the rope.
His fingers would not cooperate. Clumsily he floundered, trying to force his hand to clasp the slick rope again.
Come on, Luca.
Grab it.
He felt his hold on Ava loosening. His choice came down to letting go of her or holding on and giving up on the rope, their only chance. He threw up a silent prayer, channeling his remaining stamina into keeping Ava in his arms.
Vision blurring, he looked in desperation at the shore which seemed to be miles away. Faintly he heard Mack Dog barking excitedly. Dark shadows swam in front of his eyes, and his ears began to play tricks on him. From far away he heard an engine approaching up the road at top speed. He imagined his sister roaring up in typical wild fashion behind the wheel of her Mustang.
It was imagination, purely. The logical side of his brain knew a car could never travel at such speeds on iced-over roads. Unable to muster the strength to attempt a one-armed swim stroke, he could only float, trying to keep Ava’s chin above water.
“Luca.”
The voice came from far away.
A woman’s voice.
“Luca,” the voice came again, louder.
He forced his eyes to focus on the face of his sister waving frantically, a snowmobile parked crookedly nearby. Someone was with her, a man wearing the red-and-black jacket emblazoned with the white cross of the ski patrol. There was a jerk on the line, and he was pulled toward the shore. All he had to do was hold tight to Ava.
It’s almost over.
He forced himself to repeat it, although his body was frozen to a state of near agony. Ava’s eyes were closed now, the white circle of her face just clear of the water, sections of hair floating like a corona in the dark water.
Almost there.
Tate, Stephanie’s husband, pulled up on another snowmobile and hustled to the water’s edge to meet them, his stiff leg making him ungainly.
They were close enough for Luca to see the ski patrol guy tugging madly on the rope, Stephanie assisting. In excruciating increments, they finally drew near enough for hands to grab hold of Ava and haul her out of the water. Tate and Stephanie each took one of Luca’s frozen arms and dragged him out, too, immediately enveloping him in a thin, silver blanket.
“She was in the water longer than me,” Luca said, through chattering teeth.
The ski patrol worker wrapped her securely, strapping her into a toboggan. “We’ll get her to the ambulance. It’s just down the hill.”
“Land a chopper,” Luca choked out. “She needs to get to a hospital now.”
“Snow movement near the landing site. Can’t get a chopper in here. We’re working on another accident and too much activity during avalanche conditions is a bad idea.” The rescue worker didn’t slow as he strapped Ava in and called into his radio. “Transporting now. I’ll be there in five.” He looked at Luca. “There’s another ski patrol right behind me to take you.”
Luca was too cold to answer.
Stephanie chafed his hands. “I got your SOS and called Tate. A guy at the lodge loaned me a snowmobile. I found the truck down the road, so I figured there was an accident. What happened?”
“Ava’s Uncle Paul. Abducted.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Here? On the slopes? How did that happen?”
“Snowmobiler shot him with a Taser.”
Luca noted a grave look steal over Tate’s face. “Blue snowmobile?”
Luca nodded.
Ava moaned. In spite of Stephanie’s restraining hand, Luca crawled over to her, his legs too weak to support him.
Her lips were a bluish tint, stark against the milky pallor of her face. She mouthed the words Uncle Paul.
He squeezed her hand with his own frozen fingers. “We’ll find him.”
Tate’s frowned deepened.
“What is it, Tate?” Luca said as the ski patroller readied himself to pull the toboggan away.
Tate hesitated. “I was late because there’s a rescue going on a few miles down the road from here. I had to go around.”
Luca’s stomach tightened.
“A rescue?”
Tate nodded, lowering his voice. “A snowmobile at the bottom of the ravine. Burned pretty bad. They figure it exploded on impact.”
Luca forced out the words. “Blue?”
He didn’t need to hear Tate’s answer. He looked down at Ava and knew she’d heard it loud and clear.
A single tear fell, freezing a trail of grief onto her face.
Whoever had abducted Uncle Paul had probably caused his death, too.
Snow began to fall heavily now, and he brushed it away from Ava’s cheek. The tips of his fingers were too cold to feel her skin, but it looked soft, feather soft.
A brisk breeze kicked up the snow around him, hissing as if it whispered secrets.
With a tingle of fear, he wondered if Ava would be the next life claimed on this rugged mountain.
FOUR
Sergeant Cecil Towers stood politely next to the bed, his dark eyes nearly a match for his dusky skin. His uniform was smartly pressed, fitting his slender frame nicely. A tinge of gray showed on his close-cropped hair. He reached out a hand to straighten the box of tissue on her bedside tray.
Her body reacted viscerally, edging away from the man who was guilty of nothing but informing her three weeks from the end of her senior year of high school that her mother’s body had been recovered from Melody Lake. Even with her eyes closed she would never forget the tiniest detail of that visit, from the curve of his thin lips to his spotless uniform and the way he wiped his feet meticulously on the doormat before he’d entered Whisper Mountain Lodge.
Ava had gotten the gist of her situation from the nurses. She’d been more or less out for ten hours. No, she had not lost any fingers or toes amazingly, and no, they knew nothing about her uncle Paul. She remembered Luca being there and although she’d willed herself to ask him, to beg him to tell her of her uncle, her body would not come out of its frozen stupor. Now there was no sign of Luca, but now she had a cop to pump for information.
“Are the police looking for my uncle?”
The question seemed to startle Towers, who raised an eyebrow and leaned closer. “Hello, there. I thought you were asleep, Ms. Stanton.”
She repeated her question.
“First off, I’ll tell you that we have not found your
