On Thin Ice (8 page)

She saw it, the tiny square envelope had her name on it—Meggie. She smiled to herself. His name for her.

After the delivery guy left, she found four quart-size large-mouthed canning jars. She filled each with water and divided up the flowers. There were roses, violets, mums, baby’s breath.

She placed two jars on the kitchen table and the other two on the coffee table. Then, standing next to the counter, she opened the little flowered note card and read it.

The moan that came from her mouth seemed to emanate from someplace deep within her very core. Fingers quivering, she dropped the card as if it burned. She reached to the table to steady herself as she fell, whimpering, quivering to the floor. As she did so, she knocked over one of the mason jars of flowers. It broke at her feet, glass shards, water and petals scattering everywhere beside her. And the note staring up at her in block letters: ABORTION IS A SIN!!

A
n hour later, there was another knock on her door. Megan ignored it. Her suitcase was open on her bed and she was flinging clothes into it. She had managed to clean up the broken glass, the spilled water and the leaves. She emptied the mason jars, rinsed them out and put them away. She swept the huge bundle of flowers and the offending note into the sports section of the newspaper, wrapped everything up and put it all into the trash can beside her back door. Then she had mopped up the floor.

As she worked, she came to a decision. She might be drawn to Alec in ways she didn’t want to think about, but it wasn’t worth it. First of all, she was in danger. The note proved it. And second, she didn’t trust herself around Alec. He would only hurt her again and she didn’t want to stick around for that. She would pack up today and get out of here before the storm came. Her tormentor knew exactly where she was now.
He knew exactly who she was. She needed to get going. Hadn’t there been enough warnings? The shooting on the lake? The invitation dropped off for her? Now this. She’d had none of this in Baltimore. She needed to get home.

The persistent knock on her door had interrupted her thoughts. It was probably Brad, she thought, come to look at Web designs. When the knocking didn’t stop, she decided to answer the door. She would go and firmly tell Brad that she couldn’t do his Web site because she was leaving.

However, it was not Brad. It was Alec at the door and he was wearing some sort of a strange one-piece spacesuit getup that looked like it belonged on the moon. Her face must have betrayed something. “Megan, what’s wrong?” he asked as he entered the cabin.

“What are you wearing?” she asked.

“A snowmobile suit,” he said. “A snowmobile is the best way to get where I’m going. My deputy Stu loaned it to me. I got a call that someone saw a truck abandoned way out near Twin Peaks Island. The fishing shacks are across from that. My thought is that this could maybe be the truck I saw the first day we met.”

“The guy who was shooting at us, you mean.”

“Right.” He seemed to notice her suitcases for the first time and her already packed up computer. “You’re leaving?” His look seemed to convey surprise, and maybe something underneath that—pain.

“I have to. I have to go now.” She was twisting her hands nervously in front of her.

“Is there something wrong? Is your godmother okay?”

She said, “She’s fine. I got flowers. And a note. This morning. I thought maybe…I thought. I could go somewhere else. Change my name. Disappear.” She was breathing heavily and could only get out a couple of words at a time. Why was she telling him all this when she had vowed she was leaving? She had wanted to be gone by the time Alec made contact with her again.

“Flowers? What do you mean?”

She took a breath. “A delivery guy brought a huge, and I do mean huge, bouquet of flowers for me this morning.”

“Who sent you the flowers? Why did you throw them out?”

“The note that came with them…” She felt as if she would choke. She swallowed several times before she could continue. “It was—horrible. Awful.”

“Can I see it?”

She pointed to the back door. “In the garbage can. Just next to the back door.”

He went out and came back with her newspaper-wrapped bundle. “Where’s this note you’re talking about?”

She shrugged. “Somewhere in there. I had to get rid of it. If I’d had a campfire I would’ve burned everything.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

She said, “Be careful of the thorns. There are lots of them.”

“There are always lots of thorns.”

She sat down on a kitchen chair, suddenly so weary. She brought her legs up to her on the seat and hugged her knees to her chest. If she didn’t maintain some sort of cool, she would turn into a drippy mess of weepy tears. She needed him to leave, but she hoped he would stay. Finally, he unearthed the tiny note card. She watched his eyes as he read it.

After a while he looked up, clearly puzzled. “This came with the flowers?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t understand what it means, Megan.
Abortion is a sin.
What’s all that about?”

She shook her head. “I don’t have any idea. It’s the next part.”

He read the note aloud in its entirety. “
‘Abortion is a sin. God forgives sin. We’ll have many more children to replace the one you killed.’
What does this mean?”

“I don’t understand any of it. But what it means for me is that whoever sent me the flowers knows where I’m staying. He killed my friends. I’m so scared.” She was huddled into herself and trembling. He came and pulled up a chair beside her and put his arms around her and held her until her shaking stopped. It felt so safe being there, yet she hated being this conflicted.

A few moments later, he put water in the kettle and set it on her stove to boil. He said, “Can I make something hot for you? Hot chocolate? Coffee? Soup? Something to warm you up?”

“I thought you had an important meeting.”

“You’re more important, Meggie,” he said, reverting to his old name for her. “I’ve been talking to Steve about this. Could this be someone from your work? Someone who has researched your past? I’m thinking that we should maybe get a copy of your complete client list to Steve. He has channels I don’t even have.”

“Okay.” She nodded. Her client list included a couple of insurance companies, a drama troupe, a bank, a bicycle shop, a couple of rock stars, a sushi bar, none of whom seemed particularly threatening to her. She told Alec this. She thought back to her client correspondence. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Everyone paid their bills on time and none of their checks ever bounced. “I don’t even know what half my clients look like so one of them could have black hair and I wouldn’t know it.”

“Steve will know what to do with that list.” He added, “I’m just thinking about something else now. Your godmother knew you were pregnant, could she have let it slip? Plus, there would have been doctors and hospital reports. Maybe that’s what the note is all about.”

“Alec.” She almost quivered with anger. “I did not have an abortion. I wanted our baby. How could some
one write that? And anyone looking at the hospital records—if they still exist—would know that I carried that baby almost to term. He died in my womb. I didn’t know he was sick. I blame myself. I was young and stupid and hurting and I should’ve gotten better prenatal care.”

She was crying again, blubbering and he came and held her once more. He said gently, “You did not kill our child. The baby had a serious heart defect and never had a chance.”

“That’s what the doctor told me,” she said, rubbing her eyes with her fists. “But maybe he was just being kind. Maybe he didn’t want to hurt me. And as for Eunice, she wouldn’t tell anyone. I know she wouldn’t.”

The kettle sang. He rose and poured some instant hot chocolate mix into two mugs and then added boiling water.

Megan asked, “How does he know I’m here? I keep a low profile. I’ve always been really, really careful.”

Alec massaged her cold hands between both of his warm ones. “Stu and Steve and I are working night and day on this. Meanwhile,” he said, getting up, “I’d like to get this note over to Stu. What was the name of the delivery company that dropped off the flowers?”

She couldn’t remember if it was a regular delivery company or a florist van. She shook her head. She just didn’t know. The bundle of flowers had blinded her from remembering who it was who had driven them
down here. Which is probably what her tormentor had wanted. She said, “The delivery guy didn’t have black hair. I do remember that much.”

Alec opened up his cell phone and made a couple of calls. She listened while he told Stu the particulars of the flowers and the note. “Yeah,” she heard him say. “I’m heading out on the ice in a few minutes to see what’s what.” When he closed his cell phone, it rang once. “Messages,” he said.

“It’s okay,” Megan said. “You can answer them. Go ahead. I’ll be okay.”

He pressed a bunch more buttons on his cell phone and sighed. “Ah, my mother. She’s called twice. I haven’t been able to connect with her since we got back. She always wants to make sure I’m home safe. I also have a message from Denise. Maybe something to do with the office. I have to head back there later today. Ah, and one from my friend Adam.” He punched a few buttons. “He sent me a text. Hmm.” He took a few moments to read it. “I’m not surprised at this. This one will interest you.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“Adam discovered that the e-mails both you and I received originated from the Schooner Café.”

“Are you saying that someone at the Schooner Café is behind all of this?” she asked.

“No,” he said, closing his cell phone. “It means that the e-mails originated from someone who happened to
be using the Schooner Café’s Wi-Fi. But my friend can’t find who the precise person is who sent them. He’s working on it, however.”

“Are you going to go back to the Schooner Café, then?”

“I will, eventually, but I need to head out to the fishing shacks now.”

“Can I go with you?”

He stopped and looked at her. “You want to come with me? On the snowmobile?”

“Sure,” she said, surprising even herself by this boldness.

“So you’ve decided not to cut and run?”

“Maybe I’ll cut and run later. But I’d like to know what’s going on. This is about me. Maybe I could be of help. Let me just grab my jacket.”

He looked down at her and did a half grin. “You’re going to need more than a jacket.”

“I don’t have much of anything more. But I do have a wool hat and mittens. And Nori’s been so nice to me. I’m using an old pair of boots that used to belong to one of her daughters.”

“Let me run up to the lodge. Maybe Nori will have something that would work.”

“Boots are one thing, but Nori is miles taller than me.”

“Maybe her daughters, then. Don’t go anywhere.”

In no time at all Alec was back with a snowmobile suit of Nori’s, which fit her just about as ex
pected. The tips of her fingers landed somewhere in the elbows of the suit and the legs of the suit dragged along the floor. Still, by rolling up the sleeves and the legs they managed to get it to fit—more or less.

Outside, he said, “If your hands get cold you can just roll down the sleeves. Here’s the helmet.”

She eyed him. “So you just happened to bring along an extra helmet?”

“Just in case. Have you ever been on one of these before?”

“Never. And I even grew up in Maine.”

“How about a motorcycle?”

She told him she had.

“It’s just like that. Sit behind me, put your arms around me and hang on.”

She held on tight and soon they were speeding across the flat surface of the lake.

It was exhilarating! For a moment she decided to allow herself to forget about all the threats and murders and just concentrate on the raw beauty of God’s creation. The white. The cold. The flat expanse of ice.

Twenty minutes later, Alec slowed. There was an island out in the middle of the frozen white. It was a lump of land smothered with snowy fir trees. Alec drove around the island slowly.

On the side of the island facing an open part of the ice was what looked like an inlet, or it would be in the summer. Alec slowed and pointed.

“There it is,” he said.

She could only see the back of the vehicle but she could see it was a truck. It looked as if someone had driven it as far into the trees as he could before abandoning it.

Alec sped up and drove away.

“Where are we going?” she yelled.

“We have to visit with Earl. He’s the one who gave me the tip about the truck.”

They were approaching a little settlement of fishing shacks.

The grouping of shacks looked like an arctic refugee camp with its minuscule, multicolored buildings scattered on the ice. There were some vehicles parked out on the ice, a few dozen dogs who ran around, some snowmobiles, plus a couple of guys sitting in lawn chairs smoking and talking.

“It’s a regular little town,” Megan said.

“It is. I think it’s more for the social life than for the fishing. Some of these guys even have flat-screen TV hookups in there. Earl does. Look at the satellite dishes.”

She did so and blinked.

“It’s different for me. I go out fishing to be alone. It’s my time to think and meditate and pray. I’m notorious for not even bringing my cell phone,” he said.

They walked toward a dark green shed with a shiny red door. “Earl’s place,” Alec told her. “Earl runs the
only gas station in town. If you’ve gotten gas in Whisper Lake Crossing, then you’ve probably met Earl.”

“I think I have,” she stated.

At the red door Alec said loudly, “Knock knock.”

“Come in, come in,” came a deep voice from inside.

Alec opened the door and ducked into the room. Megan followed.

A smiling man, with a plaid cap and dark green jacket, was wedged with pillows into a lawn chair. He said, “Come in, have a seat. Forgive me if I don’t get up. The ol’ back ain’t what it used to be.”

“How’s the back?” Alec asked.

“Fair to middlin’. Gettin’ better maybe. Got another MRI coming up. Can’t stand up for any length of time, but the day I have to give up fishing is the day I pack ’er in.” To Megan, he said, “Fell off a roof a while ago. Did a number on my back.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said.

“It happens. Stuff happens. It happens to the best of us.”

She nodded.

Earl said, “Don’t just stand there with your faces hanging out, take a seat.” Alec pulled up a slatted lawn chair beside Earl. Megan sat in a canvas chair next to him. In the center of the floor a hole was cut away in the carpet and through the ice. Deep down she could see the flatness of white cold water. Beside the cutaway was a fishing rod on a metal V-stand.

Alec said, “We came about the truck, Earl. I assume it’s the one I saw on the north end of Twin Peaks Island between the trees.”

Earl nodded. “That’d be the one.”

“When did you first notice it?” Alec asked.

“About three days ago. When the ice melts, that thing is gonna sink. We better get someone to tow if off before then. But it’s not a truck I recognized, so that’s why I thought I’d give you a call.”