In Winter's Grip

by Brenda Chapman

  “Not exactly. We were approached by Rainy Wynona. It seemed easy enough. I’d go into Canada and pick the drugs up at a secondhand bookstore on my way to buy cheaper prescription insulin and supplies for my son. I had a valid reason for going into Canada so often, and your father made sure I was waved through this side without a search. I timed my trips to coincide with his shifts.”

  “But my father had the drugs in his house.”

  “Yeah. I’d transfer the drugs to your father’s trunk, and he’d bring them to his house for the pickup. His was the logical place, in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Where did you deal the drugs?”

  “Rainy had a trucker from down the road bring them points south. I never bothered too much with that end of it.”

  I thought of the day I’d stopped at Verl’s restaurant on my way to Fortune Bay Casino. Wayne Okwari had enquired about the grandson who drove a transport south. Perhaps he was the link.

  “How did you know I’d be back to my father’s house today?”

  “I didn’t. I was upstairs searching when I heard you pull up.”

  “But your car was hidden away in the woods a few miles away.”

  “I didn’t want anyone to know I was at your house again. I had to hide the car and run back. It didn’t take too long, since I’ve been training for the marathon. I was going to leave town one way or the other today, with or without the drugs.”

  “But why now? Nobody could link you to the drugs.”

  David chewed on his bottom lip. He began tapping the gun on his leg again, and I stopped talking. The car swerved on a bit of ice, but I managed to straighten the wheel. The wipers were trying their best to clear the crusty snow from the windshield. Gusts of wind buffeted the car whenever we came to a flat stretch of road. For the most part, we were protected by the dark miles of forest on either side of us. Tree boughs swayed back and forth in the wind, and snow drove sideways across the road. The car’s heater had begun to pump out warm air, and the numbness in my fingers had given way to sharp tingling. I kept telling myself that this was David Keating beside me, a boy I’d known since grade school. He wasn’t going to hurt me.

  I slowed going up a hill. I could see headlights behind me, but the vehicle was keeping its distance. Even if it caught up to us, there was no way I could signal what was going on. I’d have to hope I had a chance to get away at the border crossing. We’d been on the road almost an hour, and I knew it wasn’t far ahead. If not for David, I would have been pulling into my motel in Duluth about now. I wondered if anybody would notice my absence. Probably not. I hadn’t made plans with anybody for the evening and hadn’t phoned Sam to say when I’d be home. He was likely getting ready for the trip tomorrow. I had intended to surprise him.

  David started to look out of the windows, now more nervous than he’d been before.

  “How long has that car been behind us?” he asked.

  “It just turned on the highway a mile or so back,” I lied.

  David swung back around in his seat. “We’re almost at the border. You’ll tell them you’re heading home after your father’s funeral. Say you’re a doctor and I’m your cousin, Ben Larson.”

  “You have papers to that effect, I gather?”

  “Yes. And Maja, anything goes wrong, I won’t hesitate to shoot someone. Canada Customs won’t be bothering with us in this storm unless the officer gets suspicious. I’m counting on you to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “Okay,” I nodded. “I’ll get us across the border, but then what, David?”

  “Then, I meet my friends, and you’ll be detained for a bit while we get away.”

  “You’ll make sure they don’t hurt me.”

  “You have my word.”

  We reached the crest of the hill and rounded the corner. The road carved through a rock cut that towered above us on both sides. I let out a scream and began pumping the brakes. Across our lane was a Ford truck, spun out on some black ice and facing into the rock cliff. I saw it and my brain registered it, but I reacted on instinct, nothing more. I felt outside my body, watching somebody else getting ready to die. My mind recorded facts. There were no other vehicles on the road. The truck was black. Its front bumper was smashed into the rock cut. We were going to hit it. Snow was falling in slanting lines. Please don’t let me die this way.

  My tires began sliding, and I frantically pumped the brake pedal while steering into the skid. David thunked hard against the side door and cursed. “What the hell? Shit!” He grabbed onto the dashboard,

  I steered into the skid as I’d been taught so many years ago in driver’s ed, back in high school. Back when life had been simple. Back when I was whole. The brakes caught. The car righted itself. I let my breath out in a whoosh.

  We came to a stop a few feet from the truck. My heart was pounding like my chest would explode, and I was breathing heavily. I rested my arms on the steering wheel and my head on my arms. I was tired. I wanted nothing more than to lie down in the snow beside the highway in a fetal position.

  Someone knocked on my window, and my head jerked upwards. A hooded figure stood next to the car in the pelting snow.

  “David?” I asked. I needed his permission to talk to this stranger. I didn’t know what he would do.

  David looked all around and back at the person huddled in a black parka standing beside our car. He tucked the gun behind him so that it was out of sight. “Okay, ask if he needs help and tell him we’ll send somebody when we get to the next town. Nothing else, Maja, or he’ll regret ever stopping us.”

  The intensity in David’s voice was palpable. He was as scared as I was.

  I nodded. Now I was responsible for this stranger’s life as well as my own. I lowered my window halfway and turned my head to look at the person, not knowing how I was going to get rid of them. I opened my mouth to say something and found myself staring into the glittering black eyes of Wayne Okwari.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Do you need help?” I managed to say, then things began to happen very fast.

  Wayne reached in and pulled up the lock in one swift motion before he opened my car door, unhooked my seatbelt and yanked me out. I hadn’t noticed that another man had come up on David’s side of the car, and he opened the passenger door at the same time as I flew out my side. I landed on the ground, and Wayne covered my body with his own. The car that had been following us was suddenly flashing red lights and had pulled up behind us. I heard a gunshot. When I was finally pulled to my feet, David was spreadeagled against the car being searched by two men. Wayne kept one hand under my elbow.

  “You okay, ma’am?”

  He sounded so like Billy, I wanted to cry. “What’s going on?” I asked instead as I wiped snow from my face. I’d scraped my cheek and forehead on the ice, and they’d begun to sting.

  “I’m an undercover cop. We were watching your father’s house.” Wayne started walking me toward the truck.

  “Then you know about the cocaine in my trunk?”

  “We figured it was in the car somewhere.” He grinned wryly in my direction.

  I stopped walking and held out my arms, palms up. “Why didn’t you stop us before we got this far?” The shock was starting to settle in, and the anger. We could have been killed with the truck-across-the-road stunt.

  Wayne turned and took a step back towards me. “The agent saw you leaving the house with Officer Keating, but we needed time to mount the takedown. We thought we’d lost you along the highway, and it took a while to track you again.”

  “We made a detour to pick up David’s car. He had it parked on a side road down the way from my father’s house.” I caught up to Wayne, and we started walking again.

  “You had us worried. We were scared he’d done something to you. We had to move faster than we’d have liked, so we improvised. The truck idea was mine. I knew Keating wouldn’t let you stop if he suspected the accident was staged. It had to look real.”

  “David wouldn’t have hurt me.
He was going to let me go after we got into Canada.”

  We reached the truck, and Wayne opened the door for me to get in. His eyes were black and fathomless, like Billy’s. He said softly, “We had every reason to believe he would hurt you, Maja. We’re certain he killed Becky Wilders to keep her from talking. We believe she must have known he and your father were smuggling drugs across the border, and she made the mistake of confronting him, whether about your father’s death or the drugs, we’ll never know unless David decides to tell us. Anyhow, I got a call from Tobias about the time David was taking you from the house.”

  I began to protest, but I remembered David’s grim resolve. I turned my face away. Through the side window, I watched an officer leading David toward the back of the cruiser. David seemed to hesitate and turned just enough to look in my direction. Then he was being ushered into the backseat, his hands cuffed behind him. Even knowing what David had done, it was painful to watch a police officer and childhood friend brought to this and to know what lay ahead for him.

  Oh, David, why ever did you get involved in something that could only end so badly?

  I spent the next few hours at the police station giving my testimony. Tobias met us there after a difficult drive to Duved Cove from Duluth, where he’d been questioning Katherine Lingstrom in the hospital. It was during that questioning that he’d learned that she hadn’t killed Becky. We’d all leapt to the wrong conclusion because we couldn’t get our heads around the fact that there were two murderers at work in our town. When Tobias knew for certain that Becky was only responsible for my father’s death, David had again become his main suspect.

  Tobias had been working for some months with Wayne Okwari, an undercover narcotics agent, to pin the drug trafficking on my father and David Keating. They’d set up surveillance on my father’s house after he’d died, but not before David had torn the place apart looking for the bags of cocaine. Tobias knew David hadn’t recovered the drugs, so they’d kept a watch on the house. They’d almost given up on the surveillance until David showed up today...followed soon after by me. It was about the same time that Tobias phoned in to Wayne Okwari and Chief Anders that Katherine had not killed Becky. News that David had likely killed Becky made everyone edgier when they realized I was being taken against my will. I liked to think that David wouldn’t have killed me once we crossed the border, but the more I dwelled on that, the more naïve that seemed. He couldn’t let me go before he was safely out of the country, and I wasn’t sure how he’d intended to keep me quiet.

  Tobias walked with me from the room where I’d been interviewed to the main desk. He was exhausted and obviously not pleased about arresting a colleague and friend he’d known forever.

  “Can I take you to Duluth? The storm’s let up, and it’s the least I can do now that we’ve confiscated your rental.”

  I thought about taking him up on his offer. I’d grown to like Tobias and felt like I owed him for ever having believed him to be involved in the murders. His green eyes watched me with an interest I might have returned if things had been different. I pulled my eyes away from his and looked past him, through the main door to the street. The snow had stopped falling, and I had a clear view to the truck idling out front.

  “Thanks, Tobias, but I have a ride.” I reached out my hand and shook his. “Thanks for your help, and I know we’ll meet again.”

  “You’ll be back this way?”

  “I promised Jonas I’d be back in August for a fishing trip.”

  “Well, I’ll see you then. Looks like I’m going to have to postpone Florida for a while.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  “You can count on it, Maja Larson.”

  I retrieved my bags from the floor and pushed the door open. It was cold but I hardly noticed. I walked toward the truck and Billy, who was leaning on the side, watching me come toward him. He pushed himself off the fender and stepped towards me to take my bags.

  “Hey, Maja,” he said, his hand touching mine in passing.

  “Hey, Billy. You taking me to Duluth?”

  “If that’s where you’re headed.”

  “I can’t think of anywhere else I need to be tonight.” Billy smiled at me, and his eyes were blacker than I’d ever seen them.

  “Sounds good,” I said. I climbed into the passenger seat, and Billy got in his side. I watched his profile as he eased the stick shift into drive, and we started down the street, the tires crunching on the icy snow. I tried to imprint every part of him into my memory, from his straight black hair that lay below his collar to his high cheekbones and the slightly crooked line of his mouth.

  “You all right?” he asked without taking his eyes off the road.

  “You never told me your nephew was undercover.”

  “I knew he was involved in something, but I wasn’t sure. He told me to trust him when I asked.”

  Billy reached over to turn down the radio, and he glanced at me before looking back at the road. “I never thought it involved you or your father, or I would have tried to do something. I don’t know what, but I wouldn’t have left you to face all this alone.”

  “How did your fishing trip go?”

  “The clients were from Texas, with more money than brains. The three day trip ended up being four days. They paid well. I hated being away thinking you were still in Duved Cove.”

  Then I knew how our story should end. In that second, I made up my mind. Maybe I’d made it up when David had pulled the gun on me, and I wasn’t sure how it was all going to turn out. “Can you stay with me tonight?” I asked softly. “I know we have people counting on us, but maybe, we owe each other something for all these years.” I was suddenly shy and couldn’t look at him.

  “I’ll stay with you,” Billy said. “We still have a connection, Maja. I was going to suggest you shouldn’t be alone tonight.”

  I looked over at him then and felt a fluttering begin under my rib cage. This was the man I should have spent my life with.

  “It will just be tonight,” I said. “You don’t need to promise me anything more.”

  Billy nodded. “I loved you all those years ago when we were kids, Maja, and that will never change. You are the other part of my soul, no matter where you go or who you are with. That is just the way of it. I can’t promise you my life, but you have the rest.”

  I reached over and took his hand in mine. “Knowing will be enough,” I said, and I looked out the window to stop him from seeing the tears sliding down my face.

  EPILOGUE

  I was late, and the restaurant was busy. I scanned the window seats and spotted Fiona sitting in the far corner. She wore a white suit with an indigo scarf at her neck. She looked stunning, not like someone who’d just spent her day with troubled adolescents. When she saw me crossing the floor, she stood and wrapped her arms around me in a hug.

  “My god, you’re looking good,” she said as we sat down.

  “I could say the same of you.” I smiled and handed her a photo of the two of us that I’d placed in a frame. It had been taken after I’d returned from Minnesota, when I looked like I’d been to hell and back. “So you don’t forget me and all that you mean to me.” I dropped the manila envelope I’d also been holding onto the bench next to me.

  Fiona studied the picture, then looked at me. “How could I forget you, Maja? I’ll miss you, that’s for certain.”

  “And I’ll miss you.”

  A waiter appeared at Fiona’s elbow with a bottle of champagne. He popped the cork and poured us each a glass in crystal flutes. A plate of prosciutto and melon appeared between us.

  “This is lovely, Fiona.”

  “To new beginnings.” Fiona raised her glass to mine.

  “To new beginnings,” I echoed. I took a sip and set my glass down.

  “What time does your flight leave tomorrow?”

  “Early. Five a.m., and I have the international check-in, so I should be at the airport two hours ahead at least.”

  “I’m so p
roud of you, Maja.”

  “It’s a big step, but I know this is what I want to do.”

  “Do you plan to go back every summer?”

  “If they’ll let me go. I start my new job in Thunder Bay in late September, but I’ve asked for next summer off.”

  We both reached for the same piece of melon and laughed.

  “Maybe, I’ll join you in Africa next year. Doctors Without Borders might be able to make use of a child psychologist.”

  “I’m sure there’s lots of work for you. That would be wonderful if you came.”

  “And Sam...?”

  “He wasn’t happy about my leaving, as you know, but when I told him I didn’t want half his business, he came around.” I smiled. “He really had no choice.”

  “So you’ll be doing plastic surgery on some pretty ravaged people in Africa.”

  “Yes, there’s a great need, and I can’t wait to get started. Oh my, the faces of those children in Darfur. The world must not forget...”

  I could feel Fiona watching me, and I grinned self-consciously. I turned my palms upwards on the table. “I still want to make a difference, and I guess that sounds trite.”

  “Oh no, my friend. It’s just so good to see you passionate about your life, your work. I’ll bet you know what you want to order from the menu tonight.”

  I laughed. “I’m may not always know what I’m going to order, but I’m getting there. No more waffling.”

  Fiona raised her glass again. I clinked my glass against hers and drank.

  “So, what have you decided about Billy?”

  I took my time answering. I’d confided everything to Fiona when I’d returned from Minnesota, when I’d bottomed out, but already, I didn’t want to share this part of my life. It wasn’t that I regretted telling Fiona; it was just that I’d stopped needing to talk about it.

  “Billy has a wife and child. It would be too complicated. I’m letting him go.” I said the words and took strength from them. “Not that I ever had him to let go. Just knowing he cares for me is enough to help me carry through with this life. I feel like I’ve resolved that part of my life—that he’s forgiven me for having the abortion and running away from Duved Cove.”