“I’m asking what you did after you came back to the chalet.”
“You’re making it sound like I—like Ididsomething.”
“No, I—”
“He was my husband.And he’s dead.I loved him, and he’s gone.Do you have any idea what that’s like?”
“That’s not what Tean’s saying,” Jem said.“He’s asking if anything unusual happened.If you noticed anything.”
Brigitte clung to his hand more tightly.She wiped her eyes again.“I don’t know.No.I mean, noticewhat?I came back here.I put the children to bed.”
“No, she didn’t!”Maeve shouted from upstairs.“She forgot about us!”
Brigitte rolled her eyes and wiped away fresh tears.“I told them they could watch TV in their room.I read for a while.And then I went to bed.”
“You weren’t worried when Gerald didn’t come home?”Tean asked.
This time, Brigitte gave him a longer, sharper glare.But all she said was “Gerald doesn’t sleep well.It’s not unusual for him to work late.We have separate bedrooms.Isthatenough of an explanation, or should I go on?”
Tean dropped his gaze.
“I want to document everything,” Brigitte said, rounding on Larsen.“I want to take pictures of where he fell.I want to talk to whoever found him.I want all of it.Those walkways are supposed to be safe!”
Larsen nodded the way a cop nodded when he didn’t give a shit about what you were saying.His gaze floated between Jem and Brigitte as he said, “I understand this is a difficult request, but we need someone to make an identification.”
It took Jem a moment before he said, “You don’t know if it’s him?”
“He had a wallet: driver’s license, credit cards, room key.But we’re flying in the dark here, and I want to make sure we know what we’re dealing with.”
“We can make the ID,” Tean said.But he sent a silent question Jem’s direction.
Jem nodded.“Yeah, sure.”To Brigitte, he said, “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”
8
Larsen led them out into the storm again.The head of security pulled up his hood as the first buffets of wind hit them, and then he ducked his head and walked into a spinning wall of snow.Tean, coatless and already shivering, followed.Jem came behind.He had one hand closed around something, and Tean had known him long enough to know what that meant.
The walk was surreal.If anything, the day was darker than it had been only a few minutes ago.The wind shrieked as it spun eddies of snow around them.Somewhere nearby, metal flexed and buckled against the increasing pressure.The soffits maybe?The gutters?Tean could barely see ten feet in front of him, so buildings rose suddenly out of the gloom: the dark bulk of one chalet after another with ice-melt windows and snow piled against the sides.On the supposedly heated paths, the snow was already ankle deep.
What did it mean that the power was out?Tean understood that the generators would keep the lodge and chalets warm and lit for a certain amount of time.But for how long?And would the generators be sufficient for meal preparation?What happened when people got hungry?
A poke in the back made him jolt.He turned, grateful for the momentary respite from the snow stinging his face.
Jem—beard white where the snow had settled, eyebrows white too, nose pink in a way that was surprisingly cute—pointed a finger at him.“Stop thinking about cannibalism.”
“I wasn’t!”But he couldn’t help saying, “How much food do you think they keep in reserve?”
The wind rose to another shriek, and Jem shouted, “Nope!Knock it off!”
He gave Tean a little bump to get him moving again.
It was rather unfair, all things considered.Especially since if there was ever a time to be prepared for the possibility of people eating each other, it was obviously now.
Larsen turned, breaking off to follow a path that branched out from under the canopy—if there evenwasa path.The snow here came up to Tean’s shins.Every step took extra effort, and he was painfully aware of the snow slipping down inside his shoes and melting to soak his socks.Whatever warmth he’d soaked up in the chalet had already evaporated, and he was starting to shiver uncontrollably.
Then another structure surged up.Larsen, a dark silhouette barely distinguishable from the building, huddled in a doorway.The door popped open to reveal a black rectangle that swallowed the head of security.
Tean followed him out of the ashy snow-light and into pitch black.Jem was a step behind him, and he shut the door.The howling of the wind quieted, but in its place came the sound of air moving around the building: long bursts, followed by sudden reversals, the pitch shifting up and down.It made Tean think of something breathing.Something huge.
