Okay, so I screwed up. Live and learn. But I need to do something, because there’s no way in hell I can sit tight and pray this blizzard ends before I die of exposure.
Hanging on to the handlebars, I pry my ass off the snowmobile, fighting a wind that wants to knock me into the nearest tree. My snowmobile suit billows, and threatens to send me airborne. The snowsuit is militia gear, meant for guys twice my weight.
I fight my way off the sled. Gripping the seat back with one glove, I open the saddlebags and root around until I find the rope. Then I remove my gloves, and the moment I do, I can’t feel my fingers and panic starts anew, every cold-weather warning about exposed skin racing back and—
As long as it’s snowing, it’s not actually that cold.
Dalton’s voice rattles off statistics about northern temperatures and windchill and snowfall. I manage to tie the rope on the seat back. I stop to rub my hands briskly before double-checking the knot. Then, gloves on, I set out, hunched and hanging on to the rope, my oversized snowsuit snapping around me like a sail. A gust whips down from the treetops and the next thing I know, I’m flat on my back, staring into swirling white as I struggle to catch my breath.
Up, Butler. This isn’t the time for snow angels.
I flash Dalton a mental middle finger and roll onto my stomach. Then I crawl, my head down against the gale.
They did not prepare me for this in police college.
Yeah, yeah. Move your ass.
I’m a homicide detective, not a tracking hound.
Well, then, maybe you shouldn’t have tried tracking him.
I grumble and keep inching along as the rope plays out behind me. I spot an elongated dark shape ahead. Anders’s snowmobile. I pick up my pace, and as if in answer, the gale picks up too, snow beating from every direction. I grit my teeth and keep going, focused on that dark shape even as snow piles on my visor. Finally I’m there and I reach out and—
Something grabs my hand. Grabs and yanks, and I fall with a yelp. I look up, ready to give Anders shit, but when I wipe my visor, all I see is the dark shape of his sled.
The wind dies, just for a second, and I hear a whining. The wind? I spot something whizzing past right in front of me, and it takes a moment to realize I’m seeing the snowmobile track running. The sled is on its side. The track is what “grabbed” my hand—I’d reached out and touched it.
Sled. On its side. Still running.
I struggle to my feet and yank open my visor, yelling, “Will!” as I stumble forward. I grab the nearest part of the sled that isn’t the running track belt and fight that wind to get around the snowmobile. That’s when I see the windshield. The broken windshield. And I see the tree that the sled almost skimmed past, the left side hitting just hard enough to stop the snowmobile dead, and Anders …
Anders did not stop.
There was a six foot two, brawny man riding that snowmobile, without any restraints, and when it hit the tree, the force flung him through that windshield into the endless white beyond.
TWO
I stumble forward, following the trajectory from the sled, trying to run, which only makes it worse. I’m staggering, and I can’t see a damned thing, and then I pitch forward, tripping on what I think is a branch or a root, and I go down, sprawled over Anders’s leg.
When I look again, all I see is that one dark spot, where I tripped over his leg. Otherwise, he’s covered in snow. Buried in it.
I find him and feel my way up until I’m at his helmet. He’s facedown, the helmet neck opening and vents snow-covered. I clear them fast and then check the pulse in his neck. It’s beating strongly, which only means his heart is pumping. Only means he’s alive.
I grew up in a family of doctors, and I know I shouldn’t just flip Anders onto his back, but right now making sure he’s breathing is the important thing. I still try to do this with him prone. I shift position, and my shoulder hits something hard. I reach out to feel a tree. Which he’d hit. Headfirst.
Shit, shit, shit!
I awkwardly tie the rope around my foot, so I don’t lose my way. Then, equally awkwardly, I dig under his helmet, my gloves off, to unhook his chin strap—
Anders jumps as my ice-cold fingers touch his bare throat. He flails and then scrambles to sit up, sees me, and blinks.
“Hold still,” I say as he removes his helmet. “You hit your head.” I take his chin in my hand, apologizing for my cold fingers, and check his pupils. They look normal. I examine his head next, which should be easy enough—he wears his hair buzz-cut short, as if he’s still in the army—but dark hair over an equally dark scalp makes looking for blood and cuts a whole lot tougher. I don’t feel any, though.
“You seem okay. I’m just worried about—”
“Intercranial injury. Yeah. Well, I’m conscious. I can recite the Pledge of Allegiance if you like.”
“That would require me knowing the Pledge of Allegiance.”
He chuckles. “Yeah. How about Hamlet’s soliloquy.” He runs through it.