In the middle of this, her keys fell through the mail slot in her door to the floor.
Megs.
The officer finished jotting down notes. “I hope you feel better soon.”
The moment he’d left, Kenzie remembered that she hadn’t checked in with Quinn or Dree. While Harrison finished making breakfast, she called the kennel first and then the store and told them what had happened, arranging to take the rest of the week off and promising to be available by text if they needed her.
Harrison didn’t say much during breakfast, a troubled expression never far from his face. “I need to call Wendy. Do you mind if we do the interview here?”
“Not at all—but are you sure you want to do this interview in the first place?”
He sipped his coffee. “No, but I don’t see that I have a choice. My agent is on my case, and my sponsors, too. I can’t decide if I even want sponsors at this point—or an agent, for that matter. I don’t know anything anymore. My agent says I’m trying to destroy myself.”
“How can she say that? You’re dealing with a tragedy as best you can. You almost died up there.” She reached across the table with her good hand. “Forgive me for saying this, but your agent sounds like a bitch.”
That made him smile. “She’s just trying to hold onto my sponsors. I’ve lost a few. They can’t pay me for sitting on my ass.”
“I suppose not.” She’d heard of athletes having sponsors, but she didn’t understand how that worked. “What are sponsors? What do they do?”
“Companies that make stuff climbers want to buy—gear, clothes, energy drinks—ask for the endorsements of well-known climbers in exchange for an annual salary with bonuses for stuff like interviews and posts on social media.”
“Endorsements? So, you do an ad and say, ‘I’m Harrison Conrad, and I climbed all of the world’s eight-thousand-meter peaks wearing this awesome underwear.’”
He chuckled. “Yeah, kind of. There are ads, but that’s only part of it. When I do an on-camera interview or photo shoot, I wear their gear with the logo showing. I used to get paid almost a grand per tweet, but I haven’t been on Twitter since…”
The grin faded.
Now Kenzie understood. Her heart ached for him.
His sponsors wanted him to get back in the game and do some interviews or else. Meanwhile, he was trying to decide whether sharing his pain with the world was worth what they wanted to pay him—and whether he was truly done with climbing.
There was nothing small about any of this—and all of it came on top a near-death experience and the loss of his friends.
She got to her feet, walked around the table to stand behind him, and wrapped her right arm around him, leaning down to kiss his temple. “I can’t imagine how hard all of this is. I trust you to make the best decision for yourself, and I’ll be right here.”
He pressed his hand over hers. “Thanks, Kenzie. I …
She waited for him to finish. “Yes?”
“I need to call Wendy.”
Chapter 18
Harrison satin Kenzie’s kitchen across from Wendy, a digital recorder in front of him, the setting sun sending a shaft of light through the window and across the table. Kenzie sat beside him, splinted wrist resting on an ice bag.
“It was the Stenger twins’ first ascent of an eight-thousand-meter peak. Bruce and I gave up his plan of going for the so-called Khumbu Triple Crown—Nuptse, Everest, and Lhotse in a single push.”
Wendy gaped at him. “All three peaks in a single day?”
“God, no.” He couldn’t help but laugh. “The last climber to do that did it in six days. Bruce was hoping to do it in four or five. But, as I said, we gave up that idea. We wanted to get Felix and Luka to the summit of Everest and down again. It would be a huge boost to their careers and fun for us.”
Conrad steeled himself and went on. “We’d been at Base Camp for a few weeks, acclimating, waiting for a break in the weather. Luka and Felix—the scene at Base Camp was new to them. They were having a great time, hanging with the different climbing teams, taking photos, drinking, checking out the women, getting into snowball fights, trying to scam the cooks into feeding them extra.”
He told Wendy how they’d gotten a thumbs-up from the weather guys on May 9 and had climbed up Khumbu Icefall to Camp I the next morning.
“It went off without a hitch. The twins were in great form. Luka was a little uncomfortable crossing the ladders on the Icefall, but that’s not unusual when a person is new to it.”
“Were you afraid of the ladders on your first climb?”
