“Norwegian girl. Rode big air.” Curtis leans against the wall. “We lasted a few years, but it was off and on. Ex-athletes aren’t easy to live with.”

“Tell me about it,” I say. “Especially failed ones.”

His expression softens. “You didn’t fail.”

I raise my eyebrows.

“You pushed it more than any of us that winter, Milla.”

“That’s not true.”

“I’m not talking about what you could do. I’m talking about the risks you took.”

“All of us took risks,” I say.

“Yeah, but most of the tricks I did, I’d been doing for years. Same with Saskia and Brent. We’d tried them out on trampolines, then over airbags at summer camps. You were trying them out over ice.”

I hadn’t looked at it that way. All I saw was that I was the weakest rider in the group and I was playing catch-up.

“Why did you quit?” he asks.

There’s a simple answer to that question. Because of your sister. And Odette, of course. But mostly his sister. “I did some stuff I shouldn’t have done.” I swallow. “And I made some poor choices.”

So many poor choices.

Curtis studies me intently and suddenly I’m thinking about one choice in particular—a choice I made in this very corridor, ten years ago. A choice between pursuing my dream of becoming a pro snowboarder and acting on an attraction that promised to be a major distraction.

I wonder if he guesses what I’m thinking. He opens his mouth but the double doors swing open and the others head toward us, dragging their bags. Brent looks at us curiously and pushes into one of the dorms. Doors slam as Heather and Dale enter the room next to it.

I’m about to enter my dorm when Curtis says quietly: “You know they never found my sister’s body.”

I turn to look at him.

He hesitates. “Tell me I’m crazy, but I smelled Saskia’s perfume when we opened that ski locker. And in the corridor.”

Goose bumps pop up on my arms as I recall the spicy vanilla fragrance. “I smelled it, too,” I say weakly. “I thought it was Heather’s.”

He checks the corridor and lowers his voice. “I’ve always had my doubts about what happened to her. There were a load of transactions on her credit card after she disappeared.”

I stare at him. “What exactly are you saying?”

Curtis’s blue eyes look troubled. “I don’t know.”

“Do you seriously think . . . ?”

He checks the corridor again, almost as though he expects to see her there.

He doesn’t seem thrilled about the idea of his sister being alive. Far from it.

He seems worried.

CHAPTER 12

TEN YEARS AGO

Saskia’s hair is blowing all over the place. Lit up by the headlights of the snowcat, she looks like Medusa.