but didn’t get an answer. So he pushed it open and went down the dark hallway until he found the stairs to what he guessed was the main floor. No sign of recent human habitation down here whatsoever. He called up the stairs, waited for a minute and called again, then went up.
What he’d seen through the window was only half of it. This wasn’t a bachelor pad: It was a fraternity house at the close of a particularly brutal rush season. All the pillows and cushions off the couches. Plates and glasses and bottles everywhere, with crumbs of food tracked into the carpets and various beverages spilled all over. A decimated pizza box jammed into the fireplace. Picture frames knocked over. Chairs from the dining room upended in front of the dead TV. And at the center of everything, right smack in the middle of the glass coffee table, a smear of white powder that spoke volumes.
* * *
He didn’t think he ought to look any further, but he tentatively called Stone’s name a few times and went looking anyway. There were three bedrooms on this level, and every one of them had been slept in. He went upstairs and found two more—one of them the master suite, roughly as big as New Hampshire—and both of them had been used, too. Either Stone had company, which wasn’t likely, or he was fussy about clean sheets. Or maybe he was in the habit of getting himself so messed up on coke that he couldn’t remember where he’d slept the night before.
The main thing about all those rumpled beds was that Harper Stone wasn’t in any one of them. He wasn’t in the kitchen or the library or the formal dining room or the den or the game room or the home theater or any of the half-dozen marble bathrooms either, not as far as Brian could tell. He headed back toward the ski room and stopped at the last minute to pick up a phone and try calling Karen—just like at his condo back on the mountain, long-distance service was disabled. Didn’t anybody trust anybody? With his head boiling over with frustration he slammed the phone down and left. It wasn’t until he and Dickie and the other guy were halfway back to Judge Roy Beans that he realized he should have called 911 while he’d had the chance.
* * *
Sirens in the valley were never a good sign—not in a ski town.
Stacey ran things through her mind and guessed that she had it all figured out. The snow was deep but the roads were pretty well cleared, and the parking lot—when she could get a glimpse of it from the mountain—was filling up with cars. That meant that the traffic was still moving on the one main road into town, delivering a crowd of dilettantes and amateurs and reckless hooky-players sprung loose from desk jobs all over Connecticut and New York. It was only ten o’clock and the late-morning arrivals hadn’t pushed their way onto the lifts yet, but she could picture the cause of that siren pretty clearly. Some money manager with a torn ACL, taking a ride down the mountain on a Ski Patrol toboggan. She hoped that was all it was. However you cut it, the sight of the Patrol at work over a fallen skier could cast a real shadow over the day. She loved skiing and she loved the mountain, too, but along with that love went a certain respect. And a skier gone down was a sad reminder of the need for it—even if he was an overreaching yuppie flatlander.
Halfway down the Thunder Bowl, she ran into Chip. His skis were planted upright into a drift, and he was picking up a pine branch that the snowfall had brought down onto the margin of the trail. She slid over toward him and stopped, figuring to get the scoop on the sirens in the valley.
“I thought you’d be occupied,” she said.
“Hey,” he said, “I am.”
“No, I mean the sirens and all. They didn’t need you? I guess they’ve got a lot of guys on today.”
Chip shook his head. “No—no more than usual.” He tapped his walkie-talkie. “I didn’t get any calls, though. Whatever happened must have
What he’d seen through the window was only half of it. This wasn’t a bachelor pad: It was a fraternity house at the close of a particularly brutal rush season. All the pillows and cushions off the couches. Plates and glasses and bottles everywhere, with crumbs of food tracked into the carpets and various beverages spilled all over. A decimated pizza box jammed into the fireplace. Picture frames knocked over. Chairs from the dining room upended in front of the dead TV. And at the center of everything, right smack in the middle of the glass coffee table, a smear of white powder that spoke volumes.
* * *
He didn’t think he ought to look any further, but he tentatively called Stone’s name a few times and went looking anyway. There were three bedrooms on this level, and every one of them had been slept in. He went upstairs and found two more—one of them the master suite, roughly as big as New Hampshire—and both of them had been used, too. Either Stone had company, which wasn’t likely, or he was fussy about clean sheets. Or maybe he was in the habit of getting himself so messed up on coke that he couldn’t remember where he’d slept the night before.
The main thing about all those rumpled beds was that Harper Stone wasn’t in any one of them. He wasn’t in the kitchen or the library or the formal dining room or the den or the game room or the home theater or any of the half-dozen marble bathrooms either, not as far as Brian could tell. He headed back toward the ski room and stopped at the last minute to pick up a phone and try calling Karen—just like at his condo back on the mountain, long-distance service was disabled. Didn’t anybody trust anybody? With his head boiling over with frustration he slammed the phone down and left. It wasn’t until he and Dickie and the other guy were halfway back to Judge Roy Beans that he realized he should have called 911 while he’d had the chance.
* * *
Sirens in the valley were never a good sign—not in a ski town.
Stacey ran things through her mind and guessed that she had it all figured out. The snow was deep but the roads were pretty well cleared, and the parking lot—when she could get a glimpse of it from the mountain—was filling up with cars. That meant that the traffic was still moving on the one main road into town, delivering a crowd of dilettantes and amateurs and reckless hooky-players sprung loose from desk jobs all over Connecticut and New York. It was only ten o’clock and the late-morning arrivals hadn’t pushed their way onto the lifts yet, but she could picture the cause of that siren pretty clearly. Some money manager with a torn ACL, taking a ride down the mountain on a Ski Patrol toboggan. She hoped that was all it was. However you cut it, the sight of the Patrol at work over a fallen skier could cast a real shadow over the day. She loved skiing and she loved the mountain, too, but along with that love went a certain respect. And a skier gone down was a sad reminder of the need for it—even if he was an overreaching yuppie flatlander.
Halfway down the Thunder Bowl, she ran into Chip. His skis were planted upright into a drift, and he was picking up a pine branch that the snowfall had brought down onto the margin of the trail. She slid over toward him and stopped, figuring to get the scoop on the sirens in the valley.
“I thought you’d be occupied,” she said.
“Hey,” he said, “I am.”
“No, I mean the sirens and all. They didn’t need you? I guess they’ve got a lot of guys on today.”
Chip shook his head. “No—no more than usual.” He tapped his walkie-talkie. “I didn’t get any calls, though. Whatever happened must have
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