Denali Dreams (15 page)

“And I’m also the one who said she was sick. Then she vanished.”

“What about the news?” Maggie’s question quieted both of them.

“What news?” Logan asked.

“Just what I heard on TV before I came back up—rumor has it, her father was killed.”

“Amaury Decoteau?”

Maggie nodded, her face pale. “What if whoever killed her father is up there with her now?”

“That’s crazy—in fact, you both are.” David squashed the primal instinct in him to protect. Within that instinct existed a flurry of emotions. First, strangled grief for Jolie—losing her brother
and
her father? That had to hurt. Then guilt for the way he’d treated her, shoved her around with his rough words. Then back to the agitation that he was worrying about her. “I’m not going after some rich girl who wanted to prove she was bigger than the mountain that killed her brother.”

“What? You mean like you?”

David stilled.

“That’s what you’re doing, right? Being out here, protecting—protecting whom from what? You can’t be everywhere. Deaths will happen, David. But this one—you have a chance to do something, to protect someone you know, someone who already lost to the High One.”

“Stop. Just … leave it alone.” His hollow words fell against the cold snow as his dreams—no, nightmares—rushed back at him.

Snow crunched as he trudged toward the Edge of the World. Wind blasted him. Light vanished. Dark reigned. Icy drops needled his face.

Sound carried on the howling wind.

David slowed, tugging his hood closer as he peered over his shoulder. What had he heard?

“Daaaavid!!”

He spun, feet partially stuck in the snowdrift. Squinted against the whiteout.

“David, help me!”

Plunging through the knee-deep powder, he got nowhere fast. “Jolie?”

“David, help!”

Something
was
wrong. Very wrong.

Logan came to his side. “Dave, what’s wrong?”

“I …” No no no. He promised himself he wouldn’t rush to her rescue.

But he wasn’t a coldhearted jerk.

He stared out at the frozen tundra. He’d never forgive himself if he had the chance to do something and didn’t. What if a ranger had the chance to save Mariah—? “I think I’m about to eat my words.” He backed out of the tent. “Notify Camp 1. Give them her description. Notify next of kin.”

“I know what my job is,” Maggie said, only a little annoyed. “And you better know what yours is.”

David’s gut ignited as he pointed to Maggie. “Notify Camp 1. Send out her description,” he said, his mind and heart buzzing. “Beautiful blond. Raspberry North Face jacket, brown overpants, black boots.”

Maggie held his gaze. “Eye color?”

“Honey—brown.”

“Birthmarks?”

David scowled. “What? How would I know?”

“Well, you seem to know everything else about this
beautiful
blond.”

Heat stamped his face. “Just do it.” Her laughter trailed him into the icy terrain, along with a crunch of boots from behind.

“You sure you want to do this?” Logan asked.

David grabbed his gear and shouldered his pack. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know, maybe something about never rescuing rich kids off
your
mountain …”

His friend would never let him live this down. And trying to explain why he felt he had to do this would only make things worse. “If I tried to explain, you’d just mock me.”

“I’m already doing that.”

“Exactly.” David grabbed a radio then started through Base Camp, navigating the huddle of climbers waiting for the next Otter out.

“David.”

He hesitated and glanced back.

“Are you sure …?”

The question bore the implications of what he could find—or not find. It warned of losing yet someone else, and with Jolie’s connection to Mariah’s death …

“I have to.”

“No, you don’t.”

David smirked. “Yeah, actually, I think I do.” Sunglasses on, he looked toward the glaciers. “I had dreams about her screaming for help,
my
help.” He glanced back to his friend. “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened and I didn’t try.”

Logan seemed to understand. “Keep us posted and Godspeed.”

He gave a two-fingered salute then headed toward Heartbreak Hill. This was his problem—always knowing when things weren’t right. It got him in the middle of too many messes. And in the heart of this situation, his first instinct was to teach her a lesson for leaving her team. Let her eat snow. Have a cold burial. But that would make him a jerk. Each step down the four-hundred-foot descent pounded against his anger.

Even if she was sick, even if—in the remote possibility—she was in danger, what possessed her to take off alone? Solo climbs were restricted to the most experienced climbers. Now, not only had she put herself in danger against the elements and the mountain, but she also put his life in danger. When would rich people get it through their thick skulls that there was more to life than them? Well, he’d help her understand once he found her.

If
he found her.

Despite his irritation that told him to stop hurrying, let her feel some of the trouble she’d created, one thought pushed him: the thought of her broken body lying at the bottom of a crevasse.

God, help! Everything hurts.

It even hurt to think. But she must think in order to make it down the mountain alive, down to David.

No, not David. He hated her. Despised her. She could expect no help from him. Still, Base Camp would get her help. She’d avoid the normal routes, use her ski stick to check for crevasses as she went, but first …

Swallowing against what felt like wool in her mouth, Jolie slumped against a jagged outcropping. She tugged her water bottle from her pack and held it in her mouth, swished to wet her mouth, then gulped. With a heaving sigh, she squinted against the sun, which made her feel like she was walking through a sauna. Crazy since it was cold up here. But with her pack and whatever made her sick, her sweaty clothes clung to her body. Tempted to remove her jacket, she shook off the thought, knowing her body temp was too low. Fever … that was why she was hot.

Or was it?

Using her arm, she swiped the perspiration from her forehead. Squinted across the glaring white of the forbidding beauty. She understood why Gael loved it here. Why he’d chosen this place to propose. Though at the moment all she wanted to do was puke all over it.

Jolie took another swig of water then stored the bottle in her pack again. Her limbs felt like anchors and her brain like buried cache. Eyes fluttering as she took in a labored breath, she knew she needed to rest.

But what if … what if someone really was after her? To come after her now, they’d have to give a good explanation to the others about their departure. It would take some convincing.

Unless they said they were worried about her.

A groan escaped her lips again. She pushed onto her feet and swayed. Jolie swung out her hands. Rest, she needed rest. A stiff wind whipped around her, swirling and taunting, tugging her to go on. A little farther. In her mind’s eye, a cleft beckoned her to its shadowed space where she could tuck herself in and rest.

She gripped her forehead and plodded onward. Stumbled. Fell to a knee but kept moving. Urgency and fear hauling her down the mountain like prey. Reaching back, she rifled through her pack and caught her water bottle again. Sipping as she went, Jolie’s mind tangled. Or was it her feet that tangled?

Jolie shoved a hand through her long blond hair and grimaced.
I’m going crazy.
That was part of mountain sickness, wasn’t it—confusion? What if she couldn’t tell friend from foe? She hurried, glad she’d already placed the crampons on her boots.

What if they were closer? She glanced back. Pristine white snow glared at her. A dark spot stopped her, stopped her heart. Was that someone following her? Jolie swallowed. How would she protect herself out here?

She whipped around, plunged onward, heart thudding against the questions she could not answer.
Oh, Daddy. Where are you?

Dead. She knew he was dead, but he’d always been there for her. Held her close when Gael died. Her mother vanished into the void of her own pain.

Jolie.

The voice whispered on the wind, pulling at her. Taunting her.

I am losing my good mind.

Jolie!

Certain she’d heard something that time, she glanced back. Though she saw nothing at first, a shape shifted up around the pass. There, near the jagged rock she’d slumped on. Had she really come that far? Or … was that another rock? Again, her mind tangled. As did her legs. She stumbled. But not before a blur froze her. She looked back.

Movement!

Her breath backed into her throat. Someone
was
following her!

He’d throttle her.

“Hey, Tony,” David said as he dragged the sled the last few feet to the Camp 1 Base Camp ranger’s tent, narrowly avoiding a cluster of tents.

“David?” He came out of his chair. “What’re you doing up here?”

“Missing climber. Blond, reddish coat, early twenties. Seen her?” He removed his jacket and stuffed it into the pack, the heat of the sun beating on him.

“No,” Tony said, looking around as if he might spot Jolie now that she’d been mentioned. The sun bronzed the guy’s skin like a surfer’s. “It’s been pretty quiet for the last couple of days, thanks to the good weather. Seen a few groups descend, but no loners today.”

“Yeah?” David panted as he squinted around the half-dozen groups gathered for rest and acclimatization. “Well, keep an eye out. Might have AMS.”

“You got it.”

David trudged up the incline, checking any place that might pose even the slightest shelter. “Where are you?” he muttered as he rounded a corner. Wove through Camp 1, double-checking with climbers and the rangers there to see if anyone had come across Jolie. Of course not. That would be too easy. And since she was out to make his life miserable, to put him in jeopardy, being here where it would make sense would defeat that purpose.

Trudging on, he determined in his heart to really let her have it. Enough was enough. He’d had it. And he had to admit, he was disappointed. She seemed to have a decent brain behind that pretty face.

He should just go back.

The dream.

But those too foolish to heed common sense weren’t his problem.

Then why was he still climbing up?

David!

Oh great. Now he was hearing things. And her voice. Soft, like the soft, waxy touch of a flower petal.
Man, you are losing it.

“David!”

A whisper of a cry on the wind drew him ‘round. He looked up the pass. Pure white. To the side. Rocks. A crack that marked the dangerous maw of a crevasse.

Directly above it—

“Jolie, no! Stop!” He cast off his pack as he saw Jolie practically throwing herself down the mountain—straight toward the crevasse. “No!” He waved his arms. “Stop!”

“Help!” she cried out. “David, help!”

Jolie lunged forward.

And tumbled.

Slid down … down … straight into the crevasse.

N
oooo!”
Heart in his throat, David threw himself the last three yards. “Jolie!” He went to his knees, moving as quickly as safely possible and using his ski stick to probe for more fissures that could send him to his death. “Jolie, are you okay?” Iciness bled through his overpants, numbing but not saturating. “Jolie.”

Why wasn’t she responding?

“Jolie! Can you hear me?” Panic streaked through him, his breathing shallow and painful.
Calm down. You’ll find her.

A low moan that yanked on his heart pulled David closer.

Snow dropped away, his hand slid downward. He jerked himself up, pulse thundering. He scooted back and continued around, searching, calling. “Jolie, where are you?”

He peeked over the edge. The deep, vertical fissure in the mountain ran at least twenty feet deep, if not more. Where one ledge cut back, another jutted, barring him from a clean line of sight. Several chunks were broken … and another farther down. He angled trying to see around the jagged lips. She had to be—