Chill Factor

by Sandra Brown

  Impervious to his seething, she turned to her brother and looked at him with contempt. “This is what you’ve been savoring. All the innuendos and smug gibes. References to a nonexistent infatuation with Wes. This is what they’ve been about.”

  “I hoped to appeal to your conscience, get you to break it off before it came to this.”

  “No you didn’t,” she snapped. “Far from it. You wanted a scene like this because you’re small, and peevish, and cruel, William.”

  “Forgive me for pointing out, Marilee, that you’re in no position to call me names.”

  “What will you do for entertainment now, I wonder. Not that I care. I’ll be moving away as soon as I can make other arrangements. You can go to the devil.” Then she turned and retreated into the bedroom, gently closing the door behind her.

  Wes confronted William. “You knew about this and didn’t tell me?”

  “And spoil the surprise?”

  Dutch clotheslined Wes across the chest as he lurched toward the man. William was a third Wes’s size. It would be murder. “Leave it for now, Wes.” When Wes backed down, Dutch took a step toward William. “Give me the keys to the snowmobiles.”

  “I can’t think of a reason why I should.”

  Dutch took a step closer. “How’s this for a reason? If you don’t give me those keys, I’ll unleash Wes to rearrange the bones in your face, and you’ll be slurping your food through a straw for the rest of your cocksucking life.”

  William sniffed as though indifferent to the threat, but he reached into his pants pocket and withdrew a heavy key ring, which he’d had in his possession all along.

  Dutch snatched it from him. “You coming?” he asked Wes.

  Wes didn’t reply but followed Dutch through the house and out the back door.

  They didn’t speak again until they were in the Bronco, headed toward the garage. “If word of this gets out, do you know what will happen to Scott’s chances of getting a scholarship? They don’t want college freshmen humping their professors.”

  He banged his fist on the dash, several times. Bam, bam, bam. “And that son of a bitch Ritt. I’d like to make gravy of that sniveling little bastard’s bowels. He set us up to find them, didn’t he?”

  “He set us up.”

  “Why?”

  “Payback.”

  “For what? What did I ever do to him?”

  Dutch frowned across at him.

  Wes had the grace to look chagrined.

  “He wanted to get back at you for all the slights over the years, real and perceived. I don’t know why he’d want to humiliate Marilee, though.” He thought a moment, then said, “Scott’s just a kid. He’ll take pussy where and when it’s offered, even from a teacher. But Marilee? I’m shocked. Who’d have thought she was capable of this?”

  Wes gave a scoffing laugh. “Oh, they’re all capable of it. Didn’t you know? They’re all whores at heart.”

  • • •

  It was probably one of his many aches that woke him up. That, and being cold now that Lilly had left their nest. Keeping his eyes closed, Tierney burrowed deeper into the covers and let his mind drift. To last night. To Lilly. To that first time, to that sweet, silent, fluid, ebb-and-flow fuck. He couldn’t have wished for it to be more perfect.

  They hadn’t spoken a word. They hadn’t had to. Touch became their language, and it was a dialect in which they’d both been fluent. With millennia of instinctual behavior guiding him, he’d claimed ownership of her, made the body he so desired his. And Lilly, in the mystical and knowing way of woman, had allowed him the self-deception that he had been the one to possess her.

  After that first time, when he finally had rolled off her onto his side, he carried her with him, so that they were lying face-to-face. He’d wished he could read her mind, wished he knew if he had regained her trust. As he’d stared into her eyes, they appeared trustful. Or maybe the lambency was a remnant of her orgasm.

  He’d brushed several strands of hair off her damp cheek. Touched her lower lip with the back of his index finger, run his knuckle along her teeth. “You know I didn’t use anything.”

  She nodded.

  “You should have made me pull out.”

  She gave him a look.

  “I swear I would have if you’d asked me to.”

  “But I didn’t.”

  “No. You didn’t.” He curved his arm around her waist, placed his hand on the small of her back, and drew her against him until his cock was nestled in the vee between her thighs. They kissed. Sexily. Her mouth was hot and eager, wet and receptive. Just thinking about the possibilities it afforded made his blood flow like lava.

  Laughing softly, he broke the kiss. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m burning up.”

  She smiled. “So am I.”

  They took off their clothes.

  Lilly naked. Jesus.

  He finally got to see her, and he couldn’t look enough. She was beautiful. Her breasts lay soft against her chest. Firelight waltzed across her skin, forming erotic tongues of shadow that seemed to lick at her nipples.

  “Last summer, whenever you got wet—”

  “I know what you’re going to say,” she interrupted. “I was embarrassed.”

  “I knew you were. So I tried to be a gentleman and keep my eyes above your neck. It wasn’t easy.” He strummed the center of her chest with the backs of his fingers.

  “You touched me today,” she said in a voice that was low and husky. “While I was asleep.”

  His gaze flickered up to hers, then away. “Not much. A little.”

  “I thought I was dreaming.”

  “I thought I was too.” Then he looked into her face again. “If I’m dreaming now, don’t wake me up.”

  “I won’t.”

  Her nipple hardened at his touch. His thumb made several passes across it, then he gently pressed it between his fingers.

  Her reaction was to gasp his name. Then she said, “Put your mouth on me.”

  He lowered his head and rubbed his lips across her nipple. “You’ve been cheating.”

  “How?”

  “Window peeping on my fantasies.”

  An involuntary groan issued from Tierney’s chest now as he relived taking her nipple into his mouth. His tongue well remembered the texture of it, the taste. He opened his eyes, smiling when he realized that his recollection had evolved into a dream when he lapsed back into sleep.

  But he was fully awake now. All of him. He had a painful erection.

  “Why should that be the only part of me not aching?” he muttered. Grimacing from various aches, he sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Lilly?”

  He threw back the blankets and stood up. Or tried. He was on his feet, but his body was bent at a right angle. From there, he eased himself to his full height, every bone, joint, and muscle protesting. His skin broke out in gooseflesh. He shivered against the cold. Grabbing the top blanket, he wrapped it around himself.

  “Lilly?” When she didn’t answer, he headed into the bedroom.

  • • •

  Lilly paused on the edge of the forest to enjoy the breathtaking scene. It looked like a three-dimensional Christmas card. The boughs of the evergreens were heavily laden with snow. The naked branches of the hardwoods looked nearly black in contrast to the white backdrop. The dawn shone only on the very top branches of the trees, which swayed in the erratic wind currents. But on the floor of the forest it was dark and still.

  It was a natural cathedral, a place of worship. She wished she could linger and enjoy the hushed serenity. But it didn’t take long for her toes to become numb inside her boots, reminding her that, as pretty as it was, this was still the wilderness, deadly if one didn’t take precautions.

  Sticking to the crude path, she arrived at the shed. Snow had formed deep drifts against the exterior walls, but when Tierney had forced open the door, it had pushed aside some of it, leaving the doorway partially clear.

  She waded th
rough the snow that had accumulated since he’d been there and gripped the door latch. She pulled hard, but the door didn’t open. In fact, it didn’t budge. She tugged on it several times, but it seemed unmovable. Putting all her strength into it, she tried again. When it did give way, it did so suddenly, startling her. She fell back a step and almost lost her balance.

  Laughing at her clumsiness, she entered the shed. It was darker inside than she had expected. She chided herself for not bringing the flashlight because she wanted to find the ax quickly and leave. There were always spiders in the shed. Probably mice. She’d never gone into it without the fear of disturbing a snake.

  Although all sensible creatures were snug in their beds today, the dank environment alone was enough to give her the willies. It also had the unpleasant, musty odor of enclosures with earthen floors.

  She gave her eyes time to adjust to the gloom, then took a glance around. The ax was nowhere in sight, but she remembered it being in the toolbox.

  The sound of her own breathing was loud. It wasn’t a bona fide wheeze, but it was getting close. Maybe she’d made a careless decision by walking here. Ordinarily, that amount of exercise wouldn’t have been harmful or particularly taxing. But in light of yesterday’s severe asthma attack, as well as the subfreezing temperature, she probably shouldn’t have done anything this strenuous. All the more reason to retrieve the ax quickly and return to the cabin. To Tierney. To bed with Tierney.

  She didn’t remember the lid to the large wooden box being so heavy. Her first attempt to lift it failed. She managed to raise it only an inch and was winded by the strain. If she had an attack out here, Tierney would never let her hear the end of it.

  She bent her knees and placed the heels of both hands against the edge of the lid. By straightening her knees and pushing with all her might, she managed to raise the lid and push it up. When it was perpendicular, its own weight caused it to fall against the wall behind it before Lilly could catch it.

  It landed with a racket that she never heard.

  Because she was staring down into Millicent Gunn’s dead, milky eyes.

  Breath was expelled in a rush, but when she tried to suck it back in to form a scream, her bronchial tubes had already constricted. All that came out was a thin whine.

  Mindlessly she backed away from the horrifying sight, instinctively seeking escape. She spun around but froze when she saw Tierney standing silhouetted in the rectangle of light formed by the open doorway.

  She took everything in at once. He’d put on his jeans and boots, but beneath his coat, which hung open, his chest was bare. It was rising and falling rapidly. He was out of breath. He’d been running.

  “Tierney,” she gasped. “Millicent . . .”

  “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

  And then, in a blinding instant of clarity, she understood why his features were hard and set, why he had raced to the shed after her, why he wasn’t at all astonished by the sight of Millicent’s body, which had been crammed without any care or respect into a rough, crude box of rusty tools.

  He was coming toward her with his long-legged stride, closing the distance between them rapidly, yet Lilly couldn’t move. She’d been stricken with paralysis, the kind experienced in nightmares when one is confronted with mortal danger yet is helpless to outrun it.

  But at the last possible second, she discovered she could move. When he grabbed her by the shoulders, she fought him with every resource she had—nails, teeth, flailing limbs.

  She left ribbons of fresh blood on his cheek before he wrapped his arms around her tightly, pinning her arms to her sides. “Lilly, stop it!”

  He was grunting and gasping.

  No, that wasn’t Tierney making that awful noise. It was her own asthmatic wheeze.

  “Goddammit, Lilly! Give it up!”

  “You’re a murderer!”

  Then she saw his hand descending with lightning speed toward the side of her neck.

  It didn’t hurt at all.

  CHAPTER

  29

  SPECIAL AGENT CHARLIE WISE SPRANG upright when his cell phone rang.

  Blindly, he fumbled for it among his keys, change, badge wallet, and eyeglasses, which he’d left on the nightstand when he went to bed. He’d slept like a dead man, but the chiming ring of his cell was as effective as the piercing shriek of a fire alarm, unmercifully yanking him out of unconsciousness. He could very well suffer cardiac arrest for being awakened so abruptly, but before he did, he must answer this call.

  He flipped up the phone and pressed it to his ear. “Wise.”

  “Mornin’, Hoot. Did I wake you up?”

  It was Perkins. The connection crackled with static, but he could hear if he strained. “No,” he lied as he slid on his glasses. “I’m just surprised. Didn’t realize cell service had been restored until the phone rang.”

  “Chopper . . . about . . . ago. Weather’s iffy . . . says . . .”

  “Hold on. Perkins, you still there? Hold on.” Hoot bicycled his legs to push off the covers. He clambered out of bed and rushed over to a window, hoping to get a clearer signal. “Perkins?”

  “You’re breaking up, Hoot.”

  “Give me the basics.”

  “Chopper. ETA in Cleary ten hundred hours. Three-member search-and-rescue team. One former sniper from HRT.” Hostage rescue.

  “Good news. Anything else?”

  “Yeah, on Tier . . . got . . . night. Get to it . . . away . . . something . . .”

  Frustrated, Hoot turned his head about, trying to find the sweet spot in the atmosphere that would improve their connection. Then he realized that it had been broken altogether. He checked the readout. His service indicator was blank.

  “Hoot?”

  Begley was standing in the doorway to the guest room in which Hoot had slept. He was holding his Bible, his place marked with his finger. He was dressed and looking fresh as a daisy, making Hoot painfully aware that he was shivering in his drawers. “Morning, sir. That was Perkins. The helicopter will be here at ten o’clock.”

  “Excellent.” Begley checked his watch. “As soon as you’re dressed . . .”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Begley backed out of the doorway and pulled it closed behind him.

  Luckily Gus Elmer’s hot water heaters ran on propane, so Hoot showered again, even though that was the first thing he’d done last night after they’d checked in and were assigned cabin number seven. Begley wanted to be close to number eight, not trusting Dutch Burton to stay out of it.

  Since there was no electricity, he’d been unable to turn on Tierney’s computer, which frustrated Begley. He was eager to get into Tierney’s files. Hoot was secretly grateful for the delay. He was cross-eyed with fatigue and doubted he’d have been able to concentrate enough to crack Tierney’s security codes.

  Their cabin was the only other in the compound that had two bedrooms separated by a living area and small kitchen. They managed to function with light from the fireplace, candles, and a kerosene Coleman camp stove. After eating the canned chili Gus Elmer was happy to provide—for a price—Hoot had showered and practically sleepwalked from the bathroom to the bed.

  Now, five minutes after being awakened, he joined Begley in the main room. “I boiled water for coffee, but I don’t recommend it. The police department’s coffee is better than this. Let’s go wait for the chopper there. I suppose we also owe Burton the courtesy of letting him know about the chopper’s ETA.”

  “I agree, sir.” Hoot pulled on his coat and gloves.

  “Where did Perkins say the chopper will set down?”

  “He didn’t. We didn’t get that far before our service was interrupted.”

  Begley checked his own phone and cursed when it registered no service. “It’s still going to be dodgy, I’m afraid.”

  “I’ll call Perkins back as soon as we get to the police department.”

  They rode in silence for a time, then Begley said, “Lilly Martin. Do you think she’s sti
ll alive, Hoot?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he knows she called Burton and told him they were together.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  As they approached police headquarters, they were stunned to see civilian vehicles, most of them four-wheel trucks, parked in front of the squat brick building. Those that the parking lot wouldn’t accommodate were parked along both sides of the street.

  “What the hell?” Begley asked rhetorically.

  Inside, the anteroom was crowded with men wearing camouflage print hunting garb or similar clothing. Most were armed with rifles. One, Hoot noticed, had a sophisticated bow and a quiver of evil-looking arrows. Everybody was talking at once, and all appeared agitated.

  Begley tried to elbow his way through the throng in the general direction of the dispatcher, who seemed to be the target of the malcontent. After several failed attempts, the SAC put his fingers in his mouth and gave an earsplitting whistle. It instantly silenced the babble. Weatherproof boots sounded like a stampede on the hardwood floor as they shuffled one hundred eighty degrees.

  With every eye in the room on him, Begley identified himself in a voice that could have cut glass. He was standing with his feet planted wide apart, his hands on his hips. Later, Hoot would confide to his co-workers that the nutcracker had never been more effective.

  “I want somebody to tell me what the hell is going on here,” he bellowed.

  The crowd parted for the man pushing his way through. Although he was dressed for the Iditarod, Hoot recognized Ernie Gunn. “Mr. Begley, Mr. Wise. These men here are some of the volunteers who’d been searching for Millicent until the storm forced them to stop. Word spread yesterday about the guy who took her. We’ve assembled this morning to help capture Ben Tierney.”

  Immediately after his meeting with them, Gunn must have notified all his friends that Ben Tierney was the culprit who had taken his daughter. Those friends had told their friends. Hoot looked into the faces of the armed men and saw the resolve of vigilantes bent on getting their man and meting out their own brand of justice.

  Begley ignored the others and addressed Gunn. “I understand your desperation—”