Scott Free (35 page)

“History, Scott. Ancient history. This is the present, and times have changed. You've got a reprieve, kid. Enjoy it.”

“Until you change your mind again, right?”

“That's up to you; up to what you say to whom. You leave me alone, forget everything you saw, and you get to be an old man.”

“Who can never relax because I don't know when you're coming.”

Isaac laughed. “Let's not forget who walked into whose house, okay? From where I sit, your nerves are my best weapon. They'll keep you honest. It's like I told you about the feds and me. The more time goes by, the more evidence they have that they can trust me. Just prove your trustworthiness every day, kid, and you and I will never have problems again.”

“So what's with all this running around?” Scott asked.

“It buys time for me to get away. I needed to get you alone so we could negotiate. If you brought a bunch of cops with you, it would have gotten complicated. I need you apart from the others. That's how I get the time I need to get away. Think of it as an investment in trust. Do you know where Orphan's Holler is?”

Scott scowled. He knew he'd seen the sign. “It's a ski trail, right?” But why hadn't he skied it?

“More like a future trail,” Isaac corrected. “Runs off Widow Maker. To the right.”

Scott nodded. “Yeah, okay, I remember.”

“That's where you need to be in ten minutes. It's a haul, so you'll have to hurry.”

“What do you care how long it takes me to get there?”

“That's the way I know you haven't stopped for help along the way.” Isaac's tone turned suddenly very serious. “I'm letting you off the hook here. Try not to screw it up. Break my rules and I start shooting, understand?”

“No, I don't.”

“Then I'll go ahead and shoot her now.”

“No, wait!” Scott shouted, drawing a curious look from the skiers in the chair immediately in front of him. “I understand what you said, I just don't understand why you're doing it. Jesus, don't shoot anybody.”

The phone was quiet after that, for long enough that Scott wondered if maybe they'd lost their connection. “What do I do after I get to Orphan's Holler?” Scott asked, spooked by the silence.

“I want you to ski down.” Isaac's tone was friendly again. “It's a little treacherous, but an expert skier like yourself shouldn't have any trouble. The clock's still ticking.”

I
T WAS
B
RANDON'S RENTAL
, all right, bottomed out on some bit of ornate shrubbery, in the middle of the Grand Mall. A resort security truck was parked next to the Cherokee, its yellow lights sweeping great circles in the darkening afternoon. Brandon tucked the Humvee in behind the rent-a-cop and stepped out into the snow.

The security officer looked alarmed at first, but then his face lit up when he recognized the badge on the door of the cop car. “Oh, man, that was fast,” the guard said. “But this isn't where you want to be.”

“Excuse me?”

“You're here for the fight, right? The kid who jumped the lift line?”

Brandon's heart lifted. “Yes, that's right,” he bluffed. “A teenager, right? Blue hair?”

The guard shrugged. “I don't have a clue what color his hair is, but yeah, it's a kid. He pulled a couple of guests off a lift, then jumped on without a ticket.”

“Right. And what lift was that?”

“Widow Maker.” The kid's expression soured. “How come you're not in uniform?”

“Came in from off duty. What's the quickest way to get to Widow Maker?”

“You're driving, right?” The kid realized it was a ridiculous question as soon as he asked it. “Of course you are. Well, they're gonna be holding the kid up at the top, so the best way to get there would be around that fire road right over there.”

Brandon watched and tried to keep track of the complicated instructions as the guard rattled them off. “Good thing you got that Humvee. A lot of them roads ain't even cleaned yet.”

The guard was in the middle of a warning about the wildlife refuges along the way, but Brandon already had all the information he needed. He waded back to the Humvee and slid into the driver's seat. The engine roared as he fishtailed off the decorative island and back onto the hard-surface road.

He hadn't gone a tenth of a mile before he heard someone calling his name. It was the police radio. He'd blocked out the garbled transmissions that constantly flowed through the damned thing, but his name jumped right through the noise. “Brandon O'Toole, if you are on the air, you by God better answer up, do you hear me?” There was no missing the anger in Barry Whitestone's voice.

Brandon pulled the white microphone from its clip on the dash and keyed it. “Chief, this is Brandon O'Toole. Listen, I found Scott.”

“You also found yourself a grand theft auto charge, pal,” Whitestone shot back. “Wherever you are, you'd better pull my vehicle to the side of the road and wait for me, or I swear to God I will see your ass in prison.”

Brandon nodded. Yeah, okay, that was fine. “I'll be at the top of the Widow Maker ski slope. That's where Scott's going. I need you to make a phone call and make sure that when he gets off that lift, they keep ahold of him. As long as he's in a crowd, I think he'll be okay.”

“I guess you didn't hear me, O'Toole,” Whitestone said. His words seemed measured for maximum effect. “I want you to pull over and park right now. You are not authorized to drive a police vehicle. And don't think we don't know what you took from Officer Alexander. Do you understand what I'm telling you?”

For some reason—probably for Brandon's protection—Whitestone didn't want to broadcast the fact that he'd taken a rifle as well. “I told you where I'll be, Chief,” Brandon said. There really was no room for negotiation. More to the point, there was no desire. “Just make the phone call, okay?”

Whitestone launched a diatribe, more or less reprising what he'd already said, and Brandon returned the microphone to its clip. Either the chief was going to help at this point or he wasn't; no amount of coaxing or arguing from Brandon was going to change things. So, he decided to let the man rant, ignoring him even when Whitestone demanded that he pick up the damn radio and say something.

Brandon didn't have time to talk, anyway. He was on the fire road now, and the terrain was getting dicey. It took both hands and his full concentration just to keep the Humvee pointed in a straight line.

 

S
COTT'S FEET FELT NUMB
from dangling for so long, weighted as they were by his boots and skis. He watched with a mix of dread and amusement as the chairs ahead of him discharged their passengers, two of whom made a beeline for the clutch of ski patrollers who were gathered there waiting for him. Scott knew just from their postures that they were ratting him out: a squared stance with an arm leveled right at him. One lady pointed so aggressively at him that he waved back.

He wished he had a plan for this. What could they do to him, really? Were ski patrollers empowered to detain him? Suppose he just skied past them. Could they tackle him and hold him down?

The questions were engaging, but purely academic, and he knew it. They would try to stop him, and he would get away. Somehow. Hopefully, without spilling blood.

Approaching the exit point, Scott raised the crossbar and butt-walked to the edge of his seat, reminded as he grabbed the steel armrest how much he missed his other glove. His reception committee had backed up to the end of the run-off ramp, giving him a chance to clear the chairs before they pounced on him. He made eye contact with the lift attendant who peered at him through the frosted glass of his little phone booth of a control shack and had to smile when the guy gave him the finger. Now
there
was cheerful service.

Scott stood at the top of the ramp and allowed his momentum to take him into the waiting crowd. On the off chance that they might fall for it, Scott stood evenly on both skis and pointed at the chair behind him. “That guy got into a fight with the lift attendant down at the bottom of the hill.”

“Scott, what the hell are you doing?”

It was Tommy Paul, one of Cody Jamieson's ski patrol buddies—the one Scott had beaten by two lengths in the midnight snowmobile races. “Hey, Tommy,” Scott said.

“Why are you causing all this trouble?”

If Scott read the signs right, Tommy wanted a reason to cut him a break. He turned instantly repentant. “Does it help to tell you I'm sorry? It hasn't been the best of weeks for me.”

“Us, either. But that's not an excuse for fighting your way onto a lift.”

Scott looked at his feet and nodded. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “I just…Well, I don't know what happened. I guess I was in a hurry to get one last run in before it got too dark to ski. I got impatient. I'm really sorry.” He looked up at the onlookers, some of whose faces he recognized from the lift. “I apologize to you guys, too. I got pissed off, and there's really no excuse other than that.”

“Are you Scott O'Toole?” someone asked from the group. “The plane crash guy?”

Scott nodded, then cast his eyes down again. Jesus, this was taking a long time.

“You can't do this kind of shit, Scott,” Tommy said. “Not even Cody would have let you get away with it.”

Scott nodded some more. “I know. Does it help that this is the last run? I'm leaving for home tomorrow. This is it. One last run to the bottom, then I'll scoot over to the Prospector lift, and then I'm outta here. I promise.”

Tommy Paul sighed, clearly at odds between what he wanted to do, and what the rules required him to do.

“Give him a break,” somebody said. “It's not worth the trouble this late in the day.”

Tommy allowed himself a bit of a smile. “Last run, right?” Tommy asked. “Swear to God?”

“Swear to God,” Scott agreed. Then, as if to prove the point, he held up his bare right hand. “I lost my glove on the lift anyway.”

Another sigh from Tommy. “Yeah, okay, fine,” he said, finally. “Just take it easy and stay out of trouble. For one more run.”

Scott beamed. “You got it.” Before anybody had a chance to change their minds, he did a quick kick turn and pushed off hard, pointing himself straight down the hill. As he squirted through the crowd, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. The lift guy with the fast finger was leaning out of his shack, yelling something, with the telephone clutched in his hand.

Scott figured it didn't concern him.

 

W
IDOW
M
AKER WAS ONE
of the longest runs at SkyTop—every bit of four miles—and while it wasn't officially the most difficult run at the resort, it offered the largest variety of terrains, from relatively flat to nearly vertical, with some ass-kicking moguls. Get in the troughs of those bumps and the whole world disappeared. God help you if you fell and the guy behind you didn't see you. That'd be a good way to get your head sheared from your shoulders.

Ordinarily, the mogul field was Scott's favorite—an aggressive workout that, if you hit every turn just right, made you look great. But after a week of woodland survival, his legs betrayed him. His thighs knotted from the constant pumping, and his knees felt lubricated with sand. It took everything he had just to keep pushing from one turn to the next. Even his brain felt exhausted.

Why couldn't he remember the turn for Orphan's Holler? He knew he'd seen it—dozens of times in the days leading up to the accident—but now he couldn't pull it from his mind. What if he'd missed it? God, that would be a disaster. This was not the kind of hill that encouraged backtracking; not with its steep slope and massive bumps.

You haven't missed it,
he told himself. If the sign had been there, he'd have seen it. He had to believe that. Still, the time had come to sacrifice a little speed in favor of control and attentiveness.

As crowded as the lift had been, the slope seemed fairly empty. Not deserted, by any means, but empty enough to give the sense of freedom that ultimately was the reason why people came all the way out here to ski. Overhead, the sky had begun to take on purple hues, signaling the approach of another frigid night. It almost looked peaceful.

But he knew better. The danger was very real, no matter how much Isaac tried to convince him otherwise. Scott's gut told him that Isaac's last phone call was a ruse—a mind game to trick him into letting down his guard. It was a good one, too; half of him even wanted to believe him.

There was the sign, up ahead. Now that he saw it, he remembered why it stood out so well in his memory: Orphan's Holler was the right-hand fork of a sharp left-hand turn in the slope. To go straight would require wings.

His calves, shins, knees and quads all screamed as he flexed hard against the front of his boots and jammed his edges into the snow. It took three harsh turns to bring him to a stop, and at that, what he saw nearly made his heart stop. Orphan's Holler was pitched at something steeper than forty-five degrees and the snow barely covered the obstacles underneath. Rocks and tree stumps and giant tufts of grass rose everywhere from the snowpack.

Scott stood there for every bit of a minute—a minute he didn't have—contemplating his next move. If he removed his skis, he'd sink to his hips in the snow; with the skis on, he'd stay closer to the surface, but wouldn't know what the obstacles were until he hit them. Which was safer?

Screw safety. Which was
faster?

“Scott! Wait!”

He turned to see Tommy Paul catching up, spraying Scott with snow as he ground to a dusty hockey stop. Scott's stomach fell.

“Are you following me?” Scott demanded.

“Bet your ass. Just after you took off, we got a phone call from the cops saying that we're supposed to ‘take you into custody.'” Tommy leaned on the last phrase to show that they weren't his words. “You really shit in your Wheaties down there on the lift line.”

Scott felt the panic building. He didn't have time for this. “So, you're
arresting
me?”

“I have to, man. Got no choice.”

“How?”

“Excuse me?”

“How are you going to take me into custody?”

Tommy's features knotted into a scowl. “Don't piss around with this, okay? I know you're all screwed up in the head with the crash and Cody and all, but I'm going to do my job. I came alone because we're friends, but if you want to make this a big deal, I can do that, too.”

Scott's mind raced for a way out of this.

“Now, just ski down to the bottom with me, and we'll wait for the cops to come and do their thing—”

Scott didn't swing his ski pole all that hard, but when it caught Tommy on the bridge of his nose, the words froze in his head. Blood launched from his nostrils as he brought his hands reflexively to his face, and Scott hit him harder, this time across the ear, hard enough to bend the aluminum pole.

“Hey!” Tommy yelled. “What the hell—”

The third and fourth shots landed on the back of his head and knocked the ski patroller to the ground. With his feet still bound to his skis, he was virtually helpless, just trying his best to keep himself covered up while Scott waled away at him.