Cold Ridge

Fourteen

His lungs were bursting from sucking in the cold air, rushing up the path too fast. His legs ached. But Sterling pushed himself harder, determined to make it up the last thirty-foot, near-vertical stretch of the path. He'd started from his house, thinking he'd only go for a short walk to blow off some steam, and now he was almost onto the main ridge trail, the same one Abraham Winter had carved almost two hundred years ago.

How had his life gotten so miserably, abominably out of control?

What the hell had happened?

He groaned, lunging upward, crab-walking on the rocks and exposed tree roots. The path was still below the tree-line, winding through lichen-covered rocks and fir trees. He had no business being out here alone, but he didn't care.

"Fuck," he muttered, "I don't care about anything."

With a final spurt of energy, he made it to the top of the hill, onto a rounded rock with a blue-splashed cairn marker that indicated he had come, at last, to the Cold Ridge Trail. If he kept going, soon he would be above the treeline, walking along the narrowest section of the ridge, then up to a summit and back down to the cliffs and the famous, awe-inspiring view of valley and ravines, a mountain lake, a river. He'd never gotten that far. Last year, he and Jodie had barely made it above the treeline before they got into trouble.

He paused, sweating, gazing out at the cascade of mountains, some of the highest ones snowcapped, others bald rock against a cloudless sky-which wouldn't last. November was a gray month in northern New England, and the weather forecasters promised that new clouds would move in before sunset.

The days were shorter, the sun lower in the sky. With no city lights, the nights were long and dark, and he could feel the claustrophobia eating at him, just knowing there were only a few more hours of sunlight left. He didn't know how people lived up here all winter.

He wondered if God had intended for him and Jodie to die on the ridge last November and that was why, ever since, their lives had come apart bit by bit, piece by piece.

Exhausted and frightened, shivering uncontrollably, Sterling remembered, with a wince of regret, how he'd grabbed hold of Manny Carrera after their rescue and sobbed. "I was so scared, so damn scared. I thought I could survive up here on my own."

"Nobody survives on their own, pal," Manny had said in his matter-of-fact, unwavering way. "We all need a helping hand."

"You don't-you survive on your own."

"No, I don't. I'm part of a team, they're part of a squadron, and on up the ladder it goes-get it? We each have a job to do. We look out for one another. Right now, I'm looking out for you. So, just rest easy, okay?"

"But if you were stuck behind enemy lines, or attacked or captured, you'd know how to handle yourself. You'd know what to do."

"Yes, sir, but I'd also know I had people who'd never rest until I got back to safety. They'd come for me, the way I am here for you right now.You want to keep talking about this shit, or do you want to get off this god-damn mountain?"

Manny Carrera…ah, Manny.

Had Manny taken those pictures of Jodie and Louis Sanborn? Had he known about their affair and that was why he wanted Sanborn fired? Had he tried to take advantage of the situation?

Sterling liked to believe if he'd signed up to become a PJ as a young man, he'd have made it through the rough training. The washout rate was high-often more than eighty-percent. But over celebratory drinks at his house in the mountains, after they'd all warmed up last year after the rescue, Manny had told him he hated the word washout, because it implied guys didn't cut it, that they were lesser, somehow, failures. "They just weren't where they were supposed to be. Not everyone figures that out the easy way."

Manny had stared into his beer as if he had bigger worries. It was only later that Sterling learned that Eric Carrera had almost died of an asthma attack.

It was inconceivable Manny Carrera would take pictures like the ones the local police now had in their custody, awaiting two Boston detectives who would arrive later that evening.

Sterling had no doubt that Gary Turner had done his best to get his hands on the disk. He'd been caught between a rock and a hard place. Jodie had told Turner about the pictures and pressed him to get them before anyone found out-including Sterling. Gary had hinted that he needed Carine's pictures from Wednesday morning to prevent a scandal, but he hadn't gone into detail, instead asking Sterling to trust his sense of discretion. When he'd returned empty-handed, Jodie had been forced to come clean about her lunch-hour rendezvous in the library.

Lies and deception- Sterling had no idea what to believe anymore. She said it was her first and only time with Sanborn, and she didn't have a clue anyone had taken the pictures, never mind who. It was a chance encounter, she said. No one could have predicted it. Had Sanborn planned to seduce her, arranged for a cohort to take the pictures? Had someone merely stumbled onto the illicit goings-on and taken advantage of the situation?

Had Manny Carrera seized the moment and snapped four quick shots himself?

But why leave the damn camera behind?

A strong gust of wind blew up the side of the ridge and went right through Sterling 's thin jacket. It wasn't a long hike back down the trail, but he knew he needed to get moving soon, before the temperature started dropping with the waning sun. He could feel darkness closing in on him, as if it could suffocate him. His head ached. He hadn't paced himself well.

Although he hadn't seen the pictures himself, he kept imagining them over and over and over. His wife and Louis Sanborn in the library. Dear God.

Jodie herself could have arranged to have the pictures taken.

It would be retaliation. Revenge. Evening the score. Payback. My turn, Sterling. See? Here's the proof.

He'd had a short-lived affair with a woman in the office, after their rescue last November. It had lasted six weeks. She was gone now-Jodie had made him fire her. He said he'd drifted because of their near-death experience, and it was nothing as ordinary as a midlife crisis, nothing as tawdry as sex on the side. She claimed to believe him, to have forgiven him. More lies? More deception?

He spotted her down on the trail, circling toward him, moving fast, not hurrying but determined. She was hatless, and the wind caught the ends of her hair. He wondered what she would do if he jumped. He could time it just right and smash onto the rocks at her feet, let her screams of horror be what he heard last as he died.

She could cry buckets at his funeral and get herself a boy toy, play the rich widow, spend all her poor dead husband's money. But she had plenty of her own-she came from a well-heeled family, far better off than his own had been. He'd been so proud when he married her.

He wondered if he'd ever come close to understanding her.

She joined him on his rounded section of rock. "May I?"

"There you go, Jodie. You do what you want, then ask if it's all right."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, although her tone and expression didn't change. She had it all under control, he thought. She stood next to him, squinting out at the mountains, panting slightly from exertion. "Gorgeous, isn't it?"

"I can't focus on the scenery. I keep seeing you-"

"Don't. Don't do it to yourself, Sterling. That's what I did when it was you and your bimbo, and it does no good."

He wondered if he could get away with pushing her. Probably not. Learn your wife screwed a man minutes before he was murdered, that there are pictures-then, oops, she dies in an accident on Cold Ridge. Nobody'd believe it.

"It was like it was happening to someone else." She spoke quietly, staring out at the mountains. She had on her parka and carried water in a hip pack, marginally better prepared than he was for the conditions. "I felt as if I was floating on the ceiling, looking down at myself, at this woman I knew but didn't know. I was horrified, a little fascinated. And frightened because I knew what a risk she-what a risk I was taking."

"Jodie, I don't want to hear about it."

She angled her head up at him. "Was it that way for you when you had your affair?"

"I try not to think about it. I've put it behind me."

"Of course," she added, as if he hadn't spoken, "I was with Louis only that one time."

Sterling turned away from the view, taking the first, precipitous steps back down the steep section of the path. He'd just wanted to make it onto the ridge trail. That was all. He glanced back at his wife. "I suppose I deserved that."

"Neither of us deserves what we're doing to each other. I felt-I feel tainted. Dirty. Then, to have Louis killed."

"Did you do it?"

"What!" She almost fell backward, and automatically-he couldn't help himself- Sterling reached out for her, but she was too far away and had to regain her balance on her own. The near-fall upset her, all that elegant reserve gone now. "No, goddamn it, no. I didn't kill him. Where the hell would I have gotten a gun? Why would I-"

"It was a stupid thing to say."

"An affair is one thing, Sterling, if that's even what it was-but murder-" She choked back her outrage. "I'd hoped you wouldn't find out. I had no idea about the pictures. I never saw, never heard-"

"You were too busy with other things."

"Goddamn it! I'm trying here, Sterling. I'm trying to make up for lost ground and be honest with you. I realized, even before-I realized then and there, while I was in the library, that I didn't want to hurt you. All my desire for revenge fell away, and that was what was left. That I loved you."

He breathed through his clenched teeth, not knowing what the hell he felt. Anger? Pity? Humiliation? Not love, not at that moment. "I should have had Gary take the damn disk from Carine, steal it if he had to."

"I tried to steal it yesterday. I went to her apartment-I have a key-"

"Jodie, for God's sake!"

She blinked through her tears. "I had no choice. I told the police I was with Louis, but I never mentioned what we were doing. I didn't lie to them. I just didn't tell them everything."

"You lied to me."

She nodded. "I know, and I'm sorry."

But Sterling frowned, her words sinking in, the holes they presented. "Jodie, if you didn't hear anyone while you were with Louis, how did you know there were pictures?"

She didn't speak for a moment. "I had a call."

"What?" This time he really did almost lose his footing.

"It just said, 'There are pictures.'" She licked her lips, not meeting his eye. "That was all. Like it was a friendly warning, and I should take action."

"Christ." Sterling raked a hand over his head, whipped around on the path, stones flying up under his hiking boots. "Christ Almighty!"

"I told Gary this morning. I didn't know what else to do. He decided you had to know about the disk, but I begged him not to tell you how I knew, to let me tell you first-"

"For God's sake, Jodie. For God's sake! How could you not have told me?"

She ignored his question. "I think it was Manny who called." Her voice was hoarse from the dry wind, the tension. "I think he took the pictures. He must have planned to use them as further leverage against Louis, maybe to get him to quit so he didn't have to tell you what he knew. He probably didn't take the camera because Louis was about to catch him-or he figured he could get it from Carine since they're friends."

Sterling 's head was spinning. "The police will look at the pictures as more evidence against him."

"We can't help that," Jodie said quietly.

He bit off a sigh, but his rage had subsided. He was tired and cold, past the point of feeling anything. He took another step down the path, hardly paying attention to the tricky footing. "I'm heading back to the house. You can do what you want to do."

"Can I walk with you?"

He nodded without enthusiasm. "Suit yourself."

" Sterling -we'll get through this together."

"I'll get through it," he said stiffly. "I don't care if you do or not."