Read Chapter 21: The Ravine

The wind had clawed the fresh snow into hard ripples by the time Luc and Ali crested the ridge above the ravine. For two hours they had followed the old guide’s tracks—fading, half-buried, but unmistakable. A man who knew these slopes didn’t wander off without a reason.

Ali stopped, breathing hard through his buff. “He was heading for the lower cable hut. Not the village. Not the pass.” He pointed at the faint line of prints descending into a narrow cut between two rock walls. “That doesn’t go anywhere. It’s a dead-end drainage.”

Luc studied the terrain. The ravine dropped sharply, its walls slick with verglas, the bottom invisible beneath a drift that looked deceptively soft. A fall there would be easy. A fall there, alone, with no one to hear—that was something else entirely.

“Stay behind me,” Luc said. “Watch where I step.”

He kicked into the slope sideways, using his heels to cut purchase in the wind-hardened crust. Each step sent a thin cascade of powder skittering down into the void. The air in the ravine was still, almost warm, a strange pocket of silence after the open slope’s scream.

They found him forty meters down, wedged against a boulder where the drainage narrowed to a knife’s edge. The old guide lay on his side, one leg bent at an angle that made Luc’s stomach turn. Blood had frozen in a dark bloom around his temple, but his chest rose and fell in shallow, irregular bursts.

“Gaspard,” Luc said, dropping to his knees beside him. “Gaspard. Can you hear me?”

The man’s eyes fluttered. Pale blue, milky with pain. He tried to speak, but only a wet rasp came out. Ali was already beside Luc, shrugging off his pack to pull out the emergency blanket and the small med kit.

“His leg’s broken bad,” Ali muttered. “Maybe his hip. And that head wound—he hit something on the way down.”

Luc gently lifted Gaspard’s head, cradling it in his gloved palm. The skin was cold, the pulse at his throat thready. “Gaspard. It’s Luc Moreau. You remember me?”

A flicker of recognition crossed the old man’s face. His hand twitched, reaching for Luc’s arm, gripping it with surprising strength. His lips moved, forming a word that produced no sound.

“Easy,” Luc said. “Talk slow. We’ve got you.”

Gaspard swallowed, grimacing. “The ravine… I saw him. Last night. I followed him here.”

“Who?” Ali asked, leaning in. “Who did you follow?”

“The one who’s been doing it.” Gaspard’s voice was a dry whistle. “From the start. Before the snow. Before the guests even arrived.”

Luc exchanged a glance with Ali. “Doing what? Sabotaging the trip?”

Gaspard nodded, the movement costing him. His grip on Luc’s arm tightened. “He’s been… cutting things. Gears. Cables. The winch at the top station. I found it three days before you all came. Fresh cuts, clean blade. Someone wanted the whole system to fail.”

“Who?” Luc pressed. “You need to give me a name.”

The old man’s eyes drifted, unfocused. For a moment Luc thought he’d lost him. Then Gaspard coughed, a rattling sound that shook his whole body, and his gaze snapped back into focus with sudden urgency.

“Belmont.” The name came out clear, sharp, almost angry. “He called himself Belmont. But that’s not… that’s not his real…” He broke off, gasping.

“Belmont,” Luc repeated. “A guest?”

“He was here from the start. Before the others. Checking the inventory, the routes, the lodge systems. Said he was doing a safety audit for the owners.” Gaspard’s face contorted. “No audit. He was mapping it. Every point of failure. He wanted the whole thing to come down.”

Ali’s eyes widened. “A safety audit? No one told us about an audit.”

“Because there wasn’t one.” Luc’s mind was racing, fitting pieces together. The sabotaged phone. The drained batteries. The mirror. A man who knew exactly where every weakness lay because he’d studied the estate’s systems like a blueprint. Not a saboteur who improvised—a saboteur who planned.

“He found out I knew,” Gaspard continued, each word a struggle. “Confronted me. Said he’d… said he’d make it look like an accident. I didn’t believe him. Then the snow came and I was stuck here with all of you and I thought—I thought I could watch him. Catch him in the act.”

“He pushed you,” Luc said softly. “Last night. When the storm was at its worst.”

Gaspard’s eyes closed. A single tear froze on his cheek. “I was climbing down to check the cable housing. He was already there. Waiting. I turned to run and… the snow gave way. Or he helped it. I don’t know.” His voice faded. “I’ve been lying here all night. Thought I’d be dead by morning.”

“You’re not dead,” Ali said firmly, already wrapping the emergency blanket around the old man’s shoulders. “We’re getting you out of here.”

Gaspard’s eyes snapped open with sudden, desperate intensity. He grabbed Luc’s arm with both hands, pulling him close. “Belmont. He’s in the lodge. Right now. He’s been there the whole time, watching me, watching all of you. He knows who I am. He knows I’m gone. He thinks I’m dead.”

“Who is he?” Luc demanded. “Which guest? Give me a face, Gaspard. I need a name I can use.”

“Belmont is… he’s a fake name. A cover. He told me once, when he thought I was too stupid to remember…” Gaspard swallowed, fighting for air. “The company he works for. They sent him to make sure the audit never happened. Because if the audit happened, they’d find out about the… the kickbacks. The fake permits. The whole thing.”

“What company?” Ali said.

But Gaspard’s grip was loosening. His eyes were losing focus again, drifting toward the grey sky visible between the ravine walls. His chest rose once—twice—a third time, shallower each time.

“No,” Luc said, shaking him gently. “No. Gaspard. Stay with me. You said Belmont’s a fake name. What’s his real name?”

The old man’s lips moved. A single syllable escaped—something that might have been a name, or might have been just the last breath leaving his body. Then his hand fell from Luc’s arm, and his chest stopped moving entirely.

Ali sat back on his heels, staring at the still face. “Shit.”

Luc stayed crouched over the body for a long moment, one hand still on Gaspard’s shoulder, as if he could will the old man back. Then he stood, slowly, and looked up the ravine toward the lodge—invisible now, hidden beyond the ridge, but there. Waiting. Warm. Full of people who would all deny knowing any Belmont.

“What did he say?” Ali asked quietly. “At the end. Did you catch it?”

Luc shook his head. “Too faint. It could have been anything.”

But something in his chest had gone cold. Because the shape of that last syllable had been familiar. He had heard that sound before, spoken in a different context, from a different face. And if he was right, the man who had hunted this guide into a ravine had been standing in the lodge’s common room less than an hour ago, watching Luc strap on his skis, wishing him luck.

He looked down at Gaspard’s frozen face.

“I need to get him back,” Luc said. “Everyone needs to see him. Everyone needs to know what he told me.”

“Everyone,” Ali repeated, a question in his voice.

Luc met his eyes. “Yes. Every single person. Because whoever Belmont is, he’s about to find out that his accident didn’t work. And when he does, he’s going to move faster. We just lost our best witness.”

He glanced up at the grey sky, at the impossible weight of snow above them.

“And we’re running out of time.”