“Are we getting close?” Sam puffed, clomping up the mountainside as Gina climbed toward a clearing that was more vertical than any sane woman should scale in snowshoes.

  “Shhh!” Gina hissed, stopping at the edge of the trees. “We’re there.” She scanned the clearing above. “Shit!”

  Then she took off, galloping on her snowshoes up the sheer slope, her poles raised, losing her stocking cap as she floundered in the snow. Startled by Gina’s abrupt shout, Sam barely had time to take in the scene. A hundred yards above them, near the top of the clearing, next to a log trap, stood a figure dressed in a black parka and camouflage pants. Beside him was a large blue plastic dog carrier. The top of a log trap was propped open with a stick.

  “Stop!” Gina bellowed.

  The figure twisted to gaze downhill. The black shade of beard along his jawline proved he was male, but with a parka bunched around his neck and a stocking cap pulled low on his brow and with a slow curtain of snow blurring the details, it was hard to guess anything more. Reaching into the trap, the man hefted out a bulky bundle of dark fur, clutching it tightly to his chest.

  That mass of fur had to be a wolverine. Feisty. Tranquilized. Or dead. Bending over the carrier, the guy hastily shoved his burden inside. The radio collar around the limp neck scratched against the plastic as the wolverine slid through the opening.

  Sam’s temper flared. She raced into the snow of the slope, adding her tracks and her voice to Gina’s. “Stop, you bastard! You won’t get away with this!”

  The mountainside was steep, and the snow in the clearing was softer and deeper than it had been in the woods. Each step punched a hole into the drifts, forcing Sam to lift a heavy clump of snow every time she raised a snowshoe. She wanted to sprint upward, but this was more like stomping in place. A few yards upslope, Gina was making only slightly better progress, yelling epithets with every step.

  The man straightened, hefted the carrier, and took off sideways across the clearing above them, cutting a horizontal path into the snow, headed for the forest that flanked the clearing on three sides.

  “You! Shithead!” Gina screamed. “Hey, son of a bitch! Drop that carrier!”

  A hot wave of rage flooded through Sam. Her body trembled with the frustration of knowing that neither she nor Gina could reach the wolverine snatcher in time to save Feisty.

  The ground itself seemed to shimmer in commiseration beneath her snowshoes, and she noticed that the fringe of evergreens around the clearing were swaying, too. For a second, she had the insane thought that maybe divine retribution actually existed, Mother Earth quaking in outrage at the poacher taking one of her precious wild creatures.

  But when a loud crack boomed somewhere near the top of the slope, Sam knew that something much more ominous was happening.

  “Avalanche!” she screamed, turning. “Run!”

  Chapter 5

  Sam did her best to race back to the woods. Her thoughts careened down the slope with her, colliding with one another in a useless jumble. Experience and training had informed her that the steep clearing was an avalanche chute, and instinct told her the only chance of survival was to reach the clump of trees that had survived for decades.

  She was close to the first trees when the slide caught up with her. At first a spray of white enveloped her, blurring her vision into a fog. Then a tsunami of snow slammed into her back and shoulders, ripping her off her feet, tumbling her into a forward roll as the avalanche rushed over her.

  OhGodohGodohGod. The air was thick and icy and she couldn’t breathe, snow rushing into her mouth and nose, her pole straps tightening around her wrists like handcuffs, pulling her arms down when she needed to swim up. That was the only advice she’d ever heard about avalanches: Swim while the snow is still moving like liquid, and if you’re lucky, you might end up on top.

  The strap around her right wrist broke, and she had just begun to flail with that arm when the left side of her body collided with something immovable, slamming the air from her lungs. Stars sparked through a sudden darkness in front of her eyes, blacking out the wall of white surging around her. Cracking, snapping, and loud crashes deafened her in a ferocious cacophony of surround sound.

  The snow shoved against her back and head. Had she made the wrong choice? Would she be smashed between sliding trees and die a horrible death that way?

  How could anyone swim when jammed against an immovable obstacle? Frantically clawing the snow away from her mouth to create a pocket of air, she focused on not passing out. She barely managed to fling her free hand upward before the cascading snow settled around her like a load of wet cement.

  Her heart was thudding in her throat, her breath coming loud and panicky. She willed herself to inhale and exhale more slowly, hardly believing she was alive. She wasn’t sure she was lucky in that. Her left cheek, and indeed, her whole body, was jammed against a tree trunk that she prayed was still vertical. Throwing back her head as far as she could, she wriggled, moving as much as possible, waving her arm over her head, trying to raise her feet, and thrashing against the weight of the surrounding blanket of snow that would only become heavier as gravity continued to solidify it.

  Only an inch or two separated her face from the tree trunk. Instead of the icy taste of snow, her tongue now identified the rusty tang of blood. Her upper lip felt wet, and she was pretty sure her nose was broken. With one hand imprisoned above her head and the other trapped below her waist, there was no way to touch it. She was grateful that she could still breathe. But she knew that might only be a momentary relief.

  The world was dark and smothering, and for a second, she felt a black rush of panic, the terror of not knowing up from down. But then her brain waves reset; the blood running down her lip and chin proved she had landed in a more-or-less upright position.

  “Help!” she yelled. The shout seemed faint to her, even though it was coming from her own mouth. And who was she yelling to?

  Shit. Double shit. Gina!

  The wolverine. The trapper. They’d all been on the same slope. Oh, holy crap, was everyone buried?

  Chapter 6

  “It’s starting to snow,” Blake observed to Claude as they neared the top of the Chair 4 lift. “The freestyle competition at the Heather Meadows Lodge is over. Sam and Chase and Nicole have probably left for the day.” The three of them had driven up to the resort together, and he and Claude had come in Claude’s car. “Think we’d better drive down the mountain before the weather really sets in?”

  “Last run,” Claude agreed, wrapping his hands firmly around his ski poles as their chair approached the unloading zone.

  Blake caught an edge and nearly did a faceplant as he and Claude pushed away from the chair lift.

  “Klutz!” Claude joked. “Race you to Raven Hut.” And then he was away, zigzagging down the slope before Blake could jerk his hand out of the snow and stand upright, tugging his ski pole back into position.

  Blake watched his lover navigate the slope. Claude’s ski jacket strained at the zipper across his stomach now, as did Blake’s. Most people had gained weight during the boring shelter-in-place, no-social-life days of the pandemic. He and Claude were both still novices at skiing, having met years ago during beginner lessons here. Then, they’d skied the easiest route down, labeled “Big Creek” on the trail map. Today, it was a good thing that they didn’t have enough experience to know what was great snow. While others had been complaining about the slushy snow underfoot today, the conditions seemed fine to them. It was just so nice to practice, to be outdoors having fun with others, after all the months of quarantine.

  Even more fantastic was spending time with Claude again, now that the authorities had finally reopened the border between the US and Canada to nonessential travel. So many couples had been separated, allowed only to shout or wave to each other from across a ditch in Peace Arch Park or talk for a few hours inside the international park. Zoom meetings and phone calls were poor substitutes for laughing together. Touching a computer screen could never replace the warmth of human skin.

  Blake had kept his greenhouse job throughout the quarantine and had even worked a lot of overtime because of the newfound craze for gardening, but potted plants were not conversationalists. His cooking classes had all been cancelled. He hadn’t been able to see his friends or his daughter Hannah, except via computer or phone videos. If he hadn’t been sharing a house with Sam and her cat Simon, he would have gone completely berserk.

  Even though they’d been apart for most of the last two years, he and Claude had comfortably eased back into their relationship, like sliding into a pair of well-worn slippers. Many gay men would have avoided a long-term association with a man like Blake, who carried the baggage of a previous marriage and a daughter, and who made little more than minimum wage. He’d screwed up so many things over the years, first assuming he could be a hetero husband, then wounding Diane and alienating her whole family and most of their friends by finally coming out.

  But he didn’t regret being a father; he’d never regret Hannah. Up to the time he’d met Claude, his daughter had been the brightest light of his life. Was it time to introduce her to Claude? Would she be jealous of the time he spent with his lover?

  He wasn’t too worried about Claude’s reaction if he proposed that the three of them spend time together. Although he didn’t have children of his own, Claude obviously thought family was important. He’d shown Blake photos of his sister and niece and nephew so many times Blake was sure he’d recognize that family anywhere.

  Claude had the advantage of being single and well paid, and his job as a traveling sales rep for a wood products company provided a good excuse to cross the border reasonably often. Now that the border was open again to tourists, maybe Claude could show him some of the sights of British Columbia for a change, instead of the two of them always hanging around Bellingham. Blake hoped their relationship would evolve into something permanent, although he wasn’t sure how they’d get around the problem of being from two different countries. Maybe he could move to Canada. Maybe Claude could move to the US. They’d have to check into all that.

  Marriage? Well, he’d done that once before, to the wrong person, and he wasn’t at all sure that he wanted to take that step again. Still, it would be good to evolve into a more stable, settled life. He’d soon be middle-aged, and as much as he loved Sam, he didn’t want to live in someone else’s house forever.

  Claude was already well down the trail, so Blake pushed off to catch up. In the distance, Claude curved right on the trail called Holiday, which passed beneath Chair 6, the Experts Only lift. Blake followed. Claude had acted a bit insulted to be excluded from that lift, but Blake had no desire to see the steep terrain that awaited the expert skiers at the top of Pan Dome. Holiday was plenty challenging for him. As he passed below the lift, he noticed that most chairs were empty, which probably meant that the majority of experts considered the current snow conditions unsatisfactory.

  He carefully zigzagged through the cut and carved to a stop at the edge of the trees to survey the trail leading down to the ski lodge. On the slope below, Claude stopped and turned, gazing up in Blake’s direction. Claude’s mouth opened in a shout, but Blake couldn’t hear the words over a loud cracking sound that ripped through the air and seemed to reverberate through the snow beneath his skis.

  Shouts erupted from the ski lift behind him, followed quickly by screams. A massive slab of snow plummeted down the steep valley in front of him. Alarmed, he shuffled sideways, closer to the cover of trees. Suddenly, every slope in sight was in motion, dumping its snow load into the horrific flash flood of snow hurtling down the canyon. Blake stared, his mouth open in disbelief and then in horror as a tsunami wave of white powder rose into the air, obliterating the sight of his lover and everything else below, swallowing every skier on the slope.

  Chapter 7

  FBI Agent Chase Perez was relieved to take a break from the ski slopes to grab an IPA in the lodge. He was surprised the snack bar was still open, because few skiers remained on the runs and the snow conditions were crap today. But after the long shutdown, the lodge employees and vendors were probably eager to make any money they could, and the posted lodge hours were even longer today than usual.

  According to his watch, the freestyle contest would likely be over, or nearly so. The crowd on the slopes and in the lodges was clearing out. Whenever Summer finished her assignment, they could pack up and head back down the mountain in Nicole’s car.

  A raucous group of teens had occupied the two best tables near the windowed front of the Raven Hut lodge, shooting spitwads at one another and clomp-chasing each other in their ski boots. He snagged a quieter table in the back room, where he had a view of two chairlifts and a could see down the hallway to the lodge front entrance. Nicole was still at the coffee counter, advising the clerk that the lodge really needed to invest in an espresso machine.

  A massive double-sided fireplace, an impressive piece of rustic stonework, chopped the lodge into two rooms, front and back. The fire seemed a bit overkill for this day, but the coals were burning down. The staff would probably extinguish it soon as Raven Hut closed for the day. The locals had a quaint habit of sticking forks and spoons into gaps between the stones and hanging their hats and gloves from them to dry, giving the fireplace a whimsical air. He wondered if the lodge staff recovered the tableware at the end of every day or simply left everything there for the next.

  Nicole shrugged off her mint-green ski jacket, and then slid into the chair across from his. She took a sip from the heavy ceramic mug in front of her. “Passible,” she pronounced.

  She hadn’t changed a bit. Of course, she had proved to be a much better skier than he. Chase felt a stab of familiar annoyance, remembered from their partnership in previous years, when, as the more experienced agent, Nicole routinely performed most activities more efficiently than he did. Although they both now lived in Washington State, she and her sculptor husband made the trek to the slopes at Snoqualmie Pass or Crystal Mountain much more often than Chase did to Mt. Baker. Most of his work took place on Native American reservations, many of which were along the coast. He was more familiar with the foggy wild beaches of the state than with its groomed ski slopes.

  They worked in different areas of the FBI now, so they each had interesting stories to tell. His often involved investigating nefarious behind-the-scenes transactions at the reservation casinos or the sad cases of women who had mysteriously vanished from their reservations, interspersed with exposing illegal deals in poached marine life or busting a drug-trafficking gang. Nicole’s stories were mostly about internet fraud of one kind or another. These days, he had by far the more fascinating job, and his Lakota blood was satisfied by finally spending more time with other tribal members.

  Chase raised his beer glass to clink against her coffee mug. “Nice to spend time with you again, former partner.”

  “Same here. How’s the dump coming along?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “The remodel of my cabin is proceeding nicely. Summer helped me add a deck, and I have double-pane windows now.”

  “Ah, progress.” She licked a speck of foam from her upper lip. “Have the racoons moved out of the attic?”

  He smiled. “I believe we’ve finally reached détente. The masked marauders don’t come into the house, and I don’t shoot them.” As if Summer would ever let him do that. She didn’t even kill spiders. He sighed and changed the subject. “What’s Oscar working on these days? Or is he just a house husband after the pandemic?”

  Nicole’s lips curved in her trademark Mona Lisa smile. “Oscar has a longer list of commissions than ever. While the superrich were in quarantine with the rest of us peons, they had plenty of time to redesign their gardens and dream about the perfect marble orca or granite grizzly or bronze flamingo to show off there.”

  “Flamingo?” That seemed out of place for Seattle.

  “A trio of them, actually.” She took another sip of her latte. “They’re six feet tall, weigh nearly a ton, and they’re on a ship right now, destined for a new resort in the Bahamas. The company is flying us down there to install them in two weeks.”

  “Nice.” Chase took note of Nicole’s “us” with mixed emotions. His former partner’s marriage had seemed on the rocks a few years back. But Nicole and Oscar had worked things out and had settled back into their cushy life in Seattle, where they’d moved to accommodate Nicole’s new position. Chase was at times amazed that Nicole chose to continue her career in the FBI when she could easily retire to a life of luxury. Then again, he couldn’t imagine Nicole Boudreaux as a kept woman. Her hyperactive brain would never allow that.

  His former partner and Summer were both alike in that way; sharp-witted, determined, eager to tackle challenges. He wondered when, or if, Summer would ever start thinking of them as a permanent couple. Would they ever share a comfortable life together? Even if they pooled resources, they could certainly never equal Nicole’s and Oscar’s lavish lifestyle. Not to mention that Summer would choose adventure over comfort until she was an ancient woman leaning on a walker. If she lived to be ancient.

  He was grateful that she was covering the aerial competition at the higher Heather Meadows Lodge today instead of traipsing around in the snowy wilderness searching for grizzlies or something equally insane. Maybe after they dropped Nicole off at her hotel, Summer would come back to his cabin with him and they could cook dinner together. And after that, surely she’d stay the night and leave her own house to Claude and Blake for a while. He took another sip of his beer, contemplating the possibilities with his lover in his bed. Their intimate times had been few and far between in the last two years.

  Pulling his phone from his pocket, he thumbed it to Summer’s number, pressed the call button and raised it to his year. Something between a chime and a beep sounded in his ear. “Summer?”