Colder Than Ice (34 page)

His palm pressed to the window, he tried to raise the sash, but it was locked. Something rattled, though, and he frowned, inspecting it more closely and seeing that the caulk around the windowpanes was old, crumbling. The glass didn't sit tightly, and a little manipulating of the loosest pane soon had it coming free.

Reaching through, he unlocked the sash, opened the window, then climbed inside, pulling his satchel in behind him. It was that easy.

Setting the satchel on the floor and leaving it there, Mordecai crept through the house. He didn't even need to ask which bedroom was hers. He felt her. He was drawn to her. Led to her. A magnet and steel.

The halls were pitch-black. Not a light had been left on, not in the entire house. So when he paused outside her bedroom door, gripped the knob, turned it slowly and pushed the door open, he saw nothing until the faint flickering glow from within caught his eye.

Candlelight.

It gleamed golden yellow, bathing her skin and the darker hands that slid over it.

Mordecai almost gasped aloud at the pain, as if a white-hot blade had slid neatly between his ribs. She was lying there, her arms and legs twined around the man, her hands pressing to his back, her eyes closed, lips parted, body writhing beneath him.

Damn her, he thought. Damn her for a lying whore.

His hand closed around the bone handle inside his boot. He drew the hunting knife out slowly, careful not to make a sound, and straightened again, with hatred and hurt burning his heart.

A single step forward. She moaned the other man's name as his hips snapped against her, impaling her, defiling her.

They would both die. Here. Now!

No.

Mordecai clenched his jaw. He would not obey, dammit. Not this time.

You will obey. She will die for her crimes, Mordecai, just as we have always insisted she must—even when you rebelled and pleaded for her life. She will die. At your hand. But not yet. Not today.

Tomorrow, though, you will bring her a taste of the pain she
has brought to you this night. Tomorrow there is a blade you will thrust into her heart. Not the one in your hand—not at first. First, Mordecai, you will use the blade in your pocket.

He tightened his grip on the hunting knife, his fist clenching and unclenching almost like a spasm.

Put it away, Mordecai!
And with the command came a blinding pain behind his eyes. He pressed a hand to his forehead, fast and hard.

“What was that?” Lizzie stopped moving, her voice a harsh whisper.

Mordecai backed into the pitch-black hall, pulling the door closed, not latching it, though, lest they hear. The pain faded. His body steadied, and he obeyed, bending to slide the knife back into his boot.

Now, take out the other blade. The one in your pocket.

Closing his eyes against his heartache, he thrust a hand into the pocket of the shirt he wore, and there he felt the folded scrap of paper. He took it out and remembered without needing to look at it. The newspaper clipping—the one showing that fornicator's face, identifying him as the ATF agent responsible for shooting Lizzie all those years ago.

He leaned back against a wall, tipped his head upward. “Is it time, then? Is it finally time to destroy her?”

It's time. You'll leave that paper for her—we'll tell you where. She'll find it tomorrow. For now, return to the attic and fetch the bag, for you have more work to do. Once she has lost her lover, she must lose everything else she holds dear. Indeed, your work this night will cost her more than even you know. She will be brought to her knees, Mordecai. She will welcome death when you bring it to her. She will beg you to end her pain.

“The house?” he asked softly.

Yes. First the lover, then the house. And something even more precious to her than that. Tomorrow.

“But tomorrow is the day of the memorial service. Half the town will be here.”

Even better. Go now to the attic. Get the bag and begin your work. And, Mordecai, set the timer for twelve-thirty. Half past noon. Exactly.

 

Beth awoke in Joshua's arms to commotion already going on in the house. She lifted her head from his magnificent chest and looked up to see him smiling at her.

She frowned, only now noting the brightness of the morning sun through the windows. “God, what time is it?”

“Almost nine.”

She blinked and felt her heart jerk into rapid motion. “Joshua, how could you let me oversleep? Today of all days!”

He stroked her hair. “Didn't have the heart to wake you. Beth—I want to talk to you.”

“I don't have time for talking.” She sat up in the bed, swinging her legs over the side, reaching for a robe. “Half the town will be here by noon. God, there's no way I'll be ready—we should have been up two hours ago!”

“Will you calm down?” He got up as well, going to her, clasping her shoulders to still her frantic motions. “Listen.”

She frowned, but listened. From below she could hear movement; the entire house was in motion.

“Dawn's been giving orders for the past couple of hours already, and from the sounds of all the to-do, Jax and Bry are hopping to obey. You don't have a thing to worry about.”

She met his eyes at that last line. “I have everything to worry about. And I think you know it.”

He stared into her eyes. “I think he's gone, Beth. I really do. I think it's over.”

“It will never be over. Not until one of us is dead.”

“Jesus, Beth, can't you let it go? Just for a little while? I want to talk about—about us.”

She smiled gently. “I'm in love with you. What more do you need to know?”

His breath stuttered out of him, and he stared into her eyes as if he couldn't look away. “It's not what I need to know, Beth. It's…what you need to know. About me.”

An icy chill slid down her spine, robbing her of breath. “Don't—”

“I have to. It's waited far too long, and dammit, Beth, it's time.”

She shook her head. Something like panic rose up in her throat, a feeling of certainty that she was about to have her heart torn from her chest. It battled with the tiny voice inside—the one whose trust he had won utterly—which told her to keep believing in him.

She turned her face up to his, searching the depths of his eyes. And she saw in them that whatever he meant to tell her was something he feared, something horrible. And then she closed her eyes.

“Do you love me?” she asked him.

His breath whispered against her forehead as he leaned closer. “I do.”

“Then do this for me. Wait. Let me get through today, just today, Joshua. Let me focus on Maude today. On honoring her memory, on thanking this town, on saying goodbye to her. And then, tonight…tonight you can tell me this secret you've been keeping.”

He frowned at her.

“I've known all along there was something,” she said. “Tonight. All right?”

He cupped her cheek. “All right.”

She nodded, then, turning, fled from him, from the room, and threw herself into the work, the preparations, as if the fate of the entire world depended on this day's success.

The morning flew by, and she found herself avoiding Joshua, even though she told herself it wasn't deliberate. There was so much to be done, that was all. They removed the living room furniture, and lined the room with tables and folding chairs. They pushed the dining room table to one side, and added other tables, and still more chairs when some local men in pickup trucks arrived to deliver them. They covered each table with a white linen cloth, brewed vats of coffee and stirred gallons of punch, set up the food the caterer brought.

Inch by inch, the buffet table was covered—trays of finger sandwiches, vegetables, crackers and cheese, pickles and olives, roasted meats, rolls and pastries, deviled eggs. Bowls containing every imaginable type of casserole and salad. Crock-Pots filled with meatballs, chicken wings, chili and stew. And they needed a second table just to hold the desserts.

People filed in, and at noon, when Reverend Baker took the podium to speak about Maude, the place was packed full.

“You've been going nonstop,” Joshua said, sidling up beside her where she stood in the back of the room. “Thank God it's finally getting under way. If you kept going much longer I think you'd have dropped.”

“Don't be silly. I'm fine.”

“Yes,” he said, “you are.”

She smiled at him, but avoided his eyes by looking at her
watch. “Reverend Baker's speech should take about twenty minutes.”

“And then we line up for the food,” he said. “I'm starved.” He closed a hand around one of hers. “Beth, I—”

“God, look at that,” she said. “No one brought out the dips. There are three bowls of it in the fridge. The caterer must have forgotten she put them there. Be right back.”

“Beth—”

She tugged her hand from his and hurried through the crowd, into the kitchen. She felt his eyes on her, his will calling her back, but she ignored it and moved on.

In the kitchen, there were others. Women, being helpful, carrying one last round of food items into the other rooms, the dips among them. Beth hadn't come for the dip, anyway. She hadn't come for anything except solitude. She needed to be alone, to think. God, Joshua's secret had been plaguing her all day. She didn't want to lose him, and yet she was afraid—so very afraid.

The reason for her fear was the sheer power of what she had come to feel for him. It was all-encompassing. She'd never loved like this before—not even her teenage obsession with Mordecai had been this strong.

She let the other women go past her. They picked up the pace once they heard the boom of the minister's voice. Then she leaned against the back door, hand on the knob, forehead resting briefly on the cool glass. “I'm sorry, Maude,” she whispered.

Beth opened the door and stepped outside.

It was cold, not bitter, but cold. Forty, despite the sun that beamed from a crystal-blue sky. The breeze carried an even deeper chill, and it blew stiffly over her face. She hugged her arms and felt her hair whipping. And yet the cold felt good. Bracing and brisk. It helped to clear her mind.

Nodding, affirming that this had been a good idea, despite the fact that she was missing a part of Maude's eulogy, she walked across the back lawn, just a little way, and then she stopped.

There, on the old maple tree, what was that? White, and flapping in the wind like the broken wing of a captive bird.

Frowning, she moved closer. Her heart iced over when she realized it was a sheet of paper, pinned to the tree trunk by the blade of a knife.

“Mordecai,” she whispered, fear gripping her soul. Wide-eyed, she looked left and right, ahead and behind her. Then, drawing herself up straight, she moved a few steps closer, and reaching up, yanked the blade from the tree with her right hand and took the sheet of paper in her left.

And then she bent and stared at the clipping, at the photograph, at the headline, and she forgot her fear.

T
he photo of Joshua wasn't grainy or out of focus. It was perfectly clear, even in gray scale. Oh, he was younger. The angles of his face softer than they were now, and there were no laugh lines around his eyes. But even if there had been any doubt in her mind, the caption was there to remove it. ATF Agent's Bullet Killed Unarmed Seventeen-Year-Old Girl in the Raid on Young Believers.

The article told her the rest.

He'd been there. Joshua had been there. He'd been a part of her worst nightmare. And lied about it. Beth didn't understand that. She scrubbed the hazing tears from her eyes with the fist that held the hunting knife. Her other hand, the one that clutched the article, was trembling so badly that she could hardly read. Her eyes raced over the lines all the same, and it felt as if she'd been kicked in the belly; it knocked the breath
from her lungs. Her hands clenched, then went limp, the knife dropping to the ground, the article fluttering after.

“He shot me. Joshua is the man who shot me.”

Her now empty hands pressed to her abdomen, she felt again the pain of the bullet ripping into her. Hot, deep, burning pain, every bit as real and crippling as the pain in her heart.

Joshua had shot her. His bullet had torn through her uterus, robbing her of any hope of bearing a child. Robbing her of the daughter she already had. Of the chance to raise her, to love her. To be her mother. To be anyone's mother. She'd been so wrong to think she could love him no matter what his secret was. She couldn't. She couldn't love the man who'd cost her Dawn.

She flashed back to the day she had first met him, recalling the way his face had changed when he'd looked at her. The surprise, the shock and recognition in his eyes.

“He knew….”

He knew who she was. And yet he'd lied, deceived her, all this time. And what about his alleged feelings for her? Were they just one more part of the lie? A means to an end? Was he trying to assuage his guilt or pay some kind of penance by protecting her now? By pretending to love her? Or did he really believe his feelings were anything more than an attack of conscience?

Did it matter? Either way, they were just as false.

Someone called her name. She heard it, coming from the kitchen, she thought. Shaking her head, brushing the tears from her cheeks, she ran away, crossing the back lawn and entering the shelter of the woods, stopping only when she was deep enough in the trees to be hidden from view.

She couldn't face anyone, not now. And God forgive her for missing Maude's service, but this was just…it was too much.

She wondered how long she could avoid seeing anyone, how much time she had to cower in the woods and try to pull herself together before she would have to paint a look of normalcy on her face. The minister would speak for twenty minutes. She wouldn't be missed by too many until he finished. She glanced at her watch. It was twelve fifteen.

“Hey, Beth? You out here?”

She turned back, looking toward the house from amid the leafless trees of the forest. She saw Bryan standing in the open back door, looking across the lawn, and she knew he couldn't see her there. “Sorry,” she whispered.

Then she turned away and followed the winding path through the woods all the way to the little pond and the stream that twisted and bubbled through the forest. She stopped there, taking a breath of the crisp apple air and wondering why the hell she hadn't come out here more often since Maude had died.

This had been the old woman's favorite spot. There was a park bench she'd bought at the local hardware store. Heavy, solid. She'd told Beth how she'd paid a local man thirty dollars to lug it out here and bolt it together, five years ago.

The wood was weathered, the iron blotched with green. But the bench was still solid. A few feet from it, a bird feeder hung from a limb, devoid of seed. Maude wouldn't like knowing that Beth had let the bird feeder run empty.

She sank onto the bench, lowered her head. “Why did I believe in him, Maudie? Why did I trust him? God, when did I forget how much it hurts to love a man who's not what he pretends to be? A man who lies and makes promises he never intends to keep? Didn't Mordecai teach me anything?”

Finally she dropped her head into her hands and wept.

“I never made you any promises I didn't intend to keep, Lizzie.”

Sucking in a sharp breath, she jerked her head up so fast it hurt her neck. A man stepped into the tiny clearing, and she stared at him. Even as she did, he reached up to peel the thick shock of black hair from his head. Underneath, it was still clean shaven. Then he took the Coke-bottle-thick glasses from his face, and she met his eyes.

He'd always had the most beautiful eyes. Deep, velvety brown, with paintbrush lashes. The goatee Dawn said he'd been sporting before was gone. But he hadn't shaved recently—three days' growth of beard shadowed his jaw. He smiled at her, just a little. “I never lied to you, Lizzie. I never betrayed you.”

She rose from the bench, moving very slowly, her mind racing. She felt the lump of the handgun she wore underneath her sweater, wondered if she could manage to pull it out and aim it at him before he could kill her. She'd stopped carrying the little derringer and realized now that it would have been far easier to manipulate without notice.

“You betrayed me, though,” he said. “Told me you loved me, then tried to put a bullet into my heart. Do you know how much that hurt me, Lizzie?” He shook his head slowly, then said, “Oh, but you do know how it feels, don't you? To have the person who says they love you, shoot you? That's what your boyfriend did to you.”

“He's not—”

“Not what? Not your boyfriend?” He curled his lip. “Don't lie to me, Lizzie. I saw you last night. Saw you lying underneath that grunting pig. I saw you.”

She swallowed hard, a voice in her head telling her this was
it. This was the showdown she had always known would come. Only one of them was going to leave this little spot alive. “I don't have to answer to you, Mordecai. Not anymore.”

“No. But you have to answer to God.”

“And you don't?” She moved a step closer. It only instigated him into pulling a handgun from his waistband and pointing it at her. She stopped moving but kept talking. “You've killed people, Mordecai. You could have killed an innocent boy the other night, chasing him into the woods and then leaving him there to freeze.”

“What's between the boy and me has nothing to do with you,” he said.

She frowned. “There's nothing between you and Bryan, except in your own mind.”

He shook his head. “You don't know. You never understood.”

“I understand more than you know, Mordecai. I understand that you had a choice to make. A choice between a woman who loved you, a daughter you fathered, and the voices in your head. And you chose the voices.”

“I chose God.”

“You chose insanity!”

He looked furious but quickly calmed again. “You aren't humbled, even now, are you, Lizzie? The guides were right, all along. I've stripped you of damn near everything, and still you're blinded by your own pride.”

She lowered her head. “You killed Maude, didn't you?”

“It was her time.”

“If it was her time, she would have died in her sleep. Not lying on the floor, paralyzed and terrified and unable to draw a breath.”

He averted his eyes. She was striking a nerve.

“It was a horrible death, Mordecai. She didn't deserve it. Maude was a good woman. A Christian woman.”

“It was her time,” he said again. “I was only God's tool.”

She shook her head. “Don't you think it's a little vain of you to believe God couldn't have taken her life if that were what He wanted—that God needed a mortal to do His work for Him?”

He said nothing. She pushed on. “You destroyed my home. God gave me a new one. Would He have done that if it were truly His will that I be homeless?”

“You know nothing about the will of God.”

She lowered her head. “What's God's will now, Mordecai? That I die? Why don't we put that to the test, hmm?” She looked upward. “You want me to die, God? Is it my time? Then take me. Here I am, just take me. You have the power.”

“If you insist,” Mordecai said, and he leveled the gun on her.

 

“Beth, where are you?”

Bryan stepped out the back door and let it bang shut behind him. He was sure he'd glimpsed her out there, but there was no sign of her now. He took a few steps, looking around, his nerves tingling a little, even though he told himself Mordecai Young was long gone. He supposed that night in the woods had scared him a lot more than he wanted to admit. He'd been jumpy as a cat ever since.

He scanned the trees. The woods out back had changed a lot in the past few days. They looked like a watercolor painting left out in the rain—all the color had run to the ground. Hardly any leaves remained on the brown, brittle branches, but they made a thick carpet on the ground.

Then he spotted something else on the ground and felt
chills rise on his arms and the back of his neck. He moved closer, saw the knife lying on the grass. No blood on it, thank God. “Beth?”

Still no sign of her. Bending, he reached for the crumpled piece of paper that lay near the blade and smoothed it open. When he saw what it was, his heart seemed to skip a few beats. “Oh, no.”

Bryan closed his eyes briefly, realizing now Beth knew the truth his father had been keeping from her all this time. He looked back toward the house, thinking he should go find his father, but then he thought he heard something. A voice, coming from the woods. Beth's voice.

Biting his lip, Bryan shoved the clipping into his pocket, snatched up the hunting knife and moved quietly into the trees. He followed the meandering path, and as he did, the voices came more clearly. Beth's voice, and then the one that sent shivers down his spine. The voice of Mordecai Young.

“God, I can't! I can't do it!” Mordecai cried.

Bryan thought his voice cracked a little. Then it came more calmly. “Yes, yes, I know. Thy will be done.”

Bryan crept closer, moving so silently he couldn't even hear his own footsteps. He went still when he saw them; Beth standing with her back to the pond, and Mordecai, opposite her, his back to Bryan, pointing a gun at her.

“You can't just kill me, Mordecai. Not like this,” Beth said.

She looked so scared, her face pale, her eyes wide and wet. Bryan stepped to one side, putting a tree between him and Mordecai, but keeping him in sight. His hand closed tighter around the knife. He was damned if he could stand here and let the maniac just shoot her.

“No, I can't,” Mordecai said. “Not yet. Not until you realize
there is nothing left for you—no one left for you but me.” He sighed deeply. “Dammit, Lizzie, you never learned humility. Not with all I've done to teach you—show you.”

“Teach me? Show me? Show me what, Mordecai? That you're a crazed killer intent on destroying my life?”

“Show you that you
have
no life. Not without God.”

A look came over her face then. Bryan saw it change, saw her mind working, saw her thinking her way out of this. He relaxed his grip on the knife a little, hoping to God he wasn't going to have to use it.

“You're right, Mordecai. I…I've been so wrong. All this time.” She lowered her eyes. “What can I do to make it up to you? What can I do to make it right with God?”

But Mordecai only laughed, a low, frighteningly soft sound that wasn't really a laugh at all. It made the hairs on the back of Bryan's neck stand up.

“Oh, that's very good, Lizzie. Almost convincing. But no, no, you haven't repented, not in your heart. Maybe when you've been brought so low you can't hold your head up anymore. Maybe when you've been stripped of everything.”

She blinked slowly. “But I have been. I've lost my home, my best friend and the man I loved. What more can you take from me, Mordecai?”

“You'll go back to him. To that house and to him. I know you, Lizzie.” He looked at his watch. “But in a few minutes, you'll understand what it means to be utterly without.”

She frowned. “What do you mean? Mordecai, what have you done?”

“Nothing I haven't done before. I'm very good, you know. I was in that house of yours last night. And in a few minutes, it will be no more.”

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, her eyes going wider. “You've put some kind of bomb in the house.”

“Now you're getting it.”

She lunged forward, as if to rush past him, but he swung the gun he held, catching her in the jaw, snapping her head backward. She hit the ground hard.

Damn him!
Bryan lifted the knife and stepped out from behind the tree, and in that instant, Beth's eyes met his. “No!” she cried.

Bryan froze.

Beth jerked her gaze back to Mordecai's. “No, Mordecai. That house is full of innocent people. Please, you have to let me go. Let me
get everyone out.
I have to go.
Now. And get everyone out.”