Tess Gerritsen - Ice Cold

The bloodhound wheeled around and leaped at her again. Weakly she raised an arm to protect her throat and waited to feel teeth sink into her flesh.

A flash of gray suddenly soared past, and Bear collided in midair with the bloodhound. The yelp was as startling as a human shriek. The two dogs thrashed and rolled, ripping at fur, their growls so savage that Maura could only huddle in terror. Red spatters stained the snow, shockingly bright. The hound tried to pull away, but Bear gave him no chance to retreat, and again dove straight at him. Both dogs tumbled, plowing a blood-smeared trench through the snow.

“Bear, stop!” commanded Rat. He came into the clearing, clutching a branch, ready to swing it. But the bloodhound had had enough, and the instant Bear released him, the hound fled back toward the truck, crashing through underbrush in his panic to escape.

“You’re bleeding,” said Rat.

She tore off her soaked glove and stared at her lacerated palm. The slice was clean and deep, made by something razor-sharp. In the churned-up snow, she saw scraps of sheet metal and a jumble of dull gray canisters, dredged up by the dogs when they’d thrashed and rolled. All around her were snow-covered hummocks, and she realized she was kneeling in a field of construction debris. She looked down at her bleeding hand. Just the place to pick up tetanus.

A rifle blast jolted her straight. The men had not yet given up the chase.

Rat pulled her to her feet and they plunged back into the cover of woods. Though their tracks would be easy to follow, the men pursuing them would not be able to keep up in deep snow. Bear led the way, his bloodstained fur like a scarlet flag waving ahead of them as he trotted deeper into the valley. Blood continued to stream from Maura’s sliced palm, and she pressed her already saturated glove against the wound as she obsessed irrationally about bacteria and gangrene.

“Once we lose them,” said Rat, “we have to get back up the ridge.”

“They’ll track us back to your shelter.”

“We can’t stay there. We’ll pack as much food as we can carry and keep moving.”

“Who were those men?”

“I don’t know.”

“Were they from The Gathering?”

“I don’t know.”

“Goddamn it, Rat. What do you know?”

He glanced back at her. “How to stay alive.”

They were climbing now, moving steadily up the ridge, and every step was a labor. She did not know how he could cover ground so quickly.

“You have to get me to a telephone,” she said. “Let me call the police.”

“He owns them. They just do what he wants.”

“Are you talking about Jeremiah?”

“No one goes against the Prophet. No one ever fights back, not even my mom. Not even when they-” He stopped talking and suddenly focused his energy on attacking the ridge.

She halted on the slope, out of breath. “What did they do to your mom?”

He just kept climbing, his anger driving him at a killing pace.

“Rat.” She scrambled to catch up. “Listen to me. I have friends, people I trust. Just get me to a telephone.”

He paused, his breath clouding the air like a steam engine. “Who are you going to call?”

Daniel was her first thought. But she remembered all the times when she could not reach him, all the awkward phone conversations when others were listening in, and he had been forced to speak in code. Now, when she needed him most, she did not know if she could count on him.

Maybe I never could.

“Who is this friend?” Rat persisted.

“Her name is Jane Rizzoli.”

SHERIFF FAHEY DID NOT LOOK HAPPY TO SEE JANE AGAIN. EVEN FROM across the room, she could read his face through the glass partition, a look of dismay, as if he expected her to issue some new demand. He rose from his desk and resignedly stood waiting in his doorway as she crossed toward him, past law enforcement personnel who were now familiar with the three visitors from Boston. Before she could ask the expected question, he headed her off with the same answer he’d given her for two days in a row.

“There are no new developments,” he said.

“I didn’t come in expecting any,” said Jane.

“Trust me, I’ll call you if anything changes. There’s really no need for you folks to keep dropping in.” He glanced past her shoulder. “So where are your two gentlemen today?”

“They’re back at the hotel, packing. I thought I’d come by to thank you before we head to the airport.”

“You’re leaving?”

“We’re flying back to Boston this afternoon.”

“I hear rumors there’s a private jet involved. Must be nice.”

“It’s not my jet.”

“His, huh? The guy in black. He’s a strange fella.”

“Sansone’s a good man.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to know. We see a lot of folks around here who are loaded with money. Hollywood types, big-shot politicians. Buy themselves a few hundred acres, call themselves ranchers, and then they think they got a right to tell us how to do our jobs.” Although he was talking about nameless others, his words were really directed at her, at the Boston outsiders who’d swooped into his county and sucked up his attention.

“She was our friend,” said Jane. “You can understand why we’d want to do everything possible to find her.”

“Quite a group of friends she collected. Cops. A priest. A rich guy. Must’ve been quite a woman.”

“She was.” She looked down as her cell phone rang and saw a Wyoming area code, but she did not recognize the number. “Excuse me,” she said to Fahey and answered the call. “Detective Rizzoli.”

“Jane?” The voice was close to a sob. “Thank God you answered!”

For a moment Jane could not utter a sound. She stood mute and paralyzed, the cell phone pressed to her ear, the noise of the sheriff’s office drowned out by the pounding of her own pulse. I am talking to a ghost.

“I thought you were dead!” Jane blurted.

“I’m alive. I’m okay!”

“Jesus, Maura, we had your memorial service!” Tears suddenly stung Jane’s eyes, and she wiped them away with an impatient swipe of her sleeve. “Where the hell are you? Do you have any idea what-”

“Listen. Listen to me.”

Jane sucked in a breath. “I’m right here.”

“I need you to come to Wyoming. Please come and get me.”

“We’re already here.”

“What?”

“We’ve been working with the police to find your body.”

“Which police?”

“The Sublette County sheriff. I’m standing in his office right now.” She turned to find that Fahey was right beside her, his eyes full of questions. “Just tell us where you are and we’ll come get you.”

There was no answer.

“Maura? Maura?”

The line had gone dead. She hung up and stared at the number on her call history. “I need an address!” she yelled, and recited the phone number. “It’s a Wyoming area code!”

“That was her?” Fahey asked.

“She’s alive!” Jane gave a joyous laugh as she dialed the number. It rang and rang unanswered. She disconnected and redialed. Again, there was no answer. She stared at her cell phone, willing it to ring again.

Fahey went back to his desk and tried calling from his phone. By now everyone in the office was riveted to the conversation, and they watched as he punched in the number. He stood drumming his fingers on the desk and finally hung up.

“I’m not getting an answer, either,” he said.

“But she just called me from that number.”

“What did she say?”

“She asked me to come get her.”

“Did she give you any idea where she is? What happened to her?”

“She never got the chance. We were cut off.” Jane looked down at her silent cell phone, as if it had betrayed her.