The Devil's Peak Read online

  The Devil’s Peak

  by Michael Wallace

  The second book of the bestselling suspense series, The Devil’s Deep: Only one person knows that Walter Fitzroy is trapped in the living prison of his own paralyzed body and she is a psychopath. Jealous to hide her boyfriend, Darlene Trost makes sure that nobody realizes he suffers from near total paralysis, victim of a crime that left him with only the ability to blink his eyes. If necessary, she will kill to keep her secret.

  © Michael Wallace, 2011. All rights reserved

  Cover Art by Glendon Haddix at www.streetlightgraphics.com

  Chapter One:

  Zach Herring could name the trails as if they were past lovers: Cutter, Majesty, Fishhook, Lucy’s Couloir, Razorback, Miracle, Sloopy, Bloody Hollow, and Goose Egg. He had once figured there were 288 different ways to take those nine trails—hundreds more when you included the woods—and he’d taken every conceivable path from top to bottom. One thousand eight hundred forty seven vertical feet.

  But he’d never skied Devil’s Peak in the dark.

  The temp was falling fast when Zach came out of the warming hut. The lifts had stopped spinning at 4:00, and thirty-five minutes later he’d heard the crunch of ski patrol making its last pass. He had waited a full half hour more before he dared come out. Heart pounding, he searched the trail, glanced into the woods. Nobody there. First week in January and darkness came quickly, with visibility further diminished by the wind that scoured snow from the peaks.

  Zach removed a glove, tucked his hand into his ski jacket to make sure it was still there, zipped into an interior pocket. He felt the hard plastic under his fingers. Dillon, you son of a bitch, he thought. Now I’ve got you.

  He couldn’t ski down the center. Too easy and obvious. Maybe skier’s right? Wide, fast trails, and he heard ski guns roaring to cover trails before the busy weekend. Between the snowmaking and the wind, it would be a frigid white hell. He liked his odds in that direction. But even better was the double black diamond of Lucy’s Couloir to his left, and when he came out he could duck into Lucy’s Woods, come over the rocky ledge that would take him almost to the lower mountain. The trails opened up below the woods and he’d pick up speed. Not one skier in a hundred could keep up with him that way, but the woods had turned icy and only an idiot would ski through them alone and with this light. Either an idiot or a man with bigger fears than dangerous ski conditions.

  Zach was turning onto the spur that led to the couloir when something caught his eye. He continued around the bend until he got to the flats in front of the chute, then glanced over his shoulder. A pair of skiers came in fast behind him. They wore red jackets with the double crosshatched mountains of the Devil’s Peak logo, as if they were ski patrol. But it was too late and too dark for ski patrol and they were moving to flank him. Zach pushed off with his poles as they arrived. He shot past the warning signs and into the couloir. The other skiers didn’t follow.

  Lucy’s Couloir was shaped like a luge run, a steep, icy run flanked by granite on both sides. In the spring it turned into a series of cascades from melt-off. It was almost black in the twilight and he couldn’t see the rocky ledge that thrust from his left side like a giant’s fist. But he knew it was there and swiveled to the right before he slammed into it. A split second later and he launched from the chute.

  A third skier waited at the bottom, where the trail curved to join Razorback, and this other man stuck out his pole as Zach emerged. If Zach had been skiing onto the trail it would have tangled his legs and he’d have taken a nasty fall. And then the man would have been on him, joined by the first two skiers now coming around the couloir on the easier way down from the peak. But Zach had only been crossing the trail to lose himself in the wooded slope on the other side. The pole missed. He shot into the woods. The other skiers followed.

  Three? Who the hell were the other two?

  One of the three had to be Dillon. Zach had the guy’s fake ski patrol badge zipped into the inner lining of his jacket. Evidence. The badge read Mike Jeffers, but that was bullshit. He’d grown a scraggly beard and buzzed his hair down, but it was the same guy from Colorado.

  You pushed her. You son of a bitch, I saw it.

  Zach could still see the terror on Rylie’s face. Her arms windmilled, she grabbed for Dillon, but her boyfriend pulled back. It might have been reflexive, except Zach had seen the push, knew Dillon wanted Rylie to fall.

  What had they been doing with the safety bar up? It had been a bluebird day in late spring, and they were all sunburned. They’d been heading up for one last run and the lift was at least eighty feet above the ground as it crossed between the two highest towers on its climb to the summit. Soon it would be the end of the season and Zach didn’t know if Rylie and Dillon would be staying together. Rylie was going to Chile to train, but Dillon didn’t have the money or—let’s be honest—the skills to keep up.

  He didn’t know why Dillon had done it. Maybe no reason. Maybe Rylie lifted the bar to mess with her bindings and he felt a sudden and irresistible urge to give her a shove. Or maybe he was pissed about the night before when she’d taken off her top in the hot tub in front of those guys from Austria and spent the next hour flirting with them. Maybe Dillon was brooding about the inevitable breakup at the end of the season. The guy was a sociopath, who could tell what he was thinking in there? But there was no question it was a push. Zach had turned in his chair at just that moment, seen the intent on his face. The look of terror and understanding in Rylie’s eyes.

  And now Zach didn’t know what Dillon was doing in Upstate New York and didn’t care. What he had zipped into his pocket would put the bastard in prison.

  But if Zach thought he’d lose them in the woods, he was wrong.

  The other skiers were good. He didn’t look back, concentrating on avoiding the dark shadows of trees, but he could hear them coming. One of them was gaining. Zach had taken the thickest part of the woods, thinking there was no way they could follow him through, and now the guy on the right took advantage of the thinner glades to catch up and cut across Zach’s path. Whoever it was knew the mountain, maybe almost as well as he did. The man wore one of those mini-backpacks they used on ski patrol, with first-aid gear to help injured skiers. He couldn’t be Dillon. Then who?

  The trees thinned. Another few hundred feet and he’d come onto Sloopy. That was a blue cruiser, wide and groomed. The blast from snow guns was closer now and a fine, crystalline haze filtered through the trees as the wind lifted some of it into the woods. If Zach could reach Sloopy first, he’d get enough speed that they’d never catch him before he was past the snowmaking and onto the groomers on the lower mountain. He’d ski right down to Devil’s Pub at the hotel.

  Another skier came in on his left and the guy behind—had to be Dillon—was almost keeping up, too. The other three skiers couldn’t quite catch him, but they kept him funneled in. He couldn’t get right, like he needed to, in order to get onto Sloopy.

  Zach hit a thin spot and his skis scraped over a tree root. A grunt and a snap of tree branches behind him. He glanced back to see that the man behind had taken a fall and was struggling to his feet. There was a ledge in front of Zach maybe three feet off the ground. He hit it, twisted mid-air, and came down short of a spruce the size and shape of a Christmas tree. Above him, one of the other skiers scraped to a halt at the top of the ledge and cursed.

  Only the guy on the left to worry about now, and Zach was free to cut right. He hit the last ledge and burst onto Sloopy. It opened with an even, steep pitch. He’d made it through the trees, left two of his pursuers behind. The final skier was twenty feet behind, just coming out of the woods. Too late. Zach put his skis together and tucked down to pick up speed.

  It was almost dark, and the path ahead was a gauntlet of snow guns on either side of the trail, further obscuring visibility. He didn’t see the rope.

  It was the kind of rope they drew across a trail to close it for a race, or due to thin coverage. Except someone had pulled off the red warning flags that made it visible to a skier. Zach didn’t see the rope stretching across the trail until a split second before he hit. He stood to do a quick hockey stop. Not in time.

  The rope caught him at the waist. He flew over the top, losing his poles. His head slammed into the ground.

  Zach came to in excruciating pain. His helmet was off, two people dragged him by the arms. He screamed. His right arm was broken from the fall and one of the men had him by the wrist. He’d popped out of his bindings on the left ski side, but he still wore the right ski and he could tell at once that he’d torn the ACL on that side where the ski had levered his knee.

  There were three of them and they’d stepped out of their skis and trudged through the snow in their boots. It was like a frigid blast furnace this close to the snow guns and the snow gathered in huge, heavy drifts. The two men had to heave and pull to get him across the snow.

  The broken bones ground together in his wrist. “Oh god, please. Let me—ah! No, please.”

  Once they had him to the side of the trail, they pulled off his gloves and coat. A wild hope rose in his chest. There had been a mistake. They’d meant to scare him and now that he was down, they’d check him for injuries, then get him down the mountain. But once they had his jacket and ski pants off, they tossed them back to the center of the trail, threw his gloves and helmet into the woods on the other side. The cold lanced through the pain. Snow cascaded from the nozzle over his head.

  The third guy came over from the trail and he
now groped through the pockets of the ski pants and coat. He pulled out the ID that Zach had tried to hide.

  “I was right. Zach, old buddy, what were you thinking?” The voice was familiar, and so was the hard tone, even through the blast of the snow guns.

  Zach gritted his teeth against the pain and the searing cold. “Come on man, I was curious. I don’t care what you’re doing, why would I? I’ve moved on, come on, leave me alone. I’ll forget all about this.”

  “Sure you will. That’s why you stole the ID from my jacket, curiosity. Nothing else.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  But Dillon didn’t answer. Instead, he turned to the other two men. “Make sure he doesn’t crawl out of here.”

  One of the other guys slipped out of his ski patrol backpack and removed a hammer, the kind used for tamping crampons into bare rock. He pulled it back over his shoulder. Zach cried out and tried to scramble back. The man swung.

  The hammer caught his kneecap, now exposed except for his thermal underwear. Pain exploded in his knee. He screamed. Another blow, this one against the shin on his other leg.

  “Tragic injuries,” Dillon said. “A bad ski fall. That’s what you get for skiing after hours in these conditions. Come on, let’s go. These guns will go all night. He’ll be ten feet under by morning.”

  “But what about the cats?” one of the others asked as they snapped their boots into their skis and picked up their poles. “Aren’t they grooming this trail tomorrow?”

  “All the better,” Dillon said, “The cats will push him around, break some more bones before they spot him. Come on, let’s get out of here.” And then they were gone.

  Zach lay gasping, trembling. But he wasn’t done yet. Through the agony of the broken kneecap and leg, the torn ACL and the shattered bones in his wrist, he tried to crawl out from underneath the snow gun. If he could get onto the trail, maybe he could find his coat and pants, get into them somehow. There was a lean-to another few hundred feet down, where they stored a rescue sled and blankets. If he could make it there. . .

  But he was in shock and the cold was already getting to him. Every movement sent pain lancing through his body. The snow enveloped his legs like quicksand, and more blasted down every second. His struggles only made him sink deeper. He couldn’t feel his feet or hands through the cold. It hadn’t yet taken the sheering pain.

  Through the agony he thought about the rope. How had they known he’d been hiding on top of the mountain? And that he’d take Lucy’s Couloir? It wasn’t just Dillon, that monster who would push a girl out of a ski lift to fall to her death.

  Two others. At least one of them had known which trail he would ski. This wasn’t one guy trying to avoid the police for murdering a girl. This was a conspiracy. Zach could see the terror on Rylie’s face. It was the terror he felt now, knowing he was about to die. And then he felt himself fading, all the pain and cold leaving his limbs.

  The last thing he heard was the roar of the snow guns.

  Chapter Two:

  It took Walter Fitzroy three attempts to get his girlfriend’s attention. She was chatting with one of the cleaning staff, something about the annual Ice Ball, and didn’t see him blinking for her attention. When she turned, she frowned and furrowed her brow in concentration.

  “I didn’t catch that,” Darlene said. “What is it you want?”

  “Sun, eyes,” Walter blinked. “Move chair.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. It is right in your eyes, isn’t it? Can’t believe I put you there without thinking.”

  The staff was a guy named Bailey, from Nigeria. He gave a broad smile and the twinkle in his eyes said, Isn’t that cute, Darlene and her boyfriend. He’d missed the entire exchange.

  Darlene wheeled Walter away from the big windows that overlooked the ski mountain, and in typical fashion, served him passive-aggressive punishment as payment for drawing attention to her mistake. “I’ll bet you’re hot, Toad, sitting in front of those big windows again.”

  She knew full well he wasn’t hot. In fact, he’d been enjoying the sun coming in through the window, warming his tired, rigid body. Looking up at the mountain, watching the dot-like skiers against the white, he felt like a man again, remembered ski runs from when he’d been young and strong and limber, instead of living in this rigid, useless body.

  Darlene pushed his wheelchair into the dining room. There was a draft here, caused by an intersection of the expanse of glass at the windows, the thirty-foot ceilings, and the heat coming out of the kitchen, where they were preparing lunch. She made sure to leave him with his back to the windows.

  As Darlene rejoined the man cleaning the windows, Walter heard Bailey say in his lightly-accented English, “You have such a way with him. They tell me you can practically read Mr. Fitzroy’s mind.”

  “We have a close connection,” and then she added something else and Bailey laughed. Today was Sane Darlene, and she’d be flirting with the staff, chatting up other residents, charming the kitchen out of an extra crème brulee for dessert, saying it was for her boyfriend with a wink and a smile, even though everyone knew that her “boyfriend” ate his meals through a tube.

  She returned to Walter’s wheelchair a few minutes later. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

  “Sorry. Forgot.”

  “You didn’t forget.” There was a frigid tone in her voice. Walter felt a lurch in his gut. “You did that on purpose. What is that, your third warning this week? You know what that means.”

  “Bailey. Back. Turned.”

  “So what if his back was turned?” She wheeled him out of the dining room, into the hall, fell silent as she passed another resident. “He might have turned, he might have seen you. And what if he was paying attention, what then?”

  If only it were that easy, he’d have been rid of his girlfriend a long time ago. The opportunities didn’t come often, but at least once a week he had the chance to blink out an SOS to some staff member or resident. And what then? “Oh look, Walter has something in his eye.” Or nothing. Most people, he had learned, were not observant. They were workers in a factory and he was a lever to be pushed up and down, no more.

  Vanderzee Springs had once been a vast Adirondack health resort, and there were any number of possibilities as Darlene reached the end of the hallway. She could push him out toward the old polo pitch, or take the hallway that lead to the gardens. That was where she took him when she was feeling cheerful or romantic. In winter, that was where they kept the ice sculptures. Off the west wing was a vast deck that looked out toward the ski mountain.

  “Darlene,” he said. She was behind him, pushing, and couldn’t see, but he had to try. His eyes blinked furiously. “Sorry. Please.”

  But she didn’t see him. Nobody did. He was mute, helpless.

  “The ache in my shoulder is acting up again. It’s all this pushing you around, Toad. You’re so demanding. Pushing, pushing, pushing, that’s all I do. I push you to the showers in the morning, push you to breakfast, push you on your morning walk.” Her voice turned dark and slippery, like old motor oil. “I get so goddamned tired of pushing you everywhere, I feel the need of some relief. A good soak is what I need, what you need. What about the baths?”

  “Darlene. No. Please. Not baths.”

  A nurse passed and he sent her an SOS, but the woman didn’t lift her head from her clipboard.

  “I know you’re sitting there blinking like an idiot,” Darlene said. “I don’t have to see your face to know you tried to talk to that woman. If I wasn’t already decided, that would do it. It’s sad that I have to punish you like a naughty schoolchild, but apparently I do.”

  But then she pushed past the hallway that lead to the baths and Walter felt a rush of relief. Not the baths, thank god. Instead, she was taking him to the physical therapy room, where he would be in someone else’s hands for an hour. A PT would rub the cramps out of his legs, move his limbs, and if it was Gerry on duty, the man would even send Darlene away while he worked so as to be free of her chatter.

  “Oops,” Darlene said. “I was distracted, silly me.” She spun the wheelchair around, and turned down the hallway toward the natural hot springs that came up beneath the Vanderzee resort.