When Snowflakes Never Cease (Crossroads Collection)

by Amanda Tru

  Cosette was in love, but that didn’t make her stupid. It didn’t make her blind.

  She wanted to reject the detective’s words with every ounce of her energy, but all her mental prowess was focused on steeling herself against the crashing waves of agony and torment that would sweep up over her in just a few more minutes.

  “Where is she?”

  Uh-oh. Cosette knew that voice. Knew how disappointed her mother would look, how scared to see Cosette bandaged up like this, lying in a hospital bed.

  “Let me see her.”

  The door opened, and instantly Detective Grace was unceremoniously shoved out of the way. Mom was at the head of her bed, Dad by the foot. Mom was crying. Dad looked stoic and grave. Cosette couldn’t bear to see how worried she’d made her parents.

  “I’m sorry.” It wasn’t until Mom pulled out a tissue and dabbed at the corners of Cosette’s eyes that she realized she was also crying. “I’m so sorry,” Cosette repeated. “I shouldn’t have… I didn’t mean to…” She choked on a sob. “Thank you for coming.”

  Mom tried to find a way to wrap Cosette in her arms without upsetting any of her bandages, but the feat proved impossible. Dad pulled up a chair for her, and Mom sat squeezing Cosette’s hand.

  Dad continued to stand stone-faced at the foot of her bed. Cosette couldn’t even raise her eyes to meet his.

  “The police called,” Mom said. “They told us you were hurt. We came right away. We would have been here sooner, but the flights were all delayed. I’m so sorry, baby. You must have been so scared, all alone in a place as foreign as this.”

  Cosette squeezed her eyes shut. The relief at seeing her parents clashing against her shame and remorse for worrying them so much made her feel even worse. She wanted to tell them everything. That they were right, that she should have never come out here in the first place, that she’d been stupid not to listen to them. Mom looked a decade older. Dad still hadn’t spoken a word.

  It was all Cosette’s fault.

  “I just can’t believe that man would do this to you.” Mom declared, an uncharacteristic tinge of anger coloring her voice.

  Cosette wanted to defend Josh, wanted to tell her parents it was all a mistake, but Detective Grace’s words still surged through her body, just as intense as the pain that threatened to steal her breath away.

  … Stabbed 26 times with a knife… Evidence pointed to Bird… Changed his name…

  “We’re going to get you through this.” Mom clutched Cosette’s hand with a strength Cosette had never known. “I promise, we’re going to get you through this. God protected you. It must have been our prayers for you. Your father and I were praying like crazy. I was just so worried for you, so certain something would go wrong. It could have been even worse. You could have been kidnapped or raped or even killed. But God was with you. I know he was. I’m just so sorry I didn’t pray even harder. I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you from what happened.”

  Cosette couldn’t stand the sight of her mother’s tears, her broken posture, her worried eyes. How could Cosette have ever imagined that chasing after the fantasy of love was worth the anguish she’d caused her family? When would she ever learn? When would she ever listen?

  Dad put his hand on Cosette’s leg, the strength from his body seeping through the hospital blanket. “You’re going to be all right,” he stated factually. He gave Mom a curt nod. “That’s what matters. You’re going to be all right, and you’re going to tell the police everything you can possibly think of that will help them put this criminal behind bars for good.”

  Cosette had been terrified when the doctor told her he was taking her off the morphine drip, but her father insisted that she’d think more clearly once they put her on something less potent. Thankfully, whatever replacement painkiller they gave her kept the agony at bay, albeit only slightly, and it had the added benefit of keeping her from being quite so groggy. The worst side effect was now her body itched all over.

  It was a price Cosette was willing to pay to solve the investigation.

  Detective Grace had slammed Cosette with question after question, her father sometimes jumping in to ask for further clarification. He seemed in his element here, able to focus all his attention on helping the police solve this crime while Mom continued to sniff and fluff Cosette’s pillows and ask her if she was comfortable enough and spoon ice shavings into her mouth whenever the conversation lulled for even a second.

  Four years earlier, Cosette wanted nothing more than to be free from her parents’ overbearing attention, but now she found their presence familiar and surprisingly comforting.

  Instead of shaming Cosette for flying out to Alaska all by herself, Mom fixated on trivial things, like quizzing the nurses to see if Cosette’s blood pressure was healthy and asking Cosette if she’d had any bowel movements since the attack.

  Detective Grace had been here so long that Cosette was surprised she hadn’t talked herself hoarse. For the past half an hour, the topic of poisoning had played at the forefront of their conversation. Cosette had relayed exactly what she’d eaten, when she’d eaten, where she’d eaten since she left LA the previous day. Grace conveyed the information by radio, and Cosette especially hoped that Dottie from the diner wouldn’t get in any trouble.

  Grace asked for the password to Cosette’s dating app, and Cosette talked to someone, a faceless officer, through the detective’s radio until she could give him access to her profile, including all her messages to and from Josh. Their texts, she’d been told, had mysteriously disappeared from her cell, but if someone wanted to catch the gist of her romance with Josh, they now had access to every private message they’d exchanged on the Betwixt dating site.

  The only thing Cosette could think of that would be even more humiliating was if the detectives were reading her messages right here in front of her parents. At least her phone was at the police station, being handled by strangers Cosette hoped she’d never have to meet face to face.

  Cosette’s dad zoned in on the make and model of Josh’s truck, pulling up dozens of examples of images on his cell phone to ask Cosette if any of them looked familiar. Unfortunately, all she could tell him was that Josh’s vehicle was big and gray, a description that Detective Grace seemed to think would fit about half the trucks in the state.

  In the meantime, Mom was apparently the only one still worried about Cosette’s health, her sleep schedule, her appetite, her bathroom functions. The only thing worse than the smothering was when Mom blamed herself for not praying hard enough, as if she was the one responsible for Cosette’s attack.

  Now that both her parents were here, now that she was off the morphine and thinking a little more clearly, Cosette had to concede that her family and the detective might be right. Josh might have done this to her. Grace was still waiting for information to come in on the names Adam Bird and Joshua Lawson, but everyone else in the hospital room seemed convinced that the two men were the same person. And not only that but that he had deliberately coerced Cosette thousands of miles away from home simply to attack her. It’s very likely, Dad explained with his characteristic logic, that Josh assumed Cosette was already dead when he left her at the gas station. In fact, with the snow that heavy last night and the streets so deserted, it seemed somewhat miraculous that Cosette had been rescued and saved at all. The running consensus was that Josh had attacked her and left her for dead.

  How could she have been so fooled?

  Mom told her not to fret, assured her that everyone makes mistakes, repeated over and over that she was just thankful God had been looking out for her, offering her his protection.

  “Your daughter was very lucky in that regard,” Grace commented.

  “Not lucky,” Mom corrected. “Blessed.”

  Cosette certainly didn’t feel lucky or blessed. The doctor said it would likely be another day before she was released. Cosette hadn’t asked for a mirror yet, didn’t even want to know what kind of long-term scars she’d acquired and how those m
ight impact her acting career.

  Thankful to be alive. That’s what Mom was focusing on. If only Cosette could feel a fraction of that gratitude. This was supposed to be her weekend with Josh, a weekend she’d been saving up for and looking forward to for months. The chance to see if their real-life chemistry came even close to matching their online attraction.

  Somewhere at some Anchorage police station, a stranger was right now reading through every single message she and Josh ever shared on the Betwixt dating app. Every curious question, every flirtatious encounter. She couldn’t remember if he’d first invited her to Alaska via private message or email. Cosette could only imagine the facepalm of the officers if they came across her enthusiastic response.

  A weekend in Alaska? Travel all the way out to your hometown? Get to meet you in person? Yes, please! I can’t wait!

  Cosette had always felt relatively mature for her age until this very day when she realized how rash and dangerous her actions had been. Even if she had decided to fly out here to meet Josh, couldn’t she have made it a point to get to know each other someplace more public, not a small village hundreds of miles away from anything? She shuddered to think of how much more danger she would have been in if he hadn’t attacked her in Anchorage. What if they’d already driven for hours before he finally began his assault? They might have never found her body, not with this snow.

  But wait…

  Cosette squeezed her eyes shut, trying to concentrate, trying to erase Grace’s voice droning in her ears.

  Cosette had something important to say. She figured something out.

  “He ran out of gas.”

  Her dad stared at her and crossed his arms. Detective Grace froze with her pen poised in the air. Her mom reached over and felt Cosette’s forehead.

  “He said he filled up when he got to Anchorage, but we’d only been driving for a little bit when his gas light went off.” Cosette was growing more and more excited by the second. Unfortunately, none of the others seemed to grasp the significance of what she was saying.

  “If he lied to you for months about his identity,” Mom began, “he certainly wouldn’t have a problem lying to you about filling up his tank.”

  Cosette shook her head, ignoring the way the motion made the room spin and her stomach churn. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  Mom eyed the red call button, and Cosette wondered if she was about to summon a nurse. But this wasn’t some reaction to her meds or any kind of disorientation. Cosette was thinking more clearly than she had all day.

  “If Josh wanted to attack me, and he already had me in the car planning to drive with him for hours and hours on a basically deserted highway…” Cosette had been on a roll, then she lost her train of thought. Her mom looked confused. Dad still frowned, but Detective Grace’s eyes held a hint of understanding.

  “So why didn’t he drive you out to someplace more remote?” Grace finished for her.

  Cosette smiled, feeling for the first time a surge of gratitude for the detective and everything she was doing to help solve this case. “Exactly. I mean, if you’re bent on attacking or murdering someone, why do it at a gas station in a city when you could drive for an hour and be totally secluded? Right?”

  “That’s easy,” Mom answered. “You said he had to stop for gas because his tank was low.”

  “But he still could have waited to attack her if he wanted,” Dad replied. Cosette wanted to throw her arms around him.

  Grace let out a sigh, and Cosette braced herself for the part where the detective poked holes in all of Cosette’s arguments. Instead, she said, “I’m going to radio a few things in. Don’t go anywhere until I get back.”

  “I told you he wouldn’t do something like that to me.” Cosette’s new realization was an even more potent painkiller than anything the medical staff at the hospital had to offer.

  She glanced from her mother to her father, smiling with excitement.

  Unfortunately, her parents didn’t seem to share her enthusiasm.

  “I’m not sure,” Mom mumbled.

  Dad said something about criminals often doing things that don’t make sense, which is why people like Detective Grace have to work so hard to find them.

  Cosette didn’t care. She knew Josh was innocent. She just had to convince her parents and Detective Grace. Then they could all start trying to piece together what happened to her boyfriend so that wherever he was, whatever had happened to him, Cosette could make sure he was rescued and brought back home to her safe and unharmed.

  Hopefully unharmed, at least. If he was lucky.

  No, she reminded herself. Not lucky. Blessed.

  She still refused to believe Josh might be dead or critically wounded. God wouldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t have brought the two of them together across so many miles if he didn’t mean for them to stay together forever. Isn’t that basically what the waitress at the diner had said?

  Wait, that was the answer. The way to convince her parents of Josh’s innocence. They didn’t believe her because they’d never met Josh. Never seen his face, never heard his voice. All they had to go on were the wounds they saw on Cosette’s body, the information the detective had told them, and a general mistrust for internet dating to begin with.

  But what if she could introduce them to someone who knew Josh? Who’d met him face to face? Who’d sat down and shared a deep conversation with him and Cosette about their relationship? An impartial witness who could vouch for his good character?

  “There’s a waitress I want you to talk to,” Cosette began. She wasn’t discouraged when her parents’ expressions betrayed a hint of tired surprise. She had to explain it better, had to be more specific.

  “Josh and I met a waitress at the diner last night,” she continued. “She was really nice and sat down with us for what must have been at least twenty or thirty minutes. And she kept going on and on about how good a pair we were and how she could tell it was God who’d brought us together. And she adored Josh. She really did. We talked for a really long time. She could tell you…”

  Mom reached out and rechecked Cosette’s forehead. Dad just shook his head. “You can’t expect to know someone you’ve just met. It’s true for this waitress, it’s true for you and this Adam guy…”

  “His name is Josh,” Cosette snapped.

  “Whatever he’s called,” Mom added hurriedly, “your father’s right, dear. It’s too hard to get to know what someone’s really like when all you’ve done is talk with them for ten or fifteen minutes.”

  “You seemed to trust the detective as soon as you got here,” Cosette argued. “And the doctors and nurses you’ve been asking questions to like crazy.”

  She hadn’t meant to let her voice sound so angry. Hadn’t intended to react in a way that so visibly hurt her mom.

  Dad continued to frown. Cosette sensed a lecture coming. “We trust the detective,” he began, “because she’s a public servant and a woman in uniform. Same thing with the doctors and nurses. They’re professionals. It’s their job to take care of you and tell you the truth. I don’t think I should need to remind you it was a nurse who found you and saved your life last night at that gas station.”

  For a moment, Cosette recognized the ridiculousness of this entire scene. Here she was, not a full day after being poisoned and then stabbed multiple times with a knife, and her dad was talking down to her as if she were fifteen years old again.

  “Yes, I know it was a nurse who found me,” Cosette snapped. “I may be drugged up, but I’m not stupid.”

  “Calm down, dear,” Mom began, and Cosette worried she’d slap her mother’s hand away if she tried to check her forehead for fever one more time. “It’s not good for your health.”

  “Good for my health?” Cosette’s voice rose. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that we were all here for my annual exam. Which, if you’ll recall, I pay for with my own insurance money now.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about the hospital bill,” Mom ch
ided. “Your father and I will get that squared away and taken care of.”

  “I’m not talking about the bill. I’m talking about the fact that I’m a grown adult. I’m not a little kid anymore. When I was younger, you looked out for me, kept me out of danger, and taught me about safety and everything else. Okay? I learned all those things. And I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining,” she added. “You both did a really good job. But I’m grown now. I know what I know, and I know that Josh would never, ever hurt me. He didn’t do this to me. I don’t know anything about that Adam Bird or whatever his name is. I don’t know about the dead girlfriend who was found stabbed. But I know that Josh is not a murderer. He’s not an assailant. He’s not the one who did this to me.”

  Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes, and Cosette swiped at them angrily before her mom could lean down and dab them with a tissue.

  “You’re tired,” Mom began, but Dad stepped forward and put his hand on her shoulder.

  He met Cosette’s teary gaze. “What do you want us to do for you? How can we best help?”

  “I want you to believe me.” Cosette nearly choked on the words and had to repeat them to make sure her parents understood. “I just want you to believe me.”

  Her mom opened her mouth to say something, but Dad cleared his throat. “Okay. I believe you.”

  For a moment, Cosette worried that maybe she truly had worked herself into a drug-induced delirium. “What did you say?” she croaked, her throat raw and clenched.

  “I said we believe you.”

  Mom was about to interrupt, but Dad gave her shoulder a second squeeze.

  “You’re a grown young lady,” he went on, “and you’re the one who’s spent these past months getting to know this boy. This man, I should say. And you’re right. We raised you well. We taught you to be a good judge of character. So if you’re able to look me in the eye and tell me that this guy you met wasn’t the one who attacked you, I believe you. And I’ll be here when you talk to the detective and tell her it’s time to look at somebody else.”