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Copyright
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Copyright © Andrew Gross 2015
Andrew Gross asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007384266
Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007484478
Version: 2015-02-04
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
The Cradle
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Adrift
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
The Falls
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
One Mile Under
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five
Chapter Seventy-Six
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Novels by Andrew Gross
About the Publisher
CHAPTER ONE
Dani Whalen noticed the first slivers of whitewater ahead on the Roaring Fork River, the current picking up.
“Okay,” she called out to the eight people in helmets and life vests aboard her raft, “it’s been pretty much a nature hike so far. Anyone ready for a little fun?”
As if on cue, the young couple from L.A. decked out in their bright Lululemons, Maury and Steve from Atlanta, he just a month into his retirement from a sales job, and the family from Michigan with their kids in the bow, all shouted back in unison, “We are!” and “Let’s do it!”
“Good to hear!” Dani said, catching the sight of spray up ahead from the opening set of rapids known as Entrance Exam, “’cause you’ve come to the right place.”
Dani was a whitewater guide along the stretch of the river known as Slaughterhouse Falls, outside Aspen, Colorado. And by “fun,” she meant navigating the series of eight Class Three and Four rapids that were the main draw of the river’s four-mile run. Not that there was much real danger. They were all well-protected, of course, and Dani had done this run hundreds of times with barely a hitch. But the first sign of froth rising usually did engender a blanched face or two—Class Fours had a way of doing that to first-timers. But Dani knew exactly how to get them going as well.
On any morning, she could point to an eagle soaring above the tree line, or a long-branch elk with its doe along the river’s edge; or a silver trout streaking underneath them in the current, which was definitely picking up now. That’s why she loved what she did. That, and the triumphant yelps and whoops that were always a part of being shot out of Crossbow, icy water cascading all over you.
But it was the thrill of whitewater that was truly in her blood.
She had been a geology major back in college, back east at Bowdoin in Maine, and she could easily have been in med school or doing fourteen-hours days on Wall Street like a lot of her friends, probably making more in one month than what she pulled in in a season out here. But this river was in her blood. She’d grown up on it. She knew most anyone who had anything to do with it. After college she came back for the summer, and started earning money doing for work what she’d always done for love, and entering a few competitions. She knew she wasn’t exactly building a real life for herself remaining out here—guiding in the summer, teaching snowboarding to the youngsters in the winter—certainly not a career. Her dad was an orthopedic surgeon, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital back in Boston, but he was in Chile right now on a teaching fellowship. Her older sister, Aggie, was in med school in Austin, and her younger brother, Rick, the real brain of the family, was studying 3-D graphic engineering at Stanford.
But Dani loved what she was doing—not to mention she could make it over the Gallows, a Class Five on the Colorado River with a twenty-foot drop, as well as any of the guys. And for her there was no payback better than the wide-eyed thrill and the yelps of exhilaration from a family being shot out of Cartwheel, with its 180-degree spin, to remind her of how much happier she was out here than back east behind a desk somewhere. In her skin-hugging neoprene vest and Oakley shades, her sun-streaked curly blond hair up in a scrunchie, her blue eyes focused on the river up ahead, every day was a reminder, that for the time being at least, she’d made the right choice.
That morning, she was handling the early morning run. Out at eight, back by noon. It was one of those picture-perfect Colorado days: the sky blue, the scent of aspens filling your nostrils, whitewater biting at you from the late spring runoff. Megan and Harlan, nine and eleven, were up in front with their parents right behind them. Dani didn’t want to scare them, though navigating the Falls pushing around two thousand cubic feet per second did require a bit of technique. Everyone was laughing, pitching in paddling, enjoying the ride. Her job was to give them the time of their lives.
As they made their way around Jake’s Bend, for the first time they could see the froth from Entrance Exam rising into the air. That’s when you knew you didn’t come here for a nature ride.
“Look!” Harlan was the first to point up ahead.
“I don’t know …” Dani said teasingly, “those Exams are looking a little angry this morning. I hope everyone studied up!” It was a bit of a performance, of course, to build the tension. The real trick was not letting them realize that. She always loved catching those first looks of anxiousness on everyone’s faces about what lay ahead.
“We may lose a few of you over the side,” she said, “so remember what I said if you end up going in.” Feet-first, and not to struggle against the current. And if they got trapped in an eddy, to just relax, not fight it, and sooner or later it would pop you back out. Dani had to tell them all that—like a flight attendant pointing out the exits on a plane—but in three years of guiding she hadn’t had an incident yet. “You people on the left, I’m gonna need a little help today, okay? I need you to paddle like crazy as soon as I give the word. Otherwise, we won’t make it through. You all up for that?”
They all took hold of their paddles and responded with nods of determination. “We are!”
“Good,” Dani said, maneuvering the raft down the left side of the rapids.
“So what about us …?” Steve, the retired salesman from Atlanta who was on the right side asked with some disappointment.
“Okay, you guys on the right, I didn’t mean to leave you out …” Dani held back, timing it perfectly as they reared, about to go over the first big dip. “All you have to do is just hold on for your lives!”
The froth kicked up and the raft plunged about five feet as she traversed through the tricky S-curve at the top of Entrance Exam, a chute of three interlocking, swirling rapids. The large raft careened against a rock. Everyone screamed as they were thrown up and down, out of their positions. “Okay, left side … Get ready …” Dani warned. “We’re gonna take on some big-time water in a second.” The raft kicked sideways, bouncing up out of a hole like a rubber bath toy in a tub.
“Now, paddle, everyone! Paddle!”
They lurched forward, nine paddles propelling them down the chute, icy water spilling in from all sides. Everyone on the left side worked feverishly, letting out screams and whoops. Dani guided the raft around and they spun through the last part virtually sideways, a huge “Whoa!” sounded as they dropped down another four-foot dip and then bounced out as if ejected by a slingshot, water cascading everywhere.
“All right!” Dani hollered. Everyone was screaming and drenched. “Everyone like that?”
“That was so cool!” Megan shouted, as they made it into a calmer stretch in between rapids.
“We lose anyone?” Dani asked above the whitewater roar. “Look around. I get docked if I don’t bring everyone back. Harlan, still with us, up there?”
The young girl was gleeful. Most fun ever. Her older brother, though, didn’t seem to think so and looked about as white as a ghost. Dani called up front, “What’s the matter, Harlan, you eat something that didn’t agree with you this morning?”
“No, ma’am,” Harlan said, blanched. “That was just really scary, that’s all.”
Everyone laughed.
“Well, now you’re a pro. From here on, it’s a piece of cake. And left side, that was great work! I want to thank you all for pulling us through. I did mention, didn’t I, that this was my first trip down, solo …” They all turned back to her. “No? Gosh, I left that out. I thought I’d told you all that. Well, maybe not my first, actually. I did do a demo run with one of the instructors when they gave me the job.”
Everyone was laughing. Barney’s Revenge was next. A legitimate Class Four. Followed by the Falls. Then One Too Far, where after you’re sure you’re through and start to relax, there’s this unexpected five-foot dip where your stomach drops along with the raft—the spot where Dani always yelled out, “Well, that’s the one too far!”
By Hell’s Half Mile they’d all been scared, exhilarated, bounced around like on a barroom bronco. Totally drenched. There were only a couple of more rapids to go. The Baby’s Cradle and Last Laugh, both less challenging Class Twos and Threes. The river was slightly calmer down here. Flat water, it was called. Though because of all the rains of the past week and the late spring runoff, there was a ton of water pushing them around, so every rapid posed a little challenge.
“Coming up on the Cradle …” Dani called out, a series of five interlocking chutes that gave you the sense of being rocked back and forth, hence the name. The first one always took you by surprise. She said, “I know I kinda gave you all the impression that it was going to be a piece of cake from here on in … Well, sorry—” As if from nowhere, the current grabbed them. “You all better start to paddle, guys … ’cause I’m afraid I lied!”
The next sensation was your stomach plummeting like a jet that had just dropped three thousand feet, dipping and rising, water spilling in. The adrenaline was rising. Everyone screamed. It was slightly tricky here, bounce off a rock and come out of a turn the wrong way and you could capsize. Once, Dani spun around and had had to make it through Slingshot backward and had almost fallen out herself. This time she nailed it perfectly, excited whoops of “All right!” and “Piece of cake!” coming from Harlan, who was now clearly enjoying himself, along with a lot of water-soaked smiles.
“You guys are proving to be tougher than I thought. So next up—” Dani positioned herself to take on the next rapid.
That was when she saw something up ahead along the shore that didn’t seem right.
It was just a flash of red at first, below the third of the Cradle’s rapids, the easiest, called Baby’s Rattle. For a second it just looked like an overturned kayak floating there, which happened occasionally. Everyone else was either paddling or laughing at their drenched raft mates and hadn’t noticed it yet.
But as she drew closer, her worst fears grew real. It wasn’t just a kayak out there, there was something inside. Someone in it. The flash of red she saw turned out to be the rider’s wind jacket. Suddenly the people up front spotted it, too, pointing.
“Oh my God, what’s that! There’s someone in there!” Harlan’s mother exclaimed.
“I see it,” Dani said, feathering the raft closer. “Everyone just stay calm.” Though inwardly she acknowledged that this wasn’t a good sign. “We’re gonna pull in over here and I’ll go take a look.”
She pitched the raft along the easiest route down the next chute, her heart beating anxiously now. She knew most of the people who rode out here, especially the ones who came out this time of the morning.
“I’m gonna pull in over there.” She steered toward a shallow rock bed up ahead along the shore. “I want you to all get out.” That way the raft wouldn’t continue to drift downstream with her team still in it. “Steve, Dale,” she said to the two largest guys, “I want you to help me drag the raft up onto shore. Everyone please wait here. I’m gonna go take a look. I’m really sorry you have to see this.”
They disembarked and dragged the raft up onto the shore bed until it was secure. Dani grabbed the radio out of the nylon gear case and clipped it to her belt. “Everyone, please, wait here. The current’s a little tricky and can take you by surprise. So whatever you do, don’t wade in after me.”
They all muttered, okay.
She ran along the shallow rock bed in her Teva sandals, until she got as close as she could to the overturned craft. It was trapped in an eddy pool, water swirling all around. Some forty feet from where she was. The current was still powerful here, enough to make what she was doing dangerous. Dani traversed her way across the rocks, slick as ice from a few thousand years of water rushing over them, her rubber sandals seeking whatever traction she could find. If she slipped, the current would hurl her down the final leg of the Cradle. She’d be separated from her crew. Not to mention, it was dangerous. She had no helmet. This wasn’t exactly smart.
Once or twice she almost slipped and had to catch herself, whitewater lashing at her legs. The overturned kayak was maybe ten yards from her now, on its side in the swirling pool. No sign of movement inside. The current tugging at her from all around.
Without a rope or a partner, she knew what she was doing really wasn’t the smartest idea.
Finally, she made it across, straddling the eddy where the kayak had come to a stop.
“Can you hear me?” she called out. But whoever was inside wasn’t responding and hadn’t moved. She could see it was a guy, but his face was in the water, the current slashing all around. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, either. Everyone always thought they could take this river without a care. Dani bent down, positioning her legs on the rocks for traction, and flipped the body over on its side.
Her stomach dropped, just as precipitously as if she had plummeted over the falls herself. She stared for a moment, shocked and disbelieving, denial, then sorrow filling her inside.
She knew him.
She stared into the dead rider’s drained, colorless face.
She knew him well.
CHAPTER TWO
Trey Watkins, Charles Alan Watkins III, whom everyone always jokingly referred to as “Your Honor,” because his name sounded more like that of a Supreme Court judge, than someone who could ski the back terrain at Aspen Highlands with the best of them. He’d done a few off-terrain videos in a few Warren Miller ski films—and rock-climbed out at Maroon Bells in the summer. He also used to teach hang gliding off the summit of Ajax.
Dani also knew he could get down this river without a hitch in the worst of conditions, and this surely wasn’t that.
There were abrasions all over his face and a fresh, oozing wound on his skull, and his neck was pitched at a horrifying angle. She grabbed his wrist and looked for a pulse, not finding even a hint of a heartbeat. Oh, Jesus, no … She rested him back down in the river.
Trey.
She knew he came out and did an early run before work sometimes, just to keep his feet in the game, now that he had a regular job. Regular, meaning off of skis, the mountain, or the river. She recalled how a few years back he and Dani had ended up together after last call at the Black Nugget, when Dani had come back after college after her mother had died. It wasn’t much of a relationship, or even what you’d call a fling. Trey wasn’t exactly boyfriend material back then. He was a quiet, rugged guy from a small town up north, and with his long ponytail, his washed-out, blue-eyed smile, and that easy, but confident way, women always seemed to flock to him. As Dani had a couple of times, maybe a little rootless and angry back then over her mom.
But somehow Allie Benton made all that change. Trey settled down, married, cut his hair. He even got a totally “straight” job managing the Outdoor Adventures shop in town. They had a kid. Petey. Who everyone said made Trey a changed man. Dani had last seen him a couple of months ago at the Post Net store in town. He was mailing off an application to the national ski trade show. He’d developed this custom mounting for those GoPro action cameras that skiers and riders put on their helmets, and which they were selling like crazy in the store. Dani remembered thinking, Who’d ever figure Trey Watkins for an entrepreneur? Amazing what having a kid could do.
And here she was staring at him now. Bloodied and crumpled. Those washed-out blue eyes that looked like Roger Daltrey’s of the Who stilled. It didn’t make a bit of sense where they were. Trey could handle a rapid like the Cradle with Petey on his lap. He could do it blindfolded, even with this amount of water being pushed around. Dani inspected his kayak. She didn’t see any gashes or dents. She looked at the oozing abrasion on the side of his head. She just closed her eyes and shook her head in disbelief.
Poor Trey.
She thought about trying to drag the body out and administer CPR, but he was gone. It was clearly too late. She took out the radio from her belt. The company bus was set to meet them all not too much farther downstream. It was already on its way there.
“Rich. Rich …” she called in. “Can you hear me? It’s Dani.”
No one answered. Only a scratchy static came back.
“Rich, get on the horn, quick, I need you,” she said, trying again. “It’s urgent. Something’s happened here.”
“You at the fords already?” Her tour partner finally came on the line. “God, you’re early, Dani, it’s only—”
“Negative, Rich. I’m at the bottom of the Cradle and we’ve got some trouble here. There’s been an accident.”
“Oh, shit,” he went, imagining the worst. “Everyone okay …?”
“Not us,” Dani said. “It’s Trey Watkins. His raft flipped over. There’s a gash on his head. He’s not breathing, Rich.”
“Trey? Oh my God …” Everyone knew him. “Any sign of a pulse?”
“Negative, again. I can’t believe this, Rich.” Trey could ride with the best of them out here. The most challenging water was all well behind him. She looked back and saw her raft team all gathered on the shore, looking on. “I’m holding him here, Rich. He’s dead.”
CHAPTER THREE
Chief Wade Dunn kneeled down on the rocks overlooking the river, as the Pitkin County Rescue Team pulled the kid out of the water.
Not a kid really. He was twenty-nine. One of those adrenaline junkies around town who did it all. Off-terrain skiing. Paragliding. Mountain biking. The on-site opinion of one of the EMTs who inspected the body was blunt-force trauma to the head and possibly a broken neck. Any one of those rocks could have caused it. No telling how far the raft had continued down. Made you wonder. Wade watched, lifting his Stetson custom cowboy hat. Trey Watkins was also a topflight river rider. This far downriver, he was way past anything that might have been thought of as a challenge. Wade knew his young wife. Allie. Pretty, and must be quite a gal to tame someone like Trey. And things were just starting to take off for the guy. A new kid, and he had this camera-mount business that was just getting off the ground. Allie’s father, Ted Benton, who owned a rib restaurant and a small hotel in town, once joked to Wade that his son-in-law was going to make them all look poor.
Wade watched the rescue boys do their job. Look at him now.
They lowered down a stretcher, then hoisted the body back up the slope, and cut a path in the brush to where the emergency vehicles had parked on the road. Wade stood up and looked at the body as they brought it by. It looked exactly like what it probably was: the kid must’ve flipped and struck his head on the rocks. Enough to cause that wound or to break his neck. Probably trying out some slick new move. Grab some air or a spin-o-rama, or whatever they call them today. And not wearing a helmet. Not as smart as ol’ Ted thought, apparently. These kids, they all think they’re invincible. Come here from all parts, think their life is a fucking X Game. They’d do a drug and alcohol test in the postmortem. Who’d bet on what they’d find?