Colder Than Ice Read online

  “Why don’t you go help Maude with those cookies? And tell her I’ll see her in the morning.”

  Beth walked down the steps, but she didn’t take the flagstone path. She went out the driveway, pausing by the pickup to tie her shoe and pull herself together. It wasn’t Joshua’s fault, she told herself. He couldn’t possibly know her chance to raise her only child had been stolen from her because of some toy soldier with an itchy trigger finger eighteen years ago.

  When she rose it was to see Bryan staring at her. She glanced back toward the porch. Joshua had gone inside. The porch was empty.

  Bryan had stacked suitcases on the pickup’s tailgate, though it was completely unnecessary. “Don’t worry, my father has that effect on a lot of people,” he said.

  She looked at him, then allowed a smile as she realized he’d witnessed her reaction to Joshua’s question, though he probably hadn’t heard the dialogue. “Then it’s not just me?” she asked.

  “Nope.”

  “That’s good to know.” She rolled her eyes and saw Bryan’s smile turn from polite to amused. “Your dad tells me you’re in your senior year.”

  “Yeah. But I’m taking a semester off.”

  She nodded. “What do you still need to graduate?”

  “History, Spanish Four, English Twelve.”

  Beth smiled a little. “I used to teach English Eleven and Twelve.”

  “Used to? What, you don’t anymore?”

  “I’m taking a semester off.”

  He smiled at her, his eyes, and interest, sincere.

  “Actually, more like a few semesters. I still tutor, though. Let me know if you want to get those English credits out of the way while you’re in town. Give me an hour a day and I’ll have you ready for the final by Christmas.”

  “I doubt we’ll be here that long.”

  “Then give me two hours a day and make it Thanksgiving.”

  He looked at her. “You know, it’s actually not all that bad an idea.”

  She liked Bryan, she decided. She liked him a lot. Dawn would like him, too, if she were here. “Well, it’s up to you. I’m not pushing. And it would be tough on limited time. You’d have to be up for a challenge.”

  “English is my best subject. How much do you charge?”

  “What are you, kidding? You’re Maude’s great-grandson.”

  “I don’t want a free ride.”

  “Well, we can work something out, then. Maybe you could help me with a few chores?”

  He nodded. “Okay. Sounds good.”

  She smiled, pleasantly surprised. “You mean we’re on?”

  “We’re on,” he said, extending a hand.

  She shook on it, feeling buoyant and knowing why. She could help this kid. And he was going to let her. “We can start tomorrow. My place at noon. Maude can tell you where.”

  “Great. See you then.”

  “You’ll see me sooner.” She jogged down the driveway, turned left onto the lane, and fell into an easy rhythm.

  She didn’t think she liked the man. Then again, she didn’t like any man. She didn’t trust them. But she liked his son. Maybe that was because looking at all the grief and loss in the boy’s eyes was like looking into a mirror. Or maybe it was because she knew that no matter how much the people in his life would like him to “get over it” there was no such thing. He could deny it, defy it, or learn to live with it. But he couldn’t get over it.

  God knew she never had.

  Mordecai had set himself up in one of the seven perfect Victorian homes situated in a neighborhood halfway between the towns of Blackberry and Pinedale. The houses had been purchased by some brilliant entrepreneur twenty-odd years ago, according to Mordecai’s research—he didn’t believe in going anywhere without all the information. The houses were rented out to wealthy families as vacation homes in the summer and to foliage-seeking tourists in the fall. In the winter, the skiing enthusiasts took over, and from February through March, they were inhabited by folks in town for the maple syrup season, and all the festivals and events it brought. In April the houses were closed for upkeep.

  The others were all occupied. This one should have been, too—by Oliver Abercrombie, who’d made his reservations six months in advance. Unfortunately for the late Mr. Abercrombie, he was the only tenant without an immediate family, or anyone else close enough to miss him right away.

  Mordecai had also learned that the school districts of the two tiny towns had merged a decade back, when the population of students had outgrown their buildings and the cost of educating them had outgrown the towns’ respective tax bases. Now the Pinedale-Blackberry Central School System had its elementary building in Pinedale and its high school in Blackberry. The towns were eight miles apart, and this hamlet—which wasn’t a town at all, but was called Bonnie Brook by the locals—was halfway between the two.

  Lizzie was a teacher. He expected to find her working in one of the schools. So getting into the school system would be his first order of business.

  This town was too quiet, he thought as he drove. It gave the voices too much silence in which to operate. When Mordecai was surrounded by noise and activity and people, they mostly kept quiet. But here, where the only sounds at night were the creaking of the old house and the gentle rustling of the October wind in the drying leaves…here they almost never went silent.

  They were whispering now, in the background of his thoughts as he drove slowly along the winding, narrow roads, among the Day-Glo yellow of the poplar trees. Whispering…

  She’s here, somewhere.

  You’re close, Mordecai. You’re very close.

  She was supposed to burn in the fire, you know. Eighteen years ago, when the government raided your compound and all those young women died. She was supposed to die with them.

  He frowned, and said aloud, “Maybe I was supposed to die with them, too.”

  You know you can’t die without leaving an heir, Mordecai.

  You need a child, someone to carry on your gifts, your work.

  He sighed, disappointed anew that his own biological daughter, his and Lizzie’s, had not turned out to be the one. Spirit had rejected her. Still, he loved her, in his way. He had set her free because of that love. But he yearned for another, his heir. Perhaps he would find that heir here.

  He turned the car’s steering wheel, leaving the poplar-lined lane for one that wound and twisted between rolling meadows, dotted by fat, slow-chewing Holsteins with swollen udders and huge eyes.

  He saw a woman running, jogging, along the road’s shoulder.

  She wore maroon warmup pants with a thin white stripe up the sides, and a white tank top that fit her like a second skin. The jacket that matched the pants was knotted around her waist, and her blond ponytail bounced with every step she took.

  That hair…

  “Lizzie?” he whispered, slowing the car to a crawl so he could get a good look at her when he drove by. But there was something decidedly un-Lizzie-like about this woman. The squared shoulders. The pumping of her clenched fists. The way she held her head, chin high. Her stride was powerful, almost aggressive.

  Slowly, he eased the car past her, then looked into the side mirror so he could see her face. But she’d stopped, was bending now, tying her shoe.

  Go on, Mordecai. Keep driving. You have a date to keep. This one can wait.

  The guides were right, he thought with a sigh. Besides, this wasn’t his Lizzie. His Lizzie was insecure, cowering and needy. And he was here for more than just Lizzie. He was here, he suspected, because this was where the heir would be found.

  He drove the rest of the way to the high school, and waved to the woman who was waiting outside as he pulled into a vacant parking slot. Then he tipped the rearview mirror down to check his appearance.

  Coke-bottle-thick glasses made his eyes appear huge, and emphasized the green of the colored contacts. The toupee looked real enough, mostly because few people would wear a hairpiece that was thick, black and mussed. He’d
had it custom made. His new jet-black goatee was trimmed to a point at his chin and accompanied by a matching moustache that connected to it, bracketing his mouth. The new Oliver Abercrombie didn’t resemble the Mordecai Young of eighteen years ago, with his long mink hair and thin layer of stubble. Back then he had looked the way most westerners imagined Jesus Christ had looked. He didn’t resemble his more recent persona, Nathan Z, who’d been utterly bald, with striking brown eyes and a clean shaven face, either. He didn’t think Beth herself would have recognized him today, even had she bumped into him on the streets of Blackberry.

  That was the way he wanted it. For now. She mustn’t know he had found her, not until he was ready.

  He got out of his car, and Nancy Stillwater came limping toward him from the school’s main entrance, smiling. The smile put creases into her plump face. “Hello, Oliver,” she said, pushing dull brown hair, with a few gray strands, behind her ears.

  “Ahh, Nancy. You are a vision. How is your day going?”

  “Not too badly, so far. The new textbooks I’ve been waiting for finally came in.”

  “Wonderful. Are they as good as you’d expected them to be?”

  “Better. Even my students approve. So where are we having lunch?” she asked, lifting the basket she had, no doubt, taken great pains to fill.

  “Anywhere you like,” he said, taking the basket from her. “It’s such a nice day for a picnic.”

  “It really is. We won’t have too many more like this.”

  “No, we won’t.”

  “There are picnic tables this way.” She actually took his arm as she led him around the building, either because she was attracted to him and wanted to touch him, or because her bad leg was bothering her. The limp was considerably worse today than it had been yesterday, when he’d met her while applying for a job as a substitute teacher at the high school.

  His false credentials had impressed the office staff, and by the time they got around to checking them out, his work here would be done. After all, his claims put him far above what was required of substitute teachers.

  His résumé ought to put him at the top of the list, if they even had a list.

  List or no list, you will be the one they call. We’ll see to that.

  You have to stop doubting us, Mordecai.

  Yes, stop doubting us. All is in place. All we need now is for one of the regular teachers to get too sick to come in to work.

  “Here we are,” Nancy said, as they walked into a courtyard with round concrete tables, benches and planters situated every where. “This spot’s reserved for staff and seniors. And the staff know when the seniors have their lunch period,” she added with a smile. “It’s nice, don’t you think?”

  “Particularly without the seniors present.” He laughed softly, setting her picnic basket on the nearest table, lifting the lid and beginning to unload dishes.

  She sat down beside him. “I was surprised when you asked me to join you for lunch today, Oliver.”

  “Now why should that surprise you?” He pulled out the bottle of sparkling grape juice, removed the cork with a flourish and poured juice into stemmed, plastic wineglasses.

  “Well, I’m not exactly used to the attention of men.”

  “Then the men around here must be stupider than I imagined.” He handed her a glass. “To the beginning of a lovely friendship, and the promise that, next time, the wine will be real.” He held his glass toward her.

  She tapped hers against it, took a sip and smiled.

  Mordecai smiled back, glancing down at the sectioned plates with their air-lock plastic lids, specially designed for packing picnic lunches. He removed the lid from the first one, and with his hands still hidden inside the basket, twisted the cap off the vial he’d palmed and emptied its contents onto the salad. Then he picked up the plate and set it gently in front of her. “Ah, this looks wonderful, my dear.”

  “It’s my special ambrosia salad, chicken coq au vin—albeit cold—antipasto, and a homemade double chocolate brownie for dessert.”

  “My goodness! You’re a goddess.”

  She smiled as he passed her a napkin-wrapped set of silverware. “I don’t eat like this every day, mind you. But I thought today it would be all right to forget about my diet.”

  “Diet? Please, you’re perfect. A Botticelli nude.”

  “Oh, my.” She averted her eyes as her cheeks went pink.

  Mordecai pocketed the empty vial and casually cleaned his hands with an antibacterial wipe he’d brought along. Then he removed the lid from his own plate, set the basket on the ground and dug into his meal with relish.

  She dug into hers, as well. Poor stupid woman.

  Chapter Two

  Joshua Kendall walked into Maude Bickham’s house in a state of shock. The woman, Beth Slocum, the resemblance…No, no, it was more than a resemblance. She was identical to the girl his bullet had torn apart eighteen years ago. The girl who’d lain in a deep coma as he sat by her bed, wishing he could change places with her. The girl he’d been told had no chance of surviving.

  She was older, of course. The eyes he’d only seen closed in mindless slumber had a few lines at their corners that hadn’t been there before. God, how he’d longed to see them open, to know their color.

  He knew it now. Emerald green, like the Gulf of Mexico at midsummer.

  The round cheeks of youth had been replaced by sharper angles, but there was no question she was the same person.

  He stumbled into the house, barely seeing where he was going, so many questions were whirling through his mind.

  “Well, there you are. My goodness, I almost lost it out there. I have to tell you, son, I’m not used to telling lies.”

  “You, uh…you did fine, Maude.”

  “Well, it’s well worth it, if it’s to help protect Beth from whatever shadows she’s been running from. Like I always say, ‘You have to crush some tomatoes to get any sauce.’ This won’t wash for long, though. There are folks in this town have known me far longer than Beth has. Oh, I can put ’em off for a while. Sam and I were old enough when we bought this place that any kids we might have had would have been grown. Most folks don’t know we never had any. All but Frankie, anyway. She won’t be so easily—what is it, Joshua? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I…” He gave his head a shake and forced himself to pay attention to the woman. “It was a long drive. I guess I’m tired out.”

  “Well, then, go on up to your room. I’ve put you in the blue room, and your boy in the one beside you. Go left at the top of the stairs. It’s the second door on the right.”

  “Thanks.”

  He took her advice and sought out the privacy of his bedroom. And the first thing he did was to make a phone call to Arthur Stanton, his longtime mentor, former superior officer, and the man who’d hired him for this job. Arthur was out. His machine told Josh to leave a message.

  Josh held the phone to his ear, staring out the bedroom window. Down there on the scraggly lawn, a ghost was talking to his son. A woman who was supposed to be dead. He should know, he thought. He’d killed her himself.

  “Arthur, it’s Joshua. Call me back and tell me what the hell is going on. Is this woman—is she—Jesus, Art, what are you doing to me here?”

  He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Not even when the image of the girl she had been when he’d seen her last overlaid the scene below in his mind. He saw her as she had been: pale, far too thin, barely seventeen. Wires taped to her temples and forehead, and running from underneath her clothes. Tubes in her wrists and mouth. White sheets, white hospital gown, white skin. The damned incessant beeping of the heart monitor that sounded sluggish and slow.

  A lot of kids had been caught in the cross fire when federal agents raided the Young Believers’ Compound eighteen years ago. But most of the bodies burned in the holocaust that followed.

  Hers hadn’t.

  Josh had been an ATF agent then, overzealous and eager to be a hero. And maybe a
little too quick to fire back at the muzzle flashes coming from the compound. Ballistics matched the bullet that took her out with Joshua’s own rifle. When Josh had gone to the hospital to see her, they’d told him she wouldn’t live out the week.

  She’d been haunting him ever since.

  It couldn’t be her. It couldn’t be. Not like this, strong, older…alive, running now down the tree-lined lane, her strides powerful and confident. It couldn’t be her.

  There was a knock on his door. “Dad?”

  He shook himself, opened it. Bryan stood there with a large red-white-and-blue envelope in his hands. “Mailman was just here. Left this for you. It came express, so I figured it was important.”

  He took it, eyed the return address.

  “It’s from that guy who hired you—Arthur Stanton.”

  The man who was like a father to him. The man he trusted, had always trusted, even after the raid.

  “He was your boss when you were in the ATF, you said.”

  Josh nodded. He’d been fired, because the nation needed a scapegoat. Not that he hadn’t been guilty—just no guiltier than every other man on the strike team that day. Art had been too well respected to be fired; he’d been moved, instead. Lost his command, gotten stuck behind a desk pushing papers for the rest of his career. Put to work for the Federal Witness Protection Program. If she was who Josh thought she was, she must have been one of Arthur’s first cases.

  Jesus.

  “So what was really going on down there?” Bryan asked.

  Josh tried to focus on his son. “What do you mean?”

  “With that woman. First you looked at her like you were seeing a ghost, and then you tried to cover—lamely.”

  Josh pursed his lips. “I wasn’t trying to cover. She really does remind me of someone.”

  “Yeah, so much you nearly lost your lunch.”

  He averted his eyes.

  “I mean it, Dad. I thought you were going to blow it out there. I mean, you’re the one who’s supposed to know what you’re doing here, the one who spent three straight days lecturing me on not blowing our cover. So I figure this is something major.”