To protect Heather from danger, or to protect the rest of us from what she might get up to if left in here alone? I suspect the latter. Curtis doesn’t seem to like Heather much; I noticed that ten years ago. When Heather and his sister lived together, they had repeated fallings-out and more than once Curtis had to intervene.

“I’m happy to stay with her,” Brent says.

Dale steps forward. “No you fucking won’t.”

I see Curtis hide a smile.

“You and your bloody shoes,” Dale hisses at Heather.

She flinches.

I don’t like how Curtis and Dale are ganging up against her. Dale clearly wants to check outside but there’s no way he’s going to leave his wife alone with Brent.

“I’ll stay too, if you want,” I say. “Curtis and Dale can go.”

If there are phones to be found out there, I trust Curtis to find them. Anyway, I want another chat with Heather.

Dale nods grudgingly.

“Okay,” Curtis says. “We’d better gear up. Did you bring your avalanche transceiver and a harness?”

“Transceiver but not a harness,” Dale says.

“There’s some in that storage room.”

“Do we need them?”

Curtis raises his voice. “Are you kidding? The ski patrol haven’t blasted the slopes for months, we’ve got all these unstable layers. It’s one huge avalanche waiting to happen. And as for the crevasses . . .”

Glaciers are particularly dangerous this time of year—a mass of crevasses and not enough snow yet to cover them. During the ski season, resort staff scrape snow over the smaller ones and rope the others off.

“Keep your hair on,” Dale says.

Curtis turns back to us. “While we’re gone, I’ve got a little job for you lot.” He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a long stream of keys, laying them on the table one by one like a magician.

Dale snatches one. “That’s my house key. Aw, that’s just plain rude, man.”

“Sorry,” Curtis says, though he doesn’t sound it. “Had to be done. We need to see if they fit any of these locked doors.”

“When did you get them?” Dale says.

“While you all were eating. I couldn’t risk someone hiding them.”

Dale slams the key down and walks off.

On the table I can see my apartment key, my car key, and even the tiny key on a separate ring that fits my bike lock. Curtis would have had to fish through the inner pocket of my backpack to find them among my emergency tampons and the condoms I packed, just in case, with him in mind.

It’s like another punch in the gut.

—

After half an hour of trying to jam keys into doors, I give up. “Who wants another coffee?”