Running Cold: A Novel, page 10
“It’s really coming down,” Suki remarked to make me feel better about driving like a grandma. The steady swirl of snow was hypnotic, and I made sure to shift my gaze from the horizon to the road every few seconds to keep from falling into a spell.
“I don’t remember seeing snow in the forecast,” Christa said.
“It’s probably just a squall,” Julie said. “Hopefully it will pass by the time we get there.”
We’d been warned the parking lot might be full, but we got a spot right up front, which I mistakenly took as a good sign. The snow didn’t ease up by the time we got on the gondola, but it was just as well. I was afraid of heights, and the gauzy veil of white blocked my view of the gaping nothingness below.
“Isn’t this amazing?” Suki exclaimed as the door of the Smart-car-size capsule closed and we teetered up the cable. The cabin had twin benches that faced one another, with room for two on each one. I didn’t realize when we got in that it would turn around before heading up the mountain, so was stuck sitting backward for the whole seven-minute ride.
“I wish we could see,” Christa said.
“I prefer not seeing,” I said. I had a flashback to the Space Mountain ride at Disney World—the first and only roller coaster I’d ventured onto in my adult life. That ride started off with a slow ascent into darkness too. And then turned into the reason I never went on a roller coaster again. I knew this was a tram, not an amusement park ride, but I was still sweating like I was in spinning class.
“Don’t worry, Izzy. It’s perfectly safe,” Julie assured me. “This gondola has been running for almost seventy years.”
The thought of the cables suspending us in midair being twice my age made me feel worse, not better, but I just smiled and nodded like my heart wasn’t doing its best impression of a drumroll. I thought I heard Christa say, “I think Banff is neat,” but then again, she might’ve said, “I like ham and cheese.” I was so focused on watching my life pass before my eyes I couldn’t be sure.
“Izzy,” Suki said, putting a hand on me.
I was too afraid to open my mouth and give the scream stuck in my throat the opportunity to jump out, so I just said, “Mmmm?”
“We’re here.”
She indicated the door, which had parted down the middle like the Red Sea (Praise Moses!), and I wasted zero seconds getting to my feet and scurrying out. If the girls exchanged an amused look, I didn’t know or care, so happy was I to get out of there.
“We’re a few minutes early—shall we go to the observation deck?” Christa asked, and before I could say, “I’ll be at the bar,” the ladies took off toward the cliff’s edge.
“Izzy, come!” one of them shouted, beckoning me up a snow-covered staircase. “We want to take a picture!”
“Do I have to?” I asked, but Christa was already handing her phone to some rando, and I’d be a party pooper if I didn’t join.
“Stand next to Julie,” Suki ordered as I stepped onto the platform. If it had been a clear night, I could have seen mountain peaks in every direction. But instead all I saw was snow soup.
“You can’t see anything,” I objected.
“We still want a picture,” Suki said.
“It’s not every day you’re on the top of the world with your besties,” Christa added.
“Say Banff!” our photographer said, and we foolishly obliged. She snapped the photo as our mouths made the ff sound, and if you don’t believe me when I tell you we all looked like beavers, do it in the mirror and see for yourself.
“Thanks!” Christa said, pocketing her phone.
I turned around to peer over the railing. The falling snow was transforming the landscape in front of my eyes, softening rooftops and tree branches, blurring the horizon so you couldn’t tell the earth from the sky. If there was a more on-the-nose metaphor for “everything is temporary,” I couldn’t think of one. Snow falls, and the world is aglow with newness. Snow melts, and the earth reemerges. Jeff was a storm—exciting and new. But storms don’t last. It’s the earth, not the storm, that endures. I found myself wondering what my future held. Was this metaphor meant for me? Was it time to come back to earth now?
“Izzy, come on!” Christa shouted. “Our table is ready!”
I walked down the stairs and into the mountaintop bistro with floor-to-ceiling windows. Blond wood tables were adorned with crisp, white napkins rolled like egg rolls with silverware filling. Fresh flowers plumed from hourglass vases with alabaster sand at the bottoms. In its simplicity, the decor let the surroundings be the star, and I imagined, on a clear night, the view rose to the task.
“Right this way, ladies,” the hostess said, clutching menus to her chest.
We were seated at a four-top in the middle. Sitting inside that glassed-in room was like being in a snow globe in a perpetual state of being shaken. We were ten thousand feet high, surrounded on all sides by a violent swirl of white. It was terrifying and glorious, kind of like falling in love. Yes, it was inappropriate for me to have fallen for Jeff. But the first step in forgiving myself was to name it. Betrayal was betrayal. There was no blaming the music or the booze. I didn’t ask to feel those feelings. But I indulged them, and that was wrong.
The waiter took our drink order (a double for me). As I was trying to decide between pan-seared scallops and gnocchi cacio e pepe, a man in a dark suit tapped on a glass like the best man at a wedding.
“Good evening, everyone,” he said once he got our attention. “Forgive me for interrupting, I am the manager, with some unfortunate news.”
I braced myself for the announcement that they were out of gnocchi, but the news was worse than that. Way worse.
“In our twenty years of business, this has never happened,” he continued, “but the weather forecast just updated this squall to a blizzard. Out of an abundance of caution, we’re going to have to cut your evening short.”
There was a beat of stunned silence. I looked at Julie.
“By ‘cut the evening short’ does that mean no dessert?” I was not only starving, but I was also counting on three whiskey gingers to hold my hand on the way back down the mountain. I hadn’t even had my first one yet.
“They can’t run the gondola if it’s too windy,” Julie said. “I think he wants us to leave now.”
A chorus of chair legs scraping the floor confirmed Julie was right. People were putting on their coats. It appeared I was not only going to have to go down the mountain hungry, but sober too.
“Oh man,” Christa muttered.
“Sorry, Julie,” Suki said.
“Don’t apologize,” Julie replied. And a moment later they were all pulling on their hats and coats and looking expectantly at me.
“Right. Coming.”
The line to get into the gondola was long but moved quickly. Thanks to me, we were among the last to get in. I rode forward this time, hip pressed to Julie’s, hands balled into fists. As soon as our cabin left the platform, my stomach dropped to the valley floor.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“You OK, Izzy?” Suki asked.
“Mmm-hmmm.”
I settled into rhythmic breathing. Five seconds in . . . hold for five seconds . . . five seconds out. I was on my second round when a gust of wind slammed into the cabin wall, swinging us like a pendulum.
“Oh God!”
I slid into Julie, then she slid into me. Side to side we ricocheted, all while descending into a swirling white abyss.
“It’s going to be OK, Izzy,” Julie soothed, but I could hear the uneasiness in her voice. I looked up at Christa and Suki. They were holding hands. I reached for Julie’s, and she gave mine a squeeze.
“We’ll be down in a couple of minutes,” Julie promised.
The night wind screamed like a wild animal. Cold air blasted through the seams of the cabin. My teeth were jackhammering. Just as I thought things couldn’t get any dicier—
Fwump!
The cabin slammed to a stop. The pendulum turned into a corkscrew. I pressed my palm to the window to stop myself from spiraling onto the floor.
“What’s happening? Why did we stop?”
Julie peered out the window. I followed her gaze. The twinkle of city lights had been extinguished to a blanket of dull-gray nothingness.
“Julie?”
“It appears we lost power.”
But the news was worse than that.
“Not just to the gondola, but to the whole town.”
CHAPTER 23
Remy
When I got promoted from head of catering to manager, I was trained what to do in case of an emergency—a fire, a power outage, a flood, a violent crime, the passing of a guest. Nothing catastrophic had ever happened on my watch, so I’d never needed to use that training. Apparently, I was overdue. Because that night I had to deal with not one, but three catastrophes, all at the same time.
The power outage was easy. There was nothing for me to do. The hotel had a generator that kicked in automatically. It would keep all the vital services running: elevator, lights, heat, electronic door locks, even the dishwashers and washing machines—though we were advised not to do laundry until we knew how long we’d be without power.
The guests would have experienced minor disruptions. Lights would have flickered, showers would have been interrupted as water pumps stopped then restarted, and guests would have been without internet while the systems rebooted. The security system—door alarms and cameras—would also go offline. Normally, I had eyes and ears on every corner of the hotel, but I was going to have to be in the dark for a while like everyone else.
Sixty seconds after the power went out, my cell phone rang as predicted. Someone from engineering was supposed to call within five minutes of the outage to make sure systems were operating as they should. We would go through a checklist together. Our priorities were guest safety and comfort, in that order.
I picked up my ringing phone. The display said unknown caller. Given that this had never happened before, I didn’t know if I’d be hearing from the engineer on call or some higher-up off-site. I did know that the number one rule in any catastrophe was to stay calm, so that’s what I made sure to project.
“This is Remy.”
I sat down at my desk in anticipation of going through the checklist. But the person on the other line didn’t say anything for several seconds. Did they not hear me answer the phone?
“Remy speaking,” I repeated, a little louder this time. I was about to hang up, when I heard a tiny squeak. No, not a squeak, a voice. A woman’s voice. One syllable. A word I could not make out.
“I am sorry, I cannot hear you. Say again?”
And this time I made out the word.
“Help.”
My heart sped up in my chest. For a brief second, I was back in Chamonix, getting a call from a skier in distress. They all started the same way, with that word.
“Who is this?” I pressed the phone to my ear. The reply was barely audible.
“It’s . . .” I wasn’t sure what she said after that. It sounded like me, but no one but my mother would identify herself to me as me, and she would say moi.
I tried another way to identify the caller.
“Where are you calling from?”
“901.”
Room 901 was the penthouse.
“Ceci?”
“Help,” she repeated, a little more forcefully this time.
For a second I was confused how she’d gotten my private cell number. But then I remembered I had given it to her after her reprimand of Julie, so she could call me about the spa day I had promised her.
“Emergency,” she said. And then I heard a gurgling noise, something between a moan and the sound of sucking water.
“Stay put, I am on my way.”
I grabbed my key card off my desk and sprinted out of my office toward the elevator.
“C’mon, c’mon!” I cursed as I pressed the button. Ten long seconds later, the elevator finally arrived and shot me up to the ninth floor.
I pounded on Ceci’s door. Despite what I knew the woman had done to Julie when she’d entered without being invited, I didn’t wait for an answer.
“I’m coming in!”
I waved my e-key in front of the keypad and turned the handle as soon as the green light appeared.
“Ceci?”
I pushed the door open and stepped into the living room.
Then clamped my hand over my mouth to catch my scream.
PART 2
Second to Die
CHAPTER 24
Monique
Ten seconds after I’d put my frozen lasagna in the oven, the power went out. You’d think someone with my background would be prepared for something as ho-hum as a power outage, but not only did I have no idea where my torches and candles were, I also had nothing else to eat.
“Oh, come on,” I shouted into the darkness, as people who live alone do. And it was really dark. There was no ambient light streaming in through the window from a distant streetlamp—those were out too. It appeared the whole block had gone dark. I know I shouldn’t admit it, but I was a little uneasy. I wasn’t afraid of the boogeyman, but if other people were, it could make for a long night.
“Hey, Siri!” I called out because my phone had a light that I could use to find a torch. But Siri didn’t answer. My phone was not in the room. I was alone in the dark with no phone, an empty stomach, and a cold lasagna. To make the situation even more colorful, the unexpected squall was approaching near-blizzard conditions, rattling my windows and dumping snow on a roof that should have been replaced three winters ago. But I was too hungry to worry about that now.
I got up from the kitchen table and groped my way toward the stove. I was pretty sure there was a book of matches in the junk drawer. The only problem with a junk drawer was that it’s filled with junk. Finding anything in there was a challenge even when the lights were on. I opened the drawer, stuck my hand in, and began my probe.
“OK, matches, I know you’re in there.”
My hands worked their way from front to back, inventorying as they went. A screwdriver, a box of paper clips, a set of Allen wrenches. Behind those were a stack of Post-its, a Master Lock, a canister—no, two canisters—of bear spray. Left to right, then right to left. I was thorough and methodical. I was also unsuccessful.
“C’mon, matches, talk to me.”
I didn’t smoke and wasn’t a scented-candle person. I only ever used matches to light the stove when the clicker went out after my pasta water overflowed. So they had to be near.
On a hunch, I reached into the cabinet over the range, and—
Bingo.
I didn’t remember putting them up there, but it was logical that’s where they’d be. I was nothing if not logical. I couldn’t do my job if I wasn’t.
I lit the stove, then gave my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the cool-blue light. Next task was to find my phone. I already knew it wasn’t in the kitchen, and I hadn’t been upstairs since I came home. Where did I leave it?
I peered into the dining room to see my jacket draped over the back of a chair.
“Gotcha.”
My Arc’teryx shell was still damp from when I shoveled the driveway. In my job, I couldn’t afford to wait for the local kid to come around with his plow. I also couldn’t afford to be too hungry to function. So after I extracted my phone from the inside pocket, I walked back into the kitchen to do something about my growling stomach.
I turned off the stove, then clicked on the phone light to explore options for dinner that didn’t require electricity. You’re not supposed to open the refrigerator in a power outage, but I wasn’t worried about letting out the cold air. Anything I didn’t want to spoil I could take outside and put in the snow. Also, there was nothing in the refrigerator.
After contemplating how I might barbecue a frozen lasagna, I turned to the pantry. It was slim pickings in there, but I wasn’t fussy. I was eating tuna out of the can with a side of ketchup chips when my phone buzzed with an incoming call.
“Montpelier,” I answered, keeping the phone on speaker so I didn’t have to stop eating.
“Is your power out?” the chief of police asked.
“Yes, sir. For about ten minutes now.”
“Looks like the whole town is dark.”
Tuna-scented oil ran down my fork onto my hand. I had a napkin somewhere, but the Telus bill was closer. “How can I help?”
Banff was a small town. We had a whopping eight police officers on staff. Technically I was a detective, but given the sparseness of our resources, I was expected to answer all sorts of calls, from bear sightings to bar fights. I imagined the chief wanted me to go do some hand-holding. People get scared when they’re plunged into darkness.
“I need you at the Banff Springs Hotel, stat,” the chief said.
“Argument over a minibar charge?” I guessed. My joke was an unsubtle attempt to rib him for calling his highest-ranking police officer for what I assumed was a minor scuffle, because we only ever had minor scuffles. The hotel had a massive gas-powered generator. Unlike my house, it wouldn’t be cold and dark. I didn’t say it, but the chief was doing me a favor by sending me somewhere I could get a real meal.
“I’m afraid not, Detective.”
It wasn’t like the chief to call me by my rank. I put down my ketchup chips.
“What’s going on, sir?”
We didn’t have much crime in Banff. We didn’t even have a proper jail—just a drunk tank, and even that was rarely used. Besides the occasional pickpocket or petty theft, most of our calls involved relieving restless teens of the alcohol they’d stolen from their parents. My heart sped up at the thought I might finally get to use my degree in criminology to solve an actual crime.
Besides being a luxury hotel, the Banff Springs had a furrier, a jewelry shop, an art gallery, several boutiques, and a half dozen eateries. The clientele was wealthy and enjoyed a multitude of extracurricular activities, not all of them legal. I braced myself to hear there’d been a robbery or a drug deal gone awry. But this call was about something much, much worse.
