Murder at Eagle Summit

A memory surfaced. Last night, standing on the balcony, the figure trudging across the slopes in the moonlight. Later, the chairlift starting to move. Had she seen the man moments before he caught a lift ride to his death?

She turned in time to see the woman at the front desk point toward the coffee shop. The teenager ran across the lobby and dashed through the door.

“Did you hear that?” Debbie’s round eyes swept the group around the fireplace.

“I certainly did.” Grandma grabbed Debbie’s hand over the back of the couch. “Deborah, we must find another location for the wedding immediately, though where we’ll find someplace suitable on such short notice is beyond me. I’ll call Reverend Bowers and see if he can free up the sanctuary.”

Debbie shook her head, confusion creasing her forehead. “Why do we need to move the wedding?”

Grandma’s nostrils flared. “You can’t have a wedding on a property where a death has just occurred!”

Ryan returned to the group. Liz looked up in time to see Tim disappear into the coffee shop.

“Tim’s going to see if he can help,” Ryan told them. “He’ll join us on the slopes after the sheriff gets here.”

Startled, Liz’s gaze flew to Ryan’s face. “The sheriff? Why?”

Ryan shrugged. “Routine, I guess. A death at a local business probably needs an official statement or something. And somebody has to notify the next of kin and all that.”

Debbie looked up into his face. “Do you think we should move the wedding?”

Ryan put an arm around her waist and squeezed. “No. This place is just what we wanted for our big day.” He lowered his voice. “But I don’t think we’ll ski here today. I’m sure they’ll have to close that lift for a while, and that will shut down all the runs it services.”

Debbie looked at Jazzy. “If you’re still planning on skiing today you might want to go with the guys.”

“You’re welcome to join us,” Ryan said. “We’ll probably head over to Park City Mountain.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Jazzy said, and Caitlin nodded. “I’ve never been on skis, so I can learn there as well as here.”

“Park City Mountain’s ski school is really good,” Debbie said. “You can sign up for a lesson when you buy your lift ticket.”

The sight of that figure carrying a snowboard across the snow would not leave Liz’s mind. She really didn’t want to go into that coffee shop with Tim in there, but what if she was the only one who had witnessed the dead person’s final moments? She stood abruptly. Everyone looked at her.

“I need to talk to Mr. Harrison,” she said.

Grandma’s voice followed her. “We have a schedule to keep today!”

“I’ll only be a minute.”

Liz stepped through the open doorway in time to hear the end of the teenager’s account. Tim glanced at her once, then returned his attention to the kid. Thank goodness. Even that brief glance made her want to scurry for cover, like a bug on the kitchen floor. She had forgotten how handsome he was. Or maybe she’d just wanted to forget. Either way, she certainly hadn’t anticipated feeling a surge of attraction when she saw him again, and she didn’t like it. Not one bit.

“…and Cameron said he thought it was a joke, you know? Like the time Dawson dressed up his mom’s sewing dummy in ski clothes and sent it up the lift. But when Cameron tried to pull it off, he saw it wasn’t no dummy.” The kid’s eyes went round. “It was a dead guy.”

Mr. Harrison emitted a strangled moan.

“Where is the body now?” Tim’s voice held an authoritative note that Liz had never heard. Of course, he had become a deputy after she moved to Kentucky, so she’d never seen him in an official capacity. His steady tone acted as a calming counterpoint to the teenager’s shrill delivery.

“Up at the top of the lift, lying on the unloading ramp. It fell off the chair when Cameron jerked it.” He included Liz in his explanation. A patch of stark white skin surrounded his eyes like a mask on his deeply tanned face, caused by hours in the sun wearing ski goggles. He looked back at Mr. Harrison. “He called the base, and Mrs. Harrison sent the ski patrol over there. Then she told me to come tell you, because you didn’t answer your cell phone.”

“It’s back in my office.” Mr. Harrison’s expression became apprehensive. “Did Cameron say who it was?”

The teen shrugged. “He didn’t say.”

Tim unzipped the breast pocket of his ski suit and pulled out a cell phone. “I’ll call the sheriff.”

The resort owner started visibly, then gave a resigned nod. “Thank you, Brandon. Tell Mrs. Harrison we’ll need a couple of snowmobiles when the sheriff arrives.”

Brandon nodded and left, leaving Liz alone with Mr. Harrison…and Tim. He spoke into his phone in curt, clipped sentences. Mr. Harrison watched from his position on the other side of the counter, while Liz stood next to Tim, so close she could smell the subtle scent of his aftershave. He was still wearing the same brand he’d worn in college. She took a sideways step, putting a comfortable distance between her and her ex-fiancе.

Tim disconnected the call and dropped it back into his pocket. Only then did he finally look at her, his expression politely blank. “Did you need something?”

“I—” Liz cleared her throat. “I might have seen something. Last night. Uh, I mean this morning. Early.” Unable to hold his gaze, she addressed Mr. Harrison as she described her late-night episode on the balcony.

“Let me get this straight,” Tim interrupted. “You saw a man walking up the slope in the middle of the night, and you didn’t think that was odd?”

“At first I thought he might be a local looking for loot dropped from skiers on the lift, you know?” She avoided looking at him, not wanting him to see that she was remembering how they’d done that a couple of times themselves, searching for lost treasures by the light of the moon.

“Locals don’t typically turn on the chairlifts.”

His cool, professional tone sent heat to Liz’s face. “When the lift started running, I figured it was an employee doing an equipment check or something.”

“At one-thirty in the morning?”

“Some employees have to work late into the night, especially at the resorts with night skiing.” She hated that her voice sounded defensive.

“Eagle Summit doesn’t have night skiing,” Tim said.

“Well, how was I to know that?” she shot back. “I’ve been gone three years, you know.”

“I know.” His mouth clamped shut on the last word.

“Do you think the deceased is an employee?” Mr. Harrison seemed alarmed at the thought. “Surely not. It must be a snowboarder who snuck by the lift operator during the final sweep yesterday, trying to get in one last run. At least—” he paused to swallow hard “—that’s what I thought until I heard Miss Carmichael’s story.”

Tim nodded. “We’ll need to pull the daily logs and verify that the operators on duty yesterday recorded a good last chair, but if what Liz says is true, I’m guessing the end-of-day procedures will all check out.”

“Maybe it was somebody trying to do a little unauthorized night skiing,” Liz suggested. “Some of those extreme boarders are crazy, you know.”

Liz snapped her mouth shut. No need to remind Tim about the nature of snowboarders. He had been an extreme snowboarder and skier during college. He’d skied anything and everything that had even a thin layer of snow, inbounds if he had to, out of bounds preferably. He and his buddies had worked as part-time lift operators, not for the pay, but for the free lift passes.

Why couldn’t she just keep her mouth shut and resist the urge to remind Tim of the past? For some crazy reason Liz wanted to jab at him, to cut through that professional mask and get a glimpse of the Tim she knew so well.

Tim ignored the jab. From the corner of her eye she saw him watching her, but she refused to look at him. Instead, she focused her attention on Mr. Harrison.

The poor guy looked as if he might faint. He bent at the waist and planted his elbows on the counter to drop his forehead onto his hands. “This is terrible. Think of the publicity.”

Odd reaction, considering someone had died. “Publicity?” Liz asked.

The resort owner nodded without raising his head. “I know, I know. What a self-centered response, and completely mercenary. Some poor man froze to death right here on our property. I’m sorry for him and his family, I really am. But do you know what this is going to do to us?” He tilted his head to look up at her without straightening. “We’re barely making our payroll as it is. If word of a death at Eagle Summit gets out, who’s going to want to ski here? This could sink us.”