Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Set

here.”
    “How much farther is the lodge?” asked Maura.
    “According to Lola, it’s another twenty-five miles,” said Doug.
    “It’s been almost thirty miles since we left the gas station.”
    “Yeah. We’re about smack dab in the middle.”
    “Wow,” said Arlo. “We couldn’t have planned it better.”
    “Arlo,” said Elaine, “shut up.”
    “But the thirty miles we just drove is mostly downhill from here,” said Doug. “That makes it easier.”
    Arlo stared at him. “We’re gonna walk thirty miles in a snowstorm?”
    “No. You’re going to stay here with the women. You can allclimb back in the truck and stay warm. I’ll pull my cross-country skis off the roof and ski out for help.”
    “It’s too late,” said Maura.
    “I can do it.”
    “It’s already noon. You have only a few hours of daylight, and you can’t ski in the dark. You could fall right off the mountain.”
    “She’s right,” said Elaine. “You’d need a whole day, maybe two, to make it that far. And the snow’s so deep, it’ll slow you down.”
    “I got us into this. I’m going to get us out.”
    “Don’t be an idiot. Stay with us, Doug.”
    But he was already wading back into the ditch to pull his skis off the roof rack.
    “Man, I’ll never say anything bad about meat sticks again,” muttered Arlo. “I should’ve bought a few. At least it’d be protein.”
    “You can’t go, Doug,” said Elaine. “Not this late in the day.”
    “I’ll stop when it gets dark. Build a snow cave or something.”
    “Do you know how to build a snow cave?”
    “How hard can it be?”
    “You’re going to freeze to death out there.”
    “Daddy, don’t.” Grace stumbled down into the ditch and grabbed his arm, pulling him away from the skis.
“Please.”
    Doug looked up at the adults standing in the road, and his voice rose to a shout of frustration. “I’m trying to
fix
things, okay? Don’t you see that? I’m trying to get us out of here, and you’re not making it any easier for me!”
    His outburst startled them and they all fell silent, shivering in the cold. The seriousness of their predicament was starting to sink in.
We could die out here
.
    “Someone’s going to come by, right?” said Elaine, glancing at her companions for reassurance. “I mean, this is a public road, so there’ll be a snowplow or something. We can’t be the only ones driving on it.”
    “Have you seen anyone?” said Arlo.
    “It’s not that far off the beaten track.”
    “Look at the snow. It’s already a foot and a half deep and getting deeper. If they were going to plow it, they would have done it by now.”
    “What are you saying?”
    “This must be a seasonal road,” said Arlo. “That’s why it isn’t on the map. That damn GPS sent us on the shortest route, all right—straight over a mountain.”
    “Eventually someone’s going to come by here.”
    “Yeah. In the spring. You remember that story a few years ago, about the family in Oregon who got stuck in the snow? They thought they were on a major road and ended up in the middle of nowhere. No one went looking for
them
. A week later, the man decides to walk out to save his family. And he freezes to death.”
    “Shut up, Arlo,” said Doug. “You’re scaring Grace.”
    “He’s scaring
me
,” said Elaine.
    “Elaine, I’m just trying to impress upon you that this is not something Dougie here can just blithely fix for us,” said Arlo.
    “I know that,” said Elaine. “You think I don’t know that?”
    Wind gusted across the road, sending snowflakes whirling into their faces. Maura blinked against the sting. When she opened her eyes again, everyone was standing in exactly the same place, as though paralyzed by the cold, by despair. As a fresh gust blasted them, she turned to shield her face. Only then did she see the fleck of green, vivid against the relentless background of white.
    She started toward it, wading up the road through snow that sucked at her boots, miring her in its grip.
    “Maura, where are you going?” said Doug.
    She kept walking, even as Doug continued to call out to her. As she moved closer, she saw that the patch of green was a sign, its face half obscured by clinging snow. She brushed away the flakes.
    PRIVATE ROAD
RESIDENTS ONLY
AREA PATROLLED
    So much snow had fallen that she could not see any pavement, only a narrow alley that cut into the trees and twisted away through the heavy screen of woods. A chain was draped across the