She just hoped he didn’t do anything rash. The odds against that seemed long—calm, stable Sam, doing something reckless and stupid?
Trust me,Maggie thought at him, across the miles.Trust me to know what I’m doing. Trust me to bring her back like I said I would.
Don’t get yourself hurt looking for us.
SAM
“She went outwhere?”Hester said, staring at him. Outside the windows, snow and wind lashed at the big panes of glass. “What is the matter with her?”
“Maggie knows what she’s doing,” Sam said. Urgency gnawed at him. “And I need to help her. We have to put a search team together.”
“Look, I understand why you’re worried,” Hester said. “But I don’t think having more people running around out there, in that weather, is going to improve the situation at all. I’ll contact the mountain search and rescue service, and they’ll send a team as soon as they can.”
“By when?” Sam retorted. “Tomorrow? What if they don’t have people or equipment available?”
“It’s still better than a bunch of untrained people sprinting off in all directions in the middle of a blizzard!”
She was right, and he knew it. More people going out in the storm just meant more potential victims of hypothermia and exposure, and more lost would-be rescuers for everyone else to find. But the one thing he did know for sure was that he couldn’t sit here and wait, knowing that Charlie and Maggie were out there somewhere.
“I’ll go,” he said.
Hester looked exasperated. “I just told you why that’s a bad idea.”
“I know. But I think I can find Charlie. Or at least I have an idea what direction to go in. I need to talk to someone else first, but can you have Mauro get one of the snowmobiles ready for me?”
“This is a bad idea,” Hester said under her breath, but she went off to talk to her husband.
The power flickered several times as Sam searched for the people he needed to find. Most of the guests were clustered in the lobby, watching the snow fall, or in the restaurant. Eventually he located the moose shifter family at a big table in the restaurant, sipping cocoa and chatting while snow fell outside.
Sam introduced himself as Charlie’s dad and spread out one of the lodge’s trail maps on the table. “Can you guys show me where you went skiing with Charlie the other day? She thinks she might have lost a family keepsake on the trip.”
If his detective skills were good for one thing, let it be this: finding a missing kid in a storm.
They were happy to help, and soon he had a trail map with the ski route sketched out. The snowmobiles often shared trails with the skiers, but some of the ski trails went places the snowmobile couldn’t, so he could only hope he wouldn’t have too much trouble.
He left them with his thanks and took a detour to collect Maggie’s clothes into a plastic shopping bag; she was going to need those, if he could locate her.
Hester met him in the lobby. “This way,” she said quietly, and led him to an employees-only side door.
A snowmobile was parked just outside, idling, with its headlight beam cutting through the swirling snow. Mauro joinedthem at the door and handed Sam a heavy coat and a pair of snow pants. “I’ll come with you,” he said.
Sam shook his head. “No, not yet. I’d rather have you guys back here in case things get worse, not out in the storm with me. Hester’s right, the more people running around out there, the more trouble we’re going to have. And I’ve had experience with finding lost people, if not in this kind of conditions. Can you make a copy of this? It shows you where I’m going to be.”
He handed Hester the map, and she took some pictures with her phone, while Sam put the outside gear over the clothes he was wearing.
“It’s going to be disorienting out there,” Mauro told him. “The snowmobile has emergency equipment to spend the night if you need it. Stop often, and if you have any doubts at all, turn back or shelter in place.”
“I will,” Sam promised, knowing he was lying. He would come back with Maggie and Charlie, or not at all.
“Anything I can do?” Mauro asked.
“You’ve been a help already. If Hester hasn’t already called S&R, you should do that. And you can start lining up a rescue party to go looking for us when the storm clears, in case of the worst.”
Hester gave the map back. “I called them earlier. The S&R dispatcher is going to get back to us. Stay on the trails, and we’ll send someone as soon as you can.”
Mauro clapped him on the shoulder. “Good luck, brother.”
Sam nodded and stepped out into the storm, pulling on the snowmobile helmet.
