“We weren’t sure,” Dr. Esparza stepped into the conversation. “She has friends here already. They could be talking and she lost track of time.”
“We told her be back at two. She’s not so late that we should call the police.”
They were grasping at hope. Did they already sense how slippery it was? How fragile?
“I wish I had better news,” Nicole said. She stood in the center of the room, turned so that the mother was her focal point but also so that she could keep both male Esparzas in her scope. Her words caused a ripple through the family. Shoulders jerked; facial tics were triggered. The tension inside Mrs. Esparza reached a breaking point and was released in a sharp humming from her lips. “We found Beatrice early this morning, out on Lake Maria. She’s dead.”
Joaquin straightened in the doorway then, his arms dropping to his sides. “You’re wrong,” he said.
A whistling noise rose from the throat of Mrs. Esparza, almost as if her airway had narrowed.
Dr. Esparza wavered on his feet. His hands were stuffed into the pocket of his hoodie and his elbows flapped once, twice.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Nicole said. She made her breaths long and deep and waited, mired in their pain. Steady. Ready to offer what she could but unable to ignore a voice in the back of her brain. Some things weren’t adding up. The tension in the room when she’d entered, the division she sensed between the family members. The body of a young girl on a frozen lake.
Nicole thought of Jordan at home, sleeping peacefully, and wanted to be there, with her son, holding him, though he was much too old for that and seldom allowed it now.
“We need a positive identification,” Nicole said, and pulled the snow bunny ID pass, still in its evidence bag, out of her coat pocket. She held it up, and the father closed the space between them. He touched his fingers to the plastic, and Nicole noticed their fine tremor. He stroked his daughter’s face and confirmed, “Yes, my daughter. My beautiful Beatrice.”
Mrs. Esparza began keening then, and her husband crossed the room and sat down beside her. Joaquin kept his vigilance in the doorway. There was more in his face than shock; there was surprise. He had believed he’d hear something else. His parents had hoped for something different, but the teen had actually expected it.
Later that day, Esparza would have to come to the hospital for an official ID. Nicole explained this to him.
“Of course,” he agreed immediately, but his voice was hollow, the words adrift. He held his wife’s hand, and his gaze was fixed on their woven fingers.
Nicole stepped farther into the room, hoping to draw his attention.
“When was the last time you saw your daughter, sir?” Nicole directed her question to the father but watched Joaquin. The shock in the young man’s face eased and the surprise morphed into something else. Grief, certainly, but anger too.
“Dr. Esparza?” Nicole prompted.
“Last night. We had dinner together and returned to the room,” he said.
“Eight twenty.” The words were whispered, patchy. Mrs. Esparza lifted her eyes from the study of her hands and hooked Nicole’s gaze. “We left the room at eight twenty, my husband and I.”
“We skied the moonlight run,” Dr. Esparza clarified.
“Yesterday we stayed in with the girls—our little ones. They have colds.”
“We have two young daughters,” the doctor said. “Not even teenagers yet.”
“They are eight and ten,” the mother said.
Color was slowly returning to their faces and strength to their words.
“And you, Joaquin? When was the last time you saw your sister?”
Nicole stepped toward him. The young man was lanky, had more height than his father but the same slim build. But where his sister had had rounded cheeks and curves, he was broad angles and plains. And no small amount of defiance. His arms were crossed again and he shrugged before answering.
“Last night. We ordered cable.” His gaze adjusted until he was staring at the blank face of the flat-screen TV. “I brewed hot chocolate in the coffeepot.”
“What was the movie?”
“Fast and Furious six.”
“Did Beatrice watch with you?”
“Some. She only likes reality shows.”
“What time did she leave the room?”
“I didn’t see her leave.”
“The movie was that good?”
“I went to bed,” Joaquin said. “I was tired.”
“What time?”
He eased his shoulder against the jamb and didn’t pretend to give her question thought. “Nine thirty.”
She called his bluff. “It doesn’t look like you ever made it to bed.” The pajamas, for all his vinegar, could simply be a costume call.
Nicole turned to the parents. “What time did you get back to the room?”
“After eleven,” the father said.
“It was midnight,” the mother corrected.
“Exactly?”
“I heard the bells chime in the lobby. I think there’s a clock there. It chimed twelve times as we were waiting for the elevator.”
Dr. Esparza spread his hands. “So it was midnight.”
“Where do you live?”
“Live?” Dr. Esparza repeated, struggling with the change in questioning.
“Yes. You’re here on vacation, right?”
“Oh, yes.” He shook his head—an attempt to clear his mind. “San Diego.”
“You don’t get a lot of skiing in there,” she commented. “Are you a medical doctor, sir?”
“Yes. Oncology,” he offered.
Nicole nodded. “Is the purpose of this trip solely vacation?”
“We ski every Christmas holiday,” the mother said. “Last year it was Telluride.”
“The year before, Stowe,” Dr. Esparza continued. “Every year we find the snow. For Christmas.”
“Do you work, Mrs. Esparza? Outside the home?”
“No, not anymore.”
“She was a nurse,” Dr. Esparza said.
“For a few short years.”
“How old are you, Joaquin?”
“Seventeen.”
“And Beatrice?”
“Fourteen,” the mother said. “June fourth, two thousand five. Her birthday. Just one day before mine.”
Nicole pulled a small notebook out of her coat pocket. She’d make a note of the important details of their conversation when she got back to the Yukon. When she interviewed people, especially the first pass, she liked to watch their faces, read their body language, which often told her more than words or tone.
“We’ll need some information,” she told them. “Your full names—all of you, Beatrice included—ages, address, phone numbers.” She handed the notebook to the doctor and then gave her full attention to Joaquin.
“Your sister left to meet with friends?”
He shrugged, as much as he could and still maintain his sloucher pose against the doorjamb. “I don’t know. Probably.”
“But she has some here? New acquaintances?”
“We’ve met a few people on the slopes. We’ve been invited to parties and stuff.”