A Sister Would Know

For Helena, that struggle had been harder. Amalie was certain that was why she’d moved so far from home, so rarely kept in touch.

It was because of her, and the knowledge hurt. Firstborn, Amalie had always felt responsible for Helena. Yet no matter how she tried, in the end she’d always let her sister down.

Closing her eyes, she attempted to focus in on her subconscious communication with her sister. Amalie pressed her hands to her temples, tightened her jaw. Phone me, Helena!

But it wasn’t until the following evening that the call finally came. And it wasn’t from her sister.

AMALIE WAS LIFTING the lid from a pot of boiling water when she heard the first ring. The lid slipped from her fingers and fell back on the pot with a clash, sending bubbling water spraying over the element, where it hissed angrily.

She turned off the heat, then reached for the phone, praying it wouldn’t be another call from her mother.

“Hello?”

A throat cleared over the line before a man identified himself. “This is Grant Thorlow. I’m the manager of the Avalanche Control Section of Highway Services in Glacier National Park.”

The bombardment of words, none of them familiar, had her groping for pen and paper. First she scribbled down his name: Grant Thorlow. “Where did you say you were calling from?”

“Rogers Pass,” he said. “That’s in British Columbia.”

“Yes. Of course.” The treacherous Rocky Mountain corridor of the Trans-Canada Highway was a well-known Canadian landmark.

“I was wondering…” He paused, and she could hear him swallow. “Is there any chance you’re acquainted with a woman named Helen Fremont?”

This was it. She clung to the receiver, fear and hope making her heart pound. “Do you mean Helena?”

“I don’t think so. It says Helen here on her bank card.”

Amalie discounted the small difference. Helena had never been happy with the old-fashioned German names their parents had baptized them with. “What does she look like?”

The resulting pause was alarming, giving Amalie time to consider possibilities. There’d been an accident. Helena was in the hospital.

“Tall, blond, blue eyes,” he said finally. “In her late twenties.”

“That’s my sister. Is she okay?”

With any luck the injuries would be minor.

Grant’s response crushed her hopes. “No. I’m afraid she isn’t. We’ve been searching for next of kin for most of the day. Your sister didn’t carry a lot of identification on her. We found your phone number in her apartment, but there was no name”

“Never mind about that.” The man’s rambling was driving her crazy. She gripped her pen and tried to keep her voice level. “Please tell me what happened.”

“Well…” Again he cleared his throat. “I’m sorry ma’am, but we believe your sister was caught in the path of an avalanche yesterday afternoon. At this point, we’re presuming she’s dead.” Another pause, then he added, his voice a little rougher this time, “Both she and the man she was skiing with.”

Dead. Amalie’s hand went to her heart. Oh, she’d known, she’d known.

But wait one minute. “Presumed dead? Does that mean there’s some chance—”

“I’m afraid not, ma’am. We haven’t been able to retrieve the body, but there’s no doubt Helen Fremont was skiing on that mountain when the snow released. Her backpack and personal effects have been positively identified.”

“But…” Amalie remembered family vacations at Mount Tremblant, with Helena complaining about the cold, the discomfort of her downhill equipment, the long lineups to use the lifts.

“There has to be a mistake. My sister isn’t the type to go skiing in dangerous mountain terrain.” Still, this man had found her phone number….

Amalie dropped the pen and pressed her hand to her forehead. She was afraid she was going to burst into sobs. If only she could hold off a minute or two. While she had this man on the line, she didn’t want to break down.

“Are you sure it was Helena on that mountain, Mr.—” she glanced at the paper “—Thorlow.”

That throat-clearing business again, then he said, “Look, I realize this is a shock…”

“Yes, it is. But if you knew my sister…”

“I knew her.” His voice held a quiet certainty. “I knew her, ma’am, and I can assure you there’s been no mistake.”

Dear God, he sounded so positive and at the same time so callous, as if he didn’t want there to be any mistake. And the way he kept saying “ma’am” made her want to scream. This is my sister you’re talking about!

Amalie closed her eyes, desperately seeking that old connection that would tell her Helena was alive and not buried on some distant mountain.

She felt nothing, though.

The man was right. She’d known it herself. Helena was dead.

Hearing the horrible fact was one thing. Accepting it was another. Helena dying in an avalanche was just—preposterous. This Grant Thorlow didn’t seem to realize that. But this wasn’t something you settled over the phone.

“I’ll leave tomorrow, Mr. Thorlow.” She thought of rearranging her work schedule, Davin’s schooling. “Maybe Wednesday.”

“You’re not thinking of coming here!”

“Of course I am.” God, she’d have to travel across Ontario, through the prairies of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, then Alberta and the Rocky Mountains.

“We may not be able to recover the bodies for a while, ma’am. Conditions are—”

“You said you were calling from Rogers Pass—is there a town?”

“Golden to the east and Revelstoke to the west. Rogers Pass itself is midway between the two. There’s an information center and hotel on one side of the highway and our office compound on the other. That’s where I’m calling from.”

“Helena’s apartment—where is it?”

“Revelstoke,” he said. “But—”

“I’m coming,” she repeated firmly. “And I’ll be bringing my nephew—”

Oh, Davin. How would he take the news? He’d never been close to Helena, of course. How could he be—they heard from her so rarely. But she was his mother.

“Ma’am.” There was a new, hard edge to his voice. “I strongly recommend you stay home, ma’am. Roads are especially treacherous in these winter months. Besides, there’s little you can do.”

Amalie knew what he meant. If her sister was dead, nothing could change that. So why tackle an arduous cross-country trip?

But the alternative was staying in Toronto, never knowing exactly what had happened. She couldn’t live with that. “There may not be much I can do. But I’m coming anyway.”