Cold Snow: A Legal Thriller (7 page)

A defining issue, he reasoned, was whether the kid was heading north or south on I-81. South meant Ordoñez would be hunting in familiar territory, southern New York, northern Pennsylvania. Since he'd been working out of New York City, he'd been contracted for several jobs in that area of the countryside.

A northern trek would be more of a problem. If Alex headed north, he would either go through Vermont and New Hampshire, which was unlikely since it diverged from the interstate; or he would take the more practical route and cross into Canada.

Ordoñez was wholly unfamiliar with the landscape of Canada, only having worked in the cities. His Canadian employers, who didn't operate in the wilderness much, assigned him several jobs in Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, and so forth. This kid, however, probably knew his geography, and would take the Transit, cutting into the landscape to hide. Canada would be tough.

Even so, Ordoñez brought equipment for that eventuality. A man in his line of work had to be able to anticipate everything.

Soon, I'll be able to hunt,
he reminded himself.
Soon. Very, very soon.

Henry Machry beat a quick path to his office, ignoring anybody who stopped to greet them and trying not to make eye contact. He prayed that he had the right book.

Opening the door to his office, he made a beeline for his bookshelf, scanning the phone book titles.
Where is it…Woodsbrook…Albany…New York City!

Heaving the tome off of its shelf, he opened it on the desk, looking through the "O" section. Ordaz, Ordiway, Ordner—Ordoñez! There was only one listed, Alberto, 555-4891.

His palms sweating, praying Ordoñez didn't have Caller ID, Machry dialed the number. The phone rang—once, twice, three times, four times. Finally, the answering machine picked up, and Machry readied his fake accent. The recorded message began to play.

"Nice try," the machine said, "but finding me will be a little bit harder than that."

CHAPTER 5

Niagara

Alex awoke with a start.

He had been dreaming. In the dream he had been in the same place he was now, asleep beside the highway, Jake and Sarah near him. Suddenly he had seen them moving away, as if being pulled by something invisible, and he tried to grab them, but he couldn't move his arms. He called out, but he was silenced by another force, and the thing pulling his companions away laughed, a cold and merciless laugh.

Knives, no, swords of cold pierced through his coat as he struggled to gather his thoughts. Reaching for his backpack, he took a swig from his water bottle and tried to forget his dream. A feeling of foreboding, however, had settled over his thoughts, and he couldn't shake it.
It's nothing
, he reminded himself,
I don't buy into this stuff anyway
.

The night before, they had been lucky enough to find a small alcove in the side of a hill, shielded from the road and snow and just large enough to accommodate their equipment (Sarah would have to sleep on the ground, until they found someplace where Alex would grudgingly buy her a sleeping bag).

Leaving the campsite, Alex walked to the top of the nearest hill and exhaled deeply, his breath dancing in front of him before vanishing into the mist. He gazed out across the hills, then down the interstate, contemplating their journey.
Beautiful,
he thought.
At least we're not in Kansas. Nothing but grass for miles.

He checked his watch. The face was covered in frost, but he could make out the digital reading—6:32. Early enough to wake up. He beat a path through the snow back to the alcove.

"Alex, what the hell…" Jake turned over. "What time is it?"

"Time to get going. We barely got 15 miles yesterday. We'll never get to Niagara at this rate."

Jake threw some snow at his face. It melted on contact.

"I'm awake," he said, taking the backpacks and walking towards the road.

"Sarah!" Alex nudged her with his foot. "We have to get going if we're going to make 20 miles today."

"20 miles? Can't we take a break?"

"No. 20 miles a day will get us there in no time."

"Hey, Alex," Jake called from the roadside. "I just took inventory. We need more money."

"Damn it. How much do we have?"

"Forty-five bucks."

"What!? We've stopped in three towns to buy food. That cost a hundred and fifty-five dollars?"

"You budgeted for two people. We have three."

Alex shot daggers at Sarah, and started to walk.

Three miles out of Niagara, Anthony lit another cigarette.

The smoke filled his lungs, superficially calming him. He sat against a tree and tried to relax.

He'd been out here every week for three years. Perhaps it just didn't have the same effect anymore.

His parents never really seemed to care that he vanished down the interstate weekly. Then again, they didn't care that he chain-smoked or painted graffiti either.

Maybe,
he thought,
maybe I go here because expect something to happen. It's not like anything happens in Niagara anyway.
The town had been his home for years, and the falls finally bored him.

Once, he had stolen a boat, and after a long joyride around the Niagara River, he weighted the throttle and sent the boat over the falls. That was the only time he'd been in jail, as well as the most fun he'd ever had in the town. His parents, as usual, had not cared.

He tossed his cigarette and lit another.
Here's hoping this place does its job.

Alex loved to walk, even so much that it didn't bore him to do it for hours on end. Jake and Sarah obviously didn't, but they never griped. Anything becomes easy if you do it enough.

He'd reached a rhythm, so that his feet stepped without having to think. Once you can do this, you can walk as far as you want to.

Walking on autopilot, for miles in the same direction, gave him time to think. They'd have to do some work in the next few towns if he was going to get to Manitoba without hitchhiking. It was too bad he'd be losing Jake in Niagara, but he'd send letters.

He wondered what Sarah would do once he left her on the other side of the river. Considering the tax she had been imposing on their supplies, he had to admit that he didn't particularly care.

"Alex." He turned and saw Jake walking next to him. "I just want to know. Why are you being so hard on Sarah?"

"Because she's ruining my plan."

"You didn't seriously think this whole thing would go strictly according to the blueprint?"

"As opposed to what? The plan is perfect."

"And yet you say it's being ruined. This is the biggest gamble any of us have ever made. It's nothing to be taken lightly. The slightest hitch could tip the balance."

"Look how we're doing already." Alex produced the marked map from his pocket. "Niagara's in ten miles."

"You've got to
think
about this, Alex. No plan is ever foolproof."

"Go to hell, Jake."

Anthony heard his assailant approaching earlier than the man probably wanted him to.

He knew who the man was. That wasn't the problem. The problem was the knife in his right hand and the "I'm going to kill you" scowl on his face.

Watching him, Anthony silently dared him.
Come on. Come and get me.

When there were five yards between them, Anthony called out. "I know what you want."

"Then
give it to me
, Andrews!" He flicked his knife. "I'm not here to play games."

"I think we have time for one," Anthony said, taking a long draw on his cigarette. "You go first."

Enraged, the man ran at him, knife drawn. He struck Anthony to the ground, raising his weapon, prepared for a kill. Anthony reacted in a flash, rising from the snow and striking his assailant on the shoulder. The man began jabbing his knife wildly, scraping Anthony's side. Cursing with pain, Anthony staggered backwards, bracing himself against a tree. The man moved toward him with his knife drawn.

Five feet was all that separated Anthony from death now. He fought to hold himself higher. Three feet away from the knife, he prepared his counterattack.

They'd stopped for a rest, five miles from Niagara, and Sarah broke off from the group to go over what she knew.

It's no secret that Alex doesn't want me here, she thought. If I move one more iota away from his plan, he'll ditch me for sure. I need to figure this out quickly.

She only had one clue: the small morsels of information from Edbrough's office. The events of the last two days had obscured the documents in her mind.

Struggling to remember, she came up with two names that had been clumsily blacked out. From the parts she could see, she'd made out the first name, Mr. Charles Johnson. She went over all the people she'd met and all the important figures she'd read about in her life. Charles Johnson didn't fit anywhere. The second was harder to figure out, as it had been blacked over with certainty, as if Edbrough had suddenly realized what he was doing halfway through the task. William…she couldn't recall. The surname had been fully hidden.

Suddenly, she realized that the documents had been in Edbrough's shredder for a purpose other than making his job easier.

"Sarah!" Alex yelled. "Let's go! We have to move quickly if we want to get to Niagara before dark."

He turned to Jake, smiling. "We'll be sleeping in beds tonight."

"Give me a break. We have no money."

"Leave it to me, Jake. If you take the right steps, any town is a goldmine."

Two feet from an uncomfortable fate, Anthony thrust his foot into the man's stomach.

His assailant went sailing backwards, hitting the ground hard. The knife flew through the air and lodged in the side of the tree. Anthony casually retrieved it. The instrument that could have killed him was now his to command.

He raised it, intending to drive it deep into the man's chest. Suddenly, though, unpleasant memories of the last time he had murdered a man came flooding back. He dropped the knife. He had killed once, and had no intention of doing it again.

He kicked the man, just to see if he would get a reaction. Nothing—he was probably unconscious.

"Come talk to me anytime. You'll get nothing out of me."

"Here it is, everyone!" Alex exclaimed. "Niagara!" He exhaled deeply. "City of opportunity."

"Forgive my prying," Sarah asked, "but what exactly are we going to do here with forty-five dollars?"

"Just follow my lead."

They stopped to drink under a large sign, proclaiming
Niagara, Capital of the Falls, Pop. 6041
.

Jake gestured toward the horizon. "There are plenty of bigger towns over that way. The highway leads into them. Why didn't we go into one of those? It would have saved two hours of traipsing over those miserable back roads."

"My reason for doing that should have been obvious. Big cities mean more people. More people means more people who might have read about us on page thirteen. And that means?"

"More people who could identify us as illegal runaways," Jake said, grasping the idea.

"Illegal runaways carrying a gun," Sarah chimed in.

Alex scowled. "Will you kindly
shut up
about that? It's a safety precaution. I don't intend to actually
use
it. Now, this town," he pointed at the sign, "has less than a thousand people. It's likely that there's no newspaper, except maybe a monthly one. No chance we'll be spotted."

"Let's go, then," Sarah said. "No sense sitting around here."

Compared to the neighboring cities of Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake, the town bearing the simple name of Niagara is tiny and doesn't have much of an effect on anyone's affairs. Walking through "downtown" liberally broadcasted this to Alex, Jake and Sarah. Rife with restaurants, hotels, and sports rental stores, Niagara was most definitely a tourist-oriented town. Just as Alex had planned, nobody would give them the time of day.

At Alex's request, they stopped in a diner called the Niagara Grill, where they liberally spent their last forty-five dollars. Jake and Sarah were skeptical.

In between bites, Jake asked, "Are you sure we should be spending this much money?"

"It's all part of the plan," Alex said.

"What plan!?"

Surprised, Alex and Jake exchanged glances, and then looked at Sarah. "We've been following your lead for days now," she said, narrowing her eyes. "You've gotten us stuck in Niagara, with," she glanced at the check, "twenty-six dollars, and nothing short of breaking the law to get us anywhere else."

Sarah got up. "From now on, I can fend for myself! I thought I needed help to get out of Woodsbrook, but…you've given me no help! In fact, you've practically outcast me! Because of your worthless schemes, I'm in a
worse
position than before I met you. Goodbye!"