Chilled by Death (26 page)

Royce finished her thought, “Only he died before she went missing.”

*

Royce didn’t like
this turn of events. He stood, arms crossed in front of the fire, as he listened to Stacy and the cop work things back and forth. The problem was there was no easy way to work it. They’d found a dead man. Two days later, a friend of theirs went missing and turned up the next day wearing the dead man’s coat.

That didn’t make sense any way he tried to make the pieces fit. He’d also taken one of the policemen aside and handed over the syringe. The cop hadn’t been impressed at not being called right away but asked a few more questions and packed the syringe up for testing.

As the cops made a move to leave, they looked up the hill to see the group coming back.

George reached them first. “No sign of anyone else,” he said, gasping for breath. “We tracked her a long ways up but need snowmobiles to go any further.”

“We have someone on the way already. Thanks for checking.” The cop pulled out the business card. “Do you know this name?”

George read the card, a frown on his face as he said, “No, should I?”

“It was in the man’s coat she was wearing,” Stacy said.

He looked over at her, a question in his eyes.

It was the cop who answered. “The card belongs to the dead man you all found in the snow a few days ago.”

“What?” George reacted in shock. “How is that possible that she was wearing his coat, then?”

“Maybe he took it off in his confusion and she found it while she was in trouble and put it on. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“We’ll see,” the cop said noncommittally. “There will be an answer.”

“There always is,” Royce said quietly, his gaze on Stacy, whose eyes hadn’t left the business card in the cop’s hand. What did she know?

T
he snowmobiles arrived
before the police were out of sight. There were two. They stopped, asked for what little information was available, then took off in a rush. There were still a few hours of daylight left.

Stacy turned to Royce. “I’d like to go up there and take a look for myself.”

He frowned, instinctively shaking his head. She nodded. “I know we can’t go as fast or as far as the sled, but I’d like to see the trail she made to determine where she was coming from.”

“The backside of the mountain.”

“But she wasn’t wearing her boarding gear, so why was she down there?” Stacy countered. “I’d just like to go.”

Royce gave in. He knew she wouldn’t give up. She wasn’t considered hardheaded and stubborn for nothing. She geared up for a trek outdoors, then turned and said, “George, would you mind grabbing my camera bag, please?”

She waited while he fetched it for her, then with that over her shoulder, Royce at her side, they headed out. As several snowmobiles had travelled the same track, the walking was easier now. Trudging uphill for the first part, she had a hard time holding back the knot of nervousness inside. She had a horrible feeling this was all connected to something so much bigger but knew they didn’t have all the pieces yet. She didn’t know if the snowmobiles would find something, but she wanted to double check that she hadn’t missed something herself.

“So do you want to tell me what we’re really doing?” Royce asked.

“I saw something the other day. It was stunning, eerie, and incredibly beautiful. Now I’m wondering if there wasn’t something more sinister.”

She felt his sharp gaze but didn’t take her eyes off the hillside ahead of her.

“I want to know if the direction Yvonne came from was the same area as what I saw earlier. If it wasn’t, that’s great then, as what I saw before was Mother Nature at her best. If it is, then I think we need to inspect it closer.”

“Do I get to know what ‘it’ is?” he asked calmly.

“I don’t have a problem telling you, but I’d prefer to see your reaction in case it’s not the same as mine. I could be imagining this. I just can’t be sure.”

“Good enough. Where is this place?”

“Where we were the day we were late because I was taking pictures.”

“I don’t think she came from that direction,” he said slowly.

“It depends how far away she might have been.”

With that, she fell silent. She needed to save her energy. At the top, she took several deep breaths as she regained her strength. Ahead, she could see the snowmobile tracks heading to the right and up. She studied the ridge ahead.

The images she’d seen earlier were around the corner.

*

He studied Stacy’s
face as she looked at the snowy ridge ahead of them. Concentration glowed from those blues as she picked up one marker then zipped across looking for another. She chewed on her bottom lip – an action guaranteed to drive him nuts. He wanted to tell her to stop it. That her lips were swollen from the abuse. But then he wanted to soothe them with his own lips.

And that she wasn’t ready for. At least he didn’t think so.

But he could hope.

Then she turned to face him, a question in her eyes. He smiled, shrugged, and turned to study the mountain. She so wasn’t ready to know what he’d been thinking.

But that didn’t mean he’d stop thinking it.

C
razy thoughts twisted
inside her head. Could there be other cabins in the back woods? Could Yvonne have been trying to come home? Was there a cabin close by they didn’t know about? Just because she didn’t know about a place didn’t mean it didn’t exist. It was a huge resort. This area had been settled for over a hundred years, with many private lots. Cabins dotted the area. Out of the way, but close enough to all the amenities of the resort. Still, the authorities would know. The search and rescue team as well.

As they trudged forward, she removed her camera from her bag and pulled up the pictures she’d taken the other day.

“What’s going on?” Royce asked. “What are you looking for?”

“I thought I saw something the other day,” she said, flicking through the strip of photos. “Remember when I was out here for so long?”

“Right and you appeared to be fascinated with that waterfall?”

“Yes, I was, but it’s what was beside it that fascinates me now. There was opaqueness to the ice as if there was a big black space behind it.”

“Like a cave or something?”

“Hmmm…” she murmured, studied the image in front of her carefully. “I just wondered if maybe there was a cabin or a dwelling of some kind – likely very old, that maybe she and whoever she was with – if she was with someone – tripped into and spent the night, then tried to find their way back out again in the morning.”

“If they were snowmobiling and broke down, they might have taken refuge, but I can’t imagine any other scenario where that would make sense.”

“I know.” She motioned at the image to the left of the hillside where there was a shadow. An odd shaped shadow. “Doesn’t that look different along there?”

He peered at it, shrugged, and said, “Honestly, not really.”

She laughed. “Let’s go take a closer look.”

It took another ten minutes of slogging through the snow on the tracks that were just crusted enough to hold their weight until they went to take the next step, at which point they broke through to the soft snow below.

By the time they got to where she had stood before, she was sweating freely and wondering just how healthy she truly was. She groaned, opening her jacket to let in some fresh air.

“That’s hard work today,” she said.

“It is.”

She was staring up at the left side of the hill to the side of the frozen waterfall.

She turned to study the scene.

It was as high as the right side. The slope easier. There didn’t appear to be any way up, but of course there never was unless you knew the routes.

Royce headed over to the area she’d pointed out and Stacy fell in behind him. They were halfway there when she heard the snowmobiles.

She couldn’t see them yet, but their engines were loud enough to hear over the blanket of snow. She understood they were coming further off to the left. Renewing her excitement that maybe she was correct, they kept climbing, finally cresting the small rise as the sleds came bounding toward them. Up top was a flat stretch of long pristine snow marred by a set of tracks. The snowmobiles came to a stop. They’d followed the tracks to this area, but it had stopped in the trees. The snow had been trampled in many places, but they hadn’t found anything or anyone else.

“Do you two want a lift back?” the first man asked.

Stacy did. Desperately. But she wanted to take a look around her first and after realizing the snowmobiles were going back now and not in fifteen minutes, she declined. She stood at the top of the hill and watched them slash their way across the hillside below heading for the cabin and everyone who waited there. Resolutely, she turned. Now that she was here, she had no idea what she expected to find. She was aware of Royce watching her. Finally, he said, “If you tell me what you’re looking for, maybe I could help you look.”

“It’s kind of stupid, actually. I was just thinking there might be a way inside.”

“Inside?” he asked cautiously. “Inside what?”

“I think there’s a big cavern here. A cave. Something.”

“And?”

“I was just wondering if that’s where Yvonne had been all night.”

“And why would she have?”

She could tell he was trying not to say she was being crazy.

“I don’t know. But I thought I saw a person in the ice images when I had my camera out before. I had my zoom lens and could see so much but had trouble capturing it. Now it doesn’t look the same,” she cried out in frustration. “I can’t find what I saw before.”

“A man?”

She stopped, her temper igniting. “Yes. A man.”

He threw up his hands. “Hey, that’s fine. Maybe you did see someone here. But what difference does that make?”

She really hated having to tell him. It was her line of work that immediately saw all the good things in life and the bad that were right beside them. In this case, inside them. She refused to answer, instead walking to a small depression in the snow. A tree above overhung branches kept them pretty well protected, but new snow had fallen from its boughs above. Hiding whatever was below. She walked closer.