The Drop (5 page)

“You know how to drive one of those?” Dave yelled over the roar.

“My dad runs the lifts, remember? I've been driving these things since I was, like, ten.”

I brushed the snow off the other snowmobile, sat down and turned it on.

“Where do we go first?” Hope asked.

I pointed straight ahead. “We go out that way, straight on the flat area. Then I say we go up the hill a bit, around behind the cabin and then downhill a little. If he was walking, he couldn't have gone that far.” Dave looked from one snowmobile to the next and finally sat down behind me. I waited for his arms to come around my waist, but he had reached around behind him instead and held the emergency bar. I handed him a helmet. He brushed it off and put it on his head. Hope handed me the extra helmet from the storage beneath the seat of her snowmobile. It felt almost warm as I slipped it on my head.

“If you've been on these a lot before, why don't you go first?” I said.

“Shouldn't we wait for Sam?” Dave asked.

I had seen the flash of the silver flask when Sam disappeared into the bathroom earlier. I had a feeling he wasn't coming with us.

“We'll scout first, then come back and report to Sam,” I said.

Hope revved the engine and took off, shooting snow up behind her. I just stared at her until Dave whacked me on the shoulder.

“Go, man,” he said. I eased the throttle until we were moving forward. I knew I was being timid, but driving a snowmobile freaked me out. There was a ridge in the snow where the wind had been blowing hardest. I stayed on Hope's trail, though I couldn't see her any longer. We wound in and out of trees, up a few ridges where it took all I had to hold on, and then suddenly we turned up the hill. It was steep. Dave and I had to lean forward to keep from being tossed off. Hope's trail jackknifed back toward the cabin. We leaned into the turn, and I had to slam on the brakes as we came around a little outcropping of trees. Hope was sitting there on her snowmobile, facing us.

“What are you doing?” I yelled over the noise of the engine.

“If he was walking in stuff this deep…” She put her goggles on top of her head and pointed at the snowmobile. “Do you want to turn that off so we don't have to scream?”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. I shut the snowmobile down. We all breathed in the silence. There was a light snow falling and it whispered through the evergreens, catching on branches and leaving the whole area peaceful and calm.

“I was saying, he couldn't have gone farther than this on foot.” She pointed into the distance. “And anyway, where would he go?”

“That's what I'm wondering too,” I said. “Where would he go?”

“What are you saying?” Dave asked.

“I'm saying someone took him,” I said.

“Huh?” Dave said. “Who would take him? And why?”

“I don't know. But what other explanation is there? There's nowhere to go on foot. He left his board. I mean, none of it makes sense.”

“But who would take him?” Dave said again.

I thought of everything we knew about Bryce. His family was rich. His dad was a billionaire real-estate developer and big-time adventurer with a fleet of yachts, a private jet and a hot young wife. Bryce had two older brothers. One was a Formula 1 driver, the other played hockey for a team in California. They were both rich and famous. Everyone knew their names. “Well, Bryce's family
is
rich,” I said.

“Yeah, we knew that. So what?” Dave said.

“So,” I said slowly, “maybe someone kidnapped him, and they're holding him for ransom.”

“Whatever,” Dave said. “You've been watching too many movies.”

“It's possible, Dave,” Hope said. “I mean, do you have any other ideas?”

“He wasn't
kidnapped,”
Dave said.

“What, then?” I asked. “He sure wasn't, like, suicidal or anything.”

“There's got to be some other explanation,” Dave said.

Hope took her gloves off, then her helmet. It was warm where we were, sheltered from the wind.

“Okay. Say he was kidnapped,” she said to me, ignoring Dave. “Where would his kidnappers have taken him?”

“Down, obviously,” Dave said. Suddenly he seemed ready to believe kidnapping was a possibility.

“Why? What's down there?” Hope asked.

“I don't know. Roads, towns, places to go!” Dave yelled.

“Calm down, Dave,” I said. “No one's after you.”

“I know that,” Dave said. “But if Bryce has been kidnapped because his dad is rich, well, what can we do about it?”

“What?” Hope said.

“Well, think about it. What can we do?”

“He's our friend,” I said. “If he's been kidnapped, we have to help him.”

“And how are we going to do that?” Dave demanded.

“First we have to figure out where they would have taken him.”

“We should go talk to Sam. See what he thinks,” Hope said.

“He'll think another drink from his flask might magically bring him the answer,” I said.

“What are you talking about?” Dave asked.

“Never mind, Dave,” I said. “I say we search the area. Sam said there were other cabins around here. Maybe we'll see something. We'll cut through the woods, because, even with the snowfall this morning, there have to be places in the woods where we might see a snowmobile track. What do you think?” Hope was looking at me. Without her neck warmer pulled up over her chin and her tuque yanked down over her head, her green eyes shone in the blue sky. “Well?”

“Sounds good,” she said, turning the key on her snowmobile.

chapter eight

We cut back along the mountain toward the woods. I knew what was on the other side of these woods.

The drop.

Hope disappeared in the trees, moving much faster than I was able to. I blamed this on the fact that there were two of us on the snowmobile. But in truth it was because I was still scared of the big heavy machine.

In the woods, Hope's trail suddenly cut up the chute I had come down carrying Keith Richards. There was more snow here than before. At the same time, the wind had swept clear spots between some of the trees. It was nice in the woods this time. The sun dripped through the tops of the trees, leaving shifting shadows on the ground. The heavy wind had turned into a light breeze. There was a crisp smell of freshly fallen snow. Even the whine of the snowmobile engine didn't bother me that much.

Hope was stopped at the top of the chute. She seemed to be staring at a tree. I pulled in beside her and shut the snowmobile down.

“Someone came by here,” she said. “There's a cut in the tree, right there.”

“I found Keith Richards over there,” I said, pointing to the other side of the chute.

Hope looked at where I was pointing. “The cut is deep here, then shallow here,” she said, pointing at the cut again. “It looks like someone took the corner too closely and banged the side of a snowmobile against it.”

“That could have been the guys who brought our stuff up here though, right?”

“What guys?” Hope asked.

“The guys who brought our bags and the dummies and the food and all that stuff up to the cabin.” She looked at me blankly. “Did you think it was beamed in here or something?”

“I figured the helicopter dropped it all off.”

“How?” I asked. “Where would it land?”

“I don't know. I hadn't really thought about it.”

“Well, my guess is that there would have been four guys who brought the stuff up,” I said.

“Four?” Dave said. “Why four?”

“Think about it. We have two snowmobiles, which means that there were two people driving them, right?”

“Right.”

“But then those two people had to get out of here as well. So there had to be two other snowmobiles to get them back down the mountain. Plus, they would have needed four snowmobiles just to get Hope's bag up here.”

“Funny,” she said. She swung a leg over the snowmobile and sat back down on it, facing forward.

“Well,” I said, “I don't think these trails are from yesterday.”

“What trails?” Dave said.

“These ridges, right along the edge here.”

“How do you know they aren't from yesterday?” Dave asked.

“I'm guessing, but when I came to the cabin, it was stormy, right?”

“So you said,” Dave replied.

“And the wind was blowing straight down this chute,” I said.

“So these tracks wouldn't have lasted. They would have been blown away if it had been the snowmobilers who brought our stuff. But the winds last night were blowing across the mountain. That's why it was so hard to get the door of the cabin open. And why there was that long trench in the snow that we just rode along,” Hope said.

“Okay. So where do these tracks go?” I asked.

“That way,” Hope replied, pointing toward the drop.

“You know what's over there, don't you?” I said.

“We have to go look,” she said. “Someone took Bryce, and we need to find him.”

Dave muttered something behind me.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Dave replied. “Let's just go.” Hope narrowed her eyes at him, put her helmet back on, started the snowmobile and tore off in a great wash of snow.

chapter nine

The drop looked the same as it had the day before.

Terrifying.

Even though there was no wind where we sat, snow was being propelled up and over the rim.

“Wow,” Dave said. “Why is it doing that?”

“I don't know,” I replied. “But don't get off your snowmobile. I fell in here, and it took me forever to stand back up again. This snow is really deep.” The snowmobiles were sunk in the powder. I looked behind us, and our trail was like a ditch on the side of a road. The sun was shining brightly above us. If Bryce hadn't been missing, we'd be off doing our tests to become full-fledged Backcountry Patrollers.

“Can you see any tracks?” I asked.

“Seriously? In all this snow?” Hope looked at me like I was crazy. Or stupid.

“I don't know, Hope. Maybe there's a place where the snow isn't as deep or something? Use your detective skills.”

She scowled at me. “The snowmobiles had to come this way. Which means that they could either have gone up, down or over the edge. Up doesn't make sense. I mean, that chute we were in goes to the top of the woods. Why wouldn't you just ride it straight up?”

“And once you got there,” Dave said, “where would you go?”

“Well, you could get a chopper to pick you up,” I said.

“But we would have heard a chopper. Remember how loud it was? And anyway, in the kind of storm we had last night, there's no way a chopper could have made it in here.” I looked down the mountain. The trees went right to the edge of the drop. It would be impossible to get around them.

“They wouldn't have gone down either,” I said. “I mean, why come up and then go straight back down there?”

“Exactly,” Hope replied.

“So there's only one place they could have gone,” Dave said. We all looked at the drop.

“Remember what Sam said?” I asked. “About how you can't tell if the drop is five feet or four hundred feet?”

“I'm not going over there,” Dave said. “No way.”

“We have to,” Hope replied. “Whoever took Bryce went over there. So we have to go over too.” She turned her snowmobile back on and started slowly moving toward the edge.

“Don't follow her, Alex,” Dave said over my shoulder. “Just turn around. We have to tell Sam what's going on.”

“We will,” I said, putting my helmet back on. “Just hold on.”

“Don't do it, Alex.”

“Hold on,” I said again. Dave looked at me. His mouth was open a little. His lips quivered.

“I'm getting off.”

“Then get off,” I said.

“I'm going to tell Sam.”

“Then tell Sam,” I said. He sat there staring at me.

“I don't think you know Bryce as well as you think you do,” he blurted out.

“What do you mean?”

“Before we left, I saw him with these older guys at the lodge. I'd heard about them before.”

“What guys?” I said.

“I don't know their names. But I heard they steal snowboards.”

“So maybe they'd stolen one of Bryce's boards and he was trying to get it back,” I offered.

“Maybe.”