Page 31 of K-9 Prime Target

The man propped himself up on his elbows. “What do you care?” he asked. “Are you some kind of cop?”

“I’m with ski patrol. The resort is closing. You need to get up.”

“Huh?”

“You need to get up. You need to leave the resort. We’re closing.”

He struggled to rise, then fell back on the snow. “Can’t get up.” He closed his eyes, and within seconds he was breathing deeply and evenly. Asleep.

Nina looked around. She wasn’t going to shift this guy by herself. It was tempting to leave him where he lay, but guests had to be cleared from the runs before patrol could leave. Besides, she couldn’t let the man freeze to death. She clicked her radio. “I’ve got a guy passed out on the north side of Renegade, just past tower fifty-four,” she said.

“Passed out?” Connor’s voice came. “Head injury? Heart attack?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s trying to sleep off some drinking under a tree. I can’t budge him.”

“Great. I’ll send a couple of folks over with a toboggan.”

“Bring a snowmobile. This guy’s pretty big. You don’t want to haul him by hand if you can help it.”

She sat back and waited, ignoring the soft snores emanating from her companion in favor of watching the fading light over the trees to the west. Only a few minutes passed before the familiar roar of a snowmobile announced the arrival of Chase and Connor. Chase, a quick, sharp-featured young man with a wicked sense of humor, made his way to the man’s side. “He looks pretty peaceful lying there,” he said. “Maybe we should just leave him.”

“Can’t let him freeze to death.” Connor shook the man’s shoulder. “Get up, buddy. You can’t sleep here.”

The man groaned and batted Connor’s hand away. Connor straightened. “We’re going to have to drag him into the sled.”

“I’ll get the feet if you two take the shoulders,” Nina said.

But shifting the man was like trying to drag clothes filled with cement. “Talk about a dead weight,” Chase said.

“It’s like he’s welded to the ground,” Nina said.

“Okay, we’re going to have to drag him onto the run,” Connor said. “He’s not hurt, and in his state he’s not going to feel anything, so Chase, you get one leg and I’ll get the other. Nina, watch his head, make sure he doesn’t hit a rock or anything.”

Five minutes later, they had the man laid out on the ski run. He was still breathing deeply, snoring softly. “Should we be concerned that he’s not waking up?” Chase asked.

“We’ll need to watch him on the way down and make sure he doesn’t start vomiting,” Connor said. “If that happens, we’ll have to turn him on his side, ASAP. I’ll call an ambulance and let them deal with him.”

They managed to drag the man into the toboggan and secure him. Nina agreed to ski behind the snowmobile and watch to make sure the man didn’t take a turn for the worse. They had a peaceful ride down, and the ambulance arrived shortly after.

Nina and Sky hurried to Liam’s hotel room. “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “We had to deal with a passed-out drunk.”

“Passed out where?”

“Under a tree on the side of the run. He wouldn’t move, so we had to transport him down in a sled. We called an ambulance and now he’s their problem.”

“Does that happen very often?”

“We run into people who’ve been partying a little too hard,” she said. “We pull their pass and send them away in the care of family or friends. But if they get into an accident, they can face criminal charges. There’s kind of a famous case of a guy in Vail, a former ski racer, who was convicted of criminally negligent homicide after he collided with another skier, who died.”

“I’m glad that wasn’t the case this time,” he said. “Did you see anyone suspicious today?”

She shook her head. “No. And no notes or graffiti. It’s probably too much to hope for that Nicholson has moved on, but I was glad for a break.”

“Do you want to put off looking at my footage, then?” he asked.

She sat up straighter. “You found something?”

“Maybe. I’d like to see what you think.”