Chapter 22
I was still running after Sam as he fell off the railing with Stone. The storm swallowed the men in a hush of snow. Then nothing.
Someone took in a sharp breath.
Mallory lunged, snatching my arm as I hit the ice slab covering the balcony. I couldn't stop sliding and she whipped me off my feet before I breached the railing too. All I could see below was a flash of white before she reeled me backwards.
Panting, I leaned away from her.
"Keep your head, damnit." She was barely upright, clutching one of the French doors, which hung crooked on its hinges. Wood splinters littered the carpeting. A few glass panes had cracked but not yet fallen.
Another wind gust pushed us back as snow swarmed into the room, stinging our eyes.
"Let me go." I shoved my fists into her chest, pushing halfway out of her arms.
"You're not going with him," she said, locking her forearms around my waist and carrying me back into the room. "Roy!"
Roy darted past and treaded onto what was left of the balcony, keeping to the right side. He peered long and hard over the edge. Through the fog of snow he finally called two words: "Holy crap."
"Take her, idiot." Mallory started to hand me off to Roy, but Vilet raised a hand and both agents simultaneously dropped their grips on my arms.
Vilet's face paled as he stared into the storm. "She has a right to see for herself."
Flatfooted and keeping to the side that upheld Roy's weight, I returned to the balcony railing, dreading what lie before me. Considering the slope down to the lake, theirs must have been a fifty-foot fall, enough to crack a back or burst a skull. How many years I'd spent photographing the crumpled, bloody bodies of grown men, of children even, and yet I'd neither the stomach nor the heart to look down.
Mallory slid up behind me and took a look herself. "Holy crap is right."
Now I had to see.
Through a blur of snow, I caught the faint outline of Sam and Stone's bodies muddled together. Another second to listen for any sound of life, then I withdrew.
I doubled over, started shaking. The anguish I'd spent all night tamping down came back ten-fold, engulfing me with sobs.
Setting her man-sized hand on my shoulder, Mallory patted me nervously.
I raised my face to her, snow sticking to my wet cheeks. "I'm going to kill him."
"Not before I do, sister."
We took another look. Below, Sam rolled off Stone, whose body had indented two feet into the snow bank. Weeks of near-blizzard conditions had layered snow-pack against the lodge, creating a giant pillow that reached halfway to the balcony. Luckily, a stand of pines caging the area kept snowplows out, or Sam and Stone would have landed on a rocky outcropping instead.
Growling something fierce, Sam held Stone by the back of the neck and shoved his face into the snow. Sam's words may have been muffled by weather, but his meaning came through loud and clear. He let go and crawled over the snow toward the lodge.
Spitting snow, Stone sat up, held a hand to his chest. Finding his wrists cuffed, Stone fell backwards, cursing into the storm.
Defeat sucks, asshole.
Then Stone reached for his holster.
Before I could scream for Sam to run, he turned back to the detective.
