ONE
Only someone who had once looked death in the face and won would dare ski such a treacherous incline. The daunting grade of the New Mexico mountain stretched steeply before her. The snow-covered terrain could barely be called a slope; it was more like the side of a cliff. Nicole Harrington locked her boots into her skis and pushed out a deep breath of vapor. And fear. Her ride up to the summit—a helicopter—had already lifted off and left her behind. There was only one way down.
Straight.
In Nic’s line of work as an FBI agent, taking risks was part of her everyday life, and the summit of Wheeler Peak was nothing compared to the bullet that landed in her back eight months ago. Like a victor, she raised her arms with her poles at the ready and mentally checked for any pain in her back where the bullet had lodged in her lung.
No pain at all.
Now to convince her boss she was set to return to the daily grind. If she made it off this mountain alive, it would be all the proof she needed.
“I’m ready.” She spoke aloud, as if saying it would remove any doubt.
With her body poised over the tops of her skis, her two long red braids swung forward. Her hair was tied off with bright pink elastics that matched her coat. She surveyed the ungroomed trail before her. The cold mountain air offset her adrenaline as she pushed off on the freshly fallen snow, so thick, she would sink if she didn’t keep her body crouched and moving.
In her rush, her skis plowed through the top layers of snow, sending a spray of white in all directions. Her body propelled the drop at a nearly ninety-degree angle, her knees lifting to her chest as her legs turned rapidly side to side in unison. Each twist at the hip caused no back pain. If she could face this death-defying feat, then it was safe to say she was one hundred percent healed and ready to confront the dangers of her job again.
Facing death head-on was how Nic lived; when it was her time to go, it would be how she died. The gunman who’d shot her from behind hadn’t known she lived life on her own terms. He was locked up behind bars now. He had messed with the wrong agent.
Nice try, though. She took the jump off a large gray boulder and turned in a 360-degree stunt. She landed smoothly, face forward, to resume her descent. A little trick she’d learned growing up on this very mountain. She knew where all the great jumps were. The higher she flew, the better.
Nic picked up speed with precision and skill, her body healed after months in a rehab bed. She was finally ready to take on the next bad guy—the same way she took on this mountain. But before she returned to her post as a special agent, Nic had another mountain to face: her boss. If he could see her now, he’d eat crow. If only her supervisor believed she was ready, but after the last month of fruitless debates with Lewis, she felt invisible...forgotten.
Forgotten.
Nic trembled from a shiver that shot up her spine, and it had nothing to do with the morning chill or the memory of the pain in her back.
Instantly, her concentration broke as she wondered why this fight was so important. Am I pushing myself too hard? Is it because I’m afraid of being forgotten?
Nic cut a sharp right to snowplow her skis to an immediate stop. This was not a slope to take without total focus. She ripped her ski mask off her face and rubbed her forehead. As if that would erase the memory of the last time she had been forgotten. No matter how far she went, no matter how far up the ladder she climbed, nothing erased the pain of that feeling. Not even a gunshot wound.
Nic shouted in frustration and heaved her poles to places unknown. She dropped backward and landed in the deep snow for an extended moment of self-pity. Her eyes closed against the bright sun and only opened when she heard the distinct chuff of the rotating blades of a helicopter overhead. It sounded close.
Was her ride coming back? She’d told the pilot not to worry about her. Perhaps he picked up another skier at the base and was heading up to the helipad at the top.
“Great,” she said sarcastically and pushed up on her elbows. “So much for being alone.”
Standing, she scanned the blue skies above, first to her right then to her left. The hair on the back of her neck lifted when she realized the chopper was approaching her from behind.
Nic fumbled in her skis to turn her body around to face the helicopter. It wasn’t the same chopper that had airlifted her up here. This one had a yellow nose that was pointed down, completely off balance, and it quickly tilted on its side. Nic inhaled sharply. It was coming in for a crash landing on the side of the mountain!
Right where she was standing.
She kicked off her skis and tried to run. The snow pulled her boots in with every step she took. Her mad dash for a boulder twenty feet away might as well have been a million feet. She stole glances over her shoulder, believing death had finally found her.
Ten feet to go to reach the boulder and her legs were already shaking with fatigue. She lifted her booted foot out of the deep snow and pressed forward another step.
The landing skids of the helicopter brushed the tops of the trees, branches breaking with echoing cracks in the atmosphere. The collision with the tall pines slowed the chopper and tilted its white cabin onto its side. The cockpit wedged the treetops, its rotors breaking more branches as it strained against them. The pines bent under the weight; the sounds of cracking timbers echoing across the terrain around her. The chopper broke through and barreled at her in freefall.
Nic reached the boulder, taking the rock in a high leap. She didn’t stop, just kept running up the rock and diving over the top.
The sound of the helicopter hitting the mountainside blared in her ears at the same time the impact’s pressure momentum shoved her behind the boulder. She heard the plow of snow as the chopper swooshed forward, its blades fighting the deep layers to continue their motion. A loud crunch sounded from the other side of the rock where she hovered low.
The treetops had failed to stop the helicopter, but the boulder had triumphed.
Nic lay facedown in the snow, her arms covering her head as the mountain reclaimed its silence once again, as though something so horrific hadn’t just breached its tranquility. For a moment, she wondered if she had imagined the crash. It was so surreal. Slowly, she rose, realizing she still gripped her goggles in her hand. She tossed them, needing to see to the wreckage.
And if there were survivors.
Nic ran around the boulder just as the sound of crunching metal echoed through the stillness. She came to stand in front of the mangled chopper. The door on the side had been thrown open. The bright sun glinted off the smashed glass, hindering her search for the pilot’s seat. Someone sat there, still strapped in.
Were they alive?
Who opened the door?
She took a step to find out, but a loud bang stopped her cold.
Gunshot.
The sound ricocheted through the air—and through her body—triggering a past incident as though her gunshot wound was happening all over again. The memory of a shattered rib and a punctured lung stole her breath. A gunshot. Its echo bounced off the sides of the peaks and scattered any remaining birds in the trees in all directions.
Nic dropped to her knees and froze.
Officer down.
No. Helicopter down.
But why would they be firing off a weapon if they just crashed? She had to be mistaken. Maybe she imagined it. Maybe it was a last backfire from the engine. Maybe she really did need to still see the counselor. With no time to think that one through, she pushed herself up onto her knees, ready to offer aid to the survivors once again.
Please let them all be alive.
Crawling forward, she came around the side of the helicopter to see a white-haired man tossing a duffel bag through the open side door. He removed a red knit hat from his back pocket and put it on. He had blood on his hands but had managed to survive the crash. She opened her mouth to call out but saw the gun tucked into the back waistband of his pants. Her words of assistance fell silent at the sight.
She’d been correct about the gunshot.
Nic glanced to the front of the helicopter. Now, from this angle, the sun wasn’t blinding her. She could clearly see the pilot slumped in his seat, his blood splattered on the cockpit glass.
Blood.
How? From the crash or the gunshot?
She looked back at the white-haired man as he hefted the duffel bag onto his shoulder. Ducking when he turned, she watched him head down the mountain, skirting the tree line until he stepped up to the thick of the tall pines.
Another sound, off in the distance, caught both their attentions and lifted their gazes to the sky. A rescue helicopter was coming to the aid of the downed chopper.
Nic looked at the man at the same time he turned for the woods. Except, as he turned, he caught sight of her.
In the next second, his weapon drawn, he took aim. Two shots exploded through the mountain serenity.
Nic leaped back behind the boulder, landing with arms out as she sank deeper into a thick drift of snow. She grunted but barely heard the sound over the reverberations of the gunshots through the tall pines. The blasts blared in her head.
Her body trembled, and her face fell farther into the icy snow. The cold burned her skin, but the echoes of the gunfire froze her more than any temperature. At any second, the shooter would finish her off. She had an unloaded gun in her backpack—she never left home without it, and being up on the mountain alone, she could encounter any number of wildlife that might require defending herself. But with her lack of movement, she might as well have left it in the base lodge. She couldn’t even turn around to face death head-on, never mind go for her weapon and load it. This fact collided with another fact: death drew near once again. All her bravado about being ready for work was proving itself to be a lie. With another target on her back, Nic braced for the bull’s-eye.
Jett Butler let out a slow whistle from the controls of his Search and Rescue chopper. He scanned out his side window, peering through the treetops and down the mountain slope for any sign of the helicopter he had seen struggling only moments before. No sign of smoke was a good thing, but that didn’t mean the aircraft wasn’t mangled in the thick trees. It had to be there somewhere.
“Do you see anything on your side?” Jett asked his partner.
Tank was the best Search and Rescue K-9 a deputy could ask for up in these perilous mountains. The Siberian Husky, safety-strapped into the seat beside Jett’s, lifted his snout to howl. The sound of the chopper’s rotors drowned out the dog’s reply, but he turned his piercing gray-blue eyes on his handler and expressed determination. Tank’s black-and-white coat rippled with his flexing muscles. The dog wanted to run. The deep snow below only excited him more.
A flash caught Jett’s attention. He turned the chopper ninety degrees for a better view.
Had the sun glinted off any metal?
He turned a bit more as another flash startled him...and confused him. It didn’t resemble a flare, but rather...a weapon firing?
That made no sense, but who knew why that yellow-nosed copter had been struggling. Perhaps foul play on board had triggered its dissent.
Jett’s helicopter whipped to the right, caught by the wind. A quick grab at the controls and he secured his ride. The high winds today at the summit were most likely what had caused the other chopper to crash. Even Jett, an experienced pilot, shouldn’t stay in the air for much longer. Gun or no gun, he would take this bird down and continue his search on foot.
Jett pulled back on the controls and lifted the chopper higher, the landing pad as his destination. At the same time, he radioed his plans to Sheriff Stewart.
“I’m sending up Mac and Trevor for backup,” the sheriff responded. “And I don’t want to hear any backlash about it. You can’t work alone all the time.”
“I don’t work alone,” Jett argued and glanced his dog’s way. “Tank’s all the backup I need.” And the only partner I trust. Tank never looked for more than what Jett could offer. Unlike everyone else.
The snow-covered helicopter pad neared. “I’m bringing her down now,” he informed the sheriff. “I’m not waiting for Mac and Trevor to check the scene out. If someone is shooting at someone, time is critical.”
“I figured you wouldn’t wait,” Sheriff Stewart grumbled. “Just be careful of the mountain wave. We wouldn’t want you in an accident.”
Jett’s headset went silent as the last word hung out there. To anyone listening, Sheriff Stewart’s comment would sound like heartfelt concern from one law enforcement officer to another.
To Jett it sounded like a dig.
“Don’t you mean another accident?” Jett corrected, referencing his car accident that left him with a traumatic brain injury.
A huff came through the headphones. “You think what you want, Jethro.” The sheriff used his full first name, sounding so much like Jett’s father. The two men had once been army buddies, and now Don Stewart filled a role Jett’s father no longer honored. “Just because you think everyone is out to get you, doesn’t make it so. Some of us do want the best for you. You suffered a lot with your amnesia. Watching you go through it was hard on everyone, but especially you. Don’t fault me for caring for you. Just watch for the waves. The wind is pushing 25 knots. Storm’s coming in.”
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