Page 30 of Mountain Challenge

"What's going on?" Ry asked, not meaning for his voice to sound as much as a growl as it did.

"I'm sorry, man." Alex ran a hand nervously through his reddish hair. “I wanted to catch you before you heard any of that. The complaint against you was lodged late last night. I only found out this morning.”

Ry’s mouth went dry. His skin felt tight all over. “Complaint? What complaint?” Except he already knew. The wordshanging upside downwere a strong enough hint. The hiker. Still, his mind refused to accept it.

“I know you saved his life, Ry,” Alex said.

Solid despair filled him. “But it’s not going to matter, is it?”

Suddenly, the door to the meeting room opened. The soft-spoken man came out first, wearing what looked to Ry like an ugly brown suit but might be the height of fashion, for all he knew. Ry hated dressing up, and his one and only suit had been gathering dust in the back of his closet for years.

The man—who might as well have the word lawyer tattooed on his forehead—looked pleased with himself. Behind him, Colonel Pelegrin and Beau exchanged a quick look. With a short—very short—nod at Ry, the colonel followed the lawyer out into the hallway. Beau waited until they’d both disappeared down the hallway before speaking.

“Come in and close the door, Ry.”

They weren’t the kind of outfit to speak behind locked doors. They all trusted each other implicitly, and in their line of work, it was important for everyone in the team to be up to date of what was going on. But Ry understood. This floor wasn’t just for the PGHM. They shared it with other areas of thegendarmerieas well.

Ry closed the door softly—he was too angry to risk doing it any other way— and stood ramrod straight behind one of the chairs across from Beau. His boss looked tired—really fucking tired. Ry didn’t need to ask to know his boss hadn’t gone home last night.

“Sit.”

Ry was tempted to stay standing, because standing seemed like the right way to receive bad news, and he could already tell this was going to be the worst fucking news. But he didn’t want to antagonize Beau, or make this any harder for him. None of this was Beau’s fault. So he pulled out a chair and sat. Across from him, Beau sat as well. “How much did you hear?”

Ry answered honestly. “Enough to know I’m in trouble. Not enough to know how bad it is.”

Beau sighed, running a hand through his thick dark hair. “Miles Getty, one of the hikers from the incident last week, has lodged a formal complaint.” He opened the folder in front of him and pushed a paper towards Ry. Ry scanned it quickly. His name was at the top, along with words he’d never imagined reading.Violence policière. Agression grave.

A big stack of pages followed—what looked like medical reports, a witness statement—a fucking witness statement, from the other hiker, the very same man who’d pushed Milesoffthe cliff—and a bunch of legal documents written in what looked to Ry like medieval French.

Jesus. The words on the paper blurred, and Ry knew he was seconds away from breaking down in front of his boss. He swallowed, forcing the tears back. “This is bullshit, Beau.” He hated the begging tone of his voice, but managed to hold his boss’s gaze. He couldn’t bear it if his boss didn’t believe him. “None of this is true. Hugo and I saved their lives.”

Beau’s eyes narrowed. “You think I don’t know that?” he growled, looking truly angry. “I know this is bullshit. So does the colonel.”

“He does?” Ry thought back to the short nod the man had given him earlier.

“We all do. And we’re going to fight this.”

Ry breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, the PGHM would rally around him. That’s what they did.

“But that doesn’t take away from the seriousness of the situation,” Beau continued. “There is a process to be followed, and we will do this by the book.”

Ry nodded. He knew what was at stake. The PGHM did vital work in the Three Valleys area, but it was work nobody seemed to think of until it was needed. The rest of the time, as well as fighting against mother nature and adversity, they also had to fight bureaucracy, and the constant threat to cut their funding.Ry didn’t deal with that shit, since it was above his pay grade, but he wasn’t an ostrich, either. He knew what was going on. And he wasn’t going to let the department get hurt because of him. If things got bad enough, he would resign. He would quit the team and … and what? Where would he go? Everything he’d been working for was here. But he couldn’t let the team get hurt. He couldn’t let his bad luck haunt the PGHM as well. Maybe he should resign now, today, maybe he should?—

“Whatever you’re thinking, Ry, stop.”

Ry arched an eyebrow. There was no way his boss knew what he was thinking.

Beau sighed. “How long have we been working together? I know exactly what you’re thinking, and you need to stop now. We’re going to fight this—all of us together—the way we do everything else.”

“What’s going to happen to me?”

Beau’s jaw clenched tight.He doesn’t want to say it. “I’m going to have to put you on leave, Ry. I’ll need your badge, and you need to go home. A team from Lyon will run the investigation. We’ll make sure it’s done right.”

Ry nodded. He knew Beau and the team would leave no stone left unturned. Hugo had witnessed most of what happened—and he was a more credible witness than that druggie who’d pushed his friend into the abyss.Except you don’t want to drag Hugo into this. Relief hit Ry, then, that only his name had been on the paper. Hugo was clear for now, and they had to keep it that way.

“I don’t want Hugo involved.”

Beau’s eyes narrowed. “He’s your witness, Ry.”

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