Cold Ridge

Two

Tyler North pulled two beers out of his refrigerator and brought them to the long pine table where his mother used to sit in front of the fire with her paints. Gus Winter was in her spot now, lean, scarred and irritable-and tired, although he'd never admit to it. He took one of the beers and shook his head in disgust. "You always have to allow for the moron factor."

"People make mistakes."

Gus drank some of his beer. It had been a brutal day, but one with a happy ending. "Forgetting your sunscreen's a mistake. These assholes didn't bother to check the weather conditions. They didn't take enough food or water. You saw how they were dressed-jeans and sneakers. It's November. Any goddamn thing can happen on the ridge in November. They're lucky to be alive."

No one knew better than Gus Winter that what he said was true. Ty didn't argue with him. He sat with his beer and stared at the fire in the old center-chimney stone fireplace. Three seventeen-year-old boys from the local prep school decided to skip classes and hike the ridge trail. If they'd stayed on it, they might have been okay, but they didn't. By early afternoon, they were cold, lost, battered by high winds and terrified of spending the night above the treeline.

"If Fish and Game determines these guys were reckless, they'll have to cough up the bucks for the rescue," Ty said.

"They're complaining because we didn't send a helicopter! Can you imagine? They figured they'd dial 911 on their cell phones if they got into trouble-"

"That's what they did."

Gus snorted. "Yeah. And we came. What's with this picture? We should have waited, let them get good and scared." He drank more of his beer. "I'm telling you, North. The moron factor."

Ty expected the three boys they'd just rescued were the sort of hikers the New Hampshire Department of Fish and Game had in mind when they came up with their protocol for charging expenses for search and rescues in cases of out-and-out recklessness. Rescues could be difficult and dangerous-and expensive. Lucky for the boys, they hadn't encountered moisture. Even a light rain would have soaked their cotton clothing, a poor insulator when wet. As it was, they'd suffered mild hypothermia. And intense, warranted fear for their lives.

"I did dumb-ass things at that age," Ty said.

"You do dumb-ass things now. But do you expect people to come to your rescue?" Gus shook his head, not waiting for an answer. "Not you, North. You've never expected anyone to come to your rescue in your entire life, not with your mother, may she rest in peace. Lovely woman, but in her own world. It's the arrogance of these jackasses-"

"Let it go, Gus. We did our job. The rest isn't up to us."

Reckless or not, the boys today weren't the first people he or Gus had pulled off Cold Ridge. It was unlikely they'd be the last.

But Gus wasn't willing to let it go. "Cell phones give people a false sense of security. They should be banned."

Without a cell phone, the kids undoubtedly wouldn't have been missed before nightfall. They'd have ended up spending the night on the ridge-a dangerous situation that might not have had a happy ending. On the other hand, without a cell phone, they might have taken fewer risks or even gone to their classes instead of sneaking off on an illicit hike. Other hikers had made the mistake of thinking their cell phones worked anywhere and didn't discover there were gaps in coverage until they were ass-deep in trouble and had no way to call for help. Even if they did get through, help wasn't necessarily around the damn corner.

Either way, it was North's job to rescue people. He did it for a living in the military, and he did it as a volunteer when he was home on leave.

Gus set his beer bottle down hard on the table. "People think because the White Mountains aren't as high as the Rockies or the Himalayas, they're not dangerous. The reason the treeline's lower in the northeast than it is out west is because we've got such shitty weather here. Three major storm tracks meet right over us-ah, hell." He gave a grunt of disgust. "I'm preaching to the converted. You know these mountains as well as I do."

"I've been away a lot."

That was an understatement. His career as a pararescueman had taken him on search-and-rescue missions all over the world. The pararescue motto-These Things We Do That Others May Live-underscored everything he did as a PJ in both combat and peacetime. A pararescueman's primary mission was to go after downed aircrews. Anytime, anywhere. In any kind of terrain, under permissive or hostile conditions. If there were injuries, they treated them. If they came under fire, they took up security positions and fired back.

The job required a wide range of skills. When he enlisted and decided to become a pararescueman, Ty had only a limited understanding of what it entailed. For starters, two years of training and instruction-the "pipeline." It began with ten weeks of PJ indoctrination at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. Running, swimming, calisthenics, drownproofing. Serious sleep deprivation, or at least so it seemed at the time. Of the hundred guys who showed up for indoc with him, twenty-four were stil lthere after four weeks. He was one of them.

Then it was on to a series of specialized schools. He went through the Army Special Forces Underwater Operations Course and Navy Underwater Egress Training-navigation swims, ditching and donning of equipment underwater, underwater search patterns, getting out of a sinking aircraft. He made it through the Army Airborne School, where he had to make five static-line jumps before he could move on to freefall school, which took him through jumps at high altitude, with oxygen, at night, during the day, with and without equipment.

Fun stuff, he thought, remembering how he'd steel himself into not quitting, just sticking with it, one day- sometimes one minute-at a time.

At Air Force Survival School he learned basic survival skills, evasion-and-escape techniques, what to do if he was captured by the enemy. Then it was on to the Special Operations Combat Medic Course and, finally, to the Pararescue Recovery Specialist Course, where, over a year or more, all the previous training got put together and more was added-advance EMT-paramedic training, advance parachute skills, tactical maneuvers, weapons handling, mountain climbing and aircrew recovery procedures. They worked through various scenarios that tied in all the different skills they'd learned, seeing their practical application for the job that lay ahead.

Then came graduation, the PJ's distinctive maroon beret, assignment to a team-then Ty thought, the real training began.

PJs had been called SEALs with stethoscopes, ninja brain surgeons, superman paramedics-if people knew what they did at all, since so many of their missions had to be done quietly. It wasn't a job for someone looking for money and glory. Ty cringed at all the nicknames. He thought of himself as an average guy who did a job he was trained to do to the best of his ability. He'd become a PJ because he wanted an action-oriented career where he could save lives, a chance to "search and rescue" instead of "search and destroy."

But he could "destroy" if he had to. PJs were direct combatants, and, as such, pararescue was a career field that remained closed to women.

Ty was currently assigned to the 16th Special Operations Wing out of Hurlburt Field in the Florida panhandle. As the leader of a special tactics team, he had performed a full range of combat search-and-rescue missions in recent years, but it was seeing Carine Winter under fire last fall that had all but done him in.

The "incident" was still under investigation.

The only positive outcome of the whole mess was that Hank Callahan and Antonia Winter had met and fallen in love. Ty had missed their wedding a month ago. Antonia was too damn polite not to invite him. His behavior toward her younger sister had put a crimp in the budding romance between his friend the ER doctor and his friend the helicopter-pilot-turned-senate-candidate-fortunately, they'd worked it out.

Senator Hank Callahan.

Ty shook his head, grinning to himself. He and Hank had damn near become brothers-in-law. They would have, if Ty had gone ahead and married Carine in February. Instead, he'd cut and run.

It was the only time in his life he'd ever cut and run.

"Have you decided whether or not you're selling the house?" Gus asked him.

Ty pulled himself from his darkening thoughts. "No. I haven't decided, I mean."

He'd been on assignment overseas when his mother took a walk in the meadow and died of a massive stroke. Carine had found her and tracked him down to make sure he got the news, to tell him his mother had painted that morning and died in the lupine she'd so loved. But Saskia North had never really fit in with the locals, and few in Cold Ridge knew much about her, beyond her skills as a painter and a weaver-and her failings as a mother.

"You should sell it," Gus said. "There's nothing for you here, not anymore. What do you want with this place? You're never here long enough to fix it up. Basic maintenance isn't enough. It'll fall down around your ears before too long."

Now that Ty had broken Carine's heart, Gus wanted him to clear out of Cold Ridge altogether. The man made no secret of it. It hadn't always been that way, but Ty knew that was before and this was now. To Gus, Carine was still the little girl he'd loved and protected since she was three years old-the little girl whose parents he'd helped carry off Cold Ridge.

People make mistakes.

It was the way life was. You make mistakes, you try to correct them.

North frowned at a strange ringing sound, then watched Gus grimace and pull a cell phone out of his back pocket. He pointed the cell phone at North. "Just shut the hell up. I've never used it to call for someone to come rescue me." Then he clicked the receive button and said, "Yeah, Gus here." His face lost color, and he got to his feet. "Slow down, honey. Slow down. What-" He listened some more, pacing, obviously trying to stay calm. "Do you want me to come down there? Are you okay? Carine-" He all but threw the phone into the fire. "Goddamn it!"

Ty fell back on his training and experience to stay calm. "Service kick out on you?" He kept his voice neutral, careful not to say anything that would further provoke Gus, further upset him. "It does that. The mountains."

Gus raked a hand through his gray, brittle hair. "That was Carine."

Ty felt a tightening in his throat. "I thought so."

"She-" He sucked in a sharp, angry breath. "Damn it, North, I hate it that she's in Boston. With Antonia and Hank married, she's alone there now for the most part. And, goddamn it, she doesn't belong there."

North didn't argue. "You're right, Gus. What happened?"

Tears rose in the older man's eyes, a reminder of the years he'd invested in his brother's three children. His own parents couldn't take them on-they were shattered by the untimely deaths of their older son and daughter-in-law and had chronic health problems. It was Gus who'd made the emotional commitment at age twenty to raise his nieces and nephew. Ty thought of the sacrifices, the physical toll, it all had taken. For thirty years, Gus Winter had put the needs of Nate, Antonia and Carine ahead of his own. He was the only one who didn't know it.

"Gus?"

"There was a shooting. A murder. She found the body. Christ, after last fall-"

"Where was she?"

"At work. She's photographing the renovations on that old house the Rancourts bought on Commonwealth Avenue. She went out for a latte-Christ. That's what she just said. Gus, I went out for a latte. When she got back, she found a man dead on the library floor."Gus snatched up his beer bottle and dumped the balance out in the sink. "She didn't want me to hear about it on the news."

"Did she say who the victim was?"

He shook his head. "She didn't have a chance. I'll go home and call her." He grabbed his coat off the back of the chair, and when North started to his feet, Gus, refusing to look at him, added abruptly, "It's not your problem."

"All right. Sure, Gus. If you need me for anything-"

"I won't."

Ty didn't follow him out, but he was tempted. He pulled his chair over to the fire and let the hot flames warm his feet. He still had on his hiking socks. It felt good to get out of his boots. One of the prep-school boys needed to be carried off the ridge in a litter. The other two responded to on-site treatment, warm duds and warm liquids, and were able to walk down on their own. Gus didn't think they were contrite enough. But Gus had been in a bad mood for months. For good reason. Antonia's wedding had temporarily lifted his spirits, but North's return to Cold Ridge had plunged him back into a black mood.

The old house seemed huge and empty around him, the late afternoon wind rattling the windows. It got dark early now. November. No more daylight savings. North put a log on the fire. The fireplace supposedly was made from stone that Abraham Winter had pulled off the ridge when he carved the main ridge trail, still almost intact, almost two hundred years ago.

Ty felt the flames hot on his face. His mother had never minded living out here, even after he'd gone into the air force and she lived in the big house all alone. She said she was proud of him, but he doubted she really knew what the hell a PJ did.

"I understand you," she used to say. "I understand you completely."

Whether she did or didn't, Ty had no idea, but he had never come close to understanding her. When she died, she'd left him the house and fifty acres, which he'd expected.

A trust fund. He used to make fun of people with trust funds.

For five years, he hadn't touched a dime of it except what he needed to hang on to the house.

He lifted his gaze to the oil painting his mother had done in those solitary years here. It depicted the house and the meadow on an early summer day, daises in bloom. She hadn't put Cold Ridge in it. She'd never said why. As far as he knew, she'd never climbed any of the hundreds of trails in the White Mountains.

He wanted to call Carine. He wanted to be in Boston. Now.

His telephone rang. His hard line. He thought it might be Gus, changing his mind about wanting to shut him out. He got up from the fire and picked up the extension on the wall next to the refrigerator.

"North? It's Carrera." Manny Carrera's normally steady, unflappable voice sounded stressed, tightly controlled. "I've got a problem. I need you here."

"D.C.?"

" Boston."

North didn't let himself react. "Why Boston?"

"I flew up here last night to talk to Sterling Rancourt about Louis Sanborn, his new security hire. By the time I got to Sanborn, he was dead."

"Manny-"

He took a breath. "You've heard."

"Carine just called Gus. I don't have the details. She found this guy shot to death? What happened? Where the hell were you?"

"There. I don't want to get into it now. We both gave statements to the police. They want me to stick around in case they have more questions. Which they will. I figure I don't have long before they slap on the cuffs."

"Cuffs? Manny, you didn't kill this guy-"

"It's not that simple."

North stared out the kitchen window into the darkness. The fire crackled behind him. Manny Carrera had surprised everyone when he retired from active duty in August, but North didn't fault him. Manny had done his bit, and he had different priorities nowadays: a son who'd almost died and a wife who was on edge.

But North wasn't going to coddle him. Manny would hate that. "What's not simple? You either killed him or you didn't kill him."

"I'm not going there with you."

"Then what about Carine?"

"She doesn't know the police have their eye on me. When she finds out-"

"She'll want to spring you."

Carine had always liked Manny Carrera. Everyone did. He'd show up in Cold Ridge from time to time for a little hiking, fishing and snowshoeing. Even Gus liked Manny. The air force tried to tap him as a PJ instructor, but he was determined to retire and go into business for himself. He was in the process of getting a Washingtonbased outfit off the ground, which trained individuals and companies in a broad range of emergency skills and procedures-not just self-defense and how to treat the injured, but how to think, how to respond in a crisis, before a crisis. He wanted his clients trained, prepared, able to help themselves and others if something happened. Ty didn't know how it was going or what kind of businessman Manny would make. Manny Carrera was a hard-ass, but he was fair, scrupulous and, at heart, a natural optimist.

He also had the skills and worldwide connections to disappear before the police got to him-just melt away. If he put his mind to it, he could probably even gnaw his way out of a jail cell.

Except he had a fourteen-year-old son with severe asthma and allergies at the prep school just outside the picturesque village of Cold Ridge.

"What do you want me to do?" Ty asked.

"Make sure Carine doesn't pursue this thing. She knew Louis Sanborn. She liked him. She found him dead. Plus," Manny added pointedly, "she had her life pulled out from under her not that long ago. She's ripe for trouble."

"She's a Winter, Manny. She's always ripe for trouble." What Manny didn't say-what he didn't need to say-was that Ty was the one who'd pulled her life out from under her. "Is she in danger?"

"Five minutes sooner, she'd have walked in on a murder. Anything could have happened. For all I know, it still could. Just keep an eye on her, North. That's all I'm asking."

Ty was silent a moment. "You're not telling me everything."

Manny almost laughed. "Hell, North, I'm not telling you anything." But any humor faded, and he asked seriously, "You'll do it?"

As if there was a question. "If Gus doesn't let all the air out of my tires before I can get there. If Carine doesn't kill me when I do. I haven't seen her since I left her at the altar." North sighed heavily, feeling the fatigue from his long day. He hadn't quite left her at the altar. At least he'd come to his senses and called off their wedding a full week in advance. It could have been worse, not that anyone else saw it that way. "Manny, Jesus. Murder-what the hell's going on?"

"Looks like Carine and I are shit magnets these days. Jesus. Look, Ty. She found a dead man this afternoon. I should have made sure that didn't happen. I didn't, so now I'm asking you to do what you can to make it right." He groaned to himself. "Ah, screw it. You're on a need-to-know basis. It's the best I can do. Just get down here."

"I'll be there tonight."

Manny hesitated. "I saw the story about the rescue you did today on the news. My son-"

"Eric wasn't involved. He's only a freshman. These guys are seniors."

"Geniuses, from the sounds of it."

"Ivy League material. They've got their applications in. Watch. They'll all be running the show when we're in the home."

"Scary thought. Ty-"

"Forget it. It's okay."

But Manny Carrera said it, anyway. "I know I'm asking a lot. Thanks."