Page 70 of Mountain Trial

“One of my clients found him this morning,” Rémy said, almost apologetically.

“Him?”

Rémy ran a hand across his white blond hair. “Definitely a man. And judging by his clothing, he’s been here a while.”

“You didn’t touch anything?” Jens asked.

Rémy shook his head quickly.

“No, no. I even got my client back to the refuge before he puked.”

“Poor man. Not the way he expected his randonnée to go, I imagine. Is he going to be okay?”

Rémy nodded. “I’ll get him back down in a bit. Just wanted to show you guys where we found him first.” He paused for a moment. “Even those of us who truly love these mountains don’t want to think of spending eternity here―at least not while our loved ones keep searching for us.”

They followed Rémy to a crack in the glacier, just a few minutes’ walk away from the hut. Kat inhaled sharply―it was as if the mountain had cracked open, deciding to spit the man out.

“All this time here, until the mountain released him,” Gael said, kneeling next to the body.

The man was perfectly preserved, just like they’d all imagined he’d be, still behind a few layers of ice.

“You can get closer,” Rémy said. “It’s stable now.”

Kat looked at the man’s face. His eyes were open, unseeing, his expression contorted in a frozen rictus. She knew his leathery skin was the product of the ice―this man’s body was young, probably in his early to mid-twenties at the time of death.

“Look at his jacket. I had exactly the same one in the nineties,” Jens said.

“You think he’s been here that long?” Kat asked, looking away from the man’s eerie, open eyes.

“It wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Every year we lose half a meter of ice,” Rémy said mournfully. “It’s not long until the mountain gives up all its secrets.” The mountain guide shrugged. “By then it’ll be too late for all of us.”

“We’re not going to be able to take him back with us,” Jens said. Kat and Gael nodded in agreement. “We can take some pictures so our team back in the office can get started on the search, and get a team up here tomorrow morning to cut him out of the ice.”

“I’d better get going, otherwise my client will have to spend the night at the refuge.”

“Are you sure he’s going to be okay to walk? We could fly you both down, Rémy.”

“Nah, I won’t get paid if you do that,” the guide grinned. “Plus, a walk will help get his mind off this.”

Once Rémy was gone, Jens marked the spot with a red flag and the three of them headed back to the helicopter.

“I wish we didn’t have to leave him out here,” Kat said.

“He’s waited at least two decades. He’ll be okay one more night.”

Kat emptied her mind of other things and focused on her flight checklist. Ten minutes into the flight, Gael’s phone pinged. “Looks like Hiro and Drake found him,” he said.

“Already?”

“Twenty-eight years ago, a twenty-two-year-old skier named Marc Dumas went missing. His body was never recovered. Guess what he was wearing?”

“A sky blue one-piece?”

“Bingo,” Gael said. “Damien is calling the next of kin now―or at least, the people listed as next of kin back then.”

Neither of them said much for the next hour. While she flew, Kat wondered if the young man’s parents were still alive. If so, they’d probably spent the years desperate for closure―or maybe, all this time, they’d imagined their son was living a good life somewhere else, and reality would fall like a ton of bricks.