Ice Lake: Gone ColdCold HeatStone Cold

by Daniels, BJ; Daniels, BJ; Daniels, BJ

  Daniel could hear the frustration coloring his friend’s voice. Once the man they’d dubbed the Big Sky Strangler had been identified and killed, the two FBI agents had made their way to one of the resort cabins closer to town, to try and get phone service to report in to their superiors in Billings. But, like everyone else in the area, they’d gotten cut off by the blizzard. “Although how we’re going to get anyone else here with the road closings and avalanche warnings… I just don’t know. Let me talk to Winston and I’ll get back to you in a couple of minutes.”

  “Roger that. Eagle One out.”

  Winston Cooper, the manager of Ice Lake Resort, where Daniel worked, would probably have a heart attack at the news of his gruesome discovery of the missing skier. But Winston was his boss’s boss, and as a man who’d served eight years in the United States Marine Corps, Daniel understood the chain of command. Keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of movement among the trees and snow, he settled in for a cold, lonely wait.

  His team had already gone up to the roundhouse and the supply sheds spaced along Atlas’s three ski runs in search of Stacy Beecham, and were on their way back to their base office at the lodge. Daniel hadn’t seen signs of anyone else up here. With the dead woman lying beyond the tips of his skis, that meant he was the last man on the mountain.

  The irony of being the last, lonely soul wasn’t lost on him.

  He tugged off his wraparound sunglasses and pulled his binoculars from one of the zippered pockets of his parka. He wore an Ice Lake Patrol stocking cap low around his ears and forehead, and a dusting of beard stubble over his jaw to insulate against the freezing weather.

  Yet he was a man who craved the cold and wet, and clean, bracing air. A shiver meant he was still alive. A wincing blink against the wind meant he could still feel. Coming home to a Montana winter was a much needed change from the sand and heat and death of his last tour of duty in the Middle East.

  But coming home to a murdered woman and an AWOL serial killer wasn’t the healing respite he’d been looking for.

  Dormant skills that had served him well on the front lines of a war awoke inside him with the same painful tingling of a frostbitten foot coming back to life. He surveyed as far as he could see up and down the slope, but his vision was limited. He spotted the orange forms of the last two search-and-rescue teammates through the curtain of falling snow, and heard their blades chopping and crunching against the hardening snowpack before they disappeared from sight.

  He was alone, for now.

  Daniel stashed his binoculars and adjusted his glasses back over his eyes. Normally, he relished his isolation up here on the mountain. But something was different today. An unsettled feeling nagged at him, a certain wariness. If he believed in premonitions, he might think that death was stalking him—that there was danger just beyond the trees lining the ski run, that something evil skulked behind the granite outcroppings of the rugged mountain, that the ghosts from his past were chasing him through every swirl of snow blanketing the world around him.

  Maybe it was the blizzard that was gaining strength and altering the rocky landscape. Maybe it was the murdered woman. Maybe it was just his guilty, screwed-up head that was messing with him.

  “G.I. Joe?”

  “No, kid. Captain Stone to you.”

  Daniel remembered the feel of soft black silk beneath his fingers as he’d ruffled the hair on the little tagalong his unit had picked up while checking bombed-out buildings in the village a week earlier. Tariq had been smart, happy—and no more than ten years old.

  Daniel braced for the inevitable detour of his thoughts.

  “Captain G.I. Joe. Look what my mother—”

  A sniper’s bullet meant for Daniel had taken out Tariq midsentence, spattering blood over the freshly baked flatbread he held, before it and the boy both crumbled to the sand at his feet. He picked the boy up in his arms. He weighed nothing. He tried to help, tried to breathe life back into a lifeless body. But he couldn’t save him. A barrage of mortar shells at nearly the same instant drove his unit to ground, taking three good men before the team could eliminate the insurgent threat.

  Daniel unzipped his parka to the middle of his chest and clawed at the neckline of the insulated sweater he wore underneath. He was suddenly burning up. The snow was falling all around him, weighing down the trees, clinging to his coat and gloves. Yet he felt feverish.

  His gaze strayed to the spruce and firs that climbed up the mountain. Every instinct in him told him that the unseen threat that had taken this woman’s life was still in the area. One killer had been dealt with. But there was someone else on the mountain with him, trapped by the blizzard—someone intent on destroying him and the things he cared about. More innocents were about to die. On his watch.

  “Captain G.I. Joe.” Tariq’s laughter was drowned out by the sound of a single gunshot, by the roar of mortar fire.

  “Stop it,” Daniel muttered.

  This was his mountain. His world.

  Mentally shaking the haunting images from his head, he reached down and grabbed a handful of snow to rub across his hot face. The chapping cold cooled his thoughts, centered him.

  Mount Atlas. Ice Lake. Montana.

  Not sand and heat and death.

  Daniel scooped up another handful of snow and packed it into a firm snowball, testing the weight of it before tossing it against the trunk of a tree twenty yards away.

  He’d better get his brain back in Montana. There was a lot of moisture in the snow now. That meant snowpack and extra weight on the tree branches and drifting overhangs on the edge of every rock face. Which meant the risk of avalanche.

  Daniel zipped his parka back up beneath his neck and got on the radio again. “Eagle One to home base. Come in home base. Kent, I need an answer.”

  Static crackled on the walkie-talkie and the line cleared. “This is Ice Lake home base. Sorry to make you wait, Daniel.” Kent’s heavy pause warned him the news wasn’t good. “We can’t reach Special Agent McCade or his partner—phone lines are out. And the sheriff says there’s no way he can get here from town. Cover the body and mark where she is, then get back down here as soon as you can.”

  “This storm is going to run another eight to twelve hours, Kent. That’s plenty of time for this guy to strike again,” Daniel pointed out. “We’re in survival mode already. We’re not equipped to deal with a murder investigation.”

  “No. But I know someone who is. And she’s on this side of the avalanche blocking the highway to Graniteville.” The apology he heard in Kent’s tone put Daniel instantly on guard.

  “No.” It was a dangerous idea. “Don’t call Kylie. Do not call your sister.”

  Daniel’s breath whooshed out on a sigh, blinding him in a cloud of regret. Kylie Webber. Hair like a short cap of soft, sable fur. Eyes as clear and blue as the mountain lake that gave the ski resort its name. Legs like… No, he wouldn’t go there. He couldn’t even think about the forbidden fantasies Kylie’s long, lean body had given him since their first meeting in high school—not with her big brother on the radio with him. Kylie had been stolen kisses, all-night conversations, and a lot of frustrated hormones before he’d gone off to college and the Marine Corps, leaving her behind to finish growing up.

  There was no mistaking that the innocent teenager who’d had a crush on him a decade ago was all woman now. She’d written several heartfelt letters that had kept him going while stationed overseas—treasured letters he’d never failed to answer, until that afternoon patrol and the death of Tariq and his men.

  He was the problem now. He was the reason a relationship between them could no longer work. Daniel Stone was a different man than the Semper Fi superhero he’d once been. He was far older than the three years that separated him and Kylie. He didn’t want to love and lose anybody else. His soul was weary, beaten, used up. No matter that she was still the only woman who could ignite his frozen desires, he wouldn’t subject her good heart to the nightmares and cynicism and guilt th
at were a part of him now.

  Daniel glanced down at Stacy Beecham’s fractured body and flinched. He could replace her blond hair with dark brown, her green eyes with blue. This could be Kylie.

  And he couldn’t handle another death like that. He just damn well couldn’t handle it.

  He didn’t want Kylie Webber here. Her presence would not only put her life in jeopardy, but having Kylie around would also endanger the fragile grip he had on his self-control.

  But you didn’t know a guy all through middle and high school without him knowing your secrets and fears—and Kent knew Daniel’s. “My baby sister stopped being a kid a long time ago, Daniel. She wears a gun and a badge now. She grew up on this mountain just like you and me, and she knows how to work a crime scene. You do your job, and we’ll let Kylie do hers.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “We’re snowed in, buddy—you can’t avoid her.” Kent’s wisdom turned into teasing. “Are you worried she’ll try to scratch your eyes out for letting her go? Or kiss you because she knows you’re dealing with stuff and it’s not your fault the two of you didn’t work out?”

  Damn mind reader. But his screwed-up emotions weren’t the priority here. Daniel’s thoughts had taken a much darker turn. “Do you know her location?”

  “Sheriff Quick said she called in a vehicle accident about a mile north of here on Route 6.”

  “Is she alone?”

  “I didn’t ask. I take it the sheriff’s department is spread pretty thin. But she’s tough. She can handle herself.”

  Bless Kent’s soul that he wasn’t so jaded and distrustful of the world that he couldn’t see the worst-case scenario here like Daniel could. Standing over a murdered woman, Daniel had trouble picturing anything but.

  Still, Kent Webber was smart enough to be able to read the inflection in Daniel’s tone—and the meaning in his silences. “Daniel?” His voice was sharp, commanding now.

  Daniel pulled a Mylar blanket and neon marking flag from his search-and-rescue pack and knelt down beside Stacy Beecham.

  “Daniel! I know what you’re thinking. You report back here to base right now.”

  Scooping up handfuls of snow, Daniel anchored the blanket around the body and preserved as much of the area nearby it as possible.

  “Daniel Stone! I’ve got dead bodies and a blizzard on my hands. I need you here for backup.”

  Daniel thrust the flag into the snow and stood. He turned his mouth to his radio and calmly asked, “What if someone in that car accident Kylie’s working is the killer trying to escape?”

  “Ah, hell.” A string of curses followed, and Daniel nodded his head, adjusted the pack on his back and kicked the excess snow off his skis, knowing what Kent’s next order would be. “You go find my sister and make sure she gets here in one piece.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Watch yourself. I don’t want to lose either one of you. Not to a killer, and not to this storm.”

  Daniel crosshatched his skis and stepped into the clearing beneath the ski lift before turning toward the bottom of the hill. “This is my mountain. Nobody knows it like I do. I’ll be there to back you up within the hour.”

  Unless a run-in with Kylie Webber killed him first.

  THE MAN SAT BEHIND THE wheel of his car, picking at the blood caked beneath his fingernails and staining the cuffs of his jacket. He idly noted that he needed to change his clothes.

  The rage and grief-fueled adrenaline that had pumped through his system was fading, leaving him feeling weak and disoriented. He’d done what he was supposed to do, what he had always done, just the way he’d been taught—just the way he had always done for his partner. Scout out the territory. Take days, weeks, even months, if necessary, to find the right woman—the perfect victim. Then call his partner to let him know the stage had been set. That was the prize. Make his partner happy. Prove they were the perfect team. Nothing. No one. No woman could ever come between them.

  He’d found the perfect victim, more than one, in fact, right here in the Ice Lake area. He’d done what he was supposed to do. His partner had come as soon as he’d called. His partner would take care of him.

  Ah, hell. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the rearview mirror. He had blood on his neck, too. He lightly touched his fingers to the wound before turning the mirror away in disgust.

  He should be feeling better than this. He’d played his part perfectly. That woman on Mount Atlas had been so concerned about helping an injured skier. She hadn’t hesitated one whit to come to his aid.

  Burney would be proud of him.

  But this time was different. Something in him had snapped, making it difficult to think.

  What am I supposed to do now? He curled his fingers into fists and leaned back in the seat. The wind buffeted the vehicle like the emotions roiling through his system buffeted him. The snow was burying him. But not any more than the confusion and loss that paralyzed him.

  He stared so hard into the hypnotic flakes of white in front of him that his eyes began to water. Or maybe those were tears. His best friend was dead. His partner was gone. His soul mate had been taken from him. And a woman was responsible for his death—that lady FBI agent who should have just kept her mouth shut and died instead of hiding from them. The irony only compounded the loss. “Damn woman.”

  They’d caused him nothing but trouble his whole life.

  He had to get to his friend. He had to reach him soon. Now.

  He hadn’t been alone for ten years. Burney Novak had always been there to protect him, guide him, support him. Through all the abuse, through the loneliness, Burney had been there. Since that fateful night when their foster mother, Donna the truck driver, had come after him with her belt for not having her dinner ready, and Burney had knocked her out with a two-by-four and then wrapped that same belt around her neck to free them from their torturous existence, Burney Novak had been everything to him.

  Burney was strength. He had guts. Burney didn’t take crap off anybody, especially no woman. Women were for bedding and serving and dying.

  He’d never been the man his partner was…the man he needed to be now. He’d been weak, but the blood on his hands proved he was weak no more.

  His spine straightened against the back of his seat and he adjusted the mirror to meet his determined gaze head-on. He needed to be more like Burney. He needed to become Burney Novak. It was the only way he knew how to survive.

  He’d need a new partner. Their best success had always come as a team. He’d been in the area long enough to know that pickings were slim. But there had to be someone else who could help him out, someone who needed rescuing the way he had. And he’d need a plan. The weather was working against him—he was basically trapped here in Montana, limited in resources. But Burney would have been able to come up with a plan even with the odds stacked against them like this.

  He would come up with that plan now.

  He’d be creative. He’d be smart, patient, as ruthless as he needed to be.

  Feeling a stirring of warmth inside him, he reached across the seat and picked up the ski pole that had snapped in two when he’d cracked it over that woman’s head. A hungry need lit in his blood, clearing his thoughts and making him feel powerful. These hands could kill—he knew that now. They could do everything Burney had done.

  Rolling down the window, he tossed the broken pole down the embankment, where it disappeared into a well of snow. He shrugged out of his winter jacket and tossed it out the window, too, letting the storm hide the evidence of his deed.

  A woman had taken Burney from him. And she would pay. They would all pay.

  It was the only way.

  CHAPTER TWO

  DEPUTY KYLIE WEBBER, blizzard tamer. Rescuer of idiots.

  Tipping her head into stinging gusts of wind and snow, Kylie squinted beneath her sunglasses. “Seriously?” she bemoaned to the afternoon’s gray light.

  She’d already worked two accidents today, one mino
r and one that had required the department helicopter to airlift the driver to the nearest trauma hospital in Bozeman. Who knew how many other serious accidents or missing tourists or stranded locals truly needed her help? And she’d been sent to deal with Bozo 1 and Bozo 2.

  The Graniteville sheriff’s office didn’t pay her enough money for this. She scanned over the shoulder of the road to where two drunken twentysomethings had slid their car down the embankment and wedged it between two tree trunks in a ten-foot snowdrift. Then, instead of staying in the warmth of their car, they thought it would be a good idea to climb onto the roof and dive into the snowbank. Half-dressed.

  “Okay, boys.” She called to them again, her voice louder and sterner to cut through the wind and their tipsy senses. “Graniteville County Sheriff’s Office,” she announced. “Come on up to the road. I’ve got a nice warm vehicle for you to sit in. Don’t—!”

  With a kowabunga yell, the one in jeans, an undershirt and a tie knotted around his bare neck dived headfirst into the drift. He disappeared to his waist, and his muffled shriek of pain pulled Kylie a couple steps farther from her SUV to the edge of the road. “You okay?”

  “Dude!” The second one, wearing athletic shorts and snow boots with his turtleneck, plunged in after him, oblivious to the dangers of tree trunks and rocks that could be buried in the drift.

  Kylie curled her gloved fingers into fists at her sides, curbing her frustration. Give her a dog any day. Even a mutt would have the sense to come in out of the cold. “Boys?”

  Bozo 1 slowly backed out of the drift and landed on his rump in the snow. Judging by his groans and the way he cradled his wrist, he’d hurt himself.

  Okay. Time to take charge.

  Retreating to her sheriff’s department SUV, Kylie opened the back door and pulled out an emergency blanket and first aid kit. If the bozos wouldn’t come to her, then she was going to have to haul them in for their own protection.

  “Don’t move,” she ordered, plunging up to the knees of her lined khaki slacks into the snow—half sliding, half climbing down to the injured man. The booze had probably numbed him to the onset of frostbite and hypothermia with those wet, insufficient clothes. But the pain of an injured wrist was quickly bringing him back to the reality of his situation. “Easy.”