snow.”
I stepped closer to Adele and she stepped closer to me until our arms were touching. The snow made it seem brighter than it was. I was pretty sure the sun had gone completely down by now. “I say we give him five minutes and then we head back,” Adele said with a shiver.
I suddenly regretted not having my bag but was glad when I felt my BlackBerry in my pocket. I wasn’t so glad when I saw that the battery meter was down to two bars. The cord had fallen behind something and I’d forgotten to charge it overnight. Adele rummaged around in her bag and found some mints. Just what we wanted, something to cool our breath.
She asked for my BlackBerry and started fiddling around with it. “Pink, technology is so wasted on you.”
She showed me the screen and on it was a picture of one of the trams we’d be on. Then she took it back and began reading and making little squeals as she read.
“Okay, what’s the matter?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Adele said in a tone that said it was anything but nothing. “Except that it says at least once a month somebody gets lost up here. Some couple got lost up here for three days. But that was summer, no snow and it was much warmer.” I heard her suck in her breath. “But some other guy died up here. All they found was his skeleton and his backpack,” Adele said as her teeth began to chatter. We both looked in the direction we thought D. J. had gone and there was nothing.
“Something doesn’t feel right about this,” I said. “You don’t think that D. J. got us up here with the plan of ditching us?”
“Don’t say that, Pink.” I could barely make out Adele’s features in the low light. She looked like she might cry. Not a good idea, because it was getting colder fast and I thought her tears might freeze. She still had my BlackBerry and was online.
“Give me that. You used up most of the power,” I said, grabbing the BlackBerry. “Okay, let’s look at this logically. Why would D. J. ditch us?”
“Maybe because he wanted your tote bag,” Adele said, pointing out that he’d taken it supposedly to ease my way.
I went over what was in it. I couldn’t imagine why he’d want any of it. “What would he want with Robyn’s old doll?” I said. “Unless it was the media card stuck in her undies. He was standing next to us when we found it.”
“Yeah, Pink, that has to be it.”
“But I heard you say there was nothing on it.”
“No, I said all I got was a blue screen. There could be something on it my camera couldn’t read.”
“What could be on it that could be so important to him?”
“Sherlock Pink, and you call yourself a sleuth. How about Robyn had some secret information on him?”
I hated to admit it, but I realized Adele had something. I’d been so busy thinking Robyn’s plan had to do with the show her parents were on, I never thought about D. J.’s program. What if he was the one she was going to reveal something about? “What information could she have had?”
“News flash, Pink, whatever it was, he killed her over it.”
“Oh my God,” I said as I began to remember things. I thought back to Salute to Chocolate. “D. J. was right there when Miles called the bookstore.” I wanted to kick myself as I remembered how I’d told Talia who Miles was and said he might have some information about who killed Robyn. And D. J. was standing right next to her. He could have been worried about what Miles knew.” I stopped while it sunk in. “And he could have been the person someone saw at the halfway house. If anybody would know about drugs, it would be a former addict.”
“Great that you figured it out, Pink. I think it’s a safe bet he isn’t coming back, and in case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of nowhere, and I mean nowhere. When I looked online, I saw there isn’t a road up here for miles and miles and that people use cross-country skis to get to them.
“By the way, the reason people get in trouble up here is because, like us, they come up unprepared for the wilderness. I mean, who expects snow when you’re coming from the hot desert?” Adele added. None of it was reassuring.
I took my BlackBerry and punched in 911, but nothing happened.
We argued about who to call. Adele thought we should look up the number for the ranger, and I didn’t want to waste the last of the power on trying to find it. Adele took out her cell phone, but it was useless up there. She was with Fred’s Friendly Mobile Service, which was cheap, but you only got a signal if you were practically in their store.
“Pink, do something. I don’t want to be a human icicle.” Typical Adele. As soon as there was trouble, Miss Know-It-All expected me to fix it.
I suggested we try walking back the way we’d come. She had the idea we could follow our footprints, but between having walked on packed down snow and the darkness, we couldn’t find them. “We can’t just stay here, Pink,” Adele said, picking a direction and starting to walk. She brought up how the mountain ended at a ledge, and if we could find that, we could follow it back to the tram station.
Adele stepped on something and skidded. I tried to grab her and we both fell into the snow. Great, now we had wet feet and wet clothes. Adele felt around for what she’d stepped on and picked up something round and metal.
“It’s one of those flying saucer sleds. Somebody must have left it,” I said. Adele dropped it and we stood up, looking around for some little hint of the right direction. “We’ve got to keep on going,” I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. I picked a direction and we started to walk toward some trees. A few minutes later, Adele slipped again, though this time I caught her. We both gasped when we saw that the cause was the same sled. We had walked in a circle.
“It’s hopeless. With no path, nothing to orient ourselves with and nothing as far as I can see but trees and snow, we’ll never find our way,” I said. “Maybe we can make a snow cave or something. If we can make it until morning, at least we’ll have the sun.”
Adele had my BlackBerry again and had gone online. She shrieked. “You can have hypothermia if your body temperature goes down to ninety-five degrees.” She felt her forehead. “I think there’s frost on my forehead. Pink, we can’t go to sleep, no matter how tired we get. That’s what happens just before you die.”
I pulled my phone back. How could I have missed it? “We can send an e-mail.” But the idea didn’t go any further when I realized I’d never gotten around to putting in any e-mail addresses and my one big move had been to clear the mailbox, so I couldn’t even reply to one. The power was dwindling. I thumbed through the contacts. I’d been meaning to put in everyone’s phone number but not gotten around to that, either. I was embarrassed to admit that I still relied on a paper address book. And my mind blanked when I tried to think of the numbers I called all the time. Hallelujah! Mason must have put his number in when he gave me the phone. I pressed call and hoped for the best.
I heard the phone begin to ring. I crossed my fingers he would answer. Just when I thought it was going to go to voice mail, I heard him say hello. As soon as he heard it was me, he started to joke about me missing him. The low battery warning started to beep and I had to interrupt him.
“We need help,” I yelled. “We’re stuck in the snow at the top of the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway.” I waited to hear him respond, but there was only silence. Somewhere as I was talking, the battery had gone out and the phone cut off. There was no way of knowing how much he’d heard.
I lost it and told Adele if she hadn’t been playing around online, the battery would have lasted longer. “He was our only hope,” I said.
Adele looked down as what I had said sank in. “We’re going to die. We’re going to die,” she shrieked.
I had to calm her down, which was hard because I was feeling a little panicky myself. I was hoping that even if Mason didn’t hear everything, he’d heard enough. But who knew? We leaned against a huge bolder and tried to share our body heat. Adele got the idea we should keep moving, so we started jiggling and shimmying.
“This could be the last night of our lives,” she said. As we kept gyrating around, she talked. “Pink, I have a confession to make. You probably never realized this, but I was pretty upset when you got hired as event coordinator. I thought I was going to get the job. I might have been a little mad at you and tried to make things difficult,” she said. If I hadn’t been shivering and so cold that it hurt, I might have rolled my eyes.
“But, the thing is,” Adele continued, “you turned out to be okay. And you might be my best friend,” When she said that, my eyes got watery and I had to pinch myself to keep from crying. I should have waited. “But the reason I only said might be, is because you’ve never invited me over to your house. A real best friend would have invited just
