Your sister died in an avalanche three years ago. This morning she is on the start list for Norway.
You are the US biathlon team's physical therapist, and you know every racer by her walk. Today a Norwegian racer walks past with your dead sister's stride. Her coach will not let you near her.
9:40 a.m. in Hochfilzen, Austria, twenty minutes before the women's race. Your thumbs are working a hot, tight calf on the bench.
A racer in a red Norway suit walks past with your sister's stride. Romy died in an avalanche three years ago.
Hit: the soft left foot. Hit: the double tap of her pole and the scar over her left eyebrow. The start list says Astri Vollan.
Her coach steps between you like a wall. Up in the stands, a man in a fleece you know is filming her.
You fix sore muscles for the US biathlon team. On the day of the avalanche, Romy called you at 5 a.m. You were angry with her, and you let it ring.
Norway's new star racer: tall, lean, white-blond hair with brown roots, a thin scar over the left eyebrow, a red race suit, a rifle on her back.
Norway's head coach: broad, weathered pale skin, a short dark-blond beard, a black team jacket, a stopwatch on a cord, wind-cracked lips.
Someone at the federation taught you to look closer. Keep reading.
Someone from your own team is filming the racer in bib 14. Keep reading.
Your rookie's calf is only half done, and she is waiting. Keep reading.
Rifle cracks bounce off the mountain, and the air smells of cold metal and ski wax.
Your pass opens the US cabin, the range and the warm-up track, never the Norway wax cabin. Get caught past the line and you are sent home.
You can read an old injury in ten steps, but only on flat ground, without skis. You can't unsee it, and people hate being read.
The World Cup is in a new town every week, and the teams pack up Sunday night. If she runs, you lose a week finding her.
You remember him falling tonight. He's alive, wearing the twin of your ring. At dawn, the Queen announces your engagement.
Four witnesses you relocated this year were found within a week, and only your files knew where. Your last one testifies in thirty days.
You know four hundred poisons by heart. The one killing you isn't one of them. Fourteen days to name it.
Your bodyguard has saved you twice this week. Tonight you find the other contract in his jacket, signed before you met.
