Holly tried to control her breathing, but as she took in a long inhale, the taste of blood filled her mouth with its coppery tang and she slammed her lips shut. This...this man’s death... It was her fault.
She’d left the privacy of the trees only to stumble upon this scene. Now she glanced down at the nearly decapitated body, then quickly turned away.
Yes, there was no denying he was dead.
Her stomach roiled, threatening her with a wave of nausea, but she tried to swallow it back.
Why couldn’t she have just gone to work? Instead, she had been selfish and decided to take the day off and play. Look what it had cost the world around her...
“Ty...” she said, barely whispering his name.
He looked over at her, but there was a vacancy in his expression that made her wonder if he was really even hearing her or if he was acting on instinct alone.
“Ty, I’m so, so sorry.” She didn’t know what to say, or how to say it. She was rattled by her role in his friend’s death. “I wish...I wish I could bring him back.” And take back this entire day.
This was all something out of her worst nightmare. She’d always feared getting hurt on the slopes, but even in her terror, she had never imagined that it would be followed up with something like this—an innocent man losing his life.
Ty grunted, looking away.
He was so reserved, but even in his stoicism, she could feel his pain radiating from him. Or maybe it was anger.
She clamped her mouth shut. Anything she could say to him now, well...she was worried that it would only make things worse.
His handset crackled to life as Cindy said something over the comms. Ty frowned and as she caught his eye, he turned away, shielding himself from her gaze. It bothered her more than she cared to admit.
“We located Moose. DOA.” There was a metered stoniness to his voice.
Cindy said something on the other end of the mic, and though Holly couldn’t make out the words she was saying she could hear the sadness in her tone.
This wasn’t just Holly’s worst nightmare—it was all of theirs.
TY WAS TRYING to hold back all the rage that filled him. He wanted to yell at the sky and tell the world what a screwed-up place it was. How could this have happened?
He had to get his act together. Anything he was feeling would have to wait.
Ty exhaled, long and hard, collecting himself. He was a detective first and a friend of Moose’s second.
He couldn’t fall for the torrents of anger that raced through him. For Moose’s sake, and for the sake of his family, Ty needed to handle this situation with as much professionalism as possible.
That meant, for right now, until he knew more about what had actually happened, he needed to treat this area and the body like it was a potential crime scene. Which meant he needed to notify the sheriff and let him know what had happened. Hopefully, Sheriff Sean Sanderson would make the call to Moose’s mom, Rebecca. However, if anyone should notify her of Moose’s death, it should be him. He was his closest friend and he’d eaten dinner on many a Sunday at Rebecca’s home. They were close, so close in fact that she sometimes called Ty her adopted son.
He found himself getting choked up thinking about the woman who, just like him, was now alone in this world.
Knock it off, he reminded himself, closing off the door to his emotions once again.
There were some things and some aspects of this that would have to wait.
One step at a time.
He turned to Holly. “Are you okay?” He should have asked her before, but like a jerk he’d been so caught up in the hierarchy of needs that she’d had to wait.
She nodded, but he could tell by the darkness in her eyes and the slump in her shoulders that she was lying to him. While he appreciated her attempt to shield him, he was the one who should have been shielding her.
“Why don’t you walk over here with me, if you’d like?” he asked, holding out his hand.
She turned to his gloved hand with a slight look of surprise, but then slipped her hand into his.
Their footfalls crunched in the hard, frozen crust of the snow beneath them. The wind was kicking up, causing the temps to plummet. He led her just far enough away that she couldn’t see the body but to a point that was still visible from a headlamp’s light beam.
“First, none of this is your fault.” He took her other hand and made her face him.
She wouldn’t meet his gaze.
“Look at me, Holly,” he ordered.
She shook her head and from the trembling of her hands, he could tell that she was struggling to keep her emotions under control—he knew that feeling all too well.
Something about her struggle made him steel his resolve. Holly needed him to be the strong one. For her, he would.
She looked into his eyes, her gaze filled with guilt and pain. “You are okay.” He tried to calm her.
“I’m... This... It’s my fault.” Her voice was strangled. “I should have just gone to work.”
He took hold of her hands, and the action was so unexpectedly comfortable that it caught him off guard and he struggled to keep his train of thought. “Moose is...was...a good friend of mine.” He motioned his head in the direction of the man’s dead body. “I can promise you that he wouldn’t want you to take responsibility for this.”
“Someone will. I’m sure his family and his wife will want answers.” She choked on the word wife.
He couldn’t help the little chuckle that escaped him at the thought of Moose still married. Moose would have had all kinds of colorful words at that kind of talk.
However, the thoughts of Rebecca once again gave Ty pause. “His mom is one of the kindest and most generous women I know.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better...” She paused and looked down at their entwined hands. “Not that I should.”
“That’s not where I was going.” He wanted to pull her chin up, to make her see his face and know he was telling her the truth, but things between them were already more intimate than he intended. There were some things he just couldn’t deal with today, and not having a clear head with this woman was one of them. “Look, seriously, we don’t even know what has taken place here. We need more answers before you can start condemning yourself.”
His handset crackled to life and Cindy’s voice pulled him from Holly. He’d have been lying if he said he wasn’t a bit relieved. It was hard to console her and tell her not to feel guilty for her role in this, when he was feeling the same kind of culpability within himself. He was the one who had let Moose go out on that trail alone. He’d even questioned it at the time. If only he had spoken up or agreed to ride with him. Sure, the trail he’d taken was more challenging, but if Ty just hadn’t been a wimp Moose might still be alive.
Cindy was two minutes out. He was relieved, but he wished he could stop anyone else from feeling the same way that he and Holly were. As soon as they showed up, he held no doubts that they would be as troubled by Moose’s death. Moose had been a friend to pretty much everyone in their unit. This was going to hit the team hard.
He needed to talk to the sheriff.
“Holly,” he said, squeezing her hand, trying to comfort her as best he could. “I need to make a phone call. I don’t want you going near the remains, okay?”
She nodded, but she said nothing. Her silence did little to help the stone in his gut.
“I’ll be right back. Cindy is on her way.”
She nodded again but let go of his hand and moved to sit down on the top of the snow at his feet. In all reality, she probably needed the rest. She’d had one helluva day. He could only imagine all the things that she was thinking and feeling—and compounding it all had to be hunger and sheer exhaustion. He should have never brought her back on the mountain. However, choices had been made, and things had turned to this. There was no going back, there was only moving forward. And maybe that was what he should have said to her about her guilt. Hell, it’s what he needed to tell himself, but he wasn’t about to take his own advice to heart.
He pulled out his cell phone. Surprisingly, given their location in the backcountry, he had service. He tapped the contact for Sheriff Sanderson. Without a doubt the man was going to hate hearing from him this late at night—a call at this hour only brought bad news, and a whole helluva lot of work.
“What’s happening?” Sanderson answered the call on the second ring, not bothering with the niceties that most outside of the law enforcement community abided by and considered polite.
“There’s been an incident.” He tried to sound placid and cool, not giving anything more than what was required.
There was the rustle of what sounded like bedding in the background of Sanderson’s call. “What kind of incident?”
He swallowed back the lump that had moved into his throat and threatened to choke back his words. “Well, we found the missing skier, but Moose didn’t make the waypoint. We went back in and looked for him... I’m sorry to tell you, sir, but Moose is dead.”
There was a long pause. “What happened? Do you know, yet?”
“Not yet. We located his body and got a positive ID. His head was almost perfectly severed...too neatly to have been an accident. I was hoping that you could call in an agency assist.” He treaded carefully, not wanting to step on Sanderson’s toes by telling him in even the slightest way how to do his job.
“On it. Send me your exact coordinates. I’ll have a coroner there as soon as possible. Where is the rest of your unit?”
“We sent everyone home who wasn’t needed. I figured they could get some rest.” Ty sent his commander their location.
“Good.” The sheriff sounded tired.
“You should have our pin.”
There was a click and the sound on the other end of the line changed as if Sanderson had put him on speakerphone so he could operate his phone and talk clearly at the same time. There was a buzz. “Yep, got it.” There were a few thumps, like Sanderson was tapping on his phone. “Coroner has been dispatched to your location. I’m going to call our partners at DCI to see if they would be willing to handle the investigation. I’ll be in touch.”
“Yep.”
“Terrell,” Sanderson said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t you dare move. And I don’t want a word of this leaking out, at least not yet.”
The man hadn’t needed to tell him. He was in his position for a reason, but he appreciated that his superior wanted to keep this under wraps.