Page 39 of Mountain Impact

She sobbed. Drake couldn’t help himself anymore. He crossed the distance between them and drew her into his arms.

A moment later, she stepped back. He wished her eyes didn’t look so bleak.

“I need your help, Drake,” she said.

“Anything.” He meant it, too.

“I need to go up to Bossons. To where Pierre jumped.”

Drake waited for her to go on.

“As I said, Pierre was married. His widow came to see me. She’s … she’s not having an easy time. I’d like to go up there with her. I think it will help her. I hope it will help her get closure, so she can move on.”

Drake didn’t push her. A part of him was elated that Isolde had come to him. “What do you have in mind?” he asked.

Chapter 14

Drake

“Thanks for doing this, Kat,” Drake said. Although he was sitting right next to her in the cockpit, both of them were wearing headsets to protect their hearing. “I owe you one.”

“No problem, Drake. What are days off for, if not to help a friend?”

She didn’t say this was the first time they were taking a helicopter out for personal reasons. She didn’t need to say so, just like he didn’t need to tell her that, should anybody ask, he would take full responsibility.

Drake turned his head to look at Isolde and Amélie Omont, the two passengers in the back of the helicopter.

“You think this is a good idea?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Isolde seems to think so. And if it were me … I think I would want closure as well.”

Drake nodded. “You’re probably right. I can’t imagine what that poor woman is going through.”

Isolde had wanted to bring Amélie Omont up to the Bossons Glacier, to the place where investigators thought her husband jumped, but she hadn’t wanted to spend the day hiking and extend the young widow’s misery―hence where he and Kat came in.

“You think you’ll be able to put us down at the top?” he said, looking at his map on the tablet in front of him.

Kat nodded easily. “I know the area. It’ll be a quick hike to where―to where it happened.”

It was difficult to know the exact spot Sergeant Omont had jumped from, but police investigators had been able to narrow it down to a specific path on a ridge near the glacier. It was a practicable path, but if somebody fell―or jumped―on the steep side of it, it was a good four hundred meter fall to the bottom.

More than enough for someone looking to end it all.

It also didn’t matter if it wasn’t exactly the right place.

It’s still closure.

Drake looked at his two passengers. Isolde had changed into technical pants not much different from the ones he wore―except they fit her a lot better―and a pair of used hiking boots.

Amélie Omont was wearing jeans that looked too tight for hiking, but at least she was also wearing a pair of good boots on her feet. Isolde had told him Amélie was a teller in one of the local banks. Drake wondered what the last year had been like for the widow.

Is this the first time she’s coming back to the mountains that claimed her husband’s life?

Drake hadn’t spent any time thinking about her this last year. He wondered if anyone, other than Isolde, had been in touch with her.

That didn’t mean Pierre Omont’s team had forgotten him. But, in their line of work, sometimes there were casualties. Civilians, but also team members. And survivors had to make tough choices―they had to compartmentalize, in order to be able to keep doing their job.

Drake looked over at Kat. Her lips were pursed in concentration. He wondered if she also was having similar thoughts.