J Moncrieff - Return to Dyatlov Pass

“But he has gotten to you. Pretending he hasn’t is costing you more than giving in. Once he’s blocked, it’s over. You’ll move on and forget you ever heard from him.”

If only it were that easy. “He’ll probably set up another account.”

“Those creeps never do. You know that. They have their fun, and once it’s over, they move on and torment someone else.”

“You really don’t think he has a point?” Nat studied Andrew’s face, fancying she’d be able to tell if he lied to her. Though he’d recently celebrated his thirtieth birthday, her producer could pass for a high school kid, and thankfully, he still had the energy of one.

“No,” he said, his bottle-green eyes meeting hers without flinching. “I really don’t. I think he’s full of shit, and the fact this jerk is getting to you pisses me off.”

“Thanks.” To humor him, she deleted the email, but it didn’t matter. Cliff’s words would run through her mind for at least the next hour or three, torturing her. “But maybe he’s right. Maybe this show has become all talk. It’s been a long while since I’ve done anything noteworthy.”

“And what’s he done, besides jerk off and spew hatred from behind his computer? Probably lives in his mom’s basement, eating Cheetos and swigging Mountain Dew.”

A ghost of a smile played over her lips. That was exactly how she pictured Cliff. But Cheetos or no Cheetos, it didn’t mean the guy was wrong. In years past, no adventure had been too dangerous or too difficult. She’d braved Poveglia, otherwise known as the most haunted island in the world. She’d spent the night in the Winchester Mystery House, explored the bowels of the Queen Mary with only a flashlight, and puked her guts out in Romania’s Hoia Baciu .

Lately, though, she’d become complacent. Sure, she’d go on the odd ghost tour or hunt for Bigfoot in a national park, but there hadn’t been anything remotely risky in far too long. Troll or no troll, Cliff was right. She talked the talk without walking the walk. She’d lost her authenticity, the very thing that had made her cast popular in the first place.

“Look, he’s a freak. He’s obsessed. You need to let it go. You don’t have time to worry about the Cliffs of the world and their deranged opinions.”

It was true; she didn’t. But still…

“It would be one hell of a challenge though, wouldn’t it? That story has always bugged me. Did you know it’s been almost sixty years, and they still have no idea what happened to those people?”

Andrew rolled his eyes. “And they never will. It’s a loser, Nat. Not to mention suicide.”

She bristled, as he’d no doubt expected. In his own way, Andrew was pretty damn good at baiting her too. “You forget I’m Canadian. I’m not soft like you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Spare me your stories of growing up in an igloo and getting to school on a dogsled. You were raised in Vancouver, which is hardly the Russian mountains.”

“Vancouver is where I went to college, not where I was raised. Shows how little you know. We may not have had igloos in my hometown, but the Iditarod champion lived just down the block.”

“Whatever. Is that really how you want to spend your vacation, freezing your ass off on some godforsaken Russian mountain, attempting to solve a mystery that’s almost six decades old?”

“You have to admit, it sounds like fun, doesn’t it?” Cliff’s latest taunt-fest forgotten, her mind was already packing. “Gets the blood racing again.”

“Schlepping around on a suicide mission is the opposite of fun. Not to mention it’s been done—if you’ll forgive the expression—to death.”

Calling Nat unoriginal was almost as bad as calling her a coward. “By whom? When?”

“Come on, Nat. Everyone and their uncle’s BuzzFeed has written about the Dyatlov Pass incident. It’s hardly groundbreaking. If you’re going to risk your life, at least find some nice possessed girl no one else has discovered yet.”

She snorted, hoping to convey an appropriate amount of disdain. “Those listicles? They don’t come close to doing it justice. All they do is recycle the same Wikipedia content and slap a new byline on it. If I were to do this, I’d do it right. Get a team together and investigate what really happened out there. Who knows, maybe we’d come up with some answers. Or at least an interesting theory.”

“Gee, that’s never been done. No one’s ever made a movie about it.”

“That was fiction, Andrew. And I’m hardly a wet-behind-the-ears film student with delusions of grandeur.”

“No, you’re an experienced journalist. Which is why I’m shocked you’re even considering this. What makes you think the Russian government would cooperate? Trust me, it’s a waste of time. You’re letting this guy bait you into an early grave.”

“Have you no mystery in your soul? Doesn’t it intrigue you, even a little?” The more he argued against it, the more excited she got. All her best ideas had begun with people insisting she was insane. It wasn’t like wandering a deserted island infested with the bubonic plague had been the wisest course of action, but people loved that shit. Her ratings had skyrocketed, and the sponsors had followed. “Let me put it this way—would a nice big raise intrigue you?”

The corner of Andrew’s mouth twitched. Just for a second, but it was enough. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll call the Russian embassy this afternoon.”

“You’re awesome.”

“And you’re insane.”

“Thanks.” Slipping on her earphones, she hummed along to the music.

It had been too long since someone had called her that. And damn, it felt good.

Her cell woke her in the middle of the night, which for Nat was more like three in the morning. Startled from a nightmare where the Russians had rejected her passport and thrown her in the gulag, she groped for the phone, disoriented.

“Andrew?”

She’d almost gotten used to her producer calling her at all hours. Once he’d realized she wasn’t going to change her mind about Dyatlov, he’d jumped into preparations wholeheartedly, and part of that was assembling the best team on the planet. That meant Canadians. Nat didn’t care how many champion rock climbers resided in California—she wanted people who understood cold, who had experience surviving extreme temperatures. It had taken Andrew a while to succumb to her logic (and to see that it was logic, not some twisted form of patriotism for the old country) but once he did, he’d embraced it with a vengeance. He’d managed to convince a young Inuit couple to come along for the ride. Anubha and her husband Joe followed the traditional ways, and Anubha was a skilled tracker. Her knowledge of arctic wildlife would serve the team well. While Nat had no desire to turn her investigation into a survival show, it was wise not to depend entirely on their supplies.

So far, Andrew had soared over every hurdle she’d put in front of him. Except one. Nat wanted a Mansi on the team. She didn’t believe that bullshit about the native tribe being unwilling to set foot on Dead Mountain. Not for a second. Everyone had a price.

This had to be her producer phoning in triumph, telling her he’d achieved every condition she’d set.

“Andrew, you’re a genius. How on earth did you find one?”

“I’m happy to see you’re taking my advice.”

Nat stiffened. The voice, rough as a cheese grater over gravel, was not her producer’s. “Who is this?”

“You know who it is. What you should be asking is why it took me so long to call.”

“Cliff.”

“Bingo.”

She clutched the sheets tighter, bringing them closer around her body. “How did you get this number?” Her cell was unlisted, private. Very few people had access to it, and that was the way she liked it. She certainly didn’t share it with her audience.