Lie, Lie Again(86)

People shuffled in their wet gear, patiently waiting for a turn at the hand dryers in the restroom. She slipped past them and made a beeline for the mirror.

Blood was smeared on her chin. She unzipped her jacket and gasped. The tissues were soaked bright red. Her reflection swirled and blurred in front of her as she gripped the sink. I can’t pass out.

“Oh!” a woman at the neighboring sink said. She ripped paper towels from the holder and wet them before passing the wad to Riki. “Press these against your cut. There’s a first-aid room at the lodge.”

A gaping wound was revealed as she eased the bloody tissues away. It looked like someone had tried to slit her throat with barbed wire. “Thanks,” she said, taking the paper towels.

“Sure. Do you need help getting there?”

“No, but thank you.” Riki clamped the towels to her neck as she found a bench outside the bathroom. She tried Chris again.

No answer. This time, she left a message. As she was about to shut off her phone, it struck her that she had Evelyn’s number. She scrolled through her contacts and clicked it, pressing the phone to her ear.

It rang once and went straight to voice mail.

As she stood, wondering what to do next, Brady’s wife and kids walked by. “Hey there. Did you reach your friends?”

“Um, I left a message.” She mustered a smile upon seeing the woman’s concerned look. “It’ll be fine. Do you happen to know where the first-aid room is?”

She frowned at the paper towel pressed to Riki’s neck. “I do, but you might want to skip it and go to the urgent care. I think you’ll need stitches, and if it were me, I’d rather have it done at a doctor’s office, but it’s up to you.”

The thought of a potentially unsterile little room made Riki’s stomach ache. “Yeah. I think you’re right. I’ll grab an Uber.”

“Not up here. There aren’t any.”

Riki faltered. “No Ubers?”

“They’re not allowed. But I can run you down there if you’d like. We do it all the time. Folks are nice here.”

“Oh! Thank you. But I’m fine. My boyfriend will want to take me.” She hoped he would. As nice as the woman was, Riki didn’t love the idea of trying to make conversation with a stranger while sitting in the passenger seat of her car. Especially when she was about to freak out.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, thanks.” As she walked away, she called Chris again. Panic tried to settle in when it went to voice mail. He wasn’t going to answer. Maybe he was in the middle of a run and couldn’t hear it. Or he could have his ringer off. Maybe she should’ve said yes to the offer. Pushing through the door to the slopes, she scanned the area for Chris or Calvin—anyone she knew. Her neck throbbed, and blood was seeping through the paper towels onto her fingers. Dammit! Where were they? As if the weather were incensed right along with her, the snow fell harder. These weren’t the lovely snowflakes of fairy tales—no, these were akin to getting sandblasted.

She headed inside and stopped at the returns desk, where a shaggy-haired guy sporting a pom-pom snow hat stood behind the counter. “Whoa. You’re bleeding! The first-aid room is—”

“I know,” Riki said, adding more pressure to her neck. “I want to go to the urgent care. Is there a shuttle?”

“Nah, man. Sorry.” He stole a look at her bleeding cut. “But hang on a sec.”

He returned a moment later. “My coworker just finished his shift. He’ll be right out and can take you.” Motioning to Riki’s neck, he said, “What happened there? Did someone whack you with a ski?”

“I crashed into the boundary fence.”

“Whoa. You’ve gotta be careful out there.” He turned as a tall guy with a boyish face and kind eyes approached.

He tipped his head in greeting—a cool-guy move, she thought, though he looked more like someone’s sweet older brother than an egocentric hipster. “Are you the one I’m taking to town?”

Riki swallowed hard and nodded, keeping her hand pressed to the side of her neck. It’s not hitchhiking. The woman said people were nice around here. Besides, this was urgent, and the guy looked harmless. She gave him a hesitant smile. “Yeah. I’m Riki.”

“I’m Cody. Let’s do this.”

She buckled the seat belt in his SUV, surreptitiously checking to make sure the locks worked on her side. There was no way she was going to walk directly into a trap. Trust no one—that’s what her dad always said. Until they prove themselves trustworthy, right, Greg? her mom always added. We don’t want our girls to live in fear.

“It’s coming down now.” He turned to her, keeping a casual hand on the wheel. “Are you just in for the weekend?”

“Yeah. There’s a whole group of us who came up.”

He nodded. “What’d they do—bail out when you crashed?”

She looked straight ahead, scouring the streets for the first sign of the town, because if she stopped to think too much, she might cry. “We got separated.”

“You’ve gotta keep a buddy on the mountain, okay? Especially on a day like today.”

A buddy. Wasn’t that the truth? She rested her head against the passenger seat. “I know. They thought I would keep up, I guess.”