Virginia Smith - Murder at Eagle Summit

“Okay, but I’m upping my price this time.” Emboldened by the stranger’s tone with Duke, Jason spoke more forcefully than he would have before. “All these things I’ve been doing for you—running down to Vegas or over to Denver to pick up packages—they take a lot of time. More than I thought. And besides, you never tell me what I’m doing. I’m starting to think you don’t trust me or something.”

Duke unzipped his ski suit. The cold smile on his thin lips sent a shiver through Jason that had nothing to do with temperature.

“Actually, you’re right,” Duke replied. “I don’t trust you. You’re sloppy, and since I’ve developed a relationship with some new associates in Europe, I can’t afford to surround myself with sloppiness.”

He reached into the breast of his ski suit. When he pulled his hand out, Jason went completely still. Duke held a pistol with a silencer attached. And it was pointed directly at Jason’s forehead.

The snow on the ski slope outside Liz Carmichael’s balcony glowed in the pale moonlight. Tall fir trees tossed long shadows across the frozen surface of the smooth trail as far up the mountain as she could see. Branches gyrated in an icy gust of wind and the shadows danced on the snow. Then a heavy cloud raced across the sky, blotting out the moonlight and hiding the stars from view.

Liz shuddered as the icy breeze reached her balcony. The wind here had a different quality than in Kentucky, probably because the frigid Utah air didn’t hold a trace of Kentucky’s trademark humidity. At least the climate made the snow light and powdery, great for skiing, something she didn’t get the chance to do back home.

Back home. That was the first time she could remember thinking of Kentucky as home. She leaned her elbows on the balcony railing and bent to rest her chin in her hands as her gaze wandered up the mountainside. But where else would she call “home” if not Kentucky? Not Portland, where Mom and Dad lived and where she had grown up. Too much time had passed since she’d left. Mom and Dad lived in a condo now, and she felt like a visitor when she went to stay with them at Christmas. That old saying was true, you can’t go home again.

There was a time in college when Utah had started to feel like home, but that was in the past, and had been for three years.

Until now. Because the part of her past she most dreaded seeing lived here. Was nearby even now, somewhere in this trendy resort town. A familiar guilt stabbed at her, and her thoughts skittered away from memories of the incident so fresh in her mind it might have happened yesterday.

The cloud moved past the moon, and white light illuminated the landscape as a movement down below on the slope caught her eye. A bulky figure carrying a long snowboard tromped through the darkness toward the chairlift on the other side of the thick tree line. Liz glanced at her watch. After 1:00 a.m. Strange time to hike up for a ride. Maybe a treasure hunter.

Locals did that sometimes, combing the slopes after hours looking for valuables dropped from the chairlift. Not usually at 1:00 a.m., though. Maybe it was a snowboarder who had lost something on the slopes during the day and couldn’t sleep until he found it.

The glass door behind her slid open. She didn’t straighten from her position leaning across the railing, but turned her head to identify Caitlin stepping through the door.

“Brrrr.” Her friend rubbed her arms briskly beneath a pink terry cloth bathrobe. “What are you doing out here? It’s freezing.”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

Caitlin stepped up beside her. “Me either. A long travel day always does that to me. Jazzy doesn’t seem to have the same problem, though. She’s completely zonked out.”

Liz glanced backward through the glass and toward the closed bedroom door of the condo. “When did she finally hang up?” The third member of their trio had been on the phone with her boyfriend since the plane’s wheels touched the landing strip at the Salt Lake International Airport.

“About thirty minutes ago.” Caitlin laughed. “Isn’t it great to see how happy she is with Derrick?”

Liz bit back a snarky response. “Great” wasn’t how she would describe Jazzy’s obsession with her new boyfriend. “Nauseating” was the word she’d use.

But she was trying hard to control her tongue on this trip, so she remained silent.

“Are you sure nothing else is bothering you? You’ve been really quiet since we got here. That’s not like you.”

There was something bothering her. Nerves had twisted her stomach to knots as she’d walked through the airport, watching for a familiar face to materialize in the crowd at any minute. She’d stared at every tall, dark-haired guy they passed, daring one of them to show up, and half-afraid they both would. When she was finally seated in the rental car with her friends, their instrument cases and luggage piled in the trunk and the backseat, she’d realized neither of them was coming. But instead of relief, the knots had tightened even further. Why couldn’t one of them have met her at the airport? Then she could have put the dread of those first meetings behind her.

Caitlin was watching her closely. Liz gave a half smile. “I’m a little uptight. Can’t stop thinking about all the family stuff I’m going to have to deal with tomorrow.”

Her friend’s eyebrows formed surprised arches. “Have you seen your relatives at all since you left college?”

Liz shook her head. “Only Mom and Dad. None of the Utah contingent. And my grandma’s going to let me hear about it, too.”

“Well, your cousin’s wedding is a perfect opportunity for a reunion.” Caitlin linked an arm through hers. “Come on inside. You don’t want to get sick.”

There’s an idea. If she was sick, she’d have the perfect excuse to miss all the wedding festivities. And all the wedding guests. Especially the best man.

With a sigh, Liz straightened. She was healthy as a horse, and she wasn’t going to fake an illness. Debbie was her favorite cousin. They’d been as close as sisters growing up. After Debbie’s mother died, she’d spent every summer with Liz and her family.

Since Debbie had paid for Liz and her friends to fly all the way to Utah to play at her wedding—or more likely, spent hours convincing Grandma to pay for their trip—the least Liz could do was show up and look happy.

As she turned, the chairlift on the other side of the tree line started to move. Ah, that explained the middle-of-the-night stroll. It was an employee doing some sort of facility check or something. Weird timing but she’d noticed a line of groomers leveling the snow up on the mountain when they arrived, and it was ten o’clock then. The resort must have to do a lot of their maintenance work after hours, when the skiers were asleep.

Caitlin slid the glass door open and gestured for Liz to precede her. “You’re going to have a great time this weekend, Liz. Not only do you get to enjoy a reunion with your family, but you’re bound to see some of your college friends, too.”

Liz stepped into the warmth of the suite. Yes, some of her friends from college were in the wedding party. And at least one person she would not categorize as a friend. A handsome face swam into focus in her mind. Her heart heaved with a guilty thud. Suddenly, three years didn’t seem very long. Not nearly long enough.

Despite the late hour when she finally fell asleep, Liz’s body refused to conform to the two-hour time difference between Kentucky and Utah. Her eyes popped open at six o’clock in the morning.

“Nooo!” She turned over in the bed and covered her head with a pillow to block the sight of the despicable red numbers glaring at her from the alarm clock. Four hours’ sleep was definitely not enough, not with the busy day in store for her.

But a return to sleep proved impossible. Her body told her it was after eight, high time to be up and about. With a resigned sigh, she heaved herself out of bed and stumbled, bleary-eyed, to the bathroom for a shower.

Thirty minutes later, dressed and as ready to face the day as she would ever be, Liz headed for the kitchen of the two-bedroom condo Cousin Debbie reserved for them. The place wasn’t fancy, but diehard skiers typically didn’t care, as long as they had a bed and someplace to dry out their ski clothes at night. The furnishings in the sitting area, an attractive sofa and love seat combo, were clean enough to satisfy even the fastidious Jazzy. The coffee table boasted a few small dings and dents, but the dust-free surface gleamed, and the lemony scent of polish lingering in the air spoke well of the housekeeper’s attention to detail.

The door to the second bedroom was closed. Jazzy and Caitlin were apparently still sleeping.

At least some of us will be rested today, the lucky dogs.

Liz searched the cabinets in the compact kitchen. A set of dishes—two sizes of plates, cereal bowls, mugs with saucers—lay neatly stacked in one, and an assortment of glasses in another. The rest of the cabinets were empty. A coffeemaker sat on the counter, taunting her with its empty carafe.

Wish I’d remembered to pack some coffee. We’re going to the grocery today no matter what.

Liz grabbed her purse and headed for the lobby.

Though the town of Park City boasted many timeshares, condos and hotels, the lodge at Eagle Summit was situated adjacent to the main chairlift of the small, privately-owned ski resort. Out-of-town skiers loved being able to walk a mere hundred feet from their condos to the lift. And a city bus stopped right in front of the lodge, if guests chose to ski at the bigger and more famous area resorts, Deer Valley and Park City Mountain Resort.

Liz preferred Eagle Summit. During her years in college, she’d skied here fairly often. Eagle Summit had fewer chairlifts and not as much in the way of vertical terrain as the more well-known resorts, but Liz had always enjoyed the wide, tree-lined slopes that management kept meticulously groomed. And the lower price college kids paid for a day pass counted for a lot.

Liz remembered one time when she and Tim were skiing—

She skidded to a halt on the stone-tiled floor as she entered the lobby area. No! I will not take a stroll down Memory Lane!

Being back in Utah, and especially up in Park City where Liz had spent so much time with Tim, would trigger a lot of memories if she allowed her mind to wander in that direction. Which she did not intend to do.

In the lobby a dark-haired woman sat behind the front desk, a highly polished counter to the right of the main entryway. She looked up when Liz entered, nodded, and went back to whatever she was doing. Liz scanned the lobby. Wouldn’t you think they’d have coffee set up for the guests who don’t want to fix their own up in their rooms? She couldn’t see any, though.

Beyond the front desk was a coffee shop with no sign of movement in the darkened interior. A copy of today’s edition of USA TODAY rested on the floor in front of the glass door. She spotted a small sign that said they’d open at seven. A wave of irritation tightened her lips, but she forced herself to relax. She’d been up for almost an hour already without coffee; another ten minutes wouldn’t hurt her.

She wandered in the direction of a huge stone fireplace in a cozy sitting area that took up one corner of the lobby. Overstuffed chairs and a big, comfy-looking sofa were clustered around a furry bearskin rug, while a giant moose head stared mournfully at her from above a rough wooden mantle. Though dead animals wouldn’t be Liz’s first choice of room décor, in a lodge-type setting, with thick cedar beams crisscrossing the high ceiling, it worked. She crossed to stand in front of the hearth, enjoying the heat still emanating from a few ash-covered embers in the grate. To the left of the fireplace, three floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto the deserted slopes. The morning sun was starting to lighten the sky but had not yet managed to climb above the mountain peaks. Deep shadows covered the snow-packed ski area.