A Sister Would Know Read online

  “And so she took off.” Amalie thought of that fissure of despair she’d felt in mid-December. That had to be it. Helena finding out she was pregnant. Helena leaving impulsively in her luxury coupe, no real plans, no thought to the future.

  Maybe some vague idea about returning to Ontario to see her family. Plans thwarted by something as mundane as having the incorrect tires for her car. It was possible.

  “Once she made the decision to stay in Revel-stoke, I’m surprised she didn’t go to a doctor,” she said, trying to put herself in her sister’s shoes. “With her medical history there would have been no problem arranging to terminate the pregnancy.”

  Grant’s face went white. Amalie reached out a hand, squeezed his fingers. “Are you okay?”

  He gave her a look, like she was missing something.

  “Grant? What is it?”

  “Ramsey.” He choked out the name. “Ramsey was a doctor. He could have performed the abortion for her.”

  THE LAST THING Grant had ever expected was to feel sorry for Helena Fremont. He did now.

  Inspecting the people gathered around the kitchen table, he saw Amalie, Heidi and Matthew all watching him expectantly. Ironic how the research he’d thought he’d been doing on Denise’s behalf should turn out to be so helpful now. But Matthew wouldn’t know about that.

  “Ramsey Carter’s widow asked me to see if I could find out how long her husband had been having an affair with—with your wife.”

  Matthew looked at him impassively. Clearly, he still didn’t believe Helena would do such a thing. And Grant was beginning to think he might be right.

  “A friend of mine had seen them at a restaurant about a week before the accident. They were having what appeared to be a serious conversation. Helena was crying.”

  Amalie leaned forward eagerly. “They could have been discussing the abortion.”

  Now Matthew nodded. “That would make sense.”

  “I also talked with some people at the hospital and at Ramsey’s private practice. Off-the-record, you understand.”

  This time everyone nodded.

  “His receptionist told me Helena had made an appointment to see Ramsey about ten days before the accident. As far as I can tell, that was the first time they met.”

  “So Helena and Ramsey weren’t having an affair.” Amalie sounded triumphant. “He was her doctor, and she was trying to arrange an abortion.”

  She sounded so relieved Grant hated to point out the obvious. “Yes, but doctors don’t usually take their patients on overnight skiing trips.”

  “Oh.” Amalie’s face fell.

  “There has to be an explanation.” Matthew’s faith, it appeared, was not so easily shattered. “Perhaps Helena was having difficulty coming to terms with the actual abortion. Maybe the decision wasn’t as simple as she’d expected it to be.”

  “I can’t imagine it being an easy choice for any woman,” Amalie said. “Our parents are vigorously opposed to abortion on any grounds. Perhaps their opinions, and that of our church, held more sway with Helena than she realized.”

  “Still…” It seemed he was doomed to play the role of the skeptic. “Wouldn’t the logical thing be for Ramsey to arrange counseling for her?”

  “Maybe he was. In a way.” Amalie laid a fine-boned hand out on the table. “Didn’t Denise Carter tell you Ramsey proposed to her out at that cabin?”

  At first Grant didn’t see. Then he recalled more of the conversation. “That’s right. Apparently, Ramsey always made that particular trek when he had an important decision at hand.”

  Would Ramsey take a confused patient out to the Asulkan Hut to help her come to terms with her decision? Maybe it was a little far-fetched, but overall, Grant felt it fit with his view of Ramsey’s character a lot more than the notion of him having a fling.

  Plus, as Amalie had pointed out earlier, the Asulkan Hut was not exactly the most comfortable spot, if sex was your only object.

  “I’m going to make more hot chocolate,” Heidi announced, rising from the table. “Everyone?”

  They all nodded. Amalie decided to run up to her apartment to see if Davin wanted more, too.

  “Although I’m sure he’ll say yes.”

  The mood around the table had lightened considerably, now that this new explanation for Helena and Ramsey’s expedition had been unearthed. Grant wondered if they’d ever be able to prove it, and whether it would provide Denise with the peace she was looking for.

  Certainly, it eased his own confused feelings about Ramsey’s death.

  “The more I think about it,” Matthew said, “the more it makes sense. Helena had a terrible time coming to decisions. And she would have had no one in Revelstoke to help her with this one.”

  He rose to pace the small kitchen, his narrow shoulders hunched beneath the stiff cotton of his shirt.

  Poor man, Grant thought. These past few months couldn’t have been easy on him. His love for Helena appeared to be genuine. For the first time, Grant could see how a man might love Helena.

  But not him. She had been too flighty. In this respect, at least, she was her sister’s opposite. Amalie didn’t see herself as brave, but she faced her problems head-on. It was one of many things he admired about her.

  The aroma of Heidi’s warming chocolate made his stomach gurgle, reminding him he hadn’t had lunch.

  “I don’t know about the rest of you,” he said, “but I’m starved. How about I order in a couple of pizzas?”

  Both Heidi and Matthew seemed to think this was a good suggestion. He picked up the phone and was soon talking to Blaine.

  “Keeping busy?”

  “Lots of delivery business with this snow. Don’t suppose it’ll hold up the damn franchise inspector, though. Expect him in a day or two, but other than that, everything’s peachy. What can I get for you?”

  Halfway through the order, the apartment door swung open. Amalie burst into the room, obviously panicked.

  “Davin isn’t in the apartment. And his ski equipment is missing.”

  He dropped the phone as she turned to him.

  “Oh, Grant! It’s going to be dark soon. Surely he hasn’t gone skiing.”

  For a moment he stared at the others in shocked silence. Then it seemed as if everyone began talking at once.

  “We have to—”

  “Do you think—”

  “I hope he didn’t—”

  “Please, everyone.” Grant held up his hands, trying to achieve calm, the preliminary step in any emergency situation.

  “We have to think this through. First, what time did you find that carton of cream on the floor, Amalie?”

  “I can’t remember!” Amalie had her hand to her throat. She’d moved to the window, and Grant knew what she was doing. Staring at those mountains, cursing those mountains. Now she had one more reason to resent the landscape he would always consider home.

  “It was past three when I sent him for the cream,” Heidi said. “I remember the cuckoo went just before I handed Davin the change.”

  Heidi’s Swiss clock hung above the kitchen table. They all stared at it now, and, as if on cue, the long hand reached out to twelve, the door slid open, a small bird popped out. One, two, three, four times.

  Grant figured the boy had thirty minutes, maybe forty-five, on them.

  “I’m going to call the RCMP. There’s no way Davin would make it far without hitching a ride. Meanwhile, we’d better break into two groups. Heidi, you stay here at home base with Amalie.”

  “Stay?” Amalie practically charged him. “No way, Grant. I’m coming with you. I just know he’s headed for the ski trails.”

  “Which narrows down the search,” Grant said, agreeing with her. “Davin is only familiar with two sets of cross-country trails. The ones along Summit Road—” which would be safe, even in this weather.

  “And the Balu Pass Trail.” Heidi held her head in her hands, as if she wished she could tear it from her shoulders. “You were right, Amalie. I was
foolish to take him there. So foolish.”

  Amalie touched the woman’s shoulder. “Don’t blame yourself, Heidi. No one could have known he would do something like this. He’s never gone off without asking me first. Perhaps the strain of the past few days has been too much…maybe he harbored a secret hope that we would find his mother—alive.”

  “Or maybe he overheard our conversation,” Matthew suggested. “How much of that old history was he aware of? That Helena almost died in childbirth, for instance.”

  Amalie shook her head. “I never told him. I didn’t want him to think he was in any way responsible.” A new terror widened her eyes. She reached out for Grant. “Oh, no, what have I done?”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll find him.” Quickly Grant recalculated the rescue mission. “Matthew, you stay at Helena’s apartment. Heidi, you stay here. Do you have a cell phone, Matthew?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, Heidi, use that to call everyone you know, especially people Davin might have met. Leave the main line clear in case he decides to phone home.”

  He grabbed his jacket, made sure his cell phone was turned on.

  “Let’s go, Amalie. We’ll call the RCMP from my car.”

  Grant loaded Amalie’s ski equipment onto his truck, where his own gear was still unpacked from his morning trip. Fatigue was forgotten as Grant turned the truck up the Trans-Canada toward the Rogers Pass Information Center.

  First he called the highway patrol division to have them watch out for a young hitchhiker, then the warden’s office, where he asked if some men could check out the Summit Trails.

  “I’m on my way to Balu Pass,” he said into the radio. Sensing Amalie’s terror, he added, “With his mother. We think he might be headed there. If I see any sign of him, I’ll let you know. ”

  If they were lucky.

  “Maybe he’s not headed for a ski trail at all. Maybe he just…” But what other explanation could there be? He’d taken his equipment. Surely, though, he had more sense than to go off on a trail when it would soon be dark. It was nearing mid-February, so the sun would be setting shortly after five.

  “If he heard what we were saying, he must be so upset. He won’t be thinking rationally, Grant. Who knows what he might do. He might get himself lost….”

  Amalie herself sounded lost. He covered her hand and tried to offer hope. “If he has, we’ll find him. The RCMP are looking, my guys have the Summit Trails covered…”

  And that left Balu Pass to them. And about fifty-five minutes of remaining daylight.

  AMALIE WAS TRYING HARD not to panic and not to cry. Neither would help in finding Davin and they had to make the most of their precious remaining minutes of daylight. She had her skis on and was ready to go. Anxiously, she looked at Grant.

  “Do you have a beeper?” he asked.

  She held up her transceiver and he nodded approval.

  Thank God for Grant. Practical, yes, but also knowledgeable, skilled, strong…a veritable warrior on skis. If anyone could find Davin, he could.

  A radio call from a local RCMP constable ten minutes earlier had confirmed that a trucker had picked up a young boy at about three-thirty. The boy said he’d been separated from his school group and asked to be dropped off at the hotel by the information center.

  The slickness of the lie stunned Amalie. Immediately, Grant had called off the search at Summit Road and radioed the guys at the warden’s office for backup, while Amalie ran inside the hotel to see if Davin had been there.

  He hadn’t.

  Searchers would be arriving in ten minutes, but Grant said they couldn’t wait, and Amalie agreed. At present Davin’s tracks were visible on the gently ascending path. But with the steady falling snow and the fading light, they soon wouldn’t be.

  “We’ll catch him, Amalie. He doesn’t have much on us.” Grant led the way, not even looking back, as if assuming that she’d be able to keep up.

  And she did. Amalie hadn’t known she could move with such speed. No short easy strides this time. Instead, she pushed off with each stroke, and was surprised how much farther and faster her skis took her. Maybe the trip last week had toughened her, conditioned her.

  After a few minutes, the trees were so thick on either side of her that she felt as though she was traveling through a tunnel. Her legs working at a running pace, she practically flew along the trail. She was moving so fast that she ran into Grant’s skis when he stopped to check on her.

  “Sorry…”

  “It looks like he’s branched off the main trail here.”

  He pointed to the ski path that veered off at a right angle. “This is known as the Hourglass. It’s a fun little trail during normal ski conditions.”

  Amalie heard the big “but” implicit in his sentence. These weren’t normal ski conditions. The early-morning storm had changed everything, plus the temperature was warmer now than it had been for several days. Even she knew that was a dangerous indicator for avalanches.

  “Make sure you keep well behind me, Amalie. If something does happen—the most important thing will be to recall the last point you saw me or Davin. Remember, the other guys are just minutes behind us at this point.”

  Amalie nodded. “Yes, I know. Let’s get going.”

  A touch of a smile, then a nod. “That’s the spirit.” And he was off.

  Even faster now, but he had to be. And so did she. It was ten minutes to five. Oh, God, they had fifteen more minutes of daylight, maximum. Move, Amalie, move!

  She went around a curve, and the trees seemed to lean in toward her. Choking back fear, she kept her gaze focused on the ground before her skis. Fly! Fly! The very snow was scratching out the word as she moved, so quickly it was as if her feet had disconnected from the ground and she was skimming through the air.

  Another curve, and Amalie caught a magnificent view of the towering Grizzly Mountains to the northwest. She felt their malevolent spirit rise up against hers, and struggled not to be cowed.

  No! I will not give up.

  Grant was so far ahead now she could see only the blue of his jacket. Then the path straightened briefly and she caught the most wonderful sight of her life—a flash of fluorescent yellow.

  Davin.

  Oh, thank you, Lord. Thank you. In his black-and-yellow high-tech ski jacket, Davin was skiing with all his might away from them.

  “Davin!” She heard Grant call, too. Miraculously, the boy paused and glanced back at them.

  Just as he raised his pole in acknowledgment, a rumble came from the mountain, a sound Amalie was all too familiar with after having watched avalanche control on the Rogers Pass.

  She looked up. A light powder was rising from midway up the slope. As clearly as if a giant had taken a carving knife to it, she saw a slab of snow separate and begin to move downward.

  At first it didn’t appear dangerous. But within seconds the air was filled with the thunder of moving snow. The very ground trembled.

  Davin! This time her cry was silent as she watched the slab advance toward her son. He didn’t even know what hit him, as it caught him from behind, burying him along with her heart.

  No. Oh, no.

  Amalie knew she had to mark the spot she’d last seen him and she fixed on a twisted pine tree that looked like a witch’s peaked cap—she would remember that.

  She started skiing forward again, frustrated when the volume of snow in the air made it difficult to see. The blue of Grant’s coat became her target. She was concentrating so hard she forgot to leave time or space for stopping, and collided once more into the back of his skis.

  “Grant—I saw Davin—it was by that tree.” She raised a ski pole. God, seconds were ticking. Why wasn’t he moving?

  Davin was buried under all that snow. Could he breathe? Had he remembered to release his skis, drop his poles? Had there been time for him to react—everything had happened so fast.

  “Amalie.” Grant grasped her arm, his voice firm yet calm. He was staring up at the mountain, and f
inally she followed his gaze. The snow was still moving.

  “We have to wait for this to stabilize.”

  “But—”

  He gave her arm a yank. “We won’t save him if we’re buried ourselves. Here, take this radio. Talk the guys in. Tell them what to expect. As soon as it seems safe, I’m going to check for a reading from Davin’s transceiver. Hopefully he was wearing one.”

  Amalie hadn’t noticed whether it was missing when she’d checked the apartment. “I want to help.”

  “You will help. By standing here.” Grant pointed once more to the slope that had just released so much snow. “That could go again and I’d be buried. Then you’ll be our only hope.”

  God, no. Not Grant, too. Not both of them. She couldn’t stand it… Resolutely, she held in her terror. “I understand.”

  “Good. I’m going in now. If you have to move, do it slowly.”

  Slowly. Yes. She raised the radio to her mouth, seeking contact with the men behind her. The men who worked, with Grant, on avalanche control…as if there were any such thing.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  IT WAS NOW FIVE O’CLOCK exactly, and although the sun had not yet set, it had disappeared behind the western range. Soon, very soon, it would be dark. Amalie gripped her flashlight with one hand, the radio with the other.

  Talking to these men was the only way she could hold on to sanity when her every instinct urged her to ski down into the valley with Grant and help search for her son.

  “Grant’s got an area marked off. He’s trying to pick up a signal.”

  Please be wearing your avalanche beacon, Davin. Amalie closed her eyes, remembering how she had felt when her sister had been swept under. The terrible pressure on her lungs and the resulting blind panic. Conserve your energy, she implored silently. Don’t struggle. Don’t try to call out. Because chances were no one would hear him anyway.

  That was what Grant had told them. When you were buried under snow you could often hear movement from above, but efforts to call out were futile and only wasted precious oxygen.

  Amalie turned back to the trail, looking for signs of the avalanche control team. If they didn’t get here soon, she was going to go help Grant anyway. This standing around doing nothing—she couldn’t take it.