Diane Davidson - Tough Cookie

I had to get the tape off my hands. My only choice was to feel with my tongue around the duct tape till I came to an edge. Then I began, slowly, laboriously, with my teeth, to tug off the tape. The blood running down my face didn’t make the task any easier. But at least biting and wrenching the tape off, centimeter by centimeter, took my mind off the cold, the smell, the canister swaying and creaking in the frigid wind, high above the mountain.

When I finally had the tape off, the canister clanked onto the track, then began to move laboriously toward the warehouse. I was on the ground, but where? How long had I been on the gondola? Ten minutes? Twenty? What had Jack been doing? I knew he kept ski equipment at the bistro. Would he try to ski down in the moonlight? How long would it take for him to get his equipment on—five, six minutes? How long to schuss down from the top? The fastest I’d ever made it was six minutes, and I was nowhere near the expert skier Jack was.

Suddenly the canister shuddered and stopped. I clambered up through the trash to the metal door. My heart sank. Through the holes of my cage, the moonlight on the slope showed the canister was only halfway down the track to the Killdeer base. I wasn’t even in sight of the warehouse. Jack must have stopped the lift engine from the peak. Dammit.

I peered down through the holes in the metal. The moonlight illuminated much of the mountain, including nearby woods and what looked like a catwalk or cleared path of snow. With blood pounding in my ears, I pushed on the container door. It swung open.

I leaped out and looked all around. Had Rorry missed me and called Tom? Would he call someone to go looking for me?

I tried to get my bearings. The cleared path was not a catwalk, I realized. It had a plastic orange fence going up one side … The construction road! If I followed it, I would get down to the Rover where I had a spare key in the wheel-well.

I hobbled over to the road and started to run. Within seconds, my chest burned with the exertion and the cold. Did I hear something? I stopped, panting, looked up the moonlit slope, and saw the shadow of a lone skier. I turned and again ran. Could I possibly make it to the Rover before Jack caught up with me? My brain cursed my agonized legs. How far to the parking lot? Maybe fifteen minutes, if I could keep up this brutal pace. I ran and ran, and after an eternity, reached the fork that led back to the parking lot and trailhead to Elk Ridge. Wheezing, I stopped and tried to catch my breath.

Scritch, scratch. Scritch-scratch . Very regularly, the sound came from behind me. Scritch-scratch . I glanced back. Jack, on skis, was poling swiftly along the snow-covered road, cross-country-style. He was perhaps fifty feet behind me. Damn . I moved my legs as fast as they were able to go. But I knew in my heart I’d never make it to the Rover before he closed the gap.

And he had at least two more shots left.

With sudden decision, I ran up the snowpacked road of the left fork, toward the construction site. On skis, Jack could go swiftly downhill; as fit and muscular as he was, he could traverse flat terrain quickly as well. But he could not go uphill on skis, unless he was Superman. I had to get to the guard’s cabin first.

Low clouds, silvered by the moonlight, rolled across the sky. How far was the cabin, if the dirt road ran right across the valley? A half-mile? A mile? Jack would have to stop; he would have to remove his skis and boots . No one could run in that clunky footwear. You can beat him , I told myself. All you have to do is run .

I looked over my shoulder. Scritch-scratch, scritch-scratch . Jack was gaining on me. I even thought I saw him smiling at me.

“Goldy!” he called placatingly. “Stop! Let’s talk!”

Yeah, sure. I ran up the track. A sudden pool of darkness swallowed me and I slowed. Tall pines loomed on the right side of the construction fence, casting black, swaying shadows on the road. Run , I ordered myself. But whatever you do, don’t fall. If you do, you’ll die .

Behind me, the sounds of Jack removing his ski equipment were barely audible. Damn it . I couldn’t believe he would still follow me. He couldn’t be tried again for Fiona’s murder. Why not run away, rather than risk exposure? Because he’d told me he had killed Doug Portman. Because he desperately wanted Eileen’s money. The tape would show Eileen and the world that Jack had murdered his first wife to get her fortune. Eileen would dump him; he would go to prison for murdering Portman and the truck driver he’d killed on Interstate 70, when he’d been trying to nail me.

I came to the spot in the road where it veered upward and became the old hiking trail. I did not know how far the trail went before it diverged—a high side leading to Elk Ridge, the low, level side heading through the valley. As I ran, I peered into the darkness. Was the faint light I saw the guard’s cabin far, far up the hill? Or were my eyes playing tricks?

The wind whispered in the pines. In the moonlight, I could make out lodgepole pine branches littering the slick, snow-hard road. The branches had been blown down by the wind. I would have to be careful; stepping on them would alert Jack to my location. Had he found the road yet? How fast could he go in stocking feet? He was almost ten years younger than I was, and an athlete. Grimly, I quickened my pace.

Minutes later, winded and puffing, I was wondering if, in the dark, I had missed the turnoff to Elk Valley. Then, as I fought down panic, it suddenly appeared on the left, and stopped me in my tracks. The left-hand split to the old hiking path was completely blocked with a gigantic pile of dead trees. The sign posted on the trees saying Warning——Avalanche Area——Do Not Enter! filled me with alarm. I couldn’t climb over the pile of trees … it was eight or nine feet high. But going through the valley was the fastest way to the expansion area—and the security guard’s cabin.

To my consternation, I suddenly realized the construction road ran over Elk Ridge. For a moment, the wind ceased shuffling through the trees. Behind me, the faint huffing noise drew nearer. Jack was coming.

I whispered a prayer. Then I headed up the hill.

How far to the cabin now? Twenty minutes? I tried not to think. Just head upward . Up, up, up, no time for rest, despite the fact that my sides were screaming with pain.

Ten minutes later, the wide, shimmering expanse where Cinda had started her fatal run in Nate’s film opened up on my left. It was startlingly beautiful, like a giant’s sugar bowl, steeply tipped, frozen hard, glittering in the moonlight. And—people will never learn—running straight across the steep, concave space were the unmistakable paths of half a dozen ski tracks. At the other end of the ski tracks, set perhaps twenty feet into the pines, the lights of the security guard’s cabin glowed yellow in the shadows. I could just make out the path of the construction road. It ran across the treed top of the ridge, then curved right down to a parking lot surrounding the cabin.

I looked behind me. Jack was about a hundred feet back, running methodically, despite socks, despite ice and snow.

Think . The fastest way to the cabin was straight across the steep bowl, the way the ski tracks ran. But I could never go that way. It was too dangerous, especially after all the new snow we’d had. Still, I didn’t have time to go over the forested ridge and make it to the cabin. Even if I could run straight on the road the whole way over, Jack would come straight across and cut me off.

Stay in the trees , I decided. Above the bowl, but below the road. It’s the only safe way. Hug the shadows, stay off the moonlit side of the road. When you get near the cabin, call for help . I ran.