Chill Factor

by Sandra Brown

  Begley rounded Dutch’s desk, grinding his fist into his other palm. “If I ever find out who leaked the story to these loudmouths, I’m going to kick his ass so high, he’ll be farting out his ears.”

  Hoot could think of no appropriate response to that, so he waited several seconds before speaking. “I don’t believe we’ll ever know who the culprit was, sir. It could have been any number of people.”

  “Well, whoever it was, he shot our discretion all to hell.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Begley’s frown deepened. “Hoot, we’ve got to make damn certain we get to Tierney before anybody else does.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “Grab a sandwich, then call the Charlotte office and order a chopper.” Jabbing the space between them with his index finger, he said, “I want a helicopter and rescue team up here, and I mean A-fucking-Sap.”

  Hoot glanced out the window.

  “I know, I know,” Begley muttered irritably. “But I want a chopper here as soon as one can fly through this shit. Got it?”

  “Got it, sir.”

  Begley headed for the door, then paused. “And, Hoot, keep all your communiqués with the Charlotte office private. The less the folks around here know about our plans, the better.”

  “Even the police?”

  Begley opened the door and said out the side of his mouth, “Especially the police.”

  • • •

  Pain sucked the air out of Tierney’s lungs. Tears froze as soon as they formed in his eyes. Lying flat on his back, he cursed lavishly and loudly, in agony and outrage.

  When the first searing pain receded, and it actually began to feel good just to lie there in the snow, he knew he was in serious danger of freezing to death. That was how it happened; it gave the victim a false sense of comfort.

  It took a tremendous amount of willpower, but he forced himself to move his injured ankle. The pain that shot up through his leg made him gasp, but at least it yanked him out of the deceiving comfort into which he’d been lulled.

  He sat up. His head reeled, so much that he clasped it between his hands in the hope of stopping it from spinning. He barely had time to pull the scarf away from his mouth before he retched into the snow. He threw up only sour bile, and the stomach spasms reminded him how much his ribs hurt.

  He took several deep breaths, then, putting all his weight on his left leg, he stood up. He tested his right ankle by rotating it slowly. It hurt like bloody hell, but he didn’t think it was broken. That was something. At this stage, anything short of outright disaster seemed like good fortune.

  He set out again, now using the snow shovel as a crutch.

  In his effort to keep moving, he lost all sense of time and distance. His ankle was a new focus. He could feel it swelling inside his boot. Actually, his tight boot would probably help keep the swelling to a minimum. Or would it cut off the blood supply and cause frostbite? Gangrene? Why couldn’t he remember basic first aid? Or his zip code? Or his telephone number in Virginia?

  Jesus, he was hungry. But he was also gripped by nausea that resulted in agonizing dry heaves.

  He was cold to the bone, yet his skin felt feverish.

  But the worst was the goddamn dizziness.

  A fatal blood clot, jarred loose by his hard landing on the road, might even now be wending its way through his blood vessels to his brain or lungs or heart.

  Random and bizarre thoughts such as that flitted through his mind like fireflies. They winked out before he could grasp and assimilate them. He was rational enough to recognize the onset of delirium.

  Actually, his various pains were friends. Without them, he might have drifted into a state of euphoria, lain down, rested his cheek on a bosom of snow, and died. But the pains were persistent. Like spiked prods, they deviled him to continue. They kept him awake, on his feet, moving, alive. Meanwhile, his reason was shrieking for him to stop. Lie down. Sleep. Surrender.

  CHAPTER

  22

  WHY? WHAT FOR? WHY ME?”

  “Will you calm down?” Wes said, raising his voice above Scott’s. “They’re not coming here to accuse you of anything.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Even if they do, you’ve got nothing to hide. Right? Right, son?”

  “Right.”

  “So why are you freaking out?”

  “I’m not.”

  In Dora’s opinion, he was.

  Scott was inordinately nervous about talking to the FBI agents. His eyes darted restlessly between her and Wes, making him appear guilty of something and contradicting his claim that he had nothing to hide. Wes’s calculated nonchalance was equally troubling.

  “All they’re after is some background information on Millicent,” Wes said. “Dutch said it’s routine.”

  “They could get background information on Millicent from a hundred other sources,” Dora said. “Why have they singled out Scott?”

  “Because he was Millicent’s steady boyfriend.”

  “That was last year.”

  “I know when it was, Dora.”

  “Don’t take that tone with me, Wes. My point is that a lot happened to Millicent between last spring, when she and Scott broke up, and last week, when she disappeared. Why is her past relationship with him relevant?”

  “It isn’t, and that’s what Scott will tell them.” Turning to him, Wes said, “They’ll probably just want to know how long you and Millicent dated and why you broke up.” Wes looked hard at Scott; Scott looked back at his father.

  Dora looked at both of them and immediately sensed an unspoken communication. They were keeping something from her, and the omission was infuriating. “Scott, why did you break up with Millicent?”

  “He’s told us why,” Wes said. “The new had worn off. He got tired of her.”

  “I don’t think that’s all there was to it.” Looking directly into her son’s face, she gentled her voice. “What happened between you?”

  Scott rolled his shoulders as though trying to shrug off the question. “Just like Dad said, we, you know, just lost interest in each other.” Dora silently communicated her doubt. “Jeez, don’t you believe me?” Scott shouted. “Why would I lie about it?”

  “Maybe for the same reason you sneaked out of your room last night.”

  He looked like he’d been hit between the eyes with a two-by-four. He opened his mouth, then shut it quickly, apparently realizing the futility of denial.

  She turned to Wes. “This morning I discovered that the security alarm contact on his bedroom window had been disabled.”

  “I know.”

  It was now Dora’s turn to feel as though she’d been struck. “You know? And you didn’t tell me?”

  “I know everything that goes on in this house,” Wes said smoothly. “For instance, I know that he rigged the alarm when he was seeing Millicent. He often sneaked her into his bedroom after we’d gone to bed.”

  He must be telling the truth, she thought. Scott’s cheeks were flaming.

  “It doesn’t surprise me that he sneaks out occasionally,” Wes continued. “It’s no big deal.”

  She looked at her husband with incredulity. “I disagree.”

  “He’s almost nineteen, Dora. Kids that age keep late hours. Or don’t you remember what it’s like to be young?”

  Enraged by his condescension, she closed her hands into fists. “It’s not that he’s keeping late hours, Wes. It’s that he’s doing it sneakily.” She turned to Scott. “Where did you go last night?”

  “Nowhere. I just . . . walked. Breathed. Because I can’t stand to be cooped up in this house all the time.”

  “See?”

  She ignored Wes. “Scott, are you doing drugs?”

  “Jesus, Mom, no! Where’d you get that idea?”

  “Drugs would explain your mood swings, your—”

  “Will you relax, Dora?” Wes said, continuing in the patronizing tone she despised. “As usual, you’re blowing this out of proport
ion.”

  She would not be swayed. “If it’s not drugs, it’s something else. What are you hiding from us, Scott?” She kept her voice soft and caring, nonjudgmental, nonthreatening. Going to him, she took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “Tell us what’s going on. No matter how bad it is, your father and I will stand by you. What is it? Do you know what happened . . .”

  She paused, unable to finish the dreaded question without taking a fortifying breath. “Was there more to your relationship with Millicent than met the eye? Have the authorities discovered something that—”

  “Will you shut the hell up?” Wes took hold of her arm and yanked her around to face him. “Are you crazy? He’s not involved in that. Or illegal drugs. Or anything else except being a typical eighteen-year-old.”

  “Let go of me.” She pulled her arm free. “Something is wrong with my son, and I want to know what it is before the FBI get here and I learn it from them. What is going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Something, Wes,” she shouted. “Our son is not the same person he was last year. Don’t tell me there’s nothing wrong! I’m not blind and I’m not stupid, although you seem to think so. I have a right to know what’s happening to my son.”

  He thrust his face close to hers. “You want to know?”

  “Dad, no!”

  “You want to know, Dora?”

  “Dad!”

  Wes stuck his hand in his coat pocket and withdrew a box of disposable syringes and several vials. She recoiled from his extended hand. “What is that?”

  “Steroids.”

  She stared at him, agape, then turned to Scott. “You’ve been giving yourself steroid shots?”

  His gaze flickered to Wes, then back to her. “Not me. Mr. Ritt.”

  In the silence of her stunned disbelief, someone knocked loudly on the front door.

  “That will be our company.” Wes calmly replaced the paraphernalia in his coat pocket, then removed his coat and hung it on the peg near the back door. “Scott, answer the door and invite them in. Don’t be nervous. Dutch will be with them. Offer them a seat and tell them we’ll be right there.”

  Scott remained where he was, looking at his mother with apology and shame.

  “Did you hear me, Scott?” Wes’s voice was soft but imperious.

  Scott turned and went into the living room to answer the second knock.

  Wes moved close to Dora. His breath was hot on her face. “You are to act like everything in this household is hunky-dory, do you understand? This is a private matter. It stays in our family.”

  She glared at him. “How could you do that to your own son? Those things are poison.”

  “An exaggeration, typical of you.”

  “Have you even considered the side effects, Wes?”

  “They’re a small price to pay for the difference they can make in his—”

  “I don’t give a damn about his athletic ability!” she exclaimed in a stage whisper, aware of the men in the next room. “I don’t care how strong he is or how much stamina he has on a goddamn football field. I care about his life.” She felt her control unraveling. Now wasn’t the time to lose it. She took several breaths to calm herself, but with fury still humming inside her, she continued. “Can’t you see how those things have changed him?”

  “Okay, he’s a little moody. That can be a side effect.”

  “So can aggression.”

  He shrugged indifferently. “More aggressiveness would be a benefit, not a drawback.”

  Even after all her husband’s other absurd rationalizations, that statement appalled her. “You are a monster.”

  He snuffled a laugh. “What? I’d thought you’d be relieved, happy to learn that the changes you see in Scott are from the steroids and don’t have anything to do with that manipulating bitch. And that’s what she was, you know.”

  “Was? Why are you referring to Millicent in the past tense?”

  Wes leaned in until he was towering over her. “Because as far as the Hamer family is concerned, she’s history.”

  Now Dora wasn’t only appalled, she was afraid. “What are you saying?”

  “You want to know the scoop on why Scott and Millicent broke up? Here it is, and remember you asked for it. She was interfering with his training, calling him all the time, hanging around every practice until he was finished, giving him all the pussy he wanted. He wasn’t thinking about anything else. I wasn’t going to let that skinny cunt ruin all my plans for him. To get his head back into his game, I had to intervene. You want to know the big mystery behind their breakup? You’re looking at him.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Doesn’t matter. The important thing is that I ended—for good—their hot little romance.” He poked her hard in the sternum. “That’s something else that stays in the family.”

  Then he turned and left her alone, amid everything familiar yet feeling like an alien in her own house, bewildered by how she had arrived at this place in her life.

  She could hear Wes in the other room, being his gregarious self, welcoming into their home FBI agents who had come to question their son about Millicent Gunn’s disappearance.

  • • •

  William and Marilee left the drugstore together. Without electricity there was no point to staying open. He couldn’t operate his cash register, or the computer that stored all the data on his customers and their prescriptions. Not that it mattered, because no one had come into the store since Wes had left with the sandwiches bound for police headquarters.

  Marilee took food from the soda fountain’s refrigerator for them to eat at home later, knowing that it would ruin before the store reopened and Linda returned.

  They decided to leave her car there and go home in William’s. “No sense in both of us trying to navigate these roads,” he said. As he locked up, he left a note on the front door, notifying any customer with an emergency that he could be found at home.

  Once they were in his car and on their way, Marilee said through chattering teeth, “If anyone ever finds out that you keep a dispensary of prescription drugs in the house, you’ll lose your license.”

  “I only keep them for emergencies, and only for customers that I know won’t abuse the privilege. Besides, the drugs I give out can be bought over the counter everywhere except the United States.” He took a corner slowly, then leaned closer to the windshield and peered through the fogged glass. “I wonder what that’s about.”

  They were on the street where the Hamers lived. Parked in front of their house were a nondescript sedan and Dutch Burton’s Bronco.

  “Isn’t that the car the FBI agents were driving?” Marilee asked.

  “I believe it is. That Begley was one of the rudest people I’ve ever met.”

  “I don’t think he was intentionally rude. He’s just efficient and accustomed to exercising his authority.”

  “I’m efficient, and I have authority, but I don’t talk down to people.”

  Managing a drugstore with only one employee was hardly comparable to directing an office of the FBI, but Marilee decided to keep that observation to herself. She didn’t want to bicker with William, although he’d been baiting her at every turn today.

  When they came even with the Hamers’ house, he said, “I’m not surprised to see Dutch here, but what business would the FBI have with them?”

  “Maybe they’re talking to Wes about what he slipped into his coat pocket when I surprised the two of you in the stockroom.” She tossed it out casually to see how her brother would react.

  He gave her his rote reply. “Something for Dora’s headaches.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “While you, sister, never lie, either by word or by deed.” Cutting his eyes to her, he added slyly, “Or do you?” He chuckled at her attempted impassivity. “Scratch the surface of even the most circumspect life, Marilee, and you’ll find duplicity. Even yours.”

  She turned her head away from him and looked through the passen
ger window. “I only wish you were right, William. I would love to harbor a dark secret.”

  “Perhaps the Hamers have been harboring one that the FBI uncovered. My money is on Scott.”

  “Why Scott?”

  “Surely by now these federal geniuses have linked him to Millicent.”

  “They were sweethearts for a time. So what?”

  “Sweethearts,” he said with a snicker. “What a quaint and outmoded term for their relationship. She was on birth control pills.”

  “Most girls are.”

  “How well I know. It’s a good part of my business. But did you know that Millicent went off them?”

  “When?”

  “Early last spring. She complained that they were making her retain fluid, adding weight. When she and Scott broke up, it occurred to me that perhaps they’d had a little accident.”

  “You mean that she got pregnant?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  “Despite her anorexia?”

  “It could happen.”

  “I’m sure you’re wrong, William.”

  “From my observation point in the store, I see a lot and retain everything I see. One day Scott and Millicent were in a booth at the soda fountain, all over each other. Her hand was in his lap. Need I get more explicit?”

  “No.”

  “I was about to tell them that if they couldn’t control their impulses, they’d have to leave. They must have come to the same conclusion. They couldn’t get out of there fast enough. He even forgot to pay the bill.”

  “And your point is . . . ?”

  “The next time they were in the store at the same time, no more than a week later, he wouldn’t even look at her. Something happened in the interim. Something huge. My guess would be a late period.”

  Marilee shook her head decisively. “I still think you’re wrong. If Millicent was pregnant, Scott would have accepted his responsibility. Even if he’d been disinclined, his parents would have seen to it.”

  William blurted a laugh. “Wes would not allow anything to jeopardize his plans for Scott’s future. Nothing. Not even the wild sowing of his own seed. And we all know how extremely proud Wes is of his seed.”

  His last remark annoyed her, which she believed was the purpose behind it. “I’m confident that not Scott, certainly not Dora, not even Wes, would dismiss—”