Read Chapter 22: The Legacy

The wind had died by the time we hauled Gaspard’s body up the last pitch to the lodge, but the cold had settled into his limbs like stone. Ali and I carried him between us, his weight dead and awkward, his face wrapped in a scarf I’d torn from my own neck because I couldn’t stand to look at it. The others had formed a chain from the treeline, passing word back that the door was open, that the fire was lit, that there was room.

Camille met us at the threshold. She didn’t flinch. She just looked at the bundle we carried and then at me, and I saw the question she didn’t ask: *Who else did we lose?*

“Gaspard,” I said. It was enough.

We laid him on the long table in the main hall, the one where we’d eaten our first dinner here, back when this had felt like a holiday and not a siege. Someone had the sense to spread a bedsheet beneath him. Viktor stood by the fireplace, his burn-marked jacket catching the light, his face unreadable. Nadia was curled on the couch, her knees drawn up, her eyes red. Pierre hovered by the kitchen door, wringing a dishrag between his hands like he was trying to squeeze confession from it. Marcel sat apart, in the corner chair, the headlamp still looped around his wrist, his pocket guarded by his palm.

I waited until everyone was in the room. Then I told them.

“Gaspard was pushed. Someone threw him into the ravine and left him to die in the cold.” I let that land, watching each face in turn. “He didn’t die right away. He hung on long enough to tell me who did it.”

A silence stretched like wire.

“He said the name Belmont. A man who’s been sabotaging this resort for weeks—the generators, the phone, the avalanche control.” I paused. “The same man who killed the food critic. The same man who cut Gaspard loose and watched him fall.”

Nadia’s voice was thin. “Belmont? That’s not a guest. I know everyone on the manifest.”

“No one’s registered under that name,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean no one’s using it.”

Viktor unfolded his arms. His jaw was tight. “You’re saying one of us is a killer.”

“I’m saying one of us is Belmont. Or working for him.”

That broke the dam.

Pierre’s dishrag hit the floor. “This is insane. We’ve been trapped here together for days. If there was a saboteur in our midst, we would have—how could we not *know*?”

“We knew,” Viktor said quietly. He looked at me. “We knew something was wrong from the first night. The avalanche didn’t come from nowhere. The lift lines were cut. Someone cleared the patrol routes and didn’t log it.”

“So you suspected,” Camille said, her voice sharp. “And you said nothing.”

“I’m saying it now.”

“Too little, too late.” She stepped forward, pointing at him. “You’ve been skulking around since we got here. That burn on your jacket—Luc found it. The same mark as in his father’s photograph. You want to tell us what that means?”

Viktor’s face went pale beneath his stubble. “That’s a scar from a fire in Chamonix, years ago. I told Luc that.”

“And he believed you?”

I held up a hand. “Let’s not do this. We don’t have time to turn on each other.”

“Then what do you propose?” Pierre’s voice cracked. “We’re trapped in a lodge with a killer. The phone’s dead. The generator’s dead. The only person who knew what was happening is lying on that table.”

He gestured at Gaspard, and for a moment everyone looked at the old guide’s still form. I felt the weight of him again, the way he’d died gripping my arm, his breath a rattle in his throat. *Belmont.* The word had come out of him like a stone dropping through ice. And I’d recognized it. Not the name—I’d never heard that name before. But the shape of it, the way it fit in the mouth.

I didn’t share that yet. I didn’t trust anyone in this room enough to tell them what I knew, or thought I knew.

“Gaspard said Belmont has been here from the start,” I said. “He knew about the audit. He knew the inspection would expose the kickbacks, the fake permits. He sabotaged the resort to keep that from happening. And when Gaspard got too close to identifying him, he tried to erase the problem.”

“So we’re all suspects,” Nadia whispered. “That’s what you’re saying. Every single one of us.”

“Not you,” Pierre said suddenly. She flinched. “You found him. You were out there with Luc when he fell.”

“I wasn’t—” She stood up, her hands shaking. “No. I found the receipt. I told Luc about the dead man. I’ve been trying to *help*.”

“Or you’ve been planting evidence,” Viktor said. “The receipt with the dead critic. You placed that there.”

“Why would I do that?”

“To throw suspicion off yourself.”

Nadia’s face crumpled. “You son of a bitch. I’ve been scared out of my mind since this started, and you’re accusing *me*?”

“I’m not accusing anyone,” Viktor said. “I’m pointing out that we can’t trust anything we think we know.”

Marcel stood up for the first time in an hour. His voice was low and even, and it cut through the shouting like a blade. “We should stop.”

Everyone turned to look at him.

“We should stop,” he repeated. “We’re doing exactly what Belmont wants. Divide us, turn us on each other, and we’ll tear ourselves apart before he has to lift a finger.”

He had the headlamp still wound around his wrist. I noticed his other hand pressed over his pocket, the gesture I’d seen before. He met my eyes and gave a small shake of his head—not denial, not confirmation. Just: *Don’t push this.*

“Marcel’s right,” Camille said, quieter now. “We need to think.”

“Thinking is a luxury we don’t have.” Pierre’s voice was rising again. “We have a body. We have no power. We have a rescue that may or may not have heard our call. And somewhere out there, or in this very room, is a man who’s already killed twice.”

“Three times,” I said.

The room went silent.

I looked at Gaspard’s covered face. “Three times,” I repeated. “Gaspard told me about the porters’ housing. The wiring that was cut, the gas leak. He believed Belmont was responsible for the fire that killed three seasonal workers last month. It was meant to look like an accident, but the maintenance logs showed tampering.”

“You said the word was Belmont,” Camille said. “Was that the only thing he told you?”

I hesitated. The air in the room felt thick, charged. I could feel everyone leaning in, waiting.

“He said Belmont was here,” I said. “That he’d been here all along. And then he said the name.”

I didn’t tell them the rest. I didn’t tell them about the shape of the word, the way Gaspard’s lips had moved around it—like it was a name he knew but hated. I didn’t tell them that I thought I recognized the cadence of it, the rhythm. Because if I was wrong, I’d be pointing a finger at an innocent person. And if I was right, I might be giving Belmont the warning he needed to finish what he started.

“We should take him to the shed,” Marcel said quietly. “The cold will keep him until we can get him out properly.”

I nodded. “Tomorrow. First light, before the storm closes in again.”

“And tonight?” Nadia asked.

“Tonight we watch each other,” I said. “We stay in groups. No one goes anywhere alone. We keep the fire lit, and we keep our eyes open.”

Viktor snorted. “We’ve been doing that since the beginning.”

“Now we know why.”

We moved Gaspard to the generator shed, wrapping him in the bedsheet and then a tarp we found in the back of the storeroom. It wasn’t a proper rest, but it was what we had. I lingered after the others filed back inside, standing in the cold with my hand on the tarp’s rough surface.

“I’m sorry,” I said to the shape beneath it. “You deserved better.”

The wind picked up, a low moan through the eaves. I turned and walked back toward the lodge, where the light from the windows threw long shadows across the snow.

Inside, the fire had been fed, and the group had arranged themselves in a loose circle around it. No one was speaking. They were all watching each other.

I took my seat at the edge of the circle, where I could see the door and the windows and every face in the room. Marcels still had his hand over his pocket. Viktor’s jaw was set. Pierre was twisting the dishrag again.

The legacy of suspicion had taken root.

I let it. For now, distrust was safer than trust. There was a killer among us, and until I knew who he was, everyone was a suspect—including the man I’d once called a friend.

I kept Gaspard’s final word in my mouth like a stone, waiting for it to crack open and reveal what it contained.