"It'll be a few more days before he feels like his old self, but I believe he is going to be fine," the doctor said. "I would like to leave the respirator on until tomorrow. He will probably go back to sleep soon and it's better to let the machine do all the work for now."

"But will he be off it tomorrow?" Laura asked.

The doctor nodded. "Yes. Go ahead in, but make sure he rests."

"We will," they chorused and went inside as the doctor went down the hall.

Upon entering, they saw Joe's eyes slightly open and he tried to smile at them. Laura reached his bed first and gave him a kiss on the cheek before brushing the hair off his forehead as she always did when either he or Frank were sick or in the hospital.

"It's good you're awake," Fenton said. "We have questions for you and you probably have some for us, but that can wait until tomorrow when you're stronger."

Joe shook his head and Frank asked, "What do you want?"

Joe slowly lifted his hand in the air and started spelling out letters with sign language. He and Frank had learned the spelling since a neighbor had been deaf and they wanted to include him when they played.

Frank watched Joe's fingers move shakily as he struggled to remember the sign for each letter. Frank said what Joe was spelling. "Wanted to know what saw of avalanche." Frank looked at their father. "Dad, I think Joe is trying to say that the people who did this to him thinks he saw something right before the avalanche."

Joe gave them all a thumbs up.

Knowing Joe needed to rest, but time was important, Fenton asked, "Do you remember what these guys looked like or how many there were?"

Joe spelled out again and Frank said, "Blindfolded. Couple people at least."

Joe dropped his hand to the bed and they all noticed he was tired.

"Go ahead and get some sleep," Laura said. "We'll be here when you wake up."

Joe nodded slightly and his eyes closed. Once they were sure he was asleep, Frank said, "Dad, I really think the people who did this think we saw something before the avalanche occurred."

"What do you recall?"

"We were outside the lodge and saw two helicopters circle the lodge and then head toward the mountain. They seemed to hover at the mountain and there were two bright flashes then the snow came."

"Can you remember what the helicopters looked like?" Fenton asked quickly. "Do you remember the paint scheme?"

Frank struggled to remember the colors, but couldn't. "Dad, I don't know. It's possible that if I saw it again, I could." Frank let out a sigh. "I'm sorry, Dad."

"Don't be," Fenton said clamping a hand on his shoulder. "You have given me something to look at."

"What's that?" Frank asked, confused. He didn't think there was anything they could do.

"Get some photos of some of the helicopters in the vicinity and see if any of them jog your memory," Fenton stated matter-of-factly.

Fenton came back an hour later with some photos of helicopters taken at the local airport. He showed some to Frank.

After going through the photos, Frank came upon the second to last one. "This is one of them," Frank said excitedly.

"Are you sure?" Fenton asked, shocked.

"Yeah, why who does it belong to?" Frank asked, not liking the look on his father's face.