Chapter
Ten
WOW, NANCY THOUGHT AS she moved closer to the men, pretending to look for something she had left behind. Logan really wants to take this trip. She couldn’t blame him. He had worked hard to make it all come together.
Alex’s eyebrows were knit tightly together. “It doesn’t need to come to that, Logan,” Alex answered steadily. “I’m sure we can work something out. It’s just that I don’t want to ask Tsu to watch the office by herself, since she’s been injured. With all the strange things that have been going on, I think it would be asking too much.”
“I disagree,” Logan replied. “She’s feeling blue since she can’t climb, so feeling useful would be good medicine.”
Alex considered for a minute, then nodded. “You could be right,” he said thoughtfully. “I’ll ask her how she feels. If it’s all right with her, it’s all right with me.”
“Great.” Logan smiled at his friend. “I’ll go find her so we can settle this now.”
As Logan left the room, Nancy approached Alex. “Delicious dinner,” she said.
Alex smiled, but Nancy could see the strain on his face. The break-in and accidents were taking their toll. “I wanted to update you on the case,” she said.
“My investigation has turned up a new suspect,” Nancy began as Kara joined them. “And an interesting one at that.”
Alex and Kara stood perfectly still as they waited for Nancy to go on.
“What do you know about Lisa Osterman?” Nancy asked pointedly.
“Lisa’s a suspect?” Kara didn’t conceal the surprise in her voice. “But she just got into town a couple days ago.”
“I searched her hotel room, and found an airline ticket that shows she arrived in Tacoma over two weeks ago.”
“Really,” Kara said.
“But she could have stayed in Tacoma for a while before coming here,” Alex pointed out.
“True,” Nancy admitted. Was her suspicion of Lisa unfounded? “But my intuition tells me she’s hiding something. Has she said anything to you that’s unusual?”
“Just the way she mixed up the names and locations of peaks in Pakistan. I kind of doubt that she’s done much climbing in the Himalayas, no matter what she says,” Kara said.
Just then Logan and Tsu came into the dining room, and judging from the gleam in Logan’s eye, Nancy guessed that Tsu was willing to run the office alone.
“I don’t mind taking care of the office, Alex,” Tsu said, her face brightening a bit. “It will give me something to think about other than myself while my shoulder heals.”
“All right then, it’s settled.” Alex grinned. “Logan, do you have time to go as a guide?”
Logan laughed. “I think I can fit it into my busy schedule,” he said. “But I’d better get home and start packing.” He and Tsu said good night and left together.
“We have to consider the possibility that Lisa may be responsible for everything that’s happened,” Nancy said, getting back to the subject of Lisa.
“Then I want her off the trip,” Alex said firmly.
“But, Alex, we aren’t positive it’s her,” Kara countered. “And she’s already paid for the trip and gone through snow school. We can’t just tell her she’s out.”
“I have to agree with Kara,” Nancy put in. “Of course, there’s still Hank Moody as a suspect. So we don’t know anything for sure.”
Alex hesitated for a moment, then nodded slowly. “I suppose it would be foolish of her to try to pull something with all of us on the trip,” he said. “We’ll let her come, but let’s keep an eye on her at all times.”
“All in a day’s work,” Nancy joked, then signaled to Ned that she wanted to leave.
“Listen,” Nancy said as Ned folded up the newspaper he’d been reading and slipped it under his arm, “I want to head over to Outrageous Adventures to see if I can dig up anything on Hank Moody.”
“I’m game,” Ned responded. “Let’s go.”
“Do you want me to come in with you?” Ned asked in the car outside the dark office building.
“I could use your help searching,” Nancy answered, “but on second thought, it would be better if you stayed outside to keep watch.”
“Okay, gorgeous,” Ned answered, leaning over and planting a soft, lingering kiss on her lips. “Are you sure you don’t want to keep watch with me?” he asked when they had pulled apart, his brown eyes twinkling with mischief.
“Ned Nickerson,” Nancy said, swatting him on the arm playfully. “Are you trying to keep me from my case?”
“Of course not,” he said, “but with the chilly winter air blowing outside, I can’t help but wish you could stay here and keep me warm.”
“I’ll be back soon,” Nancy promised, and gave Ned one last peck before slipping out of the car quietly to pick the front lock.
Since the front office had no windows, the room was pitch black. Nancy slipped her lock-picking tools back into her coat pocket and pulled a penlight out of her purse. A second later the beam lit up the room.
Nancy moved toward Hank’s office, where she took off her coat and went through his desk drawers. It was filled with papers and business envelopes, but Nancy found nothing of interest.
Nancy noticed a stack of papers on top of the desk and began to sift through them. A recent credit card bill had a charge of three hundred and fifty dollars to Pacific Airlines—the airline that Lisa had flown to Tacoma!
Nancy checked the date of the bill, and saw that the transaction took place the same day Lisa’s ticket was issued! Had Hank Moody bought Lisa’s ticket? Was she working for him? Nancy wondered as she pulled a pen out of her purse and jotted down the credit card information.
Nancy moved toward the small table near the window with pictures of Hank’s family. The first photo showed a much younger Hank. He was on top of a mountain, smiling at the camera with a young, attractive woman by his side. Probably his wife, Nancy guessed.
After scanning the next photograph, Nancy knew it had been taken a good many years earlier. There were lots of smiling faces in the picture, and Nancy recognized the woman from the other photo standing near Hank. One of the children in the picture seemed familiar, but Nancy couldn’t place her.
After putting the second photo down, Nancy went back through the reception area to look for the gear room. The third door she opened into a room with the musty smell of camping gear.
Nancy slowly made her way down one aisle. She wasn’t exactly sure what to look for, except possibly a lot of fancy-looking gear with the Alpine Adventures name stitched into it. She passed the backpacks and the sleeping bags and made her way back toward the door along an aisle with cookware, stoves, and water filters.
When she turned down the third aisle, she found stacks of crampons, ice axes, and harnesses. Picking up a crampon, she noted that it was different from those used at Alpine Adventures. It had an old leather strap and the teeth were a different shape. Running her finger along the sharp edge of the teeth, she noticed that they weren’t all that sharp.
“I guess Hank isn’t using state-of-the-art equipment these days,” Nancy murmured as she put the crampon down and moved toward the ice axes. Just as she picked one up, she heard a shuffling sound behind her.
Startled, Nancy whirled around, but in doing so lost her grip on her penlight. As it fell to the floor it cast a drunken light pattern on the wall and then went out.
Nancy groped for the light, but before she could grasp it, she heard footsteps in the darkness. A second later she heard the decisive slam of a door.
Nancy had been locked in.
Chapter
Eleven
NANCY WAITED IN THE darkness, listening to the footsteps fade away and focusing on a way to get out.
Feeling along the cold cement floor, Nancy finally found her penlight. As she guessed, it no longer worked. The fall to the floor had smashed the bulb.
Nancy cautiously moved toward the door, feeling along the walls and she
lves. When she reached the door, her suspicions were confirmed—she was locked in.
Nancy unzipped her purse and began to search for the tool she used to pick locks. It wasn’t there. With a sinking feeling, Nancy realized that she had slipped it into her coat pocket and left her coat in Hank Moody’s office.
Nancy turned around and squinted, into the darkness. She had to find something to jimmy the lock. But there was no window in the gear room and she couldn’t see a thing.
Slowly and carefully, Nancy began to make her way down the aisle to the cooking utensils. Suddenly, she tripped and fell to the floor, knocking her head hard against a shelf. She groped in front of her. There was a coil of rope on the floor, which she had fallen over. Sitting back, she ran her fingers gingerly across the top of her head, near the hairline. She felt a small swelling, and her head throbbed painfully.
Nancy tried to envision the different kinds of camping gear she had seen on the shelves when her flashlight was working. She couldn’t think of a thing that would pick a lock.
Discouraged, her head throbbing, she felt the bump on her head for the second time, and her hand brushed against a barrette. A barrette! Nancy thought with relief. It was old, with two thin, flexible prongs. Nancy had a way out.
With the barrette in her hand, Nancy stood up and walked back to the door. A moment later the door swung open and Nancy stepped into the main office. As she closed the gear room door behind her, a bright flashlight shone directly into her eyes, blinding her. Nancy froze.
“Nancy, what happened?” Ned calmly questioned.
“Oh, I’m so glad it’s you,” Nancy cried, rushing toward him.
“Who else would it be?” Ned asked, confused.
“I don’t know,” Nancy admitted. “But someone locked me in the gear room and then I fell and hit my head.”
“I don’t like the sound of that, Nan,” Ned said.
Before long Nancy and Ned were in the car again, driving back to the hotel.
“When you hadn’t come back in twenty-five minutes, I was sure something had gone wrong, so I went in after you,” Ned was saying. “I’m just sorry I didn’t go in sooner.”
“You did the right thing, Ned.” Nancy reached over and squeezed his arm. “But are you sure you didn’t see anyone going into or coming out of the office?”
“I’m positive,” Ned responded. “I had my eyes on the front door the whole time you were inside, and nobody went through it.”
“They must have come in through a side door,” Nancy concluded. “Unless they were already inside. I just wish we knew who it was.”
• • •
When Nancy’s wake-up call came at six o’clock the next morning, it was still dark outside. She had to be at Alpine Adventures at seven-thirty and still had last-minute packing to do. After taking a shower, she rolled her sleeping bag up and stuffed it into the bottom of the backpack that Alpine Adventures had supplied. Then she laid out all the clothing she’d need.
By the time Nancy had squeezed everything into her pack, strapped her thermal sleeping pad to the outside, and dressed, it was time to meet Ned for the drive over to Alpine Adventures.
“Bring your packs over here,” Logan called as Nancy and Ned pulled them out of the trunk of their car.
“I don’t know how we’re going to carry these packs up a fourteen-thousand-foot mountain,” Ned murmured as they made their way to the van.
“We only have to carry them to base camp,” Nancy offered as reassurance.
“That’s a two-day hike,” Ned countered anxiously. “And even it’s at ten thousand feet.”
Nancy smiled confidently. “I know you can handle it,” she said.
Nancy and Ned next went into the office to put on their boots and crampons so that Kara could check their fit.
With everything loaded, the group piled into the van and set off for the park. Kara had brought along warm muffins, fruit, tea, and coffee, and everyone ate as the van made its way along country highways, with Mt. Rainier beckoning in the distance.
Nancy squeezed Ned’s hand as she gazed at the tall evergreens, their branches laden with white, powdery snow. The early-morning sky was clear and brilliant.
After a two-and-a-half-hour drive they climbed out of the van, and everyone gasped at Rainier. Almost completely covered in snow, it dwarfed the other mountains. They were at fifty-five hundred feet, and the remaining nine thousand feet—straight up—looked impossible to climb.
Hefting their packs and strapping snowshoes onto their boots, the group hiked over several flat, open spaces before beginning the ascent to Panorama Point.
As they hiked along, the conversation turned from the weather to climbing experiences and gruesome climbing accidents. Hundreds of people had died on the mountain, many of them on the lower slopes and lesser peaks.
“Hikers don’t realize that there’s danger at lower altitudes, too,” Kara explained. “They think they’re on safe, gentle territory, so they don’t pay attention to what they’re doing or where they’re hiking, which is when accidents happen.”
Nancy felt a sense of foreboding as she lifted her snowshoes, keeping in rhythm with the other hikers. The mountain was unquestionably a dangerous one, with its glaciers, snow bridges, and crevasses, and it was even more dangerous with a possible criminal on the trip.
Sometime in midafternoon, the group arrived at their first camp near Panorama Point.
“This is it,” Alex declared, gesturing widely with his arms.
Nancy wondered exactly what he meant. The area was generally flat, with a sloping hill on one side that provided some shelter from the wind. A clump of fir trees stood off to the right, and there were a few rocky ledges about fifty yards away. They were in the middle of nowhere.
“We’re going to build snow caves,” Kara explained when she saw the confusion on Nancy’s face. “They’re the warmest shelter out here.”
Nancy nodded and took her pack off, setting it on the snow near everyone else’s. She marveled at the weightlessness she felt as she walked over to the group that had gathered near the hill.
“Okay,” Logan began as he unstrapped a small collapsible shovel from his backpack. “Alex and I are each going to start a cave by digging two holes into the side of this hill.” While Nancy and the rest of the group watched, the two men dug narrow tubelike holes into the side of the hill, about twenty-five feet apart.
“The holes should be just wide enough for one person to fit through,” Alex explained as he worked at the icy snow with his shovel. The two men dug for several minutes. While they worked, the others cleared the snow away from the openings, though Eladio was worried about getting snow in his boots.
Alex and Logan then wriggled themselves into the holes and each began to create a room. They shoved snow out through the holes, and the teams on the outside cleared it away.
Eventually the caves were large enough for a second person to fit inside, so Nancy crawled inside one and began to help clear the space. It didn’t take long for Nancy to realize that building a snow cave was difficult, tedious work. Because the entrances to the cave were long and narrow, she had to shovel the snow out in very small amounts.
The group worked on the caves for almost two hours, and when they were finished they had built two caves that each measured seven feet by seven feet—big enough for four people each.
As she set up her plastic liner and sleeping bag, Nancy commented how warm it was in the cave.
“This must be your first time in a snow cave,” Lisa said knowingly.
Nancy was slightly irritated by her tone, but she smiled graciously. “Is it that obvious?” she asked.
“Not really,” Anne assured her as she spread her thermal sleeping pad on the ground. Nancy was surprised that Anne had come to her defense. “But unless you’ve done a lot of winter climbing or spent time in the Arctic, there’s no reason why you would spend time in a snow cave.”
“I guess that’s true,” Nancy agreed, laughing. “I?
??d really miss having electricity.” Having placed her sleeping bag on top of her thermal pad, Nancy decided to rejoin the rest of the group.
Wriggling out of the cave entrance, Nancy shivered and pulled her scarf up around her face. It was much colder outside.
Kara and Logan had set up a kind of shelter with tarps and were cooking dinner. Nancy walked over to the “kitchen” and poured boiling water into her bowl to heat it up. Logan had explained that if you put hot food into a frozen bowl, the food didn’t stay warm for long.
“Lots of carbohydrates,” Kara joked as she filled Nancy and Ned’s bowls with macaroni and cheese.
Ned and Nancy turned to go back into Ned’s snow cave to eat. They huddled close together on Ned’s sleeping bag, trying to keep warm as they ate.
When dinner was finished, Nancy and Ned went back outside. They asked Kara if she needed help with cleanup, but she insisted that everything was under control. Kara shooed everyone away from the kitchen area and began to do the dishes, so Nancy decided to turn in.
“Sleep tight,” Ned said to Nancy as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and gave her a tender kiss. His mouth was warm compared to the cold mountain air, and Nancy felt herself melting in his arms.
“I will,” Nancy promised, feeling how tired she was. After giving Ned a final kiss good night, she crawled into her cave.
Since she had been the first to turn in, the snow cave was empty. Nancy pulled off her gloves, parka, and wind pants, leaving her hat and wool socks on for warmth.
After burrowing into her mummy-shaped sleeping bag, Nancy considered what the next day might bring.
A moment later her thoughts were interrupted by a loud scream that echoed through the night.
Chapter
Twelve
NANCY SAT BOLT UPRIGHT. It was Kara who had screamed. In an instant Nancy was out of her sleeping bag and pulling on her boots and parka.