“Meet me at the bottom, lunkhead—if you’re man enough, that is. Or does the Run scare you today?”
Jason was unsettled by the enigmatic, accusatory challenge in those eyes. “What the—?” His head whirled with confusion, and then, suddenly, John shoved off and out of visibility down the steep ravine. Wind and sleet cut Jason’s exposed cheeks like shards of glass as he searched for his form in the blinding whiteness.
“John!” he yelled, planting his poles to give himself a thrust into the obscurity. “John, hold up!” He hoped he could catch up to him before he lost control and veered off the trail.
But he was wrong. Dead wrong.
When Jason spotted him, he skidded to a stop. There was blood everywhere, crimson-red against a blanket of white, and then a body—John’s—bleeding from his face and head, his neck bent abnormally, his eyes open yet not seeing. Several yards away stood the ancient tree he must have hit. His skis were splintered, and the trunk was splayed with snow.
“Help! Help!” Jason screamed to the blurred skies.
Cold and wet, he dropped to his knees beside John’s motionless body and shivered uncontrollably. It wasn’t long before he heard the drone of snowmobiles. The ski patrol had arrived. They’d get him airlifted. In a couple of days, they’d be laughing at his foolhardiness, and they’d get this whole misunderstanding about Rachel and him squared away.
But that wasn’t to be, either.
***
Jason awoke in a pool of sweat and a mass of rumpled sheets. His blanket had been tossed to the floor, and his pillow was at the foot of the bed. The clock on the bedside stand registered 5:45. He hauled himself up, swung his heavy legs over the edge of the bed, and put his feet on the floor. Bending over with exhaustion, he buried his head in his hands, waiting to catch his breath and willing his pulse to slow. After several minutes, he mustered the strength to stand and stagger to the bathroom to prepare for another day on the job.
Chapter 15
The month of December ushered in more snow than Fairmount had seen in the past two winters combined. A major snowstorm, now classified as a blizzard, had shut down virtually every school within a seventy-five-mile radius, forced motorists off the roads, and even closed down some area businesses. Local and state police asked citizens to stay in their homes to allow the road crews to do their jobs. The trouble was, the snow kept coming down, and the plows were soon forced to abandon their work.
Rachel had been busy and managed to miss the weather reports, so she wasn’t prepared for the storm when it hit. As payback for her ignorance, she was running low on diapers, baby food, and milk, not to mention the prescription refill for Johnny’s asthma medication she needed to pick up.
At four o’clock in the afternoon, Rachel got a call from Ivy, her next-door neighbor. “You and the kids come over here,” the elderly widow insisted when she heard about her predicament. “I have a pot of stew cooking on the stove and plenty of milk and supplies.”
Rachel gratefully accepted the invitation. When Meagan and Johnny had been bundled up, Rachel put on her coat and boots, and they trudged through the knee-deep snow to Ivy’s house. Rachel walked in front of Meagan to carve out a path, Johnny clinging tightly to her neck and squealing with delight at the fast-falling snow. On Ivy’s front porch, they stomped their feet on the mat before walking into the warmth of her house.
While the wind bellowed and the snow fell outside, Meagan played with Buffy, tossing a ball for him to retrieve, and Johnny explored uncharted territory. Two bookshelves, a magazine rack, and a basket of fake fruit were a few of the items he found the most fascinating. As the children played, Ivy and Rachel engaged in a game of Scrabble near the fireplace, Rachel’s still-frozen toes propped up on the raised hearth, seeking warmth. She jumped up every so often to send Johnny in a different direction, trying to keep him away from Buffy. The last thing she wanted was for him to have an asthma attack.
Yet, in the next hour, she thought she detected a slight wheezing in his breath and decided that she couldn’t put off picking up his medication much longer, even if it was just a precaution. So, around six o’clock, she turned to Ivy and said, “Do you think you could watch the kids for about half an hour while I make a quick run to the pharmacy? Johnny usually takes his asthma medication around this time, and I need to pick up his refill.”
The woman furrowed her age-wrinkled brow and stared at Rachel as if she’d just grown a second nose. “Sweetie, you can’t go anywhere in this weather. I mean, I’d be happy to watch your children, but I just don’t think— Are you sure you don’t have any extra medication at home?”
“No, I used the last of it yesterday. I’m going to have to go out, but I’ll be fine, and I’ll be quick.”
“Goodness, gracious. Don’t be quick on my account, dear. Take it slow and easy if you really must go. What about your driveway? You could get stuck.”
“The guy who’s contracted to plow for me came by about twenty minutes ago; I heard him in the driveway. It should be relatively clear.” She rose and looked down into Ivy’s fretful eyes. “Don’t worry, Ivy. I’ll be back in no time at all.”
Rachel made it to the pharmacy without a hitch, her tires skidding only a few times, and she vowed never to take the luxury of the drive-through window for granted again. But going home was a different story. The trip, which should have matched the five-minute drive to the store, had already taken fifteen, and now Rachel was beginning to wonder if she’d gone too far. The heavily falling snow had turned into a whiteout, confounding her perception and making her think that she’d missed the turn to her neighborhood. She negotiated the steering wheel with care, traveling at a breakneck speed of fifteen miles per hour, which only added to her anxiousness to get home.
Finally, she spotted the familiar bend in the road just before her neighborhood entrance. Sighing with relief, she flipped on her turn signal and slowed ever so carefully, pumping the brake. Just as she began to turn the wheel, a great thud from behind jerked her forward and caused her minivan to veer over to the shoulder and off the road. Thankfully, a nice, tall snowbank stopped her vehicle from straying any further.
“Lord Jesus,” she muttered shakily when she heard her engine sputter and opened her eyes to get her bearings. A moment later, someone knocked on her window. “You all right, ma’am?”
She turned, dazed, to see a man about her father’s age peering in through her window. She did a mental body check, surprised that she felt no pain from the impact, and gave a slow nod. The windshield wipers hadn’t ceased their back-and-forth motion, but now they clunked loudly against the snow clumping on the window.
“Sorry I didn’t see your turn signal in time,” he shouted, his breath fogging up the window for a moment.
She gave another dull nod.
“You sure you’re all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” She fumbled in the dark for her purse, then pulled out her cell phone.
“I just called 9-1-1. The police should be here soon. It was my fault, ma’am; you don’t have to worry.”
She stopped fumbling. “It was—an accident,” she returned, wanting to get out and survey the damage to her minivan but opting to wait till the police arrived.
“I’ll just—go back to my car, then.” He thumbed at his vehicle behind him, and she mouthed an okay.
When he walked away, Rachel tried to restart her minivan, but the blamed engine wouldn’t work. So, she sat there and shivered for what must have been a good six or seven minutes. Finally, flashing red lights announced the arrival of help. Not for the first time, she berated herself for failing to anticipate the storm and needing to go out in the middle of the worst of it. Surely, the cops would give her a good tongue-lashing for venturing out.
In a moment, a state trooper tapped on her window. She fished in the glove box for her registration and insurance papers, then lowered her window a few inches and handed them over, along with her driver’s license. When she met his eyes, she wondered where sh
e’d seen him before. “You all right, ma’am?” he asked, taking the papers from her.
“Yes, thank you,” she answered. “A little shaky, but otherwise fine.”
He studied her license, then looked up with a smile. “Rachel?”
“Larry?” That was it! Larry Rossini. He and his mother had moved up the street from the Evanses’ house right before eighth grade, and he’d hung out with John and Jason throughout high school. He’d often come over when she and her parents had been visiting the Evanses, and the four kids had shot baskets in the driveway, played crazy eights at the picnic table, or sat on the back stoop and talk about nothing in particular. More times than not, all three boys had vied for Rachel’s attention, trying to make her giggle at their antics or hoping to impress her with their athletic prowess. She recalled seeing Larry at John’s funeral and remembered that she hadn’t thanked him for coming. Now didn’t seem like the right time to do that, however.
“Very good seeing you—well, not under such circumstances, mind you—but, you know,” he said.
“I’d forgotten you were a cop,” she told him, passing over his remark and putting on a smile, even as she felt desperation to get back to Ivy’s house and anger at this snowbank holding her captive.
“Yep, going on seven years now.” The nasty wind and blowing snow prevented them from carrying on much of a conversation, and she found herself wanting to raise her window to block out the elements.
Larry moved toward the front of her minivan and surveyed the damage, then walked to the back, checking out every side before sauntering back to her window. “Looks like we’re going to need a tow truck. Your front fender seems to have suffered the most damage; looks like you hit a strong pole beneath this snowbank.
“A pole?” Rising up in her seat, Rachel was able to spot the sign sticking out of the snow where it met the hood of her van. “Oh, I hit that ‘No Littering’ sign—go figure.”
Larry leaned toward her window and pierced her with his brownish-black eyes. Under that snow-covered hat, she knew, lay a thick layer of black hair. It came back to her now. His Mexican-born mother had married an Italian chef—they’d met at some international cooking institute, if she remembered correctly, and had had a whirlwind love affair. Funny how Larry’s background, plus his given name of Luigi, which he’d never wanted to be referred to as, started coming back to her in small segments. “Are you sure you’re all right? I can have an ambulance here in no time.”
“No, no, I’m fine; just a little shaken up, is all. Really.”
He nodded at the front of her car. “Did your engine die?”
Rachel turned the key again but with no results. She gave him a helpless glance.
“No worries,” he told her. “After we get this whole matter squared away, I’ll drive you home. Any particular reason you decided to come out on a night like this?”
She gave him a sheepish smile. “I needed to pick up my son’s asthma medication.”
He grinned back. “And you couldn’t have done that before the storm? You shouldn’t have watched all those daytime soaps today.”
“Very funny. As if I have time for—”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” He laughed playfully. “Gosh, these things happen all the time, folks not turning on the TV and missing any severe-weather warnings.”
She harrumphed. “I sound like a hermit, don’t I?”
“Not at all. I’m sure you have your hands full raising two little ones. It is two, right?”
“Yes, but it feels more like four sometimes, when they’re at opposite ends of the house.”
Larry threw back his head for another snort until the fellow in the other car gave a tiny tap of the car horn. “I’ll be right there, sir!” he hollered with a wave of his hand. “Argh, some people,” he murmured to Rachel.
“Listen. I think I have all the information I need from you at this time. What say you go back and sit in my cruiser—front seat—and get yourself warmed up? We’ll get you home again in short order.” She found his demeanor friendly and pleasant, if not downright reassuring. He studied her a moment longer as a layer of snow collected on the rim of his cap, then straightened and opened her door. “Should be a pretty clear-cut case. We’ll be on our way before you know it.”
She climbed out of the van, feeling foolish for having worn slippers instead of her boots, which had been wet with snow after the trek back from Ivy’s. “Holy cow!” Larry said, looking down at her feet. “You really were unprepared for this storm.”
She gave him another sheepish grin. “I know. I’d worn my boots to the neighbor’s, and they were soaking wet, and I figured I wouldn’t need to walk outside since I was just going through the drive-through at the pharmacy.”
He took her firmly yet gently by the arm and led her to his vehicle. “I’m sorry for bringing you out in this, Larry.”
He chuckled. “It’s my job, Rachel, and any chance I get to save a beautiful damsel in distress just makes my job all the more pleasant. Looks like I found one tonight.”
As he’d predicted, it was a clear-cut settlement. The fellow who had rammed her acknowledged his responsibility, insurance information was exchanged, and stories from both sides were shared and recorded. Soon, the man set off in his oversized SUV, which hadn’t suffered so much as a scratch.
Larry and Rachel waited until the tow truck arrived from the local auto body where John had always taken their vehicles for service. Meanwhile, Rachel thought to call Ivy and let her know what had happened. Finally, it was time to go home and get Johnny his medication.
“You still live on Westfield Lane?” Larry asked, maneuvering his cruiser with finesse over the snow-covered road.
“Yes, but my kids are at the neighbor’s house, so you can drop me there.”
She couldn’t help staring at the gizmos and gadgets on the dashboard—flashing signals, buttons and switches, and a two-way radio, on which an operator sent out constant updates in codes Rachel couldn’t decipher. Between spurts of conversation, Larry picked up the receiver and reported his whereabouts.
“How are your kids, by the way? And you?” he was kind enough to ask.
“We’re holding up as well as can be expected. Thanks for asking.” Rachel felt she didn’t know Larry well enough to reveal anything deeper than surface-level details. “I wonder what the exact damages were to my van.” It seemed important to change the subject.
“I don’t think it’ll cost you too much. Your engine probably just flooded, or maybe a cable or belt snapped from impact. The fact that your airbag didn’t deploy tells me the damages were minimal. You got a big deductible?”
“I—I don’t even know. Isn’t that awful? Those were things John—”
“No, that’s not unusual. Shoot, before my divorce, my wife took full charge of the bank accounts—foolish mistake on my part, looking back. Come to find out she’d been spending money we didn’t have, accrued debts I’m still paying off as part of the divorce settlement.
“That’s a sour pill to swallow.”
“You’re not kidding.”
“Well, rest assured, John didn’t leave me with any debts. If anything, he was a tightwad with a capital T.” She chortled, wanting to keep things between them light. “Do you have any children?”
“One, which proved to be another sucker punch to the gut.”
“How so?” He turned his cruiser onto Westfield Lane. “Ivy’s house is the fourth on the right,” she added, pointing.
When he pulled into the driveway, he shifted the gearshift into park and kept the engine running, placing his hands at the top of the steering wheel and staring straight ahead. “I thought the boy was mine for the first two years of his life. But just after his second birthday, my ex and I had a huge fight, and she confessed to affairs I’d known nothing about. I found out she’d conceived Haydn while I was attending a strategic training course in D.C. Of course, I demanded paternity tests, and the rest is history.”
Rachel gasped. �
��Oh, how awful for you.”
“Yeah, apparently the two of them had some sort of history before I even met her, but that’s all water under the bridge. Little Haydn is almost six now and doing well living with his dad and stepmom over in the Detroit area, his dad having earned full custody of him a few years back.”
Her heart broke for him. “So, you never get to see him? Haydn, I mean?”
He shook his head. “Naw. Broke my heart at first, but once I met the real father and determined he’d turned his life around and truly wanted a relationship with the son he never knew he had, well, I couldn’t deny him, and neither could the judge. Fact is, Haydn’s better off where he is—in a good, stable home with people who attend church real regular and seem to have high morals. The ex, now, she’s another story. Last thing I heard, she was down in Florida, living it up with some rich old geezer.”
“Hmm. Seems to me you’re better off without her.”
“No joke.”
Dancing shadows behind the curtains in the picture window made Rachel imagine Meagan bouncing around Ivy’s living room, perhaps to some of the woman’s favorite polka music. She was impatient to go inside, but it seemed like Larry needed to talk, and she supposed that after what he’d done for her, the least she could do was listen for a few more minutes. Out the corner of her eye, she saw his gaze upon her. It lingered off and on for a few seconds. “You see much of Jason? Man, we used to have good times, the four of us.” He faced forward again.
“Not very often, no.” In fact, it’d been a full ten or so days since she’d heard from him, and she felt guilty missing him.
“What’s he doing now?”
“He owns a construction company down in Harrietta, over by Cadillac. He does very well.”
“Is that so? Cripes, he was a wild dude back in the day.” Larry laughed and slapped the wheel.
She couldn’t hold back her own spurt of laughter, sedate as it was and mixed with a strange sense of nostalgia. “He could be a troublemaker, for sure.”
“Remember that time he and a bunch of other guys stuck quarters in the machines at Winslow’s Car Wash in the middle of the night and then managed to rig them so they’d run continuously?”
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