In the bleak midwinter asacm-1

by M. R. Sellars

No impressions at all.

  Nothing.

  She shifted from tight, shallow breaths to a slow, deep inhale as she started allowing herself to relax. Unlocking her arms, she lowered the weapon and slipped it back into the high-ride holster on her belt. After popping the thumb break into place she stumbled back a pair of steps and pressed herself against the cold brick wall. She swallowed hard and then let out a heavy sigh.

  This had gone too far. Now she was hearing voices and even smelling odors that weren’t even there. That was Rowan’s thing, not hers. She didn’t talk to ghosts. He did.

  This had to be her overtaxed mind playing tricks on her: exhaustion induced hallucinations, and that was a very bad thing. She was no longer just tired and spooked; she was paranoid and reckless, which made her a danger to herself and everyone around her. This simply wouldn’t do, and Constance knew it. She reached up and rubbed her forehead, then closed her eyes and tried to swallow again, but her throat was too tight, and her mouth had gone dry.

  A half minute later when her heart rate began to taper back to normal, she pushed away from the wall and stepped back along the service corridor. Hands shaking, she knelt down and picked up the dropped coins that were obvious and shining in the dim light but didn’t waste time searching for latent escapees; she was having a hard enough time as it was. Finally, she stood and punched the cola button before feeding more freshly chilled quarters into the slot on the vending machine’s face.

  Both pockets and the crook of her arm full of cans, she headed back to her room. After arranging the soft drinks in the sink, she scooped snow from the hood of her car into the small, plastic ice bucket and poured it in on top of them. It took five full scoops before she was satisfied.

  Once finished with that task, she locked the door, threw the security bar, and shrugged out of her coat. Kicking off her shoes, she padded around the bed, methodically gathering the sorted piles of case reports and supporting documentation, then moving them over to the top of the long dresser, keeping them organized as best she could.

  Finally, she dug out her travel alarm and set it for midnight. The mystery of the Christmas song was going to have to wait a few hours. If she didn’t get some sleep right away, she was going to hurt someone, or worse-shoot someone dead. She had just proven that possibility to herself in spades.

  She didn’t bother to undress. She simply crawled onto the bed then pulled the rumpled comforter up around her shoulders and hugged herself as tightly as she could. As she lay there, she didn’t even try to rationalize to herself why she was leaving the lights on. She was too tired to deny her fear. It was easier to simply embrace the emotion and make it hers.

  It was just pushing 5:30 in the evening when Constance finally gave in to her jittery exhaustion, and consciousness skulked away into the shadows. She fell into a tortured sleep that was filled with a painful nightmare. The terror playing out in her mind was stark-the images a contrasty black and white, save for the red suit worn by the faceless man.

  And then there were the vile, horrible things he was doing to her, over and over again. No matter how much she begged, he wouldn’t stop. He just kept telling her, “ It would be your fault that I would have to kill them…”

  While she tossed and whimpered through her slumber, across the room on the desk sat the notebook computer. Its cursor was still winking patiently below the words, “ENTER ENCRYPTION KEY.”

  C HAPTER 17

  7:01 A.M. – December 24, 2010

  Greenleaf Motel

  Hulis Township – Northern Missouri

  Constance stood beneath the sputtering jets of the partially calcified showerhead and soaked in the warmth it was raining down upon her. She would have actually been willing to settle for a temperature that wouldn’t blister her skin, or send her into instant hypothermia-either one-but somehow she’d had a stroke of luck. With some accidental finessing she had fine-tuned the stream of water to a cozy in-between. Given that the day before the shower control had seemed to have only two settings-those being freeze and scald-she wasn’t going to complain.

  She finished rinsing the conditioner from her hair, then turned in place and allowed the running water to splash across her shoulders, sending a cascading sheet of the warmth down her back. The uneven drumming of the spray actually felt soothing to her sore muscles. Closing her eyes, she relaxed and soon began to drift. Floating somewhere in that comfortable void between sleep and wake, she felt herself falling and jerked upright with a sudden start. In her struggle for balance she reached out and placed her palm against the tile wall to steady herself.

  She had slept right through the alarm clock when it started chirping at midnight. That is, if what she had been doing could actually be called sleep. She wasn’t so sure, especially since she was nodding off now. She had finally awakened a little past 2 A.M., tangled in the comforter, and hanging upside down off the side of the bed with her cheek mashed against the scratchy carpeting. She assumed the uncomfortable position was what had finally rousted her from an unconscious state. Of course, the way she felt right now she might well have been lying like that for hours.

  Her clothing and hair had been damp with sweat. Her mouth had been dry. Her muscles had seemed weak, and her body had been achy. It still was, in fact. All in all, she felt pretty much as if she had just burned out a high fever.

  At first, that’s exactly what she thought might have happened. The sudden onset of a short-lived virus wasn’t out of the question, especially in the face of exhaustion, and it would certainly explain quite a bit. For one thing, there was her uncharacteristic anxiety. If she had been coming down with something, then that might be a reason for her addled emotional hypersensitivity. Then there was that strange voice she’d heard, which was obviously a hallucination. And then there was the nightmare about the man in the red suit, something that could very easily have been a fever-induced dump of her subconscious given the imagery associated with the investigation at hand.

  But then there was that bizarre email and the even more perplexing attachment it bore. She had made it a point to check on that as soon as she managed to untangle herself from the bed. Much to her chagrin, it was still there. If she’d had a choice, she would have preferred that it be a figment of her imagination as well. This case didn’t need any more weird complications than it already had.

  However, her wish for that vexation to disappear had not kept her from almost immediately parking herself at the desk and staring at the screen while trying once again to solve the bizarre riddle. That was almost five hours, three somewhat chilled cans of soda, and one high-energy, caramel-peanut-butter protein bar ago. Not to mention, countless note pages filled with the scribbled strings of characters she had attempted. Unfortunately, none of them garnered anything other than the same old result: INCORRECT KEY!

  She knew there had to be something about the puzzling clue she was missing. It was most likely painfully obvious too, since that’s how riddles always seemed to work. But for the time being, her weary brain had reached a dead end.

  She had finally decided it was time to step away from the computer for a while. Clear her head. Find a different perspective. Maybe even get something a little more substantial into her stomach.

  But, then she saw herself in the mirror. At the sight, she thought about just climbing back into bed, but her stomach was putting up a noisy protest. Food definitely couldn’t hurt. She’d been running close to empty for too long. However, she was definitely not going out in public until she cleaned herself up.

  Letting out a resigned sigh, Constance pulled aside the thin, plastic curtain and reluctantly stepped out onto the bathmat, then she reached back into the shower and turned off the water. She wanted to stay in there forever, but she knew that wasn’t going to accomplish a thing. She still had seven murders to solve, and an eighth that would be happening in less than twenty-four hours if she didn’t.

  Now that she was no longer enveloped in the warm water, the air in the small room felt sharply cool a
gainst her wet skin. She stood there for a moment, almost completely still, simply allowing the moisture to drip to the floor and the contrast in temperature to shock her out of the lull of relaxation.

  Maybe some of the edge was gone from her physical exhaustion; she still felt like she could sleep for two days straight. Unfortunately, the long shower had gone a long way toward reinforcing that desire. The pervasive tiredness was still trying to pull her under, and according to what she’d seen in the mirror earlier, her face was showing it. However, it seemed that some of the eight plus hours of wrestling with the comforter had helped a little, because her mind actually seemed to be clearing-for the moment, at least. How long it would stay that way was the big question.

  After a deep yawn and a few purposeful deep breaths, she forced herself to pull down a fresh towel from the bent wire rack hanging on the wall over the back of the toilet. As she began to dry herself, her eyes briefly fell upon her unholstered semi-automatic pistol resting atop a folded hand towel she had laid across the cracked lid of the stool’s porcelain tank.

  She was sure of one thing. Whatever sleep she might have managed definitely hadn’t been enough to quell her paranoia. Whether warranted or not, it was still firmly entrenched in her gut, and that could turn into a serious problem.

  If it hadn’t already…

  PLOWING parking lots apparently wasn’t a high priority in Hulis, especially not at a motel with only one paying guest and an owner who was rumored to be a cheapskate. After pushing out her door and trudging through the drifts, Constance checked with the office and discovered that a relative of the owner was supposed to be taking care of snow removal sometime today.

  Maybe.

  Since the aforementioned relative was doing the job as a favor, the owner didn’t know exactly when, or even for sure if it would be happening. Unfortunately, that was the best he could do, because everyone else wanted money to plow the lot.

  Constance reminded him why she was here and that she would definitely need to use her car later in the day, which meant she had to be able to actually drive it off the parking lot. He simply gave her his non-committal answer once again. Frustrated with the circular conversation, she gave up and headed back out into the cold, firmly convinced that the cheapskate rumor had now been officially promoted to undeniable fact.

  She was already out the door when she realized that she had forgotten to ask him whether he knew offhand if That Place was open today. She considered turning around and going back in but decided she really wasn’t in the mood to deal with him again right now. Besides, he’d probably charge her for the answer. She thought about returning to her room so that she could look up their number and give them a call but abandoned that idea as well. The motel wasn’t all that far from the center of town. Just a few blocks in fact, and since she’d missed her morning workouts for three days now, the exercise would do her good. Maybe it would even help to wake her up and clear her head some more.

  Given the dim view of the holidays that was pervasive around Hulis, she had a feeling they would be open for business, even though it was Christmas Eve day. If she was wrong and they were closed, she could just turn around and walk back to the motel. There was, after all, still an MRE in her suitcase and plenty of paper that she needed to go over for a third time. Not to mention a confusing riddle that was waiting for an answer.

  After readjusting her scarf and donning her gloves, Constance set out on the short trek. In front of the motel she waited while a lone, four-door sedan rolled slowly by, carefully negotiating the plowed but still snowy street. Once clear, she crossed and aimed herself toward the center of town.

  EVEN at a distance of less than twenty-five yards away, Constance couldn’t really see into the diner all that well due to the fogged windows. However, that in itself was a good sign, not to mention several cars were parked in the diagonal spaces out front.

  A minute later when she reached the end of the shoveled sidewalk outside That Place, she could see the open sign and detect movement beyond the hoary condensation. She stomped her feet a few times, knocking off the excess snow her shoes had collected, then opened the door and went in. The warm interior of the diner felt good, and the intertwined aromas of eggs, bacon, and just food in general made her stomach gurgle with anticipation.

  Even with the added labor of hiking around drifts and when necessary through a half foot of freshly fallen snow, the distance she had walked was only a fraction of her normal morning run. However, you couldn’t convince her legs of that fact. They were already feeling rubbery before she was within sight of the diner. By the time she arrived they were numb. Of course, the temperature hadn’t helped in that department.

  The leading edge of the predicted arctic front was already hitting the town, and the breeze it carried had sharp teeth. The exposed areas of her cheeks bore the weather-reddened bite marks to prove it.

  Constance peeled off her gloves and scarf, stuffing them into pockets, then pulled off her coat. As she perched herself on one of the vinyl-topped stools at the lunch counter, she draped the heavy outer garment across her lap in a bid to warm her frozen legs. Snatching up a folded paper menu, she looked it over while her stomach serenaded her yet again.

  That Place was far busier than it had been the last time she’d visited. It wasn’t at capacity, but she counted nearly one-dozen customers with a single quick glance. She had positioned herself at the empty end of the U-shaped counter, the farthest position away from any of the other patrons. She already knew they weren’t overly excited about her presence here in town-or so she’d been told. Thus far the receptions she’d received seemed to support that, so why make them any more uncomfortable. Besides, as it happened, she wasn’t feeling particularly social at the moment either, so she broke one of her own rules and sat with her back to the door. She was too tired and hungry to worry about it.

  It was only a few moments before Stella came over and asked, “Coffee?”

  Constance gave her an animated nod. “Yes, please.”

  “Regular?”

  “Absolutely.”

  The girl’s demeanor was suitably cordial, but her body language was patently guarded, much as she had been the times before. Once she had filled a mug and placed it in front of the federal agent she said, “What can I get you?”

  Constance shot a last glance at the menu then placed it to the side and said, “How about a short stack, and two eggs on the side. Scrambled.”

  “Do you want bacon or sausage with that?” Stella asked, her words flat and automatic.

  “Do you have turkey bacon?” Constance replied.

  “No ma’am, just real bacon.”

  She started to decline then felt her stomach rumble. “That’s fine. Bacon sounds good. Do you have any grapefruit juice?”

  Stella shook her head. “Just orange or cranberry.”

  Strike two. Constance mulled it over for a second, then nodded. She preferred grapefruit and would normally just skip juice if it wasn’t available, but she also knew her kidneys were probably screaming for something besides coffee and cola. “Okay. Cranberry will work. And a large water.”

  “Okay. I’ll have that out in just a couple of minutes.”

  Once Stella had started toward the doors at the back of the lunch counter, Constance set about doctoring her java. Two sugars, one creamer, as usual, unless Ben was responsible for making it, of course. You simply couldn’t resuscitate his coffee, no matter what you dumped into it. She’d already tried more time than she could count. It was a lost cause.

  She glanced at her watch. Almost 8:30. Ben had been planning to take the day off since they were supposed to be spending it together. She’d try him after breakfast. Maybe he could help her with that bizarre holiday riddle, and a friendly voice definitely wouldn’t be unwelcome either.

  The murmur of unintelligible conversations between patrons provided a dull base rhythm for the kitchen noises issuing at odd intervals from beyond the cafe doors at the back of the small restaurant
. Punctuating the muddy soundtrack came the sudden clang and grind of an old, mechanical cash register. Constance looked up to see a diner paying his bill, and after he exchanged a pleasantry or two with Stella he waved to some of the other customers and started for the door. When he hooked around the end of the counter he glanced at Constance, his lips stitched together in a thin frown. When their eyes accidentally met, he gave her a curt nod. The motion was tense, as if it was something he didn’t want to do, but because custom dictated it so, he had no choice. She returned the gesture and focused her attention back on her coffee.

  A moment later, a bell pealed out a metallic jangle, and a stiff blast of icy wind immediately groped at her back. She could feel the uncomfortable massage of its chilled fingers even through her heavy sweatshirt and the insulated crew top she was wearing underneath.

  She gave a slight shudder as she hunched forward, trying to escape the gust, then finished stirring her coffee and laid the spoon aside on a napkin. She cupped her hands around the mug and huddled over it, allowing its warmth to soak into her palms. The brass bell finally rattled a second time as the door swung shut, ending the unwanted touch of Old Man Winter.

  However, the reprieve didn’t seem to last.

  She didn’t hear the man at first. In fact, she felt his presence and then she smelled him. A deep chill was radiating outward from his coat, just as it would from a block of dry ice. It expanded through the air between them and brushed against her cheek. With it came the unmistakable scent of spicy aftershave. It reminded her of something she used to give to her grandfathers for Christmas when she was a little girl.

  She had just lifted her cup and was taking a sip of her coffee when the man slipped onto the stool at her right side. Even though there were several others available, he had chosen the one immediately next to hers. She heard him shifting on his seat, and then his upper arm briefly pressed against her own. However, it was not as if it were an accidental brush. It lingered there just long enough that it seemed almost deliberate.