White Out: A Thriller (Badlands Thriller)

by Danielle Girard

  As though against her will, Milliard’s expression softened. With that bit of encouragement, Lily told Kylie Milliard about waking up, the memory of the man in the blood, the bits with Abby at her house, and then the two of them in the woods, her bag, the gun, how the hems of her jeans and her boots had been wet, how she’d pulled Brent from the car, thinking a train was coming. Then the call from the OnStar that the police were on their way, her panic, the night in the shed, and getting to town the next morning—she even mentioned the truck driver, Jim. Then the hospital, her interaction with Tim Bailey, the walk to Iver’s, and the attack. Standing in the freezing air, Lily told Detective Milliard every single thing she could remember, other than stealing the money from Brent Nolan’s wallet. She couldn’t bring herself to admit to that.

  Milliard didn’t say a single word until Lily reached the moment she’d arrived at Iver’s to find him having a seizure.

  “That’s it,” Lily said, her jaw tight and shivering from the cold. “That’s the whole truth.”

  Finally, the detective shook her head. “I’m not sure whether to thank you or arrest you. It would’ve been a hell of a lot easier if you’d told me everything from the start.”

  Lily cringed at the detective’s sharp tone. She had thought—or maybe just hoped—that Milliard would feel some sympathy, but Lily had gotten herself into this mess, probably by whatever she’d been doing before she’d gotten into the car with Brent Nolan. But certainly, she’d brought it on herself when she’d lied.

  “You have anything else to tell me?” Milliard asked.

  “I—I didn’t know who I could trust.”

  “So you chose Iver Larson?”

  “He didn’t attack me. It wasn’t him. The attacker had a Taser,” she said breathlessly.

  “It’s not hard to get a Taser,” Milliard told her. “And Iver could have hidden that before he took that blanket off your head.”

  “It wasn’t Iver,” she said again. “The smell of him was so distinct.” She closed her eyes and tried to bring the smell to mind. There was a hint of something minty, then spicy. Almost like a plant. “Licorice, maybe?”

  “Licorice?” Milliard repeated.

  That felt right. The spice, the sweet. “I think that was it. Black licorice.”

  “Your attacker smelled like candy?” The detective sounded doubtful.

  “I’m trying to help,” Lily protested.

  “Well, find your memory so you can tell me what you were doing in that car. And leave the murder to me.” She opened the car door and got in. “And I’d put some distance between you and Larson. He’s going to jail for murder.” With that, the detective closed the door, started her car, and drove off, leaving Lily shivering in the empty parking lot.

  CHAPTER 37

  IVER

  A hockey game played on the small mounted TV in Iver’s hospital room. He’d been watching half-heartedly, not even bothering to check who was playing, when Mike’s voice echoed from the hallway. “He’s got rights,” Mike shouted. A man’s voice responded, but Iver couldn’t make out the words over the sound of Mike’s fist on the door as he burst into the room.

  “Asshole,” Mike hissed, swinging the door closed behind him.

  This was his future. Trapped, locked up, hoping for visitors. And who would come? Mike a few times. His mother.

  Mike seemed momentarily surprised to find Iver sitting in the hospital bed. “Hey, man.”

  “Thanks for coming.”

  “What happened?”

  “Seizure,” Iver said, shifting under the sheets. He had pulled his fleece over the hospital gown, but he wasn’t allowed to change out of it. Hospital rules. All the same bullshit he remembered from coming home. Back then, he hadn’t been allowed to brush his own teeth or go to the bathroom or wash himself—everything had to be supervised and timed and measured, as though he was a damn science experiment. And now he felt caught in some other kind of experiment—more terrifying than the last.

  “You okay?” Mike asked.

  Iver met his friend’s gaze, nodded.

  “Seriously, man.”

  Something in Mike’s expression set him off. He shook his head, wiped his face, surprised to find moisture in his eyes. “They think I killed that woman.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  Iver studied his face, refusing to blink. He wanted to absorb his friend’s expression, examine every square inch for doubt. “I’ve never hurt anyone.”

  Mike’s lips shifted.

  “It was a fucking war, Mike.” Iver ripped the sheets back and stared down at his bare legs before realizing there was nowhere to go. He yanked the sheet back across his legs and swung his feet over the side of the bed so he didn’t feel like such an invalid, such a monster.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Mike whispered.

  “You didn’t have to,” Iver said.

  Mike opened his mouth to speak but let it fall closed again.

  Even his best friend didn’t believe he was innocent.

  A knock on the door drew both men’s stares. Finally, Iver said, “Come in.”

  When it cracked open, he was surprised to see his ex-wife’s face. He jerked the thin blanket off the bed and wrapped it around his legs, covering the bottom half of the gown and adjusting his sweatshirt. He looked ridiculous—like he was going to a toga party in Siberia—but at least the gown was covered. Debbie had seen him in enough hospital gowns to last two lifetimes.

  She stared between the two men. “I just wanted to make sure you two were okay.”

  Iver glanced at Mike, then at Debbie. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

  Debbie crossed her arms, one foot out to the side. Angry Debbie. It almost made him laugh, which almost made him cry.

  “Really?” she said. “After Wednesday night?”

  Wearing the blanket like a damn skirt, Iver walked to the far side of the room, if only to create distance between her and him. Wednesday night. The night that woman had been killed. The night he couldn’t remember. The night . . . her message had said he’d come to her house. That he should leave them alone. Who was “them”? Had Debbie been with a girlfriend that night? Why was the whole night blank in his mind?

  “You were furious, Iver.”

  He jumped at the proximity of her voice. When he turned, she was standing beside him. He could see the narrow birthmark on her left wrist, the one that looked like a sword.

  “At us,” she said, then added, “Mike and me.”

  “You and Mike,” he repeated like an idiot, and in a flood, he knew. Mike’s smile when he’d run out to his truck, the fact that he was letting someone else drive his precious rig, the reason he would be going to Denver at all. Debbie and Mike. His ex-wife and his best friend were dating.

  “What? You forgot?” Debbie went on. “Even after going apeshit on Wednesday?”

  “Deb,” Mike said softly, pity in his eyes.

  Iver stepped away and felt the wall at his back. He pressed his palms on the cool surface. He couldn’t stand. His legs wouldn’t hold him, so he sank until he hit the floor. “I don’t remember.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t remember?” Mike asked.

  “I don’t remember going there,” Iver said. “Did you answer the door? Did we talk?”

  “No. We never heard you,” she said, shaking her head and looking at Mike. “It was two in the morning, and we were asleep.”

  “Did you knock?” Mike asked. “What were you doing there in the middle of the night?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember,” he said again, drawing out each word in the way that had driven Debbie mad when they’d been married.

  “Of course you remember,” she said. “Shouting at us to get the hell out of your bar? Threatening to punch Mike?”

  The bar? Iver tried to place Mike and Debbie in the bar on Wednesday. He had no memory of seeing them there. No memory of going to her house in the middle of the night. What else had he done that night that he couldn’t remember
? “I swear,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t remember.”

  “Bullshit, Iver Larson,” Debbie said.

  “It’s not,” he countered, wanting to gather his anger to fight her. All he could stir up was fear. He’d been driving in the middle of the night on Wednesday. But he usually left the bar by about ten thirty. Where had he been between leaving the bar and showing up at Debbie’s house? Damn, what had he done?

  “How can you not remember?” Mike asked.

  Debbie knelt beside him. “Are you taking all your meds?”

  He pushed her away. “I’m not a kid, Debbie. I’m fine.”

  “Not if you don’t remember Wednesday night, you’re not fine.”

  Iver looked to Mike, forcing himself onto his feet. “I was drugged, Mike. Someone put something in my drink. The doctor said there was something in my blood, some sedative. It’s not one of my medications, and I don’t take drugs, Mike. You know I don’t.”

  Mike nodded.

  Iver couldn’t tell if his friend believed him. He glanced at Debbie, but he couldn’t read her anymore either. Had he ever been able to read her? Once, maybe. Suddenly, he felt certain that the drug was the key to whatever had happened on Wednesday. Or he prayed it was.

  If he could figure out what it was and who had given it to him, then he’d be able to save himself. Kevin brought his drinks, but usually Nate or Mike made them. A dozen of their high school friends always hung around, people who might have hated him or old-timers who had hated his father . . . or someone who wanted his ex-wife.

  He looked back up at Mike and tried to speak in a calm voice. “I need to know who drugged me that night. I won’t be angry.” He was lying now. He would be furious, but he needed to know. He needed to know why he didn’t remember. More than that, he needed to know what he didn’t remember. “Did you put something in my drink? To try to calm me down, maybe?” As though that were an excuse.

  “He would never,” Debbie said.

  “No,” Mike echoed.

  “I need to find out who did. Because whatever that was, it made me forget.” It had to be the reason for the loss of memory. And maybe it had made him angry, too. But capable of murder? No. He couldn’t believe that. He would never believe that. “They think I killed someone. Until I understand who drugged me and what it was, I can’t prove that I didn’t kill that girl.”

  “No one was even with you. You were in the office most of the night, drinking alone.”

  Iver rubbed his face, exhausted. “Well, someone was bringing me drinks.”

  Mike nodded. “I know Nate made you a couple.”

  “Nate,” Iver repeated.

  “No way Nate drugged you, Iver. We’ve been friends forever.”

  “Kevin was the one who brought them in. At least the first ones,” Iver added.

  Mike said nothing.

  Iver didn’t want to believe any of them had drugged him. Why would they? He thought about the mess of his office, the receipts and tapes he’d brought home. He rubbed his head, fighting off the escalating squeeze in his temples as he tried to remember what he’d been doing before the seizure. “Have you looked at this week’s receipts? Our deposits are off.”

  “Do the bar books really matter right now?” Debbie asked.

  Mike placed a hand on her arm, and Iver had to look away.

  “Off by how much?” Mike asked.

  Iver rarely let Mike work on the books. His father had always told him to keep that part of the business close to the vest. No one needed to know how much money you were making. It only caused trouble.

  “Iver?”

  He shook his head. “I was working on the books before the seizure, but there was money missing—like seven hundred dollars.” Suddenly, he was unable to find any air in the room, like he’d been buried in a snowbank. “It might have been Wednesday night. Who did deposits on Thursday?”

  “I sent Kevin. With the police there, I’d been up most of the night. I wanted to get home for a little sleep before I had to be back.”

  “Can you go back through the receipts and match the deposits? I think some of the tape was missing from my office.” The system at the bar was old. Iver did it the same way his father had. He matched the register tape to the deposits, and he had a general feel for inventory. He should have kept a closer watch, but the bar had become just a job to him, a means to an end. “Did you check the deposit before Kevin went?” Iver asked.

  “Kevin would never drug you.” But even as Mike said it, something in his expression shifted. His gaze slid to Debbie.

  “What?”

  The two stared at each other.

  “What is it?” Iver pressed.

  It was Debbie who spoke first. “There’s a rumor that Kevin got Sarah Ollman pregnant.”

  “The pastor’s daughter? She’s what—sixteen?”

  “Seventeen,” Debbie said. “She was in the bar that night, hanging all over him.”

  Mike sank into the chair beside Iver’s hospital bed. “He said something about being under pressure. He needed money.”

  “For—”

  Debbie stared at him, and Iver understood. Sarah Ollman wanted to terminate a pregnancy. “Would seven hundred bucks be enough?”

  “Probably,” Debbie said.

  Kevin’s dad had never been around. His mom was frail and hadn’t worked since Kevin was in middle school. Kevin probably supported them both and had nothing to spare. So he needed money. “But why drug me? Why not ask for the money—an advance or something?”

  Mike stared at the floor.

  “Mike.”

  His friend shook his head, refusing to look up.

  “You know something,” Iver said.

  Slowly, Mike raised his head. “Kevin did ask for money. Maybe two weeks ago, he asked for a thousand dollars in advance, said he’d pay it back, but it would probably take him a couple months.”

  “And?” Iver pressed.

  Mike shook his head. “I told him I’d ask you.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “Right,” Mike said.

  Debbie moved closer to Mike. “Did he ask again?”

  Mike rubbed his face.

  “Christ, Mike, what the hell happened?” Iver asked.

  “I told him you said no.”

  “Mike,” Debbie said, his name coming out in a whisper of disappointment.

  “You never even asked me. You just told him no, and he accepted that?”

  Mike rubbed his hands, and Iver knew there was more. Mike had said something else, something about him. “Spit it out, Mike.”

  “I told him that you were a tightwad—” He raised his chin. “Actually, I told him you were a fucking asshole who wouldn’t help anyone but yourself.”

  Debbie gasped and took a step back.

  Iver held Mike’s gaze until Mike looked away. Neither man spoke. His best friend thought he was an asshole and a tightwad. His best friend, who was sleeping with his ex-wife. So Kevin had drugged him to steal money. And the drug had made him aggressive. And then . . . what? Had he killed Abigail Jensen?

  Maybe Detective Milliard had it right after all. Maybe he was a killer.

  The room went silent. The people who knew Iver best in the whole world were here, together, and neither of them could look him in the eye.

  CHAPTER 38

  KYLIE

  Kylie arrived home to find both Amber and William asleep and the house quiet. She had been looking forward to holding William, smelling the sweet scent of his baby skin. And she’d wanted to talk to Amber about Lily Baker. Amber was younger than Baker by three or four years, so it was unlikely that they had known each other growing up. Especially since Baker had been homeschooled after her ordeal and then had left town for Arizona. But Kylie needed her roommate for more than getting the latest Hagen gossip. Amber had become a sounding board for Kylie, the one person in Hagen—other than William—whom she trusted implicitly.

  When had she gotten so damn dependent? She had never wante
d a roommate. She thought of herself as someone who did better alone. Made her own mess and cleaned it up when she was damn ready. Didn’t pick up after anyone else. Certainly not a baby. Now, though, she found herself creeping into the small den that had been converted to William’s nursery and crossing on tiptoes to the crib to look down on William, splayed on his back, arms and legs spread like a tiny drunk.

  Resisting the urge to reach in and touch the smooth skin of his forearm, she retreated from the room and set herself up on the living room couch with her computer and the list of follow-up items. Friday night at nine o’clock, women her age were supposed to be doing something else. Supposed to be. Kylie retrieved a beer from the fridge and popped the top with the side of a butter knife, a party trick she’d learned from her older brother when she was nine or ten before he’d headed off to college. How desperate she’d been to be as cool as her brother. There was something about the sound of the seal on the bottle breaking as she levered the butter knife upward that always made her feel momentarily invincible.

  Boy, did she need that now.

  On the sofa, laptop open, Kylie drank her beer and reviewed the coroner’s report on Abigail Jensen. By that point, it had been in her inbox for almost twelve hours, and she was in no rush to be disappointed again. Kylie didn’t have a lot of faith in Hagen’s coroner. Amber joked that Milt Horchow had been burying bodies in Hagen since before the city had been incorporated. One look at him, and Kylie could almost believe it. He was barely five feet tall but at least three feet wide at his center. He wore his pants like a clown, loose at the waist with suspenders, and what little hair he had left was white and made a narrow horseshoe around his head. Quiet but opinionated, Horchow had to be in his eighties, with no signs of slowing down. But his reports were straightforward and clean, so she had to give the guy credit.

  According to the report, cause of death was likely blunt-force trauma, which she already knew. Gilbert had mentioned that Jensen had hit her head, but the coroner also noted signs of petechial hemorrhage, which suggested Jensen had also been strangled. Kylie scanned the list of Jensen’s belongings. Other than her clothing, the items listed among Jensen’s belongings were largely what Kylie had seen herself—a leather bracelet with a metal disk and a single silver ring. Nothing in her jacket—no phone or wallet or keys. The killer had taken her shoes and likely also her wallet and phone, so why had they only found her shoes in Larson’s truck?