“Do you really think he would just tell you?” Connor asked.
“Some people would brag about it, to anyone they thought was on their side,” George said.
“Shane didn’t strike me as the type to brag,” Connor said. “He wouldn’t even reveal his last name until he met with us a second time.”
“I could point out to him that Dad and I aren’t the only people who’ve made the connection,” Stacy said. “I could claim I don’t want to jeopardize the success of the opposition movement.”
“Do you really think a man who would orchestrate the theft of a boxes of explosives would thank you for your concern and send you on your way?” Connor asked.
“So maybe I wouldn’t mention the explosives outright,” she said. “But if I ask the right questions, I should be able to find out how much he knows.”
“You can’t go out there by yourself,” Connor said. “It’s too dangerous. Someone who would do this wouldn’t think twice about killing you.”
“She wouldn’t be by herself,” George said. “I’d be with her.”
“Then I’d have to worry about you, too,” Connor said.
“I’ll be careful,” Stacy said.
“Wait until I can go with you.” Though he had been reluctant to get involved before, he was in too deep now. And he couldn’t leave her unprotected, no matter how tough of an agent she was.
She looked alarmed. “Forget I said anything.” She backed away. “You have a job to do here. I’ll talk to you later.”
He started to follow as she turned to leave, then his radio crackled. “Wait!” he called. “Let me answer this, then we’ll talk.”
“Come on, Dad.”
But George remained where he was, watching Connor. Connor turned his back to them, speaking into the radio, the wind and swirling snow carrying away the sound of his words, making it hard to hear the transmission from the lift tech who had called. But what he heard sent ice to the pit of his stomach. He ended the call, then headed toward the snowmobile George had riddenup the mountain. “I need this,” he said and climbed on. “Farley, come!”
The dog hopped onto the machine behind him.
“What’s going on?” Stacy asked.
“Anders! Nina!” Connor called. “Head down to Tessa’s Trees. We’ve got a snowboarder in a tree well.” Then he started up the snowmobile and took off.
Chapter Eleven
The swirling snow and fading light only added to the nightmarish quality of the afternoon. Connor guided the snowmobile in and out among the aspen trunks, until he spotted the snowboard, a blue slash on the snow. He looked around for whoever had called in the incident, but there was no one else in sight.
Dread taking root in his gut, he parked the machine and postholed through the deep snow to the snowboard. It looked like Jace’s board, but there must be others like it on the mountain.
Farley barked and began to dig at the snow. Connor pulled a shovel from his back and joined his dog. He wanted the scene to play out the way it had before—the snowboarder pulled free and revived to board again the next day, unharmed and with a story to tell.
But the stillness of the figure in the snow and the eerie silence all around added to his dread. He didn’t sense a happy ending today.
Nina and Anders arrived and began digging alongside him. “Who called this in?” Anders asked. They had unearthed the legs to the knees, and he unstrapped the snowboard and tossed it aside, then began tugging at the body.
“I don’t know,” Connor said. He moved in on the other side to try to dig away more snow. “There was no one here when I arrived.”
“Didn’t you have one of these a few days ago?” Anders asked.
Connor nodded. “I’m pretty sure this is the same guy,” he said. He paused to catch his breath and ease his aching back. Digging out the packed snow was like shoveling cement.
“He’s really stuck in here,” Nina said. “The snow compacted around him after he fell in.”
“That can happen if people thrash around,” Anders said. “That’s one of the things that makes these tree wells so dangerous.”
“You’d think one brush with death would have kept the guy out of here,” Nina said. She straightened. “Let’s try again to pull him out before we dig anymore.”
