Jack Frost: Detective Jack Stratton Mystery Thriller Series Read online

  24

  On the Fritz

  The snow was accumulating fast. Then there were the blasts of bitter wind that pelted Jack and Cornelius with icy pellets as they trudged along. To give credit where credit was due, the Appalachian mountain man was as spry as an Alpine billy goat and never seemed in doubt about the direction of the green trail, though there were no signs visible to Jack until they came right up on them. Visibility in general was so poor, they almost tripped on one of the tents in front of the lodge.

  Cornelius punched Jack in the arm and crowed over the howling wind, “I knew it! Four little cribs! Like campin’ in your folks’ backyard. Disgustin’.”

  The front door opened, and Ollie peered out. “About time. You two take the scenic route?”

  “That rented mule needs a whuppin’,” Cornelius muttered.

  “Did you see Abe or Chiri?” Ollie asked. “They’re not back yet, and Harvey can’t put eyes on them. Sun sets in a couple hours.”

  “We didn’t see anyone,” Jack said.

  “So when’s this talk?” Cornelius asked.

  “Leah’s going to address everyone in a little bit,” Ollie said. “You’re in the blue tent.”

  “Why, they all look white to me.” He’s enjoying himself! Jack thought enviously.

  “The one on the end there.” Ollie pointed.

  The mountain man eyed Jack. “You coulda told me to bring some more grub. I knew they was gonna make us move.” He stomped off, but he didn’t really seem that upset. If anything, the old man’s cheerful grousing seemed to energize him.

  Jack and Ollie exchanged a Whatcha gonna do look and clomped the last few yards over the snow to the lodge. Inside, Bree was stretched out on one of the couches, reading a magazine, and Ollie sat down at the table as Jack went through the rituals of knocking the snow off his boots, hanging up his parka, and stowing his backpack.

  “Hey, Ollie.” Jack pointed. “There’s Abe’s backpack. You sure he’s not back?”

  Ollie shrugged. “I must’ve taken it by mistake when I went out.”

  “That’s crap,” Bree called over. “You took Abe’s backpack and gear so that you wouldn’t have to prep your own stuff. Abe knows exactly what you did. He had to prep your gear instead, and he’s ticked. He’s telling Leah.”

  “It was a joke.” Ollie waved his hand dismissively.

  “You took it by mistake, and it was a joke?” Sarcasm dripped from her voice. “Which story are you going with again?”

  Ollie scowled.

  Jack was glowering. “And by the way, if that was a joke… not funny at all.”

  “Is that Abe and Chiri?” Leah shouted from the top of the stairs.

  “No, it’s Jack. He came down with Cornelius,” Ollie called up.

  Leah appeared on the landing. “Jack, did you see Abe and Chiri?”

  “No, sorry.”

  Leah kicked a baluster, causing the whole banister to shake. “They should have been back two hours ago.” She locked eyes with Jack.

  Jack shared the concern he saw in Leah’s dark eyes. “I’ll go out,” Jack said, without hesitation.

  “No, you won’t.” Leah shook her head. “Harvey’s searching with the cameras.”

  “Visibility is awful—the cameras are useless in this,” Ollie said. To Jack’s intense annoyance, he added, “Let Jack go. It’s not a hard climb. He can be back in an hour.”

  Gavin and Ryan strolled into the main hall in the midst of a conversation, interrupting Jack’s fantasy of strangling Ollie. “That was in Dubai,” Gavin was saying. “The shopkeeper had no idea how much it was really worth. I turned around and sold the piece for more money than that rube sees in a year!”

  Ryan laughed loudly. But his smile faded when he looked up at Leah. “You look like something’s wrong. Is there a problem with the cameras in the new tents?”

  “We have a bigger issue. Abe’s not back with Chiri. They’re long overdue.”

  Gavin pointed at Jack. “You there. Don’t just stand around. Go get the little fellow and the cameraman so we can get this show moving again.”

  “You there? My name’s one syllable, Jack. Use it,” Jack said, sounding a bit like Clint Eastwood.

  Gavin took a step behind Ryan. Leah exhaled loudly. “We don’t need to send anyone out there yet. For now, Ollie and Harvey can shoot a bunch of B-roll. Ryan, why don’t you have Gavin record the audio and we’ll lay it over footage of the temporary setup?”

  Gavin looked horrified. “And not show my face?”

  Ryan snapped his fingers. “Picture-in-picture. We’ll do a close-up of your face and superimpose it in the corner of the screen.”

  “That’s why you’re the director.” Gavin shot Leah a smug look and marched toward the kitchen. “I’ll need some avocado first. An avocado a day keeps the wrinkles away.”

  Ryan, like a trained seal, laughed and clapped his hands at Gavin’s attempt at wit.

  Leah gestured Jack over, and said in a low voice, “I need to speak with you.”

  Jack followed her up the staircase and into an empty room—no furniture; bare walls. She shut the door, took a deep breath, and pulled a folded sheet of paper from her jacket. Her fingers trembled as she handed it to Jack. “I got another note.”

  “When?”

  “This morning, when I woke up. At the foot of my bed. It factored into my decision to pull everyone close to the lodge.”

  First thing this morning? If she held that fact back, what else was she not telling him? Jack wasn’t on the force anymore, but his internal police radar never turned off. “Why didn’t you tell me when I came back with Vicky?”

  “You were threatening to shut us down. But now…” Fear was evident in her voice. “I’m worried something may have happened to Abe and Chiri.”

  Jack unfolded the paper. The dark-red block letters were smeared but easy to read: TOO LATE. His throat clenched and his stomach tightened, but he forced his expression to remain neutral. Leah had never wanted to hear the truth before; why start now?

  “Is that blood?” Leah’s voice warbled, and she wrapped her arms around her own chest.

  He remembered seeing something similar during a domestic violence case he’d worked. The husband had violated a restraining order, punching out the glass in the front door, and when he discovered his wife wasn’t home, he wrote SEE YOU SOON in his own blood on the wall.

  “Leah!” Ollie bellowed from downstairs. “You’d better get down here!”

  Leah snatched the note and shoved it in her pocket, and she and Jack rushed out of the room and down the stairs. Harvey and Bree stood in the main hall, with Ollie holding open the front door as Chiri trudged in with Abe slung across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. The tall man’s head and legs nearly touched the ground.

  “His legs are broken,” Chiri panted.

  “Set him here,” Ollie said. He swept everything from the table onto the floor with a crash.

  Harvey and Ollie helped turn Abe over and lay him down gently on the table. His face was pale and splotchy. Suddenly, Abe screamed, his back arching and his white-knuckled hands grasping the table’s edges. Then his scream abruptly stopped, like someone flicked a switch, and he passed out.

  The sight of so much blood and the familiar sounds of the injured began to trigger Jack’s PTSD. His heart began to race and his mouth went dry. Focus. It’s not Iraq. You’re in charge. He had to let the hot panic blast through him before he could embrace cold logic and focus on the emergency. “Bree! Get the med kit!” he ordered.

  She ran off past Ryan and Gavin, who emerged from the kitchen.

  “What exactly happened out there?” Jack asked Chiri.

  “I was in my tent and heard someone scream. I went as far as the cliff but didn’t see anyone. Then I heard it again. I found him lying in the snow halfway down the side of the cliff.”

  “We’re going to need more than a med kit,” Harvey said. “The right leg is a compound break. He’s bleeding profusely.”<
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  Gavin stood in place, frozen, as green as the piece of avocado in his hand.

  Leah pulled out her satellite phone. “Ryan, help Harvey stop the bleeding. Ollie, get the backboard. Chiri, I need you to keep an eye on the contestants. Don’t let any of them in.”

  Ollie ran down the hallway. Harvey sent Ryan to get some scissors and dishcloths from the kitchen, and when he returned, began cutting Abe’s pants off. Chiri went outside, looking utterly exhausted, and through the window Jack saw Frida meet him and the two speaking and gesturing.

  Leah shook the sat phone and glared at it. “The phone isn’t working,” she hissed.

  “Where’s the backup?” Jack asked.

  Leah shook her head. “With all the cutbacks—” Her hand balled into a fist. “We don’t have a backup.”

  Abe’s sudden scream cut her off. “Don’t pull it! Don’t pull it!” He shouted the words like his life depended on it.

  Harvey was bent over Abe’s mangled right leg, trying to remove his bloody boot, when Bree ran in with the med kit. Jack’s last encounter with Harvey had revealed an unpleasant side to the man, but Harvey was at his best now—competent, caring, and completely on task. He began giving directives like the captain of a sinking ship.

  “We need snow,” Harvey said. “A lot of it. We need to pack his legs.” He yanked some bandages from the med kit. Ollie had come in with the backboard, and Harvey told him, “Get a trash can or something from the kitchen. Anything that will hold snow. Load it up.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Harvey moved to the middle of the table. “Jack, get over here and hold Abe’s shoulders. Ryan, make sure his legs don’t move.”

  They worked furiously for the next fifteen minutes, making a splint and a tourniquet, handing Harvey the things he needed, and packing the right leg in ice. Finally, Harvey lifted his head and said, “There’s no more we can do for now.” He turned to Leah. “Both legs are badly broken, but his right leg is completely mangled. I hope I stopped the bleeding. He needs to get to a hospital.”

  “The sat phone’s not working,” Leah said.

  “Do we have any equipment that’s not on the fritz?” Ollie snapped.

  Jack stared down at the blood on his hands and tightened them into fists to stop the tremor that was slowly building. “We need to take him down in the gondola. Now.”

  “Ollie and Jack, get Abe on the backboard.” Leah handed Harvey the phone. “You’ve done all you can for Abe. See if you can get this phone working.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Jack grabbed the foot of the backboard while Ollie and Leah each grasped a handle at the head.

  “Ryan, you’re in charge until I get back.”

  Ryan, his eyes wide, the front of his shirt bloody from holding Abe’s legs still, just nodded.

  “I’m going with you,” Bree said, and held Abe’s hand while they walked outside.

  The sting of snow only fueled Jack’s resolve. He wondered again if he was cross-wired, somehow. Most people struggled to keep it together in a crisis, but for Jack, the more pressure he was under, the clearer he thought; the calmer he became. Once he navigated beyond the initial stage and stared down any potential PTSD, that is.

  The worst part was poor Abe, awake again and moaning on the stretcher. They trudged to the gondola as quickly and smoothly as they could and set Abe down on the floor, then Leah sent Ollie back to the control house to operate the lift.

  Bree knelt down beside Abe and squeezed his hand. His eyes fluttered open. “No. No. I can’t leave. I can’t. Leah?”

  Leah leaned close to Abe’s face. “We’re taking you down to see a doctor, Abe.”

  “Please. I’ll be all right. I need this job.” Abe tried to sit up, but the straps held him in place. “Bring me back to the lodge.” He seemed to know where he was but had no idea how badly he was hurt.

  Bree stroked Abe’s brow. “Sure thing, right after we get you checked out by a doctor.”

  “I’m fine…” Abe’s voice was getting softer. “My carabiner broke.”

  Leah stiffened. “That’s impossible. We use only steel carabiners.”

  “Broke in two,” Abe mumbled. He closed his eyes. “I watched the pieces fall as I fell…”

  Bree looked toward the control booth. “What’s taking Ollie so long?”

  “Jack, go check on him,” Leah said.

  Jack pulled back the door of the gondola and raced uphill to the cement shed that housed the controls. “Ollie, why aren’t we moving?” He peered out the window that looked down the length of the cables, where they swooped into icy invisibility.

  Ollie twisted the key in the control panel. “Something’s wrong. It’s not even clicking. There’s no power.”

  “But the lights are working.”

  “The control panel is on a separate circuit.” Ollie yanked open a panel on the wall, and his shoulders relaxed. “All right, it’s just a blown fuse. I’ll have you guys going in a minute.”

  He pulled out the old fuse and set it on a cabinet, next to an identical fuse covered in dust. Then he unlocked a nearby cabinet.

  “Bloody hell! You’ve got to be kidding me.” He pulled out two empty fuse boxes and tossed them at Jack’s feet. “Out of fuses! Cheap bastards. Now what do we do?”

  25

  Something Special

  “Alice! I think I found something!”

  Alice hurried into the bedroom with Lady prancing behind her.

  Mrs. Stevens sat in front of the monitor, pointing a cookie at the screen. “What do you think about that?”

  Alice looked at the paused video, a behind-the-scenes shot of the crew. Gavin was speaking to Ryan, while Ollie and Charlie were pulling equipment out of a bag.

  “Look at Ollie’s jacket.” Mrs. Stevens waved her cookie back and forth, sending crumbs everywhere. Lady nosed around to lick up each tiny morsel like a furry vacuum cleaner.

  Alice examined Ollie’s crew jacket. It was blue, with two thick green stripes down the arm and a large gold Planet Survival logo on the front. “Is there something special about it?” she asked.

  Mrs. Stevens’ voice rose to an unusually high pitch. “That’s not a crew jacket. It’s Gavin’s jacket!”

  Alice grabbed the mouse and made the image zoom in. Gavin’s blue jacket also had two green stripes and the gold logo.

  Mrs. Stevens gave the remainder of her cookie to Lady, who snatched it and hurried out of the room.

  “Cookies aren’t good for her,” Alice chided.

  “These are. They have peanut butter for extra protein!” Mrs. Stevens innocently folded her empty hands in her lap. “Besides, it was just a little cookie.”

  Kiku wants me to be more firm; Mrs. Stevens wants me to be more lenient. Everyone seemed to have an opinion about Lady’s upbringing. Jack would side with Kiku and Lady would definitely side with Mrs. Stevens. Alice smiled, realizing how very well loved their adopted Lady had become.

  “Gavin’s jacket does look the same as Ollie’s. But they’re both working on the show...”

  “You don’t understand, honey.” Mrs. Stevens tapped the monitor. “Do you see the gold logo? It’s a host jacket. The crew’s logo is silver. Only the host has a gold one. Gavin made a big deal about there being only one host jacket. I didn’t think two existed. Now look at this.”

  Mrs. Stevens rewound the footage until another shot of Ollie appeared. She paused it. “See?” She wiggled the mouse pointer up and down Ollie’s arm. “One green stripe, and a silver logo.”

  Alice tapped her pen against her thigh as she thought. “So Ollie was wearing a regular crew jacket earlier in the day. Why would he change into a host jacket?”

  26

  Leap of Faith

  Outside the room where Abe was resting, Jack leaned against the wall, also trying to get some rest, in spite of the steadily growing pain signals looping between his brain and his heart. During his tour in Iraq, on many occasions he’d had to try to block out the screams of th
e wounded as fellow soldiers waited to be medevacked out, and now Abe’s cries were added to the echoes of all those other men.

  Jack and Ollie had carried Abe back to the lodge and set him up in his room at the end of the hall, at the opposite end of the building from Jack’s room. The trip back had been hard on the injured man, and now Leah and Bree were trying to make him as comfortable as possible.

  The door opened, and Leah slipped out.

  “How is he?” Jack asked.

  Leah shook her head. “Not good. He needs a doctor—badly. The only pain reliever we have up here is aspirin, and Harvey told us we can’t give him that because it’ll make him bleed more.”

  “Well, I hate to give you more bad news, but Harvey opened up your satellite phone and found the problem. The SIM card is cracked.”

  “Cracked? How does that happen?” Leah said in disbelief.

  Jack looked away. He was wondering the same thing, among so many other questions that he hadn’t even had time to ponder…

  Abe’s pack… the carabiner…

  “Do you think someone broke it on purpose?” Leah’s voice was halfway between a whisper and a sob. She was clearly freaked out.

  In an effort to keep them calm and focused, Jack replied, “Whether someone tampered with it or not isn’t our biggest concern. We need to get Abe off this mountain.”

  “Without those fuses or the satellite phone, we’re out of options, Jack.”

  “I have a Plan B. The weather station. Wally must have a radio or satellite phone we can use. I’m going there now.”

  “That’s a good plan. Let’s go. I’ll get a GPS and lights. It’s pitch-black outside.”

  “I already got them from Ollie. I wasn’t asking permission or extending an invitation. I was just letting you know.”

  Leah frowned. “And I’m not asking permission either. But I am going with you.”