A Sister Would Know. C.J. Carmichael
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not as high-pitched; or maybe it was just that she spoke slower and more quietly. One thing that was the same, however, was the slight German accent.
“No. I didn’t know.” But he sure as hell wished he had. He stood and offered his hand. “I’m Grant Thorlow.”
“Yes.” Her hand and words were cool. “I’m Amalie Fremont and this is my nephew, Davin.”
He noticed the tiny emphasis she placed on her first name, and inwardly shrugged. He was aware he’d made a bad impression over the phone. But she’d been so damn unreasonable, insisting on traveling all this way, and for what?
He realized the kid was staring at him. “Hey, Davin.”
“This place is totally awesome.”
Amalie took a small step forward. “Davin is my sister’s son.”
Whoa. Helen Fremont had had a kid? He would never have guessed, had never heard anyone refer to a child.
“Officially, I’m his mother. I adopted him at birth.”
Which meant Helen had deserted him at birth. Now, that he had no difficulty believing.
“Well, I’m sorry about your mother, Davin—and your sister.” He looked back at Amalie, jolted yet again at the resemblance between the two women. And this time by the difference, as well. It was in the eyes, he decided. Helena’s had been the blue of a shallow pond. Amalie’s held the intensity of a deep mountain lake, glacier fed.
“We haven’t heard from Helena for a while. But last I knew she was living in Seattle. I can’t imagine what could have drawn her to this place.”
He took the insult to his home without a blink.
“And I certainly can’t picture her skiing in dangerous mountain terrain.” Amalie placed her hands on his desk, her blond hair swinging forward as she leaned in toward him. “Helena was a timid person, and she was never very athletic.”
Timid? Grant thought of the woman he’d seen several times in the local pub. Clearly tipsy, dressed provocatively and hanging on to the arm of first one man, then another. She’d danced with wild abandon and drawn most, if not all, eyes to the dance floor. If this Amalie wasn’t so exactly like her sister, Grant might have thought they were referring to different women. He took Helen’s wallet from his drawer and passed it over.
“This was your sister’s.”
Amalie blinked. “Where did you find it?”
“In an overnight camping hut on the Asulkan Ridge. She and Ramsey Carter skied in Saturday and spent the night there.”
He swallowed, remembering the shock of finding out that it was Helen Fremont on the mountain with Ramsey, then seeing the horrible swath the avalanche had cut down the side of the mountain and knowing his friend was buried beneath it.
As if she was sharing his memories, Amalie’s face, already pale, grew whiter. She reached across the desk to open the soft, light-brown leather packet that had belonged to her sister. Inside, he knew, was only a social insurance card, a bank card and five dollars cash.
“Oh, Helena.”
The whisper was laced with pain. Damn, but the woman looked ready to faint. Grant hurried around the desk to find her a chair. “Sit down. I’ll get you some water.”
He brought two small paper cups—one for the boy, as well. They both emptied them, while he watched, fascinated, almost freaked out by the resemblance between the two sisters.
When she was done, Amalie tossed hers in the trash. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“I can tell you what we think happened. We went up to investigate when Ramsey didn’t return at the expected time—all overnight skiers have to register with the warden’s office. Unfortunately, we weren’t on the scene until about eighteen hours after the avalanche occurred.”
He led her to a topographical map pinned to the wall. “Here’s the Asulkan Hut, where they spent the night. Late Sunday morning we figure they traveled in this direction.” He traced a path south alongside Asulkan Brook.
“They were relatively safe up on this ridge, but for some reason they approached the lip of a steep mountain bowl we call the Pterodactyl. The slope, covered in fresh-fallen snow, would’ve tempted an inexperienced skier.”
He crossed his arms, thinking of Ramsey, who was a doctor, not an avalanche specialist, but who’d grown up in mountain country and was definitely not inexperienced. Which meant Helen was the one who’d made the mistake, compelling Ramsey to follow after her.
“We think Helen went first,” he said, “triggering a hard-slab avalanche with a path length of around 1,500 meters.”
“What do you mean, hard slab?” Davin’s eyes were round.
“When the snow releases on a mountain sometimes it scatters into powder as it cascades down the slope. Other times it breaks into big chunks like the ones we saw in the debris of this avalanche. There’s a lot of power behind the huge hunks of snow as they tear down those slopes. Enough power to uproot huge trees, that’s for sure.”
Amalie was getting paler by the second. She reached out to her nephew, as if an arm could shelter him from the awful reality. “But until you’ve found the bodies, we won’t know for sure….”
The woman obviously had no idea what they were dealing with. He tried to break it to her gently. “I’ve got a lot of experience with snow and mountains. Worked at Avalanche Control here at Rogers Pass for over ten years.” He leaned against the wall, folded his arms across his chest. “In my opinion, there’s no doubt your sister is dead.”
Along with Ramsey Carter. A good man who hadn’t deserved to die.
Amalie remained skeptical. “What if someone stole Helena’s wallet? Maybe she was never on that trail.”
“Then why didn’t she show up for work the next day?”
Amalie’s gaze circled the small office. “She could have moved on.”
“How would she have left? She sold her car shortly after she got here, before Christmas. We’d know if she took a bus or chartered a plane.”
“Stop!”
Amalie had her hand to her forehead, and he immediately saw what an ass he was being.
“I’m sorry. I realize it can’t be easy.” He stared past the visitors, reminding himself it wasn’t their fault Helen had been so careless, so foolish. These people were suffering, like him, like Ramsey’s family.
He tried to explain. “I just don’t want you to have false hopes.” What they couldn’t know was that he’d been through this so many times before.
“I understand.” Amalie Fremont’s voice sounded bleak. “But if you’d known my sister.”
She’d said that to him before, during their phone call. But he felt he had known her sister. At least, her type. He sat back at his desk and picked up his pen to sign the requisition forms in front of him.
Amalie returned to the chair, leaving Davin by the map. He sensed her presence as she leaned over his desk, and finally gave in and looked up. In a low voice she said, “You didn’t like Helena very much, did you?”
Now, there was an understatement. He’d first met the woman shortly before Christmas, and found her flighty, brittle and insincere, qualities he detested in anyone, whether male or female.
He liked her even less now. Undoubtedly, her reckless skiing had caused that avalanche. Ramsey Carter was dead because of her.
If only she’d never passed through their quiet mountain community. Her brand of trouble belonged in the big city as far as he was concerned and he was sure plenty of others would agree with him.
As far as the twin