Frozen Ground

by Webb, Debra

  He closed the lid and walked back to the driver’s side door. He slid behind the wheel. With the engine running all this time, the snow around the front of the car, including the windshield, had melted considerably which helped him rock back and forth until the car rocketed out of the drifts of snow that had fallen around it. He made a loop around the back yard, using the headlights as spotlights. No sign of anyone else down in the snow. Then he eased along the drive, taking it slower than he wanted to. If he ended up in the ditch he’d be stuck. Every minute wasted was another that could cost Abbey or Hansen.

  Who was he kidding? Hansen was likely face down in the snow out in those woods somewhere. Or a hostage to lure Abbey.

  Garrett reached Mill Creek Road and managed the necessary turn. He shook his head at the condition of the road. It would be a miracle if he made it to his destination in this vehicle. Three minutes ticked off, each one flickering past on the digital clock on the dash, before he reached the turn to Abbey’s house. His frustration ramped higher and higher. It took every ounce of strength he possessed not to floor the accelerator.

  As soon as the clearing around the house came into view, he spotted his truck. He shut the headlights off and rolled up behind his vehicle, then killed the engine.

  The truck lights were off; engine wasn’t running. He edged around the truck, using it as camouflage from the house as he moved closer. The pounding in his chest blocked the sound of the wind. Beyond him, inside the house the silence worried him more than if he’d heard screams.

  The tracks from the truck to the house were partially covered but not completely. The tracks he’d made leaving were no longer visible, but these others—the ones of whoever had ambushed him and taken his truck—were still easy enough to see.

  Fear tightened around his chest like a vise.

  Weapon drawn and ready, he climbed the steps and moved as noiselessly as possible across the dark porch. Still no sound coming from inside. He pressed his back to the wall next to the door and took a moment to steel himself.

  If Abbey was already dead—he squeezed his eyes shut and banished the thought. He couldn’t be too late.

  Like she’d said, there were things they needed to talk about.

  With his right hand he reached out and twisted the doorknob. It turned without hesitation. He shoved the door inward and held his ground to the count of three.

  No sound. No movement.

  He did a one-eighty, stepping into the open doorway.

  His gaze moved across the room.

  Clear.

  No overturned furniture. Nothing broken.

  “Abbey!”

  His voice echoed in the silence.

  More of that choking fear clawed at his throat. He surveyed the room. Scanned the floor for blood. Nothing. His steps as quiet as he could make them, he walked to the kitchen.

  “Abbey!” The room was clear. Again, nothing overturned, nothing broken. No blood.

  He strode quickly to the staircase, his head throbbing in time with the frantic beating of his heart. He bounded up the stairs. His head swimming after the exertion, he lurched from room to room.

  No Abbey.

  No sign of a struggle.

  Nothing.

  Going back down the stairs, he clutched the railing to steady himself. Pain exploded again and again in his head. His gut roiled and clenched. Couldn’t stop. He had to find her.

  He stumbled to the kitchen and shoved the curtain aside to stare out the back door. Her SUV was still there. Beyond it was another vehicle. He couldn’t see the license plate from the door.

  Damn it. Not Hansen’s truck.

  He considered his options. First, he needed to have another look around outside. The snow had let up considerably. Backup should be here any moment. With two or more deputies they could cover far more ground.

  Garrett was at the front door when his cell vibrated. He snatched it from his utility belt hoping against hope it was Abbey.

  Coroner.

  “Garrett.”

  “We need to talk about Dottie Hansen.”

  “You get something back from the lab?” If he had Garrett would be surprised. Most everything that was generally open on a Sunday had shut down early in the afternoon. The lab operated seven days a week, but not in weather conditions like this.

  “Believe it or not, I did. Griff Whitley over at the lab couldn’t get home—same for me—so he just stayed at work. I asked him to run a tox screen, get me anything possible as quickly as he could, and I proceeded with the autopsy.”

  “What’d you find?” He needed the man to get straight to the point.

  “Either Dottie had decided to take her own life or someone had forced her to swallow a fatal dose of something in the benzodiazepines family. I called Tim Waterman over at the pharmacy and he confirmed that Dottie had been prescribed Valium ages ago. Judging by the surprising lack of blood at the scene, I would say she was almost dead when she was stabbed. Her heart was still beating but barely.”

  “Why would anyone repeatedly stab a dying woman?” The question was a rhetorical one. In this situation, Garrett knew the answer. Still, it seemed unnecessary for Steven to have forced her to take pills for rendering her immobile and then stabbing her? Why not just put her down the way he had Garrett with that damned baseball bat and then do it?

  The scenario introduced a glaring question. Why hadn’t he killed Garrett? Why leave him alive?

  “Thanks for the update, Doc. I’ll get back to you.”

  His cell vibrated again before he could tuck it back into its holster. Wagner.

  “Where’s that backup?” He needed help here.

  “Trees down over the road. The weight of the snow just got to be too much.”

  What the hell else was going to happen? “You have an ETA for me?”

  “Nelson drove back to the Adams’ place and borrowed a chainsaw. They’ll be through shortly. Should be to your location within the next twenty minutes.”

  “I’m at the Gray house now. No sign of anyone. No indication there was a struggle of any sort. Whoever put me down, took my truck and drove it here. I had to drive Johnson’s patrol car. But I haven’t found anyone—alive or otherwise—yet. There is another vehicle behind the house. I’m going to check it out now.”

  Wagner assured him again that backup would be there soon. Garrett couldn’t wait.

  He hadn’t seen any tracks other than those of his truck out front, so he headed for the back door. He snagged the hat that Abbey’s dad had worn everyday off the hook by the door and walked out. If Steven had taken Abbey, they couldn’t have gotten far without transportation.

  Outside he pulled his flashlight from his utility belt and scanned the snow around Abbey’s SUV. Tracks from the far side of the yard had cut across the landscape and ended next to her SUV. Not enough snow on the blue one parked next to hers for it to have been there long. Yellowstone County. Billings was in Yellowstone County and Steven lived in Billings. The make, model and color of the vehicle matched.

  Rage fueling him forward, Garrett started a grid pattern, looking for tracks…blood…anything that would give him a direction.

  They had to be here…

  Somewhere.

  More than anything else, he needed her to be alive.

  Chapter Twelve

  Abbey desperately wished she’d hidden her cell phone in one of her boots. But she hadn’t expected to need to make a move like that. Steven had taken it from her, tossed it into the snow as they started for the tree line.

  The strange thing was, she did this sort of thing in her novels. But who believed it would happen to them in real life? Not even her, apparently.

  “Keep moving.”

  This was enough. She stopped. The barrel of the shotgun nudged her in the back. Ignoring the cold steel, she turned around and stared at him. The snow had all but stopped now.

  “Why should I?”

  Why didn’t he just shoot her now and get it over with? Why play this ridiculou
s game or whatever it was he seemed intent on playing?

  He stood close enough for her to see his jaw harden. “When we get to the treehouse, I’ll explain everything.”

  “Why can’t you do it now?” She lifted her chin and glared at him. “But first, I want you to take off Garrett’s hat. You don’t deserve to wear it.”

  He took a breath, probably to wrangle his frustration. A cloud of cold mist puffed out of his mouth. “When we get to the treehouse, we’ll have a good lookout. No one will be able to sneak up on us there. We’ll be safe.”

  She shook her head. “Are you really that stupid?” What did she have to lose at this point? She tapped her temple, baiting him. “Did prison screw you up worse than you already were? Garrett knows about the treehouse. I showed him the evidence you left behind. We both know you’ve been hiding there. That’s the first place he’ll look when he comes for you.”

  Steven shook his head. “This is the only way I can prove the truth to you. I know what I’m doing, Abbey.”

  If her eyes hadn’t adjusted so completely to the dark she might not have seen the plea on his face. The wind had settled allowing her to hear every nuance of his voice. Whether by the grace of insanity or from some piece of goodness that still existed inside him, his words sounded sincere.

  “Do you really expect me to believe in you, Steven?”

  “I can’t make you believe anything you don’t want to believe, but I would never have hurt our mother. You must know that’s true.”

  “Why would Mrs. Hansen lie?”

  His head moved side to side. “I don’t know, but she did and I went to prison for murdering one of the people I loved most in this world. I won’t let it happen again.”

  What did he mean? Let it happen again?

  “All right. I’ll go with you to the treehouse, but I want you to lower the barrel of that shotgun. You trip and you might end up shooting me whether that’s your intent or not.”

  He lowered the barrel as she’d asked. She turned around and trudged forward. The treehouse wasn’t far now. If he was telling the truth and he hadn’t arrived until yesterday afternoon, who knocked the ladder down when she was in that treehouse? Who left that food packaging? The pillow and quilt? Why on earth was she allowing herself to trust him again?

  Clearly, recent events had sent her over an edge too.

  “Just tell me he’s okay.” She said this without looking back. Wondering if Garrett was okay or not was tearing her heart out.

  “He was breathing. I didn’t see any blood.”

  Her chest tightened painfully. Thank God. “Did you hurt him somehow?”

  Steven had never been one to fight. He had always walked away or got his butt kicked for trying to walk away. How had that nonviolent guy turned into this?

  “Here we go,” he announced.

  They were at the treehouse now. She stared up at the dark façade and wondered if this would be the last thing she saw.

  “You go up first.”

  “You answer my question first. Did you hurt him somehow?”

  “I did not. Now go.”

  An idea occurred to her, making her hesitate. “How can you be sure someone—whoever this mysterious someone is that you believe really killed our mother and Mrs. Hansen—isn’t waiting up there for us? Shouldn’t the person with the weapon go up first and check it out?”

  “Go,” he ordered.

  He nudged her with the muzzle.

  As she climbed the rickety ladder, another thought occurred to her. She smiled to herself. Whatever her brother was doing—whether or not he was telling the truth—she wasn’t taking any chances. She had to take control.

  To her relief, there was no one waiting in the rickety old former hunting stand to attack her. She scrambled into the treehouse, avoiding the hole she’d made, and eased her way to the far side. The creak of the ladder told her Steven was coming up as promised.

  She grabbed one of the little chairs her father had made and readied to do what she had to do to protect herself.

  Steven reached the top of the ladder, the barrel of the shotgun pointing skyward. Abbey resisted the impulse to run forward and knock him backward. He was her brother, she didn’t want to kill him. She just wanted to stop him from hurting her or anyone else.

  He clambered onto the rough wood floor and pushed to his feet.

  She rushed forward. Slammed the chair into his left shoulder and his head, sending him staggering to the right, hoping he’d step into the hole and lose his balance.

  The chair fell to pieces on the floor. The shotgun hit the floor next. He scrambled to go after it. She charged him.

  His fingers went around her throat. He slammed her onto her back on the floor.

  “Don’t move,” he growled in her face. “I swear to God if you do…”

  “You’ll what? Kill me? Then why bother bringing me here if you were only going to kill me anyway?”

  “I’m setting a trap,” he snarled as he released her. He retrieved the shotgun and got to his feet. “Get up,” he snapped.

  She didn’t bother. Instead, she crawled to the very back of the space and huddled there. “Talk. Tell me whatever it is you think I need to know about this trap. I want this over.”

  He stood in the dark silence for a bit. As difficult as it was, she waited.

  “Like I said before and during the trial,” he began, his voice a low rumble in the night, “I came home from school and found Mom on the ground bleeding. I tried to help her, but it was too late. The next thing I knew Mrs. Hansen was standing there screaming at me. She rushed toward me and pushed me away. She said at the trial that’s when she got the blood on her but that’s not true. She already had blood on her.”

  There it was, a repeat of what she had already heard. “Why would anyone believe you now any more than they did back then?” Why was he doing this? “You did your time, Steven? Why would you come back here and do this? You violated your parole leaving Yellowstone County and…” She couldn’t say the rest. If he’d killed that old woman to get even. She felt sick.

  “I violated the terms of my parole to protect you.”

  Oh yeah, she’d forgotten that ridiculous plot detail of this ongoing saga. “Did you bring Dad’s letter with you?”

  “I did.”

  His answer took her aback. She wasn’t expecting that one. Fabric rustled as he dug in his pocket. It was so dark in the treehouse it was hard to tell exactly what he was doing, she could only assume.

  “I don’t have a flashlight, but here it is.” He thrust an envelope at her.

  “Well that’s convenient.” She tucked it into her coat pocket. “I guess I’ll have to read it when I get home. Assuming I’m still alive.”

  He exhaled a big breath. “Dad figured something out. He said so in his letter. He didn’t say what but the next day he was dead. That has to tell you something.”

  “That we are cursed? Have the worst luck? He fell off a ladder, Steven. He wasn’t murdered.” How did she get that through his head? She shivered as if the cold had only then filtered past the layers of protective wear and absorbed into her bones.

  The silence that followed had her hugging her knees to her chest. Had she pushed him too far?

  “Dad would never make a mistake like that,” he argued. “He’d painted that house numerous times. Done all kinds of maintenance and he never overreached and fell. I think it was made to look that way. There wasn’t an autopsy so who knows?”

  His words made her uncomfortable. He was right about their father. He’d never fallen before. What if there was some truth to what he was saying?

  “Who would have done this?” she demanded, determined not to be swayed without some sort of tangible evidence besides a letter she couldn’t read.

  “I thought it was Mrs. Hansen at first.”

  Abbey laughed. “You are kidding, right? The woman wasn’t more than five two or five three. She was petite like Mom. How could she have killed a man the size of our father
without using a weapon that would leave evidence? You know, like a gun? Not to mention, why in the world would she want to?”

  “But,” Steven snapped, going on as if she hadn’t tossed out a valid loophole in his theory, “when she ended up dead, I knew it was him. That’s why I rushed home to protect you.”

  “Who, Steven? Who is him?”

  “Mr. Hansen.”

  This was beyond insane. “He’s convinced it was you. He looked at me with sheer hatred when I told him how sorry I was to hear about his wife. He was devastated.”

  “Who else could it have been?”

  This was it then. He had no evidence. No idea who did any of this anymore than she did. He’d violated his parole for nothing. He’d done whatever the hell he had done since coming back to town and he had nothing to show for it.

  “I’m going to find Garrett.”

  She was up and at the opening where the ladder waited when he stopped her.

  “I can’t let you go out there. He’ll kill you. We have to wait for him to come to us.”

  “Why would you want to protect me?” she demanded? “All those years you refused to see us. Returned our letters. Why would you do that and then pretend to come back here to protect me like this?”

  “I didn’t want either of you to be hurt any more than you already had,” he said quietly, too quietly. “I didn’t want Dad spending any more money on trying to save me when I couldn’t be saved.”

  She wanted to believe him. She really did. But she couldn’t.

  “I’m going, Steven. If you mean what you say, then you go with me and protect me. Help me prove your story.”

  He didn’t try to stop her as she started down the ladder.

  Her feet were on the ground before he started down.

  Maybe she could get him back to the house. If Garrett was able, he would be looking for her. Please let him be okay.

  She backed away from the ladder as Steven lowered his feet to the ground.

  A cold, gloved hand grabbed her by the throat and yanked her backward.