Read Chapter 5: The Guest List

The ledger was where Henri kept the wine, but the names below the vintages told a different story. Luc flipped through the pages, standing at the oak desk in the corner of the great room, the fire crackling behind him. Everyone was gathered near the hearth—wrapped in blankets, nursing mulled wine that Jules had managed to produce despite his swollen wrist—and none of them looked at Luc, which was exactly how he wanted it.

Eight names. He wrote them in pencil on the back of a menu card, his handwriting small and precise.

*Camille Fournier* — journalist, Paris. She’d been quiet since admitting she saw someone near the storeroom. Luc didn’t trust quiet.

*Viktor Petrov* — businessman. The one Luc had pulled from the avalanche that afternoon. Viktor had been boastful at dinner, drinking heavily, but his eyes were sharp. The kind of sharp that watched everything and admitted nothing.

*Ingrid Halvorsen* — tech CEO, Norwegian. She’d barely spoken since the avalanche struck the chalet. Luc had noticed her checking her watch repeatedly, even though the storm had swallowed all signals hours ago.

*Mateo Reyes* — former Olympic skier, now an investor. Kept to himself. Luc had seen men like him before—comfortable with risk, uncomfortable with helplessness.

*Henri Delacroix* — host, retired banker. The man who’d brought them all here. Luc scratched the pencil against the card. Henri had blocked him from the crevasse, protected the locked room, and offered nothing but excuses.

*Jules Beaumont* — cook, six years in Henri’s employ. Claimed he’d never seen inside the locked room. Broken wrist. Limping.

*Elena Vasquez* — Henri’s assistant. Young, efficient, terrified. She’d been crying in the kitchen earlier when Luc went to check the pantry. He’d pretended not to notice.

*Luc Moreau* — former guide. Current liability.

Eight people in a chalet that could hold thirty. Eight people who had arrived in three separate cars, two helicopters, and one very expensive train. Eight people whose last known contact with the outside world had been—Luc checked his watch—forty-one hours ago.

He underlined the number at the top of the card. *41 hours since anyone knew we were here.*

Camille appeared at his elbow, a mug of wine in each hand. She set one down beside the ledger and kept the other. "You look like a man doing arithmetic."

"Something like that." He flipped the menu card over, hiding the list.

"Who's on it?" She wasn't smiling. Her eyes moved from the ledger to his face and stayed there.

"The wine inventory," Luc said. "Henri's got a decent Burgundy collection."

"You're a terrible liar, Moreau." Camille took a sip. "And I've interviewed enough politicians to know when someone's counting names. Who's on the list?"

Luc let the silence stretch. The fire popped. Viktor laughed at something Ingrid said, a loud, empty sound.

"Everyone in this room," Luc said finally. "And no one outside it who knows we're here."

Camille's jaw tightened. "The service staff. The mountain patrol. Someone must—"

"Helicopter was scheduled for a routine weather check tomorrow." Luc kept his voice low, barely a murmur beneath the crackle of the flames. "But I called that in myself from the summit office before we left. The storm windows were supposed to be mild through Thursday. They weren't."

"You're saying no one filed a flight plan for this week?"

"I'm saying the storm wasn't supposed to hit. The weather station said clear skies through Thursday evening." He watched her face as the implication settled. "Someone changed that. And someone cut the radio wires. And someone walked down to the crevasse this morning, which means they at least tried to get out."

Camille's knuckles whitened around the mug. "Or they tried to make it look like they did."

Luc said nothing.

"What do you need?" she asked. It wasn't an offer. It was a question he'd heard from clients before, from the ones who wanted to help but didn't know how. The difference was that Camille asked it like she meant it.

"The storeroom had a flare gun." Luc picked up the pencil again, turned it between his fingers. "Three flares in a case beside the satellite phone. I checked it the first day we arrived. Standard emergency kit."

"And?"

"The case was empty." He let that sit. "Whoever took the phone and cut the radio knew there was a flare gun. Knew where it was kept. Knew what it was for."

"Are you telling me the flares are gone too?"

"I'm telling you the storeroom was stocked by a professional safety company before this trip. Nothing in there was supposed to move." Luc looked past her, toward the group. Henri was refilling Viktor's glass, playing host with practiced ease. Mateo had drifted to the window, staring into the white nothing. Elena sat near the fireplace with Jules, her hands wrapped around her knees, watching the flames like they might go out.

"Then why mention the flare gun at all if it's useless?"

"Because the flare gun isn't the only way to signal." Luc pulled the pencil back, drew a small box at the bottom of the hidden list. "There's a second one. In the ski patrol hut on the east ridge. Two klicks from here. I cached it there last summer."

"Then we go get it."

"In this?" Luc gestured toward the window, where the storm had pressed itself against the glass like a white animal. "You can't see your hand in front of your face out there. The ridge is crevasse country. And whatever happened at that crevasse yesterday wasn't an accident."

"So we wait."

"We don't do anything until the storm breaks. But when it does, someone has to walk out. The road's buried. The radio's dead. The satellite phone is gone." He tapped the list. "That's not eight names. That's one name on the mountain, waiting for a response that won't come."

Camille was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, "You're telling me the only way out is through a man I don't trust, in a storm no one should have survived, with a flare gun that's in a hut that might not exist."

"It exists."

"You've seen it?"

"Built it." The word came out flatter than he intended. "Same summer I pulled a skier off that slope. The one who didn't make it."

Camille's expression shifted. Something softer, something professional clicked into place. "You were the guide. The one from the accident report."

Luc didn't answer. He folded the menu card once, twice, and slid it into his inside pocket.

"What's in the locked room?" she asked, changing tack with the precision of a journalist who knew when to press and when to pull.

"You noticed that."

"Everyone noticed. Henri won't talk about it. Jules says he's never seen inside it in six years. For a man hosting a party, Henri has an awful lot of secrets."

Luc thought of Henri's face when he'd tried to look over the crevasse lip. The way the older man had physically stepped into his path, voice smooth as glass: *There's nothing down there but snow, Moreau. Leave it.*

No. He'd been lying.

"The weather station was overridden at 16:47," Luc said, making a decision. "That's four minutes before Viktor got close to the cornice. Four minutes before the first slide."

Camille's face went pale. "You're saying the override came from inside the group. Before the avalanche."

"I'm saying someone wanted us to believe this was an accident. First the weather data. Then the radio. Then the phone." He counted them off on his fingers. "And now the flares. This isn't improvisation. This is a sequence."

"Can you prove it?"

"Not without the console logs." He looked toward the hallway that led to the storeroom. The door hung open, dark and empty. Beyond it, at the end of the passage, Henri's locked room waited like a held breath.

"Then we get the logs," Camille said. "And we open that door."

"That door belongs to Henri."

"Henri belongs to this group. And his secrets might be the reason we die in this chalet."

Luc was about to answer when the lights flickered. Once. Twice. The fire spat.

Viktor's voice rose above the sudden quiet. "What the hell was that?"

The lights steadied. But in the brief darkness, Luc had seen something that made his blood go cold.

Camille's face, tilted toward the hallway.

Wanting to go down it.

No—not wanting. *Already* having gone down it.

Before the storm, before the avalanche, before anyone knew there was a locked room that mattered, Camille Fournier had already been looking for secrets.

He left the desk without answering and walked to the window. Behind him, the group rustled with nervous energy. Jules was checking the generator dial. Elena was counting something on her fingers.

Luc pressed his hand to the cold glass.

The storm had stopped.

The white had gone still, silent, patient.

And in the valley below, at the edge of the tree line, there was a light.

A single, steady point of orange that had not been there an hour ago.