On Thin Ice

by Linda Hall

  Sugar? Megan felt like screaming, but forced herself to remain calm. Her best hope lay in playing along with this madman.

  “Thanks, Bryan. So you bought us a house? Tell me about it.”

  “You’ll love it, sugar. It’s got a big yard with plenty of spare bedrooms for our big family. I want a big family, don’t you? I grew up with only one brother, and he wasn’t much of one, was he? He ended up stealing my girlfriend. I always felt like I was cheated, you know? I always vowed that we would have a big family, don’t you agree?”

  “Sure.” She thought hard. “Before we head down to Bath, I have a bit of a problem, Bryan. I have to use the ladies’ room.”

  He studied her. “The restroom, huh?”

  She shrugged and tried to look as contrite as she could.

  He came around and opened her door and got his keys to unlock the chains. He said, “I’ll walk you in. There’s only one bathroom so I’ll wait right outside the door. Any funny business and Vicky will die.”

  “Bryan,” she said, and pouted. “There won’t be any funny business. We’re getting married, aren’t we?”

  “And don’t try anything funny in there. When you come out I’m going to go in and look the room all over just to make sure you haven’t written on the walls or anything.”

  Once inside the washroom Megan stood in front of the mirror trembling, and she couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

  Oh God, she prayed, I know You’re in control. Please help me think of something. Anything. She pulled down a piece of paper towel to dry her eyes.

  Alec should have known that Bryan would tamper with his brakes. It was Bryan’s battery pack they had found. But in his position as protector/elder brother, he made himself not see it. He had no doubt that Bryan could kill. He had killed before. He had killed Megan’s sweet grandmother, plus three of their friends. Their friends! How and why he did this, Alec didn’t know.

  Anyone who had killed three people would want Alec out of the way, too. Fortunately, the snowbank and the lack of other drivers on the road saved him and everyone else from serious harm. He pushed away the inflated air bag. He checked himself for injuries, but he seemed to be in one piece. The next thing was to find his flashlight and phone. He found his cell phone on the floor and called Stu with the particulars and asked him to come with his snowmobile.

  He reached around for his flashlight, and found it on the floor of the passenger seat. He picked it up and at the same time his fingers touched a piece of paper. He picked it up. It was a plain white envelope with his name on it.

  What was this?

  He opened it up and extracted the small note card. In the same block capital letters that were written on the invitation was written: THE BEST MAN WON

  The best man won.

  Suddenly its meaning became very clear. Bryan was to have been his best man. It was Bryan. It was like a stab, one more jab. His mother’s friend had been right. Bryan had been here, was still here.

  When Stu arrived, Alec filled him in. Stu had brought along a second snowmobile helmet. Alec hopped on the back of the snowmobile. The two of them took off down the road to Trail’s End.

  “Something came into the department,” Stu shouted to him over the storm. “Earl reported a stolen snowplow.”

  “Who would steal a snowplow?”

  “I told him we’d get to it later. Maybe Pete or Peach did. For fun. You know those old guys.”

  “Crazy town.”

  Stu drove the snowmobile expertly down the road, even though at times it was difficult to see where he was going. Darkness was descending, which would make their search even more difficult.

  All of the cabin lights were out when they got there—even the outdoor lights—and Alec suspected a power outage. But that didn’t make sense. This place was on the town grid and they still had power in town.

  Stu pointed at a telephone pole. Through the snow they could see that the wires had been neatly snipped and were dangling in the wind.

  “They’ve been cut,” Alec said.

  Closer they saw that Megan’s car was there. She hadn’t driven to Baltimore. His fear increased.

  He saw no lights from the cabins, no candles in the windows, no flashlights. They went first to Megan’s cabin. All was darkness inside.

  “Megan,” he called. “Megan!”

  They shone their lights around and Alec saw the wig and the beard inside the cabin. He was puzzled until he remembered the description of Brad—gray hair, gray beard, funny teeth. His light soon found a pair of white gag teeth on the table, along with a pair of sunglasses. Bryan had disguised himself. No wonder he had made himself scarce when Alec came around.

  Stu was holding up a lined vest. “What’s this? Looks like a jacket with a bunch of pillows in it.”

  “A fat suit,” Alec said without emotion. “My brother dressed himself up in a fat suit.” They put all of the things they could find, including a small paring knife tipped with blood, into plastic evidence bags. Stu shone his light on two packed suitcases standing by the door.

  He said, “Looks like she was planning to leave.”

  “But got stopped,” Alec said. His fear was turning into full-fledged dread. She had to be alive. She just had to be. He loved her!

  They checked the other cabins. All were devoid of inhabitants. In the cabin closest to Megan’s was a lot of women’s clothing and a few paperback books.

  “Didn’t Megan say Brad had a friend named Vicky? This is probably where she’s staying.”

  They quickly looked through these things and then went on to the next cabin.

  They spent more time in the cabin two doors down from Megan. It contained a lot of camera gear and two laptop computers. Alec said, “I think this is where Bryan stayed. We’ll have to take these computers with us.”

  Stu said, “There are no saddlebags on the snowmobile. We’ll take as much as we can and then come back later.”

  “Right now the most important thing is to find Megan. Earl said that Brad came around looking for a snowmobile.”

  “One problem with that is that you can’t fit three people on a snowmobile.”

  Alec thought about that. He didn’t want to think the worst, but if Bryan had killed four people, it would be nothing for him to get Vicky out of the way before he took Megan. Unless Vicky was in on it.

  Alec said, “We could spend all day looking through the snow for a body, however I think we have to look for Megan and Bryan. I’m pretty sure she’s alive and I’m pretty sure he’s got her.”

  “You sound sure of that,” Stu said.

  “He’s been obsessed with Megan forever. I didn’t see it. He used me to get to her.” Bath, he thought suddenly. “He’s taking her to Bath. That’s where we have to go.”

  Stu said, “The highways are closed. I don’t think we’ll get through, even with this trusty snowmobile of mine.”

  “We have to try.” Alec felt desperate.

  “If they’re on a snowmobile, they won’t get far. In fact, I would say we’d better get back to town or we won’t be able to see the road ourselves.”

  Alec hopped on the back of Stu’s snowmobile, and away they went. The storm was increasing. And Megan was out there somewhere in the middle of it with a madman.

  FIFTEEN

  The snowplow was a huge thing. This machine wasn’t just a pickup truck with a blade out front. It was a full-size highway model, all metal, loud and clanky, with orange stripes and all kinds of hazard lights. Several times they passed drivers who gave them the thumbs up. Megan tried making faces, mouthing the word “help”, or frowning in an exaggerated sort of manner, but no one paid attention to her, or maybe they couldn’t see her through her frosty window.

  Up ahead a car was down in the ditch, its four-way flashers on.

  “An accident, Bryan. We need to stop and help out.”

  He laughed. “Yeah right. I don’t quite trust you yet, Megan. You haven’t proven yourself. I lost a lot of trust when you had th
e abortion, when you killed our baby. It will take a long time to build up that kind of trust again.”

  “Bryan,” she argued. “You’re in a snowplow. We need to stop and help out. I know you’re basically a good person. I know deep down you don’t want to do this. Let’s stop. There could be children in that car.”

  “And why would you suddenly care about children when you deliberately killed ours?”

  Megan knew it was no use arguing. For twenty years Bryan had deluded himself into thinking that the baby she’d carried was his and that she had had an abortion.

  He slowed down, but she could see that his intention was to drive right past. A man was standing in the middle of the road waving a flashlight at them in the blowing snow.

  Bryan said, “Watch me. This big snowplow can go right through people.”

  Megan’s heart leapt in her throat. Her hands were folded on her lap. She could feel her fingernails in her skin.

  The man frantically waved.

  “Hang on,” he yelled. “Here we go!”

  He picked up speed and she screamed. At the last minute, the man jumped out of the path of the plow. Her captor merely smirked and continued on down the road. He went even faster, laughing a maniacal laugh. Megan couldn’t see a thing through her window as the road snaked through the Maine woods.

  The road turned abruptly, but their snowplow didn’t. The blade clipped a guardrail and it zigzagged down a steep bank.

  Megan gasped. Ahead of them was a frozen lake.

  They hit trees and the plow almost toppled. Vicky screamed while the plow bounced all over the place. The passenger door came off as they bulldozed their way between two huge pines. Megan’s legs were still shackled to the bottom of the truck, but she nearly fell out. A pine branch the size of a small log exploded through the windshield and the snowplow came to a sudden stop. Then toppled onto its side.

  Halfway up the road from Trail’s End, Alec yelled to Stu, “Have to bring the Staties in on this.”

  Stu nodded. “Maybe even the FBI. We’re clearly dealing with a kidnapping situation, and he may be across state lines.”

  Getting the snowmobile back to the main road was tricky. It seemed as if it had snowed a foot since they had come this way. But soon they were heading down the snow-blown street to the police station in Whisper Lake Crossing. There were several calls waiting for Alec from the state patrol when he got there.

  There was a curious message for him. And even now the police had sent out an APB for, of all things, a snowplow. One of the employees of a gas station had gone into the restroom and when she washed her hands she pulled down the next piece of paper towel to dry her hands, there was a message written on it in ink: This is not a joke. My name is Megan Brooks. My friend Vicky is with me. We’re being kidnapped by someone driving a snowplow. We’re on our way to Bath, Maine. Please call Whisper Lake Crossing Sheriff Alec Black…and his number was listed there.

  The state patrol told Alec, “We don’t know what it’s all about, but we’re taking it very seriously. But even our four-wheel vehicles are having trouble in this weather. And it’s only going to get worse.”

  Before they hung up, the state patrol promised to keep them informed. Even so, he was beginning to feel helpless.

  Stu looked out the window, “Can’t we get a chopper?”

  “Not in this,” Alec said, but then he brightened. “But what we can do is to fight fire with fire.”

  They hopped on Stu’s snowmobile and headed over to Earl’s to borrow his pride and joy, a humongous army surplus truck. The back roads to Bath? Earl was helpful. He was familiar with the gas station where Megan had been. The three of them poured over an Atlas of Maine back roads. Earl not only loaned them his Renault Sherpa six-by-six, he loaned them a driver, Jay Forrester, who plowed for the town of Whisper Lake Crossing and worked as a first aid ski patroller.

  They loaded up the truck with a high-powered flashlight and first aid supplies, and set out on a road that didn’t even look like a road anymore. Alec, Stu and Jay kept in constant contact with headquarters. Half an hour out, they got a report of a car in the ditch. A man said he had tried to flag down a snowplow but the driver must not have seen him. He was pretty shaken, he said, because he came really close to being hit.

  Jay said, “Snowplowers would stop. I would. Especially on a back road. That’s our guy.”

  Yet two hours later they had not come across the errant snowplow and its hostages. And the back roads to Bath? There were so many of them that it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Jay driving, they eventually found the gas station where Megan had written the note. It was closed down because of the storm now, but since the owner lived across the street they were able to get the particulars. The man he described getting coffee had been Bryan! There was no doubting this or Megan’s description. Alec punched his fist into his hand. She had been right here!

  The three of them took off in the direction that the proprietor had pointed. They passed the place where the car had gone into the ditch. They drove slowly, carefully looking for anything that was out of order. But the snow which showed no signs of abating was covering up tracks, even the huge tracks of a snowplow, almost as quickly as they were made.

  It was Jay who saw the break in the cement guardrail. He stopped and the three got out to have a better look. The break in the guardrail looked comparatively recent and ahead, down the embankment, were a few broken trees.

  “Do you think they went down there?” Alec asked. “It would be pretty stupid if they did.”

  Jay said, “He might have lost control. Even snowplows have their limits.”

  They shone their high-powered spotlights down the embankment. Even with blizzard conditions they saw at the bottom what looked like an overturned snowplow.

  “There it is,” Stu said.

  But it looked too dark to Alec. There were no lights. And it was too quiet. The three set off down the hill. Jay pulled a toboggan full of medical supplies and blankets and they trudged down the cold, dark and slippery hill.

  When Stu found the broken snowplow door, Alec’s heart fell even further. He raced on ahead as fast as he dared through the snow which was thigh-high in places.

  “Megan!” He called as he got closer. “Megan!”

  Alec shone the spotlight on the plow. The snowplow was lying on the driver’s side and there were blood spatters. It looked to him like a lot of blood.

  “They’re not here.” Jay yelled to be heard over the storm.

  “But they’ve been here,” shouted Alec.

  “Look that way,” Stu pointed with his flashlight. Below them was a lake and along the shore were a few fishing shacks barely visible through the blackness of the storm.

  Alec called, “Let’s go out there.”

  The embankment grew steeper next to the lake. As they climbed down the snowy, rocky slope, he saw Stu point out more blood. He prayed that it didn’t belong to Megan.

  On the frozen lake the walking was a bit easier, but several times they bent down to examine blood. At one point it looked like a lot of blood. They also saw drag marks. There was no doubt in his mind that Bryan had taken Megan out here. They all kept calling, and Alec wished he had brought a police bullhorn with him.

  His voice was practically hoarse from calling her name. As they drew beside the first shack, Jack thought he heard a faint mewling coming from inside.

  “They’re here,” he mouthed to Jay and Stu. No light emanated from the cabin but he could hear crying.

  His gun unholstered, he made his way to the door of the fishing shack and with one quick motion he flung it open and shone his light all around inside.

  “Alec!” It was Megan’s voice. “You’re here!”

  He rushed toward her. “I’m here. Are you okay, Megan?”

  “I’m okay, but Vicky’s not. And be careful. He’s got a gun. But he’s hurt.”

  Alec shone his light on the scene in front of him. Bryan was on the floor holding his leg with on
e hand and with the other hand he had a gun aimed at Megan. Next to her Vicky was lying on the floor and all he could make out about her was a lot of hair.

  “Careful, bro.” The gun was aimed at him now. “I wouldn’t come too close if I were you.”

  Bryan’s skin was a pasty white, his lips were dark and he shivered uncontrollably. His left leg was on the floor but it was bent at an odd angle and around it was a pool of dark blood. Alec wondered if all the blood was coming from a fractured thigh bone. Alec knew that if Bryan didn’t get help soon, he could bleed out.

  “Bryan,” Alec said. “Your leg. You’re going to need help for your leg.”

  Alec came toward him, but Bryan yelled, “Stay back!” His eyes were wild. “You always took everything from me and you’re not going to this time. Megan is mine! We’re going to get married and you can’t stop us. Not this time.” A spittle of blood snaked from Bryan’s mouth and Alec wondered if his injuries were internal, as well. Jay was in the room now with the toboggan full of medical supplies. He unloaded a couple of blankets and handed them to Megan. Megan laid one gently on top of Vicky.

  Jay said, “Bryan, we have to get you three out of here or you’re not going to be able to get married to anybody. You’re bleeding pretty badly.”

  But Bryan faced Alec when he said, “How can you help me? You’ve never helped me before. All you ever did was take from me.”

  “I’m your brother,” Alec said. “I would have given my life for you.”

  “You never gave me anything. Nothing.”

  Bryan leaned back his head and laughed, then ended up choking on his own blood. Alec tried not to think of the fact that this was his brother, his flesh and blood and that he was lying here dying on a cabin floor.

  Bryan hadn’t seen Stu enter and sidle around to the back of the cabin, his gun in his hand and trained on Bryan.

  Alec couldn’t let Megan down. Not again.

  “Bryan, I’ve always loved you. You are my brother. I loved you when we were growing up together, and I love you now. I want you to know that.”

  “No!” screamed Bryan in a voice that Alec didn’t even recognize. While Bryan was screaming and lunging, Stu saw his chance. He rushed forward and grabbed the gun from Bryan’s hands and quickly handcuffed them behind his back.