Cold River

by Carla Neggers

  She could be wrong. Drew had been a Cameron, after all. Who was to say he couldn’t have managed on his own, without help or advice?

  She’d learned to keep her mouth shut until she was sure she had her facts straight.

  Especially when the facts involved her past.

  Leaving her poles outside, she pushed open the solid wood door, wincing at the loud creak of the hinges, as if it might wake someone, or alert someone to her presence. She stepped inside, pulled the door shut and tugged off her snowshoes. She didn’t want to stop moving for too long. Once she got cold, she’d have a hard time warming back up.

  The cabin was just one room with windows, a front door and back door and the woodstove, which hadn’t been hooked up yet.

  She went still, certain she’d heard a sound outside.

  Not a chickadee or the wind.

  A deer? A moose?

  She tiptoed to the front window next to the door. Kyle Rigby, hidden among the spruce trees with an assault rifle, had shot out the glass. After the police had released the cabin as a crime scene, Jo and Elijah had nailed thick, translucent plastic over the opening and cleaned up the shards.

  Hannah tried to peer through the plastic but couldn’t see anything except blurry white snow and the vague outline of trees.

  Again she heard a whooshing sound.

  Someone on snowshoes or skis?

  She held her breath and listened but heard nothing now.

  Had whoever was out there paused to eye her tracks in the snow—her ski poles leaned up against the outside of the cabin?

  Not waiting any longer, Hannah grabbed her backpack and snowshoes and bolted across the plywood floor for the back door. It wouldn’t be locked. There was nothing in the cabin to steal except the woodstove, and who would bother hauling it down the mountain in winter conditions?

  “Hannah. It’s me—Sean Cameron.”

  Before Hannah had a chance to adjust to the idea of who it was out there, she heard the creak of the front door and spun around just as it opened.

  Sean lifted his sunglasses onto the brim of his wool cap and frowned at her from just outside his father’s cabin. “Hannah, what are you doing?”

  “Getting ready to bolt. Sean. Damn.” She took in a sharp breath. “Scare me to death, why don’t you?”

  “I’m sorry I startled you.” He nodded to the snowshoes in her arms. “Were you going to beat me over the head with one of those?”

  “I was just trying to get out of here.” She hoped she sounded calm, sure of herself. “I figured I’d need snowshoes once I outran you—or whoever it was.” She smiled. “Of course, I was hoping it’d be someone I could outrun.”

  “Or a friend,” he said.

  “Yes. Or a friend.”

  Sean stayed just outside in the snow. He didn’t look particularly winded or tired from his trek up the mountain. But he wouldn’t. Hannah had never seen him in action as a smoke jumper, a job that required him to maintain a high level of fitness.

  She followed his gaze to the plastic-covered window. “I finally had to come up here and see for myself,” she said.

  “Why now?”

  “Initially law enforcement wouldn’t let anyone near this part of the mountain. Then we had the holidays, and I was so busy. This morning I knew it was time.”

  “What made you know?”

  Sean wasn’t letting her off the hook, but she had no intention of lying to him, or of giving him a full explanation. She’d been thinking about Drew’s old cellar hole for days, and seeing Bowie walk into the café with Elijah and Sean and the law there—their reaction to him—had forced her into action. Bowie was a stonemason. They shared a difficult past. He’d worked with her father and knew as much as anyone in the area about historic stonework.

  “I wanted to get things settled in my own head,” she said simply.

  “Did you succeed?”

  “I don’t know yet.” She walked past the woodstove, where Devin and Nora had taken cover when shots started flying. “Devin’s recovered physically. Psychologically—he seems to be doing all right. I think he is, anyway.”

  “A.J. and Lauren do, too.”

  Hannah started to say more, to tell Sean she was concerned about the effects of the trauma of the past months on her brother and his lack of direction, but she caught herself. “He’s strong. He’ll get through it.”

  “He’s had a hell of a time. You, too.”

  She let the snowshoes slide down her legs and stood them upright, leaning them against her thighs as she took in shallow breaths and looked around the small cabin. She pictured Elijah and Jo—armed, having headed up the mountain prepared for trouble—and the two teenagers huddled in the dark, a storm raging through the long night. They all had known a killer was out there in the cold. Had he run? Would he be back?

  Still suffering from his encounter with Kyle Rigby before nightfall, Devin had been semiconscious, barely aware of the storm.

  Then came morning…a foot of fresh snow…and the first shots that shattered the window.

  “When the shooting started, there was nothing Devin could do. Being so helpless was hard for him….” Hannah pointed at the rough-wood beams high on the back wall, her hand shaking. She wondered if Sean noticed. “You can see where bullets struck the wood. One lucky shot, and anyone in here could have been hit.”

  “Jo and Elijah had positioned themselves and Devin and Nora as best as possible.” Sean spoke with little detectable emotion. “Rigby had to have known what he was in for when he started shooting. He could have gone on his way. Instead, he waited out the storm and assaulted a cabin with an armed soldier and federal agent inside.”

  “Jo pinned Rigby down from the front window while Elijah sneaked out the back door to go after him.” Balancing the snowshoes leaning against her thighs, Hannah looked back at the woodstove. “Jo told Devin and Nora to stay low. He said she was cool and focused under fire. Rigby had a chance to give up, but he kept shooting.”

  “Devin did fine, too,” Sean said. “Eighteen years old, scared, targeted by contract killers—he still managed to save Nora Asher’s life. He warned her Rigby was after her.”

  “He and Nora survived thanks to Jo and Elijah,” Hannah said, picking up her snowshoes. She tucked them under one arm and walked past Sean in the doorway, brushing against his arm, remembering—for no reason she could fathom—the feel of it around her back in March when he’d hauled her out of O’Rourke’s.

  She stepped into the snow in her hiking boots, hyperaware of Sean watching her as she dropped her snowshoes side by side in front of her.

  “Hannah,” he said, “what’s going on?”

  She didn’t give him a direct answer. “Devin had his suspicions, but he didn’t know about this place. The police didn’t find it, either, when they investigated his death. It seems so easy to find now, but if you don’t know where to look…” With the heel of her boot, she dragged one snowshoe closer to her. “Everything seems more obvious in hindsight.”

  Sean steadied his gaze on the sunlit snow and still shadows. “Rigby didn’t have to come back here after the storm,” he said, “but he knew he’d be marked for death himself if he failed.”

  Hannah looked at the evergreens where Kyle Rigby had concealed himself and taken cover in preparation for his assault on the cabin. “He knew what he was doing. He wasn’t crazy or suicidal.” She spoke in a steady voice, consciously keeping her emotions contained. This had always been her way, she thought, and wasn’t a skill she’d learned in law school. “He gauged his chances and did what he had to do.”

  “He assessed the terrain and picked his spot.”

  She took in a shallow breath, hearing, in her mind, the gunfire that frozen morning, picturing Elijah’s and Jo’s focus and intensity as they’d confronted the hidden shooter. “Rigby knew that failure wasn’t an option. His own people would kill him if he didn’t succeed up here. It didn’t matter to him that he was taking on a Green Beret and a federal agent.”


  “It was kill or be killed.”

  And he’d been killed, Hannah thought. A few hours later, his partner, Melanie Kendall, was blown up in her car at the lodge, presumably by the people who’d hired her and Rigby.

  Sean pulled the cabin door shut. “Why are you here alone?” he asked quietly. “Any of us would have come with you.”

  “Devin would have, too.” She eased her boot into the binding of her snowshoe. “I guess I just needed to come on my own. What about you? Are you alone?” She looked back at him with a quick smile. “Your brothers aren’t hiding in the trees, are they?”

  He didn’t return her smile. He lowered his sunglasses, making his eyes impossible to read. “I’m alone.”

  Hannah pulled off a glove and squatted down to adjust the strap on the back of her boot. “So you must not be afraid I’m the mastermind of this network of killers.”

  Sean leaned into one of his ski poles. “Long hike?”

  She realized she’d gone too far in trying to compensate for her self-consciousness around him—for not telling him the whole story about why she’d come up here. “Longer than I wanted it to be.” She stood up, feeling downright warm. “Did you follow me?”

  “I parked on the old logging road and came up the back trail.” His tone was even, pragmatic. “You can ride back with me.”

  She quickly put on her other snowshoe. Hike down the mountain with Sean? Sit next to him for the ten-mile drive back around the mountain to the lodge? She’d hiked up here for a reason, and he knew it, and he wanted to pry it out of her. Even under normal circumstances, she’d be reluctant to go with him, just because he was Sean Cameron.

  These weren’t normal circumstances.

  She tried to keep him from seeing her turmoil of emotions. “I don’t mind hiking the way I came,” she said, adjusting the strap on her second boot.

  “It’ll be dusk by the time you get back.” Sean spoke calmly, without pleading. “One wrong turn, and you’ll be spending the night on the mountain. Elijah would have your head for hiking up here by yourself.”

  “I’m prepared for the conditions.”

  “Of course you are. You’re always prepared for anything.”

  She gave him a sharp glance, but she didn’t see the slightest hint of impatience in him.

  Just pure, uncompromising Cameron determination.

  “You choose the route,” he said. “I’m going with you.”

  Hannah reached for the ski poles leaning against the cabin. Now that she’d been still for a while, the cold was seeping into her. Even so, she felt the blood rush hot to her face. “I’m not going to get rid of you, am I?”

  There was just the glimmer of a smile. “No.”

  “Why, because I’m alone—or because you don’t trust me?”

  “Something’s on your mind, Hannah. You ran out of the café this morning right after Bowie left and headed straight up here.”

  “I didn’t run.”

  “Does he blame you for his arrest?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t asked him. This morning was the first time I’ve talked to him since his arrest. You were there. You all heard what we said to each other. We talked about the leak in the cellar.”

  “You went looking for him. The leak’s not a crisis. You wanted an excuse to talk to him.”

  “I’ve known Bowie since I was a tot. I don’t need an excuse to talk to him, and the only way to get hold of him is to go looking for him.”

  Sean sighed. “All right. I give up. I’d rather argue with you someplace warm.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” She’d meant it as a light comment but saw his mouth twitch with sudden humor and immediately realized what she’d said. She decided she’d only make matters worse by trying to explain. “Supposedly the Cameron who first built up here was a bit of a hermit. Makes sense, considering how isolated it is.”

  “It wasn’t as isolated then. The land was cleared for farming, and there were houses scattered along the river and up onto the mountain slopes.”

  “It was never crowded, that’s for sure. You Camerons always have liked things a little rugged. You might live in Beverly Hills and not be used to Vermont winters anymore, but you fight wildfires.” Hannah started across the clearing. “I’ve never been west of the Mississippi.” Thinking of Toby’s imminent departure, she glanced back at Sean. “Would I like Southern California?”

  “To visit, at least. Everyone likes Southern California to visit.”

  “I hope Toby likes it,” she said in a half whisper, but knew she couldn’t let that line of thinking take hold.

  She paused, looking out at the snow and the mix of evergreens and hardwood trees, really feeling the cold now. She knew Sean wasn’t going to leave her to head back alone. Never mind his questions about her motives for coming up here, his father had died on this part of the mountain.

  She turned to him, her ski pole striking a rock or ice under the snow. “Since I’m on Cameron land, I suppose I should do as you suggest and go back with you.”

  Sean tilted back his head but said nothing, and she followed her tracks back through the cluster of spruce trees. A rabbit scampered in front of her, then disappeared under drooping, snow-covered branches as Sean came up next to her.

  Hannah glanced up at him. “Being here can’t be easy for you,” she said quietly.

  “It isn’t.”

  “You and your brothers and sister have enough on your minds without beating yourselves up because your father didn’t come to you for help.”

  “He wanted the cabin to be a surprise,” Sean said. “We get that.”

  Hannah angled a look up at him. “I don’t mean just with the cabin. He went to Washington two weeks before his death to talk to Alex Bruni. I hear investigators speculate at the café, and I’ve talked to enough of them myself. They believe whatever your father discussed with Ambassador Bruni ultimately got them targeted by these killers. Whatever it was, neither of them realized it was incendiary at the time, or they’d have gone to the police.”

  “It was enough for my father to drive to D.C.”

  “But it wasn’t enough for Bruni not to blow him off. Nora doesn’t know what they talked about, but she says her stepfather wasn’t very nice to your father. It wasn’t until she started asking questions about Melanie Kendall that he took another look at what Drew had told him that day back in April.” Hannah stared down at the twisting trail the rabbit had left behind before scurrying out of sight. “Then he was killed.”

  Sean was very still next to her. “You’ll make a good prosecutor.”

  “Your father wasn’t protecting you,” she said. “He would have protected you, but he wasn’t. You know what kind of man he was. He went to Alex Bruni because he thought that’s where he could get the answers he was looking for. He saw Jo in D.C., too, and didn’t say a word to her about what was on his mind.”

  A sudden wind blew down from the summit and cut through her thin jacket and layers. Sean didn’t seem to notice. “Bowie was in jail in April,” he said.

  She pretended she hadn’t heard him and pushed off through the snow, following his tracks when they diverged from hers. She came to the steep trail down to the old logging road. Fine snow blew off a six-foot rock outcropping next to her. The wind was steady now, harsh, numbing her face. She lifted her jacket collar to better cover her chin and mouth.

  Sean pulled off his gray wool scarf and handed it to her. “Take it,” he said. “I don’t need it. We can finish this discussion later.”

  Hannah didn’t argue. The scarf was soft and still warm from him. She draped it around her neck, pulled it up over her mouth and nose, wishing suddenly that she hadn’t come up here at all. She thought of Bowie standing out at the old cellar hole on the river when she and Drew had traipsed through the snow and mud to find him. Had Bowie already been up to see the old cellar hole Drew had found? Had the two men already talked about the work involved in rebuilding an old foundation?

  Hannah plunged d
own the steep trail, knowing Sean would be right behind her if she tripped—or if she decided to tell him her real reasons for finally hiking up to see his father’s cabin.

  Six

  Sean had his hood off and his jacket unzipped even before the heat in Elijah’s truck kicked in. Hannah had already unwound his scarf from her neck, letting it dangle down her front. She sat stiffly next to him, her eyes pinned straight ahead as if she were trying to pretend she really wasn’t driving the ten miles back to the lodge with him. She’d moved fast on the mountain trail, sleeker, more lithe and agile, than he was comfortable noticing.

  Just keep driving, he told himself as he navigated the rutted, icy, one-lane logging road at the bottom of the trail. Ordinarily it would be closed to vehicles by December, but after the violence five weeks ago, law enforcement saw that it was kept plowed. It led to a back road, almost as narrow, that wound through the hills and the isolated hollow where Hannah Shay and Bowie O’Rourke had grown up.

  Sean remembered his father talking about the Shays. “They’ve always lived hand-to-mouth,” he’d said on one of his rare visits to Southern California. “It’s what they know. Hannah and her brothers could be different, but they won’t be if they don’t want to be. I guess it’s easy for me to say. I’ve never had to leave behind what I’ve always known.”

  As he drove down close to the river, Sean glanced at Hannah, her cheeks rosy, her eyes a pale gray-blue against the winter landscape. He’d always recognized that she was attractive. There’d never been any doubt about that. She was just impossible. She had a wall up around her as impenetrable as a force field, and never let anyone in.

  “I can imagine your father’s excitement when he found that old Cameron cellar hole,” she said.

  Sean could, too. “I always thought searching for it gave him an excuse to be up on the mountain, but he was serious about finding it. He took A.J., Rose and me up a few times, but most of the time, it was Elijah. They butted heads all their lives, but they understood each other.”

  “I think in his own way, your father understood all four of you, even if he didn’t always approve of your choices.”