“What do you guys do at the lodge all winter?” she asked Claire as she aimed her lens downriver at the boiling cloud of condensation above the falls and clicked.
Claire stuck her hands deep into her pockets. She looked pretty, her nose and cheeks pink with cold, her pale-green eyes the same color as the Nahamish, her thick hair the same rich ebony as her dad’s and uncles’. They were good breeding stock, those Tollets—if one definedgoodby being able to guarantee a certain genetic outcome in the appearance of offspring.
“My folks work on repairs, renovations, new plans for the warmer season. We host a few winter guests who use the lodge as base for backcountry ski touring, and I do some ski guiding for them. I’ve also started volunteering for the local search and rescue crew, and I need to get some winter training in this year. I still need my ground SAR qualification.” She smiled. “I’m also waiting on a breeder for a puppy. I’d like to get into canine tracking and air scenting for SAR. Seeing the remains in that shallow grave with you guys, hearing the stories about that woman who went missing on my dad and Jessie’s trip—it just fires me up, makes me want to do more.” She paused, watching the water. “I can’t bear the thought of someone just going ... missing. Gone. Makes me want to help find them. Search for them. Bring closure, you know?”
Angie shot her a glance. “I know,” she said softly. “I always thought ‘closure’ was an overused and overblown concept bandied about in the media. But it’s not. Whether you like the outcome of a mystery or not, you need those answers. The truth. I know because I’ve been there.”
Clair nodded and said, “I know. I read about you, Angie. When everyone started talking about you coming up here to investigate Jasmine Gulati’s accident, I looked up everything I could find on you.” She fell silent. Wind ruffled the water. “I’m on your side,” she said. “No matter what they say, I believe Jasmine would want her grandmother to have answers. I believe she is owed this last look into her grandchild’s final days.”
Her words reached into Angie’s chest and squeezed. “Thank you for that,” she said without looking at Claire for fear she’d reveal too much of herself. “It means ... it means a lot.” As she spoke she turned to look upriver. Angie stilled, hot energy coursing suddenly through her. She moved closer to the water’s edge, shading her eyes against the morning glare as she peered upstream.
“What is it?” said Claire. “What do you see?”
“There’s no promontory. The riverbank to the east curves backward toward the logging track.”
“Yeah, so?”
Angie brought Rachel’s words to mind.
I followed the bank upriver along a promontory of land that jutted out into the Nahamish. From the point I filmed some footage looking back at the campsite. I wanted the ambience of the fire and smoke in the gathering dusk. I was there filming when I heard men screaming ...
There was no way Rachel could have headed upriver to get a vantage point that looked back at the campsite that evening. It wasn’t geographically possible.
Jessie Carmanagh’s words snaked into her mind.
It looked like she’d set up with her tripod on a rock ledge and was filming. From that ledge she’d have had a good line of sight down to the small bay where Jasmine’s rod was found, where there were signs she’d slipped.
Angie dug into her bag, which was slung across her torso. She pulled out her notebook and double-checked the campsite coordinates from the coroner’s report. “Can you tell from your GPS device if we’re right on these coordinates?” She read them out to Claire.
The young woman fiddled with her Garmin. “Yeah, this is it.”
“So this is definitely the spot where Jessie Carmanagh and your father brought in the boats and set up camp for the women.” Angie turned in a slow circle, then looked up at the talus ridge. “Jessie mentioned there was a rock ledge just west of this campsite, a place where you can see down to the bay where Jasmine Gulati allegedly fell into the water.”
“Allegedly?” Claire said.
“Cop speak,” Angie replied. “Old habits. They die hard. There’s no definitive proof she fell into the river there. Just evidence of her rod being left there and slip marks.”
Claire regarded her, frowned, then said, “Well that would seem like evidence to me.”
“Do you know where that ledge is?”
“Yes. It’s a rock shelf that can be reached via a short path down from the logging track. When the weather is good, we sometimes take guests up there for a picnic. It’s a great viewpoint. From there you can really get a good visual of the boiling mist above Plunge Falls as well as a clear line of sight down to the bay where Jasmine went fishing alone.” Claire looked at Angie and gave a half smile. “Allegedly.”
The sun broke over the mountains as they reached the rock ledge. Angie shaded her eyes against the startling brightness. Kestrels shrieked up high. To their right clouds of condensation roiled like steam from a boiling kettle above the treacherous Plunge Falls. But it was the small bay down below that snared Angie’s interest.
“That’s it,” Claire said, pointing. “The bay where Jasmine Gulati’s rod was found. My dad told me there were marks in the slime-covered rocks where her studded wading boots looked to have slipped.” She turned and looked uphill. “That talus ridge back there, that’s where my dad says he was gathering wood when he saw her going over the falls. There’s only one other tiny bay before the water goes over the falls. The river current circles in there before sweeping back out and plunging over the rocks.”
Angie shot photos from the ledge. Jessie was right. This would have been a perfect spot from which to film a lone woman casting her line in the evening light below. If Rachel had panned her camera across, she’d also have captured the mist of the thundering falls.
She wondered again how that final footage went missing and why.
From the ledge they hiked down a little trail to the bay. At the water’s edge, slick black rocks were coated in slime and moss.
“I wouldn’t try to go right to the edge of the bank there. It really is very slippery,” Claire said. “You need the right boots. And even so ...” She let the thought trail off. Angie could see it—how easily someone raising their arm and flicking a rod might unbalance and slide on those rocks. Jasmine Gulati must have been very sure of herself to have ventured so close to the edge to fish alone in the first place. Or the lure of the fish had simply been too great.
Angie looked up. She could see the rock ledge from here. She imagined Rachel upon it twenty-four years ago with her camera and tripod, her hot-pink Kinabulu toque standing out against the sky.
Or not.
