Double Black Diamond
about myself. Less than an hour ago I’d said I wouldn’t. But how could I get her to trust me unless we got to know each other a little? She needed to talk, and I needed to find out why she was sitting alone in the dark on a frozen hill.“My mother’s people are mutts. My grandmother did one of those genetic ancestry tests, and we’re mostly British, German, and French on that side.”
“And what about your dad?”
“He was Italian—Rossi.”
She stared like she was trying to read something printed on my face. “Was?”
“Is, I guess. I don’t really talk to him. He left a long time ago.”
She frowned. “I’m sorry. That must have been incredibly hard.”
“Not really. I don’t have many memories of him. And I had my grandma and my mom—well, until a few years ago when she died.”
“Your mother died?” Veena sounded shocked.
“No, my grandmother.”
After Dad took off, Mom and I had moved in with Gram, who’d retired in Vegas. The cancer had been diagnosed soon after the night that pushed me down this CPO path . . . but I wasn’t about to go into all of that right now with my client.
“Do you spend a lot of time with your parents?” I asked. “You’re an only child, right?”
Her braid swished against the back of her coat as she nodded. “I see them whenever I can. They come watch me compete, and I go home for holidays and at least a month in the summer. That’s my break—although I still have to hit the gym every day.”
“Is that strange? Living away from your parents and traveling so much and everything?” There were days I’d wanted to get away from my mother the last few years, but I couldn’t imagine leaving home for good at fourteen, like Veena had.
“Yeah, it’s different, I guess. I miss them.”
“And your friends back home, too, I bet.”
“I don’t have many friends in California anymore. I’m never there.” Her chin slumped to her chest. But a moment later she shook her head and shoulders, like a bird shaking off snow. “But I love riding and competing, and I have Ali and Gage, and some friends on the pro tour. We all go to the same places to compete, so we get to know each other. Only—”
I nudged her with my shoulder when she didn’t go on. “What?”
“I’m a lot younger than most of them.”
“Yeah? How old are they?”
“Ali and Gage are eighteen. A lot of the others on the tour are over twenty.”
I whistled. “Ancient.”
“Right?” A smile hung in her voice.
“So, you actually like riding around in this halfpipe thing?” I peered down between my feet. The sheer drop made me feel a little woozy. Of course, I still hadn’t eaten anything since the hospital crackers. Doctor Super-Fit would not be happy. “I watched some videos of you. You’re incredibly good.”
She wiggled a little on the deck. “If you want, you can come out tomorrow afternoon and watch me! Hopefully we’ll get a few inches of powder tonight.”
I shivered. I couldn’t believe snow wasn’t already falling. It was colder than a middle school girl with a grudge out here.
“How did you get into”— I waved my arm around—“all this, anyway?”
“A friend of mine in elementary school. Her dad wanted her to learn, but she didn’t want to be in class alone. She begged him to take me with them to Tahoe. We went almost every weekend for a full season. She quit, but I fell in love.” She laughed—an infectious sound. “I’ll bet my parents wish they’d never let me go with them.”
“Why?”
She snorted. “Um, they’re Indian.”
“Yeah? So?”
She shrugged. “Indian parents generally aren’t super excited about athletics. Being sporty is fine and all, but they want me to get a good education. Become a doctor or engineer or something solid like that, like my dad did. I get where they’re coming from, but I think I can do both. That’s what I tell them, anyway.” She turned toward me, tucking a boot up under her. “You know they wanted some old guy to follow me around campus every day? I said no way. I wanted someone younger, and I wanted a female. When I saw your picture, I knew you were perfect.”
Veena picked me? Brown never said that. Warmth filled my chest.
“Thanks for that. Seriously. This is a big deal for me.” We smiled at each other, and I figured I’d mended the fence well enough to jump it now.
“Veena, what’s the matter? Why are you . . . out here right now?” And how was she so oblivious to the cold? My teeth chattered.
Her long, slow breath curled in front of us. When it disappeared, she answered in a whisper.
“They threatened me again.”
I sat up straight. “What? When? Again?”
Her free heel kicked against the wall, and she hunched inside her coat. “The first one was a text. Last week. They sent a picture of . . . something bloody. Like raw meat. They said that’s what I’d look like if my dad didn’t give them what they want.” A tear glistened on her cheek.
“Why didn’t you tell your parents?” I would have heard if she had.
“I didn’t want them to find out. They already want me to go home where I’d be safer.” She sniffed, and her voice dropped again. “Then I got a DM on Instagram tonight. It was an animated GIF of a girl tied up with a rope. A clock ticked down, and she . . . exploded. I freaked out and ran up here. It’s my happy place.”
I understood her impulse to run away. But her happy place was perched on an ice wall on an ass-freezing night?
“I don’t want to go home, Nic,” she said. “Being an Olympian is my dream, and I’m so close. No Indian women have medaled in the Winter Games before. Did you know that?”
“Yeah, I did,” I said. She looked at me questioningly. “I read it in People.”
She laughed, but it was