Northern Lights

got you down."
    "But—"
    "I saved your life."
    "Yes. All right, yes."
    "I'll explain everything. Get out that bottle you keep in your drawer. We need a drink."
    "All these years. All these years, he's been up there. Like that." He did need a drink and grabbed two coffee mugs, then the bottle of Paddy's out of his drawer. "What am I supposed to think? What am I supposed to do?"
    "He tried to kill me. I can still hardly believe it." Plausible deniability, he thought again.
    "Pat? Pat tried to—"
    "Luke—remember? Skywalker, the Jedi knight. The more drugs he took, the crazier he got. It stopped being a game. When he reached the summit, he wanted to jump, and damned near dragged us both off."
    "My God. My God."
    "He said it was a joke, after, but I knew it wasn't. We were coming down, rappelling down the face, and he took out his knife. Christ God, he started sawing at my rope and laughing. I barely got to the ledge when he cut it through. I took off."
    "I can't believe it." Max swallowed whiskey, poured more. "I can't believe any of this."
    "I couldn't believe it when it was happening. He'd lost his mind. The drugs, the altitude, hell, I don't know. I got to the ice cave. I was panicked. I was furious. He came after me."
    "Why didn't you tell me any of this before?"
    "I didn't think you'd believe me. I took the easy way out. You'd've done the same."
    "I don't know." Max dragged a hand through his thinning hair.
    "You did take the easy way. When you thought he'd fallen, you agreed to keep your mouth shut. You agreed not to say anything at all, to anyone. Patrick Galloway took off, parts unknown. End of story."
    "I don't know why I did it."
    "Three thousand came in handy for your paper, didn't it?"
    Max flushed, stared into his glass. "Maybe it was wrong to take it. Maybe it was. I just wanted to put it all behind me. I was trying to start something here. I didn't know him that well, not really, and he was gone. We couldn't change that, so it didn't seem to matter. And you said, you said how there'd be an investigation if we told anyone we'd been up there, that he'd died up there."
    "There would've been. The drugs would've come out, Max, you know it. You couldn't afford another drug bust. You couldn't afford to have the cops wondering if you—if either of us—had been responsible for his death. However he died, that's still true, isn't it?"
    "Yes. But now—"
    "I had to defend myself. He came at me with the knife. He came at me. He said the mountain needed a sacrifice. I tried to get away; I couldn't. I grabbed the ax and . . ." He cupped his hands around the mug, pretended to drink. "Oh, God."
    "It was self-defense. I'll back you up."
    "How? You weren't there."
    Max gulped down whiskey as a bead of sweat trickled down his temple. "They're bound to find out we went up there. There's an investigation. Cops are involved now, and we can't avoid it. They'll backtrack. Maybe they'll find the pilot who took us up."
    "I don't think so."
    "It looks like murder, and they'll dig. Dig enough and they'll identify us. People saw us with him in Anchorage. They might remember. It's better to come forward now, to give them the whole story, explain what happened. Before they charge one or both of us with murder. We've got reputations, positions, professions. Jesus, I've got Carrie and the kids to think of. I need to tell Carrie, to explain all this to her before we go to the police."
    "What do you think will happen to our reputations, our positions if this comes out?"
    "We can weather it, if we go to the police and tell them everything."
    "That's the way you want to play it?"
    "It's the way we have to play it. I've been thinking about this since they found him. I've been working it all out. We need to go to the cops before the cops come looking for us."
    "Maybe you're right. Maybe you are." He set the mug down, rose as if to pace back and forth behind Max's chair. He drew a glove out of his pocket, slid it onto his right hand. "I need a little more time. To think. To put things in order in case . . ."
    "Let's take another day." Max reached for the bottle again. "Give us both time. We'll go to Chief Burke first, get him behind us."
    "You think that'll work?" His voice was soft now, with a hint of amusement in it.
    "I do. I really do."
    "This works better for me." From behind, he grabbed Max's right hand, clamped his own over it on the butt of the gun. And hooking his left around Max's throat, jammed the barrel to his temple. His old