Page 13 of Mountain Struggle

Between his feet sat a paper bag containing Jamie’s pajamas, his favorite stuffed animal—a green pig called Tom—and one of Tess’s sweatshirts.

Damien had spent half the night in Jamie’s room, sitting on the boy’s colorful racing car bed, barely able to breathe through the pain of not having him there. He was used to coming into his son’s room and kissing his forehead when he came home, regardless of how late it was. Last night, all he’d been able to do was wonder where his son was, and if he was okay.

Damien had never felt so alone. He’d been tempted to call his father, but hadn’t wanted to bother him on his once-a-year poker retreat. If they didn’t find Jamie tomorrow, he’d have to have the world’s most difficult conversation with the old man.

Afterwards, he’d walked out into the yard towards the small studio where Tess slept. He’d purposefully walked outside barefoot and in his shorts, shivering in the cool night air. It’d be even colder up in the mountains where Tess and Jamie were.

Is it too cold to survive the night?

Damien had spent the night outside with no shelter and little equipment, but he was a grown man and a survival expert. Tess and Jamie were neither of those things.

Walking into Tess’s studio without her had made him feel like the worst kind of stalker. The studio was basically one large room with a kitchenette in one corner and a door to the bathroom in the back. A large clawfoot bathtub sat in a corner of the bedroom, separate from the actual bathroom, which had a functional shower—Damien had to assume the people who’d had the studio built hadn’t been able to fit the bathtub in the bathroom, so they’d placed it in the bedroom—a curious design choice at best.

She kept the studio as neat as a pin. She’d asked him permission to set up string lights across the ceiling, over the bed and bathtub, and had set up a large desk next to the largest windows, facing into the yard.

This was where she wrote all day every day, whenever she wasn’t with Jamie. She’d never shared her writing with him—they didn’t have that kind of relationship—but Damien had bought a book of short stories she’d published in university shortly before her arrival. The small volume was hidden upstairs in a drawer by his bedside. He didn’t read much fiction, but her writing had taken his breath away.

Sometimes he wondered what Tess was doing in Chamonix—he paid a very fair salary, but it was still a nanny position, and with her writing talent he was pretty certain she could make much more in any other job. Most of the time, he was just grateful she’d decided to join them.

He’d found an oversized sweatshirt draped over her writing chair and grabbed it, along with her pillowcase, stuffing it in the paper bag that now sat by his feet.

“We’re going to find them, Damien,” Drake said, finally breaking the silence. “You have to believe that.”

Damien nodded. That belief, that no matter what, he and his team would find Jamie and Tess, had kept him sane through the night.

As they pulled into the parking lot next to the bakery at 4:45 a.m., Damien heard a dog barking. He recognized the bark an instant before he saw his whole team, huddled together around the front bonnet of a car, studying a map laid out in front of them.

“Everybody’s up here already,” Damien muttered. He blinked away the tears that sprung, unbidden, to his eyes.

Dawn was still an hour away, so most of his team had a headlamp strapped to his or her forehead. There was Hiro, with Bailey standing by his side. Beside him stood Gael, wearing a backpack that seemed too large for his slim frame but that Damien knew the man could run a marathon in, and Kat, looking almost delicate in her technical clothes, when Damien knew she was anything but. And finally Jens, who fiddled with the straps of a gray backpack marked with the universal red cross emblem.

They stopped to look at him and said soft hellos. None of them needed to say anything else—the fact that they were here, still in the middle of the night, was enough for him. He wanted to tell them they should wait a little longer—it wasn’t safe to search in the dark—but he wasn’t strong enough to do that.

Drake took over where Damien couldn’t—not today.

“We’re going to start the search now,” Drake said. “We’ll regroup in an hour’s time when the Annecy team gets here. Hiro—is Bailey ready?”

Hiro nodded, his eyes narrowed, and took the paper bag from Damien’s hands. In the artificial lighting the man’s skin looked almost golden.

Hiro kneeled beside the Dutch shepherd and whistled sharply. Bailey cocked her head at her handler—her tongue came out, bright and pink in the darkness. Once Hiro was sure he had the dog’s attention, he brought out the boy’s stuffed animal and presented it to Bailey.

“Find,” Hiro commanded softly.

Damien held his breath. His hands clenched into fists by his side. Search and rescue dogs were amazing creatures, but they weren’t miracle workers. Bailey might find nothing, and they needed to be ready for that. He needed to be ready for that.

After a brief interlude, however, Bailey barked twice and took off in the direction of the church, only stopping to make sure Hiro was following.

Drake nodded, his expression animated. “There’s several hiking paths heading in that direction.”

“Let’s focus on the ones a six-year-old could have attempted,” Kat reminded them.

Damien nodded. Tess wouldn’t have taken Jamie anywhere the boy wouldn’t have been able to reach comfortably.

“We’ll split up in two groups,” Drake said, “starting with these trails Bailey has marked out for us. I want everyone in close radio contact. Damien, Hiro, Bailey and I will take the trail up past the waterfall. Kat, Gael and Jens will take this other path. Keep your headlamps on until dawn.”

Damien breathed a sigh of relief. It was exactly what he would have done—send Hiro and Bailey in one group, and Gael, who was their best tracker, in the other one.

I’m the weak link in this search.