Page 38 of Cold and Bitter Snow

“The princess,” she whispered. “The Saudi princess. Remember we saw her in a blue run?”

Conor nodded as pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. “You’re right. If the ski patrol is here, that means—”

“It means they’re no longer on the slope with her. You think someone wants to hurt her? Maybe kidnap her? But this doesn’t make sense, Conor. The town’s in chaos, the road is blocked. Nobody will be able to get off the mountain until tomorrow at the earliest.”

“Unless they’re not planning on getting her off that way. Remember the last chairlift we took the other day when we went skiing together? Dentelle?”

She nodded.

“It connects to La Rochelle—it’s a sister resort. If I wanted to take someone off the mountain that’s how I’d do it.”

“We need to call Laurent and Montgomery,” Siena said. She brought out her phone, warming it up in her hands. The cold was draining the battery—it was down to twenty percent already.

She put the phone on speaker and dialed Montgomery’s number. When he picked up, the man sounded slightly out of breath.

“I got the picture you sent, Ms. Blake,” the man said without preamble. “As you will imagine, I’m very busy today. We are closing down the resort and I don’t have any time to waste on fanciful—“

“Monsieur Montgomery … Markus … you have to listen to me. Please. Then I’ll stop bothering you.”

Montgomery released a long-suffering sigh.

“What is it you need, Ms. Blake?”

“I need you to reach out to the lift operator at the top of the Dentelle chairlift,” she said, pronouncing the foreign word carefully. “Check that nothing out of the ordinary is happening there.”

“That operator will be closing down the lift, just like all the others, Ms. Blake. Didn’t I mention the resort is—”

“Please, Markus. Get somebody from your team to contact him.”

“Is that all?”

“No. I need you to contact the ski school and make sure the princess is still in her class.”

“The Saudi princess?” This time his tone held real worry.

“We’ll explain later,” she said. “Just find her, alright? And make sure somebody stays with her at all times.”

“Okay, Ms. Blake, you win. Give me a few minutes. I’ll call you back.”

Siena threw up her hands as she ended the call. “Do you think he’ll call back?”

“He’s Swiss,” Conor said with a half-smile. “If he said he’d do something, he’ll probably do it. Let’s give him a—”

The ringing of her phone interrupted Conor’s words. She put the phone on speaker again so he could hear as well.

“Ms. Blake?” Montgomery asked.

“You’re on speaker again, I’m here with Conor.”

“Good, good. I’m sitting with Laurent Lagarde.” Siena nodded impatiently, as if the men could see her expression. “It turns out the operators of the Dentelle chairlift never acknowledged the shut-down order.”

“Did they stop the lift?” Conor asked.

“No,” Laurent’s voice said. He sounded worried now. “It’s still running. Neither man is picking up the phone.”

“You need to send somebody there right now,” Conor said.

“We would,” Montgomery replied, “but there’s nobody available right now who’s close enough. I think it’s our turn to ask a favor from the two of you now. Could you take a couple snowmobiles and go check it out? We will get a team out there as soon as we can but we have no visibility right now of when that might be.”