Read Chapter 19: The Phone

The wind had dropped, which made the silence worse. Every creak of the old chalet timbers sounded like a footstep. Camille stood in the doorway of the utility closet, a dusty cardboard box cradled in her arms, her breath fogging in the cold air.

“I found it,” she whispered. “Behind the old water heater. Someone wrapped it in oilcloth and shoved it deep.”

Luc crossed the room in three strides. She set the box on the workbench and peeled back the cloth. There it was—a satellite phone, clunky and outdated, its rubber casing scuffed but intact. A relic from before the chalet switched to the mounted radio system. Someone had hidden it deliberately.

“You said nothing?” Luc kept his voice low.

“I found it this morning, before the mirror broke.” Camille’s eyes flicked toward the door. “If someone’s tracking it, or watching, I didn’t want them to know I had it.”

Ali appeared in the doorway behind them, a scarf wrapped around his face against the cold. He closed the door softly behind him. “Anything?”

“We have a phone,” Luc said. He pressed the power button.

Nothing.

He tried again. Held it longer. The screen remained black. A wasted corpse of plastic and circuitry.

“Dead,” he said.

Camille frowned. “It was charged. I checked the indicator when I found it—three bars, full.”

Luc flipped the phone over and ran his thumb along the seam near the battery casing. The casing sat slightly proud of the body, misaligned by a millimeter. He pried it open with his fingernail.

Inside, the battery terminal was blackened. A thin wire had been soldered across the contacts, crisp and curled, the solder joint still bright. Someone had shorted it deliberately. Clean work. Professional.

“It’s been sabotaged,” Luc said. “This wasn’t an accident. Whoever hid this phone also made sure it would never work again.”

Ali let out a low breath. “Then they knew about it before we did.”

“Or they planted it for us to find,” Camille said. Her voice had an edge now. “A little hope to break on.”

Luc turned the phone over in his hands, studying the smudged plastic. He lifted it to his nose. Faint grease, metallic. Engine oil, not the kind you’d find in a kitchen. He pulled a cloth from his pocket and wiped the surface carefully, then held the phone up to the pale light filtering through the frosted window.

“There.” He pointed at a partial print on the side, barely visible under the grime. “Whorl pattern. Heavy ridge definition. That’s not from casual handling—it’s pressed, held.”

Camille leaned in. “You can match it?”

“I can lift it.” He set the phone down and retrieved a small kit from his belt bag—a brush, fine powder, tape. Standard avalanche-response gear, but useful for other things. He dusted the surface, watching the powder cling to the residue. A thumbprint emerged, clear and full, the kind of print someone leaves when they’re holding something steady while working on it.

“Whoever did this knew what they were doing,” he said. “They held it like a professional would. Steady hand. Distinct pressure.”

Ali moved closer. “You recognize it?”

Luc stared at the whorls. The pattern was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. He’d handled too many tools, too many hands in too many rescues. He shook his head. “I need something to compare it against. A glass, a door handle, anything.”

“I can get you glasses,” Camille said. “Discreetly. From dinner.”

“No.” Luc wrapped the phone in the cloth. “If we start collecting prints now, they’ll know we found it. We keep this quiet. We nod along with Viktor’s accusations and look for cracks elsewhere.”

Ali shifted. “And the phone?”

“I keep it.” Luc tucked it into his inner jacket pocket. “It’s evidence. If we ever get out of here, it tells a story. And if we don’t…” He let the sentence die.

Camille’s jaw tightened. “We’re not dying here.”

Voices echoed from the main hall—Viktor’s laugh, loud and forced. Heavy footsteps approached the corridor. Luc gestured sharply, and Camille and Ali slipped out the back door into the pantry passage. Luc followed, closing the utility door behind him.

They emerged into the narrow service corridor behind the kitchen, the air thick with the smell of stale wine and damp wool. Through a crack in the doorframe, Luc watched Viktor cross the hall with Marcel at his side. Viktor was gesturing broadly, his voice carrying.

“…and that’s why you always check the ridge line before you set a base camp. My guide in Zermatt taught me that. Of course, he’s still alive, unlike some guides I could name.”

Marcel grunted, his hand drifting toward his coat pocket—the same gesture Luc had seen when the body was mentioned. He was carrying something. Luc filed it away.

Viktor stopped mid-step and turned, scanning the room. His eyes passed over the service door. Luc held perfectly still.

“I don’t trust the quiet,” Viktor said, his voice dropping. “When it gets this quiet, someone’s thinking too hard.”

Marcel said nothing.

Viktor clapped him on the shoulder and moved on. The footsteps faded.

Luc exhaled slowly. He pulled the phone from his pocket, ran his thumb over the dead screen, and felt the cold weight of the print against his chest. Somewhere in this chalet was the person who’d killed Voss, sabotaged the phone, broken the mirror—and who’d lit that burn mark on Viktor’s jacket. The same mark as the scarred man in his father’s photograph.

Whoever they were, they were close. And they wanted them to know it.

“We need to get this thing charged,” Luc whispered. “There’s a generator shed out back, and car batteries in the garage bay.”

Camille looked at him, hope flickering behind her exhaustion. “You think we can revive it?”

“I think we give it everything we’ve got.” He pocketed the phone. “Because right now, that dead piece of plastic is the only thing standing between us and Viktor’s version of the truth.”

Ali reached for the door handle. “Then let’s go before the dark sets in.”