Left To Hide

by Pierce, Blake

  “Who are you? Corey Bjerg?” she said. “Is that you?”

  The man’s face creased in a smile and he winked. “It was my grandfather’s name, you know? He’s in these mountains. It’s a secret. A quiet secret. A whispered secret. Don’t you hear the breeze? Don’t you?” He seemed angry now and his eyes pulsed, widening in their sockets in madness as he stared at her.

  “Mr. Bjerg, you’re wanted for questioning in regards to the murders of the Benevetis, the Haneses, and Mr. Griezmann.” Adele felt they were long past the point of technicalities, but she needed to keep him talking, to figure out what to do next.

  She continued to move cautiously forward. But whenever she stepped to the side, he moved, still keeping John’s fallen form between them.

  “Dad?” she called out. “Dad are you all right?”

  No answer.

  “John?”

  A grunt, a groan, but no words.

  Her pulse quickened. “Mr. Bjerg, I need you to back away. Drop the axe and put your hands where I can see them.”

  This seemed to irritate the man. He frowned and gripped his axe, raising it. He prodded at John with the edge of the blade, eliciting another groan from the Frenchman.

  “I will if you will,” he said, chuckling softly. Then the smile died, but his eyes remained fixed on her. “I will if you will. As the mountains intended. You toss yours, I toss mine. Strength to strength, yes? And I won’t cut your weakened lambs. I won’t cut or cull. Strength to strength, yes?”

  Adele swallowed. She didn’t understand half of it. But the way he was indicating toward her gun, and the way he dragged the axe across John’s back, gently now, threatening, not gouging yet, she knew there was little choice.

  She raised her hand and ejected the clip, tossing it to the side, watching them fall into the snow. “There!” she called. “I did it. Now you.”

  “Your gun too!” he snarled. “I’m no lamb!”

  Adele nodded. “At the same time, yes?”

  He fidgeted, still gripping his axe. Adele approached, one bullet still chambered. One shot. Her hand trembling. John would know what to do. John wouldn’t hesitate, would he? She hated guns—her least favorite part of the job.

  And yet, now, she was more than grateful she had one. To discard it would mean death. He couldn’t be trusted, she knew that.

  Then, to her astonishment, he tossed the axe. It arched, spinning through the air and landing in the snow, handle protruding, right at the edge of a drop-off. Her father still lay unconscious in the ice. John still struggled to rise. But the man winked at her, and tilted his head toward the axe. “Yes?” he said. “I obeyed. Now you.”

  Adele felt a cold chill. Abandoning her gun would be stupid. She raised and fired.

  But at the last instant, her instincts, her training, were betrayed by a surge of guilt. She couldn’t kill him—even unarmed, could she?

  She hesitated. A costly mistake.

  The man ducked and her bullet went wide, slamming splinters from a tree behind him, near the precipice and near his axe.

  “A-ha!” he crowed, as if presenting some evidence.

  And then he spun and sprinted toward the axe. Adele, completely spent on bullets, thought twice, but then sprinted after him, determined to beat him to the axe. Unarmed, they would all die now. She’d missed. She’d missed the shot. Now, the axe would end them unless she reached it first.

  But the man was closer to it than her. She sprinted through the snow, kicking ice and powdered white, gasping as she raced. The paramedic also rushed forward, his red jacket flickering against the gray and white outline of the mountains.

  Adele was ten paces away, five, three. The man dove for the axe, snared it, shouting triumphantly as he rolled to his feet, raising the weapon.

  A split second to decide. A split second. Her father behind her, unconscious. John injured, unable to help.

  If she allowed him at them, he’d kill them as sure as anything.

  She didn’t stop. Instead, Adele lowered her head and barreled straight into the man, catching him in the sternum. Her head throbbed—pain burst through her skull. At the same time, the man let out a sickly gasp of surprise and shock. And together, the two of them tumbled off the precipice edge.

  Adele lost track. Spinning, falling, head over heels. Tumbling, down, down. Fear, terror. Frost, freezing. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t even remember how to breathe as she plummeted…

  And then.

  Whoompf.

  She landed in snow, hard. Virgin, untouched ice and frost. Her body plummeted straight through, deep, carried by the impact. For a moment, she lay there, certain her spine had been crushed. But her thoughts still whirled—pain still flickered through her. She tried to move, but found herself encumbered. Adele blinked blearily, and realized she’d landed on her back, face up. She was deep in snow. Buried alive.

  Around her, the walls of frost that hadn’t caught her mass still extended toward the sky. Walls of snow, a cocoon of ice. She felt sheltered for a flickering moment.

  Then terror seeped in like the melting ice around her. Adele conserved her breath. Desperately, she remembered her training. She turned and spat, watching the way the saliva dribbled. Down was below. Good. That meant up was that way.

  She began shoveling, rapidly—probably too rapidly. But it didn’t matter. She needed to get out! Out!

  She crawled and kicked, packing the snow beneath her, pushing it down, shoveling it below her, desperately dragging herself from the pit of ice.

  And then…

  Her head burst toward sunlight.

  She blinked, gasping, desperately, greedily gulping in soothing air, allowing it to fill her lungs, ignorant and indifferent to the sting of ice. Her cheeks were frozen—she couldn’t feel them. Her face was stinging. Then, ahead of her, she spotted him.

  Corey Bjerg hadn’t been so lucky.

  She stared… he’d landed on a portion of hardened earth. The snow had been repelled by the slick slope of the fir trees extended up. One such tree had snapped, from wind or weather, she didn’t know. The protruding branch, though, had caught Mr. Bjerg.

  The paramedic’s red jacket had reddened further. He was staring at the sky, impaled on the sharp branch, gasping and wiggling like a caught trout.

  Adele stared and then, carefully, moved through the snow—extending her body, more swimming than walking until she reached the packed earth around the grove and pulled herself up to the trees.

  “Mr. Bjerg,” she said, cautiously. “Mr. Bjerg, can you hear me?”

  He continued to move and twitch, the jutting tree branch pushed through his chest. Blood spilled down his jacket. Spittle flecked his beard. His wide, maddened eyes fixed on her below, like a scarecrow witnessing a trespasser in his field. Still, somehow, he clutched his axe in one hand.

  “Who—who are you?” he gasped, his chest rising and falling in rapid succession.

  She stared up at him in pity, in disgust, in anger. She shook her head. “Mr. Bjerg, we’ll get you down, okay? Stop struggling. John!” she shouted, angling her head back, but keeping her eyes on the suspect. “John—call paramedics! John!”

  She heard a faint cry of response and turned back to Mr. Bjerg.

  But the man was still moving, still shaking his head. He coughed, and his whole body shook with spasms of pain.

  “The mountains are clear,” he said, his eyes fixed on her. Spittle now trickled along his jaw and seemed to frost on his lower lip. “I… I am the lamb.”

  She stared at him. “Mr. Bjerg, please, wait one moment. We’ll get you help. Just lower the axe, all right? Put it down.”

  But instead, he stared at her, still suspended above, still impaled and, with a trembling hand, he lifted the axe.

  “To cull is to be a good shepherd,” he said, quietly, his eyes fluttering.

  And before Adele could shout, before she could say anything, he reached up and dragged the axe sharply across his exposed neck. She resisted the urge to loo
k away, too startled, to shocked to react.

  Blood now spilled from a deep cut in his neck. His fluttering eyes closed, and his gasping breath faded. In one last, desperate attempt, he seemed to speak, but the words were lost to the quiet moan from the wind in the Alps.

  Adele stood beneath the corpse, staring up at him. Then she spat off to the side, muttering, “What a waste.” And turned, trudging back toward the sound of John’s voice, now calling out for her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  This paramedic outpost was a bit more comforting than the last one had been. Four of the seven beds were occupied. John and her father flanked her, resting on either side. The fourth bed, by a red privacy curtain, was occupied by a woman who’d been found strapped to a sled on Mr. Bjerg’s snowmobile.

  All four of them would recover—mostly.

  John’s trigger finger was half severed now. The piece of flesh lost in the snow. Her father had bandages along his face, and a couple of paramedics—also in the same uniform Mr. Bjerg had worn—were treating him, and murmuring quiet questions as they tended to his wounds.

  Adele sat propped up, two cushions at her back, and she stared at the dappled ceiling, breathing in and out, slowly, cautiously.

  Case closed, she thought to herself. A flicker of a smile crossed her lips but then she winced. Even smiling was painful. Her whole body felt like one giant bruise. Nothing broken, it seemed—but close enough.

  Adele’s phone rested on the simple white tray table between her and John. She’d turned it off. No texts, no calls, no news notifications. Just silence for the moment.

  The paramedics continued to treat the Sergeant, patient despite his annoyance and short temper. He kept waving a hand and pushing them away from his face, and they persisted, gently trying to adjust his bandages and murmuring things like, “Mr. Sharp, if you’re not careful, you’ll redo the fracture.” And also, “Sir, no—I am qualified to do this, yes. Please, just sit still.”

  Adele tried not to smirk, but for once, she was glad not to be on the receiving end of her father’s ire.

  She turned, her back to her dad now, and faced John. The tall agent was staring at his injured hand, frowning. For the first time since arriving in the Alps, he now wore a jacket—a bright, orange, puffy thing that made him look a bit like a nectarine. A handsome, scarred, weathered nectarine at that.

  “What are you smirking at?” he said, crossly.

  Adele shook her head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

  He waved his injured hand at her, revealing the half-missing trigger finger wrapped in white gauze. “I know you’re laughing at something, but I can’t quite put my finger on what.” He flashed a grin and smirked.

  Adele groaned and shook her head. “Terrible, John. Just terrible.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve known brothers who’ve had worse. I’ll recover. Have to use my left hand now, though.”

  “Can’t imagine the friendly fire involved with that endeavor.”

  John stared into his lap, seemingly lost in thought for a moment, and Adele thought she might have crossed a line. But when he looked up, she was surprised to see his eyes misty. He cleared his throat and said, “Thanks for being there.”

  “Yeah, well,” she replied, just as quietly, “you saved my dad. You’ve saved me more than once. Makes us even, right?”

  He chuckled. “By my score, you’ve got one up on me. But never let it be said that John Renee wouldn’t take an advantage when it was given.”

  Adele felt the smile spread in warmth, across her cheeks, down her chest, and to her stomach—a fire in her belly. She continued to smile, no longer speaking, just listening quiet. John’s eyes closed eventually, and he slowly drifted off to sleep.

  Adele peered through the large windows across from the beds, beyond the red privacy curtain. She glimpsed the white and blue structures of the new resort.

  For an hour, she sat, thinking nothing, wanting nothing. The emptiness was more welcome than sunshine—more welcome than air. Just… quiet. Peace.

  John started snoring and the paramedics eventually abandoned her father with mild cussing and grumbling—which he reprimanded as they retreated. Adele continued to stare out the glass window at the resort in the distance, sighing softly as she did. A quiet frown crossed her countenance.

  “Do you want to return?” said a voice.

  Adele glanced over and found her father watching her, standing now, his face still bandaged, but his bed scorned at his back. He was framed by the privacy curtain and wore a hospital gown which, mercifully, was of a more decent variety than normal.

  Her father crossed his arms, causing the white ducks on his blue gown to crease in the fabric.

  “Return where?” she asked.

  He nodded his head to the window. “Resort. Any more brush-up work? Things need to be done?”

  Adele shook her head. “I don’t think so. Agent Marshall is actually bringing my things here.”

  “You’ll leave then? Soon?”

  Adele pushed herself up even more, leaning forward now, the cushions behind her dislodging. One of them fell to the floor where she left it.

  John was still snoring. The paramedics had retreated to a safe distance from the Sergeant.

  “I’ll leave soon, yes,” she said.

  Adele thought of Angus—the talk she’d promised him. Roots? Would it finally be time to settle down? Was that what he wanted? Was that what she wanted?

  She found herself glancing toward John, but just as quickly looked away. She looked out the window at the resort. She thought of the Benevetis; they had their own private chalet. All the security, all the money they could want. Married. And still… it all ended with a short six-foot trip.

  Roots—perhaps roots were overrated? Or perhaps she hadn’t found the place they’d be worth the sacrifice. Still, she would speak with Angus. But then… then what?

  “You don’t have to go back, you know,” her father said, quiet again. He still stood, in defiance to his bed, but now stared out the window, no longer looking at his daughter. For a moment, a contemplative look crossed his face. “I know the thoughts,” he said. “I made them, too, you know.”

  Adele smiled softly. Her father had settled. He’d married a French woman, and had left the US to settle in Germany. And yet… it had ended horribly.

  The nagging thoughts she’d experienced came on her again. Memories of a vacation. Of family—of shouting, of another man?

  Unbidden, the words spilled out. “Did Mom cheat on you?”

  She winced the moment she spoke, wondering how it would be received.

  Her father raised an eyebrow, glancing over at her, twisting but then wincing as his jaw strained against the bandages. He turned his whole body now, instead, to acknowledge her. “Cheat? No. Why would you say this?”

  Adele frowned. “I remember… not much… but I remember someone—not you, someone else coming to our hotel room when you were out. Someone in the room with Mom.”

  Her father frowned, but it seemed an expression of grief more than irritation. “No,” he said, softly. “She didn’t cheat. I… I remember,” he said, quietly. So quietly, Adele had to lean forward to hear.

  “It didn’t have anything to do with mother’s”—Adele swallowed, her throat dry, but managed to complete the thought—“her murder, did it?”

  Her dad winced again. “The man in your mother’s room was most likely her brother,” he said. “That vacation, his family came with us. You likely don’t remember them much. We didn’t spend too much time with him. But he loved his sister… He saw how we would act and would console her, comfort her… a whispering snake in her ear,” he started, growling, but then his shoulders slumped as some of his usual fire left him and he shook his head sadly. “Though, perhaps that’s not fair… The truth, Adele… your mother and I grew distant. Simple as that. We loved each other—I know that. Once we did. But we’d been growing apart for years at that point. Different wants in life—different hopes for the fu
ture. She wanted more kids, did you know that?”

  He laughed bitterly. “Perhaps I was a fool. But I wanted my career to improve… Never happened.”

  Adele glimpsed a spasm of pure, unfiltered grief and regret surge through her father. Her heart pained for him, but where he was, she couldn’t go. His regrets were his own. So she listened, perhaps hoping to alleviate some of the pain through simply listening.

  “The vacation you remember… just one of many. We would fight, yes. We would make up, yes. For your sake, though, Adele. Not for ours. Elise was wise—she saw it before I did. She knew the writing was on the wall.”

  He breathed again, shaking his head still. “It had nothing to do with her murder… no…”

  He trailed off into contemplative, bitter silence, allowing it to swell around them. Adele didn’t interrupt, didn’t intrude. This wasn’t her silence, nor was it her grief. She wouldn’t rob her father of his feelings or his thoughts. Not now.

  After a bit, though, some of the emotion seemed to fade. He seemed smaller, now, less threatening. Less scary. He looked at her and quietly said, “It had nothing to do with your mother’s murder… But… Well… Perhaps this will help.”

  Adele frowned and watched as he pulled a small brown notebook from his pocket. He held it for a second, gripping it like a priest with a bible, but then, with the air of a man relinquishing something of deep value, he placed it on the table next to Adele’s phone. Then he stepped back, distancing himself from it. He rubbed his hand on the side of his gown, as if cleaning it.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Notes,” he said, softly. “You’re right. If I was a better investigator, I would have found her killer. But that isn’t to say I didn’t try.”

  Adele felt her heart hammer.

  Her father pointed a finger at the book, the same finger John was now missing. “I’ve been following leads for years—years. But it has all turned to dead ends for me… All of it.” He sighed. “Perhaps it is time for me to let go. It’s yours. All the notes. Maybe you’ll find better luck. You know… you come here so often,” he said, softly. “Have you considered moving back? Not to Germany—I’m not saying to Germany. But France? The Alps? You seem alive when you’re here.”