“Well, … wait.” She stopped, looked at him, and said, “What do you mean, across the mountain?”
“Did you not see the direction you were going?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t understand. Why would I go there?” She frowned.
“I don’t know,” he said, his own voice going quiet. “But if ever a hill to catch everybody’s attention on, it’s that one.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“How long have you been in town?”
“Since the first of October,” she said.
“Oh, so then you haven’t heard the rumors?”
“No,” she said, raising her hands in frustration. “Rumors about what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He was tempted to believe her, but he’d been gullible before, and his years on the force had made him anything but stupid at this point in his life. “Look,” he said. “That particular peak? One of the reasons it is considered so dangerous is because we’ve already had a suspicious death there.”
“When?” she asked. “Who?”
“It was a long time ago,” he said evasively, not wanting to give her anything more salacious to help her work her con or whatever it was she was pulling.
“Okay,” she said, “so, if I keep digging, I’ll find it?”
“Probably,” he said, “I don’t know.” And, with that, he added, “I don’t want you going back up the mountain and pulling another stunt like that.”
“As I said, I didn’t pull this stunt,” she shot back, and he could see the anger building in her eyes. “I have no problem with not repeating it.”
He frowned. “Look. We have a lot of good people working ski patrol up there,” he said. “It’s very traumatizing when somebody ends up dead.”
“Yeah. Same could also be said about the person who ended up dead,” she said, her gaze wide, yet holding a hint of sarcasm.
“I don’t think that’s as much of an issue as it is for the people who are left behind,” he said. “But these ski patrol people spend a lot of time and energy trying to keep idiots safe, and, when the idiots won’t comply and end up dying, despite the best efforts of the rescuers, well, it’s hard on them.”
“You know something? I can actually see that,” she said in a quiet voice. “However, I wasn’t planning on being stupid or difficult or dying.”
“No,” he said. “I’m half inclined to believe you on that. The trouble is, I can’t decide if you’re just a fool or somebody who just likes trouble, or if you’re just a silly schoolgirl.”
At that, his barb hit home, and, with a visible wince, she clammed up.
He nodded. “Stay away from the mountain for a while, would you? And, if you do ever go back up there,” he said, “be smart about it.” And, with that, he turned and walked out.
Chapter One
Gabby walked through the hospital out the front door. She didn’t know where Wendy was, she’d expected her best friend to be waiting here at the hospital. She pulled out her phone, surprised that it had survived, feeling way better than she apparently had any right to. When she called Wendy, her girlfriend answered right away, asking about her mountain tumble.
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Are you okay?”
“Sure. Then I was okay up on the mountain,” she said, “so this doesn’t exactly change anything.”
“Maybe not,” her girlfriend said, “but I was really worried about you.”
Yet you weren’t here. Why is that? “Well, I came to the hospital to placate you guys,” she said, “and the detective is still pissed off at me.”
“Yeah, he sounded like it when he was here,” she said. “As cranky as your boss is, will he think this is another publicity stunt of yours, which just makes his bookstore look bad again? Do you think you’ll lose your job over it?”
She winced at that. “I hope not,” she said. “I came here to snowboard for the winter. Arriving a couple of months before the season, I really got going to find work so I could pay my way. The last thing I want to do is end up in so much trouble that I don’t even have a way to support myself here. Aspen is not exactly a place for the faint of heart.”
“No, it certainly isn’t,” Wendy said. “Are you coming home?”
“Well, I’d like to,” she said. “Would you mind coming to pick me up?”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she said.
“Fine. I’ll be sitting outside.”
“It’s cold out,” she said. “You should wait inside.”
“I’m good. I’m fine,” she said.
“Good for you,” Wendy retorted. “I can’t get warm since we got home.”
“Yeah, well, I probably should be freezing or in shock or something. Even the doctor seems to think I’m in better shape than I should be.”
“Well, after that fall, you must admit that you are pretty lucky to have walked away from it.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “But I can’t really do anything to change things, now can I?”
“No, of course not,” she said. “It’s just really lucky that you have the opportunity to rethink your life now.” At that, her friend hung up.
Gabby was left staring at her phone. “What are you talking about? Rethinking my life?” she said. “I just wanted a winter to snowboard. Is that really so much to ask for?”
Apparently it was because, ever since Gabby had started work at the bookstore, it seemed like everything had gone off-kilter somehow. She didn’t understand why nothing ever seemed to work out. It was frustrating as heck. As she stood here in the front entrance, leaning against the hospital’s brick wall, she took several long slow deep breaths, not sure if it was just her weird clarity at the moment or if everybody else was in a fog.
She didn’t understand this clarity, but she did feel different somehow. She rotated her neck slowly and stretched her arms high above her head. As she brought her arms back down again, the detective drove by, staring at her. She flushed and gave him a quick little wave of friendship, hoping that he wouldn’t see her as any more of an oddball than she already was in his eyes.
She figured from the glare he sent her way that she’d failed.
She wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but something had set him off too. Then some people thought her odd here in Aspen. She didn’t know why. What was wrong with being a happy-go-lucky person? Despite her circumstances, she had always been like this.
However, something about this place deemed her a little weird to everybody. It wasn’t Aspen itself. It wasn’t the bookstore. Not really. Just sometimes. And now the fact that she had survived that tremendous fall without so much as a scratch would just add fuel to the fire. She didn’t know how to combat that, except to do what she’d always done, which was ignore them.
She really wasn’t insensitive to other people; it’s just that either people really got her or they didn’t. Finding her tribe was something she had hoped to do a long time ago, but instead here it seemed like she’d ended up with a whole group of female misfits, who Gabby felt a lot older than, only to find out they all thought she was younger. She shook her head at that.