Murder at Eagle Summit. Virginia Smith
Jason at arm’s length, handing out orders with no explanation and expecting unquestioning obedience. Like Jason was some kind of flunky or something.
Duke smiled. “Good. I think that’s all we need from you, then. You can go.”
Disgust curled one corner of the man’s mouth. “You brought me out here for that?”
“Unless you’d like to stay and hear the rest of the plan. I’m sure we can find another part for you to play. I rather thought you preferred not to dirty your hands with the details, though.”
Jason had a hard time keeping a straight face at the speed with which the guy snapped his goggles over his eyes and zipped away, pushing his board across the snow with his unbound boot. Within seconds he was lost from view in the blinding snow beyond the mass of trees.
A gust of wind whistled through the pine needles and rattled the branches above them. A mound of snow fell on Jason’s skis. He used the tip of his pole to scrape it off.
“So my part of the plan,” he said, “is to go through her room tomorrow when she leaves. You got a passkey for me?”
“I have a passkey.” Duke pulled the glove off his right hand and shoved it under his left arm. “And I have something else, another little thing to take care of.”
Jason stabbed the pole into the soft snow. Duke always had a “little thing” he wanted Jason to take care of. Next thing you knew, Duke would be ordering Jason to pick up his dry cleaning or something.
“Okay, but I’m upping my price this time.” Emboldened by the stranger’s tone with Duke, Jason spoke more forcefully than he would have before. “All these things I’ve been doing for you—running down to Vegas or over to Denver to pick up packages—they take a lot of time. More than I thought. And besides, you never tell me what I’m doing. I’m starting to think you don’t trust me or something.”
Duke unzipped his ski suit. The cold smile on his thin lips sent a shiver through Jason that had nothing to do with temperature.
“Actually, you’re right,” Duke replied. “I don’t trust you. You’re sloppy, and since I’ve developed a relationship with some new associates in Europe, I can’t afford to surround myself with sloppiness.”
He reached into the breast of his ski suit. When he pulled his hand out, Jason went completely still. Duke held a pistol with a silencer attached. And it was pointed directly at Jason’s forehead.
THREE
The snow on the ski slope outside Liz Carmichael’s balcony glowed in the pale moonlight. Tall fir trees tossed long shadows across the frozen surface of the smooth trail as far up the mountain as she could see. Branches gyrated in an icy gust of wind and the shadows danced on the snow. Then a heavy cloud raced across the sky, blotting out the moonlight and hiding the stars from view.
Liz shuddered as the icy breeze reached her balcony. The wind here had a different quality than in Kentucky, probably because the frigid Utah air didn’t hold a trace of Kentucky’s trademark humidity. At least the climate made the snow light and powdery, great for skiing, something she didn’t get the chance to do back home.
Back home. That was the first time she could remember thinking of Kentucky as home. She leaned her elbows on the balcony railing and bent to rest her chin in her hands as her gaze wandered up the mountainside. But where else would she call “home” if not Kentucky? Not Portland, where Mom and Dad lived and where she had grown up. Too much time had passed since she’d left. Mom and Dad lived in a condo now, and she felt like a visitor when she went to stay with them at Christmas. That old saying was true, you can’t go home again.
There was a time in college when Utah had started to feel like home, but that was in the past, and had been for three years.
Until now. Because the part of her past she most dreaded seeing lived here. Was nearby even now, somewhere in this trendy resort town. A familiar guilt stabbed at her, and her thoughts skittered away from memories of the incident so fresh in her mind it might have happened yesterday.
The cloud moved past the moon, and white light illuminated the landscape as a movement down below on the slope caught her eye. A bulky figure carrying a long snowboard tromped through the darkness toward the chairlift on the other side of the thick tree line. Liz glanced at her watch. After 1:00 a.m. Strange time to hike up for a ride. Maybe a treasure hunter.
Locals did that sometimes, combing the slopes after hours looking for valuables dropped from the chairlift. Not usually at 1:00 a.m., though. Maybe it was a snowboarder who had lost something on the slopes during the day and couldn’t sleep until he found it.
The glass door behind her slid open. She didn’t straighten from her position leaning across the railing, but turned her head to identify Caitlin stepping through the door.
“Brrrr.” Her friend rubbed her arms briskly beneath a pink terry cloth bathrobe. “What are you doing out here? It’s freezing.”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
Caitlin stepped up beside her. “Me either. A long travel day always does that to me. Jazzy doesn’t seem to have the same problem, though. She’s completely zonked out.”
Liz glanced backward through the glass and toward the closed bedroom door of the condo. “When did she finally hang up?” The third member of their trio had been on the phone with her boyfriend since the plane’s wheels touched the landing strip at the Salt Lake International Airport.
“About thirty minutes ago.” Caitlin laughed. “Isn’t it great to see how happy she is with Derrick?”
Liz bit back a snarky response. “Great” wasn’t how she would describe Jazzy’s obsession with her new boyfriend. “Nauseating” was the word she’d use.
But she was trying hard to control her tongue on this trip, so she remained silent.
“Are you sure nothing else is bothering you? You’ve been really quiet since we got here. That’s not like you.”
There was something bothering her. Nerves had twisted her stomach to knots as she’d walked through the airport, watching for a familiar face to materialize in the crowd at any minute. She’d stared at every tall, dark-haired guy they passed, daring one of them to show up, and half-afraid they both would. When she was finally seated in the rental car with her friends, their instrument cases and luggage piled in the trunk and the backseat, she’d realized neither of them was coming. But instead of relief, the knots had tightened even further. Why couldn’t one of them have met her at the airport? Then she could have put the dread of those first meetings behind her.
Caitlin was watching her closely. Liz gave a half smile. “I’m a little uptight. Can’t stop thinking about all the family stuff I’m going to have to deal with tomorrow.”
Her friend’s eyebrows formed surprised arches. “Have you seen your relatives at all since you left college?”
Liz shook her head. “Only Mom and Dad. None of the Utah contingent. And my grandma’s going to let me hear about it, too.”
“Well, your cousin’s wedding is a perfect opportunity for a reunion.” Caitlin linked an arm through hers. “Come on inside. You don’t want to get sick.”
There’s an idea. If she was sick, she’d have the perfect excuse to miss all the wedding festivities. And all the wedding guests. Especially the best man.
With a sigh, Liz straightened. She was healthy as a horse, and she wasn’t going to fake an illness. Debbie was her favorite cousin. They’d been as close as sisters growing up. After Debbie’s mother died, she’d spent every summer with Liz and her family.
Since Debbie had paid for Liz and her friends to fly all the way to Utah to play at her wedding—or more likely, spent hours convincing Grandma to pay for their trip—the least Liz could do was show up and look happy.
As she turned, the chairlift on the