Alexa couldn’t decide whether to hurtle or turtle across the suspension bridge. Each step brought a sway, wobble, warp. Her stomach hollowed. Her balance was challenged. In the middle, as if pulled by a magnet, she looked down at the gushing meltwater, untamed and jubilant. Close. Loud. If she fell, no one would hear her scream.
Go. Go. Go.
She bounced to the other side and jumped down the three steps to the ground. Something caught her eye. Blue metal. She walked along the bank of the cliff, maybe ten feet, and looked over the edge.
A hiking pole was wedged between a rock and a tuft of grass, just out of reach. She got a riding-in-an-elevator feeling in her stomach as she studied it, ignoring the river below. How did the pole get there?
The edge was too steep to lean over to grab it. She used the pointy tip of her own pole, poked it through the strap, and thrust. The mystery pole wouldn’t release. She used both hands and jerked upward. It yanked free and dangled from the tip of her pole above the gorge. Suspended. She brought it to the bank. It was blue, with a smooth cork grip and lighter than her own poles. The grip looked ergonomically designed.
She might be someone’s hero at the hut when she showed up with it. She retracted it and stashed it in a side pocket of her backpack.
Walking a long gentle hill past the swing bridge restored her body heat and equilibrium. Each huff separated her from creeks and rivers and helicopters. The trauma of the bulk rock bag had replaced the amazement of finding the skeleton. She reached in her pocket. Nudged her cold fingers around in the tiny nooks and corners, first the right side pocket, where she knew she had stashed the bone, and found only a candy wrapper, then in the left, a sealed baggie of clean toilet paper. Nothing else.
Gone. The thumb bone was gone.
Maybe during her lifesaving dives it had fallen out of her pocket. Why hadn’t she stored it in an evidence bag in the crime kit? It was her duty as a forensic investigator to preserve evidence. She was an idiot.
Okay, she rationalized, she hadn’t lost it willingly, and the evidence could be replaced by one of the other maybe 205 bones left at the scene. Plus she had taken plenty of photographs. She had proof in her viewfinder. But to lose evidence was a big no-no.
The face of the Māori elder filled her mind like a close-up movie scene. The elder’s eyes were sad. “I was just borrowing the bone,” she yelled. “To prove he exists. I was going to put it back.”
She was losing her mind, yelling into a void of freaking trees. She looked around, but no one was coming. Now the body would never be whole. Her first New Zealand case had involved a black-marketed skull of an ancient Māori chief. The separation of head and body had unleashed a storm of evil.
The same had happened here. Someone had tried to kill her while the bone was in her pocket. No way she was going to retrace her steps and look for it. Not with a deranged aviator in the area.
Science.
She almost missed a sign hidden by drooping ferns. RIGHT: POMPOLONA LODGE, 10 MINUTES. LEFT: SIDE TRAIL TO FLOSS FALLS, 15 MINUTES. STRAIGHT: MINTARO HUT, 60 MINUTES. She sighed with relief. Charlie was waiting at Mintaro, but she needed to go to the closest oasis of civilization. Tell someone about the bones and crazy helicopter pilot. She didn’t mind keeping Charlie waiting anyway. Served him right the way he hiked off without her this morning. She trotted toward the luxury hut.
On the porch of Pompolona Lodge, she shook off her hood. Was there a boot rule? She looked down at hers, soaked and muddy. But boots were not lined up outside the door like at Clinton Hut. Through large windows she spotted ten or twelve people at a bar or lounging on sofas and chairs, legs outstretched. Laughing. Talking. Drinking. A strange contrast to the solitary track and danger.
She wiped her boots on a mat, opened the heavy door, and stepped into a foyer area.
Heads swiveled her way. Talk and laughter ceased. The animated expression on the woman closest to where Alexa dripped on hardwood floor turned into a frown. As if she were expecting one person, and another showed up. Alexa wanted to yell, “Someone tried to kill me,” but smiled apologetically instead, blinked in the bright light, and walked to the bar.
An attentive bartender, twenty years old at the most, came around front. He wore a tight black T-shirt and a black Luxe Tours ball cap. “Welcome. I’ll get you checked in, eh? You look knackered. Your name, please?”
“She’s not one of us,” a man interjected. He sat at a bar stool in his clean trendy hiking outfit, twirling an olive on a toothpick.
Jeez, Alexa thought. “I need to speak with a ranger or person in charge.”
“In that case, I’ll find the lodge manager,” the bartender said. “Can I get you something to drink while I track him down?”
“I’m good.” When he left, Alexa unbuckled her waist belt, slid her sodden backpack off and leaned it against her thighs. Then she unzipped her raincoat, feeling eyes on her back. The talk in the lounge resumed, albeit softer. Someone played a jazz melody on the piano—“Stormy Weather,” Alexa thought—near a glowing fireplace. She swiped her plastered hair out of her eyes and watched a confident woman, dressed in jeans and red V-neck sweater, pat the piano player on the back and murmur something in his ear. Then she sauntered over to Mr. Unfriendly at the bar. “There you are,” the woman said to him.
He looked her up and down. “Feel better?”
Her golden brown hair shimmered. “Helped myself to a little something because of my knee. All good now. Any word on Diana?”
Alexa could tell by their accents that they were Kiwis. The man, dark-haired with a sharp chin, looked vaguely familiar.
“Not yet. She missed tea, but she won’t want to miss cocktails.”
Alexa knew where she’d seen the man. He had been walking with the haughty doctor this morning when she turned to retrieve her poles.
A door past the bar swung open, startling Alexa. A woman in a black apron bore a tray of muffins or biscuits and set them on a buffet table. Alexa watched her arrange cream, butter, and jams around them. “Pompolonas, as promised,” she announced. “Piping hot.”
Their scent was tantalizing.
A woman popped up from a couch and crowded the baker. “They look like scones.”
“Yes. That’s what they are. Just like the ones Quinton Mackinnon served his guests. But with Queenstown salted butter instead of mutton fat.”
Another woman, and the Luxe guide, Clint—Alexa recognized him even without his clipboard—made a beeline. “I’m nervous about climbing Mackinnon Pass tomorrow,” the woman said.
“You’ll be fine.” Clint took a scone and spread it with butter and jam. “I’ll be right with you.”
“What if there’s another landslide?”
“Oh, not happening. No worries.”
Alexa’s mouth watered as she watched Clint chew. Maybe just one scone while she waited. She saw how dirty her hands were and looked for a restroom. Her backpack would be safe leaning against the bar. She passed through, her boots trailing mud, and saw a sign for the Ladies near a dining room. She observed a young woman, dressed in a black T-shirt like the bartender, filling water glasses at seven round tables. Alexa couldn’t help but compare the flower vases and tablecloths with last night’s bare-bones dining hut. The far side of the room was a wall of windows framing a huge mountain, its upper third enshrouded in mist.
“Isn’t the lodge in that mountain’s avalanche path?” Alexa asked.
The waitress looked up, surprised. Her name tag said Ima. “We see slides on Mount Elliot all the time. Hear them, too. But we’re too far away to be in their paths.”
People are freaking nutso to be here, Alexa thought.
She hurried in the Ladies, not wanting to miss the manager, or the warm pompo-scone-os. The liquid soap smelled like lavender. She sniffed deeply, her shoulders easing.
The bartender intercepted her scone plan on her way to the lounge. “That’s her,” he said to the man with him.
The manager looked harried. He was tall, thin, in his fifties, with longish graying hair. “Vince Bergen. How can I help?”
She introduced herself, and explained that she was an independent hiker. “Is there somewhere we can talk in private, Mr. Bergen?”
“Eh, call me Vince. I’m quite busy. We have a situation.”
You’re about to have another one.
She followed him to a square paneled office with file cabinets and two messy desks. A large map of Milford Track took up half a wall. She was relieved to see a radio and phone on one of the desks. Vince motioned to a swivel chair, but Alexa launched right into her story.
He interjected after she explained about the rockslide. “We heard. Only seventeen of thirty-six Luxe clients made it here. The rest are stuck at Clinton Hut because they can’t get through. Plus a guide.”
“An independent hiker, too,” Alexa added, thinking of Stead. She explained who she worked for to establish credibility.
“You work at Forensic Service Center? That’s the CSI place, eh? Can’t get telly at the lodge, but I watch it back home.”
“Past the landslide, near the river, I found human remains.”
“Someone got killed in the landslide?”
“No. These are old bones.” But not old old. “I think the landslide jiggled some rock to expose them.”
Vince rubbed his stubbly chin. “A dead person?”
“Yes. Skeletal. I need to inform the authorities.”
“Who is it?”
She found this an interesting question. “I don’t know.”
“What authorities?” He remained standing and cracked the knuckles of his left hand.
“Law enforcement.” It occurred to her that she would be the one sent to the scene. It was her job to travel to remote crime scenes to carry out investigations. Oh, the irony.
“So it’s not the missing tramper?”
“I don’t know anything about a missing tramper.”
“One of our Luxers hasn’t shown up. Her party is concerned. Did you see anyone?”
She thought of the mud and rock slamming down the mountain. “I haven’t seen another hiker since the landslide. Do you think she got caught in it?”
“No. She was last seen past the slip.”
She decided to keep mum about the helicopter pilot until speaking with the police. There was no telling with whom Vince was connected. His lodge must rely on copters for supplies. “Can you get that radio thing working, please? I also need to let my brother at Mintaro Hut know I’m okay. He’ll be worried.”
“It’s a satellite phone. But there’s no immediate emergency, eh?”
Why was he delaying? “I need to inform authorities now.”
The office door opened and a woman stepped in. She was Vince’s age, with chin-length brown hair tucked behind her ears.
“This is Kathy, my wife,” Vince said. “Any word on the tramper?”
“Silas told me we had a visitor.” Kathy looked quizzically at Alexa, and then at her husband. “No word. We need to call SAR.”
“It’s hours until dark,” Vince replied. “Give her another thirty minutes. Remember the one who came in after dinner? All hyped about seeing a kiwi.”
“I remember the hiker last summer, too.” Kathy pursed her lips.
What happened to that hiker? Alexa wondered, hoping Kathy would elaborate.
“Our visitor says she found human bones.”
Kathy’s eyes widened.
Vince grabbed the phone.