Holiday Mountain Conspiracy. Liz Shoaf

       ONE

      Mary Grace Ramsey breathed out a puff of frigid air as she slogged through the deep, freezing snow. Treacherous didn’t even begin to describe this mountain located in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. She prayed she’d be able to find the person she was searching for—a mysterious and elusive man known as Mountain Man. Her thoughts came to a screeching halt when a loud muffled sound resonated from down the mountain behind her. Snow flurries swirled in the air as she slowly turned around, trying to make as little noise as possible. She winced when the snow crunched beneath her hiking boots. In the hushed quiet of the forest, the breaking ice under her feet sounded like a cannon shot.

      “Tink, did you hear that?” she whispered.

      A tuft of white fur, followed by a pink nose, popped out of the nylon dog carrier she had strapped to her chest. Tinker Bell sniffed the air before ducking back inside her cozy quarters.

      “Some help you are,” Mary Grace grumbled affectionately, but she didn’t blame her dog. Mary Grace’s own nose felt like an icicle and her toes were freezing to the point of pain. She owned decent outerwear, but nothing in her closet would have kept her warm in this brutal weather.

      She strained to hear something, anything, but the vast forest remained quiet. She turned and slowly moved upward, praying earnestly that she was headed in the right direction. Huge pine trees heavy-laden with snow-covered limbs towered above her like skeletons in the waning daylight. Shivering inside her ski jacket, she prayed she’d find Mountain Man soon—and what kind of a name was that?—because there was a real possibility of her and Tink freezing to death if she didn’t locate the cabin Sheriff Hoyt had described.

      It was her stepbrother’s fault that she was in this untenable situation, hiking into the wilderness in the dead of winter. The day after she found the note Bobby had left her, telling her she was in danger and needed to find the Jackson Hole Mountain Man, she’d sensed someone following her. On the way home from a press briefing at the White House that evening, a car tried to run her off the road. It was no accident. She was afraid to contact the police because of the warning in Bobby’s note, advising her not to trust anyone inside the Beltway.

      She’d tried repeatedly to get in touch with her brother, to no avail. It was as if he’d fallen off the face of the earth. His boss at Langley would only say that Bobby had requested a leave of absence, but as she well knew, the CIA was in the business of keeping secrets. And as a White House press correspondent for FBC, Future Broadcasting Company, it was her job to uncover them.

      Mary Grace stopped, took a deep breath and scanned the area. Visibility had dwindled even more. Nothing but snow, ice and trees surrounded her. A deep, scary-looking ravine dropped off to her left. There was no cabin in sight and she was chilled to the bone. What if once she found the cabin, Mountain Man wasn’t even there?

      With no signal for GPS, she pulled her compass out of her pocket and checked it once again. According to what the sheriff had said, she should be close to her destination.

      Tinker Bell popped her head out of her carrier and barked, and a split second later, Mary Grace heard the loud report of a rifle shot echo on the mountain. Before she even had a chance to run, fire ripped through her right side and she was thrown toward the deep ravine.

      Her eyes closed as she floated soundlessly through the air. It was an ethereal experience. She wondered if this was what heaven would feel like, all light and buoyant. Pain ricocheted through her body when she forcefully hit the side of the mountain and was once again thrown into the air. Time seemed to slow before she finally landed on her back in a deep snowbank. After she caught her breath, her dire situation came flooding back. She was alive, but the killer was still out there. Slowly, she wiggled her arms and legs to see if anything was broken. Everything was stiff, but no bones screamed in pain. Her dog! She’d only bounced off the mountain once and she prayed her precious baby was okay.

      “Tink! Tink? Answer me. Are you okay?”

      When she tried to push herself up, pain seared her side. She gently dropped back down and ran her hands across her chest. She breathed a sigh of relief when she identified the dog carrier still attached