Today's Reading
Leaning over the sled — it was tilted on its side — Bet opened the glove box and dug out the document. It wasn't a surprise to see Doug Marsden's name on the paperwork with an address not far from Jeb Pearson's ranch. She also found Grant's wallet, but no cell phone. As Bet stood back up, she saw a flash of red against the snow. Something was trapped underneath the machine.
The bright red fletch of an arrow embedded in the sled's fuel tank.
Had someone shot at Grant, hitting the sled and sending him off course into the tree? Deliberate? Or a bizarre accident?
Hunting season was long over. But someone could have been out bow- hunting illegally.
Except a snowmobile couldn't be mistaken for a deer.
'Bet?' Jeb's voice called out from the Snowbulance. He gestured he was ready to go. She held up a hand to show him that she needed a moment. This was now a crime scene, and all her evidence would soon get buried from the storm. Should she document everything before heading off the ridge? Try to get the arrow out from under the sled? Or would that do even more damage to her evidence than coming back later and taking her time?
Maggie's voice popped into Bet's mind, reminding her that getting her living witness off the ridge safely was her priority, along with transporting Grant to the morgue in Ellensburg. At some point, she needed to notify Doug as Grant's next of kin.
But whatever crime had happened here mattered too.
Sending Jeb back down the mountain by himself with a dead boy and the traumatized woman felt like a bad idea. Bet would have to ride back out later to gather evidence. At least she knew her crime scene wasn't going anywhere and no one else would find it.
Snow began to fall as Bet pulled out her cell for a few quick photos of the snowmobile and the arrow.
As she climbed on to her own sled, snowfall obscured the scene of the accident in a swirl of white. It would make their trip down all the more dangerous, but Bet felt exhilarated by the conditions. The world felt pure. Nature made the location pristine again, hiding the scene from prying eyes.
As if no one had died there at all.
Bet signaled to Jeb she was ready to go, and they the living and the dead started Grant's final voyage out of the mountains. They drove at a slow pace. Beating the worst of the weather down to Jeb's was important, but visibility was already limited. They couldn't afford another wreck.
Reaching the southeast end of the ridge and a return into the denser forest, Bet could barely make out the back of the Snowbulance behind Jeb's sled, with Julia driving slowly but steadily after him.
Just before Bet plunged into the trees after the other two, she took a brief pause to look back in the direction of the ridge. What had brought Grant out there by himself this morning? Or had he been with someone else, someone who caused the accident? Or was someone else stuck out here as well, too injured to call for help?
Should Bet have done a bigger search of the area before getting Julia and Grant back down to the valley floor? Or sent Jeb down with them alone?
Snow obscured the ridge as the storm descended on Collier, reminding her that her life was at risk, too.
Gunning her engine, Bet followed Julia. She had to get back down to the valley floor and find out if anyone else had gone out with Grant.
Though if anyone else was alive on that ridge, they wouldn't be for long. Bet would have to live with the choice she'd made as the snow worsened.
Had she just made her first mistake of the storm?
CHAPTER THREE
The storm's power had ramped up by the time they reached the spot where the forest service road met the loop road. Once out of the trees, the wind pushed the snowmobiles sideways and near whiteout conditions shortened their visibility to a few feet. Bet could no longer see Jeb and the Snowbulance, but Julia's constant forward motion meant he must still be out front leading the way.
They finally arrived at the roundhouse without incident, and Bet's cell phone came alive with vibrations and dings and message notifications. She explained to Jeb that she needed to call the station to update Alma, and for him to get Julia Crews inside and out of the cold.
'Ask the family to stay at their cabin for now. I'm going to have to ask them a few questions.
She didn't want an audience while she and Jeb unloaded Grant Marsden's corpse.
This excerpt is from the ebook edition.
Monday we begin the book Agnes Sharp and the Trip of a Lifetime Leonie Swann, Amy Bojan.
...
