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way.
    “Everything’s wrong—the air smells different, your clothes feel different, your food tastes different.
If
you can manage food at all.” He paused, struggling, dissatisfied with what he’d just said. “At the top, your brain doesn’t work. Taking one step feels like running a marathon.”
    “I had to walk around a dead body,” Steele’s voice floated like smoke from her shadowy corner. “My brain was telling me to cry, but all I could think about was getting up, getting down, getting away.”
    “Getting down is the hard part,” Reynolds said.
    “That’s what got Bright.” Steele.
    “We’ve no idea what got Bright,” Reynolds snapped, then refocused on me. “The last we saw her, we were going down and she was heading up.”
    “Why didn’t you climb together?” I asked, nothing in my voice.
    “Elon turned back at Kangshung Face. He was feeling awful.” Steele’s pale face was all eyes and trembling mouth. “We lost Bright at the top of the Hillary Step. She—”
    Reynolds cut in. “That’s a twelve-meter vertical face. The last challenge before the summit. Everyone has to ascend with fixed ropes, and it can turn into a bottleneck. But not that day.” Reynolds swallowed. Drew a deep breath. “Bright was ahead of us.”
    “Always,” Steele interjected.
    “She stayed at the top to help another climber who was ascending behind us.”
    “We kept on and made the summit just before turnaround.”
    “Turnaround?”
    “You have to head down by two P.M. or you can’t make it back to camp by dark.”
    I nodded understanding.
    “Above eight thousand meters you need supplemental oxygen all the time. You can’t bivouac that high because you’ll run out. We each had just enough to summit and return.” Reynolds sounded defensive.
    “We only stayed at the top ten minutes.” Steele’s saucer eyes were haunted. “No one stays longer than that.”
    “Dial back the drama, Dara.” Reynolds gave a tight shake of his head. “On the way down we passed Bright, about a hundred meters below the peak.”
    “With a guide?” I asked.
    “You kidding? We were too cool for guides.”
    The voice came down hard from outside our booth.
    Startled, we all turned.

Chapter 5
    The man was bearded and sinewy tall, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders. Holey tee underneath. Boots. Startling green eyes. Uninvited, he dropped to the bench beside me. Assuming this was the tardy Damon James, I slid left to make room.
    Chilly nod to the new arrival, then Reynolds resumed his story.
    “We used a semi-independent or ‘supported’ company, as they’re called. Sherpas who provide tents, food, supplemental oxygen, fixed ropes. But no guides.”
    “Because we’re badass and can get ourselves up and down unassisted.” James was doing sardonic. Maybe his usual demeanor. “Bright’s choice. Or
The Heights
’s choice.” To me. “They told you about the climbers’ Holy Grail?”
    “They did.” Back to Reynolds. “So Brighton should have been able to summit by turnaround? She had thirty minutes to go ninety meters.” The length of a short home run. Three NBA courts. One football field.
    Just three sets of eyes, staring.
    James spoke first. “Doubtful.”
    “People don’t understand.” Steele, forward now, elbows on the table. “You’re dizzy all the time. Your brain doesn’t work. One morning I sat in my tent staring at boots for God knows how long, clueless which pair was mine. I had to rest twenty minutes between putting them on and tying the laces.”
    “Imagine climbing a thousand stairs, carrying fifty pounds of gear, breathing only through a cocktail straw,” said Reynolds. “One step can take ten minutes. The rule is to never exceed sixty percent of your physical capacity.”
    “Which is near zero up there,” offered James.
    “The rule is to turn around by two P.M. ,” Steele repeated, moving toward petulance.
    “Rules meant nothing to Bright.” From