On Thin Ice

by Debra Lee Brown

  Her eyes widened. “You mean Jeremy Adams? Your father is that Adams?” Her mouth gaped in astonishment.

  “Yeah.”

  He didn’t have to say another word. Everyone in the business knew who Jeremy Adams was. Hell, for all he knew, Lauren might even know him personally. For sure Holt knew him. Money Man ran in exactly the kinds of circles that…

  “It’s Holt,” he said suddenly.

  “What?”

  All of Tiger’s VPs were on the Bureau’s short list of suspects, but Seth had discounted Crocker Holt from the beginning because he, out of all of them, seemed to have no motive. He was already rich as Midas, and held prestigious positions in banking, the oil business and, socially, the upper crusts of society Lauren was raised in.

  “Crocker Holt. He’s the one selling out Tiger.”

  “That’s crazy! I thought you said Salvio was the ringleader.”

  Seth’s head was spinning, trying to piece together the details, everything he knew about Holt. “He is. Here in the field. Collecting the data and samples to be sold. But Jack Salvio doesn’t have the connections or resources to broker secret deals with foreign interests.”

  He still hadn’t figured out how Salvio, a guy with no geologic training, would know which data was important and which was useless. But he would, and soon. Maybe they used an outside lab to analyze the rock samples. It would be risky, but it could be done.

  “No, you’re right, Jack doesn’t have those kinds of contacts. But Crocker?” She shot to her feet. “He would never do anything like that. Never. You don’t know him. He’s the most honest, upstanding—”

  “You sure?” Most white-collar crooks were already big shots, he reminded himself. It wouldn’t be out of character at all for a guy like Holt.

  Then again, maybe he just wanted to believe it was her fiancé. That would be damned convenient, wouldn’t it? It would wipe Holt right out of the picture. The picture being Lauren and him.

  “Crocker would never lie to me. If he was involved in something like this and didn’t tell me, it would be just like lying.” Nervously, she twisted the diamond engagement ring on her finger. Candlelight shattered in fiery brilliance against the stone. “If you love someone, if you’re going to marry them, you don’t lie to them, Seth.”

  Years ago at the Academy, he was kicked in the gut by an instructor as part of his self-defense training. Her words had exactly the same effect on him.

  “Lauren, there’s something else I need to tell you.” He reached for her hand, but she wasn’t listening.

  She paced the floor, barefoot, chewing at her bottom lip. He watched her mind working. She was thinking about the possibility. About Holt. What it would mean if he was the one the Feds were after.

  Suddenly he felt strange.

  Something was different. Not right. He’d been so focused on Lauren from the moment he woke up, he hadn’t even noticed. “The wind,” he said, and shot to his feet.

  Lauren froze in place. “Oh, my God.”

  Metal shutters covered the few windows in the lodge from the view outside. They couldn’t see, but they could hear.

  Nothing. Not a breath of wind.

  Seth reached for his shorts.

  Lauren moved toward the door, but before she could yank it open, he grabbed her arm.

  “Wait! Listen.” He’d thought he heard something, far off in the distance, but maybe it was just his imagin—

  A buzzing sound cut the silence.

  “I hear it,” she said.

  “Snowmobile.” He moved quickly to the bed and retrieved his Glock from the floor.

  Lauren followed. “What do we do?”

  “Stay behind me. Understand?”

  She nodded, her face tight with fear.

  “It’ll be all right. Trust me.” He brushed a kiss lightly across her lips.

  Her gaze locked on his. “I do trust you.” She forced a smile.

  He wanted to tell her everything, right then and there. But mostly, he wanted to tell her again that he loved her. As crazy as it sounded, he did, he was sure of it—and he wanted her to believe it. To love him back. To forget Crocker Holt, whether he was a criminal or not.

  But there wasn’t time.

  The high-pitched buzzing of the snowmobile’s engine grew louder, closer. Seth moved quickly toward the door, pulling Lauren with him. Abruptly the engine cut off. Footfalls crunched in the dry snow outside.

  Seth looked at her hard, put a finger to his lips, gesturing for her to be quiet. Lauren nodded compliance. He moved her behind him, behind the door, his eyes riveted to the dead bolt lock, his gun leveled chest-high.

  The knock startled them both. Three dull raps with a gloved fist. He heard Lauren suck in a breath behind him. He went statue-still, his trigger finger poised, ready for whatever came next.

  What did, surprised the hell out of him.

  It was the sound of a key fitting snugly into the lock. Seth backed up, crushing Lauren to the wall behind them, shielding her body with his. “Don’t move,” he breathed.

  He felt her hands trembling against his back, the weight of her breasts as she gulped in air. The dead bolt turned with a crisp click, and Lauren gasped.

  Cold air hit him like a wall as the door swung inward. A hooded figure stepped into the room, his breath frosting the air. Seth pressed his gun against the man’s temple before his mind processed the familiar emblem on the standard-issue jacket he wore. “What the—?”

  Lauren let out a strangled cry.

  The man turned.

  Seth exhaled in relief, lowering his gun as he recognized the crooked smile and those dark, boyish features.

  “Hey, Chief.” The crooked smile broadened as he took in the situation: the twin bed, slept in, their clothes in a pile on the floor, Seth standing there in his shorts, and Lauren peeking out from behind him, naked except for his shirt.

  “Christ, Danny, I almost shot you.”

  “Nah, you wouldn’t do that.” He tipped his hood back, his gaze washing over Lauren as she moved from behind the shelter of Seth’s body. “Danny Chilit, ma’am. Pleased to meet you.”

  Turning his attention back to Seth, he said, “Heard somebody on the radio last night. Thought it might be you. Buzzed up here to check it out.”

  “Chief?” Lauren said, her gaze zeroing in on the North Slope Borough law enforcement emblem on the officer’s jacket.

  Seth didn’t want her to find out like this. He’d wanted to tell her himself. She looked up at him, silent, her mouth open, her brows arched not in question—because she already knew the answer—but in dazed realization of who and what he was.

  Danny cocked that crooked smile at her again. “That’s right.” He jutted his chin at Seth. “Chief of Police Adams, Kachelik Outpost, North Slope Borough. He’s the man.”

  “Yes,” she said, nodding slowly, her eyes glazed hard as the two-carat stone on her finger.

  Seth felt that gut-busting kick again, and wished to God he could relive the past half hour.

  “I’m beginning to think he’s a lot of things.”

  Chapter 16

  “Y ou used me.”

  Lauren marched toward the snowmobile idling in front of the lodge. Behind her she heard the snow crunch under Seth’s boots as he jogged after her.

  “Lauren.”

  “Save it,” she said, and stopped in front of the vehicle, breathing hard, not from exertion, but raw anger, which she hadn’t been able to contain the past half hour since discovering Seth’s little masquerade.

  Danny Chilit, Officer Chilit, was busy inside the lodge, securing it for the duration of the winter. The decal on the snowmobile he’d arrived on matched the patch sewn onto the sleeve of his law-enforcement-issue survival jacket— North Slope Borough Police Department.

  Her anger burned so hot, she was certain if she stood in one place long enough, the ice beneath her boots would simply melt.

  “I tried to tell you.” Seth grasped her shoulders and spun her toward him
.

  “Let go of me!”

  “I wanted to tell you, days ago, but I couldn’t. How could I, Lauren? It was an undercover job.”

  “For the FBI.” She wrestled out of his grasp. “So you’ve said.”

  “Lauren, it’s my job. I’m a cop.”

  She snorted. It was unladylike, but she didn’t care. “It was a stretch believing Jeremy Adams’s son was just a roughneck. I should have known, right then and there, that you were lying.”

  “I wasn’t lying. I was…”

  “No?” She glared at him. “What would you call it, then?”

  He exhaled loudly, his breath crystallizing on the air. The sky was dark all around them, and the wind was picking up again. They had to get out of there fast before conditions deteriorated. She glanced at the snowmobile, wondering how the three of them were going to manage the six-mile trip in to Kachelik.

  “It was just another case, an assignment. That’s all.” He gestured for her to get on.

  “Oh, I see. An assignment. Is that what I was, too? Is that what last night was?” She stepped onto the running board, threw a leg over the seat, and promptly lost her footing.

  Seth was there in an instant, his arms circling her. Before she could stop him, he lifted her off her feet.

  “Put me down!”

  “No.” He pulled her tight against him, and angled her chin upward with a gloved hand. “Listen to me.”

  “I’m done listening. Unless, of course, you’ve got some other choice lies to add to last night’s pièce de résistance.”

  The startled look in his eyes told her he knew exactly what she meant. “What I said to you last night…”

  She struggled against him, but he wouldn’t let her go.

  “I meant it, Lauren.”

  For a millisecond she allowed herself to remember his face when he’d said it, the feel of him inside her, the joy and confusion, the visceral ache when she’d heard his words.

  I love you.

  For a split second their gazes locked, and she knew he was remembering, too. And then the moment passed.

  “Oh, right. And if I buy that, next you’ll want to sell me some land in Florida.”

  “Stop it.” He dumped her onto the seat of the snowmobile and ran a gloved hand through his hair.

  It had to be at least thirty below. Both of them were breathing hard now, their breath frosting the air. His cheeks were ruddy from cold, and probably frustration, but that wasn’t her problem.

  “All set,” Danny said, and jogged over to join them. One look at their faces, and his expression sobered. “Uh, you two need a minute?”

  “No. We don’t.” Lauren scooted to the back of the narrow snowmobile’s seat and waited. “Let’s get this over with. I have people to call, places to be. And one of them isn’t here.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Danny positioned himself in front of her, gloved hands on the controls, and nodded at Seth. “Chief?”

  Chief.

  There it was again. That subtle reminder that everything he’d made himself out to be, all that he’d said to her, her trust in him, what they’d shared…all of it was lies.

  “Move up,” Seth said, and gestured for her to slide to the middle of the seat.

  “No way.” Hell could freeze first before she’d allow herself to be sandwiched in between the two of them.

  Seth didn’t give her a choice. He simply got behind her and forcibly slid her forward on the seat.

  She swore.

  Danny laughed, and she was tempted to slap him. It would have been difficult given that they were all in survival gear, hoods cinched tight and gloved hands about as dexterous as elephant’s feet.

  Seth slid up behind her on the seat, jamming her in so tightly she couldn’t move. “Let’s do it,” he said.

  Danny engaged the transmission.

  It was the most uncomfortable half hour of her life.

  They bumped along the tundra, and Lauren held on to the officer for dear life. Seth pressed closer, shielding her from wind so frigid it cut like a razor on contact with her skin. His thighs cradled hers, and she could feel his heat behind her.

  Every moment of their lovemaking replayed in her mind on that six-mile trip. When she closed her eyes she saw him naked, his body bathed in soft light, dark eyes trained on hers. His smile, his touch, the smell of him lingering on her skin. She could still taste him—salty, hot, smooth and hard against her tongue.

  They bounced over a hard-packed snowdrift onto a trail, and she was jolted back to the present.

  Don’t do this, Lauren. Don’t talk yourself into believing last night was something it wasn’t.

  She didn’t want to think about it. She couldn’t. What a fool she’d been. For a week they’d danced around the mad attraction that had been there from the beginning, and last night she’d finally succumbed. She’d allowed him to get close to her, to know things about her no one else knew.

  But it wasn’t about her, she reminded herself.

  It was about the case. His assignment.

  And to think she’d questioned her upcoming marriage, her career at Tiger, her goals in life—all because she’d been lied to by a borough cop masquerading as a roughneck. A law enforcement officer who’d come to Caribou Island for just one purpose—to know her, seduce her if that’s what it took to get her to trust him—solely to get the information he needed to crack the FBI’s case.

  “Hey,” Danny yelled over his shoulder.

  “Oh, sorry.” She realized she’d been gripping the arms of the officer’s jacket so tightly, she was dragging him backward.

  “Almost there,” Seth shouted over the buzzing of the snowmobile’s engine.

  The twinkling lights of the tiny village of Kachelik were exactly as she remembered them. A bittersweet pain clutched at her heart as she recalled the first time her father had brought her here. So long ago.

  It seemed like yesterday.

  Though it was nearly noon, hardly any natural light bled from the southern horizon through the ice fog and lightly blowing snow. Large sodium lights attached to poles, like the ones on Caribou Island, lit their approach.

  After a moment, a small airstrip came into view on their right. It was nothing much to speak of: a couple of Quanset huts, an old North Slope Borough chopper, and a handful of privately owned ski planes.

  The officer slowed the snowmobile into a turn, and ahead Lauren made out a green Jeep Cherokee sporting a police department emblem parked in front of one of the buildings. They pulled up alongside it, and the deputy cut the engine.

  “Thank God.”

  “Thank Officer Chilit,” Seth said, as he slid off the seat and offered her a hand.

  She ignored it, and turned to Danny. “I really appreciate you coming to get us. I’ll see to it that Tiger Petroleum pays you for your time, and for the gas.”

  “The borough pays me for that. Besides, it’s my job to keep this guy out of trouble.” The officer’s smile cracked into a mischievous grin as he tossed Seth a set of car keys. “Looks like this time I was too late.”

  Seth shot him one of those stony I’ll-talk-to-you-later looks. Lauren was embarrassed.

  “Head on in to the station, why don’tcha?” Danny said, ignoring their reactions. “Coffee’s hot, and there’s a stack of paperwork a mile high needs signing on your desk.”

  “You’re not coming?”

  “I’ll catch up. I wanna do a once-over on the chopper before the weather goes to hell again.” He nodded at the ancient borough helicopter tied down on the ice by one of the hangars. “That wreck a couple of days ago spooked me.”

  “What wreck?”

  “Some chopper outta Deadhorse. Went down in the storm twenty miles off Caribou Island.”

  Lauren snapped to attention.

  “Anybody hurt?” Seth asked.

  “One guy dead, fried to a crisp in the wreckage. Must have been some crash. Surprised you didn’t hear about it.”

  “Communications were down on
the island. We’ve been in the dark for more than a week.”

  “Yeah, but he was one of yours. From 13-E, I mean. They found his wallet in the wreckage. Driver’s license still intact.”

  Lauren knew what was coming, even before the officer said his name. Her stomach did a slow roll.

  “Name’s Paddy O’Connor. That old guy who owned Altex Drilling. Wonder what’ll happen to the company now that he’s dead?”

  “Oh, my God.” Lauren put a gloved hand over her mouth to stop the scream welling up inside her.

  “And the pilot?” Seth said evenly.

  “That’s the funny thing. Wasn’t a sign of him in the wreckage. He just…vanished.”

  Lauren’s gaze cut to Seth.

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Funny is right.”

  She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, felt herself sway on her feet. For days she’d wondered why Salvio was hell-bent on sending Paddy’s body back to town if he was the one responsible for the murder. It hadn’t made sense. She knew, now, that Salvio had never intended for the body—or her—to arrive safely. She blinked her eyes, unable to focus.

  If she’d gotten on that chopper she’d be…

  “Come on.” Seth grabbed her arm to steady her, guiding her toward the Jeep. “Let’s get you inside, and get you something hot to drink.”

  A hot brandy. A big one, she thought, as he tucked her into the vehicle and closed the door.

  A second after Seth had ushered her into his office—a functional space in a prefab metal building housing the police department, the single-engine fire department, and a small jail—Lauren reached for the phone.

  Seth’s hand closed over hers. “Not so fast.”

  “I need to call in to Tiger.”

  “I can’t let you do that, Lauren.”

  “Are the phones out here, too?”

  The weather wasn’t nearly as bad here as it had been on the island. Besides, she would have thought a borough facility like this one would have a telecommunications system able to handle almost any conditions.

  “No. I suspect they’re working fine. I just can’t let you call in.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”