A Sister Would Know

by C. J. Carmichael

  Mentally, he added a couple of items to his packing list. Grant was the kind of guy who liked to be prepared. For any and all contingencies.

  Remote though they might be.

  He wondered if she had any idea of the rustic conditions they would be facing. He’d tried to warn her last night, but obviously been unable to dissuade her.

  Stubborn lady.

  But that was one of the qualities he admired about her. Forcing yourself to do something that terrified you took real courage. Even coming here, all the way from Toronto, had taken guts. Yet Amalie never gave herself the credit she deserved.

  With a sigh of resignation he hauled himself out of the shower and picked up his razor. As he ran the blade over his cheeks, down the side of his neck, he noticed his hair was getting a little shaggy. He yanked at the top drawer under the cabinet, pulled out the scissors, then paused.

  He wondered if Amalie was the kind of woman to notice such details. In case she was, it wouldn’t hurt to get a proper haircut this time.

  He put the scissors back in the drawer and headed to the kitchen. The coffee, also on an automatic timer, was ready. Grant poured a cup, wishing he could get his toaster automated, as well, so that two crisp slices—already buttered and slathered with jam—slid onto a plate the minute he walked in the room.

  One of his favorite movies was that old one from Disney where the absentminded professor had his whole kitchen hooked up with gizmos and gadgets that took care of all the mundane little jobs that Grant, too, found so tiresome.

  Today he settled on grabbing a box of cereal from the cupboard and eating it by the handful as he went to the spare room, where his computer—with its link to the office information systems—was just waiting for the touch of his fingers to come alive.

  Weather forecasts had been revised overnight. Now the projection was for cold, clear weather in the foreseeable future. Unbelievably, it seemed they had a window of opportunity when conditions would be ideal for backcountry traveling.

  Grant shut down the computer and took another handful of dry cereal, chasing it with a gulp of strong, hot coffee.

  Thank God the weather, at least, was cooperating. He didn’t need extra complications on this trip. Taking along a novice would be challenge enough, beginning with assembling the gear she would need.

  Sometime during the day he also had to fit in a couple of hours at the office and a trip to the hospital where Ramsey had worked. Maybe someone there would know when his affair with Helen had begun.

  “I GUESS THIS IS IT,” Amalie said to Davin and Heidi, who were waiting in the apartment building vestibule with her Wednesday morning. She clamped down on her nerves as she watched Grant’s truck stop just outside her apartment building. She was unsure about her ability to make it up the mountain and anxious about seeing the place where Helena had died. Most of all she was concerned about spending the night alone with Grant.

  She picked up the small bag of essentials that Grant had told her she was allowed to bring. He already had her skis, which he’d stowed after their practice workout yesterday afternoon.

  Mountaineering skis, she’d discovered, were a hybrid between cross-country and downhill. Skins—a velvety fabric that was glued onto the bottoms—provided traction for climbing. There was also a mechanism that allowed the heel to stay attached to the ski, providing more stability for descending steep slopes.

  “I’ll miss you,” she said, giving Davin a quick hug. Heidi had planned an afternoon skiing outing on Summit Road, followed by an evening of horror movies, but Davin was still disgruntled about missing the backcountry trip.

  Grant was already loping up the sidewalk. A second later, he’d pulled open the front door and entered amid a burst of frosty air.

  “Ready and waiting, I see.” His gaze swept them all, stopping sympathetically at Davin.

  “Next trip, you’ll definitely come along,” he promised.

  Davin nodded, his disappointment so acute he was unable to bring his gaze up from the floor.

  Amalie squeezed his slender shoulders. “Would you carry this to the truck for me, Davin? I just want to remind Heidi of a few things.”

  He nodded, taking the small pack from her hands. Once he was out the door, Amalie turned to Grant.

  “You said there was a number where Heidi could reach us in case of an emergency?”

  “I have it written out here.” He pulled off his glove, then retrieved a slip of paper from his pocket. “One more thing, Heidi?” He cleared his throat.

  Alerted by the nervousnous of his voice, Amalie paused on her way out the door.

  “Did, uh, Ramsey ever come to this apartment to visit Helen?”

  Amalie went still. So Grant was still on his fact-finding mission for Denise Carter. She supposed she ought to be grateful he wasn’t doing his snooping behind her back anymore. She wondered if he’d told Denise yet that Helena had been married.

  “Why do you ask?” Heidi’s tone matched the sharp look in her eyes.

  Grant raised his eyes to the ceiling as he sighed. “Denise wants to know how long they were seeing each other.”

  “Denise Carter wants to know, does she?” Heidi fingered the zipper of her outermost sweater. She was dressed in layers, all ready for her afternoon on the trails. “Well, she could have asked me outright. But I suppose she’s still pretty shook up. You tell her I never saw them together. Certainly Ramsey wasn’t one of the young studs who used to gather at those parties Helen threw.”

  “Thanks, Heidi. Appreciate the information.”

  Heidi nodded, then clapped him on the back. “Sometimes a man can be too much of a gentleman, Grant. You remember that.”

  Outside, Amalie said a final farewell to Davin, then climbed into the truck, settling into the seat while Grant closed the door after her. They drove away with Heidi and Davin both waving, one more enthusiastically than the other.

  Amalie snapped on her seat belt, then looked sideways at Grant. He’d slipped on sunglasses against the low morning sun. Aware of her perusal, he smiled at her. “Feel bad about leaving Davin?”

  “Yes. He’s gone on sleepovers at his friend’s house before, but this is the first time I’ve left him.”

  “First time in eleven years?”

  “Well, yes. Is that so strange?”

  Grant just shrugged, and Amalie turned her gaze to the highway. The roads were clear; the sun was shining. It seemed like a favorable omen for their trip. Reminded of something else, she turned back to Grant.

  “What do you suppose Heidi meant with that last comment of hers about being too gentlemanly?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “I suppose she could have meant that I was being a fool to gather information on Ramsey and Helen for Denise.”

  Yes. That was what she’d thought, too.

  “Or…” He raised his sunglasses to shoot her a piercing look. “She could have been talking about you and me spending the night alone together on the mountain.”

  Oh, my Lord! “I guess she has no way of knowing we packed separate sleeping bags.”

  Once more Grant took her attention from the road to glance at her. “Those bags can be zipped together, Amalie.”

  “Really?” Amalie turned the heater control on the front panel down a notch. “How inventive.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  AMALIE DID HER BEST to avoid staring at the stern profile of the surrounding mountain peaks as Grant parked his truck at the base of the Asulkan Trail. He turned off the ignition, then shifted in his seat.

  “Last chance to back out.”

  “As if.” She opened her door and stepped out onto hard-packed snow. You asked for this, she reminded herself, hitching her pack—significantly lighter than Grant’s—onto her back.

  “Let’s check the beepers,” Grant said, flipping on the power to the avalanche beacons they would be wearing throughout their trip.

  Yesterday, during her crash course on avalanche safety, Grant had explained how the transce
ivers sent out a signal that rescuers could use to locate skiers who’d been completely buried during an avalanche.

  “Were Helena and Ramsey wearing these?” she asked. The transceiver felt heavy in her hand, although it was only the size of a large cell phone.

  “Probably, but we can’t be sure. We weren’t able to get close enough to the site to test for a signal. And we may not be able to this time, either. Of course, the batteries might be dead by now. Depends how fresh they were when they started out.”

  In one fluid motion, Grant shouldered his own pack. She’d checked out the items earlier and knew he carried, besides their sleeping bags and food, a first-aid kit, large snow shovel, sectional aluminum probes, a snow saw and an avalanche cord.

  “Okay?” He raised his sunglasses to scrutinize her expression.

  “You bet.” Amalie made herself speak with a confidence she wasn’t feeling. She felt dwarfed by the snow-capped trees around her, let alone the towering mountains that dominated the landscape in every direction.

  “Good.” He smiled, then brushed a gloved hand against her cheek. “Just to give you a quick orientation, that’s the Sir Donald Range to the east, the Asulkans to the west. We’ll be heading mostly south, alongside Asulkan Brook, toward Youngs Peak. The trail starts nice and easy but gets pretty steep about four kilometers in.”

  Amalie wondered what he meant by pretty steep. Once more she suffered doubts.

  “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

  “Would you stop saying that? I can do this, Grant.” Yeah, right.

  He smiled with grudging respect. “Of course you can. Okay, then. Let’s go.”

  Amalie started moving, following in Grant’s tracks. Cold wind skimmed over her skin, ruffling the loose strands of hair that had already escaped the long braid hanging down her back. Bright sunlight, its power magnified by the stark white snow, made it impossible for her to open her eyes without the protective sunglasses they’d bought yesterday.

  Her trip with Grant to a mountain-equipment store had precipitated another round of expenditures she couldn’t really afford. But at the moment, money was the least of her worries.

  If anything happened to her, there would be no one left for Davin. That was the worry that nagged at the back of her mind, that had made forcing down breakfast this morning such a chore.

  Poor Davin, she was really all he had. And if her parents did agree to take him in out of some sense of duty, she knew they would never love him the way she did.

  Even her desperate need to understand what had happened to Helena, though, wouldn’t have been enough to convince her to come on this trip if not for Grant.

  She focused on the man who was breaking trail in front of her, the man she was now trusting with her life, and, in a sense, Davin’s life too.

  Despite her fear, she knew he would keep them both safe.

  IF HELENA DID THIS, then so can I, Amalie told herself, as she pushed one foot in front of the other, trying to ignore the burning in her quadriceps.

  With the change in terrain, they’d stopped about an hour ago to attach skins to the bottom of their skis, and Amalie gave silent thanks for the wonderful fabric that allowed the skis to slide smoothly in one direction and provided resistance against backsliding.

  “Look, you can see the glacier ahead.” Grant had stopped to point out the impressive field of white ice.

  Amalie put her arm to her forehead and nodded. Pushing through her chest-tightening fear came a small thrill of excitement. The glacier sat astride some impressive peaks, and now Grant identified them like old friends.

  “That’s the Rampart, the Dome, Mount Jupiter.”

  Magnificent names for magnificent structures. Amalie’s breath caught and held as her gaze swept over them. Then, from nowhere, came the choking fear that had overtaken her at Jeremy’s party. The mountains and trees combined to form prison walls from which there was no escape.

  She was trapped. They were trapped. And there was so little air. Of course it would be thinner at this altitude. She tried to breathe faster to compensate.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” She gasped. “Yes. I think…maybe a little claustrophobic.”

  Grant put his arm around her shoulders. “Take a deep breath. Release slowly.”

  “I’m so-sorry.” She filled her lungs with air, then let it out in a slow stream. “I’m holding you up again.” Despite her efforts to push herself to the limit, she’d had to stop a lot. Over and over Grant had had to wait for her to catch up. They’d taken several breaks when she’d known he could have easily pushed on.

  “Hey, it’s okay. I budgeted time for this.” He eased her back to the natural ledge provided by a fallen tree. “Sit. We’ll have a snack and a little water.”

  Amalie sank down with a sigh. “My legs thank you, my lungs thank you, my stomach thanks you.” She took the water bottle Grant offered and drank eagerly. Before her was a postcard view of jagged mountain peaks blanketed with pristine white snow, contrasting with a sky of piercing, translucent blue.

  Beautiful, yes, but terrifying, too. She shifted her attention to her companion and thought that, all things considered, he was much safer to concentrate on.

  He appeared relaxed as he shuffled through the pack for trail mix. His color was normal, as was his breathing. She wondered what it was like to be in such good condition, and how she could fit regular exercise into her already frenetic schedule at home.

  Home. How far away it seemed now—their little duplex in Bloor West Village, with its inviting front porch and pretty wooden shutters. Again she mused that the money she’d spent these past few weeks had pushed her goal of ownership even further into the future. The knowledge should have depressed her. But at the moment, she was too exhausted to care.

  “Are we halfway?”

  “Almost.” Grant glanced toward the west. “Don’t worry. We’ll make it before dark.”

  The idea of being in these mountains during the night terrified her. But she’d worry about that later, find comfort in the fact that Grant didn’t seem at all concerned. He tilted his head back to take a drink, then brushed the moisture from his mouth with his hand.

  For a moment their glances caught, and in the bright sun she glimpsed traces of green in his eyes that she’d never noticed before.

  “We’ll be traveling across huge avalanche paths,” he said. “I think I’ve picked a safe route, but just to be careful, we should start skiing a little farther apart.”

  Yesterday he’d explained that this was standard procedure in avalanche territory. In case one of them triggered a release of the snow pack, the other wouldn’t be caught up in the same slide. She’d thought it a reasonable precaution then. But out here in the wilds she was scared to death.

  “How do you do it?”

  “What?” Grant was fitting his water bottle back into a loop at the side of his pack.

  “You have to be out in conditions like this all the time. Doesn’t it ever frighten you?”

  “I love this country,” he said simply. “Have since I first saw it.” He looked out to the peaks ahead of them and sucked in a deep breath of fresh air. “I feel so alive out here. Don’t you feel it, too?”

  What Amalie felt was the beginning of a bad headache, but she didn’t dare tell Grant that. She didn’t want to be the cause of any more delay. Darkness in this desolate wilderness was going to be bad enough. If they didn’t make the hut, however, it would be a nightmare.

  “SEE. I TOLD YOU WE’D MAKE IT.”

  Amalie raised her head but couldn’t see what Grant was talking about. Her calves burned, her feet hurt and each forward step was agony. A throbbing pain had started at her temples, and her head felt so heavy she was surprised she didn’t topple over with the weight of it.

  Fatigue. She hadn’t known the meaning of the word until now, but as of today, she was intimately acquainted with it.

  Push and glide. Push and glide. She moved ahead a few feet, then a fe
w more. Now Grant was near enough that she could reach out an arm and touch his elbow.

  “Are we close to the hut?”

  “We’re there.” He sounded calm and confident, but Amalie wasn’t fooled. She knew he’d been worried for a while.

  “I still don’t see it.”

  Grant pointed. She squinted. A patch of brown stood out against the white backdrop. Mobilizing her last resources, she moved forward again.

  No wonder it had been hard to spot. The gentle A-line roof—fringed with thick, blue-tinged icicles—was weighed down by about four feet of dense white powder. Amalie and Grant left their skis outside, propped against the wall by the door.

  The inside was basic. A table. Some chairs. Bunks to sleep about a dozen, and a propane stove for warmth. Amalie couldn’t have cared less about the amenities. She’d made it.

  Thump. Her backpack slid off her shoulders to the floor, and she followed. To think she’d worried about spending the night with Grant.

  “Wake me when it’s morning.”

  He laughed, stepping over her as if she were a puddle, to get to the stockpile of propane. “Oh, I think you’ll revive before then. Just wait till I have this baby burning. You’ll be surprised how much heat it puts out.”

  “Whatever.” Amalie shut her eyes, feeling the blessed relief of being able to relax all her muscles at the same time. She truly didn’t know where Grant got his energy. After seven hours on the trail, he was hustling around the small hut, even humming as he unpacked cooking utensils from his apparently bottomless backpack.

  Amalie concentrated on the tune, knowing she’d heard it recently. The lyrics still tantalizingly out of reach, she drifted off to sleep. It felt like seconds later that she opened her eyes, but she knew it had been longer. Grant had several pots boiling on top of the stove. They smelled good.

  She sat up.

  “Hey, you’re looking better.” Grant ripped open a small packet and added it to the largest pot. The aroma of chicken broth filled the hut.

  “Lord, I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired.”