The Rivals (9 page)

Before the avalanche that had tumbled both him and Drew down one of the ravines on 25 Short nearly a hundred feet, and then buried Drew alive, he'd loved out-of-bounds skiing and been as much a daredevil as anyone on the slopes. After the incident, he'd gotten right back on skis and done some of the riskier runs down the Tetons at the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.

But something had happened to him when he left the groomed ski trails for the first time after Drew had been buried alive and headed into the back country by himself. He'd never told anyone, not even Drew, that he'd gotten so scared that his body had become paralyzed. He'd stood frozen on the trail, unable to go forward or backward, certain that the snow around him was moving, sliding, and that any moment he would be buried and suffocate as Drew almost had.

He'd stood there trembling, his knees threatening to buckle. He'd struggled to draw breath, and gasped because there didn't seem to be any air. He could remember the world spinning and then everything going black.

When he'd awakened and realized where he was, he'd been grateful there wasn't anyone around to witness his humiliation. Then he'd looked up at the glistening white mountain above him and distinctly heard the sound of snow fracturing and felt the earth trembling beneath him. His heart had started to pound. And he'd gasped for air that, once again, wasn't there.

When he'd woken up the second time—and the snow was still right there on the mountain where it had been the first time—he'd realized that, once again, he'd fantasized the danger. He'd given himself a stern lecture about how ridiculous his fears were. He wasn't even in a high-risk avalanche zone. But it had taken him a long time to convince himself that moving an inch in any direction was not going to start an avalanche of snow that would bury him.

He'd managed, somehow, to get back onto his feet. He'd turned himself around and skied, very slowly and carefully, back down the mountain.

Clay hadn't told anyone about the incident, not even Drew, who had more reason than he did to be frightened of skiing out-of-bounds. Nor had he repeated the experience. He'd simply found reasons why he couldn't go skiing whenever Drew or Kate headed out-of-bounds.

Right now, his legs were still responding when he demanded they move forward another step. But his breathing had become labored, and his heart felt like it might burst, it was beating so hard with terror.

Above them lay thick timber, fir and pine and aspen, and beyond that the series of benches and open slopes through which they would have to climb, where the danger of avalanche was real. He wasn't sure how long he could keep his feeling of panic under control. In another moment, he was going to have to tell Libby the truth.

“Someone's coming,” Libby said.

Clay looked up and saw Sarah Barndollar skiing toward them. “It's the detective.”

Clay caught Libby's arm to keep her from skiing off to meet Sarah halfway. “No sense skiing up to meet her when you're just going to have to turn around and ski back down.”

A few minutes later, Detective Barndollar reached them.

“You didn't have to come out here,” she said.

“Yes, I did,” Libby replied. “Do you have Kate's backpack?”

Sarah nodded. “I had no choice but to retrieve it. I marked the spot where it was found, but a small avalanche uncovered it, and I was afraid another avalanche was going to bury it before I could get anyone else up there. The park ranger's taking one last look around.”

Clay exchanged a glance with Libby, then asked, “Could you tell if Kate was actually up there?”

Sarah shook her head. “No other gear was uncovered. I had the dispatcher contact Teton County Search and Rescue to canvass the area, but conditions at the top of the mountain are hairy.”

“But if she's up there—” Libby began.

Sarah fixed her gaze on Libby and said, “It's too dangerous to let civilians up there right now. I'm sorry.”

“Sorry won't cut it,” Clay said. “If there's any chance my daughter—”

The words were out of Clay's mouth before he could stop them. He glanced at the detective and noticed she didn't seem particularly surprised by his revelation.

“You guessed,” he said.

“I considered it a possibility,” she admitted.

“I'd appreciate it if you'd keep that information to yourself,” Clay said.

“I will as long as I can.” Sarah looked from Clay to Libby and back again as she said, “I don't know if your daughter was up there skiing and got caught in an avalanche, or whether someone buried her backpack up there to hide it and an avalanche uncovered it. The last time your daughter was seen, it was late in the day. It seems unlikely she would have come here to snowboard after that. But it's not impossible she was here—”

“And got caught in an avalanche,” Clay finished for her.

The detective nodded. “I've already contacted Teton County Search and Rescue, but based on the conditions when I was up there, I can tell you they aren't going to be able to look for her until that crest of snow breaks loose.”

Clay realized the problem. “And that might bury her even deeper.”

Sarah nodded.

Clay realized Detective Barndollar hadn't pointed out the obvious. If Kate had been buried for the entire time she'd been missing, it was unlikely she was still alive. Most avalanche victims suffocated within a few minutes. He grasped Libby's hand like a lifeline, staring up at the mountain that had almost taken Drew's life, wondering if it had claimed his daughter.

“I'm going up there,” Libby said, yanking her hand free.

Clay grabbed for her arm and missed, but Detective Barndollar was there to block Libby's way.

“I can't let you do that,” Sarah said.

“You can't stop me!” Libby said.

“I can and I will,” she replied in a calm voice.

“Libby, you can't—” Clay began.

Libby whirled on him and said, “You don't have to come!”

“You heard what the detective said,” he shot back. “The whole mountain's about to come down. What good will it do Kate if you end up suffocating under a ton of snow?”

“Mr. Blackthorne is right,” Sarah said.

Clay watched Libby's shoulders slump and realized she'd given in to reason. He turned to the detective and said, “Is there anything in Kate's backpack that indicates where she might have gone or where she might be now?”

“I haven't had a chance to look inside yet,” she said. “I suppose it's safe enough here if you want to check it out.” She slipped the backpack off her back and handed it to Clay.

Clay had seen too many cop shows not to wonder why she wasn't “preserving the evidence”—the assumption being that there might be some sort of hair or fiber adhering to the backpack, or fingerprints on some item inside the backpack, that could be used to prosecute whoever might have abducted Kate.

But it was obvious why Sarah had picked up the backpack and run with it, and even more obvious why it made sense to look as soon as possible to see if there was some clue inside the backpack that might lead them to Kate's whereabouts.

Clay unzipped the backpack and held it open wide enough for the three of them to look inside. The first thing he saw was Kate's gloves and hat. Which was when he realized she hadn't been snowboarding or skiing or anything else on that mountain. Otherwise, she would have been wearing them.

“Oh, no,” Libby whispered.

Clay carefully pulled the tasseled wool cap and fleece gloves from the pack and handed them to Libby to hold. She pressed them against her face, and he heard her inhale. He wondered if she could smell Kate on the clothing, realized she probably could, and envied her that closeness to their daughter.

He tipped the backpack, saw a spiral notebook, a pen and a mechanical pencil and a folded up piece of paper. He reached in for the paper and pulled it out. He handed the backpack to the detective to hold as he opened the paper and read it.

“It's a printout of the e-mail instructing Kate to come home,” he said. “She's written her flight information on the bottom of it.”

“We're checking with the server to see who has this e-mail account,” the detective said. “But if whoever sent this wanted to remain anonymous and hid his tracks, it'll take time to hunt him down.”

“And every minute counts now,” Clay said, refolding the paper.

Sarah Barndollar nodded. “The first twenty-four hours a child is missing are crucial.”

And they were almost gone, Clay realized. He pulled the spiral notebook from the backpack and opened it, expecting to find notes from one of Kate's classes.

“It's a journal,” he blurted.

“Let me see!” Libby said, leaning over his shoulder.

He flipped through it, hoping that something would leap out at him.

“You're going too fast,” Libby protested.

Each entry was marked with the date and time. He turned to the end of the book to see what Kate's last entry had been. He could hear Libby reading it aloud as he read it more quickly in his head.

Clay felt his stomach clench as he imagined Kate trying to reach him—and failing.

“Anything jump out at you?” the detective said.

“No,” Clay said.

“We can examine everything more closely once we get off this mountain,” she said. “Maybe there's something in your daughter's journal that will give us a clue to what's going on here.”

“What do you think is going on?” Clay asked, meeting the detective's eyes.

“I don't know,” Sarah said. “But I'm every bit as determined as you are to find out.”

They heard a deep rumble and felt the ground shaking beneath them.

“Avalanche!” Clay said, staring at the mountain in the distance. He could see the powdery snow rise above the tree line in the distance. His heart was pounding and he felt his lungs constrict. He waited to take a breath of air, afraid there wouldn't be any. At last he gasped, and his lungs filled.

Both Libby and the detective were focused in the direction of the slide, and he managed to get himself under control before they turned around.

“Please, God,” Libby murmured. “Don't let her be on that mountain. Don't let her be buried under all that snow.”

Clay put a supporting arm around Libby's shoulder and said, “She isn't there, Libby.”

Libby pulled away and said, “How do you know that? You can't know that!”

“Use logic,” he said. “We know she wasn't snowboarding or skiing there. Otherwise, she'd have been wearing her hat and gloves. Agreed?”

Libby nodded reluctantly.

“I think the backpack was put there to lead us away from where she really is,” Clay said, as he pushed off and began skiing back toward the parking lot.

“Why do you say that?” Sarah asked, following behind him.

“Because this mountain is where the other girl was found,” Clay said. “The person who took Kate—”

“We don't know she was taken by someone,” Libby interrupted.

“If Kate weren't being forcibly detained, she'd be home,” Clay said implacably.

“Unless she ran away,” Detective Barndollar said.

“Runaways don't usually run
toward
home,” Clay pointed out. “That note Kate received at school makes me believe someone wanted her here so she could be abducted. Whoever took Kate wants us to believe her disappearance is related to what happened to that other girl, so they planted that backpack near where the other girl was found. What if there's some other force at work here?”

“Why would you think something like that?” Libby asked.

Clay feared that someone had found out Kate was his daughter and intended to use that fact to blackmail him, knowing his eventual aspirations for the presidency. But if that was so, he didn't understand why no one had contacted him to make a ransom demand.

Then he remembered the appearance of Niles Taylor at Bubba's, and the invitation to the private party that seemed to have come out of nowhere. Was he going to be approached in person? Was he going to be asked for something other than money in exchange for his daughter's life? His office was investigating an oil consortium Niles had set up. Was there a connection between his investigation and Kate's disappearance?

Clay recalled that Taylor had mentioned visiting King Grayhawk. Did Libby's father—who hated Clay—have something to do with his granddaughter's disappearance? That might have sounded too diabolical to be true, if Clay didn't have his own experience with the man to convince him how nefarious Kate's grandfather could be.

“Clay?” Libby said.

Clay realized he'd been caught up in his thoughts and had never explained why he believed Kate hadn't been kidnapped at random by some serial murderer. He didn't want to voice his suspicions about Niles Taylor or King Grayhawk without thinking them through first, so he said, “It's just a gut feeling.”

But he made up his mind to attend the political party on Bear Island. Maybe someone would approach him to deal for Kate's life in exchange for some political favor. He was in a position to launch an investigation that could cost Niles's oil consortium billions of dollars—or exempt them from scrutiny. Lives had been sacrificed for less. He didn't intend to let Kate become a victim of corporate greed.

Sarah followed Clay and Libby back to the parking lot, then back to Jackson and the county government building on South King Street, where they took a more thorough look through Kate Grayhawk's backpack.

The second search, conducted in Sarah's small office, revealed a condom in the small zippered pouch—which caused both parents to take a long look at each other—half a Snickers candy bar, a hundred dollars in twenties, fifty-seven cents in change and a VISA credit card.

Sarah saw Clay and Libby exchange another anxious look when they realized what the presence of the cash and the credit card in their daughter's backpack might mean. The bag hadn't been stolen, or the money would have been gone. And it was unlikely Kate would have taken off on her own without her cash and credit card.

Their daughter was either buried under the snow on 25 Short, in which case she might not be found until spring, or she'd been abducted by the stranger she'd been seen with at the Mangy Moose and the backpack discarded, or some other option that was equally frightening.

“What happens now?” Clay asked.

“Teton County Search and Rescue will head out to 25 Short to see if they can find your daughter—or any more evidence that she was there,” Sarah said.

“What else are you doing to find Kate?” Clay said.

“What else did you have in mind?” Sarah asked.

“What about a nationwide Amber Alert?” Clay asked.

“We sent a BOL—be on the lookout—around the state last night. We can see about getting Kate's picture on the TV stations in Colorado and Utah that air in this region. And I have the local police in Charlottesville questioning Kate's roommate and friends. I promise you we're doing everything we can to find your daughter, Mr. Blackthorne.”

“I have a private investigator asking questions in Charlottesville as well,” Clay said. “It's not enough.”

“I'm open to any suggestions you might have,” Sarah said. She knew the despair Clay and Libby must feel, because she'd felt it herself when her husband disappeared, especially since Tom's disappearance had been a nightmare from her childhood repeating itself.

When Sarah was fourteen, her sixteen-year-old sister Paige had disappeared from a party and never been seen again.

Paige had gone to the party with Sarah, and she'd been determined not to go home without her. Sarah was having too good a time dancing and had refused to leave with her sister. She remembered telling Paige, “You never want to have any fun. Go, if you want. I'm staying.”

Paige had left alone. And disappeared. And never been found. Sarah had never stopped feeling responsible.

Many, many nights since then Sarah had woken up in a cold sweat, fleeing nightmares of what had happened to her elder sister, feeling regret and guilt and wishing she could relive that night and make a different choice. Sarah was certain that if she'd gone home with her sister, Paige would be alive today.

Sarah had tried to explain to her husband why it was so important to her to find the girls who'd gone missing in Jackson. That it was a way of seeking absolution for her part in Paige's disappearance, a way of sparing the families of those girls the hell she'd lived with for the past fifteen years.

Tom had insisted the past was done and over, and that he was here now and needed her. She'd ignored him. And he'd disappeared. And she'd felt she was to blame. Again.

Sarah desperately wanted to find the three missing girls. Alive. It was almost an obsession. It was the only way she could make up for the past, the only way she could escape her guilt, if not her pain.

When Clay wasn't able to offer another suggestion for how to find his daughter, Sarah said, “You might want to question Kate's friends at school again. Maybe they'll remember something.”

“All right,” Clay said.

“You can call me anytime,” she said. “Here's my home number.” When she saw their looks of surprise, she repeated, “Anytime.”

“Thank you,” Libby said. “We'll call if we find out anything.”

After they left, Sarah sighed and dropped into the chair behind her plain wooden desk. Her small office was at the end of a labyrinthine hallway, but at least she had a door she could shut, which she did now.

It was much worse, she knew, not to know what had happened to a loved one, than to face the knowledge of their death from foul play. At least when you knew what had happened, you could bury the dead and go on with your life. Sarah had never been able to put Paige to rest. She would always wonder what had happened to her sister.

Which was why she'd spent so much time, to the detriment of her marriage, searching for the missing teenage girls. Once a trail went cold, it was only a matter of waiting for a body—or in this case, bodies—to show up.

Sarah fought against accepting that eventuality. Which was why she was going to spend some of her time today looking around Jackson to see if she could find any more clues that would lead her to Kate Grayhawk.

Sarah straightened when she heard a knock on the door and said, “Come in.”

“Well, now. Here you are, Deputy Barndollar.”

“Detective Barndollar,” Sarah said, bristling at the smile on Drew DeWitt's face because she was so glad to see it. “What can I do for you, Mr. DeWitt?” she asked in her most official voice.

Drew made a
tsking
sound. “It was Drew and Sarah last night.”

“Last time I looked the sun was up. What do you want?”

“That's no way to treat a citizen of the county, Detective Barndollar. Especially one who's come here on an official visit.”

Sarah ground her teeth. Trust Drew to put her on the defensive. And on the spot. She rose and put her hands on her hips above her utility belt, because she was feeling intimidated by his towering male presence on the other side of her desk. “I'm listening. Talk.”

“I had an idea where we might look for Kate.”

“I'm surprised you didn't suggest it to Mr. Blackthorne, since I believe he's your friend.”

“It's because Clay's my friend that I don't want to go looking for Kate with him,” Drew said.

Sarah met his gaze and realized what he was implying. “You think she's dead.”

Drew nodded. “Clay called and told me you found Kate's backpack on 25 Short, and that her money and credit card were still inside.”

“Where is it you think we should be looking for Kate?” Sarah asked.

“There's a hunting cabin in the woods near 25 Short. I think whoever took Kate might have hidden her there.”

Sarah frowned. “I've been in those woods. I've never seen a cabin.”

“It's not much of a cabin, just a place some mountain man put together as a shelter a hundred and fifty years ago. It's completely hidden by brush and trees.”

“How did you find it?”

“Clay and I used to ski 25 Short. We got separated one day and I found it.”

“You never told your friend about it?”

Drew shook his head. “A lot happened that day. It kind of slipped my mind.”

“Until now.”

“Until now,” Drew said. “Do you want to take a look with me or not?”

“Sure,” Sarah said. “My shift is over. I need to change out of uniform and check in with my kids first.”

Drew's mouth twisted, and Sarah said, “You don't have to like the fact that I have kids, but I could do without the aggrieved faces whenever I mention them.”

“I don't have anything against your kids personally,” Drew said. “And I admire people who think they can raise good kids. I just don't happen to believe I could manage it myself.”

Sarah grabbed her coat and headed for the door as she asked, “Why not?”

She felt Drew's hand on the small of her back urging her through the door as he said, “Too much uncertainty.”

“About what?” Sarah asked, edging away from his hand as they made the trip through the maze of corridors to the back of the building where her Chevy Tahoe was parked.

“About whether you'll fail,” Drew said.

“I've got skis on the roof,” Sarah said. “Did you bring yours?”

Drew pointed to a shiny black Porsche with a ski rack mounted on the roof holding a pair of cross-country skis.

“Nice wheels,” Sarah said.

Drew grinned. “It pays to be rich.”

“And modest.”

Drew shrugged. “No sense pretending. Might as well enjoy the fruits of my forebears' labor.” He transferred his skis to the Tahoe's roof as he muttered, “Couldn't spend it all if I tried.”

“Have you been trying?” Sarah asked, standing on the opposite side of the Tahoe.

“I've earned every penny I've spent,” Drew said as he finished lashing on his skis and let himself inside the SUV.

Sarah frowned, then got in behind the wheel. “You just said—”

“I can't help the fact that my grandfather's money came to me,” Drew said, fastening his seat belt. “But I can choose whether or not to spend it.”

Sarah fastened her seat belt and started the vehicle. “It sounds like you didn't care much for your grandparents.”

“My stepgrandmother was a Bitch—with a capital B. She's the reason my brother—”

Sarah eyed Drew sideways as she pulled out of the lot, wondering whether she should prompt him to finish his sentence. She wasn't sure how well she wanted to get to know him. From the hint of anguish she'd heard in his voice, whatever had happened to his brother hadn't been good.

Once home, Sarah quickly changed her clothes in her bedroom, leaving Drew to wander around her living room. She took advantage of the moment of privacy to check in with her kids on the phone.

“How are you doing?” she asked when Brooke answered the cell phone the kids shared.

“I haven't seen Nate since he took the tram up to the top of Rendezvous Mountain this morning,” Brooke complained. “I've been stuck with Ryan all day.”

“I'll talk to Nate when he gets home,” Sarah promised. “Let me speak with Ryan.”

“He's skiing,” Brooke replied.

“By himself?” Sarah asked.

“He's a good skier, Mom. Anyway, I told him to stay on the bunny slopes.”

Sarah knew that was no guarantee that he had. “Please go find him, Brooke.”

Silence met her on the other end of the line. Finally, Brooke said, “All right.”

“I mean it, Brooke,” Sarah said, hearing not only reluctance, but defiance in Brooke's response. She felt helpless, torn in two. She needed to go be a mother. Yet she felt compelled, in a way she couldn't deny, to search for the missing girl.

“You worry too much, Mom,” Brooke said. And then, before Sarah could interrupt, continued, “I'll find him. I promise.”

“Thank you, Brooke.”

Brooke clicked off the phone in response.

Sarah took a deep breath to calm her agitation, then headed back to the living room.

When she reappeared, Drew pointed to a picture on the piano and said, “Is that your husband?”

“That's Tom.” Sarah was surprised by the sudden lump in her throat. She missed her husband, missed their normal, up-and-down married life. She wished…

“You miss him,” Drew said flatly.

She met his gaze. “I loved him. Of course I miss him.”

“Even though he walked out on you?”

“I don't think that's what happened,” Sarah said. “He did a repair job on Bear Island that morning. There was nothing to indicate anything out of the ordinary. He just…didn't come home that night.”

“He didn't pack anything? Nothing was missing?”

“Nothing. No pictures, no money from the bank. Only Tom's truck. And Tom.”

“Did you search Bear Island?” Drew asked.

“We did. And found nothing,” Sarah replied.

“Did you drag the river for his truck?”

Sarah frowned. “There was no reason to do that.”

“Why not?” Drew asked. “Maybe he had an accident, went into the river and—”

“There's no road leading to the river that he could have driven off of,” Sarah said. “There's only a walking land bridge from the houses to the actual island.”

Drew shrugged. “Just a thought.”

Sarah didn't want to think about Tom. It hurt too much. “Let's go,” she said.

They drove in silence through Jackson, past the quaint town square. A lot of towns had preserved a plot of grass in the middle of the business district, but in Jackson, each of its four corners was adorned with an impressive, freestanding archway of sun-

and-wind-bleached elk antlers.

Like most of the tourists who passed through Jackson on their way to Yellowstone National Park, an hour's drive away, Sarah had taken her share of pictures in front of the unique arches. The antlers also provided a temptation for tourists and local teens—to take just one—that was hard to resist.

Sarah waited for Drew to comment about the elk preserve on their right as they headed out of town, but he acted as if the enormous herd of elk that wintered every year on Jackson's outskirts was nothing out of the ordinary.

She would have used any comment he made as an opening to find out more about him, but at last she decided simply to ask the question on her mind. “Does whatever happened to your brother have anything to do with your attitude toward children?”

Drew slanted a glance in her direction but didn't answer. She'd learned long ago that the best way to get a perp to talk was to stay silent herself. They traveled for ten more minutes before he spoke.

“I've never understood what would make someone decide that the best solution to his problems is to kill himself,” Drew said.

“Ah,” Sarah said. Now she knew what had happened to Drew's brother. All she lacked was the details. “I don't suppose it's a person's first choice,” she said. “Maybe when all else fails—”

“Death is never a better choice than life.”