Authors: Dana Mentink
SEVENTEEN
S
he prowled the room, picking up her phone to check the storm’s progress. When the weather cleared, the police would return and perhaps be able to figure out who had slashed Goren’s tires and broken the basement window. It all seemed so pointless, like acts of a rebellious teenager.
She was surprised to find a message on her phone from Sergeant Towers. Even though
she’d been expecting the news, she felt a surge of nausea.
Uncle Paul’s body had been released.
She could put it off no longer. It was time to arrange for a final goodbye. It wouldn’t be fancy, Sue had helped her make some initial arrangements. A small memorial ceremony after a private funeral. Her father was too ill to come even if he wanted to. It would probably be only herself and
Sue in attendance.
A pitifully small goodbye for a larger-than-life man. She still expected him to burst through the door at any moment, red cap on his head and a wild plan on his lips.
Her phone showed that it was nearly five, too late to go back to sleep and too early to expect anyone else to be up. She made up her mind to slip back to the lodge and search her uncle’s room. From there
she could make phone calls to finalize the details of her uncle’s memorial service.
Quietly she left the bedroom and made her way to the kitchen.
The smell of garlic sizzling in butter greeted her.
She was startled to find Luca there, a towel thrown over his shoulder as he stirred the pan on the stove, adding red peppers before pouring beaten eggs over the contents.
He looked
up when he heard her. “Sorry. Did I wake you? Tate could sleep through an air raid siren, so I figured my cooking wouldn’t annoy him.”
She shook her head, amused at the sight of this husky man working culinary magic. “What are you cooking?”
“Frittata.”
“That trumps my scrambled eggs.”
“Your eggs were great.” He tossed a handful of herbs and sprinkled it all with salt. “I went
over to the main house and swiped stuff from the fridge.”
“You’re not up for one of Sue’s toast and tea breakfasts?”
He chuckled. “I’m a food snob, or so my sister will tell you. When I stay at my dad’s house, I annoy the cook endlessly by bullying my way into the kitchen and taking over. She’s threatened to quit before.”
Ava could not restrain a laugh as she watched him ease the
frittata over after the bottom had cooked a bit.
She felt him looking at her. “Something wrong?”
“No, I just forgot the sound of your laugh. Kind of sweet and rolling. I remember hearing it when we used to come and ski here.” He looked back at the pan. “I used to listen for it when you were out showing the guests around. That’s how I’d find you.”
Her eyes widened. “Is that why you
always seemed to join in my guided tours?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He tossed a handful of Swiss cheese over the top. “I prefer Bergenost cheese, but that’s just my inner snob talking.”
“Why?”
“Why the cheese?”
“No.” She swallowed. “Why did you come find me all those times?”
“Well, at first it was probably because of the most obvious shallow teen criterion.”
“What’s that?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t see it, do you?”
“See what?”
“That you are gorgeous.”
Her cheeks flooded with heat. “Me?” she squeaked. “No, I guess I never have.”
He shrugged. “Maybe that was part of the other reason. You had this spirit about you, a sort of open genuineness is the best way I can say it.”
She dared not look at him. Her stomach was tumbling over itself.
She had never heard anyone say such things. “I’m glad I seemed that way to you. That was a long time ago.”
“Hasn’t changed.” He shot her a look, eyes filled with warmth that tickled something deep down inside her.
She jerked. “I...I’m not the same person I was at sixteen.”
“Nobody is.” Luca slid a mug full of fragrant coffee in front of her. “You’re not supposed to be.”
She
looked deep into his green gaze, wondering what she looked like to him. He saw something that she did not. It both thrilled and scared her. She drank a slug of coffee, burning her mouth in the process.
“So...I just figured I’d, um, go search Uncle Paul’s room.”
The expression on his face made her think he wanted to talk about an entirely different subject, but she plowed ahead anyway.
“I don’t think anything’s hidden there, but it’s something to do while we’re stuck here. I need to make some phone calls to plan Uncle Paul’s service, but nothing is open this early, of course.”
He took the frittata out of the oven and cut a wedge for her, a pool of melted cheese oozing over the edges onto the plate. The fragrance made her mouth water.
“I think we should eat breakfast
first,” he said. “Then, I’ve got a wild idea to run by you.”
* * *
Luca sighed inwardly. He’d made her uncomfortable, that much was certain. He shouldn’t have shared his memories. Big mouth, no filter. She’d eaten the frittata and let him detail his nutty idea. At least that gave them something to talk about that put her back on safe ground.
The gondola.
The old monolith that
stood sentry over the mountain, the one Paul had been interested in in spite of his fear of heights.
He could not get it out of his mind. Why would Paul climb up that rickety ladder in the first place unless he’d had a very good reason?
“Let’s go find out,” Ava said, taking her plate to the sink.
They donned jackets and headed out into the snow, snowshoes in hand. An exquisite sunrise
greeted them, showering gold and orange through the patchwork of clouds. For a moment they both stood there staring. He felt the divine majesty of the place sweep through him. He wondered if Ava felt it, too.
The storm had died away, leaving Whisper Mountain buried under three feet of new snow. It would be several hours before they would get a plow to clear the road so they could head back
to town. Hopefully the police had spent the time investigating all possible leads. As far as he knew, the coroner’s preliminary finding had been Paul died of head trauma probably due to the wreck and exposure, none of which helped point toward his killer.
As he strapped on his snowshoes, he felt a growing sense of urgency. Until they found this treasure, he had the strong sense that Ava’s
life would be in danger and the thought of her getting hurt burned like strong poison inside him. He hurried, trying to keep up with Ava’s brisk pace and superior snowshoeing ability.
The bottom tower nestled at the foot of a slope a good two miles from the guest lodge. The single cable stretched up the mountain, terminating at the top tower. The gondola itself rested in the bottom tower,
parked in the rectangular shed where passengers would board before their thrilling ascent.
It must have been a jewel of its kind twenty years ago. Now, Luca knew, lift systems had gone high-tech featuring enclosed cabins that could carry up to sixteen passengers. This old setup featured a rustic two-seater gondola that would meander its way to the mountain top, disgorge passengers and make
its leisurely way down the mountain. It was a relic from days gone by, but there was something special about it anyway.
He knew because he’d ridden it many times during those long-ago winters. He and Ava had crammed in it a time or two, skis balanced on their laps, predicting who would be the first to make it back down to the lodge. The Stantons did not have the money to replace the hopelessly
out-of-date gondola, nor did they have the money to have it removed, he guessed. So it sat, victim of the elements, standing sentry over the silent slopes of Whisper Mountain. He tried to get a glimpse of Ava’s face to see if she was feeling the same sense of nostalgia, but she’d moved ahead, reaching the metal-sided shed, perched on a network of pipes that held it above the ground. Because
it had been a lean snow year, they would have to use the ladder welded to the side to reach the shed.
“Maybe,” Ava said as she unbuckled her snowshoes, “Uncle Paul hid something inside the shed. He wouldn’t like climbing the ladder, but if there was a good enough reason, he might have considered it.”
Luca followed suit. “Could he have been trying to figure out what it would take to bring
the lift back up to par? Inspecting the gondola itself maybe to get some sense of the investment required?”
Ava laughed. “Uncle Paul would not have set foot near that gondola. He thought it was a death trap even back when it was in perfect working order. If he hid anything there, it’ll be in the shed.”
She climbed quickly and he did the same. The ladder seemed sturdy under his grip,
patches of rust not having caused too much damage. As they ascended he turned his head to look down. The lodge and guesthouse were concealed by the swell of the slope, the ground swaddled in a new layer of snow.
“Ava,” he called up to her, “do you see that?”
She stopped and peered in the direction he was pointing.
“Under the trees, you mean?”
“Uh-huh,” he said slowly. Somewhat
sheltered from the previous evening’s deluge, the ground at the foot of a massive pine showed a distinctive imprint along with a furrow leading away from it that promptly lost itself in the deeper snow.
“Snowmobile,” Ava said.
He nodded, wondering who had been prowling around the property on a snowmobile in the throes of a winter storm. Were the tracks from last night? This morning?
He’d not even seen a snowmobile in the garage during his search for the person who threw the pipe into the basement.
“Does your family keep one on the property?” Luca said as he topped the ladder, stepping into the dark interior.
“We had one years ago, but Uncle Paul wrecked it and we never had the money to replace it. I never heard Harold or Sue mention that they owned one.”
“And
Goren wouldn’t have had any way to get his hands on one unless he parked it here on some previous occasion.”
“Could be a trespasser. We get them all the time. People looking for that perfect slope.”
He nodded and did not pursue the matter, but his gut told him this particular trespasser was not in search of a good ski run. Perhaps Goren, Sue and Harold were not the only people involved.
Because the shed had no windows, it was almost completely dark inside. Luca switched on his flashlight and beamed it over the frigid interior. The periphery of the space was stacked with a variety of things from tall boxes to an old gondola set on its side. The more serviceable gondola was perched on the floor at the edge of the opening that looked down on the panorama below. It was attached
to the steel cable by a crooked arm, the acceleration controlled by the operator who stationed at the dust-covered levers tucked into the corner. Definitely old-school.
“This place has seen better days,” Luca said.
Ava moved to the opening, gazing across the rippling topography of Whisper Mountain. “Yes, but what a view. My dad used to take us up here, and my mom and I would get a private
ride. My mother used to say I was the only girl in the world who owned her very own mountain.”
He saw the gleam of tears in her eyes and he took her hand. “You had some good times here.”
She nodded. “Sometimes I forget. Mom’s death sort of drove the sweet memories away.” She sighed. “It’s nice to remember for a minute.”
He squeezed her fingers and resisted the sudden urge to press
them to his lips as they stood there looking out at the white world below them.
I’m not the same person I was at sixteen.
You’re better,
he wanted to tell her.
You’re just as breathtaking inside and out as this view.
After a moment, she gently took her hand from his and reached for the lever on the gondola roof. The little door slid open with a squeal and a strong smell of rust.
“Might as well check here, too, because we came all this way.”
She shone her own flashlight under the seats, bending to peer closer. “Just a coil of rope and an old screwdriver. I don’t see any evidence that my uncle was even up here. Maybe Harold was mistaken.”
Luca looked over her shoulder and concurred. The old metal seats were covered with moisture and a patch or two of mold. It
looked as if nothing had been touched for years. “I told you it was a wild idea,” he said without much enthusiasm.
He felt a rush of air. Something hard and long smashed into his head from behind. He toppled forward carrying Ava down into the gondola with his weight. He felt the lurch of movement and his eyes were dazzled by a sudden onslaught of sun. He struggled to right himself, but found
he could not get any leverage in the tiny space.
There was a dizzying sense of the floor rocking underneath him.
The reality finally hit home as the gondola sped out along the ancient cable, heaving violently from side to side.
EIGHTEEN
A
va struggled to breathe with Luca’s heavy weight on top of her. The spiraling sensation in her stomach told her that they were falling.
Not falling, she realized.
Rising, skimming upward along the cable, the old filament of steel that had been lying neglected for a decade. She could not get her eyes to focus as the world blurred around her.
Luca finally
struggled to his knees, a dazed look on his face.
“What happened?” she said after she got a breath.
“Someone hit me from behind.”
They both looked out the back window as a bundled figure hurried down the ladder. There was no time to worry about it as the gondola was still jerking forward, shuddering so hard that Ava feared the metal contraption would fall apart.
They were traveling
away from the tower at a fast pace, the distance from the ground now a good twenty feet and increasing with every moment. Fear knotted her insides as the gondola pitched and heaved. She clung to the seat.
Luca tried to get to his feet, but the movement caused the car to swing even more violently, so he quickly returned to his knees. He looked at the cable overhead, and she knew he was thinking
the same thing she was. Would it hold?
If it did, they would arrive at the far tower safely and be able to climb down, none the worse for wear. If it didn’t...
She closed her eyes for a moment to try to still the whirling in her head. Slowly, in painful increments, the gondola stopped its violent sideways motion and settled into a more even progress up the mountain. Ominous grinding
noises drifted down from overhead.
They were now thirty feet up, she guessed.
When the dizziness subsided she opened her eyes to find Luca peering down toward the ground. He gave her a firm nod. “We’re okay so far. If we stay still, it will be less stress to the cable.”
No worries there. Ava’s body was frozen, rigid with fear. She’d ridden the gondola countless times before without
so much as a moment of discomfort. It’s just like those times, she told herself. Riding up the mountain, looking forward to a day of fun, her mother’s face pinked with cold, a rare smile gracing her lips.
Ava forced her muscles to relax, her fingers to unclench themselves from the edge of the seat. We’re going to be okay, she repeated to herself. The movement was gentle now, as they slid
smoothly along the cable.
Sucking in a deep breath and letting it out, Ava felt her body begin to relax the tiniest bit. The gondola jerked to a halt so suddenly that she might have pitched right over the side if Luca hadn’t gripped her jacket and anchored her down. Her scream echoed in the thin air.
The car swung in a crazy arc, all forward motion stopped.
They held on to each
other and whatever they could reach, crouched on the floor as the hideous rocking continued, the blur of snow melting together with flashes of blue sky as they rocketed back and forth.
At any moment the gondola might detach, sending them crashing down.
Luca gripped her hand. She clung to him.
Cold air eddied around them, bringing tears to Ava’s eyes.
Gradually, agonizingly,
the movement slowed again until the gondola eased into stillness. No more moving in any direction, suspended in an eerie limbo. She could hear Luca’s breath, coming in pants, along with her own. “What happened?” she whispered.
He looked up. “There’s damage to the cable here. The gondola can’t pass it.”
She was too afraid to look down. “How high are we?”
“Probably forty feet.”
The cable creaked and wind whistled past.
“Is it going to hold?” she managed. Her eyes told her the truth even if Luca could not. The cable above them trembled, one strand of metal wire springing loose from the bundle. There was no time to call for help. They were going to fall.
Another strand snapped and coiled away from the main cable sending shudders through the metal car.
Luca grabbed the rope from underneath the seat. He unwrapped it frantically mumbling to himself. “Maybe twenty feet, less the knot.”
“What?” she said, eyes round with horror. “You are not saying what I think you are.”
“We don’t have a choice,” he said, tying the rope around the window beam. “The rope will get you down twenty-plus feet and then you’ll have to jump.”
Her heart stopped.
“I can’t do that.”
“Yes, you can and you’re going to.” He handed her a small penknife from his pocket. “If you can’t get the knot undone, then cut yourself free from the rope. Get moving, this cable isn’t going to hold much longer.”
Before she knew it she had a rope tied around her waist and she was sitting at the open door, feet hanging over the side. Panic stormed through her. “I can’t,”
she said.
He knelt next to her and talked in her ear, his strong body preventing her from backing up. His fingers stroked her hair and he pressed his mouth to her ear. “You can. I’m going to lower you down and when you get to the bottom you’ll untie yourself and jump.”
His voice was dead calm, as he they were discussing a trip to the beach.
“I...”
He brushed her hair aside
and kissed her temple, sending tingles along her neck, then let his mouth trail along the hairline.
“You can do it, Ava. You were always the first one down the mountain, remember?”
“How will you get down?” she whispered, teeth chattering.
“I’ll pull the rope up and do the same thing. Go,” he said. “Go now.”
She didn’t know if she eased over the side or he maneuvered her, but
she found herself hanging into space, spinning lazily on the rope. Her skin prickled in terror as the scenery swam in front of her eyes. She could hear Luca straining to brace himself against the side and let out the rope. She moved in bumps and jolts, each one making her want to scream in terror.
Even though she didn’t dare look, she imagined Luca above her, looking down on her progress.
You can do it, Ava.
She tried to spread her arms and legs to slow the spinning. The ground whirled brilliantly beneath her as she descended.
When the last bump came, she heard Luca call. “You’ve got to jump now. Right now.”
She couldn’t move. The ground seemed an impossible distance away.
Groans came from the cable above, but her fingers still clutched tight to the rope.
A round disk, a piece from the gondola’s machinery broke loose and glanced off her shoulder as it dropped into the snow far below. She watched until it was swallowed up by the mantle of white.
She realized that Luca’s life depended on her decision in that moment. The knot around her waist was cinched tight from her weight, so she pulled out the penknife, clutching it tight in her frozen fingers
and began to saw furiously. It was slow going and the circling motion of her body dizzied her.
Soon her hand ached as the blade bit into the sturdy rope. Luca called out something which she could not decipher, but the intensity of his tone added new vigor to her efforts. Looping her arm around the rope above her she hacked away at the section tied around her waist.
One more small bit
to go, and her nerves were screaming. Sawing frantically, she paid no heed to the raw spots forming on her skin. All at once the rope came loose, the breath pushed out of her as her body surged toward earth, held in place only by her arm as she dangled there.
She was not sure that she had the strength to let go and drop the twenty feet or so down to the ground.
What if she did not survive?
What if she broke her back and became a paraplegic like her father?
Terror made her squeeze her eyes shut tight.
I can’t do it.
I can’t.
Another squeal from the cable sounded, louder.
If she did not drop, Luca would die.
She let loose her grip on the rope.
* * *
Luca saw her let go. He prayed he’d been right and the distance had not been enough to cripple
or kill her. The gondola shuddered back and forth now, each movement eliciting eerie squeals from the gradually failing cable.
He hooked his arm around a pole to secure himself while he leaned over to coil the rope. Feverishly he reeled it in. It brought him back to their near escape from Melody Lake. He recalled the feel of Ava’s limp body, the dead white of her face. His heart pounded and
he knew it was not merely from the tension he now faced. In that moment, as in the present one, he was not helping Ava simply as a favor to her father or an excuse to do some treasure hunting. His actions were motivated by something richer, deeper and something he’d never felt so strongly before. The thought startled him but he reined himself in.
Priorities in order, Gage.
He noticed
the knot securing the rope to the gondola had come almost loose. He unfastened it to retie the knot when another strand let go on the cable and the gondola lurched to the side. The rope fell from his hands and disappeared out the window of the gondola taking his only avenue of escape with it.
His breath puffed white in the air as he stared after the vanished rope. For a moment, he could not
think, steeped in the impossible thought that there was no way out.
But he was not wired to accept defeat.
There was something here, some solution. He just had to find it.
On his knees now he examined the overhead cable again, the cut strands of steel beginning to curl.
He scanned quickly.
The drop here would surely kill him.
So the answer wasn’t down there. His eyes
traveled the length of the cable spanning the enormous distance between the shed and the final stop nearer the top of Whisper Mountain.
No way down...but maybe another way out.
It was crazy, too crazy to work. Victor had chided Luca endlessly over the years about his tendency to rush in first and worry about the consequences later.
Think it through, examine all the various possible
outcomes, his brother would say.
Luca was the kid who would watch old black-and-white movies with his dad, admiring the swashbuckling daring and bravado of the many heroes who came to life there.
Sorry, Victor. It’s time for some old-fashioned white-knuckle courage.
He stripped off his jacket, too amped to care about the stinging chill and carefully climbed on the still-bucking
gondola seat. He lost his footing and went down to one knee, the car spiraling so rapidly he was dizzied.
He looked up for a moment, gaining equilibrium from the tranquil sky. When his vision steadied, he climbed out the window, hands clutched tightly to the freezing metal. It was like trying to stand on top of a moving train, so the best he could do was to stay low and grip with his feet
and one hand, the other still clutching the jacket.
When he reached the roof of the gondola, he clung to the metal arm, extending his body along the length of it until he was close enough to reach.
He hoped.
Giving himself a mental countdown, he tossed one end of the jacket over the cable, while holding onto a sleeve. Somehow he manage to get the fabric up and over, until he could
clasp both sleeves, tying them into as tight a knot as he was able.
He desperately hoped the nylon fabric would be enough, the cable would hold, the gondola would not careen down the cable and crush him at the bottom. Before he could ponder any more of the violent conclusions, he grabbed hold of his makeshift zip line and pushed off the gondola.
The jacket slid over the icy cable. Luca’s
body weight pulled frighteningly against the fabric, and he was sure it would rip in half, plummeting him down into the snow. It held, and he continued his downward progress back toward the shed. Every foot, every precious inch even, would bring him closer to the ground and farther away from the possibility that the fall would kill him.
The cable dipped as another strand let go. He was still
a good thirty feet above the ground. His progress slowed to a stop as the jacket encountered friction probably caused by the deterioration of the cable.
He grabbed it, cutting his hands as he maneuvered his way over the rough patch until he was able to slide again, his progress slower now.
Thirty feet to the shed, he estimated.
Down below he saw something moving, dark against the
snow.
Ava.
The breath whooshed out of him.
She’d not been hurt in her fall.
The knowledge gave him a surge of new energy as he worked his way across another rough patch on the cable.
In another fifteen feet he’d be through the worst of it.
His nerves relaxed just for a moment.
Until he heard the sound of tearing fabric.