Melting the Ice

by Loreth Anne White

  She was quiet. So Al had seen Rex. Had he seen her boy in the man?

  “Hannah?”

  “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “Look, if you ever want to talk, if you ever—”

  “Al, I’m okay. Really. I wasn’t feeling well. That’s all.”

  “All right.” He cleared his throat. “I was just worried about you…and I wanted to tell you the coroner’s report came through this afternoon.”

  She’d been so wrapped up in her own angst she’d forgotten they’d been expecting it, hoping it would tell them something others may have missed.

  “What did it say?”

  “Well, Amy had a badly broken left leg.” Hannah could hear the strain in his voice. “It probably happened in the fall. Judging from where she was found, they figure she tried to drag herself along that rock band that forms a lateral moraine halfway down Grizzly Bowl. But from there it’s vertical blue ice, nowhere to go. She died of exposure.”

  “But why didn’t they find her? They combed that area?”

  “The pathologist figures that her body heat melted her into the glacier. Then the rain that fell the first two nights froze and sealed her under a sheet of ice.”

  So that’s why the dogs couldn’t find her, why there was no telltale hump in the snow that came after the rain. Amy had slept in a tomb of frozen glass all winter while a million skiers had played over her.

  “It’s final, Hannah. I’ve given up the lease on her apartment. I have to get her stuff packed and out by the end of next week.”

  Hannah knew how Al had struggled the last time he had gone into Amy’s home, touched her things. “Would you like me to help?”

  “I can’t ask you that.”

  “Of course you can. I want to help.”

  “I really shouldn’t let you do this—”

  “Al, at least let me get started. I’ll get her things into boxes. If you want, you can take it from there.”

  “Hannah…I can’t thank you enough.”

  “No worries. Really. I can start going through the apartment this weekend. I still have a key.”

  Hannah hung up and began to pace in front of her living room windows. They yawned up from floor to ceiling and looked out over the water. On the opposite shores of the lake, lights were beginning to twinkle in White River village. The town was nestled between the feet of Powder and Moonstone Mountains which were themselves cleft apart by the icy river that gushed between them.

  Chairlifts reached out from the village and stretched up the flanks of Powder. Moonstone, however, fell outside the ski area boundary and was untouched by lift lines. The only development on Moonstone was on a large swath of land at the base, to the south of the village. It was home to the exclusive White River Spa.

  The sky was clear tonight. Calm. A world away from how Hannah felt inside. A moon was rising, the light of it already glinting off mica in the rocks on the peak of Moonstone.

  It was up in those mountains that Amy had slept in her ice tomb.

  Hannah stopped pacing to stare up at the peaks. An accident. It was all there in the official report. But it still didn’t explain why Amy had gone up there in the first place, why she had left the roped-off trail and fallen to her death, why her apartment was ransacked. There was no way Hannah would be able to sleep tonight. As exhausted as she felt, she was strung tight as a wire.

  She may as well go and take a look at the apartment now. She could start sorting Amy’s things. And maybe, just maybe, she’d find some answers.

  The moon threw a trail of glimmering gold sovereigns onto black water as Hannah drove the deserted road around the lake and headed toward the lights of the village. She parked her Subaru in the underground and climbed the stairs to the pedestrian-only stroll.

  Groups of people clustered around doorways that led down to nightclubs pulsating with primal beats below street level. Some were smoking. Couples strode by, arm in arm, laughing. Restaurants were still busy.

  It was quieter down the cobbled path that led to Amy’s apartment on the edge of town. There weren’t as many decorative streetlamps in this less-touristy area.

  Hannah felt in her fleece pocket for the key and looked up at the second-story window.

  She stopped in her tracks.

  She could have sworn she saw light flicker briefly in the window. She waited to see if it would come again. Nothing.

  Just jumpy, she told herself. Been a weird day.

  She sucked in the cool night air, calming her jittery nerves, and entered the apartment building. She climbed the stairs up to number 204, the place Amy had called home since she’d moved to White River.

  The hall light was out.

  Damn. Bulb must have blown. Hannah fumbled in the dark trying to get the key into the lock. She swung the door open and stepped blindly into the black apartment, groping for the light switch.

  It was instantaneous.

  White pain spliced through her shoulder as her arm was wrenched behind her back.

  Panic punched her in the stomach. A scream surged through her body and erupted into her throat. It got no further. It was suffocated by leather.

  A glove.

  She fought to gasp in air. She could see nothing through the blur of blackness.

  The door slammed shut behind her, cutting her off from the outside world.

  She flailed behind her with her free hand and tore at a handful of hair. An expletive. Male. More pain as he increased the pressure on her arm.

  “Shut the hell up or you get hurt.” He spat the words into the dark. Harsh, hoarse. Her lungs screamed for gulps of air. But each time she struggled to move, the pain tore at her shoulder.

  Stay calm, Hannah. Stay calm. She forced herself to hold still.

  The iron grip eased slightly, as if her attacker was testing. She could feel hot breath at her ear.

  He swore and immediately let go of her mouth.

  “Hannah?”

  A thin beam from a flashlight cut through the dark. Slowly he turned her head and body round to face him, still pinning her arm behind her back. She blinked blindly against the sudden brightness as he looked down into her face.

  “Sweet Jesus.” He let the light fall so she could see him. It caught the hard ice of his eyes.

  She felt faint.

  “Rex?” Her voice came out hoarse, barely audible.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing, McGuire? You could have gotten yourself hurt.” He kept his voice a low whisper. His mouth was so close she felt his breath on her lips.

  She wrenched free and lunged for the light switch. Light flooded the small apartment.

  She whirled round to confront him. “Damn you, Rex Logan! What in hell are you doing in Amy Barnes’s apartment?”

  “Lord, woman.” He pushed past her, drew the blinds in a deft movement. “Keep your voice down.”

  Uneasiness prickled up the nape of her neck. He looked lethal, dressed in black from head to foot. Dark stubble shadowed his jaw. His hair was black gloss, and he’d let it grow. It gave him a wild look. The only light thing about him was the glacial ice in his stare. A devil with Arctic eyes. The contrast was startling, unnerving. Almost inhuman.

  “You shouldn’t be here, Hannah.” His words were low, threatening.

  “You’re the one with no right to be here.” Anger started to boil up, displacing her fear. She could feel the heat of color spilling back into her cheeks. “Give me one good reason not to call the cops and have your sorry ass kicked behind bars, Rex Logan.” She realized she was shaking.

  “You do that and you won’t find out what really happened to Amy Barnes.”

  She was stunned into silence.

  He took a step closer. “Talk to me, Hannah. Tell me why you’re in a dead woman’s apartment at night.” He was unnerving her with his steady blue gaze. She was determined to hold it, not to look away and give him the upper hand.

  “What makes you think I believe anything happened to Amy?”

  “I kn
ow you, Hannah. You don’t let things lie. Never did. That’s why you were good. One of the best. That’s why you’re here, tonight, isn’t it? You’re looking for something.”

  She pushed the hair back from her face in an effort to clear her head. Rex stepped even closer. The air crackled between them. She edged backward, toward the phone. Blood drummed in her ears.

  “What has any of this got to do with you, Rex?”

  “I’m looking for answers. Like you. I don’t believe Amy’s death was an accident.”

  Hannah took another step back toward the phone and reached behind her for the receiver.

  He was on her in an instant, had her pinned up against the wall, her heart jackhammering against her rib cage. He reached and took the receiver from her hand. Placed it firmly back in the cradle. “No cops.”

  She was afraid now. This man was no stranger to attack. He moved like a black jungle cat and had the same power. Hannah swallowed, her throat tight. She tried to speak. “What do you want from me, Rex?”

  He held her, up against the wall, a brutally intimate embrace. He leaned in, placing his mouth between her fall of hair and her ear. “More than you’ll ever know, McGuire.” The hot whisper, painfully seductive, snaked through her. A serpent of unwanted desire.

  He reached up, slowly took a handful of her hair, gently twisted it through gloved fingers and let it fall back onto her shoulder. It was an achingly intimate gesture. She began to tremble inside. Emotion pricked hot behind her eyes. Damn him. Damn this man from her past. He was pulling the threads of her life apart.

  “Come.” He took her wrist, led her to a chair. She was powerless.

  “Sit.”

  He faced her, seated on the coffee table, his knees almost touching hers. “You gate crashed my party, Hannah. You play by my rules now. That means no police.”

  “I…I don’t understand. Who are you, Rex? What’s going on?”

  “I found something. Something that makes me think Amy Barnes got herself into trouble. It may have gotten her killed.”

  Confusion spiraled through her brain. “You don’t mean murder?”

  “I think she was sticking her nose where it wasn’t wanted.”

  “What…what did you find?”

  Again he sidestepped her question. “But if you take this to the cops, you’ll get nowhere. No answers. The police are not going to help you. Trust me on this.”

  Trust? She’d trusted Rex Logan once before. She thought she’d known this man. She looked at him now; he was a stranger. A dangerous one. And the cops were his Achilles’ heel. Why?

  “And if I do go the cops, what happens to you? You going to try and stop me?”

  “You’ll tie me up in bureaucratic red tape, that’s what. Then it’ll be too late.”

  “For what?”

  He dragged his hands through his hair and blew out a stream of frustration. “Christ, Hannah, why’d you have to walk into this?”

  “What, exactly, have I walked in to, Dr. Logan? Who the hell are you?”

  He stared at her, assessing.

  “Look, either you tell me what the hell is going on or I go to the RCMP detachment right now.”

  He stood up, paced, turned to face her. “I can’t tell you. It’s classified.”

  She pushed herself to her feet. “What do you mean you can’t tell me? What do you mean ‘classified’?”

  He stepped forward, taking her hands in his. “Hannah, work with me on this. Trust me.”

  “Work with you? Trust you? You won’t tell me what the hell is going on. You won’t tell me who you are, why you’re sneaking around like a thief and you expect me to work with you?”

  “You shouldn’t have come here.”

  “Screw you, Logan. I had every right to come here.” She pushed past him and stalked from the apartment, slammed the door behind her.

  Hannah stepped out onto the pedestrian walkway into the clean night air still shaking with adrenaline. She’d done it again. Fled. Damn him. She looked back up at the second floor. Amy’s apartment was once again in darkness.

  Rex lifted the blind slightly with the back of his hand and looked down into the street to watch her go. He saw her stop, turn and look back up at the window. Instinctively he shifted farther back into the dark shadows. Her hair shimmered pale gold in the lamplight, like an angel’s.

  Blast.

  Hannah was not working her way into his investigation, she had crashed slap-bang into the middle of it. So much for trying to stay out of her way while he was in White River.

  And after finding what he had in Amy’s apartment, Hannah could be at risk if she insisted on digging. If his suspicions were correct, Hannah’s curiosity may already have landed her in hot water. Very hot water.

  Oh, the bittersweet irony.

  He’d walked out of her life six years ago to keep her safe.

  Now he could not walk from her. This time he would have to stay close to keep her from harm.

  She was sticking her nose into the business of people who played for keeps. She had no idea what she was up against. She would need his help. She would need his protection. And he needed to make sure she didn’t blow his cover by going to the cops.

  He watched her turn and stride down the dimly lit street. He watched the sway of her hips.

  It was that same purposeful stride that had caught his attention in Marumba. The same sway that had sparked fire in his groin.

  Yes, she needed his protection, but who would protect him from her?

  He’d made a mistake falling for her once. He wasn’t doing much better the second time around. The woman was a drug. He’d already let himself slip.

  This must be his retribution.

  Then his pulse quickened.

  Rex saw a hooded figure step out from under the cover of the dark portico across the walkway. Whoever it was began following Hannah toward the festive heart of White River village.

  Chapter 4

  T he early-morning air was crisp, the clear sky pale and colorless, yet to be kissed by the sun. Within the hour it would burst over the mountain in a crashing symphony of gold chasing the chill into valley shadows until evening.

  Hannah knew it would be a glorious August Saturday. It made the bizarre and sinister events of last night all the more incongruous. Was it really possible Amy had been murdered? What did Rex Logan have to do with it? What did he find in Amy’s apartment that they’d all missed? What was he really doing in White River?

  She couldn’t go and talk to Staff Sgt. Fred LeFevre. Not yet. He’d laugh her out of the office. She needed to learn more from Rex.

  But right now, this time was hers. She crouched down to tighten the laces of her runners. She would do hills today. She needed a good workout to clear the scuzz from her sleep-deprived brain and ease the kinks from her body.

  Hannah broke into a slow run, rhythmically sucking the cool air down into her lungs and blowing it out into crisp clouds of vapor. She followed the trail from her condo down around the lakeshore to the point where White River flowed under the Callaghan Road bridge.

  She jogged under the bridge, picking up one of the gravel trails that snaked through the park and up into the Moonstone foothills.

  Her breathing was hard, deep and rhythmic now. She felt strong, in control. She found her pace as the sun peeked over the ridge and spilled suddenly into the valley, its warmth immediately noticeable on her back.

  She had the trails to herself this morning. She could feel her body working, smooth, like an engine, warmth pulsing with each heartbeat through her limbs. The cold air was rough against the back of her throat. It felt good.

  She slowed slightly, her body switching gears as the trail climbed into the trees. Her feet were cushioned as gravel gave way to spongy pine needles and fallen leaves. As she entered the woods, the trees strangled the morning sunshine off into cool dank shadows.

  All Hannah could hear now was the sound of her own hard, steady breathing and White River, swollen and raging in the
distance.

  A crash in the undergrowth stopped her dead.

  The noise was just ahead. Brush cracking.

  Her brain identified the sound as her body screamed to flee.

  But she held her ground. Hannah had been in these mountains long enough to learn not to run from a bear.

  She started, one foot behind the other, backing down the trail, very slowly, just as the large ursine beast crashed through the undergrowth ahead.

  It lumbered onto the trail. Hannah caught her breath. It was massive, well on its way of achieving its hibernation weight. She was used to seeing bears in White River but the primal awe at the sight of such a beast never left her.

  The bear caught wind of Hannah and surged up onto its hind legs, opening and closing its mouth and swaying its head.

  It was trying to get a better scent. Hannah kept backing away slowly.

  Stay calm, give it space. She ran through a mental bear encounter checklist as she backed off.

  She was so tightly wound she almost screamed when two little cubs scampered out of the trees in front of her, across the trail and into the brush on the other side. The big sow dropped to all fours, chomped her mouth and huffed at Hannah in warning before lumbering into the brush after her cubs.

  She could feel the blood thudding through the arteries at her neck with each rapid pound of her heart. Filled with exhilaration and the adrenaline of fear, Hannah laughed out loud in release.

  She waited until she could no longer hear the undergrowth crushing under the clumsy weight of the bruins before she again broke into a run.

  But she was uneasy now. She couldn’t regain her stride. She kept glancing over her shoulder and hearing sounds in the trees, in the shadows.

  She thought she could hear the thud of feet in the soft ground behind her. She felt like the hunted must feel, her senses heightened, nerves strung like a bow.

  She heard the thud of feet again. And she felt a presence.

  She stopped, swiped her damp brow with the back of her hand. Listening. Silence. Nothing.

  Then a sharp crack in the brush.

  Hannah uncoiled into a sprint, cut onto a trail that led to the suspension bridge, a lifeline over White River that would lead her to the village, people. Fear burned with cold air in her chest as she sprinted through the trees. Sweat dripped into her eyes, blurring her vision. She ran onto the bridge. Slats of wood bounced under her weight throwing her momentarily off balance. Water raged below. She stumbled, grabbed the cable railing, and made her way across to the wooden ramp that led off the bridge. She hit solid land, sprinted over a mound and turned sharply to her right. And ran straight into him.