On Thin Ice. Linda Hall

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СКАЧАТЬ She pulled Alec’s toque firmly down around her ears. It was still warm from his head and it smelled like him.

      There was a hint of a smile on his face. “Okay then, Megan…” He emphasized the name, elongating the e. “We have to get off this lake. Where’s your car?”

      “I parked it up by the town dock.”

      He said, “My stool and fishing gear are over there. I’m going to grab them and then we’re going to make tracks toward your car.”

      “What about your car?”

      “I live in town. I walked here.”

      The light snow had stopped and ice crystals gave the air a sheen. As she walked in step with Alec, the events of the past two weeks came to her in sharp clarity.

      Even though it had been a long time since the two had corresponded, it had been shock to learn that her school friend Sophia had died. She managed to find the e-mail address for Sophia’s sister, Pam, and conveyed her sympathy. Pam was pleased to hear from Megan after all these years, but wrote back that the entire thing was “fishy.” When the family was finally able to retrieve her car from the Pacific Ocean, they determined that the brake cables had been worn to the point of being nonexistent. This was so unlike Sophia, Pam wrote. Sophia always kept her things in pristine condition.

      The police were looking into it, Pam had said. But they had no leads. Sophia left behind a husband and two children. Sophia was to have been maid of honor at Megan’s wedding to Alec.

      Seven days later when her other friend Jennifer had died in the same kind of accident in Augusta, Maine, Megan began to be afraid. Jennifer was to have been her bridesmaid.

      “They’ve gone,” he said. “Whoever it was.”

      “How do you know?” she asked.

      “I saw someone get into a truck. We need to hurry, though.” She kept in step with him. “Megan, do you have your keys?”

      She pushed shaky, cold fingers into her pocket and handed him the keys to her Toyota. He could drive. She didn’t think she would be quite capable.

      “We’ve got to move,” he said. “We’re okay now. He’s gone. But we’ve got to move fast. We have to get off the lake. We’re sitting ducks out here.”

      She found it hard to keep up with his long strides. About a dozen feet from the shoreline she felt her feet slip out from under her. Before she fell, Alec reached one strong arm over and caught her. When they reached the shoreline, he was still holding on to her tightly.

      All of this closeness to a man who had hurt her so profoundly was sending her very being into confusion. His touch was melting feelings long dead and cold within her.

      “Alec, I have to ask you something. Why did you leave?” she said as they reached the car.

      He didn’t turn to her and she wondered if he hadn’t heard her. Perhaps not. Perhaps she only whispered it. She didn’t repeat the question. But would she finally learn why he had walked away from her twenty years before?

      TWO

      Alec put the keys in the ignition of Meggie’s silver Toyota and the engine came to life. He aimed it up toward the parking lot entrance. They needed to get out of there and he needed to figure out what was going on.

      When they reached the street he pulled out his cell phone and made two calls in quick succession. The first was to his new deputy, Stu. “Someone is shooting out at the lake,” he said. “About half a mile north of the fishing shacks. Could be kids.” He knew it wasn’t kids, but he was conscious of keeping his demeanor calm. He didn’t want to show Meggie the rising panic he was beginning to feel. Megan, he corrected himself. “We need to check it out. Pick up any shell casings you can find. I’ll be there as soon as I can…” He described the precise location and urged Stu to hurry. As best as he could remember he described the truck he’d seen leaving. “Dark in color. Late model, small. I wasn’t close enough to get a make on it,” he said.

      He glanced over at Megan, and everything in him wanted to protect her this time, not leave her. Not like last time.

      His next call was to his trusted friend, retired Special Forces Major Steve Baylor. Steve and his wife Nori owned and managed Trail’s End Resort and Cabins. Alec often called upon Steve’s expertise and Alec could sure use his friend’s levelheaded help right about now. Steve had worked more cases with snipers and ballistics and trajectories in a month than Alec had in his whole career.

      “Steve,” he said. “Someone’s shooting out on the lake. I have a woman with me. We both were caught in the cross fire.” For this call, Megan was just “a woman with him.” He couldn’t go into specific details on the phone. Even his closest friend, Steve, didn’t know about Megan, about that part of his life.

      Calls complete, he closed his cell phone and put it back in his pocket. He was glad he had insisted on driving. The woman beside him, who hugged her arms around herself, was in no shape to drive. Of course she was more than “just a woman,” she was his Meggie. Even after all these years. He looked back at the road lest he let his gaze rest on her too long or spend too much time remembering and regretting.

      Long-ago memories entered unbidden into his thinking as he drove. The girl he had fallen in love with had blond hair, which she wore straight and halfway down her back. Round glasses used to cover half her face. This Megan was thinner, more studious looking than his high school Meggie. His Meggie was pretty. This Megan, who folded her gloved hands on her lap to keep them from shaking, was stunningly beautiful. She still wore his hat. He liked the way it looked on her.

      Alec already knew Sophia and Jennifer had died in car accidents. His brother Bryan, even from his home in New Mexico, kept track of everyone from those days. He’d called Alec with the news.

      “They look to be too coincidental to me,” Bryan had said. “Don’t they to you?”

      They did, indeed.

      Megan shifted in her seat. He still couldn’t believe that she was here in Whisper Lake Crossing. This time he would believe what she told him. This time he would listen to his own heart rather than the arguments and reasonings of his family.

      He hadn’t hung in there when Megan’s grandmother had died and his own brother was arrested for the murder. But, more importantly, he hadn’t believed Megan.

      “Where are we going?” she asked.

      “My office.”

      “Good. That’s good.” She looked down at her hands. “We need to figure this out.” She paused. “I just want you to know that I never would have come if there was any other way. Just so you know.”

      She never would have come. Her words cut him to the quick. After his brother was arrested, he had tried to talk to her. He had called but she never answered. She hadn’t even attended the trial. She had disappeared, and he was the only person who knew why she had left town in such a hurry. She had been pregnant, carrying his baby. It was a secret they had kept from everyone.

      Their child would be almost twenty years old now. A grown-up person in his or her own right. Through the years he had thought of hiring a private investigator to find his child. He never did. He knew he didn’t СКАЧАТЬ