Death at the Summit (2 page)

“Very serious. I know I’m just beginning again and have a long way to go, but I really want…” I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but I searched for the words to describe the ache in me.

Liam nodded, pushed off the counter, and walked toward me. “To know how good you can be?”

I nodded and smiled in the warmth of him knowing what I was trying to say. My smile broke wide across my face as he approached.

“Are you willing to train hard? Go to competitions? Work on your equipment?”

I laughed. “That sounds like heaven.”

Liam laughed with me and checked his phone. “I’ve got to get going. I’ll take care of the equipment, but it won’t be until after the Westmound Summit is done.” He went back to moving boxes and cases around the room.

I edged toward the door, not wanting to overstay my welcome. “Is there anything else that I need to order? Can I buy everything I need from Westmound?” I patted my leg, and Moo trotted over. I started rubbing behind his ears.

“Westmound doesn’t make all these products directly, but it owns companies that do. The riser and limbs I recommend will come from Andersson Archery. They make the best competitive bows in the industry.”

“Thanks for your help. I’ll get out of your hair now.” I turned to leave with Moo at my side.

He lifted a hand to stop. “Hold up. I’ve a favor to ask you, too. I have a ton of meetings. Can Moo stay with you tonight? Maybe longer?”

“Of course,” I said.

“Moo, come here. I’ll move this stuff then bring him back to you with his food and bowl. Where will you be for the next few hours?” Moo made a few attempts to move back to my side, but Liam told him firmly to stay. Moo sat but kept his eyes on me.

“I’ll be around. See you soon.”

I walked back to the conference room down the hall, holding the book Liam gave me, while settling into the warmth of being happy with my place in life. My hand instinctively reached out to pet Moo. He wasn’t there, and I chuckled lightly at how used I’d become to that big, goofy beast.

Jess was gone, but someone else was in the conference room. He had his cheek and phone pressed up against the window while tapping on the phone. He was lanky and young. His clothes hung off him, especially his pants. He slid the phone up into the top corner of the window, exposing at least half of his boxer shorts from the waistband down. There was a pink splotch on his cheek from being pressed up against the cold window. His hair swirled around his head, his bangs starting at the right ear, crossing his forehead, and ending at his left ear. As the hair slipped into his eyes, he jerked his head to the left to clear his vision.

I leaned out back into the hallway but there was no sign of Jess. I started to cross the room, with my hand outstretched. “Hi, my—”

“What’s the Wi-Fi password?” He turned to look at me.

I stopped, my hand outstretched awkwardly. “What?”

“I don’t get reception in here. I need the Wi-Fi password.” He stared at me through his bangs.

Annoyance welled up in my chest. My mouth started moving before my brain could stop it. “Listen here, young man, I’m not giving you anything until I know who you are and why you’re here.” Young man? I was thirty, not eighty.

He sighed dramatically and crossed the room while offering his hand. “Hi, my name is Indy, and I’m here to work at the Westmound Summit this weekend. Jess told me to wait in here. Now, can I please have the password?”

My lips puckered as though I’d sucked on a lemon. “I’m Di. Pick the temp router. The password is westmoundsummit, all lower case, one word.”

He entered the code, head craned forward, and without looking up, wandered over to a conference table, pulled out a chair, and flopped down.

In an attempt to walk off my annoyance, I left the room and went down the hallway toward the archery entrance. Entering was a group of people led by Jess.

As they wiped their shoes free of snow on the heavy floor mats, I called out to my roommate, “How was the drive?”

Mary kicked off her snow boots and placed them in the growing row of shoes. From the shoe racks, she grabbed her athletic shoes and slipped them on. All the employees kept sets of shoes at the entrances; otherwise, we would track in too much snow and mud. “Not too bad. The freeways were pretty clean, but it looks like we are getting more snow soon.”

Pushing past her were two people I recognized. Tiger, a handsome elite archer, spread his arms. “Di, come here and give me some loving.” He gave me a warm hug and spun me around.

“Quit copping a feel and let me give Princess a hug.”

Tiger put me down, but instead of walking over for a hug, I crossed my arms and glared at Minx. The strawberry blonde laughed even harder and wrapped me in a hug anyway.

“I love teasing you so much, Ms. Princess Di. You never should have let me know that you hated the nickname.”

Last time Minx was here, she had decided that Princess or Princess Di should be my official archery nickname, and I’ve had trouble shaking it. She continued to squeeze me while rocking back and forth until I gave in and hugged her back.

Behind them, a tiny young girl with dark hair, eyes, and skin cast furtive glances around the group. “Did you fly in, as well?” I asked.

She clasped her hands in front of her, wringing and twisting them. When Tiger laughed loudly, she jumped with a gasp then spun around to identify the culprit. She turned back to me with wide eyes. “What?” she squeaked.

I wasn’t sure what part of the question was confusing. “Did you fly in with Tiger and Minx?” I cast around the group for help.

Mary caught my look and stepped over to join us.

“No, Mouse lives in Cheyenne. We stopped at her house so she could follow us over. She’s homeschooled and graduated early. She applied to be an OSA.” Mary put a friendly hand on Mouse’s shoulder, causing her to jump.

The OSA, on-site athletes, program would give athletes a place to live, food, and training in exchange for a light work schedule at the center. Applications had only been open a few weeks. Robbie, the center’s director, had decided to invite several of the most promising applicants out to work at the Westmound Summit.

Mouse held out a delicate hand to me. “Hi, I’m Sabrina but everyone calls me Mouse. Is it true that someone was killed here last month?”

No wonder she was so jumpy. I put an arm around her shoulder. “Yes, but don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”

Jess raised her voice. “Hey, we should have started setting up already. We don’t even have a second to waste.” She marched down the hallway toward the conference room.

At the far end of the hall, Liam, Moo, and Westmound’s owner, Elizabeth, turned the corner. Elizabeth lives in Salt Lake City, where Westmound was based, but she came in a day early for the Westmound Summit. Liam and Moo passed by with a quick sniff from Moo and a nod of the chin from Liam.

Elizabeth greeted the group with a warm, appraising smile then turned to Jess. “Do you think you could give me five minutes to talk?”

Jess pushed her curly hair back out of her face. “Absolutely.” Turning to us, she said, “Go on down to the conference room.”

I turned to ask Mary what she thought this was about, but Elizabeth’s voice interrupted me. “Actually, I was hoping Mary and Di could join us. Perhaps we could use Di’s office?”

We walked down to my office, where I unlocked the door. I offered Elizabeth my plush desk chair while Jess, Mary, and I grabbed the remaining chairs to face her.

“I just finished talking to Liam, and he had an excellent idea. I wanted to see if you ladies would be on board. If you are, we can bring in Orion, Westmound’s marketing director, and get started after Di and Mary return from Christmas break.”

We nodded along, eagerly leaning forward. I had no idea where Elizabeth was going, but I wanted to please her.

Elizabeth turned to Mary. “Liam said that you are shooting archery again. How are you feeling about it?”

“Wonderful. Di and I shoot together every day. I was hoping to talk to Liam at some point… about…”

Elizabeth finished Mary’s thought. “Do you mean equipment?”

Mary nodded.

“I’ll let Liam know that you will be setting up a meeting.”

Elizabeth turned her attention to Jess. “I’ve heard that you are working with both Mary and Di. How is that going?”

“Very well, we are very careful to make sure that it doesn’t conflict with our work. We make sure—”

Elizabeth waved her off. “No, no, I’m not worried about that. Let me back up. This weekend, you will hear a lot more about this. Our goal is to broaden our customer base, and one of the largest areas of focus is women. Liam recommended that Di receive a Westmound sponsorship deal for equipment, Mary renew her contract, and then we document their progress on the website. Does that sound that like something we can do?”

Jess burst with excitement. “That would be wonderful. I could put together training schedules and maybe record some of the coaching sessions. Oh, we have that new form analysis room in development—we could use that some. It would really show off the center and the elite coaching available here.”

Mary was close on her heels. She was perched on the edge of her seat, her eyes wide and eager. The words tumbled out of her mouth, one on top of the other. “I could try out a bunch of different equipment and talk about the differences. Talk about my tuning methods. I have charts and software I use to monitor the results that I could share. This is awesome.”

Everyone turned to me waiting for my response. “Huh?” I realized that I should clarify more when three sets of eyes landed on me. “I wasn’t asking Liam to get me free stuff. I would love to be involved, but I can pay for—”

Elizabeth stopped me before I could babble on further. “It isn’t for free; therefore, don’t worry about that. It would be in exchange for promoting our products and agreeing to train and document your journey so others getting into the sport can benefit from the knowledge. This isn’t something you have to do just because you work at the center, but if you want to, then we would love to have you.”

I looked at Mary and Jess, who were nodding at me. I still didn’t fully understand what I was committing to, but if they thought it was a good idea, then I trusted them. I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, feeling very Zen. “I’d be honored to be involved.”

“Wonderful. I wish I had more time to discuss it, but I know you all have a lot to do. I will let Liam and Orion know what we discussed. I’ll see you here at range day tomorrow.”

Elizabeth stood up and headed out the hallway to the front entrance.

Jess was beside herself. “Isn’t this so great? I can’t believe it.”

One thing had really stuck out to me. “She puts a lot of weight on Liam’s opinion.”

Mary turned to me with a puzzled expression. “Why wouldn’t she trust her son?”

“Her son? He can’t be her son. His name isn’t Westmound. It’s……” I searched around for his last name. “Andersson. Liam Andersson.”

Jess turned to me with a giggle. “You dork. Her name last isn’t Westmound, either, not since she got married. Her name is Elizabeth Andersson, like Andersson Archery, her husband’s company before he passed. How did you not know this?”

I was flabbergasted. “I-I don’t know. Oh geez, I’m a huge idiot.” I buried my face into my hands with embarrassment. My face was burning, and I didn’t want them to see me blush.

Mary and Jess laughed while Mary gave my back a pat. “Hey, you’re being too hard on yourself. You’re probably only a little idiot.” They both snorted a bit more.

I dropped my hand to roll my eyes at them.

Jess checked her watch again. “We are really behind. We have to get over to the meeting.”

“Can I catch up in ten minutes? I’m supposed to keep Moo today. I need to pick him up with his stuff.” And I could apologize to Liam.

“Ten minutes and not a second more,” Jess called to me as I left the office.

CHAPTER TWO

I trotted to the entrance, slipped on my snow boots, and stepped outside to find Liam. I walked by a cop car parked in front of the building. Knocking on the window, I gave Brian, the officer in the front seat, playing games on his phone, a quick wave. He had been at the center when the previous killer had been apprehended, and had quickly become a center regular. This weekend, he was acting as security though I imagine he’ll mostly be looking at the new product lines being introduced rather than checking badges at the door.

Liam and Moo were out in the field next to the parking lot, playing. There were several inches of snow already on the ground, and thick, heavy flakes slowly drifted to the ground. Thick gray clouds obscured the sky. I walked out into the field and waved to get Liam’s attention. Moo caught sight of me and raced across the field. I stomped my feet and crouched to welcome him.

“No!”

I looked up to see Liam running across the field with a worried look.

I looked back to Moo, who was barreling toward me. I waited for him to dodge left or right to run past me, but at the last second, I realized he wasn’t slowing down. The last thing I saw was his pink tongue and big brown eye bearing down on me before impact.

I hit the ground flat on my back. The snow puffed out around me, breaking my fall as I landed. Snow drifted down on my face, catching in my eyelashes. The back of my neck was cold and wet. I lay in the snow, my eyes closed, mentally checking over my arms and legs as Moo shoved his cold, wet nose into my shut eyes and pawed at my arm.