kid glanced at the intercom on the wall of the cable car next, as if assessing the need to contact Hare. Cole glanced at it too.
‘The front’s still a way off, according to the forecast,’ said the boy finally, his voice cracked and barely audible beneath his scarf.
Cole nodded. He’d seen the storm rolling in from the lookout. The kid would have been monitoring radar loops on Hare’s computer deck. Cole adjusted the boy’s probable age upwards a couple of years on account of his composure and conversation. No point trying to judge the boy’s age from his face—about the only thing visible was his mouth.
Lord, what a mouth.
Cole looked away. Fast.
What the hell was wrong with him?
Another gust of wind shook the gondola, slinging it sideways, causing both him and the youth to look up again, always up, to what held them.
Again, the boy glanced at the intercom.
Again Cole studied what he could see of the boy’s face beneath the hat and the goggles and the scarf. And looked away, disquieted.
The wind settled, the gondola steadied, nothing to worry about there. Nothing to worry about when it came to his reaction to Hare’s chairlift operator, either. Today he was just … off. For too many reasons to count.
Only eleven more minutes of this ride to go.
No point staring out of the window at the view; visibility was down to zero.
Nor did it seem advisable to stare at Hare’s lift operator.
That left the box.
Grey-brown in colour, with a removalist’s name stamped on the side. Wet at the bottom with one corner slightly concertinaed in. The top of the box patchy damp too, and hastily taped shut. All function over form, just like the youth standing next to it.
The kid shifted restlessly. Cole beat back the urge to look at him and kept his gaze pinned to the box. Just a wet and battered box. Nothing noble about it at all.
Ten minutes to go.
The gondola began to rise as it neared the first of seven cable tower connections. The hair at the nape of Cole’s neck started rising too. Hare’s youth was studying him now; he could damn well feel it.
And his reaction was pure heat.
The lift shuddered, jerked and stopped.
Cole’s heart thumped hard and settled to an uneasy rhythm. Probably Hare just slowing them down on account of the wind and the approaching tower. But the gondola did not start inching slowly forwards. It stayed right where it was, swinging hard.
Keeping his hand lightly on the handrail, Cole made his way to the two-way and pulled it from its bracing. Just like the kid, he’d worked the lifts on this mountain and plenty else besides. He knew the drills. ‘Hare, you there?’
But Hare did not reply, and neither did the operator supposedly manning the base station. Not good. The kid said nothing, just watched him through those blasted ski goggles and chewed on his full lower lip. Cole’s own lips tightened in reply.
‘Hare,’ he barked. ‘Can you hear me?’ And when there was still no reply he shoved the two-way back on the wall and fished his mobile phone from his coat pocket. No signal. Not that he’d held out much hope for one. White-out did that.
Damn.
The kid dug a mobile phone from amongst his layers too, and started pressing buttons with a gloved hand. ‘No signal here, either,’ he murmured.
‘I’ll call Hare again in a minute,’ muttered Cole.
They gave him ten. Ten minutes of uneasy silence, punctuated by a fascination with this boy that Cole didn’t even want to try to define.
‘Someone should have contacted us by now,’ said the youth finally.
What the kid didn’t say was that not following procedure meant that in all likelihood Hare had problems of his own up there, and heaven only knew what was happening down below. Base station should have been manned or the gondola should not have been running. Standard Operating Procedure.
‘The two-way’s not dead,’ he said. ‘I’ll try some other channels. Might raise someone.’ Anyone would do.
But there was nothing on the other channels except for static.
Another five minutes passed. Another gust of wind slammed into the gondola, stronger now than it had been. The kid’s hands went to the handrail and stayed there as he looked up, always up, to the cable that held them up, his scarf falling away from his face to reveal flawless ivory skin and a jaw that had sure as hell never seen a razor.
Ivory skin? On a ski-lift operator?
‘How old are you?’ The words were out of Cole’s mouth before he could call them back. ‘Fourteen?’ The kid hadn’t even reached puberty. ‘Fifteen?’
‘Older,’ said the boy.
‘How much older?’
‘Considerably.’
Considerably? What the hell kind of answer was that?
‘Nineteen,’ said the kid quickly, as if he had a mainline through to Cole’s brain.
‘Really,’ countered Cole, and the coat shrugged. Cole was beginning to think there was far more coat and hat and scarf than there was kid. Nineteen, my arse.
He ran his gaze over the youth again as if looking for … what exactly? Answers? A reason for his fascination? Because he didn’t swing that way. Never had before. Didn’t think much of starting now.
More minutes passed in uneasy fashion. Not silence—the battering of the wind and the straining of cable fixtures saw to that. But there was no more conversation. And the radio to the outside world stayed ominously silent.
Finally Cole glanced at his watch. Then he glanced at the youth. The boy was still all bundled up, which Cole could fully understand given the plummeting temperature, but what was with the ski goggles staying on? It wasn’t as if the kid was going to be getting out of the gondola any time soon.
‘You live in town?’ asked Cole.
The youth nodded.
‘You live alone?’ Not a pick-up line, may the devil come for his soul if he lied. He needed to clarify his question, clarify it now. ‘Anyone likely to notice you’re missing and raise the alarm?’
‘I wouldn’t count on it. My—’ The boy hesitated. ‘My roommate’s out of town this afternoon and she’ll be working tonight. I come and go as I please.’
Cole sighed and jammed his hands in his coat pockets. So much for the boy’s mommy waiting dinner on him and getting anxious when he didn’t show. Maybe the kid was nineteen. Nineteen, small grown, shacked up with a pint-sized waitress, and perfectly happy
