The Snow Swept Trilogy

by Derrick Hibbard

  "Listen, I know you've been hurt this evening and are probably not wanting any visitors. I'm a friend though, a reporter—and this is off the record completely. I just need some information."

  Morales let the nurse call button drop to the sheets, and his tensed body relaxed. He glanced at the phone and then back at Paul.

  "How did you get in here?" he asked. "I thought my room was being guarded."

  "There were some policemen guarding your room, yes, and they might be back, but I, ah, took some liberties to get in here."

  "I can see that."

  Paul stepped forward, getting a better view of Morales as he lay in the bed. He had some nasty bruises on the side of his face, a brace around his neck and bandages over his shoulder. Despite the heavy bandaging, he did not look as bad as Paul was expecting.

  "So?" Morales said, a hint of impatience in his voice. "You've got information?"

  "Yeah," Paul said. "I think I do."

  "Well, let's hear it," Morales said. "The night is waning and I'd really like to get some sleep before I get any more visitors."

  "You mind if I sit?" Paul asked. Morales shook his head, and Paul crossed to the officer's bedside and sat in the chair.

  "I was on a bus this evening," Paul started, noticing that Morales stiffened slightly.

  "I'm not going to tell you all the details as to why I was on the bus, but I rode the route several times this evening, and the route went nowhere near the airport where you were …"

  "Shot," Morales finished.

  "Shot." Paul shifted nervously in his chair. He realized that as good as his idea had sounded in his head, it didn't make much sense for him to be here in this room with Morales. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered why he'd actually decided to come. There were coincidences yes, but maybe the logical leap from fact to fact was too great for the coincidence to be more than just that.

  "I got off the bus a few hours ago, and this evening while watching the news, I saw that the very bus I'd been riding on was found near the airport, the driver shot dead."

  Paul took a breath and paused to let this sink in.

  "Now, I think that the shooting on that bus may be connected to your shooting somehow. I think that the shooter may have forced the driver to the airport, maybe to find you, or maybe for some other reason. After shooting you, I believe that he continued on the bus, away from the airport, where he shot the driver."

  "This is all the information you've got?" Morales said, his eyebrow raised.

  "I think there is a connection there, yes," Paul said.

  "If the shooter hijacked a bus to take him to the airport, then why would he get back on the bus? The way I see it, if you're going to the airport, you're on the run."

  "Unless he had business at the airport, something to pick up, or drop off, I don't know." Fatigue was setting in, and Paul was having a hard time keeping up with the story. Morales wasn't buying it, he could tell.

  "So," Morales said, "assuming this guy had some sort of business to take care of at the airport—an assumption that would not usually fly, but I'll give your idea a whirl because I don't feel much like arguing. Assuming he takes care of his business, hops back on the hijacked bus that is patiently waiting, and then drives to the interstate."

  "I'll admit that—"

  "It doesn't make sense, Mister—"

  "Freemont."

  "Mr. Freemont, I appreciate your time and passion in coming to the hospital, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

  Paul opened his mouth to say more, but hesitated. The calm look that had been on Morales' face throughout their conversation had been replaced. Morales' jaw was set, and the muscles in his cheeks clenched. His gaze was steely, and Paul could tell that he was finished talking. He stood up and made a move to the door, but then stopped.

  What have I got to lose? he thought. Paul turned back to Morales, whose hardened look had not changed.

  "I know about Miami," Paul said. "I know that what happened there, and what happened here tonight, are connected somehow. I know that you are somehow involved in all this, a cover-up or something, but I will find out the truth."

  Morales flinched, and it was enough for Paul to know that his gamble had paid off.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Morales said.

  "I think you do. I think you're hiding something, and I'm going to find out what it is." Paul turned for the second time to leave the room.

  "Mr. Freemont," Morales said, but Paul didn't stop. The seed was planted, and he figured that if Morales knew something, or had been involved in whatever cover-up had happened, he would come to Paul.

  Paul left the room quickly, and was happy to see that the policeman had not yet returned to guard Morales' door. He looked down the hall toward the nurses station and saw that it was empty.

  Paul chuckled. Maybe things had progressed quickly between the cop and the nurse, and they'd decided to take advantage of an empty room.

  The shadow on the polished linoleum floor of an approaching figure caught Paul's eye. The figure was rounding the corner from the hallway down where the first policeman had gone to use the restroom.

  Paul hesitated, but for only a moment before ducking into the darkened room across the hallway from Morales' room, just in time to miss being seen by the approaching officer. His heart thudded loudly, and he had to force his breathing to be slow and steady.

  Paul waited in the shadows for the policeman to appear, hoping that the officer would step in to check on Morales before setting up post outside the door. If the officer didn't go into the room, Paul realized that he may be stuck in the dark, empty room until the guards gave him another break. If he left the room now, no matter how confidently he strode past the guards, he'd look pretty suspicious.

  The policeman's footsteps echoed down the hallway, getting closer, and Paul wondered why the area was suddenly so quiet. He held his breath as a shadow fell across the floor directly in front of Morales' room, and then the figure appeared, pausing before entering the room.

  The man standing there wasn't the cop that had been guarding the door. Paul couldn't tell if the guy was even a cop. The man was very tall and had broad shoulders. He was wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. To Paul, he looked kind of like a businessman, or a government agent of some sort, which was strange, given the hour.

  Finally, the man turned the door handle and pushed open the door. He heard some stirrings in the room before the door closed, and Paul breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't caught, at least not yet. There were still the policeman-guards to worry about.

  He left the dark room and walked quickly down the hall, which was empty. It didn't strike him as too strange, as only the nurse at the nurse's station and the two policemen had been there before. There'd been some orderlies passing through, and maybe a janitor or two, but for the most part, the floor had been empty.

  Paul pushed the "down" button to the elevator and waited. Something caught his eye near the nurses station, a small movement. He stepped to the side to get a better look at what it was, and then froze.

  A hand and arm lay extended from behind the nurse's station, the fingers curled and twitching. The fingernails were painted a faded red, and a woman's tennis bracelet hung from the wrist. His heart leapt, and a sinking dread filled him as he rushed around desk. Both the nurse and the police officer were on the ground in a heap, blood pooled around their bodies. Both were clearly dead, the nurse's fingers twitching as the last of her reflexes drained from her body.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Mae walked passed the flight crew and stepped off the plane. The cold Connecticut air enveloped her instantly, and she shivered, wrapping her arms around her chest. She reminded herself that no amount of cold should ever bother her again, after her excursion in the woods a few hours before. The memory of lying naked on the forest floor, having just climbed from the freezing waters of the partially frozen river, seemed a thousand years ago, but her body still ached from the
violent shivering on the icy banks.

  The cold air had a certain smell that was unique to New England, a fresh smell with notes of cedar and pine, and she grinned despite the cold. It was winter in Connecticut, and it’d been too long since she’d been home.

  She walked quickly within the throng of other passengers getting off the plane. Ryan was ahead of her and hadn’t turned once to see if she was following. Knowing him, or knowing what little she knew about him, Mae thought that he would continue walking away from her and out of her life, never looking back or giving her another thought. Mae would try to do the same, but wondered if it would be possible. She longed for someone to look at her the way he had looked at her, and maybe to hold her hand, and hold her body close to his and protect her. It was silly, she knew, but she couldn’t help thinking about it just the same.

  Ryan continued with the crowd and disappeared down the concourse that led to the baggage claim area. Aside from the passengers unloading from the airplane, there were a few others about. A janitor was emptying trash bins into a larger bin on wheels. Nearby, a father slept in an awkward position on the chairs, with a small girl who couldn’t have been more than two years old, sprawled out over his chest, sound asleep. Mae watched the two sleep as she walked by, and she smiled a little at the sight. The girl, perhaps wakened by the sounds of the passengers, stirred and looked up at the people. Her bright blue eyes were sleepy, and she buried her face in her dad’s shoulder to rub the sleep from her vision. She looked directly at Mae and smiled faintly before dropping back off to sleep. The dad opened just one eye to make sure that all was well, and Mae was glad that he was at least aware of his surroundings.

  Instead of following the crowd, Mae turned and walked toward a pair of restrooms. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that no one was watching her go, and that made her happy. At least she’d made it this far without someone picking back up on her trail, and she hoped that the trail.

  Mae walked into the restroom and slipped into a stall. She leaned forward and glanced under the rest of the stalls, glad to see that the bathroom was empty. She sat on the closed toilet, opened her bag and pulled out the borrowed passport and credit cards. Mae flipped through the passport and saw that Ms. Pettingale was well-traveled. The first four pages of the book were filled with stamps from countries throughout Europe, with a sprinkling of stamps from the Caribbean.

  Mae rubbed the tip of her finger on the stamp belonging to France and smiled. One of the books that she’d loved as a little girl, still unable to read at the time, was a picture tour book of countries around the world. She would stare at the pictures throughout the book, fascinated by the different people, cultures and scenery in each picture. Of all the countries she toured through that book, the one country that she would always come back to was France. She had studied the pictures with an intense curiosity. She had loved the pictures of the Eiffel Tower, the Moulin Rouge, and the Arc de Triomphe, but the photographs that fascinated her most, that swept her imagination away to a vibrant world full of color and sweet smells, were the photographs of the rolling lavender fields in Provence. She would close her eyes and imagine running along the eternal rows of purple flowers, floating on the sweetly pungent aroma.

  As she grew older, the fascination only blossomed. It became more than just a dream; going there rose to the top of her bucket list. Mae’s mom had also never been to France, and they would often talk about taking that trip in the future, as they huddled in cheap motel rooms, scared for their lives but enjoying the small amount of comfort the dream brought.

  Back then, and even now, Mae doubted that she would ever visit France and its tapestry of lavender.

  The fluorescent lights flickered above, and Mae looked up and studied the ceiling. The light seemed to drip down from above, swirling downward, as if draining from the world. She watched the light flicker again, and she felt that same draining sensation in her body, as if her entire being was draining downward.

  And then it struck her. Like a roaring wave in the ocean, it pummeled against her and squeezed her heart and insides, twisting and wrenching it, draining her entire self. She felt the weight of the entire world against her, of a million pounds of pressure pressing down on her. She dropped from the toilet seat to the floor, falling to her knees, and cried. She fell further, curling into a tight ball on the floor and clutching the passport. She thought about the lavender fields in France, of picking those purple strands of flowers with her mother, laughing and talking as they walked along the rows and rows of millions of flowers. She cried harder, choking on her own sobs.

  "Mom ..." she sobbed, her voice shaking with tears. She thought about laying in the hundreds of hotel rooms over the years, always running, and her mom always there to protect her. Sitting in the tire swing in the backyard of their house, so long ago, riding the wind in the cool autumn light, the feel of her mom's hands on her back, pushing her through the air, the orange and yellow and red leaves filtering the bright sunlight through the branches.

  And then her mom was on her knees in the cabin in the woods, and their eyes held each other for a moment, her mom pleading with Mae to run, to find some place safe, away from these hunters.

  "Mom, please ..." Her cries were softer now, and she pled. She took that last look through the dirty glass of the cabin window, and the men were coming back into the room, and Mae was running into the dark forest. The gun shot that followed, distant and dark, a single shot in the living room of the cabin, ending everything that Mae knew and loved, and she was alone. Mae cried, holding the false passport to her breasts, holding onto nothing, and the world drained around her.

  Paper and ink, she thought, but the line of black on white, on that fresh and clean piece of paper never came. She cried, and the world stayed closed, pressing down on Mae, until there were no tears left, and Mae just lay on the floor, crying.

  After what seemed to be a very long time, she brought the passport to her face, her hands and fingers shaking, and she ripped out each page of the passport, and then tore each page into pieces. She wiped at the tears on her cheeks and eyes and pushed herself up from the floor.

  She divided the pieces of paper into tiny piles and tightly wrapped each pile in a length of bathroom tissue before flushing them down the toilet, one at a time. When she was finished, she left the bathroom and dropped the remains of the passport, and each of the credit cards, into separate trash bins. She hated to see the source of money and the separate identity go, but she couldn’t be found in Connecticut as Ms. Gertrude Pettingale.

  She stood up on shaky footing and pushed the door to bathroom stall open. The door swung open on the wide mirror of the bathroom, and she saw Mae Edwards, alone now in the world. Her blond hair was tangled, her eyes red from crying, and all around, she looked pretty pathetic.

  "Move ... before the devil catches you," she muttered, remembering the bus driver's words. Mae straightened her hair. She wiped again at her eyes, walking quickly to the bathroom sink. The water from the faucet trickled out into her cupped hands, and she washed her face and eyes, wiping the redness away.

  She left the restroom and walked fast, joining the last of the passengers sleepily making their way down the concourse towards baggage claim.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Morales watched the reporter leave his hospital room and pounded angrily on the mattress where he lay. The rage he'd tried so hard to squelch burst up from within, and all he saw was red.

  Who did this Freemont think he was? Coming in here and spouting about Miami. The reporter knew nothing, and Morales vowed that Paul would be dead before morning. All it would take would be one phone call, and the snooping reporter would find himself six feet under. Morales intended to make it happen.

  That sniveling, snooping bastard, Morales thought. Oh, he would be dead alright.

  The handle on the door suddenly turned, and the door swung open again. Morales peered into the shadows, hoping it was the reporter. He'd kill him right here, with his bare hands, r
egardless of the neck brace and injuries.

  "Detective Morales," a voice said, so quietly that it was almost impossible to make out what was said. The accent in the voice, however, was unmistakable.

  "Oskar?" Morales asked, and the big man stepped into view. "Oskar, I'm glad you're okay."

  The tall man didn't say anything, just approached Morales and placed his briefcase on the foot of Morales' bed.

  "Oskar, how did you get free of the van? I expected that little whore to kill you dead," Morales said, "and with the media, good grief, I don't know how you did it."

  "Stealth," Oskar said, repeating a word that Morales often used when they were on assignments. Morales noticed that Oskar was favoring his left side, where he'd been shot.

  "Are you okay?" Morales asked.

  "Fine," Oskar said, "and when the work is finished tonight, I will rest before finding the girl."

  "What work, Oskar? She's gone, flew out before …" Morales' voice trailed off as he realized what was happening here. All along, he'd assumed that an unfamiliar assassin would be sent to his room to finish him off. For a brief moment, Morales had thought that Oskar had been sent to get him out of this mess.

  "Oskar," Morales said, his voice low, but not pleading. Morales would not beg, not even at the end. "You don't have to do this."

  "It is my new assignment, before finding the girl," Oskar said in his slow and deliberate English.

  "There are cops in the hallway, Oskar," Morales said, "and I can help you find the girl. We'll get her together, we'll finish this together."

  "You have failed, and failure is not acceptable to Harrison," Oskar said.

  "I'm your boss, Oskar, not Harrison. I brought you into the fold."