Wired (5 page)

I moved slowly.

On my skis I could make it all the way down in less than three minutes.

On the snowboard, thirty minutes had passed before I was halfway down. But it was
a fun half hour, especially because I didn't go so fast that I was afraid.

I started carving my turns the way I did on skis. I would lean over the inside edge of the snowboard and dig into the snow in a long curve. Then I would shift my weight and curve the other direction by leaning on the other edge of the snowboard.

I was not an expert by the time I reached the bottom of the mountain. Riding a fakie? Nope. I only snowboarded backward by accident. An ollie? No way. My only jumps had happened when I was not able to avoid the big bumps. Wheelies? Nope. I could only dream about getting the nose of my snow-board in the air and riding the back half like a surfboard.

Still, I felt okay. I felt like I wouldn't make a fool of myself by the time I rode the chair-lift up again and got on the Pipeline.

And I was right. I didn't make a fool of myself. Sid did it for me.

I saw Cassie's purple ski suit and blonde hair right away. She was standing with Sid at the top of the Pipeline. He was wearing his blue knitted hat. They were looking down the hill, away from me.

There was a slight wind. It blew uphill in my face as I snowboarded down toward them. I was snowboarding slowly and carefully, so I wasn't making much noise. Also,
the wind must have kept them from hearing what little noise I did make.

They were talking. The wind carried their voices right up to me.

“I'm supposed to have dinner with my dad first,” Cassie was saying to Sid. “Then I can sneak out of the hotel.”

“Just don't forget,” he told her. “They want to meet you at nine o'clock.”

“Hi guys,” I said. I pretended I hadn't heard what they had said. I pointed at the snowboard strapped to my boots. “What do you think?”

“Keegan!” Cassie grinned, like she was happy to see me. “You're on a snow-board!”

“It's kind of fun,” I said. “I was hoping you might give me some lessons.”

“Sure,” she said.

“No,” Sid said. “Leave us alone.”

“All right,” I said, “I lied.”

“Huh?” Sid said.

Cassie stared at me. Thoughtfully.

“I didn't stop by because I wanted lessons,” I said. “I'm broke.”

“I'm not a bank,” Sid said. “Beat it.”

“Broke?” Cassie said.

“Broke,” I answered. “I'm willing to do what it takes to not be broke.”

“Flip burgers,” Sid said. “Go away.”

“Come on,” I told Sid. “Smart people don't flip burgers.”

I paused. I'd given this some thought since leaving the hotel. “Smart people find a way to get envelopes with money.”

Cassie kept staring at me. Sid, for a second, said nothing.

“What are you talking about?” he asked when he found his voice.

“Rumors,” I said. “That's all.”

“You saw Garth in the hospital, didn't you?” Sid was glaring. “What did he say?”

That told me something. Garth was in on this.

“Just rumors,” I repeated, wondering what else Sid might spill.

“You noticed Garth's broken legs, didn't you?” Sid said. “You don't want to mess with ...”

He snapped his mouth shut.

With a couple of guys in a Lincoln Navigator?
I didn't say this out loud, though. The less Sid knew about what I knew, the better.

“I don't understand,” I said instead. “Garth told me it was an accident.”

“It was,” Sid said. “Just be careful accidents don't happen to you.”

“I ski fast,” I said, “but I'm careful.”

Sid gave me a nasty grin. “But in case you haven't noticed, right now—you're not on skis.”

Before I could answer, he pushed me. I went sliding down the hill, almost at full speed. And directly below me was a little girl on skis!

The girl was skiing very slowly. Her little legs were wide apart as she did her best not to fall. She was wearing a cute yellow hat and she was hardly higher than my knees. If I hit her, I thought, I could break every bone in her body.

If I had been on skis, I could have missed her easily.

But I was on a snowboard. I didn't think I could turn in time. I was afraid if I tried to turn too quickly, the snowboard would slide out from under me. If that happened, I would slide into her feet first. The snow-board would wipe her out.

I was shooting straight toward her. I couldn't fall. I couldn't turn. I felt like a rocket aimed directly at her back. For a horrible heartbeat, I got a picture in my head of my brother stuck on the tracks and a train roaring in behind him.

No, I told myself. I was so angry I didn't have time to be scared. I concentrated on my every move to time this just right.

I aimed the tip of my snowboard right between her skis.

I brought my hands down and grabbed her waist. Instead of crashing into her back, I lifted her and her skis off the ground.

It worked. She was in my arms and traveling at my speed. Her skis were on different sides of my waist.

“Wheeeee!” she screamed. “Daddy, this is so fun!”

It wasn't fun for me. I still had to come to a stop. Slowly, very slowly, I turned my snowboard and dug the hillside edge into the snow. Slowly, very slowly, we began to slow down.

“Wheeee!” she said again. “I like this Daddy!”

When we were finally stopped, I set her down. She turned around and looked at me. Her little jaw dropped in surprise.

“You're not my daddy!” she screamed. She began to cry.

Sid and Cassie snowboarded up to us.

Cassie put her arms around the little girl's shoulders. “We'll find your daddy,” Cassie said.

The girl stopped crying. A man higher up on the hill shouted down to us.

“See,” Cassie told her, “your daddy is coming right now.”

I moved away from Cassie and the little girl. I hoped that when her dad reached her, he would pick up his daughter first. This way he wouldn't be able to go after me.

Sid followed me. “Don't think you're
a hero. If you don't stop hanging around, you're going to get hurt. Real bad.”

“Oh yeah?” I said. It was all I could think of saying. I was no hero. If he only knew the truth.

“Yeah,” he said. “Go ask Budgie. Of course, you'll have to visit him in the hospital.”

“Budgie?” I said. “He's hurt too?”

Sid smiled. “Didn't you hear? He got his van into a little accident an hour ago. That's what happens to people who mess with us.”

Instead of going home that afternoon, I let my parents know I would be staying at the Big Bear ski hill. That's the way I do things. It saves them from worrying. Ever since the day that my little brother Evan died, they've worried about getting another phone call from the police with terrible news.

I get rooms at the staff rate because I sometimes work as a ski instructor. I stay at the resort when I want to get an early start
on the slopes, so my parents weren't at all surprised when I told them I wasn't going to be home.

When I got hungry, I ate a few greasy burgers. When I got bored, I read some ski magazines.

I did what I needed to do to kill time. Cassie was supposed to be meeting somebody. If I could find out who, maybe then I would know why. Why had Garth and Budgie been hurt? Why was Cassie in on this? Was she in danger too? Why was this all happening?

I planned to follow Cassie when she left the Big Bear hotel. I hung out in the hotel lobby because I wanted to stay warm for as long as possible. At night the mountain air is very cold.

At quarter to nine I went outside and stepped into the shadows of some trees. From there I could watch the doors of the hotel without being seen.

Just before nine o'clock Cassie hurried out of the hotel. She was easy to follow because she didn't look behind her, and I was able to stay in trees most of the way.

She surprised me. She went straight toward the chairlift on the side of the mountain.

I kept following.

The chairlift was quiet. It was easy to see, though. There was a bright moon, and the light bounced off the snow. The trees and the chairlift were dark. The snow was gray. It seemed like I was walking through a black-and-white movie.

Two guys were waiting for her at the chairlift. I saw that they were on skis.

Skiing? At night? What was happening?

There were lots of trees at the bottom of the hill, so I was able to get closer without being seen. What I saw, though, I didn't like.

One of the men pulled out a knit scarf and wrapped it around her throat!

“What is going on?” she said, her voice strangled. Her voice reached me clearly across the cold mountain air.

“What is going on?” the man said. It wasn't Sid. I had never heard his voice before. “You're going for a little ride.”

For a moment his face was turned enough to catch some light. It was the bald guy who had been driving the red Lincoln Navigator. The other guy stepped out of his skis. He picked up something that had been leaning against a tree. I saw a goatee in the shadows of his face. The passenger from the Navigator!

“Hold this snowboard,” he told her.

While the bald guy held her in place with the scarf as a noose, Goatee Guy went to the chairlift building. He smashed a side window, reached in and unlocked the door. He stepped inside. A little later the giant motors started. The chairs on the chairlift began to move.

Goatee Guy stepped outside again. He got in his skis. He sidestepped close to Cassie.

The motors of the chairlift hummed loudly. I could not hear what he said.

I saw him point at the chairlift.

The three of them moved toward a chair. They got on. The chair took them—Cassie, a snowboard and two men wearing skis—up the mountain.

What could I do?

By the time I got the police, or any other help, it might be too late. There had been another time when I had let fear stop me from doing what was right. And then it had been too late. Much too late.

I wasn't going to let anything like that happen again. I waited until they were part-way up the mountain. Then I ran toward the chairlift. I got on one of the chairs.

I was afraid if they looked back they would see me, so I laid down across the chair. I hoped I would be lost in the shadows.

The chairlift carried me up the mountain behind them.

Though I was in the shadows of the chair, I was able to see them in the moonlight. They were at least twelve chairs ahead. The ski lift took us higher and higher.

I knew this was crazy.

What could I do against these two large men when they had Cassie and could snap her neck in a second?

I quickly realized that it would have been much smarter to have gone for help. If they were going to kill her, they would have done it right away. I could have found someone to help in less than five minutes. But because I had stupidly decided to be a hero, nobody knew what was happening. And I had no way of getting off the chair until it reached the top of the hill. Now if something went wrong, instead of just Cassie being in trouble, it would be both of us. And no one would rescue us.

I was so scared I felt the familiar feeling in my stomach that told me I might throw up. I was no hero.

I knew why I had jumped onto the chair-lift. Once, years before, I had looked up at a train coming from out of nowhere and I had let myself be frozen with fear. I had waited too long to help someone who needed me. I didn't need to hate myself more by running away again.

Besides, it was too late to change my mind. The only way to get off this chairlift was to wait until it reached the top.

I began to worry about something else. The two men had skis. Cassie had the snow-board they had given her. How could I keep up? Walking through mountain snow is not easy. If the snow is not packed from skis, you sink up to your waist—or deeper.

Then I remembered. At the top of the chairlift, there is a ski patrol sled. It is kept there for emergencies. If someone gets hurt, a member of the ski patrol uses the sled to carry the injured person down the hill.

Could I use the sled to follow these three?

I decided I could. I would lie on it and drag my feet to steer it. As long as I stayed far enough behind them, it would work.

I sure hoped so because a few minutes later, we reached the top of the mountain.

My planning went to waste. When I got off the chair, the man with the goatee was waiting for me.

“You think we couldn't see you on the chair-lift, kid?” Goatee Guy asked. “Now tell us. What are you doing?”

I looked at the bald man who was holding Cassie with the scarf around her neck like a noose.

“Are you all right?” I asked Cassie.

“I get it,” the bald man said. “Puppy love.”

“Let him go,” Cassie said. “Keegan doesn't know anything about this.”

“Keegan?” the man said. “Keegan Bishop? The racer?”

He laughed. “Two for the price of one. Now the girl's old man won't dare try anything.”

“My dad?” Cassie said.

“Your dad. Mister Cameraman. We saw you with him today, same guy who had been following us. Took his license number. Bribed a kid at the rental agency to give us his name. Googled it and discovered he was a detective. New York, right? Didn't take long to figure out that you were trying something.”

“Yup,” Goatee Guy said. “Figured we'd get you up here alone. Find out exactly why you wanted to meet. Are you wired?”

“I don't know what you are talking about,” Cassie said.

“You're a bad liar. We can search you here and now. Or you can just give it up.”

After several seconds Cassie sighed. “Pocket of my jacket. Voice-activated tape recorder.”

The bald guy patted for it, found it and removed the cassette.