But he’s got me thinking. Is Julien behind this? It is possible. He had issues with most of us at some point that winter. He hated Curtis and Dale; I know that much.

I push the thought aside for now. “Next question. If one of us killed her, who was it?”

Brent’s face hardens. “I should think we all had reason to.”

“True.”

Brent’s gaze meets mine. “Do you think I did it?”

Something about the way he asks it makes me shiver. “Of course not,” I say.

But as I look into his eyes, I’m not so sure.

CHAPTER 14

TEN YEARS AGO

I float through the air. It’s a whiteout, snowflakes and fog merging as one with the white backdrop. I can’t see a thing, but I reach down with my back hand, around my back leg, to grasp the heel edge of my board, then bone out my leg as Dale advised. Stalefish.

They’ve sprayed the top of the pipe red to help us in today’s conditions, so I home in on the red line as I return to earth. Kind of like a jumbo coming in to land at night, except I’m landing on vertical ice. I touch down and speed across the flat bottom to take off again.

Days like this are about holding your nerve and having blind faith in yourself. The minute you lose that faith, you slam hard—as several people have done in the last half hour. The pipe really is bulletproof today with no sunshine to soften it.

In this visibility I don’t dare to spin, so I’m working on my straight airs. I’ve been pushing myself extra hard since my disastrous result in the Le Rocher Open. It was a chance to prove myself to my sponsors and I blew it. Now it all hangs on the British Championships. They’re being held here this year, which is partly why I picked this resort to train in.

I reach the bottom and let out my breath. I survived. Until next time. Adrenaline rushes through me. How is it that courting death can make us feel so alive?

The fog is so thick I can taste it in my throat, damp and cold when I breathe in.

With a grinding of metal against ice, Dale pulls up beside me. I didn’t realize he was behind me.

He gives me a thumbs-up. “You nailed that Stalefish.”

“Thanks. Surprised you could see.” I rode up the tow lift with him earlier and quizzed him about how to tweak it.

“I’m going to grab a drink,” Dale says.

“Me, too.”

We stand there glugging from our water bottles. Only Dale could make a fluorescent-orange all-in-one look cool. Little beads of snow cling to his dreadlocks.

“What are you working on today?” I ask.

“My Indies,” he says.