Ice Lake: Gone ColdCold HeatStone Cold

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

  Kylie wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and knelt beside him to inspect his swelling wrist. Holding it gingerly, she urged him to wiggle his fingers.

  “What happened?” the young man asked, blinking snowflakes from his lashes, perhaps trying to bring Kylie’s face into focus. “Did we wreck the car? Where’s my shirt?”

  With his injury, she wasn’t going to stop and give him a Breathalyzer test, but she could guess that he had enough alcohol in his system to impair his body’s ability to retain its needed heat. Wherever these two had come from—possibly older college students on their holiday break, or simply a pair of travelers who’d gotten stuck in the area when the storm hit, and had alleviated their boredom with a six-pack, or two, or six—it would be her responsibility to get them back in one piece.

  Resting his wrist in the snow beside him, she packed more snow around it, creating a cold compress to stop the swelling. Kylie summoned up her patience and a reassuring smile. “What’s your name?” she asked, wanting him to focus on her and provide some lucid answers while she wrapped his wrist and the snow pack in plastic and a bandage. “I’m Deputy Webber.”

  “I’m Tony.” His words began to slur. From drink? Or the onset of hypothermia? “You’re awful pretty to be a badge. To wear a badge, I mean.”

  “Can you stand up, Tony?” she asked, growing more concerned than irritated now. His partner, his legs flailing out of the snowbank like a fish stuck in the mud, would be of no help. “Did you say something, Tony?”

  “I think I might be sick,” the man groaned, doubling over.

  That wasn’t what she’d heard. For a moment, she’d imagined someone shouting in the distance. But it must be a trick of the wind bending the branches in the forest behind her. Or maybe just Bozo 2 trying to say something with his mouth and face full of snow. They were too far below the road to see if another vehicle had pulled up, and a 360-degree squint into the flying snow made her think the word she’d heard had been just her imagination.

  “No, you don’t.” This was the time for practicality and efficiency, not fanciful imaginings about the wind whispering her name. She needed to get Tony up the slope and into the SUV while he could still move under his own power, or else she’d have to rig up a wench to pull him there. She slid her hands under his elbow and tugged. “Stand up, Tony. Come on.” Despite his wobbly balance and chilled skin, he managed to get his feet under him without puking. Kylie kept his arm elevated while she pushed him into step ahead of her. “That’s it. One foot in front of the other. I’ve got a thermos of coffee and a nice warm place where you can rest for a few minutes.”

  “Coffee sounds good.”

  Kylie.

  A pair of boots thumped on the snow behind her. “Hey, honey. I’m talkin’ to you.”

  Honey must have been what she’d heard, not Kylie. She checked back to see Bozo 2 advancing on her in a lurching gait. “Go back to your car and wait inside, sir.”

  “You arresting Tony?” Great. Bozo 2 had decided he wanted to be a part of things, after all. “You plan to take us both, honey?”

  “Get in the car,” she repeated, catching Tony as he stumbled, forcing her to take her eyes off the second man.

  Bozo 2 didn’t sound nearly as weak and docile as Tony. Nor was he paying attention to her command. “We ain’t hurtin’ anybody.”

  “Back it up, pal,” she warned, getting her legs solidly beneath her in case he forced her to take physical action to stop his advance.

  “We’re here on vacation between s’mesters. What happened to Western hospitality?”

  When she felt his long fingers clamp on to her elbow, Kylie whirled around. But she never had the chance to pinch his hand and twist free.

  “Kylie!”

  She hadn’t imagined her name.

  A blur of bright orange slid down the embankment.

  The thick orange arms of a parka closed around the man’s chest, breaking his grip, slinging him to the ground.

  “Get your hands off her. Now.”

  “SERIOUSLY?” Kylie glared at the tall, rangy mountain man looming over the half-dressed fool sprawled in the snow. His sunglasses dangled from the lanyard around his neck, and his hands were clenched into fists at his sides. He’d swapped out his skis for a pair of snowshoes and his shoulders heaved up and down as if he’d just crossed the finish line in a cross-country race. “Daniel, you could have hurt him.”

  “Dude, what the…? What the hell’s happening to me?”

  But the man on the ground was ignored. Daniel Stone peered over his shoulder at Kylie, his breath forming multiple white clouds in the air. “He was sneaking up behind you while you were working with that drunk. You wanted me to let him hurt you?”

  “I wasn’t gonna hurt her.”

  “Of all the presumptuous…” Kylie propped Tony up with one hand and pulled open the front of her coat to remind Daniel of the badge clipped over her Kevlar, and all that it represented. “I don’t need to be rescued.” She’d been doing this job since she’d graduated college four years earlier. She was hardly a rookie anymore. She was far stronger and more self-sufficient than this version of Daniel—who was more volatile and mysterious than the one she’d seen off to the Middle East two years ago—seemed to believe. Or maybe Daniel’s strike first and ask questions later assault stemmed from another source. “Did Kent send you to find me?”

  A silent warning from those gray-green eyes kept the man in the shorts on the ground. Their striking intensity didn’t soften any when he looked back at her. “It was a joint decision.”

  She stretched out an arm to help the shivering man up out of the snow. “Well, you may take orders from my brother when it comes to search and rescue. But this is a traffic accident and a pair of drunks I need to get off the road, for their sakes as well as everybody else’s. It has nothing to do with Ice Lake Search and Rescue.” She tucked the blanket more securely around Tony and nudged him toward the embankment. “When it comes to this kind of job, I’m in charge.”

  The gentle brush of Daniel’s hand at her hip surprised her more than his sharp words of a moment ago. “We need to talk.”

  She narrowed her gaze in response to the hushed intimacy of his gravelly tone, but let the unspoken question slide. Just because every jigger of heat in her body had rushed to the unexpected yet well-remembered touch of Daniel’s hand, that didn’t lessen her responsibility or change the reason why she was here. “Not until we get these two safely inside my Suburban and get his wrist checked out.”

  Daniel pulled his hand away, his answering sigh clouding the air between them, obscuring his lean face for a moment.

  “What is going on with you?” Kylie prodded. Lately, he’d kept to himself and had avoided her like a bad case of frostbite whenever she visited Ice Lake. And now he was in her face with this whole Marine-to-the-rescue routine? Resentment quickly turned to worry. “Has something happened to Kent?”

  “No.”

  “Winston Cooper?” The lodge manager had been under a great deal of stress the past few days, taking in refugees from the blizzard as well as dealing with the FBI and the serial killer they’d tracked to Ice Lake. None of which was good for Winston’s heart condition. But Sheriff Quick’s last briefing this morning had issued an all clear on the statewide manhunt. A man named Burney Novak had been identified as the murderer they’d sought, and he’d been taken out by the FBI. “Is he coping with everything okay?”

  “Winston’s fine.”

  Frustrating man. Relief at hearing that her brother and her friend were safe never really registered. “Is there some other kind of trouble I need to know about?”

  “No electricity at the lodge? No phone lines or radios that’ll reach the outside world? A dead killer locked up in the freezer? Isn’t that trouble enough?”

  Tony staggered to a halt. “Did you say killer? Are we safe?”

  “You are, buddy.” His nod seemed enough to reassure the injured man and get him moving again. Yet Daniel’s
gaze slipped over to Kylie, sending a very different message. She wasn’t?

  Suspicion bristled inside her. Daniel’s cryptic mood swing left her believing the talk he wanted to have couldn’t wait, after all. “Is it police business?”

  He wound his gloved finger into a curl that strayed onto her cheek, and tucked it up under the sheepskin lining her cap. Despite the cool contact of the snow-dusted fingertip, the tenderness of the gesture warmed her skin. Yet she recognized the regretful caress for the stall tactic it was. “Like you said. Let’s take care of them first, and then I’ll fill you in.”

  Very frustrating man.

  “All right.” She could agree to that truce. For now.

  “Let me get my kit and I’ll check your guy out.” He grabbed Bozo 1 by the neck of his sweater and pulled him beyond Kylie’s grasp. “If that one makes any move he shouldn’t…don’t be nice about putting him in his place.”

  Choosing to work with her for the time being, Daniel half pulled, half carried Tony up the incline. Relying on a little more finesse rather than Daniel’s brute strength, Kylie got the second man to the car and seated inside, as well. While Daniel tended to Tony’s sprained wrist, Kylie pulled another blanket from the back of the Suburban to wrap around Tony’s friend.

  With a little coaxing and a promise not to let Daniel put his hands on him again, the second man identified himself as Mike Osterman. He and Tony had driven the rental car out of Graniteville, where they’d spent most of the night at one of the local bars. Once the prospects for a one-night stand had thinned out to nothing, they’d set out—against official warnings—for Ice Lake Resort and the abundant snow bunnies they’d hoped to find there. And Kylie let them know that, no, she wasn’t a prospect that either one of them needed to be flirting with right now or ever.

  Neither man had a driver’s license on him, but instead of sending anyone back out into the snow, Kylie wrote down the plate number from the car. It wasn’t going anywhere. Once the blizzard had blown over, she could come back and get the insurance and registration numbers, as well as their billfolds.

  When their work was done, she climbed in behind the steering wheel and cranked the heater to warm up the men, who were now locked in behind the steel mesh screen that separated the front seat from the back. While Daniel stowed his gear in the rear of the Suburban, Kylie tried calling the sheriff’s office over her CB.

  “This is Deputy Webber to Granite County One, over.” A crackle of static and the piercing screech of a radio desperately trying to tune itself was her only reply. “Deputy Webber to Granite County One. Sheriff Quick, can you read me?”

  More static. Then dead air.

  Then Daniel was climbing into the passenger seat across from her. As soon as he shut the door, blocking out the worst of the wind and cold, the space inside the roomy vehicle seemed to shrink.

  “Any luck?” he asked, sliding off his gloves and flexing his long fingers in front of the blast from the heating vents.

  Kylie shook her head. “They were cutting out when I first called in the wreck. I’ve got nothing now.”

  Prophetic words. She shifted in her seat, feeling curiously uncomfortable and embarrassingly vulnerable as the familiar scents of musky man and the outdoor freshness that clung to Daniel’s clothes filled her nose. The man she once thought she’d marry had made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t interested in rekindling a relationship with her now that he was out of the Corps. And though it crushed her heart to see him hurting and broken inside, she’d respected his need to isolate himself from her and the feelings they’d once shared, while he healed. If he could.

  If friendship was all Daniel wanted, then that was what he’d get from her. Although even that strained relationship was more about being acquaintances who ran into each other from time to time because of her brother. But if distance was what he needed in order to cope with his demons, then she had to make it clear to him that charging in to protect her was not only unnecessary, but unacceptable. She needed him to understand that the distance between them had to go both ways, or else her confused heart would never give up hope and get over him.

  But having that conversation in the middle of a blizzard with the roads to town blocked off and two drunks eavesdropping from the backseat didn’t seem like a wise move at the moment.

  Deciding it was better to concentrate on the situation at hand rather than relive the past and mourn the loss of what could have been between them, Kylie forced her attention to the radio again. She twisted the CB knob through all the different channels, but couldn’t raise anything more than static from the sheriff’s station. She didn’t bother trying her mobile phone, since the town’s cell tower had been toppled in a gust of wind and no repair crew could even get to it until the snow stopped and the roads were cleared.

  Having Daniel here complicated her efforts to do her job. Wondering why he’d braved the storm because he needed to “talk” piqued her curiosity and provided an untimely distraction. But a glance in the rearview mirror at the two bozos shivering in her backseat reminded her that she shouldn’t be thinking of herself—or Daniel, even—right now.

  “Do you have any kind of communication at the lodge?” she asked, hanging up the radio receiver. “I can’t get these guys to the hospital in Graniteville, so your EMT’s are the next best thing.”

  “Short-range radio is all that Kent’s been able to keep up and running,” Daniel answered. “I lost contact with HQ once I got about a half mile beyond the entrance to the resort. I take it you haven’t heard from him, either?”

  Kylie shook her head. “Tell me what’s going on. Is this about the Big Sky Strang—”

  “Shh.” Daniel reached across the center console and squeezed her hand. With a slight nod to the two men in the back, he released her. “Later.”

  No. Now. “Give me something so I have an idea of what I’m dealing with.”

  He leaned closer and dropped his voice to a whisper. “I found another DB on patrol about an hour ago. A woman about your age. It wasn’t an accident.”

  Another dead body? But Burney Novak was no longer a threat.

  An odd mix of icy trepidation and fiery adrenaline surged through Kylie’s system. She was the only law enforcement between Ice Lake and the snow slide that cut them off from backup in town. This would be her case. Her responsibility. She needed to know everything Daniel did so she’d know exactly what she was up against. “Same MO?”

  “Similar enough.” He moved back to his side of the car, ignoring her unspoken plea for more information. The tilt of his head reminded her they had extra ears in this conversation. “Get your car moving. We’ve got cots set up at the lodge, where these two can sleep it off and we can monitor their body temps. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes unless we run into another roadblock. I’ll brief you then.”

  Guessing that whatever details Daniel had to share about the dead woman made him suspicious of the men locked up behind them, she nodded and shifted the SUV into gear. She could wait. For the time it took to get them to the lodge safely, she could wait.

  She was used to waiting for the right moment with Daniel Stone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  EVEN WITH THE WINDSHIELD wipers working double-time, Kylie could barely see beyond the hood of her SUV as she pulled up beneath the rock archway in front of the Ice Lake Resort’s lodge’s tall glass doors. Her fingers ached as she eased her grip on the steering wheel, and her eyes burned from the focus it had required to keep the Suburban on the road.

  “All right, let’s move out,” Daniel ordered. He spared a glance across the seat to Kylie before opening his door. “I’ll get Tony inside first and have Kent double-check his vitals and that wrist. Will you be okay in here for a few minutes?”

  “Go. I’ll be right in.”

  “I’ll be back to help you escort this yahoo inside.”

  “No, you won’t.” So they were back to save-the-pretty-little-lady mode? That was one thing she didn’t need from Daniel. “I’ll
catch up with you in the patrol office.”

  Yeah. She could do the stubborn glare thing, too.

  With a muffled curse, Daniel relented. “Winston has gathered all the guests in the lobby area. He told them it was to conserve the generators instead of trying to heat each of the rooms. But he’s worried about someone else straying from the herd and…”

  Winding up dead? Kylie could read the foreboding that narrowed Daniel’s eyes. She didn’t need him to finish the sentence. Whatever he had seen on that mountain had been messed up enough to resurrect all his warrior-mode defenses. Maybe the murder scene had tapped into his PTSD, and his over-the-top protectiveness was more about him dealing with something inside than with any doubts about her abilities to take care of herself.

  “Just so you know,” he continued. “There’s a crowd in there.”

  Kylie tilted her chin toward the double front doors, keeping her words equally cryptic to ensure the privacy of their conversation. “Do any of them know about it?”

  “About what?” Mike piped up from the backseat.

  At the interruption, Daniel’s hand fisted. But instead of giving in to the impulse to vent his frustration, he scrubbed his fingers through his short golden hair, leaving a trail of rumpled spikes in their wake. “Just Winston, Kent and me. And…”

  The killer.

  Kylie’s own fingers itched with the urge to straighten his hair, to soothe his temper, to offer a tender reassurance that she was going to be safe and that she could handle a murder investigation. It had been a long time since she’d stroked her palms against the soft, ticklish texture. And it would be longer still. She wrapped her traitorous hands back around the steering wheel and breathed a deep sigh. Daniel didn’t want affection from her. As far as she could tell, he only wanted her to follow his orders. And since he wasn’t her commanding officer, that wasn’t going to happen.