Chill Factor

by Sandra Brown

  “Tierney, you can’t.”

  “One more load could make a difference. I don’t think it’ll take as long this time,” he said as he pulled on his gloves again. “Now that I know where everything is. A lot of the time was spent feeling my way around inside the shed.” He stared into near space for a moment before shaking his head slightly as though to clear it.

  “You’re not up to this.”

  “I’m okay.” He replaced the makeshift hood and scarf.

  “I wish I could talk you out of going.”

  He smiled grimly. “I wish you could, too.”

  Then he pulled the scarf over his nose and went out. She watched through the window as he transferred the logs on the tarp to the stack of firewood beneath the overhang. She continued to watch until he disappeared once again into the darkness. Turning back into the room, she decided on a better way to pass the time than fretting.

  Sooner than she expected, she heard his boots clomping up the steps. When she opened the door, he was dragging the tarp stacked with firewood up onto the porch. It was a chore, requiring all his strength because the logs were large. “Did you remember the ax?”

  “Wasn’t there.” His voice was muffled behind his scarf.

  “I saw it there only a few days ago.”

  “It wasn’t there.” He said it tersely and with enough emphasis to silence her.

  Note to self, she thought. Tierney doesn’t like anyone to challenge his word.

  Or his mandates, it seemed. He glanced at the fire burning in the grate and frowned.

  “Too late now to argue about it,” she said.

  He stacked a pile of logs inside the door so they could begin to dry out, then spread the tarp over the replenished woodpile on the porch and stamped into the room. Lilly pushed him toward the fireplace. “You may as well enjoy it.”

  He pulled the blanket from his head, went to the hearth, and dropped to his knees in front of it like a penitent before an altar. He pulled off his gloves and extended his hands toward the blaze. “I smelled smoke from the chimney as I was coming back. How’d you manage?”

  “I found a few drier logs near the porch wall.”

  “Well, thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I also smell coffee.”

  “I’d left an unopened can in the freezer of the fridge,” she explained, moving into the kitchen. “I splurged on our drinking water, I know, but I only made two cups. There’s no cream or sugar.”

  “Never use them anyway.”

  He had removed his coat, scarf, and boots and was standing with his back to the flames when she brought him the steaming mug. “Will it make you nauseous?”

  “I’ll take my chances.” He closed both hands around the mug and raised it to his lips, then halted. “Where’s yours?”

  “It’s for you. You earned it.”

  He took several sips, savoring the taste and the warmth, making small sounds of pleasure. “I may marry you.”

  She gave a nervous laugh and sat down in the corner of the sofa nearest the fire, tucking her stocking feet under her hips. She hugged the throw to her chest as though for protection. Against what, she wasn’t quite sure. Tierney’s eyes maybe, which seemed always to follow her, to see into her, to know more about her even than she knew about herself.

  He sat down on the hearth and extended his feet toward the fire.

  To fill the silence, she asked, “How’s your head?”

  “Reeling.”

  “Still hurt?”

  “Some.”

  “I don’t see any fresh blood in your hair, but after you’ve rested awhile, I’d better check the wound again.”

  He nodded but didn’t say anything. Eventually she got up and took the empty coffee mug from him, then went into the kitchen to refill it. When she brought it back, he shook his head. “That’s yours.”

  “I made it for you.”

  “I insist you have some, too.”

  She took a few sips, murmured thanks, then passed the mug back to him. As she did, his fingertips brushed hers. “This feels good, Lilly. Thanks again.”

  “Thank you for going after the firewood.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She took up her former post in the corner of the sofa. No sooner was she settled than he began a new conversation with a flat statement. “I know about your daughter.” Her astonishment must have shown, because he gave a small shrug, adding, “I picked up tidbits of information here and there.”

  “From whom?”

  “The people in Cleary. There’s been a lot of talk about you, especially since Dutch moved back to become police chief. You two remain a hot topic of gossip at Ritt’s soda fountain.”

  “Do you spend a lot of time there?”

  “When in Rome. It’s the place to be.”

  “Oh, it’s the hub of the city, all right,” she said sarcastically. “I expected my split with Dutch to cause a flurry of rumor and speculation. Gossips thrive on marriages, pregnancies, affairs, divorces.”

  “Deaths,” he said softly.

  “Yes.” Sighing, she looked over at him. “What do they say about Amy’s death?”

  “That it was tragic.”

  “Well, that much isn’t rumor. She was only three when she died. Did you know that?” He nodded. “Four years ago. It’s hard for me to believe that I’ve been without her for longer than I had her.”

  “Brain tumor?”

  “Right again. A real bastard of one. Sneaky and deadly. For the longest time, it didn’t manifest itself. No paralysis, or partial blindness, or slurred speech. No warning of any kind of what was in store. Amy appeared to be a perfectly healthy little girl. That was the good news. It was also the bad news. Because by the time we did begin to realize that something was wrong, the tumor had invaded an entire hemisphere of her brain.”

  She picked at the fringe on the throw. “We were told at the outset that it was inoperable and incurable. The doctors said even with aggressive chemotherapy and radiation treatments her life could be extended for a few weeks, perhaps a month or two, but not spared.

  “Dutch and I elected not to put her through the grueling treatments. We took her home and had six relatively normal weeks with her. Then the damn thing had a growth spurt. Symptoms appeared and progressed quickly until one morning she couldn’t swallow her orange juice. By lunch, other systems had begun to shut down. She would have had supper in the hospital, except that by then she had lapsed into coma. Early the following morning, she stopped breathing, then her heart beat one last time, and she was gone.”

  Her gaze slid over to him and then toward the flames. “We donated her body for medical research. We thought it might do some good, maybe prevent other children from suffering the same rotten fate. Besides, I couldn’t bear the thought of sealing her inside a coffin. She was afraid of the dark, you see. Wouldn’t sleep without her night-light on. It was a little translucent angel, wings spread like a Christmas herald. I still have it and burn it every night myself. Anyway, I couldn’t fathom putting her into the ground.”

  “We don’t have to talk about it, Lilly.”

  “No, I’m all right,” she said, blotting tears off her cheeks.

  “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “I’m glad you did. It’s actually good for me to talk about her, about Amy. My grief counselor emphasized how healthy it is for me to talk about it and to refer to Amy by name.” She met his steady gaze. “Curiously, after she died, few people would talk to me about her. Without quite looking me in the eye, they made euphemistic references to my ‘loss,’ my ‘sorrow,’ my ‘period of bereavement,’ but no one spoke Amy’s name out loud. I guess they thought they were sparing me sadness by avoiding the subject, when actually I needed to talk about her.”

  “What about Dutch?”

  “What about him?”

  “How did he deal with it?”

  “What do the gossips say?”

  “That he developed a fondness
for whiskey.”

  She snuffled a humorless laugh. “The gossips of Cleary are nothing if not accurate. Yes, he began drinking excessively. It began affecting his work. He started making blunders, which were dangerous to himself and his partners. He became unreliable. He had his hand slapped a few times, then was formally reprimanded, then demoted, which caused him to slip into a deeper funk, which caused him to drink more. It became a vicious downward spiral. Ultimately he was fired.

  “Just today he said that if it hadn’t been for Amy, our marriage would have lasted forever. Perhaps he’s right. Death did part us. Her death. I’m afraid we became a cliché, the couple whose marriage couldn’t withstand the tragedy of losing a child. We were never the same. Not as a couple and not as individuals.”

  She looked from the embers to Tierney. “Did I omit anything? Do the die-hard busybodies know the terms of our divorce settlement?”

  “They’re working on it. In any case, they’re glad to have Dutch back among them.”

  “What do they say about me?”

  He gave a dismissive shrug.

  “Come on, Tierney. I’ve got a thick skin. I can take it.”

  “They say that you insisted on the divorce. Demanded it.”

  “Making me a coldhearted bitch if ever there was one.”

  “I haven’t heard it put quite that way.”

  “But close, I’m sure. I would expect the Clearyans to side with their hometown boy.” She stared into the fire again, speaking her thoughts aloud as they came to her. “Divorcing Dutch wasn’t a decision I made out of anger or spite. It was for my own survival. His failure to recover from Amy’s death was preventing my recovery.”

  She willed Tierney to understand what no one else seemed able to grasp. “I had become his crutch. It was easier for him to lean on me than to get professional help and heal himself. He became a liability I could no longer carry and still move forward with my own life. It wasn’t a healthy relationship for either of us. We’re better off without one another. Although Dutch still refuses to accept that the marriage is over.”

  “Understandable.”

  She reacted as though he’d jabbed her with the red-hot tip of the fireplace poker. “Excuse me?”

  “Can you blame him for being confused?”

  “Why would he be confused?”

  “Any man would be. You divorced him. No, you demanded a divorce. Yet tonight, when you got in trouble, he was the first person you called.”

  “I explained why I called him.”

  “But it still amounts to sending an ex-husband mixed signals.”

  She had made clear her reason for calling Dutch for help. Why should she care whether Tierney believed her? She told herself she didn’t, but actually his criticism stung. She glanced down at her wristwatch without really registering the time. “It’s getting late.”

  “You’re angry.”

  “No, I’m tired.” She pulled her handbag off the coffee table and onto her lap, then began rifling through it.

  “I spoke out of turn.”

  She stopped what she was doing and looked at him. “Yes, Tierney. You did.”

  Rather than being conciliatory and apologetic, which she expected, he spoke tightly. “Well, too damn bad, Lilly. Want to know why I’ve stayed on this hearth instead of joining you on the sofa? Want to know why I did nothing to comfort you, didn’t come up there and hold you, while you cried over Amy? Only because I’m as confused as Dutch seems to be over how you feel about him.”

  She opened her mouth to speak but found no words. Lowering her gaze, she fiddled with the clasp of her handbag. “I don’t want Dutch back in my life,” she said slowly. “Not in any capacity. But I suppose my feelings are ambiguous. I wish him well. He was a football hero, you know. Usually scored the touchdown that cinched the win. That’s what I wish for him now.”

  “A touchdown?”

  “A big score. This job in Cleary has given him a fresh start. He has an opportunity to reestablish himself as a good cop. More than anything I want him to succeed here.”

  “More than anything,” Tierney repeated thoughtfully. “That’s a strong statement.”

  “And I mean it.”

  “Then I suppose you would help him any way you could to ensure his success.”

  “Absolutely. Unfortunately, there’s really nothing I can do.”

  “You may be surprised.”

  With that cryptic statement, he got up, muttered something about needing to be excused, and walked through the bedroom, presumably heading for the bathroom.

  Lilly watched him go, feeling out of sorts and a bit let down, as though her therapist had cut her appointment short, leaving her with more to say. She was glad that Tierney already knew about Amy, putting them past the difficult part. It was a clumsy topic to introduce into conversation with someone you were just getting to know. You didn’t just announce it, although she was often tempted to in order to avoid the inevitable Do you have children? Which led to the necessary explanation, followed by the mandatory Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. Which made the other party feel awkward and embarrassed.

  At least she and Tierney had skipped that uncomfortable exchange. She’d also appreciated his not blathering a lot of platitudes or asking a lot of questions about how she’d felt about it when how she’d felt about it should have been obvious. He was an exceptionally good listener.

  But his preoccupation with Dutch and her present relationship with him was beginning to grate. Dutch was no longer a factor in her life. But apparently Tierney wasn’t convinced of that.

  And if he’d wanted to know how she would react if he took her in his arms and held her, why hadn’t he done so and found out, instead of using Dutch as an excuse not to?

  “You’ve been plowing through that purse for five minutes.” He was back. She hadn’t realized he was standing at the end of the sofa, watching her, until he spoke. “What are you looking for?”

  “My medication.”

  “Medication?”

  “For asthma. I picked it up at Ritt’s yesterday. He, by the way,” she said sourly, “is the worst offender when it comes to gossip. While I was there yesterday to pick up a prescription refill, William Ritt asked a dozen leading questions about Dutch and me, our divorce, the sale of this place. He even asked how much we got for it. Can you believe that?

  “Maybe he was just being friendly, but I can’t help thinking . . . that . . . uh . . .” Distracted by the search through her handbag, she let her voice trail off. Impatiently, she upended the handbag and dumped everything in it onto the coffee table.

  There was the makeup bag where she’d found the manicure scissors earlier, her wallet and checkbook, a pack of tissues, a roll of breath mints, cell phone charger, security pass for her office building in Atlanta, key ring, sunglasses, hand soap.

  Everything was there except what she needed.

  Dismayed, she looked up at Tierney. “It’s not here.”

  CHAPTER

  10

  DUTCH RODE SHOTGUN IN CAL HAWKINS’S sanding truck, primarily because he didn’t trust Hawkins to make an honest effort to get up the mountain road. Second, he wanted to be the first to reach the cabin, first through the door, Lilly’s knight in shining armor.

  It had been a harrowing trip back to town from the dive in which he and Wes had found Hawkins. Bridges were perilous, the roads weren’t much better. When they arrived at the garage, Dutch had poured several cups of black coffee into Hawkins. He had bitched and whined nonstop until Dutch threatened to stuff a gag in his mouth if he didn’t shut up, then literally boosted him into his rig.

  The cab of the truck was a pigsty. Trash and food wrappers left over from last winter littered the floor. The vinyl seat covers had open wounds that exposed stained stuffing. Dangling from the rearview mirror, along with a pair of oversize fuzzy dice and a hologram of a naked girl being intimate with a vibrator, there was a deodorizer shaped like a pine tree. It was doing a lousy job of masking the variou
s odors.

  The sanding truck had been in the fleet of heavy equipment that old Mr. Hawkins had rented to municipalities, public utility companies, and construction crews. It had been a successful business until he died and Cal Junior inherited it. This sanding truck was all that remained of the legacy.

  Cal Junior had used his late father’s assets as collateral against loans that he failed to pay back. Everything had been repossessed except this rig. Dutch was unsympathetic to Cal’s financial woes and didn’t care if a collection agency claimed the sanding truck tomorrow, so long as it got him up to the peak tonight.

  He glanced into the exterior side mirror and saw the headlights of his Bronco following at a safe distance. One of his officers, Samuel Bull, was at the wheel. He had the advantage of driving on the mix of sand and salt that Hawkins was putting down. Nevertheless, the road’s surface was still hazardous. Occasionally Dutch saw the Bronco drifting toward the ditch or across the center stripe.

  Wes was riding with Bull. Before they left the garage, Dutch had told him he didn’t have to come along. “Go home. This is my problem, not yours.”

  “I’ll stick around to lend moral support,” he’d said and climbed into the Bronco.

  Dutch would need moral support only if this attempt to reach Lilly failed. Apparently Wes thought failure was inevitable. So did Bull. So did Hawkins. Doubt rang loud and clear behind everything they said, and he detected pity in the looks they cast him.

  I must appear desperate to them, he thought. Desperation was an unfit state of mind for a chief of police. For a man. It certainly didn’t inspire the confidence of others. About the only thing he could inspire in Cal Hawkins was fear.

  When they were about fifty yards from the turnoff onto Mountain Laurel Road, he said, “If I feel like you’re holding back on purpose, I’ll jail you.”

  “On what charge?”

  “Pissing me off.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “I advise you not to test it. You give this heap everything it’s got, do you understand me?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “No excuses.”

  Hawkins wet his lips and gripped the steering wheel tighter, mumbling, “Can’t see worth a goddamn.” But he downshifted as he approached the intersection.