Ambushed in the Alps by Zara Keane

Author:Zara Keane
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783039380121
Publisher: Beaverstone Press LLC

16

I’m sure I would’ve hyperventilated and stammered something incomprehensible had the Peugeot not chosen that moment to blow up. One second, I was kneeling in the snow, gawking at the man I’d just shot. The next, an almighty explosion rocked my world.

The force of the detonation sent a tremor rippling up the slope, upending Luc and me and burying us under an avalanche of snow. My ears rang with head-splitting force, and my face and chest rode continuous waves of pain. What had just happened? And had I really shot Luc?

I tried to breathe and wound up with a mouthful of snow. It invaded my mouth and nose and jolted me out of my shocked stupor with the power of an electric cattle prod. After I’d cleared a space around my face to breathe, I punched up a couple of times. Each punch was a stab in the ribs, but I didn’t give up. Finding myself in an ice-cold coffin had blasted me into fight-or-flight mode.

When my frozen fist felt the cutting wind, a wave of hysterical relief washed over me. Snow enveloped me, but it wasn’t too deep. Inhaling a lungful of air, I continued to punch through the snow until I could stick my head out into the biting wind. In the battle between windburn and asphyxiation, I’d take a chapped face any day.

Once my head was free, it didn’t take me long to dig out of the snow. When I hauled myself out, I surveyed the scene. All that was left of the car was a ball of fire. One of the gateposts had been reduced to rubble, and the trees down by the gates were in flames. How and why the car had blown up was a question I’d explore as soon as Luc and I were snow-free and indoors.

A figure in a ski jacket stumbled down the slope from the chalet. The light from the blaze lit up his fair hair and frightened face. “You pinky swore you wouldn’t blow anything up.”

“Sidney.” I sounded more like Kermit than me. “Luc’s still under the snow. We have to find him.”

He floundered down the slope, landing on his behind beside me. “Luc? But he’s off chasing stolen artifacts.”

“He’s here.” I dropped to my knees and began to dig. “I shot him, and then the Peugeot exploded, burying us both in snow.”

Sidney’s jaw descended in stages like a broken elevator. “You shot him? No way.”

“Yes way. Help me find him.”

Sidney didn’t need to be told a third time. He rolled over and plunged his hands into the snow. “Did you blow up the car, too? What in the blazes happened out here?”

“I mistook Luc for another thug and shot him. I have no idea why the car blew up. It can’t have been my bleach bomb. That rolled down the slope in the opposite direction.”

“It can’t be a case of spontaneous combustion.” Sidney dumped an armful of snow onto the ever-growing pile behind him. “Are you sure we’re digging in the right place?”

His question sent an acid infusion into my stomach.

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