He’s silent for a moment. “So Dale stole her credit card. But that doesn’t explain how we smelled her perfume. Or the lock of her hair or how her lift pass turned up like that.”

“What are you saying? That she chose to just walk away from her life and disappear?”

“Maybe.”

“Was she happy?” Tread gently, I warn myself.

He looks thoughtful. “I have no idea.”

“Did your family know about her and Odette?”

“What?”

Shit. He doesn’t know. Her own brother. Yet somehow it doesn’t surprise me. Saskia had all these different sides. I never knew which was the real her, so maybe Curtis didn’t either.

“Odette and Saskia,” I say. “They were together.”

Curtis frowns. “No. No way.”

“Trust me on this.”

He blinks rapidly. “I knew Odette was gay, but—”

“How did you know?”

He hesitates. “I asked her out at the start of the season and she told me straight out.”

I file that away to digest later.

“So you’re saying my sister was . . .”

“It’s not for me to label her, but she and Odette were definitely a couple.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

Curtis stares into the flames.

“How would your family have reacted?” I say.

No response.

“Curtis?”

His face twists. “She didn’t tell me.”

“Would your family have a problem with her dating a woman?”

“Um. No. They’d be fine with it. Shit, how could I not know?”

Without the clock, there’s total silence.

“So you think she disappeared of her own accord for ten years,” I say. “Then returned to . . . do what exactly?”

He turns away to the blackness beyond the glass. “That’s what worries me.”

Unease runs through me. “If she wanted to mess with us, why would she have waited a full decade?”

“I never understood half of what she did.”

Saskia’s voice rings through my ears. I’ll get him back.

I never did find out for sure if she caused Brent’s fall before the Brits. He said his binding came loose; that’s why he fell. He removed his board briefly for a snack and I’m guessing she tampered with it. That was the problem with her. She was so damn clever it was impossible to pin anything on her.

Curtis gets to his feet. “Look, I’m wiped out and you’re in pain. Nothing more we can do right now.” He reaches into his jacket pocket for his Maglite. “Keep this on you. I’ll take you to your dorm.”

As I haul myself upright, my gaze settles on the empty pins on the wall. And suddenly I know what used to hang from them.

That ancient ice axe.

CHAPTER 42

TEN YEARS AGO

The clock in my head is ticking extra loudly today. This is it. The last day of training before the Brits. But I’m not ready.