Tough Cookie

Suddenly the canister shuddered and stopped. I clambered up through the trash to the metal door. My heart sank. Through the holes of my cage, the moonlight on the slope showed the canister was only halfway down the track to the Killdeer base. I wasn’t even in sight of the warehouse. Jack must have stopped the lift engine from the peak. Dammit.

I peered down through the holes in the metal. The moonlight illuminated much of the mountain, including nearby woods and what looked like a catwalk or cleared path of snow. With blood pounding in my ears, I pushed on the container door. It swung open.

I leaped out and looked all around. Had Rorry missed me and called Tom? Would he call someone to go looking for me?

I tried to get my bearings. The cleared path was not a catwalk, I realized. It had a plastic orange fence going up one side … The construction road! If I followed it, I would get down to the Rover where I had a spare key in the wheel-well.

I hobbled over to the road and started to run. Within seconds, my chest burned with the exertion and the cold. Did I hear something? I stopped, panting, looked up the moonlit slope, and saw the shadow of a lone skier. I turned and again ran. Could I possibly make it to the Rover before Jack caught up with me? My brain cursed my agonized legs. How far to the parking lot? Maybe fifteen minutes, if I could keep up this brutal pace. I ran and ran, and after an eternity, reached the fork that led back to the parking lot and trailhead to Elk Ridge. Wheezing, I stopped and tried to catch my breath.

Scritch, scratch. Scritch-scratch. Very regularly, the sound came from behind me. Scritch-scratch. I glanced back. Jack, on skis, was poling swiftly along the snow-covered road, cross-country-style. He was perhaps fifty feet behind me. Damn

. I moved my legs as fast as they were able to go. But I knew in my heart I’d never make it to the Rover before he closed the gap.

And he had at least two more shots left.

With sudden decision, I ran up the snowpacked road of the left fork, toward the construction site. On skis, Jack could go swiftly downhill; as fit and muscular as he was, he could traverse flat terrain quickly as well. But he could not go uphill on skis, unless he was Superman. I had to get to the guard’s cabin first.

Low clouds, silvered by the moonlight, rolled across the sky. How far was the cabin, if the dirt road ran right across the valley? A half-mile? A mile? Jack would have to stop; he would have to remove his skis and boots. No one could run in that clunky footwear. You can beat him

, I told myself. All you have to do is run.

I looked over my shoulder. Scritch-scratch, scritch-scratch. Jack was gaining on me. I even thought I saw him smiling at me.

“Goldy!” he called placatingly. “Stop! Let’s talk!”

Yeah, sure. I ran up the track. A sudden pool of darkness swallowed me and I slowed. Tall pines loomed on the right side of the construction fence, casting black, swaying shadows on the road. Run

, I ordered myself. But whatever you do, don’t fall. If you do, you’ll die.

Behind me, the sounds of Jack removing his ski equipment were barely audible. Damn it. I couldn’t believe he would still follow me. He couldn’t be tried again for Fiona’s murder. Why not run away, rather than risk exposure? Because he’d told me he had killed Doug Portman. Because he desperately wanted Eileen’s money. The tape would show Eileen and the world that Jack had murdered his first wife to get her fortune. Eileen would dump him; he would go to prison for murdering Portman and the truck driver he’d killed on Interstate 70, when he’d been trying to nail me.

I came to the spot in the road where it veered upward and became the old hiking trail. I did not know how far the trail went before it diverged—a high side leading to Elk Ridge, the low, level side heading through the valley. As I ran, I peered into the darkness. Was the faint light I saw the guard’s cabin far, far up the hill? Or were my eyes playing tricks?

The wind whispered in the pines. In the moonlight, I could make out lodgepole pine branches littering the slick, snow-hard road. The branches had been blown down by the wind. I would have to be careful; stepping on them would alert Jack to my location. Had he found the road yet? How fast could he go in stocking feet? He was almost ten years younger than I was, and an athlete. Grimly, I quickened my pace.