He’d better not have broken that promise, or she would kill him.
Damn it, Harrison!
A sick feeling in her stomach, she fumbled with her keys as she unlocked the topper, dropped the tailgate, and opened Gizmo’s crate. “Hop up. Time to go.”
Gizmo jumped up, stepped into the crate, and plopped down, tongue lolling. She would have to give him water at The Cave—Team headquarters.
She shut the crate, the tailgate, and the topper, then ran around to the front of her truck and climbed into the driver’s seat. The drive down to Scarlet Springs took only ten minutes, but it seemed like an eternity. She parked outside The Cave’s big bay doors, opened the topper to give Gizmo air, then hurried inside, dread like lead in her stomach.
She hurried through the bay doors, past Rescue 1 and Rescue 2—the Team’s big SAR vehicles—and walked through the entrance to the Ops Room.
Most of the Team was already there, gathered near the table that held the radios and computer. Eric Hawke stood in his turnout pants and a navy-blue T-shirt next to Austin Taylor, who wore his hunter-green park ranger uniform. Chaska was there, too, with his younger sister, Winona, a wildlife vet. Sasha Dillon, the Team’s other celebrity climber, sat beside Megs Hill, the Team’s co-founder and director, and her partner, Mitch Ahearn. Jesse Moretti and Creed Herrera stood toward the rear, tatted arms crossed over their chests. Gabe Rossiter, whom Kenzie hadn’t seen in ages, stood off to one side with Malachi O’Brien, who was still dressed in scrubs from his shift in the ER.
The grave expressions on their faces told her that something terrible had happened.
She hugged her arms around herself and went to stand beside Hawke, who met her gaze and shook his head.
God!What did that mean?
“What happened?” Kenzie whispered.
“A serac collapsed on Conrad’s team on the Khumbu Icefall. Someone who was watching through binoculars from Base Camp witnessed it. He says it buried them all.”
Kenzie’s knees gave. She sank into a chair, her throat tight. “No.”
Harrison couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t be.
Even as her heart told her this was impossible, she knew no one could survive being buried under tons of ice.
Hawke rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder but said no more.
A burst of static came from the computer, its browser open to one of the adventure climbing sites that monitored Everest expeditions every spring. Then came the sound of a woman’s voice.
“They’re starting up the Icefall now.”
Megs glanced over her shoulder at the rest of them. “It’s going to take the rescue team a few hours to reach the site.”
“A fewhours?” The words were out before Kenzie realized she’d spoken.
“The Icefall is a death trap,” Gabe explained. “They have to be careful.”
“Right. Okay.” Kenzie knew that.
The Khumbu Icefall was where climbers began their ascent of Mt. Everest. An enormous, near-vertical river of ice, the glacier was prone to avalanches. It also had deep crevasses and towering walls of unstable ice, called seracs, that could collapse without warning.
Please, not Harrison.
Images played through her mind. Harrison carrying a lost little boy on his shoulders after Gizmo had found the child. Harrison teasing Kenzie about her thirtieth birthday. Harrison flying up the climbing wall at Knockers, the town’s brewpub and social hub. Harrison washing mud off Rescue 1 wearing nothing but shorts, his body all lean muscle.
He couldn’t just be …gone.
The minutes ticked by with agonizing slowness, the woman who was operating the radio at Base Camp giving them periodic updates. Other Team members drifted through the door, sitting or standing in silence. Isaac Rogers. Dave Hatfield. Nicole Turner. Bahir Acharya, the new guy.
Kenzie couldn’t just sit here. She went out to her truck, leashed Gizmo, and brought him inside. She filled his water bowl in the kitchen and brought it to her seat beside Hawke. Gizmo drank thirstily before curling up at her feet to nap.
A burst of static.
A woman’s voice came through the computer’s speakers, her message breaking up. “I’m getting a report … popped up out of nowhere … Looks like … Waiting to get confirm…”
