if you asked him. But nobody did. Just told him where to be and when to be there. Jason made it a practice to do as he was told.
A snowboarder in a dark jacket waited at the appointed spot, one foot planted in the soft snow and the other still attached to the binding of his board. Jason glided to a stop nearby. At first he thought it might be Duke, but when the guy pushed his goggles up on his hat, he realized it was someone new. Jason’s pulse kicked up a notch or two. Was he finally going to meet Duke’s mysterious boss?
“Hey, how’s it going?” The man clipped his words short.
Jason replied with a guarded nod. “Some day out there, huh?”
A sound from behind made him turn in time to see a skier zigzag through the trees toward them. Jason admired the way the man maneuvered in the close area, the precision with which the edges of his skis carved through the deep snow. He zoomed up to them, planted his ski poles and raised his goggles like the first guy.
About time Duke got here.
“I see you two have met.” Cold blue eyes slid from Jason toward the stranger.
“Not proper like. I didn’t catch your name.” Jason kept his tone deferential, just in case.
The man stiffened, and his eyelids narrowed.
Duke pulled off his knit hat and slapped it against his thigh. Dislodged snow flew through the air. “I don’t think names will be necessary.”
Jason had taken off his glove, ready to thrust his hand toward the man by way of introduction. Instead, he shoved it back on and grabbed the handle of his pole.
“I don’t have long.” The stranger pulled back the cinched wristband of his jacket to look at his watch. “They’re going to wonder where I’ve gone. So say whatever you brought me here to say and let’s go before we’re spotted.”
Jason studied the man with interest. So Duke had invited him to the meeting, not the other way around. He wasn’t the boss, then. Duke had mentioned another guy who was in on this job, a new guy. Someone who insisted he could get the Carmichael chick out to Utah.
Duke pulled the hat back on and settled it over his ears. “I just wanted to touch base with you both. Make sure we all understand the plan.”
“I don’t need to understand any plan. I’ve done my part.”
Jason dipped his head to look at the snow between his ski tips. This guy had nerve, he’d give him that. Jason wouldn’t dare talk to Duke in that tone.
But when he risked an upward glance, he saw that Duke’s face remained impassive. “She arrives tonight?”
The man nodded. “As arranged.”
“And you’re sure she’ll have it with her?”
The other man gave an impatient grunt. “I don’t see why I have to repeat myself. I’ve assured you she’ll have it.”
A flash of indignation set Jason’s teeth against each other. The guy’s tone spoke volumes about the relationship between these two. The newcomer sounded like a man talking to his partner. Duke apparently accepted him as such, while he kept 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
