Cold Conspiracy

“And now we’re adults, and we don’t have to pretend we’re two old pals.”

“I don’t know why not,” he said. “There was a time I knew you better than anyone—and you knew me better.”

“Like you said, that was seven years ago.” A lot had happened since then. She wasn’t the same woman anymore.

“We’re going to be working together on this case,” he said. “We shouldn’t be enemies.”

“You’re not my enemy.” Did he really think that? “But we can’t be…close…anymore.”

“Why not?”

Because if she let him too close, she knew she would fall for him again. And she couldn’t trust him to not leave her again—at the next promotion, or if someone better came along. He had proved before that he looked out for his own interests and he wasn’t one to stick with a relationship if things got tough. “It would be too complicated,” she said. “I know you don’t like that.” He had said that when he broke up with her before. There’s no sense us staying together. It would be too complicated.

Was that sound him grinding his teeth together? “You’ve got a lot of wrong ideas about me,” he said.

“You’re the one who gave them to me.”

“Fine. Have it your way. We won’t be ‘close’—whatever that means to you. But we can be civil. Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Now I’d better go. We’ll have another long day tomorrow. Good night.”

She didn’t wait for him to answer but hung up. She’d handled that well, she thought. No sense starting something that was bound to end badly. She’d been very mature and matter-of-fact. She ought to be proud of herself.

She knew a lot about grief now. The pain never went away, but with time, it always got better.

NATE SCANNED THE sheltered meadow at the base of Mount Wilson with his binoculars, counting the number of elk in the small herd gathered there. Most of them still looked to be in good shape, but this would be a good place to put one of the feeding stations the Department of Wildlife had decided to set up starting this weekend. Local ranchers and hunters had volunteered to help distribute the hay and pellets to the three main feeding sites in the area. The supplies were being delivered by helicopter, which meant the project wouldn’t be hampered by the still-closed highway.

He entered the information about the herd into a database on his phone, then snowshoed back to the trailhead where he had left his truck. Once inside the cab, with the heater turned up high, he headed down the road, his speed at a crawl, alert for signs of anything unusual. As he passed the turnout toward a closed campground, he caught a flash of color through the trees and stopped. The binoculars came out and he zeroed in on a dark gray SUV parked up against an icy expanse of exposed rock. He scanned the area and focused in on two climbers halfway up the ice.