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She expected her dog to snuffle each bag But Mina didn’t Instead, the dog went to the foot of the last pallet--and the body there, all by its loneso’s a?

Ellie wasn’t aware that she was ht about it until she felt the icy pal wasn’t really staring at the body soit really, really carefully But looking for what? Ellie let her eyes drift over the bulge of the head, then sweep down to that shelf of feet and toes Nothing really to see Her gaze crawled back to the slight tent of that purple star over the body’s chest She had no idea what the hex sign s--

In the next second, her thoughts whited out as Ellie finally did see so that shouldn’t, couldn’t be

When the star over the chestBut hefro strides tothrough snow, over rocks, and around broken trees, because there was a jued DVD, and then he was on his knees, at the ski pole His daypack and Jed’s Bravo were now on the snow, and he was chopping icy rubble with his KA-BAR His breath ca his blade to expose a silvered fiberglass spear speckled with a stencil of cheery white snowflakes When he’d sliced enough away, he slipped his knife back into his leg sheath, then wrapped both hands around the plastic grip and gave a quick yank The pole popped free The touring basket was gone, but the hard ht it irl

It has to be one of theirs Sweat lathered his cheeks and trickled down his chest Craning a look over his shoulder, he eyed the swell of land behind He was in the fall line, and so was the pole That s In the worst-case scenario, the pole ept down here while its owner had still been on the rise In the best case, the owner made his skis and outran the avalanche but lost the pole so the way

And then there’s the so for the telltale jut of a broken ski,down on his skis, surfing over snow, but then the avalanche trips hiistered soe to his right: a small brown hump, easy to miss because it looked so much like a pebble

Except it wasn’t The sun was low enough now that the light on the sparkling snoas ruddy, the color of new blood He knew, exactly, what that brown lunarled in his chest It’s the toe of a boot, that’s a boot, it’s

"No, no! Alex, Alex!" Tearing off his gloves, he ja ice even as his mind screamed that this couldn’t be her; that was insane But here was the pole, and now there was a boot, and they caht be, and he had to get her out, get her out get her out get her out! Frantic, he clawed at the snow In a few moments, the laces appeared, and then a thin ried in the deep cleft of two large boulders, and he could tell that she’d cole, her head lower than her boots

Unless it wasn’t Alex Wasn’t that boot too big? And the ankleThick, too large, but le and

"No, it’s you, it’s you, it has to be you, I know it Oh God, Alex, Alex," he said, driving his hands into the snow up to the elbows His fingers closed around soht; he knew that from the boot There was a body here, and it was Alex; she was down there; he knew it

UnlessA great black swell of horror churned in his chest Unless this leg was all he would find Anything powerful enough to crater a rise and drive a monstrous sweep of snow and rock and trees would have no trouble leaving a person in pieces, snapping bones as easily as brittle twigs, strewing a leg here, an arht her body h the snow, driving them like jackhammers He didn’t dare use the KA-BAR What if he hurt her, cut her? The snow broke apart in chunks, compacted not only by pressure built up by the avalanche’s ht There were rocks here, too, that he wrenched free and heaved aside He couldn’t stop, he wouldn’t, but oh God, he wanted to stop He knew he should

I have to know, I don’t want to knowThis can’t be her, because if it is, there’ll be nothing left for , heaving out blocks of snow, unearthing this tomb hewn of ice and rock The curve of her hips, just the barest suggestion, appeared, and then the outline of a torso encased in a frozen balloon: a ave this a cursory swipe and kept going Later, yes, later, he would free her completely, but now he had to see her, find her face, her face, her faceHe plowed through snow, s his way up to the hu like a crazy person: "Alex Alex Alex Alex Alex?"

At last--it seee; it went by in a minute--all that separated them was a thin veil of snow and ice And that hen he paused

I don’t want to see this A deep, hard shudder worked through his bones Tiny red pinpricks from his torn hands dotted the snow like candy sprinkles He’d seen buddies like this, cocooned in yards of bandages into rough, anony to find their faces was always the worst Soe blotchy patches of rust leaking over gauze towasn’t But the very, very worst moments came hat he stared at was a blank: no peak of a nose, no broad expanse of a forehead, or even valleys where the eyesat all