wedding and thought we’d stop in and say hi.”

“What the hell! Where have you been?”

“The where is not as important as the what. I’ve adopted the ever-important role of teaching high school degens about sexual edumacation. You wouldn’t believe how many of them don’t have a safe word… in this day and age! With pegging and furries, you need a safe word. Now, for the record, my personal favorite is meatloaf.”

Chase blinked.

“Meatloaf?”

“Yeah, you know? The sing—”

“Beckett, has anyone ever told you that when something pops into your head you should probably just not say it?”

“Well, Suze, I dunno—have I ever told you that if I want your opinion on something I’ll give it to you?”

Suzan rolled her eyes.

“I’m going to hit you again.”

“Abuse!” Beckett said. “You’re still in the FBI, right, Chase? Well, you should arrest her.”

“You can hit him if you want. I’ll close my eyes,” Chase said. Now that the shock of seeing them here had worn off, she found the jokes flowed easily.

“You Lorena Bobbitt types stick together, don’t you?”

“You don’t have enough to chop off, unfortunately,” Suzan remarked.

“You weren’t saying that last night when—”

“Enough. Jesus. Look, Chase, we can’t stay long. We can’t stay at all, really.”

“It’s great to see you guys. Truly. And I hope, wherever you guys are, you’re doing well.”

“We are,” Suzan said. “We’re doing just fine.”

“You going to make your way back to New York some day?” Chase asked.

Beckett shrugged.

“Maybe, once the heat has died down.”

“It’s been a half-decade, Beckett,” Suzan reminded him. “Nobody even remembers your sorry ass.”

“Yeah right, if only I could be so lucky. Some celebs just never leave the public eye.”

“You wish.”

“It’s true! Look at Paris Hilton, one sloppy blowjob on camera and she’s still hanging around. She’s even got a new song out!”

Suzan rolled her eyes again and she grabbed Beckett’s arm.

“C’mon, let’s go. Chase, congrats.”

“Yeah, congrats,” Beckett parroted. They were walking away when Beckett suddenly turned. “You know, for some reason I thought you’d end up with Drake.”

Suzan smacked him on the back of the head.

“It’s her wedding day, you dork!”

“Right, sorry. Nice to see you, Chase.”

They left and Chase, still a little bewildered by the encounter, just stood there for a moment. Then she shuddered and resumed her path to the bathroom.

Only to nearly bump into someone else.

“Sorry,” she grumbled. When she tried to walk around the man, he moved in front and Chase was reminded of her interaction with Dr. Matteo.

And just how close she had been to running away from the wedding.

What a mistake that would have been.

“Chase?”

There was a familiarity in the way he uttered her name, but Chase didn’t recognize him right away. He was over six feet tall and thin, so thin that the suit he was wearing looked as if it belonged to someone else.

His eyes were hollow and surrounded by dark circles. It was these eyes that gave him away.

Dark, cloudy.

Brooding.

Chase staggered, thinking that it couldn’t be, that this had to be the man’s brother. He had a brother, she knew—had because the man had been dead for years.

“What—what are you doing here?” she stammered.

“I heard that you were getting married. I guess a lot has changed since we last saw each other.”

There was an odd symmetry to this conversation with the one she’d just had with Beckett and Suzan, and why wouldn’t there be?

At one time, all of them had played an important role in her life before moving on.

“But how...? Aren’t you—”

Chase blinked rapidly.

“I was,” the man said, knowing what she was going to ask before. “But I was released about six months ago.”

Chase gaped.

“What… what happened?”

The man didn’t smile, not really, but the corners of his lips did tilt upward a little.

“What happened? Well, let’s just say that I wasn’t very popular in prison.”

As if his appearance alone wasn’t sufficient to justify the claim, the man untucked his dress shirt and lifted it up.

Chase saw a nasty scar on his side, thick and corrugated, running from his hip to just below his rib cage.

“Jesus,” Chase gasped. “You okay?”

It was a stupid question, but what was she supposed to say to this shadow of a man she hadn’t seen for years?

“I survived.”

Chase was reminded of something that had run through her head while squeezing Georgina in the hallway of the WCI and again in the hospital.

We’re survivors, Georgina.

This man was undoubtedly a survivor, too.

“You know, your friends are in there,” Chase said.

The man shook his head.

“Better if they don’t see me.”

“Really? Why not pop in for just a drink?”

“Gave up the booze. My liver’s not in the best shape, as you can imagine.”

He lowered his shirt.

So many questions flashed in Chase’s mind that she had a difficult time keeping up with them. Perhaps if she had been sober, she would know what to say, what needed to be said.

“I didn’t want to ruin your day. Just had to stop in.”

Chase felt a tear fall down her cheek and she reached out and grabbed the man, hugging him tightly.

“You didn’t ruin anything. I’m so glad—”

Ever since she’d ingested the drug Cerebrum, her voodoo as Stitts called it, had been on the fritz.

It was unpredictable and often absent.

This had worried Chase, made her doubt her skills, her ability to do her job.

But it was back now.

And it returned with a vengeance.

***

Pain.

Pain crippled his right side.

This was concerning for a myriad of reasons. Primarily, that you weren’t supposed to feel pain in death.

“No,” the man groaned. “No.”

He tried to open his eyes, but his lids seemed fused together.

“No.”

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be finally over.

With a grunt, he managed to look around. He was in some sort of dank hospital room.

It was dark, like his mind.

He tried to sit up, but his hand caught on something.

A handcuff was wrapped around his wrist and looped through the metal arm of the gurney upon which he lay.

“Best not to move too much,” a male voice instructed. Judging by the white lab coat, he suspected the man was a doctor.

“My side…”

The doctor pursed his lips.

“Had to remove a big chunk of your liver, but I think you’re going to make it.”

The man closed his eyes, sighed loudly, and said, “Why? Why did you even bother?”

***

Chase let go of the man, and stepped back, gasping.

He knew a little of her voodoo, or at least she thought he did.

Either way, he would be hard-pressed not to notice that something strange had just happened.

“I’m happy for you, Chase,” the man said.

And then, with a nod, he started to walk away.

Chase watched Damien Drake go, watched him push the door open with a wince.

And then he was gone.

As before, she just stood there, barefooted, in her nontraditional wedding dress.

“There you are, Chase. I was looking all over for you.”

Tate bore a joyful expression but when he saw her, it morphed into something serious.

“What’s wrong?”

Chase swallowed hard.

They’d agreed not to lie to one another, not to keep secrets.

But this was an exception. It had to be.

Drake, Beckett, Suzan, they were all behind her.

She was moving forward.

A newlywed.

In love.

“Nothing—I’m just tired.”

Tate’s brow remained lowered as he gestured for her to return to the party.

“Come dance with me.”

“I’m all danced out—I’ll going to take a rain check. I’m really tired and we have to be up early.”

“Chase, this is our wedding. C’mon.”

“Sorry, Tate. You go have fun and I’ll see you later.”

Chase knew that her elation was destined to end. You couldn’t have the highs without the lows.

She just didn’t expect to return to earth so quickly.

And for it be so catastrophic.

Chapter 5

Tate was good and drunk when he finally made it to his hotel suite.

He’d had an amazing time. At first, the other guests were bummed to find out that Chase wasn’t returning, but this didn’t last long.

They knew Chase, knew that she needed her time and space.

As did he.

Time to digest everything, the changes in their lives that seemed unfathomable just a handful of years prior.

Tate stepped into the room and immediately started peeling off his clothes. He stepped out of his suit, intending to fold it up and put it on the chair. But it was already wrinkled, and there were a variety of liquor stains on it. In fairness, this had mostly been others’ doing.

Not that he cared.

In the end, he just wadded up his outfit and tossed it on the chair.

And then, in just his boxers, Tate approached his sleeping wife. He watched her back rise and fall beneath the comforter. The room itself was more than a little cheesy, the type that you expected to contain a heart-shaped tub—for the record, there was none—but it was big and clean.

It was also isolated from the other rooms in the hotel, which was a plus.

Taking a deep breath, his eyes still locked on Chase, Tate allowed himself a small smile.

There was something disarming about the way her gray-white hair was splayed over the pillow, the way that one of her bare shoulder blades was exposed.

While awake, Chase was one of the most guarded people he knew. This was a defense mechanism designed to distance herself from her emotions, to prevent her from being hurt and from hurting others.

It had taken Tate years to break down this wall and he was proud of finally being able to do it.

He moved forward, gently reached down, and teased the cover back.

What he saw took his breath away.

Chase was completely nude save for a white G string.

She was stunning. Her skin tanned, toned, and buttery smooth.

And that ass.

Tate struggled to remove his boxers, a difficult task considering how hard he’d become.

He got into bed and started kissing the back of her neck, her jaw. Chase, still asleep, rolled onto her back.

She’d left the air-conditioning on in the room and her skin was peppered with goosebumps. Her nipples atop her perky breasts were erect.

When Tate kissed her mouth, she opened her eyes. The strange look he’d seen in them back at the wedding venue was gone now, replaced with the same hunger that he felt coursing through his entire body.

Tate slid on top of her, opening her legs wide with his knees. She lifted her hips, rubbing her G string-covered mound against him.

He resisted the urge to peel the thin fabric back and enter her.

Instead, he moved lower, taking her nipple into his mouth, rolling his tongue over it before gently sucking.

Chase’s skin flushed and once more she rose to meet him.

Smiling, he pulled back.

“You tease,” she said, her voice dreamy.

Tate kissed her lips again, gently, barely making contact.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Chase whispered back.

Tate entered her.

***

Tate’s head was pounding.

Pounding hard, his headache resonated all the way to the back of his skull. He clucked his tongue, tasted whiskey and beer and tequila—God dammit, when did I have tequila?—and felt bile rise in his throat.

Tate opened his eyes and instantly realized that while his head was throbbing, there was an additional thudding sound coming from the hotel room door.

What time is it?

He looked at Chase, but she was still asleep.

“Dad, we’re going to be late!”

Tate kicked the covers back, smiling when he saw his naked body beneath.

“Come on, dad! Wake up. We need to get to the airport.”

There was no clock in the room, and he searched the night table for his phone. It wasn’t there—he must have left it in his pants which lay in a ball on the oversized lounge chair.

It seemed miles away and he shut his eyes again.

“Dad! Wake up!”

“I’m awake!”

Speaking proved to be a mistake.

The bile in his throat continued its upward trajectory and filled his mouth.

Somehow, Tate made it to the bathroom sink before vomiting. The liquid that spewed forth was mostly alcohol with a small dash of his soul mixed in.

“Dad…”

Tate tried to answer but puked instead. This was quickly followed by a series of painful dry heaves. When these passed, he cupped a hand below the running tap and scooped water into his mouth.

This did little to quell the foul taste.

Wrapping a towel around his waist, he moved out of the bathroom and gently shook Chase awake.

“Chase, we gotta go.”

Chase peeled the blankets back.

“Are you sure we don’t have time—”

“Wake up!”

The sound of Rachel’s voice from the hall convinced Chase to replace the covers.

“I wish.”

Tate removed the security chain and unlocked the door.

Rachel took one look at him, at the towel, his naked upper body, and made a disgusted face.

“Gross.”

“What? It was our wedding night.”

“Double gross,” Rachel said, her expression becoming even more exaggerated. “Just hurry up. We should have been at the airport an hour ago! Georgina’s already in the lobby waiting.”

“Give me ten,” Tate whined.

“You’ve got five, dad. Five minutes or we’re leaving without you guys.”

Chapter 6

The drive to the airport was God awful despite the fact that Stu had arranged for a limo to take them there. Chase felt gross, but not nearly as bad as Tate. After seeing Drake last night, she’d gone back to her room, taken a shower, and then hopped into bed.

Clearly, Tate had kept going.

Her plan, initially, had been to get up early, go to breakfast with the guests who were staying at the hotel, and thank them for the night.

Another tradition out the window.

So be it. Her friends knew her. They knew that leaving without saying goodbye was the most Chase thing she could do.

Rachel looked tired, but Georgina, whom Chase had instructed explicitly not to drink, though she was sure Rachel had fed her a glass of wine or two, appeared fresh.

But despite her mild hangover, Chase was in a good mood.

She’d had a blast, her odd rendezvous in the hallway notwithstanding.

And now they were on their way to their honeymoon… with the kids.

This had initially been Tate’s idea and Chase was all for it. Even though they all lived together, she couldn’t remember ever doing anything other as a family. They’d tossed potential locations around but when Stu had heard about the wedding, he’d insisted they allow him to foot the bill. They went through the typical, Oh, no that’s not necessary and Thank you, but you’ve done enough, but Stu had a stubborn streak in him.

He’d booked them at an all-inclusive 6-star resort in Honolulu. The flights alone, first class, set the man back 10k.

Stu had even offered to charter them a private jet but this they’d declined.

“Hey, before we go through TSA, I have to…” Tate looked green. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Chase shook her head.

“Don’t look at me like that. You went to bed at 9 o’clock,” he joked.

“Maybe you should have, too.”

Rachel and Georgina both laughed at this, laughter that only intensified when Tate broke into a sprint to the nearest restroom.

As they waited, Chase turned to her niece.

“You have a good time last night?”

Georgina nodded.

“I had the best time. I hung out with Leroy and Screech. They’re great. I still don’t understand the name though… Screech? I mean, his voice is a little scratchy but it’s not what I’d call screechy.”

“Screech was a character in the 90s TV show Saved by the Bell.”

Georgina’s lower lip jutted.

“Is it on Netflix?”

“We didn’t have Netflix back then.”

“Prime, then? Disney?”

Chase couldn’t tell if her niece was pulling her leg or not.

“No, we didn’t have streaming services.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No,” she said again. “We just watched cable.”

“Cable?” Georgina mimed sticking a finger down her throat and gagging. “That’s—”

Tate reappeared at exactly the wrong moment.

“Please, don’t do that,” he said.

This time when the girls laughed, Chase joined in.

“Anyways, they had some interesting things to say about you, Chase.” Georgina had a glint in her eye. “About back when you were a—”

“You know what? I’m not really into this whole reminiscing thing.”

“Fine, fine.”

Rachel changed the subject.

“What’s the first thing we’re going to do when we get to Hawaii?”

“Probably take a nap,” Tate said.

“Well, while you’re wasting your honeymoon, I’m going right to the beach. I hear they’re beautiful in Hawaii,” Rachel said.

They were approaching the VIP TSA section, which Stu had also arranged, when Chase noticed something about Rachel.

“Hey, where are your walking sticks?”

A giant smile appeared on her face, and she held her arms out to her sides.

“Don’t need ‘em.”

“You sure, Rachel?” Tate asked. “Just in case?”

It didn’t matter now; it was too late to head back to the hotel and Chase doubted that they sold walking aids at the airport.

“I’m sure. Look.” Rachel proudly spun in a circle.

How far she’d come.

“I still can’t believe that you—”

“Anything to declare?” The TSA Agent interrupted.

“N—” Tate began, but now Chase cut him off.

“My service weapon,” she said, placing the hard plastic case in one of the bins.

“You brought your gun?” Georgina asked, incredulous.

Chase shot a glance at her niece.

“Yeah, Chase, isn’t this supposed to be a vacation?” Tate said.

“You didn’t?”

He grew uncomfortable.

“No.” Tate scratched the back of his head. “I thought…” He let his sentence trail off and Chase addressed Georgina next.

“I never go anywhere without it.”

The TSA agent moved the gun case out of sight and inspected it. He asked for Chase’s credentials, which she promptly provided.

And then, just like that, they were through. Just in time, too, because the final boarding for their flight was announced over the intercom.

“Gate’s closing,” a black woman with extremely long fingernails informed them as they neared.

“Thanks for waiting,” Georgina said. “It’s their honeymoon.”

Chase cringed when the woman gave her a sly look.

“Is it now? Well, I hope you have a wonderful flight.”

As they made their way down the ramp, Chase heard the woman pick up the phone and begin speaking to someone on the plane.

Great. This was going to be so embarrassing.

Chapter 7

And it was.

As soon as they reached cruising altitude, the flight attendant pulled back the curtain separating the peons from the upper class, allowing the former a brief glimpse of the other half. Then she picked up the phone and announced to the entire plane that they had newlyweds among them. Chase cringed, and she tried to make herself as small as possible.

Georgina was having none of it.

Seated behind her, the girl reached through the opening and shook Chase’s shoulder.

“They’re talking about you, Chase,” she said with a laugh.

“Leave me alone,” Chase grumbled.

Tate was actually sleeping and Chase, unwilling to go through this humiliation alone, nudged her husband.

He grunted and groaned.

“Are we there yet?”

Chase shook her head.

“We’ve been on the plane for fifteen minutes, Tate,” she told him. “They’re talking about us on the PA.”

“Please give it up for the newlyweds,” the annoying flight attendant announced.

Tate made a face and Chase thought that he was gonna throw up again. He didn’t. He just crossed his arms over his chest and leaned up against the window, shutting his eyes once more.

The plane erupted into jeers, egged on by Georgina and Rachel who whistled and whooped.

“Stand up, Chase,” Georgina said, between breaks of shoving her fingers in her mouth and whistling. “Give a bow and a wave.”

This was the last thing she wanted to do, but Chase knew that Georgina would keep pestering her until she gave in.

Chase reluctantly leaned into the aisle and waved.

This reinvigorated the applause.

“Happy?” Chase said out of the corner of her mouth as she continued to wave.

Georgina pressed her face between the two seats in front of her, which pulled her cheeks back and accentuated her Cheshire smile.

“Happy.”

“Can I sleep now?”

“You can.”

Georgina leaned back and put her headphones in her ears. Then she went back to whatever she was watching on the onboard entertainment system.

Probably not Saved by the Bell.

Chase was still tired from last night. Despite going to bed early, Tate had taken it upon himself to wake her up.

And she didn’t mind one bit.

Chase closed her eyes, thought about the midnight encounter, and then fell asleep to pleasant dreams.

***

Chase was jostled awake. She was initially disoriented, but the flickering lights and the rattling of her first-class seat reminded her that she was on a plane.

“We are experiencing a little turbulence here. Please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts,” the flight attendant announced over the PA.

Chase looked over at Tate and saw that he had awoken too. He seemed a little fresher now, and she pulled out her phone to check the time.

They had been the air for just over three hours.

The plane continued to shake, and just when this died down, a massive jostle threw them into the air. Chase’s seatbelt bit into her hips and Georgina cried out.

“Please remain calm,” the flight attendant warned, but there was a lack of calmness in her own voice.

Maybe even a hint of fear.

The plane bounced again, this time even more violently, and Chase instinctively reached out and grabbed Tate’s arm, her fingers digging into his skin.

“You okay, G?” Chase asked, her eyes locked straight ahead.

“Yeah—yeah, I’m okay. I just don’t like turbulence.”

Nobody liked turbulence. Chase wasn’t a big fan of flying even though her job required her to travel across the country. It wasn’t that she thought it was particularly dangerous—she knew it was statistically far more likely to be injured in a car accident than while on a plane—it was the lack of control that set her on edge.

Even though there were many occasions while behind the wheel that you were at the mercy of drivers heading in the opposite direction, at least there was a semblance of control.

Not so while strapped into your seat, first-class or coach.

The plane continued to bounce, just enough for Tate to struggle to keep down whatever was left in his system.

The lights above flickered and then blinked out entirely. This was met with several shrieks from the people behind them.

Being in first class, Chase had a clear view of one of the flight attendants, not the one on the intercom, but a woman who was seated in her chair, safety straps tightly wrapped over her shoulders.

Her hands were clasped in her lap and her lips were moving.

Jesus Christ, is she praying?

Chase, growing more concerned now, looked out the window.

All she saw was gray. Complete and utter grayness. No clouds, no sky, no water, no nothing but ubiquitous gloom.

Her heart started to hammer in her chest, and she thought about her gun tucked beneath the empty seat in front of her.

It wasn’t like she could shoot a storm, but it made Chase feel better to know it was there.

They continued to slice through the gray void in complete darkness for several minutes.

And then things went from bad to worse.

The plane dipped hard, and Chase was thrown forward so violently that her face almost smashed into the seat in front of her. Being in first class meant that there was more space between the seats, and she narrowly missed breaking her nose on the embedded video screen.

This wasn’t true for the rest of the passengers, and she heard a couple of meaty smacks followed by shouts and curses. Weeping, as well.

Someone yelled, demanding to know what the hell was going on while someone else, a man, some asshole, shouted that they were going down. This incited fear, and people started screaming.

The plane righted momentarily, before accelerating and pitching forward.

The overhead compartments opened, and oxygen masks fell out.

“Please put on your masks,” the attendant said, no longer even trying to hide her fear now. “Ensure that you—” Her words were cut off by another massive bout of turbulence. The woman swore and Chase put the mask over her nose and mouth. She chanced a look behind her and saw Georgina doing the same.

The flight attendant returned to the intercom.

“Please secure your own masks before attending to others.”

She forgot to hang up and the growing pandemonium in the cabin echoed through the speakers.

The attendant strapped herself in next to the devout one.

“Rachel? Rachel?” Tate said as if just remembering that his daughter was on board with them. “Rachel?”

“I’m fine, dad,” the girl replied, her words distorted by the mask covering her face.

Chase was still gripping her husband’s arm, and he peeled her fingers back one by one. As he did, she saw that she’d left angry red marks behind.

The plane jolted and Chase felt herself lifting out of her seat.

Safest mode of travel or not, she knew that this wasn’t a good sign.

And then, without warning, the aircraft dropped into complete free-fall.

Chapter 8

The plane finally fell silent, and Chase remained in her seat, still breathing oxygen from the mask, her chest heaving.

Nobody on the plane said anything, which was a reprieve from the last 45 minutes that had been sheer pandemonium.

Twice, Chase was convinced that they were going to crash. She wasn’t a religious person, that had gone out the window when her father had committed suicide, but she’d come close to praying.

She’d also reached between the seats and held Georgina’s hand for as long as she could manage, only letting go when the turbulence was so great she feared her arm might snap.

“This is your captain speaking,” a hoarse voice announced. “I would like to apologize for what you’ve just experienced. We passed through an unexpected storm system that didn’t show up on our radar. We were forced to reroute and perform an emergency landing in Denver, Colorado. Again, we apologize for your discomfort.”

“Discomfort?” Chase spat, looking down at her own body. The seatbelt had dug into her hips and her arms had smashed into the armrests.

Discomfort was an annoying splinter embedded in the pad of your finger.

This was something else.

The flight attended took to the intercom next.

“Paramedics are on their way. If you require any assistance, please press the call button and remain in your seat. Feel free to move your masks, but keep your seatbelts fastened. A representative will meet you at the gate to instruct you of the next steps. Again, we apologize for the turbulence that you experienced.”

The ping of call buttons rang out, accompanied by angry shouts.

Chase pulled the mask from her face.

Tate did the same.

“You going to be okay?” he asked her.

“Yeah, I think so. You?”

“Nothing like a near-death experience to get rid of a hangover,” he said humorlessly.

The flight attendant moved toward them and squatted in the aisle.

“I’m very sorry Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy.” Chase frowned but didn’t bother correcting the woman. “We have arranged for a special customer service representative to meet you at the gate and take care of all your needs.

The fasten seatbelt sign above them clicked off and Chase removed the belt from her lap.

“Sure.”

Working on autopilot, Chase grabbed her gun case and then opened the overheard compartment to retrieve her carry-on luggage. Next, she helped Georgina with her things. The girl looked shell-shocked.

It wasn’t until she’d started down the aisle that she realized Rachel was still seated, her face white as a sheet.

“Rach?” Tate said.

He reached out and touched her arm.

The girl screamed.

“It’s just me. We’ve landed. We’re going to be fine.”

Rachel finally turned her eyes to her father.

“Are you… are you sure?”

“Yes. We’re okay now.”

Rachel stared in disbelief. Blinked twice.

“C’mon, I’ll help you up.”

She needed the help. Rachel was unsteady on her feet. Georgina grabbed her bags for her while Tate wrapped his arms around her waist and they waddled down the narrow aisle together.

It was hard to believe that just hours ago Rachel had been excited and spinning in circles, showing off her newfound mobility.

Now, she could barely walk.

It took them five minutes to get off the plane, despite the fact that the first-class passengers were the first to disembark.

And then Rachel stopped completely.

“I can’t… I can’t do it.”

“What do you mean, Rach?” Tate asked.

Rachel’s only reply was to shake her head vehemently.

Chase spotted three folded wheelchairs leaning up against the wall of the jetway. She didn’t know if they always kept them there or if someone had brought them in anticipation of their landing.

It didn’t matter; she grabbed one, popped it open, and rolled it to Rachel who promptly collapsed into it.

It was heartbreaking, seeing her like this again.

She was still trembling when the first of the paramedics arrived.

Two of the men wearing neon green vests walked right by them and onto the plane, but a third stopped in front of Rachel.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“No—I… don’t know.” Her voice was meek.

The man looked to Tate for instructions, but he just shrugged.

“Right. Did you hit your head or—”

“I’m okay.”

“Ma’am, if you—”

“I said, I was okay.” Rachel tried to sound strong but failed miserably.

“Ma’am, I—”

“She said she was fine,” Chase exerted.

Ma’am… fucking ma’am.

The paramedic stiffened.

“Okay, but if you have any neck soreness or experience headaches over the next day or so, I advise you to seek medical attention.”

Tate grumbled something incoherent and began pushing Rachel down the jetway. Chase and Georgina followed, weighed down by all of their luggage.

They entered the airport proper and the moment they stepped through the glass doors the customer service rep they’d been promised appeared. She was wearing a lanyard with a large ID card attached around her neck.

Her name was Leslie Jennings.

“Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy?”

Again, Chase resisted the urge to correct the woman with the gray hair and thin lips.

“Yes,” Tate confirmed.

“First, I would again like to apologize on behalf of the airline for what must have been a terrifying experience and for the unexpected landing.”

During their interaction with the paramedic, several of the other first-class passengers had disembarked. Chase spotted them now at the service desk, speaking in clipped tones to reps who looked like they would do anything for a lunch break just about now.

Chase and her family were the only ones getting the VIP treatment. It wasn’t because they were FBI Agents or because Rachel was resigned to a wheelchair.

It had everything to do with the fact that Stu Barnes had booked their tickets.

“Of course, you will be 100% refunded for your trip to Hawaii. We would also like to extend—”

“We have reservations for today,” Tate said.

The woman looked nervous.

“I am aware of your travel plans. Unfortunately, all planes heading west have been grounded for the remainder of the day. We can get you on a flight tomorrow afternoon, first class, and also—”

“Tomorrow?” Chase balked.

“I’m afraid that’s the earliest flight available, Mrs. Abernathy. We have booked a suite for you—” the rep glanced briefly at Georgina and Rachel, “—two suites for you at a local hotel and have also arranged for a unique dining experience in one of Denver’s—”

“I don’t want a hotel and I don’t want dinner,” Tate said. “We’re supposed to be on a beach celebrating our honeymoon.”

Chase reached out, intending to put a hand on his arm to calm him, to remind him that this wasn’t the lady’s fault, but when she saw the red marks her fingers had left and decided against it.

“I’m very sorry, but, as I mentioned, the next flight to Hawaii is tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to fly tomorrow,” Rachel said softly.

“Rach,” Tate said.

“No, dad. Don’t Rach me. We almost died on that plane. It was like the accident, you know? I can’t.” She shook her head. “I can’t do it.”

Chase winced. Trauma ebbed and flowed. Sometimes it stayed away for months, years even, but it was always just there, right below the boggy surface, waiting to be triggered.

Seeing Rachel’s visceral reaction now, Chase changed her mind about thinking it was a good idea to tell the girl the truth.

That she had been the one driving the car and not her mother who was locked behind bars because of it.

“Okay—okay, Rachel.”

The rep patiently waited as Tate pulled Chase aside.

“Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Sure.”

Tate looked down before starting.

“I’m worried about her, Chase. I’m worried that she might go back to the way she was. I don’t know if I can do that again.”

She hadn’t forgotten the dark days that Tate had gone through. The sleepless weeks and months dealing with Rachel’s constant night terrors.

Clearly, he hadn’t either.

“I—I have an idea.”

“Yeah?” Tate was desperate.

“Have you ever been skiing?”

“Uhh… as a kid once. Nearly broke both my legs. I hate it.”

Despite everything, Chase laughed.

“Give me a second.”

Chase approached the rep, who had been doing a shitty job of pretending not to be eavesdropping.

It was time to see just how much pull Stu Barnes really had.

“Mrs. Abernathy? Is everything okay? If you’d rather stay—”

“Let me ask you a question… do you think you can get us a couple of days at a ski resort?” 

Out of the corner of her eye, Chase saw Rachel, despite still sitting in a wheelchair, perk up a little.

“Somewhere nice?”

The woman stared blankly for a moment, and Chase feared that she was gonna say no, that everything was booked solid. That, I’m really sorry Mrs. Abernathy, but our airline has certain restrictions about these sorts of things. There’s a procedure, a protocol to follow.

“Now that,” the rep said, her lips finally relaxing, “is something I can do.”

Chapter 9

The human mind is a fascinating organ. Less than two hours after one of the most terrifying experiences of their lives, even Rachel’s spirits were sky-high.

“Holy shit, look at this place!” the girl exclaimed as their hired car entered under a massive wooden gate.

Even Tate was awed.

“Wow.”

“Never seen Silver Peaks before?” the driver, a middle-aged man who induced himself as Larry, asked from the front seat.

“No,” Georgina admitted. “Our flight was grounded, so this is sort of a last-minute thing.”

Not a lie, but…

“Well,” Larry said with a chuckle. “You lucked out. Silver Peaks should be one of the great wonders of the world. This place truly is beautiful. And very exclusive.”

The interior of the sedan fell quiet as the car’s inhabitants took in the scenery.

The snow-packed road on which they drove was long and winding, flanked by shin-high snowbanks. Off to the right were much smaller paths leading to numerous picturesque wood cabins. The main man-made attraction was the massive wooden building that Chase presumed was the chalet. It had a spectacular wooden peak, with tall windows above a story-high series of perfectly cut horizontal wooden logs.

Smoke filtered upward from three large chimneys.

The name, Silver Peaks Resort, was constructed from what appeared to be hand-carved wood above the medieval-looking doors.

On the western side of the building was another structure, an add-on, from which guests clutching skis and poles in their arms came and went.

Despite the impressive building, it was the natural scenery that stole their collective breaths.

Over the course of her career, Chase had spent time in Las Vegas, Montana, New York, Tennessee, and countless other states that all had their individual charms.

But this was something different.

Silver Peaks was nestled in what appeared to be a sort of basin surrounded by the Colorado Rockies. The faces of the mountains on their left were spoiled by smooth ski slopes and chairlifts. But behind the resort and to the right where the cabins were nestled, the natural beauty remained unobstructed. Tall white peaks stood out on the pale blue cloudless skyline like whipped mashed potatoes.

Chase must’ve sucked in a sharp breath, or at least someone in the car did, because Larry chuckled.

“Silver Peaks lies in the bottom of a caldera, making it a perfect skiing spot. The chairlifts over there,” he pointed to the left, and Chase followed his finger, “take you to the top, then you ski right back down. If you’re lucky, you can get a cabin that you can ski up to. Just snap them things off, walk inside, and Bob’s your uncle.”

Larry was forced to slow to navigate through a handful of happy skiers.

“So much for the storm,” Tate grumbled. His awe seemed to have worn off. Chase thought back to the handful of winters that they’d spent together. Most of the time they were in Virginia, where the temperature rarely dipped below 40°, even in the dead of winter. Sure, they got some snow, but nothing like this.

Tate’s comment elicited another chuckle from Larry.

“Not yet. But there are reports that there’s a doozy rolling in here over the next few days, which explains why the place isn’t packed to capacity. Like I said, you really lucked out.” The man’s eyes darted to the rearview mirror. “Hope you guys brought somethin’ warm to wear, ‘cuz it’s gonna get mighty cold. Now, the caldera blocks most of the wind, but it can still get downright freezing on the slopes.”

It had been in the mid-fifties when they’d left Virginia and most of their luggage was stuffed with bathing suits and coverups.

“We’re supposed to be in Honolulu,” Georgina said, her face still plastered against the window. “But they said they’d give us a credit for some warm clothes at the chalet.”

That they had. The customer service rep had bent over backward to make sure they were accommodated, which Chase now believed was fully the result of Stu Barnes having booked their tickets.

“How long you stayin’?”

“Three days,” Tate said quickly. That’s all they’d committed to, but the rep had assured them that if they wanted to stay upwards of a week, not only would the ariline cover the cost of the resort, but they’d also be reimbursed for their missed trip in Honolulu. Or, at least, Stu would.

A bold promise, one that Chase hoped didn’t bankrupt the airline.

In her experience, very exclusive wasn’t just synonymous with expensive but reserved for what passed for elite these days: bitcoin millionaires and influencers with more followers than sense.

Chase refused to let this sour her mood.

“Well, hopefully, you get some good skiing in before the storm comes in.”

Larry pulled up to the front doors, and they all filed out. Their driver gestured for one of the bellboys to come over. The kid, wearing a red and white snow jacket that Chase supposed passed as a uniform in these parts, hopped into an extended four-wheeler and drove it around to the back of the car. The second Larry’s trunk opened, he began removing their suitcases and started piling them onto the vehicle.

“Thanks, Larry,” Tate said, pulling out his wallet.

Larry stopped him.

“The airline has already taken care of me—no need to tip.”

Take shrugged and put his wallet away. Larry lent the bellboy a hand then stopped when he came to the wheelchair.

He looked at them curiously, wondering which one of them needed it given the fact that they were all standing upright without assistance.

“What would you like me to do with this?”

“Send it to the room,” Tate suggested.

“Dad, I need it anymore,” Rachel said quietly.

“Just in case, hon.”

“Come on, it’s embarrassing.”

“You never know.”

The bellboy took the wheelchair from Larry and placed the wheelchair on top of their luggage. He pushed on it with both hands, making sure it was secure, then said, “You’re the newlyweds, right? Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy?”

Chase cringed.

Not this again.

“Mr. Abernathy and Mrs. Adams,” Tate corrected him.

“Well, you guys have the best cabins in the entire resort. If you want to go check-in, I can take your stuff to your rooms.”

Now that they were standing close to the bellhop, Chase saw that he was a young man in his mid-twenties. A dark comma of black hair hung from beneath his red and white cap and was pressed to his forehead.

“That’d be great,” Chase said.

The bellhop’s eyes dropped to the black case in her hand.

“Want me to take that, too?”

“Thanks, but I’ll hang onto it.”

“Good stuff and congrats.”

Chase muttered a reserved, “Thank you,” and then watched the kid drive off.

“Enjoy your trip and try to stay warm,” Larry said as he got back into his car.

This reminded Chase that she was only wearing a thin coat and a chill ran through her. She collected her family and hurried inside.

The Silver Peaks Resort lobby was as impressive as the exterior. Everything was made of wood—even the check-in desks—but the focal point was a gigantic fireplace. A large fire crackled within, warming a few guests who were standing around it, their jackets tied around their waists, drinks in hand.

Georgina and Rachel stopped dead in their tracks, their jaws falling open.

This made Chase smile.

The disaster of a plane ride seemed to have all but been forgotten.

She hoped it stayed that way.

“You guys check this place out, I’ll get our keys.”

They didn’t need to be told twice—the girls, giggling now and holding hands, bounded off.

“Meet you back here in fifteen,” Tate hollered after them. They gave no indication that they’d heard him.

“Tate, you want to hit up the gift shop? Get us something warm to wear?”

“We’re only here for three days,” Tate whined.

Chase got the impression that when her new husband had said that he hated skiing, he’d meant it. But how could you possibly hate a place like this?

It was stunning.

“You really don’t like the cold, do you?”

“You forget that I grew up in Cali and spent the early part of my career there.”

“I didn’t forget. But look at the girls, there’s so happy. I wouldn’t mind staying here a couple extra days.

Tate grumbled something disparaging about skiing, but Chase got the idea that he was probably thinking the same thing she was.

That while Rachel seemed fine now, it might take an entire week for her to get over her fear of flying.

If it took more than a week for her to recover, then, well, they were SOL, because there was no way they could afford to foot the bill for this place on their own.

“Stop being a grumpy old man. Get us some jackets and snow pants, Tate.”

Tate frowned and she kissed him on the cheek.

As he walked away, Chase heard him say, “Three days. Just three days then you’ll be enjoying a cocktail with an umbrella in it on a beach.”

Chapter 10

“Here, take this, put something warm on,” Tate said, launching a giant bag emblazed with the gift shop logo on it in Georgina and Rachel’s direction. Georgina caught the bag and stumbled backward before righting herself.

“What is all this stuff?”

“It’s your brand spanking new snow suits, courtesy of the airline,” Tate said. Then he walked over to Rachel and handed her a room key. “And this is the key to your cabin. You guys have your own.”

“Tate?” Chase said hesitantly, gesturing for him to come closer.

“What’s up?”

Chase glanced over Tate’s shoulder at Rachel and Georgina, who were whispering amongst themselves. The guests inside the Silver Peaks lobby had all but disappeared, probably gone to devour caviar-topped canapes.

“I’m not sure how I feel about the two of them staying in their own cabin alone.”

According to the map that the concierge had given Chase during check-in, the presidential suite and the girls’ cabin were side-by-side, separated by no more than two dozen feet.

Close, but not close enough for her taste. She was hoping for something more along the lines of a typical hotel, with rooms that were separate but had an interior door that linked them.

Chase had inquired about a cabin large enough to accommodate all four of them, but the only one they had that fit this description was already taken.

“They’re right beside us, aren’t they?” Tate asked. He reached for the map in her hand and opened it. Their two cabins were circled with red pen.

“That’s what they said. But you know, with what happened to Rachel…” Chase let her sentence trail off.

Tate gave her a knowing look.

Prior to the incident at the WCI, Chase had been getting better at not needing to keep her eye on Georgina at all times.

But all that changed when JC Marshall put a gun to her niece’s head.

The school had been shut down for two months, which coincided perfectly with Rachel’s spring break at Virginia Tech. Despite meeting with Dr. Matteo once a week, they had yet to discuss what Georgina was going to do once the WCI returned to session.

What had come out during their time with the psychiatrist, was that Georgina had been the victim of bullying. This had come as a complete and utter shock to Chase.

Given what had happened, what Georgina had done, Chase suspected that the other students would look at her in a different light now.

Still, the prospect of her niece going back there terrified Chase for a multitude of reasons.

“Rachel’s fine. Just look at her,” Tate said.

The girl did, indeed, look fine. It was as if her collapse into the wheelchair had never happened. This reminded Chase of just how adaptable and flexible kids could be.

How short their memories were.

Kids? They were hardly kids anymore.

Chase screwed up her face.

When the hell did that happen?

“Let’s check out the cabins out before we make any decisions.”

Tate agreed, and the concierge arranged for a four-wheeler to pick them up outside the front doors.

The man who greeted them had large ski goggles covering the majority of his face, but Chase recognized that tuft of dark hair that seemingly perfectly split the nose bridge.

It was the same man who had brought their luggage to their rooms.

“Mr. Abernathy? Mrs. Adams?”

Evidently, he remembered them, as well.

“That’s us.”

They all piled into the open-air seats, huddling close to stay warm. The vehicle’s thick corrugated tires crunched the snow as they drove, and despite Larry’s claim that the caldera protected the resort from the worst of the wind, it was still bitingly cold out.

Thankfully, it was less than a ten-minute drive to their cabin.

“This here is the presidential suite,” their driver informed them.

It was a miniature version of the chalet, complete with a peaked roof.

“Holy shit,” Georgina said.

“Language,” Chase shot back instinctively.

“Sorry—holy fuck.”

Chase rolled her eyes and Georgina smiled.

“Yeah, it’s pretty impressive. Best cabin on the property.”

Tate started to get out, but Chase grabbed his shoulder, holding him in place.

“Can we see the other cabin first?”

“Sure, but it’s right there.” The bellboy pointed to what Chase had initially thought was some sort of outhouse. It was also made of wood but lacked the drama of the presidential suite.

Tate sat back down, and the kid pulled forward about a dozen feet.

“This ours?” Georgina asked. Before the bellhop could reply, she was already out of the four-wheeler and on the move.

Chase hurried after her, leaving Tate behind to help Rachel, which she, rather predictably, did not want.

“Georgina,” Chase shouted. “Wait up!”

Georgina looked at her then, her bright, beautiful smile lighting up her entire face.

“I’ll be fine, Chase. I’m with Rachel. Besides, you’re right beside us,” she said, knowing what Chase was going to say.

“I just think that maybe—”

“Chase, please.” Georgina fell just short of begging.

Chase sighed.

Tate would support her decision, whatever it was—she knew that.

But it was on her to make the call.

Fuck.

“Okay. Ok—” She didn’t even get to finish. Georgina, still clutching the gift bag to her chest, sprinted for the door to her cabin. “…ay.”

Rachel joined her.

“Listen, you two,” Chase said, raising her voice. “I don’t want you to leave your room without letting us know, first.”

“Fine,” Georgina agreed.

“If you want to call other rooms, all you have to do is input the cabin number and hit pound,” their driver informed them.

“Thanks.

Tate tried to tip the kid, but like all the other employees at Silver Peaks, he declined.

“Enjoy your stay.”

As the bellhop drove back to the chalet, Chase watched Rachel slip the key into the lock and open the door. Tate waited until they were safely inside before wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her close.

“C’mon, what do you say we check out the presidential suite, Mrs. Abernathy?”

Chapter 11

“Dad, it’s us. Open the door. And please put some clothes on this time.”

“I was wearing clothes before,” Tate said under his breath. “Well, a towel, anyway.”

Chase was lying on the bed, relaxing, taking in the amazing presidential suite. There was a time, back when she supplemented her income by playing online poker, when she spent her discretionary income on some of the finer things. Designer shoes, for one. Those days were long gone, but she could still appreciate the lavishness of their current accommodations.

The living quarters had been segmented into four sections: the entrance area, which had a fireplace off to the right as well as some comfy looking chairs—someone had already started a small fire upon their arrival—two steps up to a double king-sized bed, if there was such a thing, a large bathroom with black subway tiles and opposing showerheads, and a small but sufficiently stocked galley kitchen.

Tate unlocked the door and Rachel stepped in from the cold.

“If you think I’m wearing this, then you must still be drunk,” she said. “No way, no how.”

Chase started to giggle.

“It’s not funny, Chase,” Rachel said. “I look like Mortimer.”

She stopped laughing.

“Mortimer?”

“Yeah, you know the kid from that picture book? The one all wrapped up in a snowsuit and always has to pee?”

The giggles returned.

“You know about Mortimer but not cable TV?”

“That was me,” Georgina said, following her friend into the presidential suite and closing the door behind them.

“Or the South Park kid,” Rachel said with a grimace. “Anyways, I’m not wearing this, Dad.”

It was a hideous snowsuit. A boxy, drab brown onesie. What made it worse was that Rachel had the hood on and had pulled the string tight so that only the important bits of her face were showing.

“What do you want me to do? It was the only one in your size.”

Rachel turned and her outfit crinkled like a sheet of aluminum foil.

“And Georgina gets this?”

Georgina was sporting a trendy retro jacket, mostly white but with a thick blue strip running horizontally across her middle. Her snow pants, fitted, were a navy blue.

“Like I said, Rach,” Tate protested, “It’s the only one they had.”

“It’s fucking terrible.”

There was no denying that.

“It looks fine,” Georgina said, although she was having a hard time keeping a straight face. “Can we just go skiing already?”

“Yeeeahhh, I’m not so sure about that,” Tate said, scratching the back of his head.

“No way. If you’re making me wear this, then you’re coming skiing,” Rachel shot back. She tried to cross her arms petulantly, but the fabric was too restrictive to allow for even this basic a movement.

As they continued to argue about whether or not Tate would overcome his fear and strap on some skis, Chase grew curious about what outfit her husband had picked for her. She rolled out of bed and walked over to the chair where he’d placed the bag from the gift shop.

She was sifting through the hats and mitts when she came across a red jacket, which gave her pause.

It was so much like the one that she’d worn in Alaska during her first case with Agent Martinez, which turned out not to be a sanctioned case at all, that she thought it might be the exact same one.

“What now? That not good for you either?” a dejected Tate asked.

Chase allowed her eyes to drift to Rachel and Georgina.

“No, it’s… fine.”

“Good. So, the girls want to go skiing but I’m thinking I’ll probably just—”

“No, you’re coming. We’re all going skiing, Tate. Including you.”

***

The pro shop fitted them all with skis and poles, on the house, of course.

Chase felt a little ridiculous, but this was muted; Rachel absolutely looked like Mortimer from the classic Robert Munsch book. But at least she was being a good sport about it.

The clerk had immediately noticed their—mostly Tate’s—apprehension, and when he gave them a map of the ski slopes, he recommended two of the smaller ones, which he called bunny hills.

Tate nearly fell twice just trying to snap his boots into his skis.

“Let’s try…. this one,” Georgina said, pointing at a medium-sized hill marked with a blue square.

“I think we should just stick to the bunny slopes,” Tate suggested.

Chase full-heartedly agreed.

“They’re so boring,” Georgina whined.

“We can try some of the bigger ones after.”

Rachel said something, but with the hood covering her mouth, none of them understood her.

They nodded anyway.

The bunny hills were tucked away toward the west end of the resort, and unlike the large slopes, these ones didn’t require a chairlift to gain access. Instead, there was a sort of moving carpet reminiscent of the lateral conveyor belts often found in airports.

Georgina took the lead, propelling herself forward with her poles with ease. She was a natural. Must be, because Chase doubted that the girl had any experience skiing what with being brought up in rural Tennessee.

The sky above them had grown considerably darker over the past few minutes and judging by the way the wind was blowing, it was only going to get worse. They’d passed through the storm in the air and were bound to experience it again on the ground.

Georgina stepped onto the moving mat, grabbing the rope that ran beside it with one hand while tucking her poles under the opposite arm. Rachel was next, and she only struggled because her snow suit was so tight.

Chase was still in wonder at how much of a transformation the girl had undergone since being wheelchair-bound in the airport.

“You go,” Tate said, his voice tight and pinched.

“No way. I’m not gonna miss this for the world.”

Tate cursed and awkwardly shambled forward. He was leaning back too far when his skis made contact with the mat.

As he frantically reached for the rope, Chase tried to get out of the way, almost certain that he’d fall and take her down with him.

Tate’s upper body was nearly parallel to the ground when his groping hand finally managed to snag the rope. Then, using sheer strength, and uttering a string of curses that made Chase grateful that the slopes were nearly empty, Tate pulled himself upright.

She was grinning from ear to ear when she finally slid onto the mat.

It wasn’t as easy as the girls made it look, but it wasn’t as awkward as Tate made it seem, either.

Even someone with as limited experience as she had, Chase managed.

The views afforded as soon as they rose above the massive chalet were incredible. Snow-capped mountain peaks, still oddly bright against the darkening sky, perfectly surrounded the resort.

Chase was so enthralled by the scenery that she almost missed the cue to disembark. She also didn’t get the chance to watch Tate inevitably struggle with the same task.

She met her family at the top of the bunny hill.

“This hill is tiny,” Georgina grumbled.

Chase peered down the slope. It wasn’t huge—maybe one hundred meters in length at what she guessed was about a thirty-five-degree angle—but it had some bumps to it.

“Are you kidding me?” Tate gasped. “This is insane. This is insane.”

Chase chuckled to herself.

It was far from insane.

“I don’t know about this,” Tate said.

“Dad, come on—it’s the smallest hill in the whole place. You can do this. You can.”

“Just watch what I do,” Georgina said.

Chase was impressed by her niece’s confidence. More so when she was off like a shot, using her poles to pick up speed over the relatively flat top section.

Georgina then began to carve back and forth. She must have decided that this was unnecessary because, after just a handful of turns, the girl bent her knees, tucked the poles beneath her armpits, and bombed the hill.

“Just like that, huh?” Tate whispered, shaking his head.

“Just like that,” Rachel repeated, beaming. “My turn.”

“I don’t know, Rach. I don’t—Rach? Rach!”

Tate made the mistake of trying to grab his daughter’s ridiculous snowsuit. He missed, but this caused him to start moving.

Moving and not being able to stop.

Unlike Georgina, and now Rachel, Tate had no idea how to carve.

“Shit,” Chase said, and then she was off, too. The cold air blasted her in the face, stinging her eyes and cheeks.

At first, she gained on Tate, but worried that she was going too fast, Chase attempted to turn.

Her skis chattered, and for a time, she thought that she was going to fall. Pressing down with her legs, she slowly regained control. The next turn was more graceful. After the third, she started to relax and began enjoying herself.

This went out the window when a shriek reached her from below.

“Out of my way! Get the fuck out of my way!” She vaguely recognized this as Tate’s voice, but she could barely make out his outline ahead of her.

Chase saw what she thought was her husband attempt to slow himself by jamming his poles into the snow, which proved to be a mistake.

He lost these immediately.

Chase swerved to avoid the wayward poles.

Oh, shit.

Lower down the slope, visibility improved, and Chase spotted Georgina and Rachel, having since completed the run, standing sideways at the bottom.

“Dad? Stop!” Rachel yelled. “Stop!”

But this was outside of Tate’s skill set.

The girls moved out of the way and Tate just kept going. Even though the ground flattened out, the man was still moving at tremendous speed toward the pro shop.

A vision passed in front of Chase’s eyes.

Of Tate, paralyzed, using the wheelchair that had been reserved for Rachel to get around.

Shit.

Chase winced as Tate came within twenty… now fifteen… feet of the pro shop wall.

He tried to stop, tried to turn his skis sideways but the tips crossed. His bindings released and he was flung forward.

Then Tate started to roll, collecting snow like a Saturday morning cartoon character.

Clenching her jaw, Chase pressed onward, anticipating a solid thump.

But by some miracle, the snowball that was her husband came to a rolling stop just a foot—one foot—from the pro shop.

Chase blew past the girls and then managed, with ease, to stop right next to Tate.

“Tate?” she said. “Tate, are you okay?”

He was lying face down in the snow, his arms and legs wide like a reverse snow angel.

“Tate!”

“Dad?”

Chase prodded him with a pole.

When nothing happened, she dropped the pole, and was about to fall to her knees and roll him over, when Tate groaned and did this himself.

“I hate skiing,” he said. There was snow covering his face, coating his mustache, his eyelashes, everything. “I fucking hate skiing.”

They all burst into nervous laughter.

Chapter 12

Georgina was the one who laughed the hardest at Tate’s misfortune. The man was unhurt, unless of course, you counted his pride, which was more broken than bruised.

Chase helped him brush the snow off his face.

“Wow, I’m so glad we landed in Denver,” he said. “So glad I hit the slopes.”

“You’re done?” Rachel asked. “After one run?”

Tate’s eyes bulged and he looked down at himself, at his snow-covered outfit, then back up the hill. His poles were still a good thirty feet up.

“I am done,” he said with finality.

“Dad, come on,” Rachel whined.

“I’m done, Rachel. I promised to go skiing, and I did.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call what you did skiing,” Chase mocked.

Tate shot her a seething look and she raised her poles to her sides.

“Fine, whatever. But I’m going to keep skiing,” Rachel said.

“Me too,” Georgina added. “We should try some of the bigger hills.”

Chase, who had been chuckling to herself, now frowned.

“Okay,” Tate said, noticing the change in her face. “Just stay away from the double black diamonds and the moguls.” He considered this. “Definitely stay away from the moguls.”

“Be careful, girls. We’ll meet you in the bar when you’re done,” Chase said. She kept her eyes trained on Georgina, making sure she understood. “You heard what Tate said. No moguls and no black diamond.”

“Yeah, sure,” Georgina said dismissively. “Come on, Rachel. Let’s go.”

The two of them skied off, looking like professionals, and when they were gone, Chase helped Tate to his feet.

Then she Y-stepped back up the hill to get his poles.

“You can keep skiing too if you want,” Tate said when she returned.

“No, that’s all right.” Chase wouldn’t mind doing a couple more runs, but there would be time for that later. “Come on, let’s grab a drink.”

***

“So, you wanna tell me the story?” Chase asked as she sipped her beer.

“What story?” Tate said, taking a gulp of his own drink. He grimaced as the liquid went down.

“The story about why you have this ingrained fear of the slopes.”

Take shrugged and he stared out the large windows that took up the entire wall of the second-story bar. Snow had started to fall, beautiful thick flakes that added to the picturesque view.

“You saw what happened to me out there. I hate skiing.”

“You sure there’s no story behind this?”

Take shrugged again.

“Like I told you before, I went skiing once as a kid and almost broke both my legs.”

“You almost broke the side of the building today,” Chase said, trying to lighten the mood.

It didn’t work.

“Very funny. You know, this wasn’t exactly how I imagined our honeymoon.”

Chase took another drink.

“Me neither,” she answered honestly. “But hey, did you see the looks on Georgina and Rachel’s faces? They love this place.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Tate…”

“Yeah, you’re right. You’re right.” He paused. “I just want to make sure that you had a good time at the wedding and honeymoon, you know?”

Chase bit her tongue.

She was on the verge of saying something rude, but the look on his face convinced her otherwise. Tate was still a man, after all.

And they were always just big kids. Big, sensitive children.

“That’s very… chauvinistic of you,” she said, unable to hold back completely.

“I was thinking more chivalrous than anything else.”

“Tate, I’m not one of those princessy girls. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the wedding, but I didn’t need to get all dressed up and be paraded around like a debutante. Seeing everyone was nice.” Mostly, she thought, recalling her bizarre interactions with Beckett ‘Don Keedic’ Campbell, Suzan ‘Amanda Lick’ Cuthbert, and the ignominious Damien Drake. “But I would have been fine if it were just the four of us.”

Chase feared that her words would sting the man given that Tate and their two girls had done the vast majority of the leg work for the wedding. They didn’t.

“Yeah, me too.” Tate rolled his glass on the table. “Speaking of friends, have you heard from Linus at all? He wasn’t at the wedding.”

Chase frowned.

He hadn’t been there. They’d sent him an invite, of course, but she couldn’t remember if the man had RSVP’d.

After the WCI shooting, Tate and Chase had both taken two weeks off to spend time with their children. Both of them had also attended mandatory psych sessions, in addition to the ones Chase joined with Georgina.

Linus, on the other hand, had taken an indefinite leave.

After realizing that Georgina was going to be just fine—as fine as anyone could be after nearly being killed and then taking the culprit’s life—she’d reached out to Linus.

He never responded.

Chase knew that Tate had also tried to contact the man but was unsuccessful.

Linus wasn’t like them. He might be an FBI Director, but he wasn’t a field agent. He didn’t see firsthand the things they did, was usually at arm’s length to the violence that had become an inextricable part of their lives.

“We should really pay him a visit when we get back,” she said, almost solemnly.

“Yeah, it’s long overdue.”

They sat in silence for a moment, sipping their beers and staring outside at the snow which was starting to come down heavier by the moment. Chase spotted Rachel on the slopes—she was hard to miss her in their ridiculous outfit. The girl was coming down one of the larger hills, carving back and forth with the grace of a slalom skier. Behind her was Georgina, moving a little slower, but with the same ease.

“I think Rach might have found her calling,” Tate said. “Who knew that a girl who could get out of bed by herself a few years back would be a future Olympian skier.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. But it looks like she’s having a blast.”

“That makes one of us,” Tate said, still a little bitter about his fall.

Except, when Chase laughed at this, picturing his frosty expression when he’d breathlessly flipped on his back, Tate joined in, too.

Chapter 13

“I’m not so sure about this one, Rachel,” Georgina said as she stared down the hill. It was labeled as a single black diamond, which, technically, wasn’t off-limits, but it had a large crest near the middle that was worrisome. She couldn’t see beyond it and was concerned that it hid a sheer drop.

“We’ll be fine, just move side to side like before. Go slow, take it easy. You’ll be good.”

Georgina hesitated.

As much as she was enjoying skiing, the snow was starting to blow sideways, drastically reducing visibility.

“Georgina, come on, let’s go. Just follow me, okay?”

And then before she could complain further, Rachel was off.

Georgina looked around. There was no one else on the top of the hill—they’d only encountered a handful of skiers in total—and she debated attacking the smaller slope to her left instead.

But if she did that, she’d never hear the end of it.

Gripping her poles tightly, Georgina reluctantly followed after her stepsister. The fresh snow slowed her descent a little, for which she was grateful. She navigated the first thirty seconds without issue, avoiding the areas where the snow was thinner and thus more likely to be icy.

And then she got into a rhythm, switch backing her way down at a manageable pace.

Everything was fine until Georgina reached the crest. Then she panicked. Not only was it an even steeper drop than expected, but it was also covered in ice.

She tried to stop, but it was too slick to even turn. Georgina rocketed forward, and then gained air.

“Shit!”

Her knees nearly buckled upon landing, and she wobbled back and forth like a motorcyclist on the verge of a speed wobble.

Even this would have been manageable, however. But at her incredible rate of speed, the falling snow was like a wall.

She saw nothing.

She felt extreme panic.

This wasn’t like Tate slowly rolling into the side of the pro shop. This was like exploding upon impact.

“Look out!” Someone yelled and Georgina screamed.

Emerging from the snow were two people in colorful outfits. One was tall, the other short.

And, for some reason, they had stopped a fair distance from the bottom of the hill.

Georgina knew she was in trouble. The surface was too slick to try to hammer on the brakes so she did the only thing she could: she slalomed.

She almost made it.

She almost cleared the group, but at the last second, the heel of her right ski clipped the toe of one of the stationary skiers, which Georgina realized now was a girl of about her age. If she’d struck the girl’s ankle, there was no doubt that it would have snapped in two.

Once more, Georgina was airborne, her bindings releasing mid-flight.

This is real turbulence, she thought inexplicably.

Her hands hit the snow first, sending pain shooting up her wrists to her elbows.

Her chest, second.

The air was knocked out of her, and she started to roll.

The result wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The dense, powdery snow significantly reduced her momentum, bringing her to a complete stop within a distance of less than thirty feet.

And then Georgina lay there, much as Tate had, while she performed an internal assessment of her injuries.

Her arms hurt and her lungs screamed, but nothing seemed broken.

For once in her life, she’d gotten lucky.

“You okay?” The headless voice came out of nowhere.

Able to breathe again, Georgina forced herself to all fours.

It was the taller of the two assholes who had stopped three-quarters of the way down a goddamn black diamond ski hill.

The girl who had yelled at her to look out appeared at his side.

“I’m… I’m okay,” she said, sounding surprised.

“What’s that?” The man moved closer.

Georgina raised her voice.

“I said I’m okay. I’m… sorry.”

The man was young, about Rachel’s age. Dark features.

“No, I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have stopped.”

No, shit.

“I’m just—”

“You should probably stick to the easier hills.” The girl had a similar look to the dark-haired kid suggesting that they were siblings. She also had a severe expression on her face, with dark eyebrows that shrouded her eyes.

“I know,” Georgina said, awkwardly rising to her feet. “I didn’t think it was so steep.”

Fucking Rachel.

The girl pursed her red lips, scowled, and then her brother elbowed her softly in the side.

“We should probably get off the hill, just in case…”

In case another maniac comes barreling down.

The roar of an engine cut through the wind, and Georgina saw a four-wheeler racing toward them. The vehicle, which dragged a red sled behind it, skidded to a stop next to them.

“Anyone injured?” the man, who Georgina recognized as the same one who had taken their luggage to their rooms asked, his tone all business.

“No, no injuries,” Georgina managed.

She saw the girl roll her eyes and mutter something about how they were lucky no one was killed.

“Well, you can’t stand on the slopes like this, visibility is poor.” He looked at Georgina. “Why don’t you hop in the sled, and I’ll take you back to the chalet.

The girl’s frown became a mocking smirk.

“No, seriously, I’m not hurt.”

To prove this point, Georgina took two steps back up the hill, trying to locate her skis in the snow.

“I’ll get them,” the man she’d nearly killed offered.

Georgina was grateful; walking in the boots was a nightmare.

“You get her skis,” the ski rescue guy said, “while you get in the sled.”

Georgina felt her face redden with embarrassment. There was also the possibility that Chase would see her to consider.

If her aunt did take notice, Georgina’s skiing days were almost certainly over.

“Please, I’ll be—”

The man was adamant now.

“Get in the sled. Please.”

Georgina saw no other choice. She avoided looking at the girl as she lowered herself into the plastic sled.

“Lie down.”

She obliged, feeling like a corpse in an open casket.

The man pressed the gas, and the four-wheeler slowly descended the hill. When it came to a stop again, Georgina finally heard Rachel.

“Holy shit! What happened?” The snow had obviously, and thankfully, concealed her fall. Georgina sat up. “Oh my God, are you alright?”

“I’m fine.”

She managed to stand.

“I should have never made you go down that hill.”

“No, it’s not a big deal.”

It was, but there was no point in making Rachel feel worse than she already did.

“Where are your skis? Your poles?”

“They’re—”

The man and his sister appeared, the former carrying all of her lost equipment under one arm. He was smirking while the girl was scowling.

“I believe these are yours,” he said with a faux English accent.

Georgina, feeling her face flush again, or maybe it was just wind burn, took the items from him.

“So, I’m supposed to fill out an incident report. I know that you’re staying in room 118. Just need your name and—”

“Do you have to?” Georgina asked the ski patroller. “My aunt… she won’t let me ski for the rest of the trip if you do.” When the man showed no evidence of changing his mind, she added desperately, “Please. I’m not hurt—nobody’s hurt. I’ll stay off the black diamond slopes. Promise.”

The man observed all four of them.

“Fine. But you guys need to be more careful.”

“I will. And thank you.”

With that, the man hopped back on his four-wheeler and drove off.

Georgina breathed a sigh of relief. 

“My name’s Ben by the way, and this is my little sister, Raven.”

He said this for both Georgina’s and Rachel’s benefit, but it was obvious that he just had eyes for one of them.

Rachel realized this, too, because she started to fuss with her ridiculous snowsuit.

Helping Rachel navigate the awkward interlude, Georgina spoke up.

“I’m Georgina, and this is my stepsister, Rachel.”

Ben cocked his head.

“I heard you mention your aunt. You guys here on a family trip?”

“Something like that. My aunt just got married to Rachel’s dad. We’re on their honeymoon.”

True as this may be, the words sounded ridiculous when spoken out loud.

“Okay…”

“It’s a long story,” Rachel said, finding her voice.

Raven, who couldn’t seem more disinterested in this conversation if she tried, pulled her glove off with her teeth and then removed a phone from a zippered pocket.

“Ben, it’s getting late. We promised Mom and Dad we’d be back in time for dinner.”

Ben nodded.

“Yeah, sure, just a sec.” Then to Rachel, he said, “You know, we’re here for a few more days. I’d love to hear that story.”

“Maybe,” Rachel replied, playing it coy.

“Nice. Goodbye girls,” Ben said, and Raven grunted. The two of them skied away.

When they were gone, Rachel took off her skis, and both of them started to walk back towards the chalet.

“What the hell happened?” Rachel asked.

“What happened, is that the boy was flirting with you. He was laying on the rizz hard.”

Chapter 14

The storm was so bad at around seven when they met up for dinner that it took the four of them a good twenty-five minutes to walk to the chalet from their cabins. The snow was thick and piled at their ankles.

They chose one of the two restaurants in the chalet, a steak joint called Bones & Brew.

Everyone was in a good mood, even Tate. Chase thought that the quickie after their beers had brought him close to changing his mind about how desperately he wanted to leave Silver Peaks.

Their plan in Honolulu was to take advantage of what the website claimed to be the best buffet in all of Hawaii. They had, however, packed a few nice outfits just in case they felt the need for a change and went into town.

But this was warm weather attire, and Chase felt a little silly slipping her jacket, hat, and gloves, over a thin sundress. The server, a middle-aged woman with hair that was oddly similar to her own in color, took no notice.

They were immediately seated as, despite being prime time, the restaurant was nearly empty.

Chase ordered a steak, medium rare, with a side of baked potatoes and green beans. She and Tate grabbed more beers, while Rachel abstained, and Georgina got a Sprite.

They chatted a little, about the day, about skiing, about how sometimes messed up plans made for an unexpected good time.

Chase noticed that when Georgina excused herself to go to the bathroom, she was limping a little, but she chalked this up to her niece being sore from skiing.

Halfway through their meal, she saw Georgina nudge Rachel surreptitiously below the table, and then their eyes drifted to the left.

Chase followed their stares to one of the few other families that were enjoying their dinner. The parents were in their mid-forties. The man wore glasses and had stopped shoulders while the woman, almost, but not quite out of his league, was cute with short blond hair. They had three kids with them, all of which had dark, almost black hair, clearly the result of some recessive gene. The boy was Rachel’s age, still growing into his lanky frame. He had a goofy look about him. The girl, maybe a year older than Georgina, had a severe expression etched on her face. The youngest of the trio, maybe seven or eight years old, was obviously the troublemaker of the group. She flung a Brussels sprout at her brother and was immediately chastised by her mom.

“Who are they?” Chase asked quietly.

“Oh, just some people we met on the slopes,” Georgina said, trying to give off an air of disinterest.

But the way that Rachel couldn’t take her eyes off of the boy suggested that there was something more to it than that.

Tate must’ve picked up on this as well, because he said, “Hey, whatever happened to Billy? You were allowed to bring him to the wedding, you know.”

Rachel blushed.

“We’re just friends now, Dad.”

“Really? What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Rachel replied in a tone that only teenagers seemed to be able to muster. “We’re just friends.”

Chase smiled. Maybe it was the snow, maybe it was their botched honeymoon plans, or maybe it was her comment about the benefit of spontaneity. Whatever it was, she suddenly found herself about to do something totally unlike her.

Chase emboldened herself with a gulp of beer and stood.

“What are you doing?” Georgina hissed.

Chase ignored her and walked over to the other table.

The young girl stopped flinging food as she approached.

“Hi, I’m Chase.”

“Hi,” the woman said a little hesitantly.

“I know this is strange,” Chase began, “but I’m pretty sure that your family met ours on the ski hill.”

“I don’t ski,” the man said.

Chase smiled.

“Neither does my husband.”

“Dad, we met Georgina and Rachel on the black diamond hill.”

I hope it wasn’t a double-black diamond.

She shook this thought free of her head.

“Yeah, they mentioned as much. I don’t want to interrupt your meal and feel free to say no, but we would love for you guys to join us.” Chase looked around. “Not too many others in here.”

“Thank you, but—” the man said but his wife, smiling sweetly, interrupted him.

“Tom, why don’t we join them? It could be fun.”

“Lori…”

“How about this? After you guys finish, why not swing over for a drink and dessert?” Chase offered, trying to dispel some of the awkwardness of the situation.

This appeared more to Tom’s liking, and the man agreed.

“Again, sorry to interrupt.”

With that, Chase returned to her table.

Nobody said anything for fifteen seconds, and Chase reveled in the silence. She sipped her beer and took another bite of her steak—it was cooked perfectly.

“What?” she said at last.

The tables were close enough that they probably overheard her conversation with Lori and Tom.

“Who are you?” Georgina said, squinting heavily.

“What do you mean?”

“What did you do with Chase?” Tate asked, leaning into the joke.

“Oh, fuck off,” Chase said under her breath. The curse got a snicker out of Georgina. “I just asked if they wanted to join us for a drink and dessert. It’s not like I gave them the nuclear launch codes.”

Despite her comment, she understood where they were coming from. Maybe the wedding had changed her. Maybe she could be someone else.

Someone social, someone who enjoyed having a private life.

Or maybe she was just feeling the effects of the alcohol.

The other family came over just as Chase was ordering a piece of cheesecake—another shocking deviation from the norm.

She wasn’t a dessert girl, never had been.

Tom shared that they were here because he was a top performer at a large consultant firm in Denver. His reward was a paid holiday to anywhere in the state of Colorado and the middle child chimed in that Silver Peaks had been her choice. Lori, on the other hand, was a stay-at-home wife, and she introduced their children as Ben, Raven, and Eva, the little girl.

After Georgina and Rachel said their names, it was Chase and Tate’s turn. Without so much as a sideways glance, they both made up fake jobs. People tended to be uncomfortable in the company of cops and this was only amplified around FBI Agents.

Chase said that she was a legal secretary while Tate, ever so modest, told these newcomers that he was a successful—stressing the word—entrepreneur.

He claimed to be currently developing a revolutionary running app, of all things.

Chase nearly spat out her beer when he said this.

Tate hated running.

Every morning, she forced him to get up and put on his shoes.

Georgina and Rachel played along.

After chatting and enjoying their drinks and desserts, Tate suggested that the adults take one table and the kids the other.

Everyone agreed.

This was when things started to go south.

Tom and Lori were incredibly boring people. Painfully boring.

Tate was struggling but Chase didn’t mind so much. Boring was good for people in their line of work—as FBI Agents and not fitness entrepreneurs and legal secretaries.

After about a half hour Tom yawned dramatically and checked his phone.

Lori picked up on this not-so-subtle display.

“I think we’re going to pack it in for the night.

“Of course, maybe we’ll see you tomorrow?” Chase said.

“Probably,” Tom said with a nod. “This place is pretty dead. I think most people stayed away because of the storm.”

“It was nice to meet you guys.”

“Same.”

They all moved to corral their kids. Georgina noticed their approach and tried to subtly indicate for Chase to keep on moving.

Tate failed to notice this.

“Georgina? Rachel? We’re packing it in.”

“Can we hang out for a little while longer? It’s still early,” Rachel asked.

Chase felt her old, protective self returning.

“It’s—”

“I don’t see a problem with that,” Tate said. “You?”

Chase shifted uncomfortably.

Apparently, the man’s ability to pick up on cues was also on vacation.

“Please?” Georgina begged.

“Okay, but be back in your room by eleven.”

Hell, it was their vacation, too.

Georgina beamed.

“Thanks.”

“Dad?” Ben said.

Tom shrugged.

“I don’t mind. But Eva, you’re coming with us.”

“But—”

“Not buts, honey,” Lori said. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Tom, Lori, and Eva left, while Chase and Tate stayed behind and struggled to put on their winter gear.

“Be good,” Chase said in parting.

The weather outside had taken another turn for the worse. The snow was like a wall.

Tate took one look out the front doors and shook his head.

“No way.”

The concierge called for a bellhop. It was the same one as earlier, only now he was wearing a ski rescue outfit.

Chase commented on this, and he smiled coyly.

“Meh, we all kinda do many jobs around here. Some of them more glamorous than others, but they all serve a purpose. My name’s Donnie, by the way.”

He drove them to their presidential cabin, which took longer than even their walk to the chalet had earlier.

Chase was forced to bow her head to avoid the brunt of the wind and snow.

Someone had shoveled their front porch at least, maybe Donnie, and Chase stayed close to her new husband as he slipped the key into the lock.

They stepped inside and closed the door behind them.

Not only had someone shoveled, but the was a small fire going in the hearth.

It was warm and Tate immediately started to peel off his clothes.

“Seriously, what’s gotten into you, Chase?” he asked once he was down to his underwear.

“What? Can’t I be friendly?”

Before she knew it, she was standing in the center of the room in only her bra and underwear, too.

“I think I like this new, Chase,” Tate said. “Now, get over here. I’ll show you friendly.”

Chapter 15

“I go to Virginia Tech. I’m a freshman,” Rachel said.

Ben ran a hand through his hair.

“I’m taking a year off to explore. My parents hate it, but they don’t have a choice. I’m twenty-one, after all.”

Raven rolled her eyes and whispered to Georgina, “More like he didn’t get in because of shitty grades. And he’s not twenty-one, he’s only twenty.”

Georgina snickered, which drew Rachel’s ire.

Her stepsister had confided in her that she’d cut it off with Billy because he’d constantly been asking her what really happened at the WCI. Feeling guilty, Georgina had insisted that this was normal, that it wasn’t something they should end their relationship over.

But Rachel had been adamant—Georgina came first. So, Georgina decided to give Rachel a pass for being interested in Ben who seemed more than a little douchy.

She owed her that much.

“Hey, so what school do you go to?” Georgina asked Raven as Ben continued to brag about what he was doing on his year off. Which, she quickly realized, amounted to pretty much nothing.

“We live here in Denver—I go to Lakeshore High. How about you?”

Georgina squirmed.

“I used to go the WCI in Virginia, but—”

Raven’s eyes lit up… a little. The girl’s severe look was hard to crack.

“WCI? The school where they had that shooting last year?”

Georgina didn’t know what to say.

“I heard about it; it was all over the news. Did you know the kid who brought the gun to school? Tommy, something?”

Georgina pushed the last piece of her brownie around her plate.

“Oh, shit.” Raven’s expression snapped back to her resting bitch face. “I’m sorry. It must have been terrifying.”

Georgina swallowed hard, forcing back memories. Dr. Matteo had warned her about this, that people were naturally curious about these sorts of things—just look at the popularity of true crime podcasts and Netflix documentaries—and they wouldn’t be shy to ask questions. He’d given her tips and tricks to deflect these queries, but Georgina hadn’t expected to have to use them this soon.

Or with someone that she was really starting to like.

“It was… it was pretty crazy.”

“I bet.”

“Hey, you know what we’re missing?” Ben said, leaning his elbows on the table.

“What’s that?” Rachel asked. She was eager—too eager.

“Coupla drinks. You want?”

“Sure. I’ll have a vodka soda,” Rachel said.

“Ben, you’re not even twenty-one yet,” Raven said.

Ben scowled at his sister.

“Sure am.” He actually winked at Rachel. “Close enough, anyway. It’s my birthday in a month.”

“Two months,” Raven corrected.

“Whatever.”

“If mom and dad—”

“Mom and Dad aren’t here. Stop being such a dick.”

Raven leaned forward to match her brother’s pose.

“Fine. Then I’ll have a vodka soda, too.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious. You get me a vodka soda or I’ll—”

Ben sighed.

“Fine. How about you, Georgina? You want something?”

Georgina didn’t drink. Sure, she’d had two cocktails at the wedding but that had only been to appease Rachel. And they’d made her loopy.

She didn’t like the idea of losing control.

Raven touched her arm.

“She’ll have a vodka soda, too.”

Ben glared at his sister as he got up.

“Watch him get rejected,” Raven said with another ne of her scornful snickers.

He didn’t.

Ben returned a few minutes later, clutching four vodka sodas in his hand. He passed one to Rachel and one to Georgina, then slid Raven’s across the table.

It was strong. One sip and all Georgina tasted was alcohol.

Rachel got into hers and within minutes her private conversation with Ben had them both laughing.

Raven couldn’t stop rolling her eyes.

“Hey, you want to get out of here? Go for a walk?”

Georgina felt the apples in her cheeks tighten.

“Sure.”

They slid out of the booth and Raven told her brother that they were dipping out for a bit.

“Don’t go far, mom will have a coronary if you get your dumbass lost in the blizzard.”

“Whatever.”

“You want me to go with you?” Rachel asked Georgina.

“No, that’s okay. I’ll wait for you before heading back, though.”

“Okay.”

Georgina reached for her drink before noticing that Raven was leaving empty-handed.

“You don’t want your vodka soda?”

“Naw, not much of a drinker. Just wanted to make Ben pay for it.”

Georgina, fully smiling now, put her glass back down.

Raven hooked her arm through Georgina’s and guided them out of the restaurant. It couldn’t be the drink—strong or not, she’d only had one sip—but Georgina found herself feeling a little giddy.

She thought about her interaction with Brandon Baxter, the asshole who had made her life a living hell at the WCI all because he’d turned her down.

This felt different.

Bones & Brew was on the second floor of the chalet, and their path down the stairs gave them a clear view out through the massive windows.

“You sure you want to go out there?” Georgina asked. It looked miserable outside.

“Naw, not out there. C’mon, I know a different spot.”

Raven pulled her down a hallway to an emergency exit. There was a red sign on the door that informed them that an alarm would sound if opened.

“Don’t worry, it doesn’t work.”

Raven pushed the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Give me a hand.”

Georgina moved next to her. The girl’s hair smelled sweet.

Together they pushed and the door opened. Wind howled, snow whipped into the dark hallway.

“Hurry!”

They stepped outside and the door slammed closed behind them.

There was a bench to their right, probably for bellhops who took smoke breaks, that was almost entirely covered with snow.

Raven brushed some of this off with the sleeve of her jacket and indicated for Georgina to sit beside her.

Despite the wind that had fought the emergency exit door, there was some shelter here and the storm wasn’t as bad as it was out front.

Raven reached into her pocket and pulled out a joint. She lit it and exhaled a cloud of pungent smoke.

She offered it to Georgina.

“You want some?”

Georgina didn’t, but she liked Raven.

She took the joint, pinched it between two fingers, and brought it to her lips. Even though Georgina only inhaled a tiny amount, it still caused her to break out into a cough.

Raven didn’t make a big deal of it as she took the joint back.

“First time?”

“Yeah.”

“Everyone smokes weed here,” Raven said. “It’s like a rite of passage, you know?”

“In Virginia, it—”

Raven lowered the joint, leaned over, and kissed Georgina on the lips.

Caught mid-sentence, and completely by surprise, Georgina pulled back sharply.

“Oh, my bad. I thought you—”

Georgina shook her head.

“No, it’s not that. It’s just—”

“Let me guess? It’s your first time for that, too?”

It was.

It was Georgina’s first kiss.

It had been sloppy and awkward but she’d enjoyed it. So much so that Georgina initiated another.

Her lips grazed Raven’s, which were soft and supple.

Just as she felt the girl’s mouth start to part, the door flew open behind them and they quickly separated.

Rachel and Ben spilled out, laughing as they had upstairs.

“I knew I’d find you here,” Ben said. He waved a hand to clear the smoke that still hovered in the air. “And if you tell Mom about the drinks, I’ll tell her about that.”

Raven nonchalantly pinched the burning end of the joint off and put the unlit part back in her pocket.

“Whatever.”

Rachel was less judgmental.

“You ready to go, Georgina?”

“I guess.” She didn’t want to go; she wanted to kiss Raven again. But the moment was lost.

Rachel looked to the west, where the cabin was… somewhere.

“It’s going to be hell trying to find our way back,” she remarked.

“We’ll walk you,” Ben offered.

“No, that’s okay. We’ll—”

“Naw, it’s no big deal.”

And they did. The four of them made it to Rachel and Georgina’s cabin in just under half an hour.

“Here, you go in,” Rachel whispered, her teeth chattering. She handed Georgina the key.

“I'll see you again?” she asked Raven.

“I hope so.”

“Me too,” Georgina said.

Just as Georgina ducked inside, she saw Ben and Rachel come together in a kiss.

“Gross,” Raven said, shaking her head.

That night, Georgina fell asleep with a smile on her face for the first time since the shooting.

Chapter 16

This time, it was Chase who awoke to the sound of banging.

Only it wasn’t from a headache. It was too thick, too resonant.

The entire bed upon which she and Tate were sleeping seemed to rock.

Chase was up like a rocket, immediately reaching for her service pistol that was locked in the case beneath her bed.

It sounded like an explosion.

Several of them, in fact.

“Tate, wake up,” she said.

Tate didn’t move.

“Tate?”

“Chase?” He rolled over and squinted sleep from his eyes. “What’s going on?” The sight of her pulling out her service pistol had him instantly awake.

“Heard an explosion,” Chase said as she loaded her gun. “A couple explosions. I want to check on the girls. You coming?”

Without waiting for an answer, Chase started to pull on some clothes and reach for her jacket. When she turned, she saw Tate struggling to slip into a pair of jeans.

“Hurry up.”

Opening the door proved a challenge. The storm hadn’t let up overnight and it battered against wood frame.

Chase braced herself and pulled. Blowing snow blasted her in the face. What landed on the floor melted instantly.

“Shit,” Tate swore. He was still hopping on one foot trying to put on his boots. “Looks like it kept snowing all night.”

Chase checked her phone. It was just before five in the morning. The sun was still struggling to clear the caldera, and the sky was the color of old milk.

Whoever had shoveled their front porch last night hadn’t gotten around to it yet today.

Chase tucked her chin to her chest and lifted her boot high before placing it down again. The snow came nearly to her knee.

Gun at her hip, she pressed onward, trudging toward Georgina and Rachel’s cabin.

The front window to their cabin was covered in snow and she swiped some of it away.

The interior was dark and quiet.

Chase tried to door but when she found it locked, she immediately started to knock.

As she waited, her eyes went back to the mountain range, trying to locate where the explosions had come from. To the east, she saw a giant cloud of snow drifting upward from a series of distant peaks.

What the hell is going on? An avalanche?

When no one came to the door and the lights remained off, Chase knocked even harder.

“It’s Chase, open the door,” she hollered.

Finally, movement.

“Chase? What time is it?” Georgina asked, her voice dry and brittle.

“Georgina, just open the door.”

Through the window, she saw her niece approach wearing a nightgown.

The deadbolt turned and when Georgina started to open the door, Chase pushed her way in.

“What’s—” Georgina stopped speaking when she saw the gun. Chase, noticing the shock and fright on the girl’s face, tucked it beneath her coat and into the waistband of her pants around the back.

“You’re scaring me.”

Tate entered next.

“We heard an explosion, just wanted to make sure that you guys were okay,” Tate said. This wasn’t exactly true; Chase had heard the explosions, while Tate had been dead asleep at the time.

“An explosion? What kind of explosion?”

“I don’t know. Happened about five minutes ago. Where’s Rachel?”

“Sleeping.”

Tate strode into the cabin, oblivious to the snow he brought in with him. He walked to the bedroom and pushed the door, which Georgina had left ajar, all the way open.

“You think it’s an avalanche?” Georgina asked, her green eyes going wide.

“I’m not sure. Could be, I guess. But it sounded like—”

“She’s not in here,” Tate suddenly yelled. He poked his head out of the bedroom. His face was as white as the snow outside. “Rachel’s not in her bed!”

Chapter 17

“Georgina, I want you to tell me exactly what happened last night after we left,” Chase demanded.

Georgina was confused, her gaze shifting toward the bedroom. She couldn’t seem to accept that Rachel wasn’t in there. Tate had his cell phone out and was repeatedly dialing his daughter’s number.

“The storm is messing with the signal—I don’t have any bars.”

Georgina took her phone out and looked at it.

“I don’t have any either.”

Chase snapped her fingers in front of her niece’s face.

“Georgina, focus. What happened after we left the restaurant?”

Georgina cleared her throat.

“We stayed there for about half an hour,” she hesitated. “Then came back here. Raven and Ben walked us home. I swear, we went to bed at the same time. Rach was in the bed beside mine. I swear.”

“Did you lock the door?”

“Of course.”

“Did you hear anything? Someone breaking in? Rachel leaving?”

Georgina shook her head dramatically and then pushed orange locks away from her face.

“No—I heard nothing.”

Chase scanned the foyer. The girls’ cabin was only about a third of the size of their own.

“Where’s the key?”

“The…?”

“The key, Georgina. Where’s the key to your cabin?”

“I put it on the table by the door. It’s… it’s not there.”

Chase found herself nodding. Georgina might be upset by this fact, but it was actually a good sign. Unlike normal hotel rooms, Silver Peaks used actual keys and not the digital kind. And the doors didn’t automatically lock behind you. Yet, the door had been locked when Chase had pounded on it. This meant that either someone came in and grabbed Rachel—unlikely given that Georgina had remained asleep during the attack—and had politely locked the door behind them, or Rachel had left on her own.

And locked it to keep Georgina safe.

“Where the hell is she?” Tate said loudly, giving up on trying to reach his daughter by phone.

Chase’s eyes continued to roam around the room.

“I think she left what her own accord.”

“What do you mean?” Tate and Georgina asked at the same time.

“Rachel’s jacket and boots are missing and whoever took the key locked the door.”

It took a moment for this to register with Tate, and while he was still in panic mode, Chase saw him take a deep breath.

“Okay, good.”

“I’m guessing you don’t know what cabin the two you were with last night are staying in?”

“No, they never told us.”

“Okay, let’s head to the lobby and find out.” Chase changed her mind. “Actually, you stay here, Georgina. Lock the door behind us and don’t answer unless it’s me or Tate at the door. Do you understand?”

Georgina was still pale.

“Yes.”

“Say it.”

“I’ll lock the door behind you and won’t answer it unless it’s you guys are Rachel.”

“Good.” Chase stared Tate in the eyes. “Let’s go.”

***

Chase wasn’t the only one who had awoken to the sound of the explosions.

For just after five in the morning, the resort lobby was busier than it had been yesterday during peak skiing time.

Chase counted maybe twenty guests in total. All of them were confused, all asking in loud voices what the hell was going on.

With Tate beside her, Chase bypassed them, ignoring their annoyed looks, and went straight to the front desk.

Manning the check-in area was the same concierge that had given Chase her keys yesterday. The woman was deep in conversation with a man with a mustache wearing a red and white striped beanie.

“What was that noise? It sounded like an explosion?”

Chase interrupted him.

“Hey.”

“Excuse me,” Mustache Man said. “I was speaking. Why don’t you—”

In addition to bringing her gun, Chase also had her FBI badge with her. She pulled it out and slapped it on the table.

The man saw the insignia and immediately clammed up.

“What was the explosion?” Chase asked the concierge.

Behind her, Tate began asking anyone who would listen if they’d seen his daughter.

“It was… it was...” The concierge couldn’t take her eyes off the FBI badge. “Wait—a you’re… you’re with the FBI?”

“Yes. What was the explosion?”

The woman dry swallowed.

“It was a controlled explosion. With all the heavy snow, ski rescue thought there was a risk of an avalanche. They went out early, set up charges.”

“They did this on purpose?” Chase asked, not sure she understood.

The woman nodded frantically.

“Yes. They placed explosives in the snow and set them off, making a mini avalanche down the opposite side, away from the resort. It’s… it’s procedure.”

Chase turned around and saw Tate basically accosted a young couple with demands to know where Rachel was.

“...we put up posters,” the concierge continued defensively. “And even had an announcement playing on all TVs in the resort. I guess… I guess most people didn’t see it. I assure you, this is totally normal.”

Chase spotted Lori and Tom. Raven and Eva were by their side but there was no sign of the older kid.

Chase left the desk and walked over to them. The man with the mustache resumed his complaining, saying that it scared the shit out of his family and that they should have a better system for letting them know that bombs were going to go off. According to him, Silver Peaks needed an airhorn like they had in World War II.

“Chase? What’s going on?”

“Where’s Ben?” Chase said, ignoring Tom’s question.

A look of confusion came over him.

“Ben?”

“Yes. Have you seen Ben or Rachel?”

“N-no. He has his own cabin. We knocked on his door, but he didn’t answer.”

“What was that sound?” Lori asked, her voice squeaky.

Raven was suddenly interested in the floor at her feet.

Chase squatted on her haunches.

“Raven, do you know where your brother is?”

Raven shook her head and Chase, knowing that if something sinister was at play here then time was the most important factor, reached out and grabbed the girl’s wrist.

“Hey!” Tom shouted.

Chase flashed her badge, which she’d scooped off the concierge’s desk.

For some reason, Lori audibly gasped.

“FBI? I thought you said you were a legal—”

“Raven, please. If you know something, tell me.”

Raven huffed.

“Ben said he might be going out later, meet up with Rachel. But I’m in my parent’s cabin and he has his own so… I dunno.”

Tate was drawn by the scene and picked up the tail end of the conversation.

“What cabin is Ben in?” he asked.

Tom and Lori were still in shock and didn’t answer. Eva whined that she was hungry.

“What cabin?” Tate asked again.

“124. Like I said, we knocked on his door, but he didn’t answer,” Tom said, finding his voice. “He’s a heavy sleeper.”

The pressure in the lobby suddenly changed and all eyes went to the front doors. Billowing snow obscured the newcomers but when it cleared, Chase recognized a familiar snowsuit.

Tate rushed to meet Ben and Rachel.”

“Where the hell have you been?”

Rachel blinked, pulled the hood off her head, and glanced at Ben.

“Rachel, where the hell have you been?”

“What’s your problem, Dad? I was with—”

Rachel was suddenly knocked aside as a woman rushed into Silver Peaks before one of the other guests could fully close the door.

Tate reached out and stabilized his daughter.

“Watch where you’re going!”

The woman didn’t appear to hear Tate. She just continued to move toward the center of the room.

Her face was white, eyelids peeled back. Her lower lip, which was the same pale color as her cheeks, trembled violently.

“My baby!” she shrieked. “She out there—I can’t find my baby!”

PART II – The Storm

Chapter 18

Concerned guests gathered around the distraught woman and everyone started talking at once.

“Goddamn it,” Chase cursed. She couldn’t even get close.

Oh, well, the cat is out of the bag, anyway.

She announced that Chase and Tate were FBI Agents and the seas parted.

It was usually like this during the initial stages of an investigation, if that’s indeed what this was. Common folk weren’t sure what to do, so they deferred to experience. Eventually, if things didn’t move as quickly as they expected them to, conditioned as they were by completely unrealistic TV shows like Law and Order and CSI, they would start to turn.

Reverence would give way to dissonance.

But for now, they didn’t even question why the FBI was at Silver Peaks, such was their relief.

Chase looked the woman who’d come in from the cold in the eyes. She was terrified, on the verge of hyperventilating.

“What happened?”

“I-I-I was out walking with Lily when—”

The doors opened again and Chase, as much as she tried to keep her attention focused on the desperate woman, found herself unable to stop them flicking in that direction, hoping it was the woman’s daughter wandering in.

It wasn’t.

It was Georgina.

Chase shot her niece a scathing look. Georgina, on her tiptoes and peering over the heads of the other guests, probably searching for Rachel, failed to notice.

“—I lost her,” the woman continued with a shudder, despite the warmth coming from the blazing fire in the hearth. “She—she has problems sleeping and I was up anyway, so I said, let’s go for a walk. We were making snow angels then we heard this bang, and I got up, you know? I wanted to see what it was… it was so loud. Then when I looked back, Lily was just… she was just gone. There was so much snow. I couldn’t find her! I looked and looked and called her name and… and…”

The woman broke down and Chase felt her pain.

She knew what it was like for a child to go missing.

But there was no time to commiserate.

Chase told the woman to stay put and then hurried over to the concierge.

“We have a missing child out there,” she stated, matter-of-factly. “She could have been trapped in the avalanche.”

The concierge shook her head.

“No, that’s impossible. The snow is always directed down the other side of the mountain. There’s no way that—”

“You need to call ski rescue or whoever set those charges. Tell them to start looking.”

“But—”

“Just do it,” Chase said with authority.

This spurred the woman to action, and she grabbed a walkie-talkie from beneath the check-in counter. As she spoke into it, Chase moved next to Tate, who was now standing beside Georgina.

“I thought I told you to stay in the cabin.”

“I was worried about Rachel.”

“And I told you to stay—”

“What’ve we got?” Tate asked, coming to the girl’s rescue.

Chase clenched her jaw and concentrated.

“Missing girl—they were out during the avalanche.”

“Shit.”

“Still no bars on your phone?”

Tate quickly checked.

“No. Nothing.”

“Okay, we need to set up a search party. The concierge is reaching out to ski patrol.”

Tate looked out the glass windows at the front of the chalet. It was getting worse out there; it was just a wall of white.

“We need to move quickly.”

“Yeah.”

Chase found an abandoned chair near the hearth and stood on it.

“Listen up,” she said, raising her voice. “As I mentioned earlier, my name is Chase Adams, and I’m with the FBI. This is my partner, Tate.” Her husband stepped forward, joining her. “The explosions you heard this morning were from a controlled avalanche, which was planned. During the explosions, a young girl wandered off and got lost in the snow.”

The girl’s mother, as well as several of the other female guests, gasped.

“What’s your daughter’s name?” Chase asked.

“Lily.” She whimpered. “It’s Lily. I-I tried to find her but I couldn’t see anything.”

Chase maintained her focus.

“How old is she? What was she wearing?”

“Seven. She was wearing a pink snow suit. Blue stripe across the stomach.” Now, the woman sobbed.

Noticing that the concierge had finished on the walkie-talkie, she beckoned for her to come closer. Lowering her voice, Chase asked, “Are they searching?”

“Yes. They… they didn’t see anyone out there.”

Not a surprise, given the blizzard.

“Is it safe to go out?”

“What—what do you mean?”

“I mean, is there going to be an avalanche?” Chase asked, unable to keep her annoyance from creeping into her voice.

“No… no. That’s the whole point of the explosions, so we don’t have—”

“How many walkie-talkies do you have?”

The woman looked down at the object in her hand in a way that suggested she forgot she was holding it.

“How many walkie-talkies?” Chase repeated.

“I don’t know. Maybe twelve?”

“How many members of ski rescue are on site?”

“Right now?”

“Yes, right now.”

“Six, I think. Another shift is due this afternoon but with the snow—”

“Do they have their own walkies?”

“Yes.”

Chase straightened and raised her voice. Things often became unpredictable when civilians were involved in a case, but she didn’t have much of a choice.

They had to act fast.

“Listen up, I need two dozen of you to help form a search party. You need to work in pairs. You’ll get a walkie-talkie and I want you to be in constant communication with—” she looked at the concierge. “What’s your name?”

“Meredith.”

“You’ll need to be in constant communication with Meredeth. There’s no further risk of another avalanche, but the snow can be disorienting. The last thing—”

“I’ll do it,” a husky man with a handlebar mustache said.

“You need a partner. No one is to go out in the snow alone.”

“I’ll go with you,” another man offered.

A couple more guests volunteered. They began to put on their outerwear.

“I’ll go, too.”

It wasn’t a man this time, but a girl.

It was Georgina, and she was nodding emphatically.

“No,” Chase said flatly.

“I want to help. I want to help find Lily.”

“No,” Chase said again.

“Why not? I can—”

The front doors opened and the gust of wind that entered the chalet was so strong that it nearly knocked Chase off the chair. Tate placed a steadying hand on her leg.

Everyone, including Chase, hoped to see the little girl in the pink snowsuit.

Instead, the young kid who had driven them to their cabin entered.

He stomped his feet, knocking snow from his boots, and then realized that everyone was looking at him.

“H-hello?”

He had no idea what was going on.

“I want to go, Chase. Please,” Georgina begged.

“No. Not a chance.” But Georgina had a stubborn streak in her and was already zipping up her coat. “I don’t want you going out there, Georgina.”

“Well, I’m not sitting around here doing nothing.”

They didn’t have time to argue. Every second they wasted increased the likelihood of Lily freezing to death.

But Chase had to let the girl do something. Georgina was like her in that respect. A doer.

She grabbed the walkie from Meredeth’s hands and the woman let out a small gasp.

“Here—I want you to be in charge of coordinating the search party. You and Rachel. Work with Meredeth.”

A second member of ski rescue came into the chalet and the man, whose beard was packed with snow, appeared to be aware of the situation and immediately took charge.

He spotted the tear-streaked face of Lily’s mother.

“Where were you walking when you last saw your daughter?”

“By our cabin. We didn’t go far, but the snow—”

“What cabin are you staying in?”

“132,” she whispered.

The man looked up at Chase.

“That’s on the north side of the chalet.”

“Good, then that’s where we’ll start looking.”

Chapter 19

With the help of the head of the ski patrol, who identified himself as Gary Devers, the search party was ready to go in just minutes.

Georgina and Rachel, assisted by the stunned-looking concierge Meredeth, were holding down the fort at the chalet. They’d set up shop in the dining hall, with a large map of the Silver Peaks Resort spread out in front of them. They’d given each of the twelve pairs of searchers a specific area to look, centralized behind Lily’s cabin.

Mr. Devers, who claimed to have more than fifteen years of experience in ski rescue, outfitted all members of the search party with specialized equipment. The first item, which he deemed most important, was a thick red vest. Not only were these equipped with circular lights that blinked when activated and could be seen for miles in every direction, but they also had long-range tracking devices sewn into the fabric. A strange pull cord dangled from one breast pocket. Mr. Devers stressed that this should only be pulled in case the wearer was being buried under snow. Like the life preservers available on all commercial planes, pulling this cord would cause the vest to immediately inflate. This would create a massive pocket of air beneath the snow, allowing the wearer to breathe while rescuers tracked them down and dug them out.

The second item was specialized carbon fiber poles that extended telescopically and were to be used to prod the snow to search for bodies. They had more vests than poles, and when they ran out of the latter, Mr. Devers gave them normal ski poles for this purpose.

Although nobody explicitly said it, none of them hoped that these were necessary.

Each group was also given walkie-talkies and were instructed to check in every fifteen minutes, which Georgina would record in a notebook that Meredeth had provided. Gary mentioned snowshoes, but Chase made the executive decision to forgo them—it would take too much time to get everyone fitted.

“I used the satellite phone and called Denver PD,” the concierge informed Chase. “They’ve dispatched troopers, but the snow is making travel next to impossible. They could be here as quickly as an hour or in as many as eight.”

“Eight?” Chase balked.

“Yeah, I know,” Meredeth replied, red-faced and exasperated. “I told them about the girl but—”

“What about a chopper?” Chase interrupted.

The concierge sighed.

“They said the weather is too bad. They can’t risk putting one into the air until the storm passes.”

“And when will that be?” Tate asked.

A quick glance toward the windows revealed that the storm had no intention of letting up. There was so much snow that it was impossible to tell if it was still falling heavily or if the howling wind was just blowing it around.

“Okay. Give them another call in thirty minutes,” Chase instructed. Meredeth nodded, then she turned to her partner. “You ready?”

Tate lifted the scarf from around his neck to over his nose and mouth.

“Not really, but let’s do this.”

Chase looked at Gary Devers.

“Let’s go.”

The man, with the help of two other burly members of the search party, pulled the doors open.

Before Chase even stepped outside, she felt a chill in her bones. She thought she knew cold, but this was something different.

Ski rescue only had four four-wheelers at their disposal and one snowmobile. When Chase challenged Gary on this, he explained that two other vehicles were in the shop and the resort was under half capacity.

Most of the search teams fit on the back of the four vehicles, which were being driven by younger ski rescue members, and headed toward their designated areas.

Only Gary and Chase and Tate stayed behind.

“In this weather, it’s going to take them at least fifteen minutes to get to cabin 132 and back,” the man said. The snow in his beard had melted during his time in the chalet, but within seconds of stepping outside, it was Santa white again.

“What are the chances we find her?” Chase asked. She had to shout over the whistle of the wind.

The man didn’t hesitate.

“In this weather, an adult who is fully dressed might have two to three hours. A young child, however? One.”

One hour.

Chase did some rough calculations in her mind, guessing that Lily’s mother looked for Lily for at least ten minutes before coming to the chalet, which was probably a journey of twenty minutes.

Once Chase took over, she’d moved quickly and, with the help of Gary, they were up and out in around ten.

That put them at a conservative 37 minutes. Plus another eight to drive in the snow back to the cabin.

That left them with fifteen minutes to spare.

It didn’t look good.

“Is there a chance that she was trapped in the avalanche?” Tate asked.

Gary was emphatic.

“No. All the snow was directed down the backside of the mountain. Even the snow that was blasted into the air from the explosives came nowhere near the cabins.”

This, at least, was good news. If Lily had been buried, she would certainly be dead by now.

The first four-wheeler returned faster than Gary had predicted—nine minutes on the dot.

“I’m going to do a lap of the chalet on the snowmobile,” the man said as Tate and Chase loaded into the vehicle which was being driven by the same young man who had greeted them upon arrival. “Visibility is shit poor, but if the girl saw anything it would probably be the smoke from the chalet’s chimney.”

Even though the sides of the four-wheeler were open, the front had a folding windshield which Donnie had flicked up. The man had pulled the hood of his jacket over his head, and the furry fringe was covered in snow.

Chase ducked behind this to shield herself from the brunt of the storm, and the wind battered it incessantly.

Gary had been wrong about something other than the time to reach cabin 132; visibility wasn’t shit poor; it was effectively zero. How Donnie managed to navigate through a wall of white was a mystery.

He was, evidently, trying his best to stick to the tracks that the vehicle’s thick tires had already made in the snow, but it was still slow going.

It was like driving a road bike through sand and mud.

“This is it,” Donnie shouted, pulling up in front of a cabin that they only saw when within mere feet of it. “Cabin 132.”

Chase and Tate jumped off and were greeted by a blast of icy wind in their faces. Borrowed scarves covered everything from their eyes down, but even this small amount of exposed flesh instantly started to sting. Within seconds, Chase felt her eyelashes start to freeze.

Their section was to the west of the cabin, and they fanned out on foot.

Chase quickly realized that opting out of the snowshoes was a mistake. The snow was shin high and getting higher by the second.

The poles designed to search for bodies were quickly re-purposed to haul themselves forward, but even with these, progress was agonizingly sluggish.

Chase stopped to catch her breath and cupped her gloved hands around her mouth.

“Lily! Lily!” It was useless—the wind swallowed her words the moment they left her mouth. Still, fearing that this entire search was going to be equally as ineffective, Chase felt the need to do something while she trudged onward. She kept shouting as she moved.

“Lily!”

Condensation from her labored breathing moistened her scarf, which instantly froze. The rough material scratched her nose and lips.

“God damn it,” Chase muttered. “Tate, this is—”

She turned to look over her shoulder, but Tate was nowhere to be seen. Chase could just barely make out the outline of the chalet and she hadn’t traveled far at all.

“Tate?”

Where the hell are you?

“Tate!”

The wind mocked her.

Taunted her.

“Tate!”

Fear began to grip her.

“Tate!”

Fuck.

As much as she was remiss to do so, Chase turned around and retraced her steps. Progress was faster using her deep footprints as a guide.

“Tate!”

He was lost to the white.

Chase removed the walkie from her belt and clicked the button.

“Georgina? You there?”

She waited for a beat.

“Chase? Did you find her?”

Chase winced.

“No, I can’t see a thing. I need you to… I need you to call everyone back.”

This time, the pause extended for longer.

“Are you… sure?”

Chase had to remind herself that despite what Georgina had been through, she was still just a teenager. And teenagers, even ones who had been through hell, still thought they were invincible.

Still believed that the bad things—the really bad things—only happened in books and movies.

“Yes,” she replied, unable to prevent the dejection she felt from creeping into her voice. “Call them back. I’m worried that if they stay out here any longer, we’re going to have two dozen missing people instead of one.”

“Okay. Be safe.”

Chase signed off and switched on her beacon light. It was bright, a rhythmic pulsing on her chest.

“Tate?”

A sound to the right made her turn.

“Chase? Everything alright?”

Her husband emerged from the wall of white.

“Jesus!” Chase cried. “Where were you?”

The man moved close enough so that she could see the expression on his face.

“I was… I was looking for Lily. What happened?”

Chase exhaled aggressively, which forced the abrasive scarf away from her irritated skin.

“You can’t stray that far.”

She turned off her light and took a moment to collect herself.

“I just… I was worried, Tate. I-I spoke to Georgina. Told her to call everyone in.”

“Already?”

She would have stiffened in response to this reply, but the cold had already frozen the liquid inside her joints.

“They’re just going to get lost out here.”

Tate supported her decision, as she knew he would.

“Alright,” he said with a curt nod. “We should head to the meeting point. Wait for Donnie to pick us up.”

“No—not us. We keep looking. But stay close, okay?”

Another nod.

“Let’s stick near the cabin.”

Now less than a foot apart, they both backtracked. Even during Chase’s brief conversation with first Georgina and then Tate, their footsteps had nearly filled in.

They made it to the cabin in a couple of minutes, using the small front porch and overhang for shelter. On a whim, Chase checked the front door.

She was surprised to find it unlocked. After a glance at Tate, she opened the door and stepped in.

Despite knowing that it was unlikely, deep down, she was hopeful to find Lily hiding in her room, perhaps huddled under the covers for warmth.

The first thing she noticed was that it was, indeed, warm inside the cabin. The fire had burned out, but there were still glowing embers in the hearth.

The next thing that got her attention was the small puddle of water in the entrance. Before she could consider this further, her gaze was drawn to an abandoned glove near the center of the room. The single child-sized mitt was creme colored with a two-foot piece of string attached to the base.

“Lily?” Chase said softly. Her voice was muffled by the scarf, and she pulled it down, grateful for no longer needing the damn thing. “Lily?”

No answer.

Tate pushed his way inside behind her, releasing an audible shudder as he did.

“Any luck?” he said.

All Chase had to do was look at him and the man knew.

Lily wasn’t here.

Lily was gone.

And, more likely than not, the girl was dead.

Chapter 20

Someone had finally managed to coax the name out of the hysterical woman who had lost her child: Suzanne.

Suzanne and Lily Rowan. 

With every minute that passed, she became more and more frantic. Her breathing was wet, whistly, and every time a guest spoke in anything above a whisper, she glared at them.

The concierge was doing her best to calm the woman down, as were additional staff who weren’t busy trying to alert those who had slept through the explosions that there was a missing child.

Every five or six minutes, one of the groups checked in with Georgina, and she recorded this on the pad of paper.

“Hey,” Rachel said during a down moment. “You okay?”

Georgina frowned.

“You left me,” she said. “I was so scared.”

“I went to Ben’s cabin. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“But you left me.”

Best friends or not, Rachel got her back up.

“I don’t have to tell you everything.”

Georgina glared at her.

“No, you don’t have to. But leaving like that? When there are explosions going off and a girl lost in the snow?”

“Don’t be a baby. That didn’t happen until—”

The walkie-talkie erupted with static.

“—after.”

It was Chase, instructing her to tell everyone to come back in.

She didn’t want to. She wanted to hear that Lily was cold but alive.

Georgina reluctantly passed along the message. She had to tell several of the groups that this was not a suggestion but an order from Agent Adams.

Suzanne overheard her and pushed the concierge out of the way to make her way toward Georgina and Rachel.

“What do you mean they’re coming back?” the woman shrieked. “Why are they coming back when they haven’t found her yet?”

Even though they were in a fight, Rachel still moved between Georgina and the woman.

“Chase—I mean, Agent Adams,” Georgina corrected herself, “said that the visibility is extremely bad. She thinks that others—”

“I don’t care!” Suzanne shouted. “I don’t care! Find Lily! Find my baby!”

“Please, Mrs. Rowan, we’re doing everything—”

Suzanne whipped around and grasped Meredeth by the shoulders.

“You tell them they have to find her!”

Nobody knew what to do. Nobody knew how to tell this woman that the lives of two dozen guests and five ski patrollers were more important than her daughter.

So, nobody did anything. They just stood and watched Suzanne throttle Meredith.

One thought passed through Georgina’s mind.

What Would Chase Do? WWCD.

It was cheesy, corny, cliché.

But there was no denying that this question had helped her survive before.

Georgina knew better than to stand still, to wait for someone else to step up.

She came to Meredeth’s aid.

“Listen up,” she said in a voice as loud as her small frame could produce. It worked—Suzanne finally let go of Meredeth. “You need to calm down. Everyone wants to find your daughter, Mrs. Rowan. Every single person in this room and everyone out there,” she pointed at the front doors, “wants to find her. But someone else going missing won’t help. It’ll mean that we’ll have to divert resources that we simply don’t have.”

All the strength was suddenly drained from Suzanne’s body and now it was Meredeth holding her and not the other way around.

Not in anger, but in support.

The concierge guided Suzanne to the nearest chair and plunked her into it.

Meredeth asked one of the other staff members to fetch her something to drink.

The chalet calmed a little after that. Rachel, still upset at Georgina for chewing her out, kept her distance, but this space was quickly occupied by someone else.

“Rachel was with Ben last night,” Raven told her softly.

“Did you know?” Some of the harshness from her argument with Rachel spilled over.

Raven, already stern-faced, didn’t react.

“No. I’m staying with my mom and dad.”

Raven had that look about her, epitomizing the, I take no shit stance.

But for a fraction of a second this icy veneer broke.

And it affected Georgina.

“Shit,” she said and reached for Raven, wrapping her arms around the girl’s shoulders. “Shit.”

Raven hugged her back and Georgina collected herself.

“Raven? Get away from her. Ben, you get over here, too.”

They separated and Georgina spotted Tom and Lori glaring at them.

“Dad, I’m just—”

“Now.”

Raven muttered something incomprehensible before starting away. Ben, who had since found his way to Rachel, also moved toward his parents.

So did Raven.

And then Lori shot a scathing glance at Georgina.

What did I do? Georgina wondered.

The walkie-talkie lying on the table came alive and Georgina, still confused, picked it up.

“Chase?”

“This is Gary Devers. I just circled the chalet on the snowmobile. The searchers are all accounted for—the first group should be arriving back soon.”

“Okay. Any…” Georgina lowered her voice, trying to make sure that Suzanne didn’t overhear her. “Any sign of Lily?”

It was a dumb question; clearly, if someone had spotted Lily, Gary would have led with that.

But she didn’t know what else to say.

“No.”

Gary signed off and Georgina scribbled a note in the journal.

At the top of the page, she instinctively wrote the name ‘LILY’ in all caps and circled it. Things had changed so precipitously since the flight that she was having a hard time believing that Chase and Tate’s wedding had been yesterday. The emotional separation—the elation of the party to the dour feelings of a child missing in a blizzard—had become an impassable chasm.

Less than a minute later, the doors opened, and a series of depressed-looking guests entered, their faces stark white.

“Any sign of the girl?” One of the men who had volunteered to search but had been turned down on account of too many numbers asked.

Another man, this one with frostbitten cheeks and an exhausted look about him as if he’d just scaled Mount Everest instead of only spending a half hour traipsing through a blizzard, came forward.

“Please?” Suzanne begged, looking up from a cup of steaming liquid.

The man lowered his eyes and shook his head.

“No, I’m so sorry, but we didn’t find her.”

Chapter 21

Chase was frozen to her core. Even after Donnie opened the chalet doors and warm air billowed out, she couldn’t stop shaking.

They were the last of the search party to return, and Chase spotted the rest of them huddled around the crackling fire.

Every single one of them looked miserable and for good reason.

They’d all witnessed what it was like out there, felt the extreme cold bite through their layers of clothing.

Best case scenario, Lily had gone quickly, falling asleep before the cold took her.

As much as Chase didn’t want to think about it, she kept coming back to that case in Alaska.

Agent Martinez’s first two victims had also frozen in the snow. Only, they’d gotten confused, they suffered from something called paradoxical undressing brought on by hypothermia. They’d removed all their clothing, which only hastened their deaths.

Chase removed her scarf and unzipped the top part of her jacket.

Even though her preliminary headcount had tallied twenty-two frozen searchers and four ski patrollers, Chase went over to Georgina and confirmed that everyone was accounted for.

The girl had drawn circles on the map where the groups had looked for Lily. They’d only managed to cover a small percentage of the vast mountain slope.

Meredeth was consoling Suzanne, while Raven, Ben, and Eva were speaking in hushed tones with their parents on the other side of the room. Lori caught her stare and immediately averted her eyes.

Chase had one thought, a banal thought, one that should have never entered her head.

I’m on my fucking honeymoon, for Christ’s sake.

She dashed it.

“Listen up,” Chase said. She pulled off her gloves and rubbed her hands together, trying to bring some feeling back to her fingertips. “I know everyone is upset and that everyone wants to find Lily. But we can’t go out there again. We—” she paused, putting off what she knew needed to be said. “We have to wait for the storm to clear.”

Suzanne gasped and the cup fell from her hands. Dark liquid soaked the carpet.

“I know,” Chase said quietly. “I know.”

“How long is that going to be?” Someone demanded. “My phone’s not working. Can’t even check the weather.”

“The storm is interfering with cell signals,” Tate said. “It could be an hour, could be three.”

“Three?”

As Tate took over addressing the guests, Chase moved closer to Suzanne. Something about what she’d seen in the woman’s cabin was bothering her. Only, she couldn’t quite grasp what it was. It was right there, hiding just below the surface of her mind.

If she hadn’t been so damn cold, she would have been able to think more clearly.

“Suzanne, I need to ask you something. I know you’re hurting but—”

Suzanne’s eyes suddenly lifted. They were bloodshot, her pupils reduced to the size of pinpricks.

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” There was an eerie calmness to her voice. “My Lily’s dead.”

Chase balled her hands into fists, ignoring the painful sensation that followed.

“I don’t know.” Experience told her that a direct approach was almost always the best course of action, but she just couldn’t bring herself to say the words, to tell this distraught woman that, yes, Lily was almost certainly dead. “If she managed to find her way to one of the cabins then maybe—” It suddenly came to her. “Suzanne, did you lock your door when you left for your walk this morning?”

“Did I…?”

“Lock your cabin door.”

Suzanne thought about this for a moment.

“Yes. I locked it after we left.”

“And do you still have your key?”

The woman patted her pant pockets absently. She touched something hard and pulled out a key ring with a brass ‘132’ engraved in it.

“You sure you locked it?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Why are you asking me this?”

Chase, fearing that she was going to lose her train of thought, ignored the woman’s query.

“And when you left, what gloves were Lily wearing?”

“Beige with flowers on them.”

Chase pictured the glove she’d seen lying on the floor in the cabin. Her chest tightened, and this time it had nothing to do with the cold.

“How many pairs of gloves does she have?”

“I don’t know. Maybe three. Why?”

“Are all her gloves the same?”

“I don’t—I don’t understand.”

“Lily’s gloves,” Chase clarified. “Are all her gloves the same? Are all of them beige with flowers across the palms?”

“N-no. Her other gloves are red and… green, I think. We packed extra because—because—”

Suzanne broke down, started to weep.

Meredeth looked at her, and Chase gave the concierge a nod. She was crying, too, Chase noted as Meredeth went back to comforting Suzanne.

Chase approached Tate.

“No, we can’t risk it. If any of you go missing—”

She reached for her husband’s arm. He took one look at her and his brow immediately lowered.

“We can’t just sit in here while that girl is out there in the snow,” one of the searchers proclaimed loudly, peacocking.

This was met with murmuring that was mostly in agreement.

“Chase? What’s going on?” Tate asked quietly.

Chase huffed and started to shake her head.

“Chase?”

“I—I don’t think Lily got lost,” Chase said after a long pause. Her voice was barely a whisper. “I think someone took her, Tate. I think someone took Lily Rowan.”

Chapter 22

Chase didn’t need to explain; Tate understood. He’d seen the glove, the puddle on the floor of Cabin 132.

If Suzanne left when she said they did, before the orchestrated avalanche, the water should have dried up by the time they entered the cabin.

Lily had found her way back. By some miracle, lost in the blizzard, the girl had wandered to her cabin.

Only, it had been locked.

Someone had let her in. And then they’d taken her. Maybe there was a struggle, maybe the string from Lily’s gloves had just snagged on something and torn.

Either way, Chase was convinced that this was now an abduction case and not a missing child.

These were usually complicated enough but being cut off from the rest of the world compounded things. And then there were the guests to consider. Most had been corralled in the lobby, but there were probably others still out there. People sleeping, maybe nursing hangovers. Oblivious to what was happening at the chalet.

Right now, only Tate and Chase were aware of this development. And it had to stay that way.

Not only would the crowd turn on each other, perhaps even on the two FBI Agents, but there was also the risk that one of them was behind this.

If they panicked and Lily was still alive—a slim possibility, though increasingly plausible if they considered she hadn’t been trapped in the blizzard—Chase would have to waste precious time breaking up fights instead of searching for the girl.

“What do you want to do?” Tate asked under his breath.

Chase considered their options. They were limited.

She scanned the faces of the guests, of the Silver Peaks’ staff who had gathered. Was the kidnapper among them, hiding in plain sight?

Chase cleared her throat and spoke up.

“Listen up. The best thing we can do for Lily right now is stay calm. We need to stay here, in this lobby. We need everyone to gather here, as well.”

The guests glanced around nervously. Other than the few who had wanted to go out and look for Lily again, they had no intentions of going anywhere.

Chase looked at Meredeth.

“How many guests are currently staying at the hotel?”

The woman shrugged.

“Forty?”

“I need an exact number. I also need to know how many staff members checked-in this morning.”

“Probably another twenty, including kitchen staff and ski patrol.”

“Meredeth, I need an exact number,” Chase said, more sternly this time.

The concierge gave Suzanne’s trembling hand a gentle squeeze before she slid in behind the check-in desk. As the woman accessed her computer, Chase walked over to Georgina.

“I made a mistake before,” the girl said preemptively. “Not everyone is back yet. Gary is still out there.”

Chase scratched the back of her neck. She didn’t want to lose anyone else, but if one person knew the lay of the land well enough not to get lost, it would be the head of the ski rescue team.

“Call him. Ask him to go to each of the cabins. If there is anyone still sleeping, tell him to round them up and bring them back here.”

“Thinking about sending out another search party?”

There was a glint of youthful optimism in Georgina’s vibrant green eyes.

“I just—I just want to talk to everyone, okay?”

The girl was observant and knew that Chase was lying. She also knew better than to challenge her on this.

“Okay.”

Chase left her niece and returned to Meredeth.

“Thirty-four guests are checked in and we have seventeen staff members on site. There are usually more, but I think some didn’t make it in on account of the storm.”

Shit.

Chase was hoping for a smaller number.

“Thanks. Any word from Denver PD.”

“I called them about ten minutes ago, like you told me to. They’re on their way but…”

But the snow is making it impossible to get here, Chase finished in her head.

She sucked on her lower lip.

“One more question: how many sets of keys are there for each of the cabins?”

“Keys?”

“Yeah, how many?”

“Why?”

Chase gave the woman a stern look, one that passed along an unambiguous message.

“Three,” Meredeth answered. “One for the guests, one for the cleaning staff, and an extra in case one gets lost.”

“No master key that opens all doors?”

“No. All the locks are different.”

Chase closed her eyes and breathed.

Thirty-three guests. Seventeen staff members.

Subtract Chase and her family and that left a total of forty-six.

Forty-six possible suspects who could have easily grabbed the key to Cabin 132 and taken Lily Rowan.

Chapter 23

Chase wasn’t telling her something. Georgina knew her aunt well enough to know when she was keeping a secret from her.

And this was a whopper. It was written all over Chase’s face.

Had they found Lily? Had they discovered her tiny, frozen body but didn’t want to incite panic by telling everyone?

Georgina distracted her morbid thoughts by reaching out to Gary and passing along the instructions.

The head of the ski rescue unit didn’t even question her.

“Georgina?”

She set down the walkie-talkie and glanced at Raven who spoke to her from several feet away.

“Yeah?”

“I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

Georgina’s eyes narrowed.

“I know—”

“Raven, get back here,” Lori said forcefully.

“No, Mom.”

“Raven, listen to your mother,” Tom warned.

“What is wrong with you guys? I can help, you know I can.”

“Raven,” Tom said, “they lied to us. They told us they were a secretary and—”

“So, what?” Raven shot back. “So, what if they didn’t want to tell us they were FBI Agents? Besides, I already knew.”

This came as a complete surprise to Georgina but not Tom and Lori. Raven silently challenged her parents, but they didn’t accept and instead focused their attention on Ben and Eva’s.

Raven waited a second before turning back to Georgina.

“What do you mean you knew?” Georgina asked sharply.

“I recognized your aunt.”

Georgina shook her head, not following.

“How? From where?”

Raven sighed and her expression softened.

“I’m starting a true crime podcast and some of the cases I was looking into made mention of an FBI Agent. They mentioned Chase Adams.”

Georgina felt all the blood drain from her face.

If she knew Chase, then she knew Georgina, too.

Knew all about Georgina.

“No, it’s okay,” Raven said quickly, picking up on Georgina’s distress. “I won’t say anything.”

Georgina felt her shock slowly being replaced with anger. This was the girl who she’d shared her first kiss with? And those questions about the shooting…? Raven was just pretending to be interested.

She was doing research.

Fucking research.

“Get away from me,” Georgina hissed.

“I’m sorry, but I was—”

“Just get away. Go back to your parents.”

Raven stared at her feet.

“I’m sorry. I like you, Georgina.”

“You’re a liar,” she shot back. “Stay away.”

“It’s fine if you hate me, but I need to tell you something else.”

“Another lie?”

Georgina’s blood was starting to boil, and she was having a hard time containing herself. She knew how important it was to stay calm, not to rile up Suzanne or any of the other guests.

But she was on the verge of losing control.

“No, not a lie. And it’s not about you or your aunt. It’s about this place.”

“What are you talking about?”

Raven looked up. Her eyes were moist.

“There are rumors about this place, Georgina. About kids going missing. About a Yeti coming down during a blizzard and snatching them up.”

Georgina balked.

“What?”

Raven licked her lips before continuing.

“Remember at dinner when my dad said that I picked this place to go for vacation?”

Georgina briefly recalled the comment, which was mentioned offhand.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Well, I chose Silver Peaks because I wanted to do a podcast about it. I did some…” she hesitated, “research on Silver Peaks. Kids have gone missing from here—lots of kids. Like I said, a Yeti—”

Georgina couldn’t believe her ears.

“A Yeti? What the hell is that?”

Raven moved her head from side-to-side.

“It’s like part of folklore, you know? Abominable Snowman, big hairy fucking thing that—”

“You aren’t seriously talking to me right now about a fairy tale.”

“No—okay, forget the Yeti. But kids have gone missing from this place. For years, Georgina. Lily isn’t the first.”

“You’re lying. You just want to—”

“I’m not. I have stuff back in my room. Newspaper articles, police reports. It’s all part of the public domain. Some of it was buried but I managed to get my hands on it.”

There was a seriousness to Raven’s tone that made Georgina forget all about the girl’s lies and her first kiss.

“I think… I think something bad might have happened to Lily, and I’m not talking about getting lost in the storm.”

Georgina felt her heart start to race in her chest.

“You need to tell my aunt what you know right now. And if I were you, I’d keep that Yeti stuff to yourself.”

***

Chase was busy doing another headcount when Georgina and her friend came up to her.

“Did you manage to reach Gary?”

“I did, he’s bringing everyone in.”

Georgina’s tone, flat and even, raised alarm bells.

“What is it?” Her eyes flicked from Georgina to Raven, who appeared unable to look directly at her. “What’s going on?”

“Tell her,” Georgina said, nudging Raven.

“Tell me what? Georgina, I don’t really have time—”

“Just tell her what you told me.”

Raven took a deep breath.

“I’m starting a true crime podcast,” the girl said dryly, “and I picked this place for our vacation on purpose.”

A true-crime podcast? What the hell is she talking about?

“I don’t know what this is all about, but if you’re asking me for an interview, you are a real—”

“No,” Raven snapped. “It’s not about that. It’s about this place.”

“What about this place?” Chase barked. “In case you forgot, there’s a missing girl out there. If you’re just wasting my time, I swear, I will—”

“That’s the thing,” Raven cut in. “It’s about the missing girl. Lily… Lily isn’t the first to get lost at Silver Peaks Resort, Agent Adams. Not by a long shot.”

Chapter 24

To say that Chase was surprised by what Raven told her would be like saying that there was a chilly breeze outside.

Sixteen missing girls? A predator stalking Silver Peaks for decades?

And she, the head of the CVU, had never even heard of it?

It couldn’t possibly be true… but what if it was?

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” Chase demanded.

Raven’s dark eyes widened.

“I didn’t make the connection. Like everyone else, I just thought that Lily had wandered off.”

“I don’t—”

“I have everything in my cabin. I can show you.”

It could be a ploy, a young, gregarious girl wanting to make a name for herself on TikTok or YouTube for getting an elusive interview with the vaunted FBI Agent.

This wasn’t Chase’s ego talking, it was reality.

Over the years, especially immediately following some of her more high-profile cases, many news outlets had reached out to her, including some of the biggest names in the industry.

Chase had, in no uncertain terms, declined them all.

“Stay here,” she ordered. “Georgina, I’m serious. Don’t say anything… just stay here.”

Gary had since delivered at least four new guests that Chase could see, and others were bringing them up to speed.

They were shocked to hear about Lily.

Tate was busy trying to maintain control when Chase reluctantly pulled him aside.

She quickly told him what Raven had shared with her.

“Impossible,” the man said without hesitation. “Linus has a script. If there were that many missing girls, it would have shown up on the CVU radar.”

“That’s what I thought, too, but she says she has documents.”

Tate’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Where?”

“In her cabin.”

“Chase, you’re not going out there again.”

Chase felt her hackles rise.

If he thinks that now that we’re married this is how things are going to go, he’s got another thing coming.

But Chase recognized this as a defense mechanism amplified by the cold and her fatigue.

“Tate, I have to check.” Tate’s eyes roamed the room anxiously. “She’s just a kid. And I have… this.” Chase lifted the back of her jacket, flashing her partner a glimpse of the butt of her pistol tucked into her waistband.

Tate grimaced.

He was on the fence; she just needed to push a little to get him all the way over.

“I’ll take a walkie-talkie. If anything happens, I’ll call in right away.”

Tate still wasn’t pleased but this did the trick.

“I don’t know how long I can keep them calm, Chase. They’re getting antsy.”

“I know, I know. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

Chase wasn’t keen on heading back out into the cold either, but sitting here, waiting for it to stop snowing and for the cops to show up, was equally as unappealing.

Tate leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.

“Be safe, Chase.”

“I will.”

Chase went back to Georgina and Raven.

“Get your stuff on, we’re heading out.”

Both girls nodded and Chase approached Tom and Lori. She briefly—very briefly—outlined what she planned on doing justifying it by mentioning that Raven might have something on Silver Peaks that could help her search.

Tom said that this was out of the question but Lori, perhaps thinking about how she would feel if Eva or any of her other children went missing, was of a different mind.

“I promise to keep Raven safe. And we won’t be gone long.”

Chase had already made up her mind. If Tom and Lori said no, she would go anyway with or without Raven.

“Tom, if Raven can help…”

“Please,” Chase added.

Tom cursed under his breath.

“If anything happens to her—”

“Nothing will.”

Chase grabbed Georgina and Raven before the girl’s parents changed their minds. As promised to Tate, she picked up a walkie-talkie on the way to the front doors.

“I thought that we called off the search?” a member of the ski patrol said, noticing them zipping up their jackets and adjusting their hats.

“We did. The three of us are just going out to check on something,” Chase said, hoping that this was enough to satiate the man’s curiosity.

It wasn’t.

“Check what?”

“The telephone lines,” Chase blurted. “We’re going to see if we can get the landline up and running so you can call your families.”

“I’ll go.” the man said, eying Raven and Georgina. “Kids shouldn’t be out in the storm.”

“Apparently, there are some small places that only they’re going to able to reach,” Chase said doubling down on the lie. “We won’t be gone long. I need the keys to a four-wheeler.”

The man reluctantly handed her a set.

And then the three of them stepped back into the cold.

***

Despite the atrocious weather, when Georgina got outside, she immediately felt her creeping anxiety begin to ease.

Being trapped inside the chalet reminded her too much of the situation in the WCI cafeteria with a gunman on the loose.

“Put your beacons on,” Chase instructed as she searched the four-wheelers for the correct one. The key had a number on the tag, and she matched it up with what was written on the side of one of the parked vehicles.

Georgina clicked the button on her vest and helped Raven who was struggling to do the same with her thick gloves.

“I’m sorry,” Raven said.

Georgina remained quiet.

“This is the one,” Chase yelled. “Get in.”

They piled into the four-wheeler and Chase pulled out a map of the cabins and pressed it to the steering wheel. The wind nearly wrenched it from her hands.

Nobody said anything during the drive, they all just crouched and tried to stay warm.

A mixture of thoughts swirled in Georgina’s head. Thoughts about Lily, about other missing girls, about her kiss with Raven.

About Brendon Baxter of all people.

Ten minutes later, Chase pulled up in front of a cabin that was identical to Georgina and Rachel’s.

“This is me,” Raven confirmed.

She produced a key as Chase switched off the four-wheeler.

Raven gave the key to Chase, and she opened the door.

Despite a small fire burning in the hearth, abandoned when the family had left after the explosions, it wasn’t warm enough to convince Georgina to take off her gloves just yet.

“My room’s over here,” Raven informed them, stomping her feet to knock off some of the snow. They didn’t bother removing their boots.

Raven had pushed her bed to one side to make room for her podcast setup. It was simple, a circular light atop a head-high tripod. There was a plastic cell phone holder in the center of the light.

Raven went straight for the bed and reached beneath it. Stretching her arm, she grabbed several file folders and pulled them out.

Seeing the looks on their faces, she said, “My parents aren’t big fans of me wanting to start a podcast.” She gave the top folder to Chase and the one beneath it to Georgina. “Everything is in these.”

Georgina finally removed her gloves and opened the folder.

“Chase, do you think that something happened to Lily?” she asked, recalling the look on her aunt’s face when she’d told her to relay the message for Gary to bring all the guests back to the chalet. “Like, something other than getting lost?”

“I—” Georgina knew that another lie was on the tip of her aunt’s tongue. But then Chase changed her mind. “I’m not sure, but she might have made it back to her cabin and someone grabbed her there.”

A scene played out in Georgina’s mind. A screaming girl in a snowsuit, a man grabbing her kicking body around the waist.

She shuddered.

“Lily fits the profile. The earliest disappearance I could find is a girl named Roxie—Roxanne—Capito,” Raven said, flipping through a notepad that was covered in margin-to-margin handwritten notes. “She went missing in March 1986. Apparently, like Lily, she went out walking with her parents and got lost. They never found her body.”

Georgina turned back to the article in her hands and scanned the details. It was dated March 26th, 1993, and described a nine-year-old girl who had taken a chairlift on her own and never came down the hill. Like Roxie, she, too, was never found.

One particular detail stood out to her.

“This says that the girl went missing from Brackenridge Ski Resort, not Silver Peaks.”

Raven was now in front of her setup and was busy trying to attach her phone in the center of the light ring.

“I know. This place… it changed its name four or five times over the years. Sometimes after a substantial renovation, sometimes after a girl went missing. I’m guessing it has something to do with not wanting to be associated with the bad press.

The light turned on and Georgina closed one eye against the harshness of it.

She laid the photocopy of the newspaper article on the floor and read the next one. It was from 1995 and described another girl who went missing under similar circumstances. She placed it to the right of the first article, arranging them by ascending year. Her mind was oddly blank as she did this, disconnected from what she was reading and her actions.

Georgina repeated this process with the third article but when she came to the fourth, her mind snapped back into focus.

The title was the first that hinted at a connection between the most recent victim and at least two of the others: Yeti Claims another Victim in Record Breaking Denver Snowstorm.

It was in incredibly poor taste considering the fact they were talking about real missing children, but that wasn’t the only reason why she half hid this under the previous article.

Chase’s attitude toward anything supernatural or religious was well known in the Abernathy/Adams household.

And it was far from complimentary.

“Welcome to the very first episode of Beyond the Crime Scene,” Raven said in a voice that was slightly more falsetto than Georgina was familiar with. “I’m your host—”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Chase, who had her head buried in her own series of newspaper articles, demanded.

Raven stopped the recording.

“I’m doing the intro to my podcast.”

“No,” Chase said sternly. “No way. I don’t want you to record any of this.”

Raven’s expression soured.

“The cops covered it up, you know—the missing girls. Changed the resort’s name, buried police reports. Made some stupid story about a Yeti taking the kids.”

Georgina cringed, but Chase didn’t seem to pick up on this last part.

“I don’t care,” Chase said, shaking her head. “I don’t want you to record this.”

“I won’t use your names. But people need to know what happened here. Every year, rich people come to this place thinking that it’s safe for their families. They deserve to know the truth.”

Georgina was impressed by the way Raven was standing up to her aunt. She knew firsthand that this wasn’t an easy thing to do.

“I know you’re just a kid, but—”

“I’m not just a kid. I’ve been through things. My best friend—”

“Raven, we don’t have time to record a podcast. Someone took Lily and the longer we wait, the more likely she is to wind up dead. If she isn’t dead already.”

Chase’s sobering words caused a momentary lull in the conversation.

Georgina broke the silence.

“She’s right, you know.” Chase glared at her, but Georgina pushed on. “People deserve to know. Just let her record while we go through these articles.”

“Stay out of this, Georgina.”

“You got me into this,” she reminded Chase.

Chase scowled. Georgina knew what came next. A scolding, a warning that this was non-negotiable. But Chase unexpectedly softened. This was a deviation from the aunt Georgina knew, just like her actions at Bones & Brew last night.

“Fine. Record your podcast. But if you use either of our names, I will make sure the FBI takes it down. I don’t care about your First Amendment rights or whatever. Do you understand?”

“I understand.” Raven reached out and pressed record again. “Welcome to the very first episode of Beyond the Crime Scene. I’m your host, Raven…”

Chapter 25

According to Raven’s research, in total, 17 children had gone missing from the Silver Peaks Resort between 1986 to 2024.

Eighteen if you considered Lily Rowan.

And those were just the ones that Raven had been able to find. Record keeping in the early nineties was shoddy as the Denver PD was undergoing a major change following an unrelated exposé into corruption in the department.

Chase wrote the years of the abductions on the inside of the folder.

1986, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2016, 2018, 2021.

2024.

All of the disappearances took place in March, although the exact dates either weren’t known or went unreported. They also coincided with either a blizzard or an intense weather system in the area.

Chase stared at the dates as Raven continued to record the introduction to her podcast.

She didn’t see a pattern. Did he change his hunting ground? Was he incarcerated during these breaks?

Some of the gaps could be explained by the renovations. Chase found a report indicating that between 1995 and 1998, the resort underwent a massive expansion, with the guest rooms being converted to common areas inside the chalet, and the cabins being constructed. It was called Rocky Ridge before and after, Summit Vista.

Raven stopped recording.

“If you’re looking for a pattern, I couldn’t find one,” she said. “Other than when the resort was closed for renos.”

Chase grunted.

“Did you know about these missing girls?” Georgina asked.

“No,” Chase said. “I’ve never heard of them.”

This bothered her. Missing children was exactly the sort of thing that the CVU was supposed to be investing their time looking into, not perverts who ran naked through a schoolyard. But somehow, these cases had slipped through their net.

All of them.

Tate was right for being incredulous. They spent hours each day searching for crimes such as these, but neither of them had any clue that this was going on in Denver.

Denver of all places… not some rural haven that was shelter from national media attention.

Chase wasn’t naïve. She knew that some crimes were actively covered up, especially when people like Epstein or Duffy were involved.

Could that be the case here?

Chase shook her head. There would be time to think about this later. Now, she had to focus.

She was usually good at identifying patterns, but without the internet or access to any of the FBI databases she was at a loss.

She was good, but wasn’t the best.

Linus Bowen was.

Where the hell was he? Why didn’t he show up at the wedding?

“I think we should go back now,” Chase said. Her eyes were starting to blur. Dates and names were all merging into alphabet soup. “I need to talk to Tate about something.”

And I have to get in touch with Linus.

“Okay,” Georgina agreed. She began putting all of the articles back in the folder, in order this time. “Do you… do you find any of this strange?”

Chase found all of it strange. Violent offenders didn’t usually just take three years off, especially not during a run like this. She also found the multitude of resort name changes odd.

“Specifically?” Raven asked as she switched off the light and retrieved her phone.

“Well, if one guy is behind all of this, how old would he be now?”

Chase raised an eyebrow, surprised by the astute comment.

“It’s nearly a forty-year run, 1986 until 2024. If he started in his twenties, he’d be at least sixty today,” Georgina added.

Chase thought about this.

Most of the articles mentioned a large snowstorm during the time the girls went missing. It made sense. A predator could not only use this as cover but if the PD was really hellbent on keeping the past a secret, nobody would raise an eyebrow if some, or most, of these were reported as accidents.

Hell, they’d nearly done the same with Lily’s disappearance.

And the weather… if you were young and healthy, and knew your way around, it could just be an inconvenience.

But a sixty-year-old hunting in snow like today?

And that was if he started in his early twenties. The FBI kept very strict records on this sort of thing. The behavioral analysis unit reported the average starting age for a serial killer was in their late twenties.

Twenty-seven to twenty-nine to be exact.

If that was the case here, the man would be in his mid to late sixties by now. It was rare, but not unheard of. Ray and Faye Copeland killed into their mid-seventies. But the weather was an important variable to consider.

“You think it might be a longtime employee? Or someone who came here for yearly vacations?” Raven probed.

Chase didn’t know—she needed Linus’ help. He could dive deep into employee and guest records.

Perhaps an equally important question was what was the unsub doing with all the bodies?

Chase sucked in a breath.

Are there bodies? What if he’s not killing them?

Five years ago, she would have balked at such a ridiculous idea. But then the Duffy Group came along and that changed everything.

The girls could be sold, used, abused. Harvested.

Nothing was off the table.

It was a sad day when Chase hoped seventeen young girls were dead rather than one of the more disturbing alternatives.

“Hey, Raven, you seem to know a lot about this resort. What happens in the summer? Does all the snow melt?”

Raven cocked her head.

“Not all the snow. The mountain tops remain covered. I know that in the summer some of the ski hills are converted to hiking trails.”

There were countless ways to dispose of a body but most of these were impractical at a popular resort. Burying them in frozen ground was also out.

Chase considered the possibility that the bodies had just been encased in snow at the top of the mountain.

No, no way.

The Colorado Rockies were home to Lynx, Wolves, Mountain Lions, Bobcats, you name it. One of these predators would have found the bodies, and some of the bones would have inevitably made their way down the mountain.

“How old is Gary Devers?” Georgina asked out of the blue.

“Who?” Raven and Chase said in unison.

“The head of the rescue team. Most of the members, like Donnie who drove us to our cabin, are pretty young. But Gary looks older.”

Chase pictured the man in his head. It was hard to tell his age wrapped up in all those layers and with his frosty beard, but Georgina was right: he was the oldest employee she’d encountered at the resort. And he knew his way around.

The man had also asked to stay out when everyone else was being recalled.

As for how he got around, well, the snowmobile he was driving was even more mobile than the four-wheelers.

“I don’t know,” Chase admitted. “But when we get back, I think I’m going to sit him down and have a little chat.”

Chapter 26

Chase spotted Gary Devers the second she entered the chalet. He must have arrived recently, as he was still in the process of removing his gear.

She tried to guess his age, but the snow in his beard that hadn’t melted yet made it an impossible task.

Definitely older than forty but sixty was a stretch.

“You two stick together,” she told Raven and Georgina. “Keep what we discussed to yourself.”

They both agreed but they couldn’t help but stare at Gary as if he had three heads.

“Sure. You want—”

“Phones still ain’t working.” One of the guests had sneaked up on her and was practically speaking directly in her ear.

Chase made some space.

“What?”

“The phones—you said you were going to fix the phones. They still ain’t working.” The man wagged his cell phone in her face.

“Why don’t you back up? And if you keep shaking that phone, I’ll make sure it never works again.”

The man was shocked by her words, but then his face twisted into a sneer.

“You can’t keep us here, you know. If I want to leave—”

“Listen up! Everyone, listen up!” Tate shouted. He gave her a surreptitious glance. “Food is now being served in the dining room. Hot coffee, as well. I know you’re probably not hungry, but you need to eat. We have no idea how long we’re going to be stuck in here.”

Only a handful of guests migrated toward the dining room. Chase heard several others say that they weren’t hungry, that they couldn’t possibly eat at a time like this.

The man with the cell phone didn’t budge. The asshole was right, of course. She couldn’t keep them here. The entire lobby was filled with confused, annoyed, and soon-to-be-angry people. Eventually, they would forget why they were here, forget all about Lily Rowan. Around that time, self-preservation would kick in and there would be fights over who would get to use the four-wheelers to flee the resort.

The killer would use this as a distraction and slip away, taking any last hope of finding Lily alive with him.

It wasn’t a matter of if this would happen, but when.

“Please, at least have some coffee,” Tate pleaded. A couple more guests wandered off. Cell phone guy backed away, but he kept staring at Chase. “Hey, you find anything. They’re getting restless.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“I also heard some of them say that they were going to go back out and look for Lily again.”

Chase spotted Suzanne in the same spot as when she’d left. Someone had picked up and refilled her coffee mug but the way her eyes were glazed over suggested that she might be under the influence of something stronger than caffeine.

“We can’t let that happen.”

“Well, there are a lot more of them than there are us.”

Chase couldn’t think about this now.

“We might have a bigger problem, Tate.” she lowered her voice another two octaves. “Raven’s right, girls have gone missing from this resort. Eighteen of them, over a nearly forty-year span.”

“You can’t be serious.” Chase allowed her expression to do her talking for her. “But how? How have we never heard of this?”

She answered Tate’s question with a question of her own.

“How important is the ski industry to Denver’s economy?”

“I fucking hate skiing.”

“Yeah, but many people love it.”

“Are you suggesting that the local law enforcement has been burying these missing kids?” Chase winced at the use of the word ‘buried’. “Sorry, didn’t mean that.”

“Look at this place, Tate. It must cost a fortune to stay here for a week. If it hadn’t been for Stu Barnes’ reputation, we would never even dream of coming here. We both know the power that some of these rich people possess.”

Chase was again thinking about the late Senator Duffy and his group of wealthy, influential people who thought they were above the law.

How long had they been operating before the CVU shut them down?

How long would it be before those who escaped prosecution started it back up again?

“Jesus,” Tate said. “Eighteen kids… did they find any of the bodies?”

“No.”

“He could be one of the guests—no, wait, it’s more likely he’s an employee.”

“Keep your voice down,” Chase warned. “But, yeah, that’s what I was thinking. And there’s only one person here who is remotely old enough.”

Tate’s head shot up and his eyes immediately locked onto Gary Devers. The man’s beard was no longer white. It was wet and dark.

Maybe he dyed it?

“You think…?”

“That I don’t know,” Chase admitted. “But we should talk to him. I want to reach out to Linus first, get him to cross reference check-in dates and employee records when the kids went missing.”

“If you can get a hold of him.”

“I’ll try on the sat phone.”

“Okay—wait. He,” Tate indicated Gary with a subtle chin raise, “was out there rounding up all the guests. If he took Lily, she could be in one of the cabins.”

Chase had thought of this.

“What’s with the look?” Tate asked.

“You’re not going to like it, but someone has to search the cabins.”

Tate curled his upper lip, burying it in his mustache.

“You don’t want to talk to him first?”

“I do, but if Lily’s hurt…”

“Chase, I don’t like the idea of you talking to him alone.”

“I don’t like it either. But I’m frozen, need to warm up before heading out there.”

Tate ran a hand through his hair, messing it up.

“Fuck. Okay. Just wait for me to get back before you talk to him. Please?”

“I will.” A lie, and they both knew it. “Take the young kid with you. Donnie, I think his name is. Grab keys from Meredeth and just duck in and out of each cabin. Check in often.”

“Like you did?” Chase just stared. “Sorry.”

Tate leaned down and surprised her with a kiss on the cheek. Usually, they tried to keep their personal life separate from their work, but what the fuck.

This was their honeymoon.

And what a fucked up honeymoon it was.

“Be safe, Tate.”

“You, too.”

Chapter 27

“They’re getting upset,” Meredeth said preemptively as Chase approached. “Food will only occupy for so long.”

Chase wondered how anxious the woman would become if she knew that there was a potential child killer in their midst.

“I know. I’m doing everything I can. Right now, I need your help. I need a list of employees and their birthdays. I’m also going to need a list of all the guests’ information, as well. Not just current guests, but as far back as your computers go. Can you get that for me?”

Her questions overwhelmed the woman. She did nothing.

“Please? Can you look this up on the computer?”

“Why?”

The concierge was suspicious, and rightfully so. She had to give her something.

Chase stared at Gary Devers. He was warming himself by the fire, laughing with one of the younger members of the ski rescue or patrol or whatever the fuck they were called.

Laughing.

Chase had to give Meredeth something, but not that.

“Listen, I need you to keep this between us, alright? Can you do that?”

The woman, lip trembling, nodded.

Her expression did not instill confidence in Chase, but that didn’t matter. If anything, it made the concierge more susceptible to believing the lie that came out of her mouth next.

“Look, we think that there might be someone here that has an outstanding warrant. That’s why I need to access some historical records and…” Chase let her sentence trail off, hoping that this was enough.

“Warrant for what?” Meredeth’s voice was strained.

“Nothing violent.”

“But why do you want employee records?”

Chase sighed.

“How long have you worked here, Meredeth?” she asked, guiding their conversation a little to the right.

“Just over two years.”

Before today, the previous girl went missing almost exactly three years ago.

“And before you came here, did you hear anything about this place?”

“Like what?”

This wasn’t going the way Chase had hoped.

“Anything.”

Meredeth shrugged.

“I’m from Missouri. I just replied to a job ad. Needed a fresh start. I mean, some people talk about a Yeti roaming the area but that’s all just—”

Chase waved this off.

“No, not that. Something else.”

“I don’t think so. I’m… I’m really confused. What sort of warrant?”

“Not so loud.” Chase was stalling. “It’s related to drugs.”

It wasn’t the only thing that came to mind, but everything else was too volatile, too close to the truth.

Meredeth frowned disapprovingly.

“Weed’s been legal here for over a decade. Everyone knows that.”

“Not weed.”

Chase just wanted to move on. To get to work.

“Cocaine?”

Chase remained silent.

“Heroin? Oh, my God, it’s heroin, isn’t it? All those overdoses. Shit.”

She allowed the woman to come to her own conclusions.

“Now can you get me—”

“But why are you worried about heroin now? With Lily missing, I mean. And—and—and I thought you were only here because your plane was forced to land? At least that’s what the airline told us. Was that—was that a cover?” Meredeth’s eyes darted like she was a supporting character in a made-for-TV detective movie.

“I can’t go into details, but I think that Lily’s disappearance and the drug warrant might be related.”

Chase wasn’t sure why she’d said that and instantly regretted it.

“The cartels! You think the cartels—”

“I can’t say any more.” I should have said less. I should have just ordered this woman to get me the records. What the hell is wrong with me? “Now, those lists.”

“Okay. Okay, okay.”

Meredeth was finally set to task. As annoying as the woman was, at least she worked quickly. When she worked.

“Here. Got it. Employee records.”

Chase leaned over the counter and scanned the names. The list was well organized but the only name she recognized was Donnie. He was twenty-four.

“I don’t see—” she almost said Gary’s name. Suggesting that he was involved would have caused Meredeth’s head to explode. “Is this everything? What about older employees?”

“I don’t have those on this computer. I think they’re in storage somewhere.”

Fuck.

“Let me guess, guest records don’t go back more than a few years, either?”

Meredeth typed something on the computer and then she began scrolling.

“Looks like we keep them for two years. There’s probably another list somewhere, but I don’t know where it is. I’m just the concierge. Do you really think that the cartel has something to do with Lily going missing?”

“No, I don’t think that.”

“But you said—”

“Give me the sat phone.”

“The…?”

“The satellite phone. Now.”

When the woman immediately scrambled to find the oversized device, Chase cursed herself once more.

Yeah, instead of making up some stupid ass story about the cartels and an outstanding warrant, I should have just ordered the woman around.

She was being too accommodating, too un-Chase-like.

First, dancing at her wedding. Then talking to Lori and Tom.

Now this.

Worried about appeasing the concierge’s curiosity instead of just paying attention to what actually mattered.

“Here,” the woman said, handing over the large yellow phone. “All you have to do is dial out. If you want Denver PD’s number, I can—”

“No, I’m not calling the police. I’m calling the FBI.”

Chapter 28

Linus was drunk. Very, very drunk.

But that wasn’t unusual for him, even in the early afternoon, such as it was.

He was back at the billiards hall where he’d spent nearly every day since the school shooting.

The man he’d been following was also there. A gang banger with tattoos on his neck and arms.

His name was Hector Rodrigues, and he was one of the major players in the Virginia meth trade. He wasn’t sitting at the top of the food chain, but he wasn’t just a lowly street dealer, either.

Hector was an addict and had a mean temper.

He’d put at least three junkies in the hospital and had probably killed two more

Linus got up from his table and pulled the hoodie over his head. He took two strides toward the bar, staggered, and placed a hand on an empty chair to steady himself. His vision was blurry, and it felt like he was wading through shallow water.

But he was determined.

Linus took another two steps and slid his right hand inside the center pocket of his sweatshirt. His fingers wrapped around the butt of the pistol within.

Linus was steeling himself, getting ready, when his phone started to ring. It buzzed in his pocket, and he tried his best to ignore it. It was distracting though, the vibration irritating his already shaking thigh.

Linus waited for it to stop before continuing.

The entire time, he kept his eyes locked on the back of the man’s head, which was wrapped in a black bandanna.

While he counted the buzzes, waiting for the call to go to his voicemail, someone sneaked up from behind and grabbed his arm.

Linus nearly screamed.

He tried to turn and pull away, but the grip holding him in place was strong.

“I think you should leave,” a male voice said close to his ear. “You don’t want to do this.”

This was true. Linus didn’t want to do this.

But he had to.

“Go home, sleep it off.”

The hand let go and Linus swiveled to confront the speaker. It was the bartender, a middle-aged man with long dark hair pulled up into a ponytail.

“I—”

“Go home,” the bartender repeated, a little louder this time. His eyes were hard.

Linus turned back to this target and saw that Hector was now looking in his direction. The meth dealer’s eyes weren’t icy like the bartender’s, they were granite.

Linus quickly averted his gaze.

Another time, he thought. Another day.

He took his hand out of his sweatshirt and started to reach into his back pocket for his wallet.

“On the house. Get out of here before you get hurt.”

Linus stumbled toward the front door, bumping into a couple of chairs along the way. Once outside, bright sunlight speared his retinas, further disorienting him.

Linus tripped on the curb and fell forward. He put his hands out in front of him, but at the last second, a ridiculous thought—that falling on the gun in his center pocket might cause it to go off—made him lace his arm protectively across his stomach.

He landed hard on the cracked pavement. The pain was intense, shooting from his extended palm all the way to his shoulder. He barked and then rolled onto his back, closing his eyes against the assaulting sun.

His world spun.

He felt like vomiting.

“Why you eyeballin’ me in there?”

Linus breathed deeply. He slowly snaked his uninjured hand into his sweatshirt again.

“Hey, gringo, I axed you a question. Why the fuck you eyeballin’ me?”

Linus wasn’t eyeballing anybody; his eyes were closed. When Hector moved forward, his body blocked out the sun and Linus finally opened them.

Up close, he saw that Hector’s cheeks were heavily pockmarked, the result of cystic acne that never healed right.

He was hideous.

The way his lips pulled back, revealing two gold incisors, only made him uglier.

“Bitch, I’m talking to you.”

Linus couldn’t speak. He was concentrating on trying to pull his gun out. This was the confrontation he wanted. It was what he’d imagined every night when he closed his eyes and relived the same nightmare.

JC Marshall with his back to him, Georgina clutched to his chest.

A gun to her temple.

He couldn’t pull the trigger then, but he would do it now.

He had to.

Hector laughed. The sound was deep and resounding, far more baritone than the man’s relatively small frame seemed capable of producing.

Linus yanked the gun but it snagged on the inside of his pocket.

“What the fuck you goin’ do?”

Hector reared back and delivered a solid kick to Linus’ ribs.

He screamed and arched his back.

“Fuckin’ pussy,” Linus heard Hector say over the sound of his own agonized cries. “I see you back here again, I’ll kill you.”

Hector started to walk away, leaving Linus lying in a crumpled heap in the parking lot. It took nearly thirty seconds for him to catch his breath and when he did, Linus finally managed to remove the gun.

Hector wasn’t heading back into the bar. Instead, the man was strutting toward a motorcycle parked at the far end of the lot.

Linus gripped the gun and took aim at the man’s back. He closed one eye, lined up the front sight between the two rear sights, and forced his tongue into his cheek. Somewhere in the back of his warped mind, he realized that he must look ridiculous, like Soap from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, one of his all-time favorite movies, but he didn’t care.

He had to do this.

He had to prove he could do this.

For Chase, for Georgina.

For Pops.

One… two…

But he couldn’t.

He just couldn’t fucking pull the trigger.

Linus lowered the gun and placed it back in his pocket.

Then he started to cry.

Chapter 29

Chase groaned.

Linus wasn’t answering.

“What’s wrong?” Meredeth asked nervously.

“Nothing,” Chase said. She tapped the phone against her palm. Without Linus’ help, cross-referencing names and dates was going to be a formidable task.

But someone had to do it.

Interviewing and questioning all fifty people at the chalet wasn’t only just completely unrealistic but if their unsub was present, once he got wind of this he’d duck into the shadows.

“Meredeth, you mentioned that older employee records are in storage. Where would I find them?”

“I said they might,” the concierge corrected. “If they’re here, they’d be in Marvin’s office.”

“Who’s Marvin?”

“The general manager.”

“Is he here?”

Meredeth shook her head.

“No. He’s off. Been off for a week.”

“Great. Where’s his office?”

“Downstairs, beside the facility room.”

Chase was becoming annoyed—more annoyed.

“I need you to take me there.”

“Okay.” The woman opened a drawer and pulled out a set of keys. Chase was dismayed to see that the drawer itself wasn’t locked. She had a feeling that access to room keys was equally as easy.

Chase waited for Meredeth to walk around the counter. During this time, a man approached.

“I can’t just stand around here much longer.” It was Gary Devers. He looked uneasy. “I can’t just stay here knowing that there’s a missing girl out there in the snow.”

Chase scanned his face for any signs of deception. There were none of the usual tells, but that didn’t mean much. If Gary was their guy, he’d had decades to master his craft, tricking everyone into thinking he was just a normal member of society.

She wanted to touch his bare skin. See through his eyes as she’d done with Drake at her wedding.

Not only would that be awkward, but the gesture would tip him off.

“Agent Adams?” Meredeth was ten paces away, dangling the keys in her hand.

The woman had no idea about how to be discrete.

“Wait a second.” Then to Gary, “You, too. Just wait here.”

They both did as they were instructed as Chase hurried off. She found Raven and Georgina alone, bent over looking at the map of the resort, their heads so close that they were practically touching.

“Guys?” They turned, identical concerned looks on their young faces. “I need you to do something for me. I need you to go with Meredeth to the manager’s office and go through the employee records. See if anyone has worked here for all, or most, of the years that girls went missing. Can you do that?”

They looked at each other and nodded.

“Good. If you find anything, call me on the walkie.”

“Won’t everyone with a walkie be able to hear us?” Georgina might have said everyone but clearly meant Gary.

“Good point. Just… just say meatloaf.” Fucking Beckett. “Just say you’re hungry for meatloaf.”

Georgina screwed up her lips.

“Just do it, k?”

“Will do.”

Chase went back to Meredeth and told her that the girls would be going to the office instead of her. The concierge waffled, but Chase used her big girl voice and she agreed.

When they were gone, she addressed Gary again.

He looked concerned, but if he knew what they were up to, he hid it well.

“I’m going to head back out.”

No, you’re not.

“I need your help with something first.”

“What do you need?”

“Show me on the map exactly where you set the charges.”

“I told you before, there’s no way that Lily was trapped in the avalanche.”

“Please? For my peace of mind?”

Gary shrugged and followed her to the dining table.

“Here.” He plunked a finger down on the image near the top of an eastern peak. “Here, and here.”

Chase used a black marker to draw Xs in the locations that he indicated.

“Good. I think you’re right, if the snow fell down the backside, there’s no way Lily got any of it near her cabin,” she drew a line from cabin 132 with her finger to the closest black X. There was a good half mile of white between them.

“I told you. We do these controlled explosions once or twice a season. Nothing has ever gone wrong.”

Oh, but it has. Just ask Roxie and the other missing girls.

“Now, I’m going to hop back on the snowmobile and—”

“One more thing. You mentioned that all the ski rescuers wear vests and that they’re all equipped with tracking devices?”

“Yes,” Gary said hesitantly, unsure of where she was going with this. “In case they get trapped in the snow, we’ll be able to locate them.”

“How do you track them?”

“On a computer.” He wasn’t just hesitant now; he was downright suspicious.

“I want you to show me. I want you to show me where every member of your team was when the explosions went off.”

And when Lily went missing, Chase thought but didn’t say.

Chapter 30

Chase followed Gary into a small room down the hall from the lobby with ‘SKI RESCUE’ on the door.

She remained behind him at all times, ready to reach for her gun if he so much as hinted at trying anything.

“I really don’t understand why you want to see our trackers. It was me, Mark, Donnie, and Blair. We didn’t see Lily or her mom.”

“It’s just… I want to see how close you guys might have come to the cabin. Sometimes you see something and don’t even think it’s important. If, let’s say, one of your crew doesn’t remember driving past the cabin and we show them, it might trigger something.”

It was a weak lie but better than the weird ass bullshit she’d come up with for Meredeth. Although, to be fair, the woman had concocted that story pretty much on her own and Chase had just run with it.

The main feature of the room was a computer terminal, but there were stacks of random equipment pushed against the walls, including a massive pile of snowshoes.

Gary shook the mouse, waking the computer.

There was no password or login—security didn’t seem to be a priority at the exclusive resort—and Gary quickly opened some software.

He sat as an image filled the screen. Chase recognized it as the same map of the resort that they’d been using to organize the search party.

“You want to see this morning?”

“Yes.”

Gary used a slider on the bottom to scroll back time. Different colored lights—red, green, black, yellow—occasionally drifted across the map while everything else remained static.

Gary stopped rewinding.

“This is us gathering in the lobby before we went out.”

The four lights appeared overlayed on the chalet. The timestamp read 4:46 AM.

“I’m the black one.”

Gary pressed play. The dots started to move, exiting the chalet and moving at a rapid clip toward the cabins.

Chase held her breath as they passed beneath all of the guest house before heading north. Lily’s cabin was more toward the center of the cluster and, true to Gary’s word, none of the dots came remotely close to it.

She leaned closer to get a better look, her hand now moving behind her and gripping the butt of her gun.

The dots stopped about a quarter of the way up the mountain.

“This is where we keep the explosives—in a shed away from the chalet.”

I bet you don’t even lock it.

Gary sped up time a little until the dots headed upward again. They were moving more slowly now, and he explained that the snow was heavy, and the mountain was steeper here. They didn’t want to risk causing an accidental avalanche with their four-wheelers or the snowmobile.

Green split off from the group, taking a more westward course than the rest.

“Where’s he going?”

That’s Blair. He’s the lookout. Has a set of binoculars and makes sure everything is clear. After we set the charges, he gives us the go-ahead.”

Chase made a mental note to ask Blair if he saw Lily or his mother. Unlikely—the young man would have said as much—but it was worth a shot. As she’d told Gary. sometimes, in the heat of the moment, of the shock of a girl going missing, things were forgotten. The human brain prioritized survival over details.

The red, yellow, and black dots continued their ascent while green remained stationary.

Then they stopped, rested, and spread out a little.

“We’re setting the charges.”

The locations of the dots roughly correlated with the areas that Chase had marked earlier in black Xs on the map.

“Then we backed away and—what the hell?” Gary stopped talking.

Yellow and red inched below green, a safe distance from the explosives. Black, however, started in the same direction before breaking off from the group. It headed due south toward the cabins.

“No—no,” Gary said forcefully. “This isn’t right. I stayed near the top.”

Chase silently pulled the gun from the waistband and took a step back.

“Did you see Donnie and Mark?”

“No… it was snowing pretty hard. But we’ve all done this before, we know where to go. I… I didn’t head back down, though. What the hell is going on?”

From behind, Chase could see Gary’s ears redden as he continued to mumble in disbelief.

The black dot split between cabins 142 and 144. Then it made a sharp turn before pulling to a stop directly in front of 132.

Gary must have seen Lily earlier, Chase surmised, and then, using the snow for cover, went back down to grab her.

“This… this isn’t right. I didn’t go this way. What the fuck is going on?” Gary swiveled the chair around. “Agent Adams, this is—”

He was greeted by the barrel of Chase’s gun, aimed at center mass.

“Don’t move,” Chase commanded between clenched teeth. “Don’t you fucking move.”

PART III – The Snowmen

Chapter 31

“It’s right down here,” Meredeth said as the three of them, Raven, Georgina, and the concierge, navigated their way through the basement of the Silver Peaks chalet. When Chase had given them the task of rooting through ancient employee files, Georgina had pictured something very different: dingy, open ceilings, ventilation pipes. Cobwebs.

Horror movie style.

But it wasn’t like that, not at all. The basement hallways were well lit, completely finished.

“So… your, uhh, your aunt, she’s like on a task force or something?”

Georgina shot Raven a look.

“Something like that.”

“Must be pretty intense, dealing with the cartels.”

Raven made a face and mouthed the word ‘cartels’ behind the concierge’s back. Georgina shrugged.

“She doesn’t really talk much about her work.”

“Ahh. Well, this is the GM’s office,” Meredeth said, stopping in front of a door. She slipped a key into the lock. As she turned it, she added, “Fair warning, Marvin’s not the tidiest of people.”

Meredeth opened the door with her palm and stayed in the entrance.

“The files should be—”

“Thanks.” Georgina offered the woman a placating smile. “We’ll take it from here.”

She wanted to be alone with Raven.

“Are you sure—”

“Agent Adams doesn’t often talk about her work, but when she does, she stresses how important it is to keep everything in the strictest confidence.” This didn’t make much sense, given that she and Raven were just unaffiliated teenagers, but the concierge seemed almost in awe of the FBI, so Georgina ran with it. “It’s better if we do this alone.”

Meredeth hesitated, then her manicured eyebrows lifted.

“Oh, yes, of course. I’ll leave you to it. You want me to…” She jangled the key in the lock.

“You can leave it, we’ll lock up.”

“Okay. Good luck.”

Georgina waited until she heard the woman’s footsteps receding down the hallway. There was a half smirk on her lips when Raven addressed her.

“Strictest confidence?” she said in a mocking tone. “You a regular Nancy Drew?”

Georgina laughed and then she immediately stopped, her mind turning to the events at the WCI.

“No, not really. How about you? What made you want to get into podcasting?”

Now it was Raven’s turn to grow serious.

“Just… something to do, I guess.”

Georgina detected a deeper reason but didn’t challenge her.

Meredeth’s claim that Marvin, to whom Georgina assumed the office belonged, was a slob was an understatement. The computer terminal was covered in empty chip bags and crushed energy drink cans. There was a garbage, one of those small, round plastic ones, but it was overflowing with much of the same. A not-insignificant layer of dust seemed to coat nearly everything.

“Gross,” Raven said, crinkling her nose. “We should have respirators for this.”

Georgina spotted a series of boxes tucked away in a corner.

“That’s probably them.”

She blew dust off the top box and then coughed and waved a hand in front of her face.

“You’re right about those respirators.”

Georgina opened the first box and peered inside.

“Hey, Georgina? What was it like during the school shooting?”

Georgina stopped what she was doing; her hands were starting to tremble.

“Not for the podcast,” Raven said quickly. “I just want to know.”

She closed her eyes. Sights and sounds flashed behind her lids. Screaming. That incessant alarm. Tyler lying on the ground while the other students pummeled him into a coma.

The gun.

“It was… terrifying.” Her voice cracked. “I was sure I was going to die.”

If only I’d stayed home that day. If only Chase had let me remain in my bed.

“Shit, I don’t know what I would have done in that situation.”

“I didn’t know what to do, either.”

When Raven let the conversation die, Georgina distracted her thoughts by attacking the boxes again. The top one contained what appeared to be either tax returns or receipts of some sort. She put this aside and dug into the next one.

More receipts.

While she did this, Raven began laying out the newspaper articles on a rug on the floor, much like they’d done in her cabin.

“Anything?”

“No.”

Having completed her task, Raven joined her. They were close enough now that Georgina could smell the girl’s sweat. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant and a step better than the underlying funk of Marvin’s office.

It was near the bottom of the stacks of boxes that Georgina finally found something. The box itself was falling apart, but inside, at the very top, was an incident report.

“Check this out.”

Raven read the report out loud.

“In the early morning hours of March 28, 1986, Roxanne Capito went for a walk with her father, Donovan, and mother, Victoria. There was moderate snowfall, with approximately four inches of accumulation. Donovan stated that they were exploring the northeast side of the mountain, roughly a hundred and fifty yards from the main building.”

“They didn’t have cabins back then, did they?” Georgina asked.

“No. The resort was much smaller back then, too. All the rooms were in the chalet.” Georgina nodded and Raven kept reading. “They started to build a snowman together, but the snow was too fluffy. As the snowfall intensified, Roxanne headed down the slope in search of better packing snow. When she didn’t return in five minutes, Victoria and Donovan went looking for her. They searched for twenty minutes before Donovan entered the building and reported her missing. Ski rescue hadn’t arrived yet and the Denver PD was called in. The snow made the roads impassable, and the staff were instructed not to perform a search until they arrived for fear of others getting lost in the storm. Donovan, Victoria, and a handful of guests disregarded their instructions and went looking. Denver PD arrived five hours later, and an intense search was performed, which lasted three days. During this time, the weather continued to worsen. After three days, the unsuccessful search was called off.”

“Sounds… sounds just like what happened with Lily,” Georgina exclaimed. She flipped the page and saw a photograph glued to the center of it. Age had turned it a sepia tone, but the three people featured were clearly visible: a man with short dark hair, a thin woman with pale features, and a cute, beaming kid missing a front tooth. It appeared to be a beach scene, although the only reason that Georgina knew this was because of the bathing suits they all wore—the background was washed out.

“One of the parents must have given this to the rescue team,” Raven said.

“Yeah. Can you imagine what they must have gone through? Not knowing what happened to their daughter? How do you move on?”

“You just… you just kinda do, I guess.”

The comment was peculiar on its own, but Raven’s tone hinted at a more profound understanding.

A kinship, almost.

Georgina lowered the report and stared at her friend.

“Raven, why did you really want to go into podcasting?”

Raven lowered her head.

“It’s okay if you don’t—”

And then the girl started to speak.

Chapter 32

“I was twelve when I walked home with my friend after school.” Raven’s voice was deadpan, which was something that Georgina was familiar with. It was a way of distancing yourself from the situation, like an unbiased narrator of your life. She had used the exact same tone when first speaking with Dr. Matteo about the school shooting. “She was my best friend—we met in first grade. Her name was Penelope, but everyone called her Penny. I wanted a snack, so we went inside her house. Her mom didn’t work, and she always had snacks ready for Penny when she got home. Only, that day, there was nothing laid out. Penny called for her mom, but she didn’t answer. The thing is, her car was in the driveway, and she was usually waiting for Penny at the door. So, we went upstairs…”

Raven shuddered.

“There was so much blood. So much of it, Georgina. On the walls, the floor, even the ceiling. Penny’s mother was dead, as was her father. Another man—for more than a year I couldn’t get this image out of my head—was also dead. He was naked, laying on his back, starfish-style. His head was propped on a pillow, and he was looking at me. I know that’s stupid, he was definitely dead, but I swear, he was looking at me.”

Another shudder rippled through her, this one more violent than the first, and Georgina reflexively put a hand on top of Raven’s.

The moment their skin touched, Georgina’s vision began to tunnel.

***

“Mom?” Penny shouts as she throws her bag onto the couch. “Mom, Raven’s here!”

I follow Penny into the kitchen.

“No snacks,” she says. “That’s weird.” Penny pulls back and turns her head toward the stairs. “Mom!”

We wait.

“Stay here,” Penny tells me. She looks concerned and the feeling spreads to me.

“O—” Something drips onto my cheek. “—kay.”

Startled, I blink and wipe the liquid away. My fingertips come back red.

What the hell?

I turn my head upward and notice a dark red, almost maroon stain on the ceiling. Another drip, this time on my forehead.

“Mom? Where are you?” Penny says in a sing-song voice from the first stair.

“Maybe I should go with you.”

I doubt she hears, but I’m already just a few steps behind her.

Penny reaches her parents’ bedroom door when I get to the landing. She slows, noticing that it hangs ajar.

“Mom?”

Penny gently eases the door open then she screams.

“What? What is it?”

My best friend turns, and I rush forward. She moves to meet me, but her feet slip out from under her.

I try to hold her up, but she is a little bigger than I am. We both go down.

I struggle to get us both to our feet—Penny seems to have lost the use of her limbs—but we keep slipping on a red liquid.

Blood.

I finally raise my head, and that’s when I see the carnage.

The blood isn’t just on the floor, but it coats nearly every surface inside the room.

I scream, or at least I think I do. Maybe it’s Penny.

Maybe it’s both of us.

My eyes drift to the bed, and that’s when I see him. Not Penny’s dad—he’s short and kind of chubby—but someone else.

A random man.

He’s naked, his hairy chest matted with sticky blood.

His eyes are open, and they’re aimed directly at me.

***

Georgina gasped and pulled her hand back.

“What the hell… what the hell just happened?” Raven said, color returning to her voice.

Georgina had experienced something similar when she’d touched Tyler, but it was no less strange now.

It was just so vivid, so real, that it took her breath away.

“Georgina?”

“I don’t… I don’t know,” she whispered. “I just… Raven, I’m so sorry.”

The girl got that faraway look in her eyes again.

“The cops said that it was a murder-suicide, that Penny’s dad came home early and found her mom in bed with another man. He killed them both with a knife before slitting his own throat.”

“That’s horrible.”

Now the tears began to fall.

“It was—oh, God it was horrific—but Penny had it worse. She… she couldn’t deal with it. Went to live with her aunt in South Dakota and we lost touch. I only found out three months later that she’d taken her own. Pills.”

“Oh, Raven. I’m so, so sorry.” Georgina wanted to hold her friend but was worried that she would see things again.

Raven wiped tears from her eyes with the back of her sleeve.

“But that’s not the reason I wanted to start a podcast. About a year later, someone released a podcast about Penny’s family. It was… horrible. They made up all sorts of things about them. What Penny’s dad did… I can’t even. I can’t even. But he just snapped, you know? I’m not defending it—no way. But before that, he wasn’t a bad person. I guess that doesn’t sell ads or whatever, because the podcast said that he beat his wife and that he abused Penny in ways you couldn’t even imagine. That… that stuff never happened. Never. That’s why I want to start a podcast. To tell the truth.”

Georgina felt her chest tighten. She’d seen some horrible things in her life, but she’d been conditioned to them at a young age. What Penny, or even Raven, just normal pre-teens, must have gone through was unfathomable.

“Anyways, let’s just keep looking.”

“But—”

“No, it’s okay, really, Georgina. I did counseling—still do—and I’m better.”

You never get better, Georgina thought. Never.

You move on, sure—you have to, otherwise, you get stuck in your own head, and you end up like Penny. But you don’t get better, you don’t go back to the way you were before.

It was clear that Raven was done with this conversation.

Georgina reluctantly returned to looking through the boxes.

She was so distracted that she nearly tossed the first stack of papers aside without even reading them.

But then her eyes fell on the first page.

It was an employee record—it was what they were looking for.

And it was old.

The earliest was from 1982. Harry Norsen was hired as the GM of the resort, then simply named The Colorado Ski Resort. Included were his CV, notes from his interview, as well as his contract. The man made $38,000 a year, which seemed low, but it was 1982.

“Hey, check this out.”

Georgina handed the file to Raven, and she scanned it.

“Anything from after Roxie went missing? From around the time the second girl disappeared? From… 1986 onward?”

Georgina attacked the box again. There were other hires, mostly just kitchen or room service staff, but then she found another relating to a different GM.

It was dated two years after Roxie went missing.

“Found something,” Georgina said. “Looks like Mr. Harry Norsen was let go in 89 and someone else took his place.”

Raven leaned over her shoulder and Georgina held her breath, worried that the girl might touch her.

She didn’t and Georgina relaxed.

“Daniel Moore,” Georgina said out loud. “Twenty-six years old.” She flipped the page. Daniel made a good ten percent less than Harry.

Maybe the resort took a hit after the news of the missing girl spread?

Georgina kept on turning the pages. The very last contained a photocopy of Daniel’s ID card. It showed an unsmiling man with short hair and eyes set deep in his head.

“Looks friendly,” Raven joked. She grabbed her phone and snapped a photo. “You think maybe—”

“Wait,” Georgina said. “Wait a second.” She glanced at the newspaper articles arranged neatly on the floor. “You have that article from when Roxie went missing?”

Raven picked it up.

“What are you thinking?”

Georgina didn’t answer as she took the page from Raven. She put the image of Daniel’s ID next to the one of the three members of the Capito family.

“Holy shit,” Raven breathed. “It’s the same person.”

Georgina squinted. There were at least three years between when the images were taken, and the man in question seemed to have aged a minimum of four times that amount.

His eyes were laso darker in the ID and his face was covered in fine lines.

But Raven was right.

It was him.

Donovan Capito was Daniel Moore.

Georgina dropped both pages and scrambled for the walkie-talkie.

She pressed the button three times with numb fingers.

“Meatloaf,” she said. “Chase? Meatloaf, meatloaf, meatloaf!”

Chapter 33

“I’m telling you, I didn’t drive down the fucking mountain until after the bombs went off,” Gary said, putting his hands up. “And I never went near that cabin.”

He’d stopped the playback, which clearly showed the black dot outside cabin 132 while the others, green, yellow, and red remained near the peak.

“Your tracking vest tells a different story.”

“Please,” he begged. “There’s something wrong. I didn’t go down the mountain.”

Gary started to rise, and Chase straightened her arm with the gun.

“Stay down.”

He slumped back into the chair.

“Just tell me where she is, where you took her.”

“Took who?”

“Lily.”

Gary looked beyond confused now.

“Lily? Lily went missing in the storm.”

“I don’t think so. I think you spotted her and her mother on your way to plant the bombs, then used the snow as a diversion to head back down. You found Lily in her cabin alone and took her.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Gary’s face started to turn red, and Chase decided to change her approach.

“How old are you, Gary?”

“Why does it matter how old I am? I didn’t go near that girl! She’s lost in the fucking snow!”

“How old?”

“I’m fifty-three, for Christ’s sake.”

It was a little young, but he could be lying. Or he could be working with a partner. An older partner.

Another possibility was that his first kill took place when he was a still teenager, like with Kemper and Pomeroy.

“How long have you been working at the resort?”

“Since 2006. Nearly twenty years. I don’t know what you think I did, but I didn’t do it. I had nothing to do with that girl’s disappearance. And I didn’t go down the mountain.”

Keeping the gun trained on the man, Chase reached into the desk drawer. Inside, she saw a large black zip tie. She threw it at Gary, and it landed on his lap.

“Put it on. Strap your wrist to the chair.”

She would have liked to use three or four of them, but she could only find one.

“Please.”

“Put it on. Now.”

The man reluctantly looped it around his wrist and the arm of the chair. When he was done, Chase leaned forward and pulled it tight.

Confident that Gary wouldn’t be able to attack her while bound to the heavy office chair, Chase pressed play on the computer and then jumped back. The black dot left the cabin and then headed upward again. But rather than meeting up with the other members of the ski rescue team, the dot veered hard to the right and then stopped just below one of the mountain peaks.

There was nothing there. Just another blank, white area on the map.

“Is that where you took her, Gary? Is that where you took Lily?”

“I didn’t take her! You’ve got this all wrong. I would never hurt anyone. Please, you have to believe me. There must be something wrong with the tracker.”

“Shut up. What’s there? What’s there, Gary?” Chase pointed with her free hand to the black dot on the screen.

Gary pulled his eyes away from the gun and glanced at the monitor.

“I don’t know—nothing. There’s nothing there.”

“You’re lying!”

“I don’t even go out that far east. I don’t know!”

Chase was about to ask again when her walkie-talkie exploded, startling her.

“Meatloaf!” Georgina cried.

Chase reached for the device on her hip and as she did, Gary lunged. He almost got to her.

Almost.

But his rolling chair toppled, and the man fell forward, pitching onto his face. He grunted in pain.

“Please… I didn’t do anything…”

He sounded nasally, and Chase suspected that the man had broken his nose during the fall.

Good. Fucking good.

Serves him right.

Chase answered the walkie, cutting off another meatloaf cry from Georgina.

“Georgina? What’s going on?”

“I think we found something.”

“Not over the walkie. Meet me in the lobby.”

“K. Hurry, Chase.”

Chase turned the radio to silent and then looked at Gary who was still on the ground. He’d mostly recovered from his fall and was trying to roll over. It seemed impossible with the chair on his back.

She took one final glance at the computer and memorized as best she could the general location where the black dot finally came to rest.

“Stay down, Gary. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll just stay on the fucking floor.”

Chapter 34

“What, exactly, are we looking for?” Donnie asked.

“We think maybe Lily might have made her way back to one of the cabins,” Tate said.

They were searching their sixth cabin, all of which to this point had been empty, when Donnie finally asked the question.

“Kinda a longshot, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, probably.”

Tate wasn’t interested in any more questions. More questions would inevitably lead the kid to the conclusion that his explanation made little sense.

Every cabin they’d searched so far had been locked. Sure, there was the possibility that Lily had entered an unlocked cabin and locked the door behind her, but this seemed highly unlikely.

A cold, confused, and lost seven-year-old with enough presence of mind to lock herself in but lacking the common sense to pick up the phone?

Outside calls weren’t working, but Tate was pretty sure that the resort’s internal system was still operational. And there was a button right on the phone itself that said, ‘Reception’. Even if she couldn’t read well, she could just press one of the three hard-wired buttons to try and reach someone.

More likely, although on the grand scheme of possibilities, it also seemed perilously low, was that the kidnapper had taken Lily into a cabin, and he’d locked the door.

Before the shitshow of a flight initially destined for Hawaii, Tate had chastised Chase for bringing her FBI-issue pistol with her.

Now, he wished he’d done the same. If he came across the kidnapper, he’d have to fight with his bare hands.

Not his first time, but it seemed an unnecessary risk.

“Lily?” he called out. “Lily, you in here?”

The bedroom door was closed but Tate could see the rest of the cabin from just inside the doorway.

No answer.

Tate started in the direction of the bedroom, his hands forming fists at his sides.

“Mr. Abernathy?” Donnie said behind him.

“Yeah?” Tate called over his shoulder.

“I’m going to switch off the four-wheeler, save some gas.”

“Okay.”

The kid was strong and healthy and as much as it would be comforting to have someone by his side in case an altercation did occur, Tate didn’t want to put anyone else at risk.

He reached for the door and opened it swiftly, pushing it hard against the back wall.

“Lily!” he shouted, jumping into the room.

It was empty.

Fuck.

Behind him, Tate heard the cabin door open and close. He did a quick check of the closet and beneath the bed just to be sure.

On to the next, he thought.

Tate was making his way toward the entrance when he heard what he thought was Georgina’s voice.

What the hell?

She was yelling something.

Something that sounded like Meatloaf of all things.

And it was coming from outside.

Tate braced himself against the cold and wind as he exited the cabin.

He heard it again. It was distorted by the storm and by something else, too.

Static.

Georgina wasn’t outside—Tate was hearing the walkie-talkie, which he’d forgotten on the four-wheeler.

“Donnie?” Squinting hard, Tate was just barely able to make out the slight outline of the vehicle. “Hey, Donnie, pass me the—”

A hideous growl came from his right. A wolf, a bear.

A predator.

Tate tried to turn, but his feet got stuck in the snow. He caught a glimpse of something rushing toward him—a blur of snarling white, a flash of snow-covered fur.

“What the fuck?”

Something hit him on the side of the head, and Tate buckled.

Chapter 35

Chase met her niece and Raven in the lobby. Both girls were pale, and it looked as if Raven had been crying.

“What’s wrong? Is it Gary? Did you find something about Gary?”

Georgina grimaced.

“Who?”

“Gary… Gary Devers, the head of the ski rescue team.” When both girls just stared at her blankly, she shook her head. They forgot already? “Never mind. What did you find?”

Raven handed her two thin stacks of papers that were clipped together.

“What’s this?”

“Look,” Georgina instructed.

Chase glanced at the pages.

“What am I looking for?”

Georgina reached out and flipped to the last page of both stacks. Chase saw a picture of a family—man, woman, child—and then an ID card for someone named Daniel Moore.

“What does this mean, Georgina? I’m not following.”

Her frustration was growing, and she was reminded of the little guessing games that Linus used to play.

They didn’t have time for this when he did it, and they definitely didn’t have time for it now.

Lily could still be out there… in that ubiquitous area of snow near the mountain peak. She was likely dead, but if Gary had a secret cabin up there…

“The man whose child went missing, the first kid, Roxanne, is listed as Donovan Capito in the police report. But it’s the same man who became the GM at the resort two years later. Only, he changed his name. It’s Daniel Moore, now.”

Chase felt her breath catch as she glanced at the photos for a second time. There was no question it was the same man.

But what did it mean?

“Okay, good work. I need to call Linus again. Wait here.”

Chase took the papers with her as she returned to the check-in area.

“Meredeth?”

The woman wasn’t behind her desk.

“Meredeth?” Chase called again.

When there was still no sign of the woman, Chase moved around to the other side of the counter. There, she spotted the satellite phone where she’d left it.

She picked it up and dialed Linus’ number from memory. It was after ten in Virginia now and the man had to be awake.

Pick up the damn phone, Linus. Please.

It rang once, twice, and Chase resigned herself to the fact that he wasn’t going to answer.

A recorded message started up, and Chase said, “Linus, call me back. I’m stuck in a goddamn blizzard and—”

There was a click and Chase thought what she was going to hear next was that his mailbox was full.

“Hello?”

It wasn’t a message or a recording, but Linus himself.

“Linus! Thank God, it’s Chase. I need your help.”

“Ch-Chase?”

“Yes, I—”

“Aren’t you in Ha-Hawaii?”

The man sounded drunk.

“No, I’m not in Hawaii. I’m stuck in Denver in a blizzard. I need—”

“What? Why are you in Denver?”

“Doesn’t matter. Snap the fuck out of it, Linus.” Silence. “Linus?”

“Chase, I’m so sorry.” Now, the man was sobbing of all things. “I couldn’t do it… I just couldn’t. And it almost—”

“Snap the fuck out of it!” Chase yelled. Raven and Georgina gaped, and Chase turned her back to both of them. “Yeah, I know you fucked up. We all fucked up. But you know what? I’ve fucked up a whole lot worse than you. Nobody died because of you.”

“But Georgina—”

“You want to help Georgina? Then listen to what I have to say.”

“Chase…”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Linus. Stop it. I need your help—we need your help.”

Linus sniffed loudly and then cleared his throat.

“What do you need?”

Good. That was easier than she thought.

“I need to know about a man named Daniel Moore. We think his name used to be…” Chase looked over her shoulder and snapped her fingers.

“Donovan Capito,” Raven said.

Chase relayed the name.

“He was the manager at Silver Peaks in…”

This time, she didn’t need to prompt either of the girls.

“1986.”

“Right, 86. I also want to know everything you can find on Gary Devers. He’s the current head of ski patrol here.”

“Got it.” Linus sounded more or less sober now. “Anything else you can give me?”

“Yeah, there are a bunch of kids, girls, who have gone missing from this place since the late eighties to the present day. There are some breaks, and I need to know why.”

“Early eighties? Am I hearing that right?”

“Yes,” Chase said impatiently. “I need everything you can find as quickly—”

“Someone took my baby!” a woman shrieked.

It was Suzanne Rowan, and she stumbled into the lobby.

“My baby didn’t go missing! Someone took her! The cartels!”

The… cartels?

And then Chase remembered the lies she’d told Meredeth.

“Fuck me sideways. I gotta go. Linus, call me back when you find something—this number. Cell phones aren’t working.”

She hung up and hurried toward Suzanne, whose shouts had started to draw a crowd. Behind the distraught woman, she saw Meredeth doing her best to calm the woman down.

Fucker.

She told her.

“Mrs. Rowan, you need to keep your voice down.”

Suzanne focused her sights on Chase.

“Someone took Lily!” she screamed.

Suzanne reached for her, and Chase stepped out of the way.

“You told her?” Chase said, directing her ire at Meredeth.

“I—she was so upset and I—”

While Chase was distracted, Suzanne came at her again. This time, Chase was taken by surprise and Suzanne managed to grab her by the shoulders.

Then she screamed in Chase’s face.

No words this time, just a horrible, high-pitch cry.

“What the fuck is happening?” A man yelled.

Someone else replied with, “Lily was kidnapped!”

Chase ignored all of this and concentrated on trying to break free of the woman.

But Suzanne’s desperation had made her strong.

“Let… go… of… me…”

Chase wriggled and twisted, trying to dislodge the woman’s grip.

“Chase?”

Georgina tried to help but Suzanne thrust an elbow in her direction, and she spilled to the floor.

Now Chase was imbued with the raw power of someone desperate to protect their family.

She slashed downward with the blade of her right hand, finally breaking the woman’s hold.

“Don’t grab me again,” Chase warned. When Suzanne seemed to fold into herself, Chase helped Georgina to her feet.

“I’m okay,” the girl said, massaging her lower back. “I’m fine.”

Everyone had come out of the dining room now to see what was going on.

And they were angry.

Really fucking angry.

Chase had to gain control. This had a mob mentality feeling about it and the last time that had happened, someone had wound up in a coma.

A kid.

She knew what she had to do, even if she didn’t want to.

There were just no other options.

None that she could come up with, anyway.

Chase pulled the gun from her pants and aimed it high in the air, her finger resting against the trigger guard.

“Everyone just shut the fuck up and calm down!”

Chapter 36

“You okay?” Ben asked, leaning close to Rachel.

Rachel nodded.

“Just a little shook. I can’t believe that little girl…”

“I know.” Ben nodded. “What about last night?”

Rachel felt her cheeks redden and she glanced at her boots.

“Yeah, I’m okay with that, too.”

Last night hadn’t been the first time she’d had sex, but it was the best she’d had. And she liked Ben. Billy had been okay, and he’d been nice to her despite the shit that her dad had put him through. But they hadn’t clicked.

And he wouldn’t stop asking about the shooting.

Rachel had made a vow to herself that Georgina was her priority. The girl had stayed with her through some brutal patches, and she deserved to have someone looking out for her, too.

“What’s going to happen with us?”

Now it was Ben’s turn to become awfully interested in the toes of his thick, black boots.

“I don’t… I don’t know. Maybe we can see each other during breaks?”

Rachel could tell that he was just paying her lip service but didn’t blame him. It was a childish question to begin with. Ben and his family lived here in Colorado and Rachel in Virginia.

They were more than 1,500 miles apart.

“Maybe.”

“Hey, that cousin of yours, she’s a bit different, isn’t she?”

Rachel’s eyes shot up.

“She’s my stepsister. And she’s not different.” Her words came out harshly.

“I didn’t mean any offense.”

“Yeah, well, she’s a sweet girl. Been through a lot. I don’t think—”

“Someone took my baby!” The shout came from the lobby and their eyes whipped in that direction.

Ben pushed himself off the wall.

“What’s going on?”

Rachel shrugged. She had no idea.

“Someone kidnapped Lily!”

Rachel immediately started to move, but Ben didn’t follow.

“Eva?”

Rachel looked behind her. Eva had been playing with her dolls on the floor a few feet away, just out of earshot.

Her two stuffed animals—a dog and a colorful dragon of some sort—were still on the floor, but Eva was no longer playing with them.

“Eva?” Ben said louder.

Shouts from the lobby continued to filter to them. They were becoming more intense.

“Where the heck is Eva? Rachel? You see Eva anywhere?”

Rachel craned her head around.

“No… Eva was right there.” She pointed at the stuffed animals.

“I know. But where the hell is she now?”

Rachel abandoned going to the lobby and started to search the sitting area that they’d migrated to after the guests had gone to eat.

She was nowhere.

Rachel felt her throat and mouth start to dry up.

“Eva? Eva?

“She’s not here,” Ben said desperately. “She’s not here.”

They looked for another few seconds before Ben panicked.

“Go find my mom. Tell her Eva is missing.”

Rachel hurried off, with Ben’s shouts for his sister fueling her movements.

She found Tom and Lori at the back of a crowd that had gathered around Chase.

“Lori? Tom? We can’t find Eva!”

“What do you mean you can’t find Eva?” Tom asked harshly.

“She was playing right next to us, but now she’s gone.”

“What?” Lori gasped.

Tom brought his wife under control.

“Go look in the bathroom.” And then to Rachel, he said, “Show me where she was playing.”

Lori went in one direction while Rachel ran back to the sitting area.

Ben looked petrified.

“Ben, where’s your sister?”

“I don’t know. Dad, I don’t know.”

They all looked, first in the sitting room, then in the adjacent dining hall. Finally, in the lobby.

Lori reappeared just as they finished scanning the growing number of irate guests.

“Did you find her?” Tom asked his wife. “Lori, tell me Eva was in the bathroom.”

“No—she wasn’t in there.”

“Fuck,” Tom said, channeling his son’s desperation. “Fuck.”

“She’s not here… Eva’s gone,” Lori whimpered.

All eyes drifted to the windows above the front doors, to the endlessly falling snow.

And then there were suddenly two women shouting that someone had stolen their child.

Chapter 37

For most people, the sight of a gun elicited one of two divergent reactions: panic or calm. The fact that an FBI Agent was holding it caused most of the Silver Peaks Resort guests to lean toward the latter.

This didn’t last long.

A familiar shout uttered by a different female voice broke the thin veneer.

“Eva’s missing! Someone took Eva!”

Chase had to bob and weave to find the speaker through the crowd.

“Lori?”

She elbowed her way toward the woman.

“What’s going on?”

“I-I-I-I don’t know. Eva was here, now she’s gone.”

“She was playing right beside us… must have wandered off,” Rachel said. There was panic creeping onto her face, as well. A tightness to her cheeks, a tense upper lip.

“Where?”

“Just over there.” Rachel pointed. “We already looked everywhere and she’s not here, Chase.”

Chase clenched her jaw.

“Has anyone seen Eva?” she said, raising her voice.

The guests all looked at one another.

“Eva!” Chase reiterated. “Black hair, pale face. Seven years—”

“They took her too!” Suzanne screamed. “The cartel took Lily and Eva!”

Fuck you, Meredeth.

“The cartels?” It was cell phone man, still looking for a reason to go off. “What the fuck?”

“Did anyone see the front doors open?” Chase yelled over him.

This was met with reserved headshakes. Nobody saw, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen. They were in a tizzy about being cooped up.

“Anyone?”

“I was standing by the doors—they didn’t open,” a woman with large, gold earrings replied. “What is this about the cartels?”

“She,” Suzanne spat, indicating Chase, “said that one of the guests is working the drug cartels. They—they’re using kids to smuggle their drugs!”

Chase saw someone slinking into the shadows: Meredeth.

“She’s lost it,” cell phone man said. “Lost her mind.”

It was a horrible thing to say, but it was better than the alternative.

“It ain’t the cartels, it’s the goddamn Yeti. He came down the mountain, grabbed another kid.”

The word triggered a recent memory of its use.

Chase, gun still drawn, angrily strode up to the most recent speaker. The man was thin, with broad shoulders, a beak of a nose, and wispy brown hair.

He nervously licked his lips as Chase neared.

“Don’t start that shit, okay? We don’t need—”

“I’m serious.” The man couldn’t stop his eyes from darting to Chase’s gun at her side. “There’s rumors about this place. That girls go missing. That a Yeti—”

“Stop,” Chase warned.

“There’s no such thing as a Yeti,” another guest chimed in.

“There is!” the man with the nose countered. “I’ve seen it.”

“Fuck off. You haven’t seen it.”

“I have! When I was—”

“Stop!” Chase yelled.

The two men went toe-to-toe.

“There’s a girl missing, and you want to start talking about a mythical—”

The man who started the tumor shrugged.

“I’m telling you, when I was here last year, I saw—”

The second man shoved the one rambling about the Yeti in the chest. He was slight and went flying.

“Hey!” Chase tried to get between them but the man on the ground was up in an instant and rushing straight forward.

“Fuck off, both of you!” Chase raised her gun, reminding them once again of who was in charge. “You, stop with the Yeti talk. And you, if you touch him again, I’ll cuff you and when the cops get here, I’ll have your ass arrested for obstruction and anything else I can come up with. Got it?”

Chase waited for to see if her threats were challenged. Yeti man started to open his mouth, but she pursed her lips and cocked her head in warning. He decided against speaking.

“Good. Now, I need everyone stay calm. There are no cartels and there is no fucking Yeti. Just two missing girls. Now, I’m going to ask you again, has anyone seen Eva?”

More headshakes this time. A handful of half-hearted shrugs.

“Please,” Lori begged. “Please find my daughter.”

There might not be a Mexican heroin importer among them or a mythological creature stalking the resort, but there was a member of ski rescue who just happened to be in front of Lily’s cabin where her mitt was found.

Had he gotten loose?

Unlikely, but possible.

Worth a check, anyway.

She pulled Raven and Georgina aside.

“Stay here. Keep them under control.” An impossible request, something that she was barely able to accomplish with the help of her gun. But Chase didn’t know what else to do. “I have to go.”

“Go where?” Georgina asked, visibly shaken.

“I’m going to look for Eva,” Raven stated.

“No, just—”

“I’m going to look for her.”

Chase knew there was no talking the girl out of it.

“Just don’t go outside. Stay in the resort. Please.”

Chase thought Raven nodded but wasn’t sure.

“Chase? What do I do?”

She couldn’t tell Georgina because she didn’t have an answer.

“Whatever you can.”

Chase sprinted out of the lobby, only vaguely aware that the crowd started to murmur the second she was out of sight.

The door to the SKI RESCUE room was ajar, but she couldn’t, for the life of her, remember if she’d left it that way.

“Gary!”

She lunged into the room, gun in hand.

He was gone.

The chair was still there, still overturned, but Gary was no longer in it.

He’d somehow managed to remove the entire arm of the chair.

Chase backed into the hallway, her breathing coming hard and heavy.

The front doors hadn’t opened, but that couldn’t be the only exit to this place.

Besides, if Gary, chair arm still dangling from his wrist, had gone through the lobby, someone, distracted by local folklore or not, would have been sure to notice.

Which meant he must have gone the other way.

Chase ran down the hallway, took a right, and then spotted an emergency exit. There was a sign indicating that if the door opened an alarm would go off and she scowled.

He couldn’t have gone out this way.

She was about to retrace her steps, but then she saw snow still melting on the ground just inside the emergency exit.

Or did he?

Chase shoved the door open.

No alarm went off.

Cold air whipped her in the face and the wind seemed to be actively trying to force her back inside.

She pushed forward and a shape materialized in the whiteout.

A man on a snowmobile.

Chase took aim.

“Gary! Stop!”

Gary inserted the key and started the vehicle up.

“Gary! Get off the snowmobile!”

She didn’t think that he was able to hear her over the sound of the blizzard, but he must have, because he glanced over his shoulder.

His nose was crooked and dried blood caked both nostrils.

“I didn’t take her,” he yelled.

“Get off!”

“You’re going to have to shoot me because I’m not getting off this thing.”

Where the fuck is he planning on going?

The man wasn’t even wearing a coat, just a long-sleeved sweater with the ski rescue vest on top. His face and ears had already turned an angry red.

“Gary—”

The man answered her unasked question.

“I’m going to find her. I’m going to find Lily, you’ll see.”

“Gary, just get off the fucking snowmobile.”

Chase took another step forward, her boots sinking into the deep snow.

“You’re going to have to shoot me.”

Chase had no hesitation in using her gun, especially if it meant saving an innocent child… or two.

But if she killed him, she would never find Lily or the spot where the black tracking dot had gone after moving away from her cabin.

Or Eva… where the fuck was Eva?

The girl wasn’t on the snowmobile, wasn’t with Gary.

Chase changed tactics.

“You’re going to take me to that spot on the map, near the peak.”

She was playing a dangerous game, but this was a dangerous line of work.

“Get on.”

Chase didn’t lower the gun as she braved the whipping snow. As she neared the snowmobile, the small carrier box on the back popped open.

“There are some gloves and hats in there.”

It was so fucking cold.

Chase grabbed the offered pair of gloves and hat, jammed them on, swapping the gun from hand to hand as she did.

There was more than one set inside and she passed a hat and mitts to Gary.

It would do neither of them any good if the man froze to death while driving the snowmobile.

She eyed him closely as he put them on, not an easy task with the heavy chair arm still attached to him.

“I didn’t do this, Chase. I didn’t touch Lily.”

If he was anything, Gary Devers was convincing. So much so, that Chase was on the verge of believing the man. Gary had that stunned look about him. A cornered rat would attack, but a field mouse would cower.

Yet, she’d been duped under similar circumstances before. Another man had convinced her that he had nothing to do with a series of horrific crimes.

And she’d slept with him.

Agent Chris Martinez.

He’d turned out to be a vengeful serial killer.

Chase wasn’t about to let her guard.

“Take me to the spot on the mountain,” she demanded. “And if you try anything, I will shoot you.”

Gary cranked the snowmobile’s handlebars, and the chair arm clanged against the side of the vehicle.

And then they were off.

Chapter 38

Tate hadn’t been knocked out cold, just dazed. He fell facedown in the snow and while he waited for the buzzing inside his head to stop, he kept seeing that vicious, snarling face in his mind.

What the fuck was that?

The buzzing intensified, growing louder by the second. Tate, thinking that it might never stop, grunted and groaned as he somehow made it first to all fours then to a standing position.

He swayed but managed to stay upright.

The buzzing wasn’t gone, but it was no longer confined to his head.

It was coming from the four-wheeler. But, like the noise, it receded into the whiteout.

Donnie?

Had he seen the thing that had attacked him and rather than risk his life trying to save a man he barely knew, decided to hightail it out of here?

Tate brought a hand to his temple. Then he winced. He was going to have a massive goose egg but was comforted by the fact that he didn’t appear to be bleeding.

And that he hadn’t been eaten by that… thing.

He scanned the storm for any signs of life. Visibility had been reduced to just a few feet in front of him and he saw nothing.

Tate mulled over his options. He could stay here, lock himself in the cabin, wait for help to arrive. Or he could try to find his way back.

If he’d been at the resort alone, Tate would have prioritized remaining warm.

But he wasn’t.

Rachel and Georgina and Chase were back at the chalet.

I fucking hate the snow. I hate skiing, I hate the cold, I hate everything about this place.

Tate begrudgingly pulled the scarf back up over his face, tucked his chin into his jacket and started to walk through the blizzard.

***

He was nearly frozen solid when he finally made it back to the chalet. He couldn’t feel any of his extremities and he was fairly certain that his nose, and maybe his cheeks, had second-degree frostbite.

Tate forced the door closed behind him and then moaned. It would take several hours for him to feel warm again, but just knowing that it was inevitable was enough to offer him a hint of solace.

“Dad?”

Slowly, like an animatronic from a bad B-movie, Tate turned around.

Rachel was staring at him, mouth agape.

“What the hell happened to you?”

Tate was too numb to answer. He wasn’t, however, too out of it to take in the chaos inside Silver Peaks’ lobby.

When he’d left with Donnie, he’d known that the guests were fed up. Their emotions were also heightened with Lily missing.

But now, things had taken a turn for the worst.

People were yelling at each other, others were doing strange things, like picking up chairs and looking beneath them.

Others were shouting Eva’s name.

Eva’s name?

“I was attacked,” he finally managed. “Some… I dunno, some furry thing hit me on the head.”

Rachel was incredulous.

“What?”

Tate prodded his injury. It was tender to the touch.

“I was searching the—”

“It was the Yeti! I told you!” The man who had spoken was addressing the crowd with a condescending look on his face.

“Stop that shit,” a different man warned. He had a wild look in his eyes. “Your little FBI Agent isn’t here to protect you anymore. If you say one more word about—”

“Hey! I’m with the FBI,” he reminded the two soon to be combatants. Raising his voice made his head throb. “You need to back the fuck up. I wasn’t attacked by a fucking Yeti.”

Although, it certainly did look like some sort of wild animal. A wild animal on two legs.

The two men just continued to glower at one another.

“Stop this. Stop this right now. It’s not helping anyone. It’s not helping the missing girls.”

“Girls,” the thinner man corrected. Tate frowned but didn’t ask for clarification. He remained between them until both of them calmed down. Then he instructed them to stand in different corners of the room like a schoolteacher disciplining rowdy students.

When he was confident that they weren’t going to come to blows, at least not in the immediate future, he allowed his focus to return to his daughter.

“Rach? What happened? Where’s Chase?”

“I don’t know. She was just here. Dad, someone… someone took Eva.”

“Someone took her?” Tate was still trying to catch his bearings, to shake off the chill.

“I don’t know—she’s missing.”

Tate’s eyes scanned the room, trying to find Chase or the concierge or anyone who might know what the hell was going on.

“Stay here.”

“I’m sick of staying here. That’s all anyone tells me to do.”

“Just stay, Rach.”

Tate spotted Georgina and Raven standing close to one another, avoiding the angry throng of people in front of the fire.

“Georgina? Where’s your mom?”

The girl looked petrified, what Tate thought he would probably resemble had he spent another ten minutes in the storm.

“I don’t know. She told us to control the crowd but we… we don’t know how. They won’t listen.”

“Chase told you to…” he trailed off and a horrible thought occurred to him.

Chase was fiercely protective of her niece and if she’d gone as far as to put her in charge of this ticking time bomb then something really important must have pulled her away.

Like Gary Devers.

“Where’s Gary?”

“Gary?”

“Yes. The ski patrol guy. Where is—”

“Tate?” It was a woman’s voice and Tate, his ears still ringing from the cold and from his injury, thought that it was Chase.

“Thank G—”

It wasn’t his wife but Meredeth. She was holding the satellite phone in one shaking hand.

“It’s… it’s for your partner. I wasn’t sure if I should answer, but…”

He grabbed the phone from her, fumbled with it, but managed to get it to his ear.

“Who is this?”

“Chase?”

This voice he recognized immediately.

“Linus? What the fuck’s going on?”

“That’s what I was hoping you could tell me. Why are you in Denver?”

“A blizzard forced us to land here,” he said sharply. “Why are you calling?”

“Chase asked me to look into Daniel Moore and Gary Devers.”

Tate looked about the room for Gary again. Like Chase, the man was mysteriously absent.

“What about them?” he asked as he continued his visual search.

“Chase told me to look into missing girls, that Daniel Moore might be involved somehow.”

Tate had no idea who the fuck Daniel Moore was, and she told Linus to explain.

“The manager at the resort. Worked there for years. Changed his name.”

Changed his name?

Rather than clearing things up, the more Linus talked the more confused Tate became. He wasn’t sure if he was suffering from hypothermia-induced confusion or if his partner had made some major developments while he was just trying to survive.

“Yeah, changed his name.”

Did I say something out loud?

“I’m not following.”

“Donovan Capito was a guest at the resort in 1986. His child went missing—she was never found. Then his wife divorced him, and he changed his name to Daniel Moore. In 1989, he was hired as the GM at the resort.”

Tate blinked, tried to focus on what Linus was saying.

What did it mean? Why did the name suddenly sound familiar?

“Get this, I managed to dig up Daniels’ hospital records. The breaks in the years when no girls went missing? Ninety-two, ‘94, 2017? Daniel was admitted for various injuries. He broke his leg in ’92 and in ’94 he—”

“Linus, get to the fucking point here.”

“Right. Well, here’s the thing, all signs point to Daniel being involved, only it can’t be him. Not this time, at least.”

“Why not?”

“Because no one has seen him in about two years. Last record I could find of Daniel Moore is him being admitted to the hospital for kidney failure. Stage five. His health insurance was cut off and he was discharged on his own recognizance and… then nothing. Without proper care, the survival time is just weeks or months. My guess? He went home to die in peace.”

Daniel Moore… Daniel Moore… why does that sound familiar?

“As for Gary Devers?” Linus prattled on. “He’s clean. Squeaky. Have records of him being on vacation, boarding flights, for two of the dates that the more recent girls went missing. And he was working on the other side of the country during most of the earlier ones.”

Tate was barely listening. He was still thinking about Daniel Moore.

And then something clicked.

“Wait—did you say Donnie Moore?”

“Uhh, nope. Daniel Moore.”

“How old is—was—he?”

“Daniel was 61 when he died. Why?”

“Did he have a son?”

“Like I said, he had a daughter, Roxie, but she went missing—”

“Linus,” Tate said sharply. “Did Daniel have a son?”

“Hold on, hold on.”

As he waited, Tate thought about the kid on the four-wheeler. Thought about the thing that had attacked him outside cabin 132.

The fur… Donnie had fur trim on the hood of his jacket. Could it have been him?

“Yeah… shit, you’re right. He has a son named Donnie. Oh—oh.”

“What?”

“He works there. Donnie Moore works at Silver Peaks.”

Tate couldn’t swallow.

“I gotta go.”

He hung up and grabbed Georgina.

“Did you see where Chase went?”

“No. Like I said—”

“Did she go outside?”

Georgina’s eyes drifted to the front doors.

“I don’t think so.”

“She went that way,” Raven said, pointing in the opposite direction. “I think I saw her go down the hall.”

“What’s going on, Tate? What’s happening?”

“Stay here. Stay together and stay with Rachel.” A guest swore loudly. “If things get worse, lock yourself in a staff room and don’t come out until either Chase or I return.”

Georgina whimpered.

“I can’t. Last time I—”

“I’m sorry, I am. But I have to go. Just… be safe.”

Georgina looked about to burst into tears, but Tate had no choice.

He bolted—tried to bolt, but his body was still not listening to him—down the hallway that Raven had indicated.

Where are you, Chase?

Most of the doors of what appeared to be employee offices in this part of the chalet were closed, but one hung wide open.

It was the SKI RESCUE office.

And it was fucked.

There was a chair on the ground, and it appeared to be missing one of the adjustable arms.

The computer was still on and the fact that it showed the familiar map of the resort got his attention.

Glowing dots moved across the mountain.

What the hell are those?

There were three of them. The black one was ahead of the other two—green and red—but they all appeared to be heading upward, toward one of the eastern peaks.

They’re the trackers, Tate realized. The trackers in the special vests that Gary gave us prior to our attempt to search for Lily.

And one of them had to be Chase.

Another, Donnie Moore.

He guessed the third belonged to Gary Devers but couldn’t be sure.

As much as Tate loathed the idea of heading back out into the cold, he knew he had no other choice if he ever wanted to see his new wife again.

Chapter 39

“I’m… so cold,” Eva whined. “So coooold.”

“I know, but you need to stay still. If you keep moving, you’ll only get more cold. I’m almost done here.”

Donnie pushed the final briefcase-sized object against the icy wall. He tapped it in place with a gloved hand for good measure.

Then he pressed the button to activate it.

All four charges were armed now.

“Is Lily really here?”

“Oh, she’s here. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Donnie took the girl’s hand in his and continued to shimmy down the narrow passage. He was forced to turn sideways to fit.

It was beautiful in here, even if it hadn’t been for his father’s works of art.

Deep, glacier-blue ice, at least a foot thick covered the walls, ground, and ceiling inside the cave. Great white, bifurcated cracks graced the ice like giant vessels. Only fitting, because the ice was alive.

It was a living, breathing organism, changing with the seasons.

That’s what his father had told him, and he believed it.

Why wouldn’t he?

His father never lied to him. He told Donnie everything.

Told him about what they did. How they treated him.

How entitled they all are.

“You’re going to help me save Roxie, okay? You’re going to be a hero.”

“R-Roxie?” Eva’s lips trembled uncontrollably.

Donnie grinned.

“Did I say Roxie? I meant Lily. Silly me.”

They moved deeper into the cave, and Donnie let out an audible gasp as he always did when he entered what his father called the Great Showroom.

Eva stopped moving.

“What… what are those?”

“They’re snowmen,” Donnie said, still grinning. “Now, I want you to remain completely still, okay? You’re going to help me build another one.”

Eva stiffened.

“I don’t—I don’t want to. I just want to find Lily.”

Donnie reached into his pocket and pulled out the wet cloth he’d placed there earlier.

His dad’s cloth.

The one Daniel used to seek revenge for what happened to his daughter, to Donnie’s half-sister whom he never had the chance to meet.

“Donnie? I want to go home,” Eva whimpered.

Donnie pulled the girl close to him, wrapping one arm tightly around her waist.

He forced her to look.

“Aren’t the snowmen beautiful?”

“I just want to go hooome.”

Oh, they’re beautiful, all right.

Donnie placed the cloth over the girl’s nose and mouth.

She struggled, much more than Lily had, but she’d been nearly frozen by the time he’d found her.

Still, Eva was no match for him.

When, after close to a minute, the girl finally went limp in his arms, Donnie leaned down and whispered in her ear.

“I’m sorry Eva, you can’t go home. But you can help me build another snowman.”

Chapter 40

“I don’t see anything!” Gary yelled over his shoulder. “Something should be here but—”

“There!” Chase shouted. She extended her hand and pointed at a four-wheeler. Snow had already built up around the tires, covering them about halfway.

Gary twisted the handlebars, revving the engine, and then turned them in the direction of the parked vehicle. She tightened her grip on his waist and used the man’s back to shield her from the wind.

The moment the snowmobile came to a stop, Chase jumped off and drew her gun again. She kept it pressed against the side of her leg, hoping that its presence alone was sufficient to keep Gary, of whom she was still suspicious, from trying anything.

Her main concern now was that her gloved index finger was too thick to actually pull the trigger.

Chase moved her head around, trying to figure out why the four-wheeler was stopped here, near the top of the mountain.

She’d hope to see a cabin , some long-abandoned outpost, perhaps, but if there was one, she couldn’t find it. That didn’t mean it didn’t exist—while most of the snow funneled down into the caldera, visibility was still poor up near the mountaintop.

“Whose four-wheeler is that?” Her breathing had become rapid. Chase thought this was the result of a surge of adrenaline, but when she tried to take a deep breath to calm herself, it didn’t seem to help.

It must be the altitude.

Gary approached the four-wheeler, wiped snow from the side.

“It’s Donnie’s.” He pulled back, cocked his head. “Why the fuck is Donnie all the way up here?”

The man seemed genuinely perplexed by this.

As was Chase.

Donnie had set out with Tate to search the cabins for Lily.

What the hell was he doing here? And where was Tate?

Questions raced through her mind.

Donnie was too young to have had anything to do with the vast majority of abductions, but he could be working with Gary? Was Gary grooming him to take over after he was gone?

A team of child killers?

The thin air was making it hard to think clearly.

“What’s here?”

Gary turned his face toward the vast white expanse. There appeared to be a break in the monotonous terrain just a little higher up the slope. The snow was less abundant here, and Chase spotted what looked like a crack in the rocky surface.

“I don’t know.” As Gary spoke, Chase moved closer to hear the man better. “We never come out this way. The old GM told us that it was unstable—we always set the charges off further to the west. This is strictly off-limits.”

The old GM?

“Marvin?” Chase asked, remembering that Meredeth had told her that the man was off for a week or so.

Did he come back?

Chase shielded her eyes with the blade of her hand, deflecting some of the snow away from her face.

“No, not Marvin. Daniel. He used to work here, worked at the resort for long before even I came around. Then he got sick a coupla years back and just stopped coming in. He was a pretty quiet guy, stuck to himself. I reached out, tried to call him, even stopped by his place but could never get in touch with him. Then when his son started working here, I asked him about Daniel. He said his dad just retired. Made it clear that he really didn’t want to talk about it.”

The wind gusted, swallowing Gary’s final sentence.

Lifting her legs high to clear the snow drifts, Chase slowly walked to within a handful of feet of Gary.

“What did you say?”

“I said,” Gary was shouting loudly now, “Donnie told me his dad retired.”

Chase was floored.

“Wh-what? What are you talking about… Donnie’s dad?”

“Yeah, Daniel is Donnie’s father.” The man was yellow at the top of his lungs now. “Young guy, dark hair. Works for ski rescue and as a bellhop.”

How could they have missed this?

Chase immediately mentally corrected herself. They—Raven and Georgina—hadn’t missed this, she had. It wasn’t on them. They were just kids with no experience.

She should have seen the connection.

Chase closed her eyes, thought back.

The clues were all there.

When Lily had first gone missing, Chase had instructed Meredeth to let the members of ski rescue who had set the charges to be on the lookout for the girl.

The first of the team to come back was Donnie and when he’d stepped into the chalet, he had no idea what was going on.

If he had sneaked up on Lily in her cabin, he probably turned his walkie-talkie off to avoid giving himself away.

Then there was that coy smile that Donnie had given Chase when she’d remarked that the kid was both a bellhop and part of the ski rescue team.

“Meh, we all kinda do many jobs around here. Some of them more glamorous than others, but they all serve a purpose. My name’s Donnie, by the way.”

She thought he’d just been showing off a little but seen in a different light, his words could have a more sinister meaning.

Many jobs… some more glamorous.

Fearing that she’d made a huge mistake, Chase swallowed hard.

“Gary, are you sure that’s your vest you’re wearing?”

“What?”

Chase tugged on the back of the man’s vest.

“Is this yours?”

“Yeah, of course, I—” The man was looking down at the red material. He fingered the frayed edge. “Hold on—check the tag.”

Chase reached out and grabbed the collar, pulled it back.

Oh, she’d made a mistake, all right.

“What’s it say?”

Chase grimaced.

“D.”

“D? You sure? My vest has a—wait! He—he switched vests.” Gary started to turn around as he spoke. “Donnie must have switched vests with me. That’s why the black dot—”

“Look straight ahead.”

“But—”

“Just look straight ahead,” Chase repeated.

The lack of oxygen was making her head spin. Gary might be innocent, it might have been Donnie all along, but she still couldn’t rule out the possibility that they were working as a team.

Gary returned to the way he’d been standing before, only now his shoulders appeared less slumped.

“Turn your beacon on,” she instructed.

They both activated the circular lights on their vests. The blinking illumination cast shadows on the snow, and Chase saw a trail of indentations, which might be partially filled in footsteps, heading north away from the four-wheeler.

“Walk.”

Chase flicked the gun forward.

Moving was slow going and twice they had to stop to make sure that they were still on the path.

The further north they went, the less snow they encountered.

Up ahead, there appeared to be a break in the side of the mountain. A schism in what she now saw wasn’t rock but ice.

It was bitterly cold this high up. Chase’s lungs burned from the exertion and the temperature.

“What is that?” Chase asked, squinting fiercely. It was impossible to draw a full breath now.

“I don’t—I don’t know.”

Gary reached the icy slit first. It spanned maybe seven feet high but was only a third of that distance wide.

Maybe less.

What the fuck is this?

Gary ran a hand along the icy surface as he craned his head into the gap.

“I think it might be some sort of cave.”

The perfect place to hide bodies, Chase thought.

“Go in.”

Gary whipped around.

“What?”

Was that fear in his eyes?

“Go in,” Chase repeated.

“I don’t think I can fit.”

He could fit. It would be tight, but if he turned sideways, he should be able to make it through.

Was he scared of the confined space or scared of what they might find inside?

Chase raised the gun to a forty-five-degree angle. The pistol did her talking for her.

“Okay, shit.” Gary turned back to the schism. “Okay.”

She heard the man inhale sharply several times in rapid succession, and then he shimmied sideways into the crevice.

“Keep going.”

She waited for Gary to be completely embedded in the blue ice before she, too, entered what she hoped was a cave and not just a crack that they would be forced to back out of after only a few feet.

Gary kept on moving forward.

Despite the close confines, it was peaceful inside the mountain and Chase relished the reprieve from the wind and snow.

It was difficult to determine exactly how deep they’d gone, mostly on account of the ubiquitous nature of the ice that now entombed them and the fact that they had to shuffle sideways rather than actually walk.

Chase was acutely aware of the fact that she wouldn’t be able to raise her gun in here, let alone fire it. But something about the way Gary was moving, tentatively, nervously, that raised no alarm bells in her.

It could be a ploy, but she didn’t think so.

This all changed when Gary suddenly seemed to fall forward. The unexpected movement would have caused goosebumps to rise on Chase’s skin, except her flesh was already patinaed like the surface of an ancient brass artifact.

“Wha—”

Then Chase was falling, too.

No, not falling, exactly, but more like spreading out.

The crack was suddenly gone, and Chase found herself standing beside Gary, staring in awe at a football-field-sized expanse.

It was, indeed, a cave, carved out of the inside of the mountain as if a giant had hollowed it with a massive spoon.

And it was breathtakingly beautiful.

Sparkling teal ice covered all surfaces, from floor to ceiling, broken only by small drifts of snow that had found its way in during this or maybe a different storm. A series of white stalagmites were spaced in quasi-regular intervals before them.

“What is this place?” she heard Gary say. There was a slight echo to his words, quiet as they were.

Chase was inclined to answer in an identical wonderstruck tone when she realized her error.

The white structures weren’t stalagmites at all. They didn’t share the characteristic tapered shape.

They were bulbous, man-made.

They were snowmen.

But instead of coals for eyes and a carrot nose, they had human faces.

The frozen faces of the missing girls.

They’d found them.

They’d found them all.

Chapter 41

The intense beauty of the ice cave was overshadowed by the macabre nature of the scene.

More than a dozen tiny bodies lay encased in snowmen, their jacketed arms jutting from the torso. Only their faces were exposed and what little skin Chase could see was a gray pallor that only death could bring.

Their eyes—stark white, pupilless and irisless—were open.

It took Gary a little longer than Chase to understand what they were seeing and the instant he did, the man bent at the waist and vomited.

“Turn off your beacon,” Chase ordered.

Gary was still heaving.

“Gary, turn off your beacon.”

She shut hers off and then pushed Gary’s forehead to straighten him enough to shut his off for him.

“What is this place?” The strings of vomit that clung to Gary’s chin and lips had already started to freeze.

It definitely wasn’t him. Nobody could put on an act like this, vomit on command, convey a look of unadulterated terror in their eyes.

“It’s where he keeps them.”

Gary looked like he was going to be sick again.

“Stay here,” she hissed.

Chase minded her footing as she crouched and moved forward. Even though she hadn’t had the same visceral reaction as Gary, her stomach tightened at the sight of the snowmen.

Up close, they were even more disturbing.

Someone had deliberately ensured that the girls’ faces were clear of snow. Over the years, ice had formed on some of them. The crystals were mainly concentrated around the corners of their eyes.

They were frozen tears.

The girls had still been alive when Daniel or Donnie had packed snow around their bodies.

God damn it.

Despite the cold, Chase switched her gun to her other hand and pulled off her right glove with her teeth. She let it fall to the ground as she replaced the gun in her shooting hand.

This time, she didn’t rest her finger on the guard; she placed it on the trigger and continued to weave through the snowmen, trying her best not to look directly at their frozen faces.

Chase made her way past four of the snowmen when she heard a sound. At first, she thought it was more of Gary’s vomit falling to the ground.

But it was too regular, too thick.

A slapping, almost patting noise.

As she pressed onward, the sound grew louder.

What is that? Snow falling from the ceiling?

But there was no snow on the ceiling, not that she could see, anyway.

Slap, slap.

The further she went, the darker it got as the light from the crack behind her struggled unable to penetrate the icy landscape.

But then she noticed another light source, a series of similar vertical rays, muted from the cloudy sky, but visible.

There was a second entrance to the cave opposite the side they’d entered.

Chase ducked lower still, using the snowmen as cover now. She peeked out from behind one of them and then became as still as the dead bodies surrounding her.

Until now, all of the snowmen had been rock hard, the snow used to create their bulbous bodies solidified by time and cold.

But not these two.

These were fresh.

And the first contained little Lily Rowan.

Chase had never seen the girl before, but she knew it to be her; she looked like a smaller version of her mother.

She was dead, frozen solid.

The second had been built around Eva.

Unlike Lily, Eva was very much alive. The girl’s face was blue, not gray, and her lips, almost purple, seemed to be twitching.

A man was hunched over Eva’s snowman, his back to Chase.

She recognized the red vest he wore as identical to the one she was presently wearing.

He was packing snow against the base, ensuring that it didn’t topple.

Chase took aim.

“It’ll be over soon,” she heard Donnie say. “It’ll all be over soon.”

Chase forced her frigid body to straighten.

“Put your hands out to your sides.” It was meant to be a command, but Chase’s voice was weak.

Still, she startled Donnie, and he immediately stopped what he was doing.

“Donnie, put your hands out to your sides,” she said again.

Donnie stood upright, and did as she ordered.

“Turn around, slowly.”

The man’s face was covered in snow and the only features Chase could initially make out were his eyes and teeth. The former were dark, nearly black, reminiscent of chunks of coal. The former shouldn’t have been noticeable, being roughly the color as the snow, but they were bared and Donnie was snarling, which drew her attention to them. With the fur trim of his hood covered in white powder encircling his head, the man didn’t look like the cheerful bellhop she’d met upon arrival.

He looked like a cornered animal.

No—Yeti. He looks like a fucking Yeti.

The thought was dashed when Chase noticed that he was holding something in one of his hands. It looked like an oversized phone or radio with a large, black antenna protruding from the top.

“Drop whatever you have in your hand.”

Donnie’s snarl transition into a grin, which was somehow even more terrifying.

“What are the odds?” he said absently.

“Drop—”

“What are the fucking odds that the FBI is here on this date?”

They shouldn’t be here. If it weren’t for the storm, they would be on a beach in Hawaii.

And girls would continue to go missing without anyone ever hearing about it.

Chase applied pressure to the trigger.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Donnie warned. “And I don’t think you want me to drop this. This is a Deadman’s switch.”

Chase tensed.

She was familiar with the device. Had seen it once in use before during her career. Years ago, in Las Vegas, Mike Hartman had attempted to collapse the Golden Knight’s new arena using one just like it.

He’d almost succeeded.

“You know what this is, right? I can see it in your eyes—you know. I’ve placed four explosives in this cave, Chase. If I drop this, we all die. Me, you, Eva.”

At the mention of her name, the nearly frozen girl whimpered.

“Quiet, it’ll be over soon.”

Chase clenched her jaw.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Why? Why?” Donnie’s voice had grown high-pitched. “I’m just picking up where my dad left off.”

Donnie had been groomed by his father. Groomed to kill.

Groomed to build more snowmen.

“There’s nowhere to go, Donnie. Deactivate the bombs and I’ll make sure you get the help you need.”

Chase meant it, too. Donnie would pay for what he’d done to Lily and any of the other girls that he’d helped his father kill.

One could perhaps excuse his actions when his father was alive, rationalizing that maybe he’d been forced to participate, but according to Gary, his father was out of the picture. Sick, maybe even dead.

What Donnie had done today had been of his own accord.

But Chase was not naïve to the power of grooming and influence.

Her sister had fallen under the spell of two men who had kidnapped her. Later, she’d been willing to sacrifice her own life to ensure their safety.

If they asked Georgina to kill for them, if they asked her to kill Chase, even, there was no doubt in her mind that her sister would have done it.

Donnie turned his eyes to Eva and Chase noticed that her trembling had nearly stopped.

They were running out of time.

“I had a sister, you know?”

“Roxie, right?” Chase said.

Donnie was surprised that she knew the girl’s name.

“Yeah, Roxie. I never got to meet her. She was dead long before I was even born. She died here, froze to death while building a snowman with my dad.”

“That was an accident,” Chase said, recalling the news report that Georgina and Raven had shown her. “She got lost, Donnie. It was just a terrible accident.”

Donnie shrugged.

“Maybe. But do you know how long it took them to actually start looking for her?”

“There was a blizzard. The cops couldn’t—”

“Hours. Hours,” Donnie continued. The way he was speaking suggested to Chase that he was simply repeating what his father had told him. “They didn’t care about Roxie. All they cared about is making sure that people kept on coming to their stupid fucking resort. You saw the people in there, you saw how they acted. When I first took Lily, they just wanted to go skiing. Skiing! Sure, they pretended to search for her, just like they did with Roxie. How long did they—did you—actually spend outside in the cold? Half an hour? Twenty minutes?”

“We were going to get lost!” Chase was aware that she was becoming defensive but couldn’t help it. “It’s a fucking blizzard!”

“Yeah, that’s what they’ll say. They’ll say that they did everything they could. That it wasn’t their fault. They’ll cover it up, like they did with Roxie. Change the resort’s name if the media does a story on it. Rebrand, maybe renovate. Blame it on the girl for walking away in the snow. Blame it all on a seven-year-old girl! Can you believe that?” He was talking about Roxie now. “Can you believe that? A little girl just wanted to build a snowman, and they said, Oh, well, she shouldn’t have wandered off. She should have known better. Like it was her fault. Well, little Lily and Eva should have known better than to be lured away by a stranger.”

Chase had to do something. She could no longer tell if Eva was still breathing.

“I lost a sister,” she blurted. “She was killed. Murdered. I know what you’re going through, Donnie. I know how hard it is to lose a sister and a father.”

The man’s lips twisted into a sneer.

“You lie,” he hissed.

Chase saw movement out of the corner of her eye but forced herself not to look for fear of alerting Donnie.

“I’m not lying. Please. You don’t need to continue to do this. Whatever your dad started, it can end here.”

It looked like Donnie was cracking. His face dropped and his hands lowered a little.

“He worked so hard for this stupid fucking resort. And when he got sick, they refused to pay his medical bills. After thirty-plus years they just cut him loose. Pretty much told him to just crawl into a hole—into a snowbank—and die.”

“Donnie, your dad was killing people. Kids. That’s why he worked here. It wasn’t because he was—”

The shadow came into view now, and Chase recognized it as Gary.

Gary who was trying to prove that he had nothing to do with the girls’ disappearances.

Gary who Chase had incorrectly pegged as their unsub.

Gary who didn’t understand Deadman’s switches.

“No! Gary, no!”

Donnie saw the man, too. He tried to leap out of the way, but he’d been standing still for so long that his muscles seized.

Gary drove his shoulder into Donnie’s side. Even from twenty feet away, Chase could hear the air being knocked out of the man’s lungs. They smashed into Eva, causing the newly formed snowman to explode. Through the puff of airborne snow, Chase saw the girl’s tiny body fall to the ground where it remained, unmoving.

Chase sprinted forward as the two men continued to struggle. When she reached them, they were on their sides, Donnie kicking furiously as he tried to extricate him from the head of the ski rescue team.

Then Donnie shoved Gary.

With both hands.

“No!” Chase screamed. Lying on the icy ground beside them was the Deadman’s trigger.

Gary wrapped Donnie in a bear hug.

“Go,” the man said, tears in his eyes. “Take Eva and go.”

“I—”

Chase was interrupted by the sound of a deep rumbling. It was like being inside the belly of a starving beast.

The first charge went off a split second later. The concussive force nearly knocked Chase to the ground. This was followed by a tremendous crack.

Before the second charge went off, Chase reached for Eva. There were still thick chunks of snow clinging to her snow pants, and she swatted these away, worried that they would make her too heavy to carry.

Chase hoisted Eva onto one shoulder, realizing that she must have dropped her gun at some point.

It would do her no good now.

Donnie was screaming, pummeling Gary’s face with his fists.

She wanted to help Gary, wanted to pull Donnie off.

But there was no time.

There was never enough time.

“I’m sorry.”

Chase sprinted toward the rear exit. It was wider than the one that Gary and she had come through, but it was still narrow.

She placed Eva on the ground.

“It’ll be okay,” Chase said as she grabbed the girl’s lifeless arm. She moved into the crack in the ice, dragging Eva behind her.

It was wider and it was also shorter. Ahead, she could see the snowy outside world, the wind blasting thick flakes horizontally across the vast whiteness.

It was right there.

Ten small steps, maybe less.

Nine.

Eight.

But there wasn’t enough fucking time.

The second, third, and fourth charges went off in rapid succession and the next thing Chase heard was the cave starting to collapse behind them.

Chapter 42

It was just like the school again.

Everyone shouting, scared, on the verge of rioting.

And it once again fell on Georgina’s shoulders to restore order.

“Everyone just calm down,” she said meekly.

Raven was recording with her cell phone. Rachel was just standing there, even more lost than Georgina.

“Please, calm down.”

Georgina wasn’t even sure her voice was being heard over the din.

Several of the men were on the verge of throwing hands.

“Be quiet!” Georgina raised her voice. “If—”

“Fuck this! You can’t keep us here,” a burly man with a handlebar mustache exclaimed. “I’m going out there to look for them.”

Other men grumbled their approval.

“The Yeti will getcha! The Yeti—”

“No! You need to stay here! We need to stay inside!”

Her voice fell on deaf ears.

“Please… ?”

Eva’s father was among the men who were already putting on their snow gear.

“Raven, talk to your dad.”

Raven lowered her phone.

“If Eva’s out there, we need to find her.”

“But… but…”

There was no stopping any of them now. At least six men, Tom and Ben amongst them, opened the front doors.

Georgina gave up. She was just a kid. They were all just kids. Raven and Rachel included.

Cold flooded the foyer and wind abused the now dwindling flames in the fireplace.

“This is nuts,” Georgina said. “They’re going to get lost. They’re going to freeze—”

She was cut off by a deep rumble coming from somewhere high up the mountain. The sound cascaded down the slope, seeming to get louder like a rolling snowball collecting all the loose snow in its path.

It was powerful enough to cause the entire chalet to tremble.

“Close the doors!” Georgina screamed, realizing what was happening. “Close the fucking doors!”

The men were too entranced to listen.

Georgina surged forward.

And then she became like them, unable to look away.

It appeared as if the entire mountainside had just sloughed off like a giant ice floe and was rushing toward them.

It was surreal.

It was beautiful.

And it was deadly.

“Oh, shit!” someone cried. People backed up, bumping into Georgina, nearly knocking her down.

She snapped out of her stupor.

“Close the door!”

Now they listened.

It took four men to close the dual doors.

“Everyone to the back!” Georgina yelled. “Now!”

Rather than wait around to see if they obeyed, Georgina grabbed Raven’s arm and pulled her toward the hallway.

Guests huddled beneath the check-in desk, others crowded into the dining hall.

Georgina didn’t stop moving. Still dragging Raven with her, she migrated into the hallway that Tate had run down.

To her right was an open door.

The rumbling was so powerful that it rattled her molars, garbled her words.

“In here!”

They ducked inside, kicked a fallen chair out of the way, and crawled beneath a desk.

“Eva’s out there,” Raven sobbed.

“If she is, Chase will find her.”

Their faces were but inches apart, the only way they could hear each other speak.

“Chase will find her,” Georgina repeated. And then she cupped Raven’s face in her hands and kissed her on the lips. “She’ll find her.”

The words were barely out of her mouth when the avalanche slammed against the front of the chalet.

Chapter 43

Tate was nearly at the top of the mountain when something happened. At first, he thought the vibrations he felt was his four-wheeler malfunctioning.

But then the ground beneath him… shifted.

The wheels started to lose traction, and he gunned the engine. He was no expert in avalanches, actually despised the snow, but he figured that if he got to the top of the mountain, then he might be okay.

Even he knew that avalanches flowed downhill.

And that was exactly what he understood was happening.

The snowfall had eased slightly, allowing him a somewhat clearer view. Just in time, too, because Tate almost smashed into the back of a parked snowmobile and another four-wheeler.

“Shit!”

Tate swerved to the right, continuing upward.

Now the ground seemed to be collapsing beneath him.

Maybe the top of the mountain wasn’t such a good idea, after all. But it was too late to change course.

A tremendous crunch caused him look over his shoulder. The snowmobile and four-wheeler appeared to be sinking. And then they fell into the mountain.

Huge billows of snow followed, throwing a near mushroom cloud of precipitation into the air.

The collapse was spreading from behind, chunks of rocks and ice breaking and tumbling into a dark abyss.

Tate tried to push the vehicle even harder, but it was maxed out.

Go, go, go!

The ground beneath him was rapidly crumbling, and he could feel the rear tires sinking lower than the front.

Tate stood up, pressed his waist into the handlebars, and leaned over, not sure if this made a difference, but not knowing what else to do, not sure how far he had to go to escape the disaster.

And then his rear tires, dangling into the chasm, struck something hard, a rock, a chunk of ice, maybe.

The back of the four-wheeler rose up and Tate was tossed from the vehicle.

He was airborne for what seemed like forever, long enough to think that Chase might be down there somewhere—Down? In? Buried?—before landing in two feet of soft snow. He skidded forward and snow filled his nose and open mouth.

Eventually, when he came to a stop, Tate coughed, clearing his airways.

He rolled onto his back and his jaw fell open.

A large portion of the mountain peak was gone. Just… gone. It had fallen in on itself.

And it was a tremendous drop.

Forty, maybe fifty feet down.

Black smoke from the two destroyed vehicles lazily meandered its way up to him.

Chase!

Tate scrambled to the edge of the hole and gripped the icy edge to peer down.

Among the four-wheeler and snowmobile, both warped and broken nearly beyond recognition, he saw what appeared to be the tops of snowmen.

What the fuck?

He searched for a way to descend but saw none. Short of falling to his death, the was no way Tate was going to go down into what he thought had probably once been a cave of some sort.

Panicking, he crawled away from the opening, worried that there might still be weak spots that were on the verge of collapsing.

“Chase?” he yelled. “Chase!”

The mountain top, what was left of it, anyway, was eerily silent now.

“Chase!” Tate cupped his hands around his mouth. “Chase!”

He scanned the area below for movement but saw none.

“Chase!”

If she was in there, she was dead. He knew this, but he wasn’t willing to surrender just yet.

Maybe she made it out.

Maybe she’d never been in there and had been caught in the avalanche.

Tate changed his focus, searching the soft snow near him. His vehicle was upside down, but still idling. The rear axle was twisted, out of true with the front, but other than that, it appeared functional.

Should I get on? Should I ride? But where?

Tate let his gaze drift down the slope. Something blinked and for a second, he thought snow had landed in one of his eyes. But his vision remained clear.

Blink.

Blink.

A section of snow, roughly fifty feet from where he lay on his stomach, appeared to be strobing.

It took his brain a few minutes to think of what this could be.

He looked at the circular light affixed to his right breast.

It was a beacon.

Had to be.

There was no other explanation.

Tate pushed raced down the slope turning his feet sideways to avoid pinwheeling and falling.

He made it to the radius of light and then dropped to his knees and began shoveling with both gloved hands.

The light was getting brighter.

Tate kept working at a feverish pace, scooping snow between his legs like a dog digging in the sand. The material became more dense, more compact, but he kept going.

After a minute, his hands broke through into what he could only describe as a bubble of air.

At the bottom, approximately three feet down, he spotted what looked like a human form in the fetal position.

Tate reached in with one hand and grabbed the back of the red coat. He pulled upward just enough to wrap his other hand in the fabric.

Then he heaved.

Tate fell backward, yanking the figure on top of him.

He pushed it—her, it was a woman—off of him and rolled her over.

It was Chase.

Thank God, it was Chase.

And she was alive.

Her eyes were at half-mast, and she was shivering violently.

Chase made a sound and Tate put his ear close to her mouth to hear better.

“What?”

“Eva.”

Tate didn’t understand.

“What?” he said again.

“Evaaaa.”

Chase somehow managed to raise a hand and point toward the hole.

Tate understood.

There was someone else in the hole. A much smaller body, their snowsuit covered in snow.

Unlike with Chase, he had a much easier time hauling this one out.

It was Eva.

She was blue and still.

Tate brushed snow from the girl’s nose and mouth and then breathed air into her lungs. It was like kissing an ice cube.

“C’mon,” he urged, as he began chest compressions. “C’mon.”

Even after three of these sequences, there was no reaction out of the girl. No sputtering, coughing.

No breathing.

Chase was at his side now, but he didn’t dare stop to look at her.

He just kept alternatively pressing down on her tiny chest and putting his mouth to her icy lips.

“Please,” Chase whispered.

And then, as if the half-dead girl heard her, Eva coughed.

It was a dull sound, but it was a sound.

The girl’s eyelids fluttered, and Tate fell back, collapsing from sheer exhaustion.

“She’s alive, Chase,” he murmured. “You saved her.”

Chapter 44

The doors held. They buckled inward from the weight of the snow, and while some of the thick powder managed to filter in through the separation this force created between them, the overall structure of the chalet remained intact.

Georgina waited for the rumbling to stop before taking Raven by the hand and daring to leave the room.

They found Rachel with Ben, also holding hands, in the main dining hall.

“What do we do?” Rachel asked. It was evident that she’d been crying. “Tate is out there. So is Chase.”

“Eva, too,” Ben added solemnly.

They were looking to Georgina for support, for reassurances. Even the other guests, having since calmed down, were staring in her direction.

All Georgina felt like doing was crying.

Raven squeezed her hand, and this was the support that she needed.

“We wait,” Georgina said firmly. “Now, we wait.”

***

“Denver PD.”

“We’re in here! We’re in here!” Several guests shouted at once.

“Alright, sit tight. There’s quite a bit of snow blocking both entrances, but we’re going to dig you guys out. Hang tight.”

Georgina, who had nearly been asleep when the voice had reached them from the other side of the doors, sat upright.

“There are people on the mountain,” she said. “Hello? You still there? There are people trapped on the mountain.”

“A chopper swung over the peak, looks like part of it collapsed,” the cop said.

“But there are people—”

“We know, we found three of them. A man, woman, and a child.”

“Eva!” Lori cried.

“They’re all going to be okay. They say their names are… Chase, Tate, and Eva.”

Lori collapsed into her husband’s arms and sobbed against his chest.

“What about Lily?” Unlike Lori, Suzanne’s voice was weak.

Georgina, unsure if the cop heard the question, repeated it in a stronger tone.

There was a pause.

“We’re still searching. Please, stay away from the doors as we dig you guys out.”

***

It took two hours for the PD to remove enough snow to squeeze into the chalet. During this time, Georgina heard the unmistakable sound of a chopper landing outside.

The police rushed in, corralled the guests.

Chase and Tate, both with red faces blotched with patches so white that it looked like they suffered from vitiligo, followed.

Tate grabbed Rachel and hugged her, Chase did the same with Georgina.

Georgina didn’t let go of Raven’s hand the entire time.

Lori kept peering outside, standing on her tiptoes to see over everyone’s heads.

“Where’s Eva? Where’s Eva?”

A cop stepped forward. Georgina recognized his voice as the one who had instructed them to stay away from the doors.

“You her mother?”

“Yes,” Lori exclaimed desperately. “Please, you need to tell me—”

“Eva’s been taken to the hospital. She has hypothermia and frostbite, but she’s going to make it.”

“Ohhhh, thank you,” Lori whimpered. “Thank you.”

But her words weren’t directed at the cop.

They were meant for Chase.

Lori strode over and embraced Chase, who just stood there awkwardly as the woman continually expressed her gratitude.

“We’re still searching for other survivors,” the cop informed them.

Georgina could tell by the way Chase’s face suddenly dropped that they wouldn’t find any.

Lily was gone.

Now Georgina started to cry. Not fully weeping, not sobbing, just silent tears.

Raven wrapped an arm around her waist and rested her dark head on her shoulders.

Finally, Lori let go of Chase and her aunt glanced over at Georgina and Raven.

“I did what I could, Chase. I tried and—”

“You did amazing, Georgina. I’m so proud of you.”

Chase kissed Georgina on the forehead then lowered her eyes to meet Raven’s.

“Can I speak to you for a second?”

“Of course.”

Raven let her arm fall and the two of them backed away.

“I want you to do your podcast,” Georgina overheard her aunt say in a hushed tone. “I want you to tell everyone what happened here. I want you to tell the truth about Donnie and Daniel and all of the people who covered up their crimes for so many years. I want you to make it so that no matter how many times they change their names, people will know what really happened.”

Chapter 45

Linus let one of the local cops kick the door down. He might have volunteered to go out into the field, but he wasn’t about to pretend he’d become an alpha male overnight.

Baby steps for him.

And this was the perfect opportunity.

With the protection of a half dozen Denver cops to raid a house that should, by all accounts, only be occupied by a sick, or more likely dead, old man.

Sick in more ways than one.

A burly cop with an impressive beard went first, gun drawn.

“Denver PD! If there’s anyone in here, show yourself with your hands up.”

Linus let the other cops enter next while he took up the rear. He had his gun out but hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.

Hoped he wouldn’t be put to the test again.

The cops cleared the ground floor first before heading upstairs. When Chase had briefed him on what she’d discovered about Daniel and his son Donnie Moore, he’d expected a Dahmer-style domicile, complete with heads in the freezer, maybe a severed hand boiling in a pot on the stove.

But there was none of that. It was just a regular house. A little dated, but last he checked, that wasn’t a crime.

Linus was in the kitchen when someone hollered from the second floor.

“Hey, FBI Guy, you might want to come take a look at this.”

Linus’ heart skipped a beat.

You can do this.

He braced himself on the laminate countertop and exhaled a stream of breath through pursed lips.

“FBI Guy?”

“Coming,” he said weakly.

Linus gripped the banister tightly as he made his way upstairs.

“In here.” The same cop who had almost gleefully kicked the door gestured toward a room at the end of the hall. “You okay? Look a little green.”

Linus forced himself to swallow despite the painful dryness in his throat.

“Yeah, fine.”

The bedroom wasn’t exactly Dahmer-esque, but it was a chaotic mess. There were crumpled sanitary pads all over the floor, most of which were stained with dark colors the origins of which Linus forced himself not to consider. There were also syringes scattered about, uncapped, used.

In the corner, lying on its side, was a piece of medical equipment that Linus thought might be some sort of archaic dialysis machine. The tubes that extended from the device and were coiled in loose spools on the filthy floor were filled with clotted blood.

“This guy have a nurse or somethin’ taking care of him?” the cop asked. “Cuz that bitch needs to be fired ASAP.”

“Not exactly.”

Linus left it at that. No point mentioning that he thought Daniel had probably been forced to look after his father when Silver Peaks pulled his health insurance.

No need to add fire to the rumors he knew were already swirling in these guys’ heads.

“Anyways, this floor is clear, too. Looks like your guy cut loose.”

This didn’t make much sense. If Daniel Moore was sick enough to require this sort of treatment, it was unlikely that he would be capable of just getting up and walking away.

Linus backed out of the room, which reeked of sweat and piss and shit.

“Hey, there’s a locked door here. Think it leads to the basement,” a different cop told them from downstairs.

The officer who had mentioned the nurse was practically foaming at the mouth for another opportunity to show his strength.

Linus let him have at it.

This time, though, after the door was bashed inward, he went first.

Linus cautiously descended the dark staircase. It was cold and dark down here and the lower he got, the more breath he could see in front of his face.

A shiver ran through him when he reached the bottom, and he snaked his hand along the wall. He found a light switch and flicked it on.

“Jesus Christ, what the hell is this?” The cop who had followed him down grumbled in Linus’ ear.

The man’s breath was hot and sour.

Linus immediately discovered why the basement was so much colder than the rest of the house.

Someone had left all the windows wide open.

He also identified the source of the cop’s blasphemy.

The walls were covered with newspaper articles, some dating back decades. And they all described, in various levels of detail, accounts of the girls who had gone missing. Names and dates were crudely circled in different color pens and markers.

Then there were the photographs, which were also stuck to the walls. They showed a massive icy cavern and… snowmen. Some of the photos revealed more of these grim displays than others, all spread out across a blue, icy landscape.

Linus leaned close to one of the more recent photos, which was taken with a decent camera, and tried to understand the details.

“Jesus Christ, are those people in the snowmen?”

So much for squelching the rumors.

He thought he was prepared for this, that Chase’s description of what she’d found was enough to ensure that he wasn’t shocked or surprised by what he’d find in the Moore house.

But he was.

Linus was deeply disturbed. As he stared, transfixed by the haunting images, the cop backed away and continued to explore the dank space.

A handful of seconds later, Linus heard him mutter, “Oh, fuck.”

His eyes snapped to the cop. The man was slowly retreating from a large metal basin, his steps measured, the corners of his mouth pulled down in a sour grimace.

Linus tentatively made his way to the cop’s side.

He looked to the officer for an explanation, but the man could only manage to nod at the basin.

Linus nervously his lips, then lifted his chin to peer over the side of the tub that reached about waist-high.

Linus now realized why someone, probably Donnie, had left the windows open: to keep the ice that filled the aluminum tub frozen.

And buried in that ice was the body of an elderly man, maybe in his late sixties. It was nearly impossible to be more accurate with his age because the man had clearly been dead for some time.

The low temperature had kept decomposition at bay, but it had failed to prevent the man’s ashtray-gray skin from losing its elasticity.

His lips had drawn back, exposing his teeth in a way that made them appear unnaturally large, giving him a skeletal sneer. The man’s eyes bulged, the lids non-existent.

Linus took a deep breath and pictured the photos he’d found of Daniel Moore, aka Donovan Capito—his ID card, the newspaper article, and other random images he’d uncovered from various resort functions over the years.

It was Daniel all right. Ironic that he was smiling in death but never broke so much as a grin in any of these photos.

Linus removed his phone from his pocket and scrolled through his contacts. He found the person he was looking for and gave her a call. She answered on the second ring.

“Chase? We found Daniel. He’s dead… it looks like he’s been dead for a while.”

Epilogue

They spent the two nights following the avalanche in a hotel by the airport, not stepping a foot outside.

Chase was on the phone most of this time, receiving constant updates from Linus and Denver PD.

They’d found no more survivors in the ice caves. In all, their extensive excavation efforts had unearthed the bodies of nineteen children and one adult, the latter being Gary Devers.

They never found Donnie Moore.

The airline’s extreme accommodating attitudes took an abrupt turn after the events at Silver Peaks, and they had to foot the bill for the hotel themselves.

They didn’t care.

They would have paid ten times as much just to stay warm. Taken out a second mortgage if they’d had to.

Most of the skin on Tate’s face had regained its normal color and the doctors had assured them that the areas that had been frostbitten would recover, no surgery necessary, no risk of gangrene.

“You okay to fly, Rach?” Tate asked his daughter.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

He kissed her on the forehead.

“Good.”

They boarded the airplane and settled into their first-class seats. Georgina felt anxious and immediately buckled up.

“This is your captain speaking,” a voice said over the intercom. “We are pleased to inform you that we expect clear skies all the way to Hawaii. We wish you a pleasant flight.”

Rachel was seated beside her, which was what they’d wanted, her eyes closed. She blindly sought Georgina’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

Prior to takeoff, the flight attendant came through the first-class cabin.

“Would anybody like anything to drink? Headphones for the entertainment system?”

Tate ordered a double rum and coke.

Everyone else declined.

“What about you?” the flight attendant said, directing the question at Georgina. “Headphones?”

Georgina offered the woman a small smile.

“No, thanks.” She removed her phone from the pocket in the seat in front of her and began unwinding her earbuds. “I downloaded a podcast.”

“Well, if you need anything, please don’t hesitate to let me know.”

The flight attendant left, and Georgina put her headphones in her ears.

Like Rachel, she closed her eyes. The second she did, she saw Raven’s face.

Thought about her first kiss. It wasn’t exactly the way she’d pictured it, but she didn’t regret it either.

Georgina filled her lungs with air, held it, then let it all out in a whoosh.

Then she pressed play.

“Welcome to Beyond the Crime Scene, a brand-new podcast that delves deep into the truth behind some of the most notorious crimes in US history. My name is Raven and I’ll be your host. In our inaugural episode, we will be exploring a series of devastating murders that you’ve probably never heard of.”

Music cut in. Not morose, but not exactly upbeat, either.

Somewhere far away, Georgina heard the flight attendant announce that the doors were closing.

And then Raven’s voice filled her ears.

“In the winter, Silver Peaks Resort in Denver, Colorado, is a haven for the wealthy to flee the confines of their busy lives. In the summer, hiking trails grace the picturesque mountain tops. Lush trees and vegetation cover the slopes, but until a few days ago, the icy truth hidden inside the mountain never thawed. Winter or summer, the mountain kept a deadly secret. Little did these guests know that they were skiing and hiking directly on top of a series of caves that held a morbid secret: the frozen bodies of nineteen young girls. Some say it was the Yeti, others just a series of unfortunate accidents. The truth, however, is far more frightening…”

***

A gloved hand broke the snowy surface reminiscent of a cadaver’s claw reaching up from a shallow grave.

It twisted and then the wrist bent.

The fingers scratched at the snow, peeling it back like layers of dry skin.

A second hand joined the first and together, their frantic movement making an opening. A head came next, cold blue lips parting to desperately suck in air.

For a time, everything fell still. Then an animalistic growl could be heard, carried on the wind.

A figure crawled out, then collapsed.

More stillness. The gray storm clouds that had blanketed the mountains and resort for two days had since cleared and the sun finally peeked through.

Light cast an eerie glow on the figure’s snarling face, but it provided no warmth. After all, like its predecessor, the beast was a product of the ice and snow. It was born in it—no, not born but reborn.

THE END

Author’s Note

Hey #thrillogans! It’s your friendly neighborhood author here. The idea for this story came to me, as many of my ideas do, while watching a documentary about a series of avalanches that hammered a vacation resort and resulted in the deaths of several young children. There was nothing nefarious about these events, unless, of course, you consider the neglect of those in charge of maintaining safety.

But, of course, something like that would be too banal for Chase Adams.

To me, a snowy resort was the perfect setting for Chase’s newest adventure. In a way, this brings her full circle, what with her first case taking place primarily in Alaska.

Before this book, I loved to build snowmen with my kids in the winter. Afterwards? Well, I’m sure it’ll still be fun. But I won’t lie to you, I’ll probably picture the faces of Lily and the other unfortunate souls embedded in them.

On a brighter note, I had hella fun writing the wedding cameos. It was awesome getting to reunite with old friends, to catch up with Don Keedic and Amanda Lick. And Drake… who could forget about Drake?

Chase will return in a few months in a different setting investigating a different crime.

Grim Harvest will be the 15th book in the Chase Adams FBI Thriller Series and will drop in sometime late October. Please consider pre-ordering the book by clicking HERE.

Oh, if you feel so inclined, I would also appreciate it if you could leave a review or a rating for Frost Bite.

As always,

You keep reading, I’ll keep writing.

Pat

Montreal, 2024

Other Books by Patrick Logan

Detective Damien Drake

Butterfly Kisses

Cause of Death

Download Murder

Skeleton King

Human Traffic

Drug Lord: Part I

Drug Lord: Part II

Prized Fight

Almost Infamous

Straw Man

Dangerous Company

Happy Face

Chase Adams FBI Thrillers

Frozen Stiff

Shadow Suspect

Drawing Dead

Amber Alert

Georgina’s Story

Dirty Money

Devil’s Den

Painted Ladies

Adverse Effects

Already Dead

Direct Evidence

Filthy Secrets

Tainted Blood

Deadly Cargo

Active Shooter

Frost Bite

Grim Harvest

Tidal Bones

Last Supper

Striker and Frost FBI Thrillers

Tell Me Where the Sandman Sleeps

Tell Me Where She’s Buried

Tell Me What You’ve Done

Tell Me Where They’ve Gone

Dr. Beckett Campbell, Medical Examiner

Bitter End

Organ Donor

Injecting Faith

Surgical Precision

Do Not Resuscitate

Extracting Evil

Residence Evil (AKA Beckett’s First Kill)

Tommy Wilde Thrillers

One Wilde Night

Two Wilde Weeks

Three Wilde Months

Four Wilde Families

Veronica Shade Thrillers

The Color of Murder

The Scent of Murder

The Sound of Murder

The Touch of Murder

The Taste of Murder

Don’t forget to drop by my Facebook group and say hi! https://www.facebook.com/groups/LogansInsatiableReaders/

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents in this book are either entirely imaginary or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or of places, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © Patrick Logan 2024

Interior design: © Patrick Logan 2024

All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, cannot be reproduced, scanned, or disseminated in any print or electronic form.

First Edition: August 2024