Читать книгу Wedding Captives - Cassie Miles - Страница 12

Beyond the carved stone entryway to Castle in the Clouds, the shadows of a winter night bled and puddled along the edges of the snow-packed pathway. Rolling clouds churned across the face of the full moon and obscured the glimmer of starlight. The cloaking darkness suited the purposes of Gregory Rosemont, the owner of this stately manor situated on a high crest surrounded by glacial Colorado peaks. He was not ready to reveal himself. His flashlight beam hardly penetrated the tapestry of icy haze, yet he strode with confidence. He knew every inch of this rugged mountaintop, every stone, every tree. He had memorized the cliffs and precipices that isolated the castle, making it accessible only by a ten-person ski gondola hung from a tensile steel cable.

His light shone against the walls of the gondola house, constructed from locally quarried granite to match the crenellated ramparts. Tomorrow, the gondola car would make its last ascent. Tomorrow, he would mount his final revenge.

For years, he had arranged this event with compulsive attention to detail. He had amassed a fortune to finance his goal. And now, his plan was perfect, an exacting test for the remorseless specimens of humanity who were to be his guests.

Inside the gondola house, he slipped the backpack from his shoulders, took out his tools and went to work. Ignoring the huge metal cogs and wheels necessary to haul the weight of the car, he concentrated on a precision piece of machinery that would slice through the cable at exactly the right moment to send the gaily painted gondola car plummeting hundreds of feet into the chasm below.

In his vivid imagination, he heard the shattering of the fiberglass car, torn by jagged teeth of stone. Tomorrow, the screams of terror would echo endlessly against the cold, unforgiving mountains. It would be a spectacular crash.

As he adjusted the coils, the spring-loaded severing mechanism squealed, metal against metal. The gloves he wore to ward off the sub-zero chill impeded his efforts, but he was glad for the cold, the promise of snowfall. A January blizzard would hamper any rescue attempt.

His task completed, he allowed himself a smug grin. He’d thought of everything, left nothing to chance.

As he hiked back along the path, moonlight spilled through a break in the clouds, illuminating the turrets and sculpted ramparts of the fanciful medieval-style castle. The only light shone from the high window of the bridal suite above.