Race with Danger (Run for Your Life Book 1) (20 page)

Tonight, when I say good night to the world, I will tell the stars that am grateful for finding a friend so excellent that we can trust each other with our lives.

~ END OF BOOK ONE ~

Acknowledgements

I owe a big THANK YOU and hug to the following readers, whose excellent advice helped to shape RACE WITH DANGER:

Jeanine Clifford, astute reader/reviewer

Robert L. Slater, author of
The Deserted Lands series

Eireann Carter, reader extraordinaire

Sara Stamey
, author of
Islands

Virginia Herrick
, most excellent Professional Editor

Books by Pamela Beason

The Neema Mysteries

THE ONLY WITNESS

THE ONLY CLUE

The Summer Westin Mysteries

ENDANGERED

BEAR BAIT

UNDERCURRENTS

The Langston Green Romantic Suspense Series

SHAKEN

BOOK 2 – COMING SOON

Nonfiction E-books

SO YOU WANT TO BE A PI?

SAVE YOUR MONEY, YOUR SANITY, AND OUR PLANET

Keep up with Pam on
http://www.pamelabeason.com

The sequel to Race with Danger is in the works. Here’s a preview of Chapter 1.

Ski to Sea. Anyone who has ever spent much time in the town of Bellingham, Washington knows that name. Ski to Sea is a one-of-a-kind 93-mile race from the North Cascades to Bellingham Bay on Memorial Day weekend. It’s the ultimate relay, with seven legs, each showcasing a different sport.

At the start, thousands of cross-country skiers stampede across the snow to complete a four-mile loop. They hand off to their downhill skiing or snowboarding teammates, who loop around the mountain for several miles until they reach the runners. The runners then dash down the switchbacking mountain highway for approximately eight miles to hand off to the road bikers, who then, after pedaling for forty-plus miles, pass the timing chip off to the canoe teams on the Nooksack River. The canoeists then paddle like crazy for nearly twenty miles to meet up with mountain bikers, who ride like maniacs on a course of around fourteen miles to Bellingham Bay. In the final leg, kayakers give it their all, paddling a five-mile course around buoys in windy Bellingham Bay.

The first kayaker to extract himself or herself from the cockpit at the landing site and run up the hill and ring the bell wins it for the team.

You might think that such an exciting contest would receive worldwide attention, but aside from athletes around the world that seek out such events, most people outside of Bellingham have never heard of Ski to Sea. I suspect that’s because A) the race is hard to film since the course is stretched out across the wilderness, but mainly because B) no corporation has yet found a way to make big money from Ski to Sea.

And, also because of B, there’s no monetary prize for the winners. Sometimes local companies cough up prizes like gift certificates for pizza, sports merchandise, and one year, even plane tickets, but it remains a race where athletes compete for fun, not for cash.

The race evolved from the original Mount Baker Marathon, which was a contest that started way back in 1911 for big prize money. It’s kind of hard to imagine the antiqueness of it all way back then, and of course it was all men in those dark ages. But what an adventure! Each competitor had to make it from Bellingham by train or car to the base of Mount Baker. Then he ran up the mountain and back down, connected with his transportation, and raced back to town. So although each team had a driver for those antique cars or an engineer for the train, there was only one athlete in those days. The first contestant back to the finish line in Bellingham won.

The original race was, needless to say, treacherous. Runners fell in crevasses, officials damn near froze to death on snowy mountain flanks, cars were wrecked, and a train was derailed when it hit a bull on the tracks. It was definitely the extreme endurance challenge of its day.

Having grown up in Bellingham, I always wanted to participate in the Ski to Sea race. In the modern version, each team consists of eight athletes, two for the canoe race and one for each of the other legs, and each athlete is allowed to compete in only one leg. The race is a lot safer these days, but perhaps not as exciting as the old days and definitely not as financially rewarding for the winner, although seeing all the different sports is uber-cool. Still, athletes and wannabes come from all over the world just for the fun of participating in Ski to Sea.

One Bellinghamster, Alexander Armand, has tried for the last decade to persuade the Ski to Sea organizers to allow a more extreme competition with just one athlete doing all seven legs of the race. Armand was always a bit of a local legend, because he’s Bellingham’s only Olympian athlete (marathon and hurdles) to date. He has skied, ran, biked, and paddled the whole course by himself four and three-quarters times. He never did it on race day—the officials prevented that—but always a couple of days afterward, with a handful of friends to schlep his bikes and canoe and kayak. He didn’t quite get to finish his fifth attempt because he dropped dead of a brain aneurism in the mountain bike section last year.

I was devastated to hear that news, because Armand is one of the few heroes I admire. When my time is up, I hope I depart the planet like he did, outdoors in nature, doing something I care about.

Anyhow, death has made Armand an even bigger local legend, and this year, as homage to him, the Ski to Sea Committee has agreed to allow ten extreme teams to participate. They couldn’t bring themselves (or more likely, their insurance advisors) to allow solo competitors like Armand wanted. Instead, each extreme team will consist of three athletes, who can divide up the seven legs anyway they want, with the caveat that no athlete can compete in more than three legs. The extreme teams will also have separate awards from the regular competitors. Everyone is excited to see if these smaller teams will make better time or if allowing them in the race will be a major disaster.

The organizers are thrilled that the addition of the extreme teams has finally attracted media attention. This year two television companies plan to have drones film the whole race for the very first time.

I am honored that I was asked to compete in the second position—running, road biking, canoeing—on the Way2Go Extreme Team. The email came a couple of months ago via my loyal sponsors, Dark Horse Networks. The message was from someone called JJ, captain of the Way2Go team, who said he knew my history in endurance racing. I don’t know this JJ, but if he’s one of the small group of fans who follows endurance racing, he would know my name. In the last year, I won the Women’s Division of the Patagonia Marathon and placed second in the Grand Canyon Challenge.

So, yes, cross-country running—I can do that in my sleep. As for biking, I don’t have a car, so I commute by bike the thirty-eight miles from my house to my job at the zoo on most days, so my legs are ready. Canoeing is new to me, and I’ve only been on a river three times, but I’m strong and my partner will surely have more experience.

I am nervous when I get off the train at the Amtrak Station in Bellingham. I pull my shawl forward to hide my face as I wait for the crew to unload my bicycle from the luggage car. With luck, I won’t look familiar to anyone. Since I fled from this place at the age of fourteen, I have aged four years, grown nearly five inches, gained thirty pounds, and completely reinvented myself.

Today, I am traveling under the name of Sunita Brown, although the invented name I use on a daily basis is Tanzania Grey. I am dressed in a salwar kameez—the uber-comfy tunic, pants, and shawl combo that many Asian women wear. I even pasted a bindi between my eyebrows. Traditional Hindu women wear red powder circles, but nowadays you can get all colors and shapes of bindis in little peel-off sticker packs. Today mine is a maroon velvet dot with a silver diamond on top. Quite attractive, if I do say so myself.

In combination with my bronze skin and dark hair I inherited from my white mother and black father, this costume instantly transforms me from an American teen into a young woman from India or Pakistan, not an uncommon sight in the hi-tech regions of northwest Washington.

I’m excited to be back in my home town. I’ve missed it terribly.

But I’m frightened, too. There’s always the chance that my race invitation is a setup. JJ might be luring me into a trap. And even if he’s not, there’s the possibility that my parents’ murderers will discover me here, at the scene of the crime.

~END OF PREVIEW~

If you’d like to be notified when the next book in the
Run for Your Life
series is available, please visit
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About the Author

Pamela Beason is the author of the Summer Westin Mysteries and the Neema Mysteries, as well as several romances and nonfiction books. She has received the Daphne du Maurier Award and the Chanticleer Book Reviews Grand Prize for her writing, as well as several other awards. Pam lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she gets out into the wilderness as often as she can.