“Okay. Let me tell Charlie.”
Jeff waited awkwardly beside Amber.
“Your bruises are fading,” Amber said.
Jeff touched his cheek, remembering the fight with Edwin—Edwin, who was living every skier’s nightmare, the one Donny lived with and couldn’t wake up from—and Jeff wished he hadn’t hit the guy.
The wheels of Donny’s chair created narrow tracks in the snow as Jeff followed him outside.
Donny stopped rolling and let out a sigh. “What is it?”
“Dad’s pissed off.”
“You brought me out here to tell me that. When is he not?”
Jeff blew into cupped hands to warm his fingers. “Where were you last night?”
Donny shot a glance over his shoulder and grinned.
“You were with Amber?” Jeff smiled. “It’s about time.”
“She seems to like me despite the chair. What’s up with Dad?” Donny slapped his hand on his legs.
“When he noticed you hadn’t slept in your bed, he panicked. He yelled at Mom and me. I think he was actually worried about you. I don’t think it occurred to him that you were with a girl. That ought to make him happy.”
“Did he hit you?”
The cold seeped through Jeff’s Spyder suit, and he stomped his feet. “Mom was standing beside me. Have you heard any more about the investigation?”
Donny cocked his head to one side. “Kalin Thompson and Fred Morgan nose around a lot, but they don’t say anything in front of me. I think I’m a suspect.”
“You?”
“I had access to his skis. And there’s the car accident.”
Jeff laughed but felt the bitterness of bile rise in his throat. “Yeah right. Like I believe that bullshit.”
“Nora was upset when she came in this morning. Have you talked to her lately?”
“Not really.”
“You should. She needs a friend right now. She gets lunch at noon.”
“What are you? Matchmakers dot com? There’s Jenkinson. Gotta go.” With his canary-yellow ski boots dangling over one shoulder and skis resting on the other, Jeff trotted to his coach. “What’s the schedule today? I thought we were on the mountain first.”
“It’s been rearranged. We’re up right after lunch. It’s weight training this morning. We’ll be done by eleven thirty.”
Jeff headed toward the gym. He left his ski gear in a locker and changed into shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt. His teammates crowded the gym, alternating between free weights and weight machines. No matter what gym he entered, they all smelled the same, and the odor wasn’t pleasant, but the sounds motivated him to work as hard as the others in the room.
Focusing on his workout just wasn’t happening. He couldn’t get Nora off his mind. He used to think he’d marry her. He wasn’t sure how he felt about her being pregnant with McKenzie’s baby, but it’s not as if the guy were around to make a claim. McKenzie should have died weeks earlier, before Nora got herself pregnant.
Jeff clanged the bar into the slats and did a set of crunches on the bench before getting up. He moved to the free weights but couldn’t shake the thoughts of Nora. He couldn’t understand her. He wanted her back.
After his unsatisfying weight training session, he lingered outside the tuning room and waited for Nora.
Constable Miller approached him. “Just the man I need to see.” He pulled a photo from the inside pocket of his RCMP issued jacket, giving Jeff a glimpse of his navy Kevlar vest. He held the photo in front of Jeff but didn’t give it to him. “Any comment?”
“Obviously that’s me.”
“Do you want to tell me why you’re smiling?”
“That’s your big question?”
“You can drop the attitude any time. It won’t help you. I’d like to know why you’re smiling considering this is a photo of you looking at Steve McKenzie right after he crashed.”
“Now you think I killed him?”
“I didn’t say that. It’s an odd time for smiling.”
“I thought he was hurt. I thought it would knock him off the team for the season. I didn’t know he was dead.”
“Interesting motive you have.” Miller turned and left Jeff standing by himself.
Jeff was still staring at Miller’s back when Nora exited the tuning room. He pretended to bump into her by accident and asked if he could join her for lunch. They walked to the cafeteria, collected their food from the buffet and sat at a table by the entrance to the hallway as far from others as possible. Day after day, the same odors wafted from the buffet and the smell was starting to annoy Jeff. Couldn’t the cooks change the menu?
“I remember that face. You look mad,” Jeff said.
Nora pushed lettuce from one side of her plate to the other. “I didn’t get mad at you a lot.”
“No. That’s true. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Kalin thinks I killed Steve,” Nora said.
Jeff placed his fork beside his plate. Suddenly, he didn’t feel like eating. What’s with Kalin? “Donny said Kalin thinks he’s the murderer.”
“She came over this morning and asked me why I was at the resort at five thirty on the day Steve died.”
Kalin had no right to interfere. As if they hadn’t suffered enough without that bitch poking holes in their family like a pine beetle decimating a lodge pole. “How’d she know that? Why were you in that early?”
“Are you suspicious too? I was working, and one of the snowmakers saw me.”
“Did he see anyone else?”
“I don’t know.”
Jeff studied Nora’s pert nose, her hair sticking out in tufts and her angled cheeks. He almost reached out and touched her but stopped himself in time. He’d have to move slowly with her. Nora didn’t like to feel pressured.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Nora spotted Constable Miller through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the cafeteria. She didn’t want to see him. As if Jeff pressuring her to get back together wasn’t enough of an issue. He tried to hide his feelings from her, and if it wasn’t for Donny and Lisa, she wouldn’t have had lunch with him. For their sakes, she needed to stay friends with Jeff. First Kalin, then Jeff and now Miller. She wanted the day to end.
Miller hadn’t spotted her yet. Nora hadn’t lied when answering his direct questions, but she’d left out important details, and she didn’t want to face his inquiring eyes.
She darted out of the cafeteria, hoping to avoid him.
“Nora,” Miller called. “I’d like to speak with you.”
Nora stopped mid-step, almost tripping but recovering before she fell. Her face flushed. “I have to get to work.”
“And I am working. I’ll walk you back to the tuning room.” He slid in beside her and escorted her along the path. “I spoke with Kalin Thompson this morning.”
“That figures. If you’ve already talked to her, what’s the point of talking to me?”
“I’d like you to tell me why you were in the mountain ops parking lot on the morning Steve died.”
Nora moaned. “I have two jobs. During the day, I tune skis. During the season, I work in the rental shop. Before the season opens, I prep the shop. My manager lets me set my own hours.”
“Do you usually work at the rental shop at five thirty? That seems early.”
“I couldn’t sleep. Since I was up, I decided to go in.”
Miller flipped through his notebook, stopping about midway through the pages. “That was the morning after Steve broke up with you. Is that why you couldn’t sleep?”
“Do you have to get this personal?”
Miller waited and waited some more.
Nora couldn’t stand the tension and said, “I didn’t want to lie in bed thinking about him. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Not in itself. Why did Steve break up with you?”
Nora stepped to the side and let a guy with a snow blower clear the walking path. The snow banks were already three feet high. She was about to m
iss a great season. She couldn’t go snowboarding much longer, so how the hell would she spend her spare time? She turned back to Miller. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“You have a fiery temper. Was that the reason?”
She relaxed her shoulders and told herself to get a grip on her emotions. “I don’t have a temper. You’re flustering me. Steve died the day after we had a big fight. How do you think that makes me feel?”
“What did you fight about?”
They walked past the lift line. The Holden team started their training session, and Nora caught a glimpse of Jeff getting on the chair. They didn’t have a future, and she wished Jeff would accept that. Her relationship with both Jeff and Steve had ended in a brutal argument. What did that say about her? “Really, I have to tell you that?”
“You do.”
“We had different ideas of where our relationship should go.” As in, he wanted to break up, and I wanted to get married. Nothing big, really.
“Because you’re pregnant?”
“Who told you that?”
“Is that why he broke up with you?”
Nora put her hands in her ski jacket pockets and dug her nails into her palms. “It had to be Kalin. She’s always telling you things.”
“Nora, I’m going to keep asking you until you answer me.”
“Fine. That’s the reason. He was a jerk about it if you ask me.”
Miller made a note in his book. “You were angry with Steve.”
Nora picked up her pace, trying to shorten the length of time she had to spend with Miller. She noticed he lengthened his stride to match her speed. He even kept writing in his notebook. “I was angry and scared. That doesn’t mean I killed him.”
“Did you see anyone else that morning?”
“No.”
“You’re blushing. Are you lying?”
“No. I didn’t see anyone. I swear.”
They reached the outer door of the tuning room, and he let her go.
* * *
“I thought we were friends,” Nora said to Kalin the moment she barged into Kalin’s office.
Kalin was working on the orientation plan for the upcoming crop of winter employees, but clearly Nora needed to talk to her, so she placed her pen on her desk and swiveled to face her.
Nora hovered.
“We are friends.” Kalin stood and shut the door. She had a feeling she knew what Nora was about to say. “Can we talk about this?”
“Does Ben know how horrible you’ve been to me?”
“This has nothing to do with Ben. I haven’t told him what’s going on.”
“You won’t tell your boyfriend, but you’ll tell the cops?”
“I told you I had to tell the RCMP you were at the resort, but I talked to you first. I can’t hide information from them.”
“You’re always spouting about privacy and working in HR. I’ve heard you tell your employees the only thing you’d fire them for was leaking private information. I guess that doesn’t apply to you.”
“What I told Constable Miller wasn’t private.”
“You told him I’m pregnant after you swore to me you wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“I didn’t tell him that.”
A knock at the door interrupted them. Ben poked his head in. “I can hear you two in the hallway. What’s going on?”
“Your girlfriend’s a shit.” Nora pushed past Ben and disappeared.
Ben’s ski boots squeaked as he stepped toward Kalin and kissed her. “What was that about?”
“It’s been a weird day. She thinks I told Miller something about her, but I didn’t.” Kalin filled Ben in on what she’d told Miller but not about Nora’s pregnancy.
Kalin’s desk phone rang, and she checked the caller display. Monica.
“Amber Cristelli is here to see you. Can I tell her when you’ll be free?”
Kalin heard the stiffness in Monica’s voice and figured Amber wanted to talk about her eviction and plead with Kalin to go against Monica’s order. Amber had to be out of her unit by five. If she refused to leave, the next step in the process was to have security escort her out, but Kalin didn’t think Amber was the type.
“Right now.” The orientation plan would have to wait. Kalin looked at Ben. “Amber is here to see me. Can we talk later?”
“I was hoping to have lunch. Did you eat?”
“I haven’t had time.”
“I’ll pick up something for you.” Ben snuck a quick kiss on her lips before he opened the door.
“You’re so nice to me.”
He nodded at Amber as he left and she arrived.
Kalin offered Amber her guest chair and acknowledged Monica behind Amber’s back before shutting out the workplace.
“Did you hear what Monica did to me yesterday?”
Kalin tilted her head to one side and smiled at Amber. “I don’t think Monica did anything to you. She followed policy.”
“Well, the policy sucks. I didn’t do anything wrong. I can’t believe I’d be kicked out for helping a friend.”
“The rules are clear. We can’t apply them to some people and not others just because we like them. Monica was doing her job. Don’t make it personal.”
“It is personal. I have nowhere to live now.”
“There are still places with vacancies. There’s a list on the board outside my office. Don’t you have a friend, one that’s not in staff housing, you can stay with until you find somewhere?”
“I was trying to help a friend, and now I’m being punished.”
“You might want to reassess who you call a friend. Cheryl knew the rules and that you’d get evicted if she was caught there.”
“First I don’t get the tuning job and then I get kicked out of housing. Why does this place have it in for me?”
“This place, as you put it, doesn’t have it in for you. Monica was lenient and left the pot she found in your unit out of the report. It could be worse. I don’t remember you applying for a tuning job. Do you mean at the rental shop?”
“Yes. As if you didn’t know. You’re in charge of hiring.”
“I don’t keep track of every decision. Who didn’t hire you?”
“Nora Cummings told the manager I wasn’t experienced enough.”
“Nora’s been working in the shop for a long time. She knows what level of experience is required to operate efficiently. I’m sure she did what she thought was right for the shop.” Kalin guessed Nora hadn’t hired Amber because she slept with McKenzie, and she couldn’t blame her. “Have you moved out yet?”
“No. I was hoping to get another chance.”
“I can’t do that. Finish your shift. I’ll extend your time till seven.”
“Figures you’d take Monica’s side. I don’t know why I thought you’d do anything for me.”
The door bounced off the wall after Amber stormed out, and Kalin wondered if she’d ever get used to employees leaving her office in a snit. She took a deep breath and reminded herself how young Amber was.
Amber’s job guarding the tuning room was visible. The HR group kept staff housing issues separate from workplace issues. To fire an employee because of something that happened in housing was unusual, but Amber was doing one of the most important jobs at the resort over the next five days. Kalin couldn’t justify firing her for a minor staff housing violation, but how could she continue to trust her?
* * *
Kalin tucked into the corner of her living room couch and listened to the fire crackle. She didn’t know what to do about Amber. What she did know was McKenzie’s murder needed to be solved before her life would settle down again.
A wild storm dumped snowflakes in a kaleidoscope of activity. Snow stuck to the corners of the windows, building small piles in the shape of white anthills. She felt a chill despite her wool socks, folded down at her ankles, sweat pants and fleece hoodie. Chica lay with her nose pressed against the sliding glass door as if pining to go outside. “Not in this weather,
girl.”
Balancing her laptop on her legs, Kalin clicked on the browser icon. She googled Donny Morley. There were newspaper articles about races he’d won. Alpine Canada logs recorded his results for numerous junior and regional events. Jeff’s name also appeared but always lower in rank than Donny’s name. Donny’s career had been promising before his injury stole that from him, and yet he’d chosen to stay in the industry.
A newspaper heading grabbed her attention, and she clicked the link to Holden Ski Team Tragedy.
Kalin knew the story but read the article anyway. The town of Holden was relieved their local ski hero, Steve McKenzie, wasn’t injured in the accident even though he was driving the car. Rachel Hudson escaped with minor injuries. The car slid into a tree with the rear door on the passenger side taking the impact. McKenzie walked away from the crash. Donny never walked again.
Next she found an article about Jeff Morley and Steve McKenzie that left Kalin with the impression Jeff had a temper. Jeff and McKenzie were arrested for fighting in public. They’d been outside a bar in Holden. The article put McKenzie in a positive light. Jeff, not so much.
“Did you know that?” Kalin asked Ben.
He glanced up from the Texas Hold ’Em game he’d been playing on his laptop. “What?”
“That McKenzie and Jeff were arrested last year for fighting in public.”
“Everybody knows that.”
“How come no one told me?”
Ben sipped his beer and placed the bottle beside his computer. “I don’t know. I guess it never came up.”
“Don’t you think that gives Jeff a motive?”
“It happened a year ago. Why would he wait until now to get revenge? And besides, what’s the motive? That he lost a fight with McKenzie?”
“Maybe watching McKenzie race year after year when Donny can’t finally got to him. Do you know why Rachel Hudson was in the car too?”
“She was McKenzie’s girlfriend.”
Nora rarely spoke to Kalin about her adoptive sister. Rachel died not long after Donny was paralyzed, but that’s all Kalin knew. “How did Nora end up dating the guy who paralyzed Donny and dated her sister?”
“Don’t know. You’ll have to ask Nora.” Ben turned back to his poker game.
Descent (A Stone Mountain Mystery Book 1) Page 18
