Jonathan Hamilton pulled up short at a ridge and scanned the area with his binoculars

Jonathan Hamilton pulled up short at a ridge and scanned the area with his binoculars. One of the other members of the search party pulled up next to him and waited for him to finish looking around. They had been out since dawn, but nobody had seen the slightest hint of them anywhere. Now a light snow was falling and their tracks were going to be gone within a few minutes.

Jonathan put down the binoculars and looked at Craig. "Not a damn thing," he commented. This was driving him nuts. What happened? He was supposed to be teaching Heather how to ski right now, not hunting all over the mountains for her. Rescuing the damsel in distress was cool in books, but this was ridiculous. He'd done ski rescue before, and normally the person was found rather quickly. Of course shooting had preceded this disappearance, and Ms. Miller was gone as well, so who knew what happened.

Jonathan and Craig started off again. Jonathan was thankful for all the skiing experience he had now. His parents had divorced when he was ten. The papers were signed in October and his mother remarried in December. His father decided to take his mistress to Europe for the holidays, and his mother had decided to go to the Caribbean with her new husband. Both of them were trying to get Jonathan to go with them to show that they were the better parent and Jonathan loved them more.

Jon was tired of being a pawn in their petty games. They had been like this for as long as he could remember and he was flat out sick of it. When Uncle Bret and Aunt Lynn invited him to spend the holidays with them in Utah, he'd jumped at the chance. They didn't have any children of their own and treated him like he was their own. He started to ski that winter, and Uncle Bret said he had talent at it. After that holiday, Jon started spending as much time as possible with his uncle and aunt and up on the slopes.

During the summer, they started to hold training in search and rescue. It was easier to learn techniques when you made your own snow, so they'd start in the summer. That winter Jon fully qualified in search and rescue. At fourteen he was extremely young, but he passed every test, so he was certified. That had been over a year ago. As soon as it was announced Heather was missing, he had volunteered to go out. There was a lot of ground to cover, and they didn't care he was barely sixteen. They needed everyone possible out searching.

Jon and Craig skied a little further. The snow was getting heavier, and they didn't want to get stuck anywhere. Jon thought of Heather and shivered. Where could she be? She was probably terrified wherever she was. He was used to the mountains. She wasn't. What if she fell? She could get hurt. No, he was going to rescue her. They knew that a snowmobile was missing. Maybe she had walked into a theft in progress? Had she been kidnapped so she couldn't tell? Why was Ms. Miller missing as well then? Too many questions. He wanted answers.

He stopped and did another scan, stopping suddenly when a winking caught his attention. There was something metallic down a ridge. It could be a snowmobile. He and Craig took off in the right direction, sliding through some tricky slopes to get there. The hit the landing, and looked over the side. Fifty feet down there was a snowmobile, but nobody was on it, or around it. It wasn't one of the resorts. Jon grabbed the binoculars while Craig called in the find. He surveyed the area, his heart freezing at the glint of gold in the snow. He zoomed in the binoculars, and could see it very clearly.

It was something he could never forget. He'd seen that charm bracelet bouncing a thousand times on her elegant wrist. He couldn't stare at Heather, so he would look at the bracelet, trying to imagine what each charm meant. Would she wear one that he gave her? He had wanted to ask her out so much. He'd decided that he was going to ask her out so that he could get her a charm for Christmas. If she wore it, that would mean they were exclusive. Now the bracelet was lying forgotten in the snow.

Craig tapped him on the shoulder. He looked freaked. "Check out that rock," he said, pointing. Jon saw the red splash that was frozen to it. All search and rescue people knew what frozen blood looked like. Craig bent, and brushed away some of the snow near the rock. There was more blood on the snow underneath.

"Heather's bracelet is down there," Jon said. "She fell over that ridge, but she's not down there now."

The two started to look around. Jon found a single bullet casing. He had gone hunting a few times and knew that this was not from a hunter's shotgun. Craig found something and picked it up, an explicative escaping his throat.

"What the hell is a flash grenade doing here?" he asked, holding up the broken canister.

Jon could see everything falling into place. Heather was rich. She had been kidnapped obviously. She tried to get away, and they had done something to knock her off the snowmobile. Maybe she had gotten away with one of theirs. She had been hurt when she fell. There was a lot of blood, but she could still be alive. She had to be. And he was going to find her.