Colder Than Ice (32 page)

“I want you to keep the electric blanket on him. His body temperature is still low. If he feels stronger in a couple of hours and wants to, a warm bath would be all right, but not yet, and when you do, don't make it too hot. He's too weak right now.”

“I washed the worst of the mud off him when we first got him home,” Beth said. “We had to strip off his wet clothes and dress him in warm dry ones anyway.”

“You did fine. The bath can wait till morning, if necessary. If he sleeps, don't wake him. Let him rest. Keep him warm. If he gets hungry, go with hot soup, hot tea, hot cocoa, that sort of thing.”

Beth was nodding, making mental notes.

Josh said, “Are you sure there's no other damage?”

“Pretty sure,” the doctor said. “But I'd still like to see him in my office just as soon as you can get him there. Call in the morning and make an appointment. I'll notify my secretary to make room whenever it's convenient for you. All right?”

“All right. Thank you, Doctor.”

Dr. Granger nodded. “Go ahead, go in and see him.”

When Dawn took a half step toward the door, Beth took her arm gently. “Let's let his dad have a few minutes with him first, hmm?”

Swallowing, looking impatient but understanding, Dawn nodded. “Sure.”

Josh sent Beth a thank-you with his eyes and walked into the bedroom to be with his son. Sighing, Dawn turned to face Beth. “So what are the cops and the Feds doing about Mordecai?”

Beth glanced toward the stairs. “They seem to be of the opinion that he's taken off again.”

Dawn's expressive blue eyes narrowed. “But you know better, right?”

Beth didn't answer. She didn't want to give Dawn any excuse to hang around here. As soon as morning came, she had to convince her that this was all over, and that it was time for her to go home.

“Beth, come on. You know him. Better than I do, better than anyone does. You know he won't give up until he's done whatever he came here to do.”

Beth licked her lips. “He may have decided to withdraw until all the excitement dies down.”

“Not when he thinks you're going back into hiding somewhere else.”

Beth drew her brows together and shot Dawn a look.

“I saw the paper. Heard the cops going off about it and took a look for myself. You were trying to force him to make a move.”

Beth shrugged. “Maybe I'm tired of hiding.”

“He hasn't gone anywhere, Beth. He's out there, somewhere, right now.” She looked past Beth at some invisible point of nothingness. “I can feel it.”

Heaving a sigh, Beth put a hand on Dawn's shoulder. “You never got your bath, did you?”

Dawn eyed her. “Changing the subject 'cause you can't argue and win?”

“Let's take a hot shower, hmm? You can use my bathroom and I'll use Josh's. We'll put on our thick socks and flannel nightgowns, and then we'll curl up by the fire downstairs with a pot of hot cocoa and some marshmallows, and we'll catch up.”

Dawn swallowed hard. “I have to see Bryan.”

“His dad's gonna be in there with him for a while. Besides, you don't want him to see you with berry briars in your hair and dirt on your face, do you?” As she asked the question, she reached out and plucked a stray twig from Dawn's hair. “We can be clean, dry, warm and fortified with cocoa in a half hour, tops. What do you say?”

Sighing, Dawn nodded. “Okay.”

 

Mordecai wrestled the old kerosene space heater down from the shelf on the wall, shook it and was amazed to hear sloshing in the bottom.

Why so surprised, Mordecai? Don't we always provide what you need? Don't we always sustain you?

He sighed, nodding. He had emergency gear in the car, of
course. Sleeping bag, a couple of changes of clothes and a stash of MREs. No space heater. Plenty of C-4, wire leads, ignition switches, two types of timers. No more primer cord—he'd used it all up rigging the house to go up in flames. He smiled to himself as he recalled how neatly it had worked. The flick of a button had ignited the flammable cord. He'd run it along the baseboards, through every room of the house. One spark, and the flame flared and traveled like a Fourth of July sparkler along the cord, along the baseboards. It ignited the curtains of each and every window. It traveled behind every piece of furniture, setting off the upholstery. It set the carpet to burning, as well, and within the space of five minutes, the place became an inferno. By the time anyone outside saw flames and dialed 911, the house was already beyond saving.

Mordecai had made certain there would be nothing left but ash.

His guides had told him how.

Just as they always told him what needed to be done. They took care of him, and he felt guilty for doubting them so much lately. But he'd been so obedient for so long, and it seemed the more he did, the more demanding they became. He was running himself ragged and still it wasn't good enough for them. He was beginning to wonder if anything ever would be. He was tired.

He had left the car two miles away, well hidden, and had hiked here with the supplies he needed in a backpack. Now he took a waterproof tin of matches from that backpack, struck one to life and touched it to the wick of the old heater. It caught, and it lit, but as the flames spread, thick, foul-smelling black smoke billowed from the thing.

Waving his hands, Mordecai rushed to one of the shed's rear
windows and struggled until he got it open. It faced away from the road, so it shouldn't draw any attention. There was a shelf beneath it, lined with old paint cans currently serving as containers for various items like screws, nuts, bolts, broken tools and unidentifiable bits of hardware.

He waited, because he knew he was supposed to. Eventually the old part of the heater's wick burned away and the smoke stopped spewing. He should have trimmed the wick first. Idiot. Still, it was working all right now.

He set to work making himself comfortable, clearing a space amid the clutter in the place. Hoes, rakes, no less than three old lawn mowers—one of them so old it didn't even have a motor, but was a push model—hand scythes, buckets and pails and watering pots of every imaginable shape and size. And that was just the beginning. The shed was full of garbage. The discarded remnants of a once full life. Like old bones rattling around in a crypt. But there was no life here anymore.

Or wouldn't be much longer.

When he had cleared a spot on the floor, he unrolled his sleeping bag there. He'd taken off his shoes near the rickety door, to avoid tracking snow inside. He moved them now, closer to the heater, so they would get dry. He set the backpack far away from the heat source, not wanting to be blown to bits before morning. But first he took out one of the MREs.

Meals Ready To Eat were a wonderful invention. He tore the top off the plastic bag, then added water from his stash. After opening the accompanying packet, he poured its contents into the bag, as well, and watched as the chemical reaction caused the water to boil, heating the food pack sealed inside.

In minutes his meal of beef stew was piping hot and ready
to eat. He cleared off a shelf with a sweep of his arm, pulled up a five-gallon pail that had once held house paint and used it as a chair. He liked sitting by the side window. Enjoyed the view.

Hell, he didn't know why he had doubted his guides. This place was far more practical than the Victorian in Bonnie Brook anyway.

He ate his stew, looking out across the back lawn at the former Blackberry Inn. Beth's house. A lot of people were milling around in there now. Cops coming and going, cars parked outside. Several ATVs were lined up there, too, along with the pickup trucks that had brought them. And Stanton was there. But so were Mordecai's targets, both of them, under one roof, which made it extremely convenient.

Once again, the guides had been right.

Eventually the others would leave. Eventually Lizzie or Bryan or both would be left alone. Unguarded.

Lizzie wasn't going anywhere. She'd insinuated that she was leaving only as a ruse to force him to move more quickly. Before he was ready. And he'd almost fallen for it, too. But not now.

Mordecai was cozy, warm, well fed and sheltered.

He could wait.

B
ryan felt warmth. Heat surrounded him like a blanket, and it felt good. Soothing, comforting and then…confusing.

His head was clouded and fuzzy and it ached, but even with all that, he was sure he'd fallen asleep outside, huddled under a bunch of roots while the snow fell. He remembered being cold, and then just sleepy. He remembered thinking the snow would hide him even better than the roots alone. And that made him remember what he'd been hiding from—Mordecai.

He opened his eyes wide and sat up slightly, only to wince in pain.

His father leaned over him, hands on his shoulders. “Lie back now. Relax, Bry. You're okay.”

Bryan sighed, every cell in his body flooding with relief to see his old man. He never would have expected to be this glad
to see that face. In fact, he was so overwhelmed he had to close his eyes to hide the hot moisture that sprang into them.

“You're gonna be okay.”

“What about Dawn?” he asked. It surprised him that his words seemed croaked rather than spoken. He rubbed his throat and tried to clear it.

“Dawn's fine. She's downstairs with Beth, waiting her turn to come in and see you.” Josh took a pillow from the side of the bed near him, then eased Bryan's shoulders up and tucked it under him. After that he took a cup from the nightstand and held it out. “Tea,” he said. “One of Maude's medicinals. It's probably cooling off by now.”

Bryan took the tea, sipped it. It was good, spicy and sweet.

“Dawn told us what you and she have been up to, Bryan.”

Oh, great. Here it comes, Bryan thought. He lowered the cup, shot his eyes to his father's, waited.

Josh sighed. “If you didn't want to go back to California, you should have just said so.”

“I did say so, Dad. Remember?”

Josh licked his lips, lowered his eyes. “Still, this was…if you'd been honest with me—”

“Like you're being with Beth, you mean?”

“Bryan—”

“No, wait.” Bryan thought addressing his father with sarcasm was getting to be automatic. “Actually, Dad, I think I finally get it—what you're doing, I mean. Because I've been kind of doing the same thing.”

“How so?”

Bryan sighed. “I thought I could do some good, help nail Mordecai. And if I had to use deception to do it, I was willing to. It was worth it. That's exactly what you're doing with Beth. I understand it now.”

Josh stared at him for a long moment. Then his hand moved to Bryan's hair, stroked it lovingly, tenderly, and Bryan found himself trying to remember when his father had touched him that way before.

“I almost lost you. My God, Bryan, what the hell am I doing here, anyway?”

Bryan frowned.

“Listen to me,” Josh said. “I was wrong. You've been right about this all along. I never should have kept the truth from Beth. All I've accomplished is that I've dug myself into a hole so deep, I don't know how to climb out. What happened to you and Dawn ought to be validation to you that you were right the first time around. There's nothing to gain by lying to the people you love.”

Bryan blinked. “You…love Beth?”

“That's not what I said.”

“Yeah, it is. Kind of.”

Joshua shook his head, averted his eyes. “I can't believe I've screwed up as badly as I have with you, Bryan.”

“You haven't—”

“Yes, I have. I know when I screw up. God knows I've done it before. I screwed up in my job and lost it. I screwed up with your mother and lost her. And you along with her. I've screwed up with Beth and don't know how to begin to fix it, and I screwed up so badly with you that you almost got killed over it.” His eyes were damp when they locked onto Bryan's. “I don't know how I would have gone on if I'd lost you, son. You mean so much to me.”

“I do?” Bryan had never thought his presence in his father's life was much more than an inconvenience. Oh, he knew his dad loved him—in his way. In the same way all fathers were obliged to love their offspring.

“I think I'd have died. You are the most important part of my life. More than the job, or the business, or this case, or Beth, or anything. I mean it. And I swear, I'm going to do better.”

Bryan smiled a little, finished the warm tea and set the cup on the nightstand. “You didn't do too bad tonight, Dad. Hell, you found me in the middle of the woods. You brought me back.”

Josh leaned over and hugged him hard. “Thank God.”

When his father released him, Bryan felt odd. Different. As if something he'd been missing had been returned to him before he had even been aware he'd been missing it.

“I think we're gonna be okay, Dad.”

“I think so, too.”

Nodding, Bryan drew a breath. He hadn't intended to mention this to his father, but now he decided to go ahead. “I think I—I think I saw Mom.” He took a chance, looking at his father's eyes. They were wide, searching and eager. Not skeptical, not at all. Encouraged, Bryan went on. “I was sound asleep out there, so well hidden you never would have found me. I dreamed I was little again, and she was waking me up for school. She leaned over me, like she used to do, kissed my cheek.” He swallowed hard. “That's what made me wake up. And that's when I heard the ATVs and crawled out of my cover.”

Josh nodded very slowly, thoughtfully. “I'll bet it was her,” he said. “I'll bet it was.”

It made Bryan feel inexplicably elated that his father believed him, that he didn't ridicule him or try to explain away what felt like a genuine miracle.

Josh drew a breath, got to his feet. “I…should let Dawn come in. She's probably climbing the walls waiting.”

“Yeah. I imagine she's worried sick.”

Josh nodded. “Beth brought her back here after she showed us where to look for you, but she sneaked out to join the search.” He thinned his lips, shook his head. “She's a lot like her mother, that one.” He nodded at Bryan's quick look. “Yeah, she told us you knew about that. We didn't get off to the best start, but I think I like her.”

“I'm glad.”

Josh nodded and started toward the door.

“Dad?”

He turned back.

Bryan swallowed and forced the words to come. His father had reached out to him tonight, really opened up. He deserved reciprocation. Honesty. “When I was huddled out there in the cold, hiding from that maniac, all I kept thinking was, ‘I wish Dad was here.'”

Josh smiled, and his eyes looked funny. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. I thought you'd want to know that.”

“It means more to me than you could imagine, Bry.”

Bryan nodded and knew it was true. “I love you, Dad.”

“And I love you, Bryan. Good night.”

“'Night.”

And then his dad stepped out of the bedroom, into the hall and closed the door. Bryan lay back on his pillows. And for the first time since his mother's death, he thought he might really be all right. He might really be able to grow up and go to college and live a real life without her. Partly because he had his father—finally. And partly because he didn't really think he was entirely without her after all.

 

Josh bumped into Dawn in the hallway and sent her in to see Bryan. He found Beth in the kitchen. He didn't have to search
for her; he just seemed to automatically know where she would be. She was standing with her back against the counter, sipping cocoa and looking pensive, and she didn't know he'd stepped in just yet. He paused for a moment to enjoy that; observing her, drinking her in when she wasn't on guard. She always seemed to be on guard around him, always holding something back, even when they made love. It felt as if she didn't quite trust him not to destroy her.

And why should she, given the size of the secret he was keeping?

She had on plaid flannel pajama bottoms. The top that went with them wasn't winter wear, a gray, tiny thing with thin straps, short enough to reveal an inch of midriff, clingy enough to make his mouth water. A heavy bathrobe was flung over the back of a chair nearby; he thought the warmth of the kitchen had made her take it off and gave silent thanks to the old furnace for hanging in there. They'd cranked it up for Bryan's sake. The fireplace was going, too, and judging from the mess on the counter and the mouthwatering aroma in the air, the oven was on.

Beth finally looked his way, caught him staring, smiled gently. “How's our boy doing?”

Josh couldn't quite put a name to the kind of feeling it gave him when she sent that smile his way. Comfort, maybe? Healing? It was magical, whatever he called it. “We just had the first real conversation we've had since his mother died.”

“And?”

“And…it was good.”

She pushed off from the counter, setting her cup aside and opening the oven. The aroma that wafted out made his mouth water. He saw the chocolate chip cookies, and his stomach
rolled over in delight. “Yeah? You gonna give me any details?” She used a spatula to remove the cookies from the tray, laying them on a wire rack to cool. When she got to the final cookie, she carried it to the table, snatched up a napkin and set the cookie on it in front of him. “Cocoa or tea?”

“You don't need to wait on me.”

“Sure I do. It's my turn.” She pirouetted to the stove, turned on the heat under the teapot, then got out a clean cup and emptied a packet of cocoa mix into it.

Josh reached for the cookie, burned his fingers and promised his mouth it was coming soon. “He told me he loved me, Beth. I haven't heard him say that since he was eight years old.”

“Oh, Josh.”

When he looked at her, she had a hand pressed to her heart, and he knew she understood just how much the conversation had meant to him. Of course she knew. She met his eyes and told him so without a word; then she turned to the fridge and stretched up onto her tiptoes, reaching up on top for something.

He frowned, then, because her top stretched up, revealing more of her back, and he saw the long, linear scar that didn't belong with her smooth, taut skin. He'd never noticed it before—and as he thought about that, he knew why. The first time they'd slept together it had been in the dark, and the second time she'd kept her camisole on.

She came to earth with a bag of minimarshmallows in hand and caught him staring. “What's wrong?”

“I…just noticed the scar on your back.”

“And winced 'cause it's so darn pretty?”

He made a face. “And winced at the thought of a bullet tearing through you.”

“Oh.” She dropped a handful of marshmallows into his
cup, replaced the twist tie on the bag, then came closer to him and pulled up her shirt. She was looking down at her own middle, and one of her fingers absently touched a far smaller scar a few inches below her navel and slightly to the left. “This is where it went in. It really isn't very deadly looking, is it? Barely as big as a dime.”

He put his hands on her hips, drew her closer and pressed his lips to the mark. His heart was breaking as he relived the moment, pulling the trigger, sending a searing hot piece of lead screaming through the air until it sank deep into this woman's abdomen, burning her and tearing her insides apart.

He sat back, drawing his lips away, but his eyes remained glued to the spot. Why had he pulled the damn trigger? Hell, he knew why. More than likely he'd seen a muzzle flash and shot at it. It had been too dark to fire at more than flashes in the night. But it didn't matter what he'd been shooting at—all that mattered was what he had hit.

“It went in here,” she said, poking the scar with her forefinger tilted at an upward angle. “Then it went up and right, because they were shooting from below. I was upstairs, you see.”

She drew a line with her finger, upward at an angle that crossed her belly button. “Tore my uterus to hell, in one side and out the other. Took out an ovary, nicked an artery. I was bleeding internally and didn't even know it.” Her finger kept moving across her belly, around her waist to the scar on her back. “This is where they found the bullet. It hit a rib, fractured it, but that's what finally stopped it.”

“God, Beth, I'm so sorry.”

She shrugged. “Don't be silly. It's not like you had anything to do with it. Besides, I'm fine. Just so long as you're
not the type to get all queasy over a few hard-won battle scars.”

“Nothing about you makes me queasy.” He ran his fingertips over the surgical scar. “I've been with you twice and never even noticed them. That's how deeply you affect me.”

She smiled. “My effect on you isn't the whole reason you never noticed them,” she said. “The little one on my front is barely noticeable, and I've been careful not to give you a good view of my unclothed back.”

“You didn't want me to see the scar?”

“Shallow, isn't it?”