10 Dead Man's Trail: Psychic Sleuths and Talking Dogs (A Jaz and Luffy Cozy Mystery Book 10) by Max Parrott

Author:Max Parrott
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2021-06-22T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Jasmine was stunned, and she took a moment to get back on her feet. It wasn't until she had managed to get her breath back—a difficult feat given the icy sting of the surrounding air—that she actually looked at the skier and realized she was looking at a child.

She was lucky, as she wasn't sure she would have survived a collision with a grown adult—as it was, they had knocked her rather close to the edge of the cliff. She was mostly just confused though—the concept of someone being out here in these conditions just to ski had made no sense when it was an adult that she was thinking about, but it made even less sense now that she knew it was a child who was out here.

"Who is that?" Henry asked.

Jasmine was about to respond that she had no more way of knowing who he was than Henry did, but the kid pulled off his ski helmet and Jasmine saw it wasn't quite true.

"Tristan?" she asked. The boy just stared back at her with wide eyes, but there was no mistaking him and his jagged hair.

"That's the boy who saw the murder," Luffy remarked. "What if he saw someone cut the rope too?"

"What are you doing out here?" Jasmine asked Tristan. She kneeled down and got on his level—she had read in a police training book somewhere that it helped kids to react if you looked them in the eye. "Did your teacher send you out here?"

More silence from the boy. Jasmine tried to read something on his face, but he wouldn't even meet her eye. She wondered for a moment if he was feeling guilty and couldn't bear to look her in the eye because of it, but she remembered Tristan not looking her in the eye earlier either.

"Did you hit his head or something?" Henry asked, stepping forward. He probably didn't even realize it, but he was still holding the pocketknife from a few moments before. As he approached, the boy took a few steps backwards. His skis had come off when he fell, and Jasmine could see something in his face that made it look like he was going to run.

Luffy must have sensed it too, because he rubbed the side of his head against the boy's leg. Tristan looked down at Luffy and smiled. He petted the dog happily, and Jasmine stepped to the side with Henry to figure out what exactly they were supposed to do in a situation like this.

"He doesn't seem very responsive," Henry pointed out. "Do you think the cold was getting to him?"

"I've met this kid," Jasmine answered. "He's not very responsive in general. I don't think he could have been out here when the blizzard was going on, right? I mean, he was staying in a room at the lodge, so he shouldn't have been sleeping out here. He must have come up some other way."

"Which means there's another way down," Henry realized. "If a kid on skis can make the trip, I bet we can too.

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