My stomach heaves.
"Nicole?" I call. "Just wait. Will's coming down."
Anders shakes his head at me. "You should be the one."
"She knows you."
"But I'm probably going to need to haul her up."
"Right. Okay."
I climb down the rope. When I reach the bottom, I say, "I'm Casey Butler."
"Pleased to meet you, Casey Butler." She hiccups a laugh that turns into a sob and falls against me. I enfold her in a hug, and she's so thin I could have hauled her up that rope myself. I tell her it'll be all right, she's safe now, we found her. Then she pulls back suddenly.
"We need to go."
"It's okay. We're the only ones here."
She starts to shake, her fingers gripping my arms. "No, we need to go. Please. Quickly. Before he..."
She can't even finish, and I try to calm her, but she's too agitated. Help has finally arrived, and she needs to get out now.
I fix the rope around her waist and knot it as well as I can. Then I give Anders the go-ahead. He pulls her up, and I help by boosting her.
She's just beyond my reach when she convulses, saying, "No!" and I yell, "Will! Hold on!" and she's kicking, and I'm trying to grab her, telling Anders to lower her again. He gets her down, and the moment her feet touch the furs, she's scrambling for the crate, saying, "Sorry, sorry, sorry. I just--I need--" She reaches it and drops to her knees and pulls off the cover. Inside are two books with battered bindings. As she pulls one out, pages fall, and I see handwriting and realize they're journals. Filled journals.
"I'm sorry," she says as more pages fall. "I just need--I have to take them. Please."
"Of course," I say, and I gather the pages, and she says, "I know I should leave them. I can't. I'm sorry."
"It's okay. We have a bag."
She lets out a shuddering sigh and then, hugging the journals to her chest, she lets Anders pull her up.
*
When I climb out, Anders is examining Nicole, and she's staring at him, tears rolling silently down her cheeks.
"You look just like I remember," she says. "You're so..." She flushes and drops her gaze with an awkward laugh. "Sorry. I've been dreaming of someone rescuing me for so long that I can't help thinking this must be one of those dreams, because if I ever get rescued, it's going to be by a couple of miners who haven't seen a shower in weeks."
"Oh, I'm not nearly as clean as you think," Anders says. "You just can't see the dirt. And Casey scrubbed up before she climbed down to rescue you. She's such a prima donna."
Nicole laughs, a real one, and looks up at him. "I remember that about you. You were always funny and kind, and I wanted to get to know you better." Another flush. "Not like that. I just mean you seemed nice."
Her hands flutter on her lap, and as Anders examines her, he keeps teasing, that gentle way of his, but even as he does, he sneaks me looks that tell me this is not the woman he remembers. She's dangerously thin, and up close, I can see signs of malnutrition, her hair patchy, rashes on her skin.
"Can we leave now?" she says. "Please? I'm not hurt, and I'd really like to get out of here. I can make it. Just show me the way."
Anders and I look at each other. I say, "It's the middle of the night, and there's been a storm. We'll go if that's what you absolutely need, but it'll be much safer to wait until morning."
She starts to shake, and I hurry on. "If you need to get out of here, we completely understand. But you are safe. We have guns, and we're both police officers."
"Both?" She looks from me to Anders. "Oh. I know Will likes caving, so I thought you two were out doing that. I didn't realize it was night." Another twist of a smile. "Or winter."
"It is," I say. "We were--"
I think of what we were doing. Of that bloodied toque. Of the man in the path. I'm not telling her that, so I say, "We were on patrol when the storm hit, and it was late in the day, so we holed up here. The point is, we have supplies, and we're armed. We'll be fine until morning. One of us will stay awake, and we'll leave at the first hint of light. But if you need us to go now, we can do that."