Chilled (A Bone Secrets Novel) (18 page)

He stopped his climb. The sounds were growing louder, but he still couldn’t see the chopper. Far above him on the ridge, Brynn and Ryan stood up, looking in all directions. They couldn’t see it either.

Damn, it had to be close. The sucker was loud, and Alex felt like he was standing outside a rocking nightclub. Any second it should break through the haze. Alex trudged to the center of the slope and started to wave his arms in anticipation of flagging down the helicopter. In his bright blue coat, he should be easy to see against the snow.

Against the background of the rhythmic thumps, he heard faint yelling. Glancing behind him, he saw Jim and Thomas awkwardly running from the plane to the trees.
Have they spotted the chopper?
He glanced up the slope at Brynn and Ryan. More yelling and hands waving, but they were facing him. He scanned again for the helicopter. The chopper sounds were now a roar, the sound as intense as a freight train.

His gaze shot back to Brynn and Ryan, his stomach curdling. They were waving at
him.
Ryan was pointing over and up the slope at the white cloud that was rolling and pounding down the hill.

Avalanche.

His blood hammering in his brain, Alex ran for the closest trees, knowing he’d never make it in time. The sounds of the savior helicopter had triggered a death trap that was rushing directly at him.

They’d heard it at the same time. On top of the ridge, Ryan turned his head in unison with Brynn’s, searching through the curtain of the snowfall for the helicopter.

“No fucking way,” Ryan exclaimed. He pushed out of his snowy seat and spun in all directions, eyes wide. “Who’s stupid enough to fly in this shit?”

Brynn’s chest had shrunk in on itself.
No, Liam. Even you can’t be this dense.
But she couldn’t stop her eyes from searching as eagerly as Ryan’s. The wind whipped her hair into her mouth, and she brushed it away with an impatient hand.

“Where is it?”

The beating sounds of the blades came closer. Any second she expected to see the outline of a chopper through the snow. Would it be the Pave Hawk of the air force rescue squadron? Or a local? Someone who donated his time and gas to help the SAR team?

The vibrations rattled in her brain, and she knew the chopper was close. So close.

“He’s gotta be right over the far ridge,” Ryan shouted over the racket.

She nodded and focused her gaze in that direction. Next to her, Kiana started to bark, backing away from the sounds. Brynn ran a gloved hand over her fur. The barking sounded more upset than excited.

Abruptly the thumping volume started to decrease.

“No!” Both shrieked and frantically waved their arms, spinning in all directions, even though no chopper was in sight.
It can’t leave.

“Holy shit!” Ryan froze, pointing.

Brynn whirled his way, heart sprinting, expecting to see a helicopter rising over the ridge. Instead she saw a cloud sliding
down the mountain. Kiana lunged at the moving sea of snow as Brynn grabbed at her collar.

“The chopper set it off.”

She clutched Ryan’s arm, holding him tight like Kiana. He’d tried to move in the direction of the smashed plane below as if he could beat the avalanche and get the other three men away in time. “No!”

The avalanche would miss her and Ryan. It would sweep by, eating everything in its path. She stared down the mountain and spotted two red parkas tearing toward the tree line at their right. Jim tripped and went down. As she watched, Thomas bent over and dragged him back to his feet without breaking stride. Her gaze flew back to the thundering snow to measure the distance before it reached the men. But her eye was caught by a royal blue figure striding up the hill.

Alex.

Brynn’s heart stopped.

Shrieking, she waved her arms, gesturing him to the right as if she could physically move him. Alex froze, looking behind him then back at Brynn. He broke to the right and tried to run through the fluff. He was moving too slowly.

“Aw, fuck.” Through the roar of the avalanche and fading sounds of the helicopter she heard Ryan’s curse.

Brynn couldn’t breathe; she’d never felt so utterly powerless. She dropped to her knees and watched as the cloud overtook Alex, swept past the large piece of plane, and then buried the cockpit.

“Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.”

Brynn squeezed her eyes shut and dug her knuckles into her eyelids, but it didn’t hide the image burned on her retinas. Alex vanishing under that snow.

It was quiet on the hill, but her ears were still ringing from the roar of the avalanche. She slowly lowered her hands, hoping to see Alex climbing up the hill. The unseen helicopter had flown away, and a tank brigade of snow had ripped down the mountain, leaving a jumbled wake of white fluff. Ryan pulled on her arm.

“Let’s go.”

She hated the determination in his voice. In her gut she knew all was lost. No one could live through that. Ryan yanked harder.

“Brynn. Get moving. We’ve got to hurry.” Her feet started to follow, concrete weights tied to her ankles.
He’s dead. Alex is dead.

No. No. No!
Silent words hammered her brain.
I don’t believe it.

She couldn’t give up without trying. She couldn’t give up on Alex.

She wrenched her arm out of Ryan’s grasp and started to run down the side of the slope. Kiana raced ahead, while far below Thomas and Jim dashed from the trees. Thomas was pointing in one direction, but Jim was shaking his head.

“Where is he? Did you see where he went?” she screamed at the two men.

Jim pointed to a spot twenty yards away from a spot Thomas was indicating.

Brynn stumbled and fell. Ryan stopped to help her up and roughly pushed her ahead. “Go, go!”

Minutes. They only had minutes to find Alex before he suffocated.

Death’s clock clanged in her brain.

It took too long for them to get down the slope. It felt like hours before they met up with the men. Thomas and Jim were frantically scooping snow, yelling Alex’s name.

“Is this the spot? Did you see him go under?” Brynn fell to her knees and pawed at the snow like a dog. Ryan did the same. Kiana sniffed at the snow by Brynn’s hands, ran in a circle around the group, and barked.

Thomas and Jim exchanged a glance, Jim nodded.

“I think he’s over there.” Thomas gestured to his left.

Were they digging in the wrong spot?
Brynn froze at the possibility. She turned wide eyes to Jim. He angrily shook his head. “I don’t know. I swear he should be about here.” He stood and gestured. “Thomas, take Ryan. Go dig over there.”

Brynn’s breath shot out. By splitting up they’d lose speed at this dig site. “Jim—”

“I know. I know! What else can I do? Thomas is as positive about what he saw as I am.”

Tears stung. “Dig faster,” she begged and doubled her speed.

Darrin was on his feet, mouth open, binoculars pressed hard enough to leave rings around his eyes as he watched the diggers.

Holy shit.

He’d never seen an avalanche except on TV, and he didn’t want to ever see one again. The power of that thing! It’d been like a hungry monster, devouring everything in its path. How had silent snow made so much noise?

It had smacked directly into Alex Kinton. Darrin had watched him pump his arms like a swimmer. Was Kinton dead?

Darrin ran his binoculars over the snow. Kinton had to be dead. It was like getting sucked under in the ocean, only you wouldn’t float to the top.

Wow.

His shoulders twitched, waiting for Kinton to appear. Besides Alex, the snow had scooped up and eaten the cockpit of the plane like it was a tasty snack. How could they expect to find a person under the snow when they couldn’t even see a piece of the plane?

Darrin zoomed in on the woman and watched tears flow down her face. He could see her lips moving as she shouted at the other men, but he couldn’t hear the words. His eyes widened.

Now there were three men in red.
Where did the third guy come from?
He’d been so focused on the damage down the slope Darrin hadn’t watched the woman come back down. She must have brought the third man.

The nutty dog was running in circles. Going from one set of diggers to the next. It finally decided to dig next to the woman and sent the snow flying from between its legs. Handy animal.

Darrin straightened as the new guy stopped digging, leaned to one side, vomited, and then immediately started digging again.

Adrenaline.
Darrin understood that effect on the stomach.
They must be utterly freaked.

The new guy dug slower than the others, but all their faces reflected the same determination to find Kinton. The woman didn’t even stop to wipe at her cheeks.

Paul Whittenhall couldn’t believe it.

The two-man team he’d sent to tail Kinton was trudging out of the woods and back into his base camp. A chorus of questions and excitement rose out of the media corral. The team had been gone only half the day.

“What the fuck?” Paul muttered and jogged to meet them. That asshole Sheriff Collins moved faster. He beat Paul to the team and started peppering them with questions. Good men. They were ignoring the sheriff. Gary Stewart locked eyes with his boss. He looked defeated.

What kind of cowards would be back so fast?

“What happened?” Paul reached the men and cut his question in over the sheriff’s.

Stewart glanced at the sheriff then back to his boss, his brown eyes tired.

“Footbridge over the river is under water. We tried, but there’s no way to get across the water that way. Boyles says there’s a train trestle or something farther south that crosses the river.”

Collins nodded. “There is a train trestle a few miles from here. But it’s gonna add a lot of time to getting in there.”

Paul turned on the sheriff. “How’d your team get across? I thought they went in the same way.” Had Collins been lying to him?

Collins shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t underwater when they went over. As far as I know it’s the only way to get across up that way.”

Boyles nodded. “It looked like a tree floated down the river and wedged itself under the bridge, plugging the free space, making the water flow over the bridge. Maybe that happened after your guys went through.”

“My guys…” An odd look passed over Collins’s face.

Instantly suspicious, Paul jumped on it. “What? What about your guys?”

Collins mouth went up on one side as amusement darkened his eyes. “It’s nothing. One’s a woman; they’re not all guys. That’s all.” The amusement vanished. “She’s not fond of crossing water.”

Paul saw Gary Stewart straighten, his face covered with surprise. He read Stewart’s thoughts.
A woman went out in that shit?

Paul smirked at the look on his man’s face. Maybe Stewart would stop being such a whiner about the weather. Being shown up by a woman.
Ha!

“OK, where’s this train trestle?”

Goddamn, he was cold. Had someone left the tent flap open?

Alex tried to peer through the dark, but his eyes weren’t working right. He was too tired. For once Ryan and Thomas
weren’t snoring in unison. He sighed and tried to relax, shift deeper into his sleeping bag.

Icy-hot pain shot through his knee, forcing his eyes wide open. Shit, what had he done to his leg? The pain was nearly as tortuous as when he’d first caught a bullet with it. He tried to move it into a better position.

He couldn’t move his leg.

Snow. Avalanche.

Alex’s breath shot out.

He was underground.
Under the snow.
He thrashed in instant panic.

Breathing hard, he managed to unstick an arm from the packed snow and reach for the cold ceiling above his face. His frantic thrashing was halted by shock as he found the snowpacked roof.
It was so close.

It was ten inches from his nose to the ice. And even less between his chest and the ice. He remembered clawing, waving his arms as he was tossed inside the avalanche. A faint thought from a very tiny part of his brain had screamed, “Swim!”

Those arm movements had probably kept the snow from settling on his face and immediately smothering him.

At least he faced upright. Gravity was telling him that much.

He breathed slowly and purposefully didn’t think about how little oxygen there must be in his snowy coffin.

Alex tugged his other arm free and used both hands to dig at the ceiling of snow above his face. Ice crystals trickled into his eyes, so he moved his hands lower, digging above his chest, moving slowly, not wanting to overexert and use too much oxygen.

Was he close to the surface?

What about the others?

Brynn was safe. She and Ryan had been out of the avalanche’s path. But what about Jim and Thomas? Alex dug faster. The men might be in the exact position as him. They would need help.

An image of Brynn trying to find all three of them physically hurt his brain. She and Jim were so close. He grit his teeth as he pawed at his ceiling.

Why did Jim and Brynn’s closeness irritate him?

Alex barely knew the woman.

And if he didn’t get out of here he wasn’t going to know her any better.