Red Snow (15 page)

“Hi.”

“It’s your dad.”

“I guessed that from the caller ID,” said Katt, laughing.

“Are you settled in?”

“It’s cold as hell in here. No, wait a sec. Make that cold as the last ice age.”

“Build a fire in the wood-burning stove.”

“That’s what Rachel’s doing.”

“You’ll soon warm up. That stove pumps out enough heat to thaw Gill’s entire chalet.”

“Wish we had electricity so I could crank on the sauna. I’m living in the stone age. All these kerosene lamps and flashlights will ruin my eyes.”

“Is Becky near you?”

“Yes, we’re coloring. Zinc stuck her skates in her backpack, so the book’s a little wet. Luckily, it’s colored pencils, not crayons.”

“Tell her you’re going to the bathroom. I’ll wait till you’ve closed the door.”

Katt’s voice was muffled as she covered the phone. Then Robert heard her footsteps crossing the hardwood floor. He imagined her chasing her flashlight beam down the hall. Soon, she came back on.

“What’s up?”

“There’s no easy way to say this,” Robert replied. “Gill’s dead.”

There was a stunned silence on the line. Then he heard a sharp intake of breath and a choked sob. “Oh no, Daddy!” Katt gasped. “It can’t be!”

Not since the day he had lost Jane all those years ago had someone called him “Daddy.” Suddenly, tears welled up in his eyes.

“Leave the bathroom and climb to the upper landing. You’ll find the main bedroom at the head of the stairs. Listen closely as you go. Gill was killed by Mephisto. So were Nick and Jenna. I suspect he’s trying to eliminate everyone who can identify him. I don’t want to frighten you, but you need to know the danger. The only eyewitness left is Becky Bond. Backup is coming. Rachel and Rick will guard you until it arrives, but I want you—”

“Napoleon,” Katt interjected. “I’ve got him.”

“He’ll protect you with his life. You
know
that. He saved me from death, remember? Police dogs don’t come any better.” He paused while Katt opened the door to the bedroom. “You said you wanted to be a Mountie, right? Well, here’s your induction.”

“I’m ready,” said Katt.

“There’s a secret panel beside the bed. See the knot in the wood to the left of the headboard? Push it.”

*     *     *

As soon as he hung up, the chief swapped his cellphone for his police radio. He broadcast a call for Dane, Jackie, Rachel, and Rick to switch to an alternative channel for a secure conversation. All four Mounties wore belt radios with shoulder mikes, so they complied instantly.

“Dane, Jackie, where are you?”

“I’m at the three bridges, Chief. What a mess,” replied Dane. “The carnage is horrific.”

“Jackie?”

“Opposite end, Chief. The bloodshed’s not as bad, but the toppled hydro towers are sparking like fireworks.”

“Listen up. We have a crisis situation. I suspect Mephisto will go after Becky. Rachel and Rick, there may have been a GPS tracker under the bumper of the Rover. If so, Mephisto’s henchmen know where you are. Dane and Jackie, do you know where Gill’s chalet is?”

“Affirmative.”

“Get over there as fast as you can. Rick?”

“Chief?”

“Check the Rover. But don’t take any chances. We can’t afford to lose you. If there’s no tracker, this could be a false alarm. But if there is, destroy it before the goons close in.”

“I’m on it.”

“Be careful. These guys are pros.”

*     *     *

Gill’s bedroom was walled with wooden panels sectioned like chessboard squares. The paintings on the walls were reproductions of Emily Carr’s evocative totem poles. Very West Coast.

Pressing the knot beside the headboard released a panel, swinging it open like a wall safe. Robert DeClercq was an expert bowman, and the woods out back of Gill’s chalet were ideal for target practice. To hide his crossbow from those who might break in, the chief stored it behind the wall.

The device Katt had pulled from the recess was a shrunken bow across the snout of a rifle stock. The stirrup attached to the nose was for the bowman’s foot when he cocked the weapon. There was a scope mounted above the trigger. Unfortunately, the nook hid nothing to fire. As an extra precaution, Robert had decided not to store the “arrows” there.

“It’s William Tell,” Rachel said as Katt came down the stairs carrying the crossbow.

A fire was crackling in the wood-burning stove. If not for the fact they were probably surrounded by several paid assassins, this would have been a rustic, cozy scene fit for a travel brochure.

“Cock this for me?” Katt asked Rick. She had nowhere near the strength to arm the weapon.

The corporal was gearing up to venture outside. He set down his shotgun and took the crossbow. Standing it up, he stuck the toe of his boot into the stirrup, then tugged the bowstring up to the trigger like a weightlifter curling a barbell.

Becky glanced up from her coloring book. “You need arrows,” she said.

“You’re holding one in your hand,” replied Katt.

They met outside the door to the Gilded Man. Mephisto passed Scarlett a wooden case designed for a fountain pen. Both wore gloves so as not to leave fingerprints.

“Careful,” warned Mephisto. “It’s loaded and ready to squirt. This dose of curare would kill Godzilla.”

Scarlett opened the case to admire the syringe within. Nestled in a bed of satin, the spike was sheathed in a plastic cap and the plunger was primed to push.

“Good,” she said. “I’ll bait the honey trap.”

“Stopwatch called. The other traps are set. It won’t be long before we hear the crack of breaking bones.”

“Music to my ears.”

“You’re my kind of gal.”

*     *     *

Up in room 412 of the El Dorado Resort, Zinc Chandler sat waiting for the witching hour. He’d repositioned an armchair so he could gaze out at the snow.

Snow, snow, fast-falling snow …

Snow on the rooftops …

Snow on the streets below …

He wondered if he’d ever find a woman to replace Alex Hunt. On stormy days like this, they used to settle in beside a roaring fire and watch a double bill of DVDs. Hitchcock films, for instance. Or back-to-back film noirs. Or
All the President’s Men
and Linda Lovelace in
Deep Throat
. There was always a connection. His picks one week, hers the next. Before long, the connection was as tricky to guess as the ending of a locked-room mystery.
The Maltese Falcon
and
The Vikings
, in which Tony Curtis releases his pet falcon to tear out Kirk Douglas’s eye.

“No fair,” Zinc complained. “I thought it was a hawk.”

“Bullshit,” Alex said. “You were raised on a farm. No way do you confuse birds of prey.”

Eventually, a game of hangman had cost him her love. Like DeClercq, Zinc had learned the hard way that some crazies couldn’t resist taunting the Horsemen. One of those madmen had challenged him to a game of hangman, with Alex playing the condemned.

She died at the end of a rope.

A fitting term for the current state of Zinc’s sex life was “uncomplicated.” He and a woman he’d met during a case would set the date for their trysts a year in advance, linking up somewhere hot for even hotter sex. For three weeks, each would escape from the reality of a lifestyle to which the other would never adapt. They’d swim in a turquoise lagoon and snorkel around the reef, sun themselves on a golden beach devoid of other people, take a walk along the surf beneath a dome of stars, and then screw themselves silly until it was time to fall asleep.

It wasn’t love.

But it was carefree, and sometimes that’s enough.

As Zinc checked the time on his watch—it was five o’clock—a memory from their recent tryst on Aitutaki brought a smile to his face. They’d traveled from one island to another by single-engine plane. Including the pilot, there were six passengers aboard. Zinc’s date was up front in the empty copilot’s seat. Just after takeoff, as the plane was in a climb out over the Pacific, the hatch on one of the luggage compartments in the wings flipped open. The top suitcase popped, releasing its contents and plastering panties all over the cockpit windshield. Its airflow disturbed, the plane lurched sideways in a sharp dive.

“Hang on,” yelled the pilot, trying to level the plane. He managed to pull them out of a crash just in time, then circled back to the airport from which they’d departed.

The passengers deplaned while the latch was fixed. Sitting on the grass, sipping fruit juice, Zinc sighed deeply and said, “It can’t get worse than that.”

“It could have been a lot worse,” his date countered.

“How so?”

“The underwear could have been
mine
.”

A diet of film noirs teaches you to beware of femmes fatales. The sobering lesson here was that Nick had let down his guard, and that had cost him his life. Hopefully, the honey trap Zinc had set with his business card in the Gilded Man would prove too alluring for Nick’s killer to resist. The trick for Zinc was to make sure he didn’t get himself killed in the act of trying to nab her. That would be a whole lot easier if he knew the
means
of Nick’s death.

Operating on the theory that forewarned is forearmed, he fished in his pocket for the number Karen had passed him earlier in the bar and punched it into his cellphone.

“Hello?” the barkeep answered, pushing the receiver to her ear to overcome the background noise.

“It’s Zinc Chandler.”

“I knew you’d call, big tipper.”

“I need a favor.”

“So do I. Remember my offer?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the favor?”

“Are the vamps still at their table?”

“Uh-huh,” she said, glancing over to Mandy, Jessica, and Corrina. “I just took them another round of drinks. Your ears must be burning.”

“Why?”

“They were talking about you.”

“Good things, I hope.”

“Dirty girl stuff.”

“I left one a note asking her to meet me at five.”

“It’s five now.”

“If one of them gets up to leave, I’d appreciate a call.”

“You’ll get a call if I get a call. Do we have a deal?”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“You can drive the hard bargain, if you want.”

Zinc smiled to himself. “Okay. If I can get free of work—that’s a mighty big ‘if’—you’ve got a deal. I’ll be your bodyguard for the rest of the night.”

“And you’re in luck. One of them just stood up.”

“What’s she doing?”

“Grabbing her carryall off the back of her chair. Stupid girl. That’s how your wallet gets pinched.”

“Is she leaving?”

“Wait a sec. Yep, she’s taking her coat.”

Rick Scarlett stepped out of the two-story chalet and closed the door behind him. With icicles spiking down from the eaves and firelight turning the windows into glaring eyes, the house looked like an open-jawed Windigo monster. And the Mountie looked like its next meal.

Shotgun at the ready, Rick eyed the wooded white waste around him. He felt as if he were the only man alive on earth, the sole survivor of a new ice age. The land seemed to slumber under a blanket of snow. When the tree branches dumped their heavy burdens, it was as if hibernating winter was turning over in its sleep.

Rick listened intently but heard nothing.

Shotgun leveled before him, ready to blast if necessary, he descended the dark drive without the aid of light. If there was a sniper down there, a flashlight would make him an easy target.

The corporal’s career had all but stalled since the Headhunter case went foul. He’d shuffled around a slew of small detachments since then, moving laterally instead of up the totem pole. As he walked toward Zinc’s Rover, now cocooned by snow, he almost wished the bad guys would come creeping along the road. Spotting them, he’d crouch in hiding until they approached the chalet, and as soon as he saw a weapon—this would be a righteous kill—the overlooked hero would scattershot those fuckers until they were mincemeat.

Inspector Rick Scarlett.

It had a nice ring to it.

Superintendent Rick Scarlett.

Even better.

Commissioner Rick Scarlett.

Why not go for the gold?

Top cop of the Royal Canadian Mounted Fucking Police.

Reaching the vehicle, Rick set the Remington down on the snowy hood. From his parka, he withdrew a small penlight. Then, stretching out along the front bumper, he shielded the beam as best he could and shone it up under the front of the Rover. At first, he saw nothing troubling. But when he scraped off the crud, there it was affixed to the undercarriage: a magnetic GPS tracker.

Tearing the device from its hold on the metal, the cop wiggled out from under the chassis. Rick was under no illusions about the peril. The bug in his hand meant that Mephisto knew where Becky was, and
that
meant that every second brought death closer to her.

The moment he saw the snow rise, Rick knew he’d made a foolish mistake. He should have set the shotgun beside him on the ground, not on the hood.

Ice Ax wore white so that when he lay flat in the snow, as he did near the Rover, his camouflage made him part of the landscape. Wet jobs were his specialty. Silent bloodlettings. He could lie still for hours without twitching, waiting for his prey to appear. He’d gone to ground within striking distance of the Rover because he wagered that if one of the Mounties ventured from the chalet, it would be to fetch something from the car or to drive it somewhere else.

And now his bet had paid off.

Having surveyed the wooded lot for signs of movement, Rick was convinced that the bad guys would ascend from the lower road, and that he’d have time to react if they came into view. There was just enough space to gaze down the drive between the Rover’s undercarriage and the flat on which the car was parked. The mistake he’d made was in overlooking the heaps around the clearing, the piles of shoveled snow. Rick had an image of mercenaries as tough guys fighting it out in deserts or jungles. He didn’t picture the killers being at home in the snow.

The shotgun was out of reach above his head.

His nine-mill was holstered under his parka.

A layer of clothing separated the corporal from his sidearm.

Scrambling to reach a weapon—
any
weapon—Rick launched a desperate bid to widen the gap as Ice Ax pressed his advantage. The mercenary sprang from the snow pile onto the driveway beside the Mountie. Hiking up his jacket as he struggled to gain his footing, the cop grasped the butt of his gun. Above him, the abominable snowman swung his weapon.

It seemed to Rick as if the oncoming collision between the ice ax and his skull was happening in slow motion. He could make out the curved T against the hoary trees. His hand found the shotgun as the pick began to plunge. Down it came as the Remington’s barrel swiveled toward the breath billowing from the mercenary’s mouth. Down it came as the nine-mill cleared the holster on his hip. In the blink of an eye, both firearms would be aimed at his attacker—

Crack!

The steel tip of the ice ax tore the fur of his cap, smashing through the crown of Rick’s skull. The shotgun clattered to the hood and the pistol dropped from the corporal’s hand as the pick sank deep into his gray matter.

The mercenary wrenched the weapon free as the cop crumpled to the ground. The squeak of steel on bone was accompanied by a gush of blood.

Next, the kids.