Shattered (29 page)

“Yes.”

“Did the police look at BioTech?” Surely suspicions had to be raised.

“No. Whoever did it made it look like a regular robbery. They trashed the place and took anything of value.”

“But you think it was them?” Landon asked, totally in agreement based on what he’d heard.

“I
know
it was.”

“And Erik’s accident?” Piper asked, inching closer to Elaine.

Elaine wiped the tears slipping down her cheeks. “Was no accident.”

“You believe they killed him to silence him,” Piper said softly, resting a hand on Elaine’s arm.

Always trying to comfort.
Her love inspired him.

“I think there was more to it,” Elaine said, sniffling. “After Erik left for Canada, I saw Grant Nelson, head of security, searching Erik’s work station.”

Landon tilted his head. “Looking for what?”

“My guess, a microchip. Or the evidence that Erik had been building one.”

“A microchip?”

“A microchip could store all of Erik’s data. It’s small enough to hide from the eye and, if made with the right materials, undetectable by the security detectors,” Elaine explained. “We only design them at BioTech; we don’t manufacture them. But Grant pulled items from Erik’s trash that suggested Erik had been assembling one there.”

“So if Erik had the proof he needed, why did he go to see Mr. Wheeler?”

“Scientific data is one thing; tangible evidence from a victim of the tainted insulin is another. He felt he needed concrete proof before anyone would believe him, and he wasn’t sure whom to trust.”

“Wait a minute,” Piper said. “Did you say Erik went to Canada? His accident was in Canada?”

Elaine nodded. “The Wheelers lived in Vancouver.”

“So he died in Vancouver?”

“No.” Elaine shook her head. “That’s the part I don’t understand. Erik left to go speak with the Wheelers in Vancouver, but at the time of his death three days later, Erik still hadn’t arrived at the Wheelers’. He died outside of Nicola, two hours north of Vancouver. And the really weird thing is he was driving
southbound
on Route 5 at the time of his accident—completely opposite of where he should have been.”

But precisely en route from Glacier Peak resort, where Erik’s folks said he’d been visiting Karli.

Snow rained down as they pulled out of the Johnsons’ drive. It was eerie how quickly the blizzard had begun, eerier how Mr. Johnson had anticipated its imminent arrival.

“Where do we go from here?” Piper asked.

Landon considered their options. “We need to figure out if that microchip still exists. I think Erik might have given it to Karli for safekeeping. Why else would he travel to see her right before his death? And that would explain why someone was after Karli.”

“The older man that paid a visit to Glacier Peak?” Piper said.

Landon nodded. “I bet he’s the man who called Wellspring claiming to be Karli’s father and then her doctor and who broke into the clinic to steal her file.”

“Do you think he retrieved the chip when he killed Karli? Maybe we’re already too late. Maybe we have been this entire time.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“There were marks on Karli.” He swallowed. “What I’m now betting were torture marks.”

“You think the killer was trying to get the microchip’s location out of her?”

“Yes, but Reef interrupted him before he could finish. He couldn’t leave a witness, so he killed Karli and hid until he could escape.”

“And then what?”

“I think he assumed Karli had passed the chip to Reef.” Landon’s breath caught as the pieces fell into place and he realized the danger Piper had been in from the start. “It explains the sense you had that someone was in your house the night of Karli’s murder.”

“He thinks we have it?”

“Or that you’re trying to find it.”

“Do you think he’s still following us?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“It’s sweet, really.”

“What?” He gaped at her.

“No. Not that the killer is following us. I was thinking about Karli and Erik. It’s sweet that after all those years he knew he could trust her to keep his secret safe. To protect the microchip until he had the physical evidence he needed to make his case.”

“He knew she was an expert at hiding, and with her living only hours from the Wheelers’ it would have been an easy drop-off.”

“I wonder what went through her mind when Erik didn’t return. When she realized they’d gotten to him? Poor thing. She sure had more than her fair share of heartache in this life.”

The sheer rock wall of the canyon loomed large on their right, heavy snow blanketing it. The wind swirled tufts of snow through the pass in front of them. Landon gripped the wheel more securely. Ice, no doubt, was hiding beneath the freshly falling snow.

Something clicked beneath them. It was faint, but Landon heard it all the same.

“What was that?” Piper asked.

Reaching under his seat, he felt a device taped to the underside of his seat.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“We’ve got to get out.”

“What?”

He slowed as best he could without fishtailing them, opened the driver’s side door and yanked Piper. “Now!”

Landon’s left shoulder collided with the snow-packed surface, pain burning through his socket. Piper landed beside him with a grunt, her slender form jolted by the unforgiving surface. An explosion shook the earth as they tumbled over the embankment’s edge, the ground slipping away from them. Snow and debris clouded his field of vision; jagged rocks battered his body as gravity propelled him downhill. He slammed into a steadfast object that ripped the air from his lungs.

A copse of trees had broken his fall, nearly breaking his back in the process. Piper hit moments after him, a cry escaping her lips. Fighting the sharp pain in his chest, he forced himself to roll onto his side so he could check on her.

“You okay?”

Snow and pine needles clung to her hair. Blood trickled from her forehead. “I’ll be all right.” She propped herself gingerly onto her elbows. “Was that a—”

“Car bomb.”

“When?”

“Probably planted it while we were . . .” His words dropped off as his eyes focused on the mountain towering above.
Dear God.

“What’s wrong?”

A billowing wave of snow roared toward them.

“Avalanche!” he hollered.

Horror filled Piper’s eyes as she caught sight of the wall of snow charging at them. It was too late to move out of its path.

“Grab hold of the tree. Don’t let go. Shield your face.” He wrapped her arms around the trunk, praying it was sturdy enough to not get yanked up with the debris. Wrapping his arms around her, he too grabbed hold of the tree, shielding her with his body “As soon as it slows, cup a hand over your face and stretch your other arm up as high as it can—”

The deluge swallowed his words, crashing over them, white engulfing his vision. A never-ending torrent of snow roared past
them, moving at what had to be sixty miles an hour. His arms burned as he held to the tree, struggling against the surmounting pull of the avalanche.

Sound faded and white turned to black.

He smiled with satisfaction as the explosion shook the mountain. He’d left Government Camp as they left the house, sped to get through the pass well ahead of them, knowing the explosions would seal off the pass. He had no desire to get stuck in the poor excuse for a town, not for the time it would take to clear the road. The chip’s whereabouts still remained a mystery, and that bothered him, but the threat had been dealt with. Surely no one remained to trace it back to them. Mr. Thompson owed him an apology.

The roaring finally stopped, and all was silent—deathly silent. Piper continued to thrash her head and body until the snow settled, praying she’d created enough room to form an air pocket and allow movement. Her right hand was cold; she prayed that meant she’d cracked the surface, but then again, all of her was cold. She was buried in snow and ice. Too frightened to open her eyes because of what she might find, she prayed.

Please, Father, help us to survive this. Help them to find us quickly.

Opening her eyes, she found herself wrapped in a cocoon of white, but relief filled her at the faint light seeping in around her hand. She’d broken the surface.
Praise God.
That opening greatly increased their chances of survival.

She could feel the warmth of Landon’s body behind her. She’d felt the strength of his muscles straining against the avalanche as it bowled over them. Now he was still—
too still.

She wiggled her head around in the space she’d created and found him unconscious. She pressed against him, trying to rouse him within the tiny confines. No movement. No response. Her heart sank.

She wiggled her hand as far above the surface as she could, trying desperately to draw attention to their location. Using her free arm, she began digging, tunneling, fighting to reach the surface, the motion of her arms mimicking a swim stroke.
Faint light filled the cavity. She prayed the snow falling in was from the sky and not from the accumulation burying her again. Trying not to push too hard against Landon, she braced the soles of her boots against the trunk and used the traction to help propel her upward.

She broke the surface to snow swirling around her, white engulfing her. The blizzard had fully moved in. She squeezed her eyes shut, knowing it would hamper search and rescue. She fished her cell from her pocket, only to find it crushed.

Lying flat on her stomach, she dug to free Landon. His left hand sticking above the surface helped direct her efforts. Ignoring her numb hands, she dug, praying she wouldn’t be too late. After the fifteen-minute mark Landon’s chances of surviving being buried in snow dropped to twenty percent.

Ignoring the pins and needles stinging her fingers and hands, she kept digging until she’d cleared his head.

She cupped his face in her hands. “Landon.” She rubbed his cheeks, the blistering wind burning hers. “Landon, can you hear me?”

No response.

Clearing the powder down past his shoulders, she sat on the snow behind him, a leg draped on either side, her boots once again braced against the tree trunk. She looped her arms underneath his shoulders for leverage and, pressing hard against the tree, lurched back. The snow shifted beneath her, terrifying her that it would all give way, but it didn’t. She tried again and this time managed to raise Landon’s torso above the snow line. Heaving and pulling, she finally pulled him onto the surface. She located his cell, only to find it dead. She fought the desperation threatening to close in on her.

The snow was so thick and dense, she couldn’t see past her hand. She screamed at the top of her lungs. Surely someone heard the explosion. Surely someone would know they needed help.

Tying her yellow jacket to the tree, she moved a few feet in a straight line from Landon in the direction she believed the
road to be. They couldn’t have fallen that far. If she could make it to the road, they’d be much more likely to find help.
If the road even still exists.
An avalanche of that magnitude probably buried the entire pass. Another step and she lost sight of her jacket. The heavy snowfall, mixed with thirty-mile-an-hour winds and the avalanche’s destruction, obscured everything. She had to go back to Landon—quickly, before her footprints disappeared. If she didn’t, she risked losing him in only a matter of feet.

Making it back, she found a thin layer of snow already covering him. They needed to find shelter of some kind, because the harsh reality was they might not be found until the blizzard passed, and there was no way they’d survive out in the elements.

She tried rousing Landon, but to no avail. How could she move him? She couldn’t carry him, needed a way to pull him. Removing her jacket from the tree, she secured a sleeve around Landon’s right leg, finding his left swollen. She prayed it wasn’t broken, but now wasn’t the time for assessment. They needed to find shelter before night crept in and the temperatures dropped even further. She pulled off Landon’s outermost layer, his shell jacket, and secured it to his left ankle below the swelling. She gripped the loose sleeves from both jackets over her shoulders and used them as a harness to pull him across the snow.

Watching the ground at her feet for any protruding objects that could injure him, she moved downhill. It would conserve energy, and with the pass buried, it would probably be their only way out. She’d search for a stream, even if it was frozen, as it might lead them to a waterside cave, or if they were extremely fortunate, they might come across an avalanche shelter or ranger’s station.

Darkness soon swallowed what faint light there’d been. Landon moaned, his eyes flickering open intermittently, but she was never able to rouse him fully. Wind burned her cheeks, her lips. She stuck out her tongue, hoping the melting snow would ease her dry throat, but it only chilled her deeper. Pins and needles danced in her feet, so painfully she wanted to pray
for it to stop, but she knew when it did, it would mean frostbite. She’d already lost all feeling in her fingers; she didn’t even know how she still managed to grip the jacket sleeves. Bleakness threatened to seep in with the cold, but she refused to give in to despair. When nothing else could shelter them, God would.