Part 1The Debt of the Blizzard

As the only high-altitude search and rescue operative in the country capable of traversing the Black Wind Gap without artificial anchors, I just received a private rescue contract worth thirty million dollars.

The missing person was trapped down a glacial crevasse at an altitude of 23,000 feet. A massive blizzard had completely sealed the mountain, and his oxygen tank had less than sixteen hours remaining.

Seven years ago, I too knelt just beyond the snowline and begged for a rescue.

My daughter was trapped in a snow cave during a winter camp. The rescue rope team had already reached the base of the mountain, but they were abruptly diverted by my husband, Arthur Rauch. He redirected them simply to rescue a wildly expensive poodle belonging to his childhood sweetheart's son.

He told me the boy had severe trauma, and that dog was his entire life.

But my daughter was my entire life.

My daughter eventually froze to death in that snow cave. I divorced Arthur, plunged into the snow-capped mountains like a woman possessed, and spent the next seven years saving countless people who didn't deserve to die.

Until today. The exact same mountain, the exact same wind corridor, the exact same countdown to fatal hypothermia.

And the person trapped at the bottom of the crevasse was his sweetheart's son.

Arthur offered thirty million dollars for me to head up the mountain immediately.

I looked at the dossier and smiled.

"I can't walk that path."

...

"Boss, look at it again."

Cole slid the tablet across the table, his fingertips tapping the screen so hard they turned white.

"North face glacial crevasse, 23,200 feet. The GPS beacon is still moving, which means he is alive."

"The client is offering thirty million. The deposit is already sitting in the Association's escrow account. If you just nod your head, the chopper will be here in thirty minutes."

I kept my head down, wiping the rust spots off my ice axe. I didn't reach for the tablet.

"Return it."

Cole froze, thinking he had misheard me.

"What?"

"I am not taking this job."

The room plunged into absolute silence.

Cole had been with me for six years. He had seen me drag pregnant women out of avalanche trenches. He had seen me hang off a cliff at thirty below zero for seven straight hours. He had seen me almost lose half my foot to frostbite just to save a kid I had never met.

So he didn't understand.

"Boss, you never cherry-pick your jobs."

"I am picking this time."

"Why?" He flipped the tablet around, his voice dropping low.

"Look at the photo. Oliver Vance. Twenty-three years old. Stepped into a blind void while trekking with a team. He only has one backup oxygen cylinder left with him."

"The weather station says a whiteout gale is going to hit tonight. After midnight, no one will be able to get in."

My hand paused on the ice axe.

Twenty-three.

When my daughter, Josephine, died, she was only seven.

She never got the chance to live to twenty-three.

Cole kept talking. "You are the only one who can cross the Black Wind Gap. Any other team going up there wouldn't be rescuing him, they would just be throwing more bodies into the void. Boss, I know you don't care about the money, but that is a living person."

I looked up at him.

"Cole, you have been with me a long time. When have I ever backed down from a job because of the payout, or because I didn't think the person was worth saving?"

He didn't have an answer.

I hung the ice axe back on the wall and turned to inspect my climbing ropes.

"Then you should know, if I say I am not taking it, there is a damn good reason."

"But you have to tell me what that reason is." Cole's eyes were practically bloodshot with anxiety. "Thirty million could buy the team two brand-new snowcats and fully fund our gear for an entire year. And more importantly, there is a guy waiting down there."

I didn't answer.

The screen was still lit, displaying the client's profile.

Arthur Rauch.

It had been seven years, but the eyes in his photograph were just as sharp, looking like a man who would never bow his head to anyone.

He just looked colder, and much more expensive. Behind him was his Rauch Alpine Resort Group, a massive corporate machine capable of packaging an entire mountain range into a commercial commodity.

I used to think those eyes would protect me and Josephine for the rest of our lives.

Until Josephine was trapped in that snow cave. I knelt in the snow outside the rescue station, begging him not to pull the rope team away. But he just held his phone to his ear and said, "Kia, Chloe's situation is more urgent. Oliver cannot lose that dog."

To this day, I remember Josephine's final voice message.

"Mommy, I'm not cold anymore. I'm just a little sleepy. Did Daddy go get my rescue rope?"

No.

Her daddy went to get someone else's dog.

I closed my eyes and pushed the tablet away.

Cole stood there for a long time before finally asking in a low voice, "Boss, do you know the client?"

I pulled on my insulated gloves, my voice completely flat.

"I don't just know him."

"Then who..."

"He owes me a blizzard."