Dan Simmons - Hard Freeze

Jason cried out and folded over but kept his grip on Hansen's wrist, trying to foil his stepfather's aim.

Hansen kicked the boy's feet out from under him and Jason flew backward onto the empty bed, pulling Hansen with him. But Hansen was succeeding in swiveling the muzzle lower, even as Jason clung to his right arm with both hands, panting and swearing. Now the boy was sobbing entreaties. "Please, no, no. Mom, help. No, no, no. God damn you—"

Hansen got the angle and shot the kid in the chest.

Jason gasped, his mouth flopping open like a landed fish's, but still clung to Hansen's wrist, trying to deflect a second shot. Hansen put his knee on the boy's bloody chest, forcing the last of the air out of his lungs, and wrenched his right arm free of the boy's weakening grip.

"Dad…" gasped the wounded teenager.

Hansen shook his head… no… set the muzzle against the boy's forehead, and pulled the trigger.

Gasping, out of breath and almost shaking from the exertion, Hansen went into the guest bathroom. Somehow he had avoided getting blood or brain matter on his topcoat and trousers. His black shoes were spattered, however. He used one of the pink guest towels to clean his shoes and then he splashed water on his face and hands, drying them with the other towel.

The guest room was a mess—dresser knocked askew, mirror broken, the green coverlet on one of the beds crumpled under Jason's sprawled body. The boy's mouth was still open wide as if in a silent scream. Hansen went to the window and looked out for a minute, but he had no real concern that the neighbors had heard the shots. The houses were too far away and sealed for winter.

The snow was falling more heavily and the sky was very dark to the west. Dickson, their Irish setter, ran back and forth in the dog run.

Hansen felt light, his mind clear, energy flowing much as it did after a good workout at the gym. The worst had happened—someone taking his souvenir briefcase—but he still had options. James B. Hansen was too intelligent not to have backup plans beneath his backup plans. This was a setback, one of the most bizarre he'd ever encountered, but he had long anticipated someone discovering not only the falsehood of one of his identities, but the full chain of his lives and crimes. There was a plastic surgeon waiting in Toronto, a new life in Vancouver.

But first, details. It was too bad that the thief—Kurtz or whoever it was—had taken his C-4 explosive. That would have reduced this part of the house to such shambles that it would take an explosives forensic team weeks or months to figure out what had happened here. But even a basic fire would give him time. Especially if there was the usual third body in the house.

Sighing, aggrieved that he had to spend the time, Hansen went out, locked the door behind him, and drove the big Cadillac SUV to the rental freezer. There he retrieved all of the cash from the body bags, chose Cadaver Number 4 from the shelves, tossed the frozen corpse into the back of the Escalade, and drove home, taking care not to speed in the heavy snow. He passed several snowplows working but almost no traffic. Donna must have been correct about schools closing early.

The house was just as he'd left it Hansen put the Cadillac Escalade in the garage, brought his dog, Dickson, inside, and closed the garage door before hauling the cadaver up the stairs, removing it from its plastic wrapping and laying it on the bed next to Donna. The corpse was in street clothes from two years ago when he had killed the man, but Hansen went into his own closet and pulled out a tweed jacket he had never liked very much. The body's arms were frozen at its sides, but Hansen draped the jacket over its shoulders. He also removed his Rolex from his wrist and set it on the cadaver's wrist. Thinking he would need a watch of his own, he undid Jason's and slid it in his trouser pocket.

He carried in the five jerricans of gasoline stored in the garage. Burn the place now and leave forever? Caution said that he should, but there were still elements left to be resolved. Hansen might need something from the house—some of the guns, perhaps—and he had no time to pack now.

Leaving the cans of gas with Dickson in the living room. Hansen carefully locked the house, pulled the Cadillac SUV out of the garage, beeped the garage door shut, and drove back downtown to plant the.38 in Kurtz's room.

Donald Rafferty was glad to get out of the hospital.

He had a broken wrist, bruises on his ribs and abdomen, and bandages on his head. The mild concussion still hurt like a sonofabitch, but Rafferty knew that he'd hurt a lot worse than that if he didn't get the hell out of the hospital and the hell out of town.

He'd been lucky with the child-abuse/molestation rap. Rafferty had indignantly denied everything to the cops when they interviewed him, pointed out that his adopted daughter Rachel was a typical teenager—hard to handle, given to lying and blaming others for her problems—and that he'd done nothing but go down to the bus station late that night to retrieve her after she'd run away. He was afraid, he told the cops, that she was doing drugs. They'd had a fight—Rachel hated the idea of Rafferty remarrying, even though her real mother had been dead for more than twelve years—and she was still angry at him in the car when he'd hit the black ice and the car had spun off the Kensington.

Yes, Rafferty admitted to the cops, since they had the blood-alcohol test results anyway, he'd been drinking that evening at home—hell, he was worried sick about Rachel, why wouldn't he have a few drinks at home—but what was he supposed to do when she called from the bus station at 2:30 a.m., leave her there? No, the drinking didn't cause the accident—the goddamned snowstorm and black ice had.

Luckily, when Rachel regained consciousness in the ICU, the cops had interviewed her and she'd retracted the story about Rafferty trying to rape her. She seemed confused to the police, probably because of the anesthesia and pain from the surgery. But she'd taken back the accusations she'd made to the paramedics as the firemen were cutting her out of the wreckage of the Honda.

Rafferty felt vindicated. Shit, he'd not come anywhere close to raping her. It was just that the girl was wearing pajamas two sizes too small when she came down to the kitchen to get some cake, Rafferty had been drinking all evening and was frustrated that DeeDee couldn't see him for the next couple of weekends, and he'd made the slight mistake of coming up behind Rachel as she stood at the counter and running his hands over her budding breasts, down her stomach and thighs.

Waiting in the hospital lounge for his taxi to arrive, Rafferty felt himself stir at that memory, even through the pain and the painkillers. He was sorry the brat had screamed and rushed to her room, locking the door and then going out the window and down the garage trellis while he stood like a dork in the hallway, threatening to kick the door down if she didn't come to her senses. She'd taken the last bus from Lockport into the city station, but then realized she didn't have the money to get out of Buffalo. Sobbing, cold—she'd only had time to grab a sweatshirt—she'd finally called Rafferty. This also made him smile. The girl had no one else to go to, which was probably why she'd recanted on her accusations. If she was going to go home at all, she'd have to go home to Donald Rafferty.

Normally, Rafferty would face the driving-under-the-influence charges and take his lumps, but when one of the nurses—not that bitch Gail Whatever, who kept looking in on Rachel and staring at Rafferty like he was some sort of amphibian, but that pretty nurse—had said that Rafferty's brother had stopped in to see him the morning after the accident, his blood had literally run cold. Donald Rafferty's brother was serving time in an Indiana prison. From the nurse's description, this man sounded like Joe Kurtz.