“Statistics don’t account for gravity,” I muttered, pulling my hand away to rub my face. “Or avalanches.”
“Or yetis,” he added, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Don’t forget the yetis. They’re the real danger. Terrible tippers, too.”
I couldn’t help the small huff of laughter that escaped me. “You’re an idiot.”
“I’myouridiot.” He leaned in and kissed me quickly, hard. “Now, go back to sleep. Dream of stock options. I’ll see you at noon.”
He stood up, grabbed his helmet and gloves from the table, and headed for the door. He stopped with his hand on the knob, looking back.
“Love you, Tess.”
“Love you too,” I said, my voice thick with sleep and worry. “Be careful.”
“Always.”
The door clicked shut, leaving me alone.
I tried to return to slumber, sinking into the heat he’d vacated, but my thoughts were already in motion. I gazed at the ceiling, counting the designs in the plaster, hearing the far-off drone of the hotel stirring to life.
By seven-thirty, I gave up. I threw off the covers and padded to the window. Pulling back the curtain, I looked out at the mountain. The peaks were jagged teeth against a pale blue sky, the snow blindingly white in the morning sun. Somewhere up there, a helicopter was churning the air, carrying my husband to the edge of the world.
I ordered coffee and set up my IBM ThinkPad laptop on the desk near the window. If I couldn’t sleep, I would work. The code for the Phase Two sensor integration was still buggy, a mess of nested loops that had been giving the engineers headaches for weeks. I opened the file, the lines of C++ a balm to my anxiety.
This was my world.
But today, the code wouldn’t stick. My eyes kept drifting to the clock in the corner of the screen.
Nine o’clock. He was probably on his first run.
Ten o’clock. Maybe a second run. He’d be exhilarated, adrenaline pumping.
Eleven o’clock. He should be heading back soon.
I willed my fingers to move, to engage with the data structures, but they felt awkward. The quiet in the room thickened, pressing down. Each creak of the floorboards, each distant door slam made me startle.
Noon.
I stood up and paced the length of the suite. The coffee in the pot had gone cold. I poured a cup anyway, drinking it black, grimacing at the taste.
“He said noon,” I said aloud to the empty room. “Maybe one.”
I sat back down. I checked the news. Nothing.
Twelve-thirty.
The phone sat on the desk, a black monolith. I picked it up, then put it down. I didn’t want to be the nagging wife calling the ski patrol because her husband was thirty minutes late. He was a grown man. He was with professionals.
But the dread in my gut was a living thing now, coiling tight.
One o’clock.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I grabbed the room phone and dialed the front desk.
“Concierge, this is Stephen.”
“Hi, this is Theresa Carideo in 402. My husband went out with Aspen Heli-Ski this morning. Do you know if they’re back yet?”
There was a pause, the sound of typing. “The group with Derek and Lars? Let me check the log... They departed at seven-fifteen. No return logged yet, Mrs. Carideo.”
