Tess Gerritsen - Ice Cold

Gabriel stood. “I think it’s time to make some calls,” he said, and went into the kitchen. She and Brophy sat silent, listening to him speak in the other room. Using his FBI voice, as Jane liked to call it, the quiet and authoritative tone he adopted for official business. Hearing it now, she found it hard to believe that that voice belonged to the same man who’d been so easily defeated by a stubborn toddler. I should be the one making the calls, she thought. I’m the cop who failed to follow up. But she knew that just hearing those letters FBI would make whoever was on the other end of the line snap to attention. When your husband’s a fibbie, you might as well take advantage of it.

“… female, age forty-two, I think. Black hair. Five foot six, around a hundred twenty pounds…”

“Why would she check out of the hotel a day early?” Brophy said softly. He was sitting rigid in the armchair, staring straight ahead. “That’s what I haven’t figured out yet, why she did that. Where was she going, another town, another hotel? Why suddenly change her plans?”

Maybe she met someone. A man. Jane didn’t want to say it, but that was the first thought that occurred to her, the first thought that would occur to any cop. A lonely woman on a business trip. A woman whose lover has just disappointed her. Along comes an attractive stranger who suggests a little drive out of town. Ditch the old plans and have a little adventure.

Maybe she had an adventure with the wrong man.

Gabriel came back into the living room, carrying the portable phone. “He’ll call us right back.”

“Who?” asked Brophy.

“The detective in Jackson. He said they’ve had no traffic fatalities over the weekend, and he’s not aware of any hospitalized patients who remain unidentified.”

“What about…” Brophy paused.

“Or bodies, either.”

Brophy swallowed and slumped back into the chair. “So we know that much, at least. She’s not lying in some hospital.”

Or the morgue. It was an image Jane tried to block out, but there it was: Maura stretched out on the table like so many other corpses that Jane had stared down at. Anyone who’d ever stood in an autopsy room and watched a postmortem had surely imagined the nightmarish scene of someone they knew or loved lying on the table. No doubt it was the same image that was now tormenting Daniel Brophy.

Jane brewed another pot of coffee. Out in Wyoming, it would be eleven PM. The phone remained ominously silent as they watched the clock.

“You never know, she may surprise us.” Jane laughed, jittery from too much caffeine and sugar. “She may turn up at work tomorrow, right on time. Tell us that she lost her cell phone or something.” It was a lame explanation, and neither man bothered to respond.

The ringing phone made them all snap straight. Gabriel picked up the receiver. He did not say much; nor did his face reveal what information he was hearing. But when he hung up and looked at Jane, she knew the news was not good.

“She never returned the rental car.”

“They checked with Hertz?”

Gabriel nodded. “She picked it up Tuesday at the airport, and was supposed to return it this morning.”

“So the car’s missing as well.”

“That’s right.”

Jane did not look at Brophy; she didn’t want to see his face.

“I guess that settles it,” said Gabriel. “There’s only one thing we can do.”

Jane nodded. “I’ll call my mom in the morning. I’m sure she’ll be happy to watch Regina. We can drop her off on the way to the airport.”

“You’re flying to Jackson?” asked Brophy.

“If we can find two seats on a flight tomorrow,” said Jane.

“Make it three,” Brophy said. “I’m coming, too.”

MAURA AWAKENED TO THE SOUND OF ARLO’S CHATTERING TEETH. Opening her eyes, she saw it was still dark, but sensed that dawn was near, that the blackness of night was just starting to lift to gray. In the glow from the hearth, she could count the sleeping bodies: Grace curled up on the sofa; Doug and Elaine sleeping close together, almost touching. Always almost touching. She could guess who had migrated toward whom in the night. It was so obvious, now that she was aware of it: the way Elaine looked at Doug, the way she so frequently touched him, her eager acquiescence to everything he suggested. Arlo lay alone beside the hearth, the blanket molding his body like a shroud. His teeth clattered together as a fresh chill gripped his body.

She rose, her back stiff from the floor, and placed more wood in the fireplace. Crouching close, she warmed herself as the fire crackled to life, bright and fierce. Turning, she looked at Arlo, whose face was now illuminated by the flames.

His hair was greasy and stiff with sweat. His skin had taken on the yellowish cast of a corpse. If not for his chattering teeth, she might have thought him already dead.

“Arlo,” she said softly.

Slowly, his eyelids lifted. His gaze seemed to come from some deep and shadowy pit, as though he had fallen far beyond all reach of help. “So… cold,” he whispered.

“I’ve built up the fire again. It’ll be warmer in here soon.” She touched his forehead, and the heat of his skin was so startling that she felt as if her hand were seared. At once she went to the coffee table, where they had lined up all the medicines, and struggled to read the labels in the dark. She found the bottles of amoxicillin and Tylenol, and shook out capsules into her hand. “Here. Take these.”

“What is it?” Arlo grunted as she lifted his head to help him swallow the pills.

“You have a fever. That’s why you’re shivering. These should make you feel better.”

He swallowed the pills and slumped back, seized by another chill so violent that she thought he might be convulsing. But his eyes were open and aware. She surrendered her own blanket to him, draping yet another layer of wool over his body. She knew that she should check the condition of his leg, but the room was still too dark, and she didn’t want to light the kerosene lamp yet, not while everyone else was still asleep. Already the window had brightened. In another hour or so, it would be dawn, and she could examine his limb. But she already knew what she would find. The fever meant his leg was almost certainly infected, and bacteria had invaded his bloodstream. She also knew that the amoxicillin was not a powerful enough antibiotic to save him.

They had only twenty tablets left, anyway.

She glanced at Doug, tempted to wake him so that he could share this burden, but Doug was still deeply asleep. So she alone sat beside Arlo, holding his hand, stroking his arm through the blankets. Though his forehead was hot, his hand was alarmingly chilled, more like dead flesh than living.

And I know what dead flesh feels like.

Since her days as a medical student, it was the autopsy room, and not the patient’s bedside, where she’d felt most comfortable. The dead don’t expect you to make small talk or listen to their endless complaints or watch while they writhe in pain. The dead are beyond pain, and they don’t expect you to perform miracles you are incapable of. They wait patiently and uncomplainingly as long as it takes for you to finish your job.

Looking down at Arlo’s racked face, she thought: It’s not the dead who make me uneasy, but the living.

Yet she remained at his side, holding his hand as dawn broke, as his chills gradually ebbed. He was breathing more easily now, and beads of sweat glistened on his face.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” he asked softly, watching her with eyes that were feverishly bright.

“Why do you ask?”

“Your job. If anyone ever saw a ghost, it would be you.”