Tess Gerritsen - Ice Cold

He kept chewing, his attention ferociously focused on filling his belly.

“Rat, you know as well as I do that they’re going to come after us. We can’t survive out here.”

“I’ll take care of you. We’ll do okay.”

“Living on dog food? Hiding in snow caves?”

“I know a place, up in the mountains. We can stay there all winter, if we have to.” He held out packets of powdered dairy creamer. “Here. Dessert.”

“They won’t give up. Not when the victim is a cop.” She looked at the bundle containing the dead deputy’s weapon, which Rat had wrapped in a rag and shoved into a shadowy corner, as though it were a corpse he didn’t want to look at. She thought of an autopsy she’d performed on a cop-killer who’d died in police custody. He went nuts on us, must’ve been PCP was what the officers claimed. But the bruises she saw on the torso, the lacerations on the face and scalp, told a different story. Kill a cop and you’ll pay for it was the lesson she’d learned from that. She looked at the boy and suddenly had a vision of him lying on an autopsy table, battered and bloodied by vengeful fists.

“It’s the only way we’ll have a chance of convincing them,” she said. “If we surrender together. Otherwise, they’ll assume we murdered that man with his own gun.”

The blunt assessment seemed to shake him, and the kibble suddenly fell from his hand as he lowered his head. She could not see his face, but she saw him shaking in the firelight and knew that he was crying.

“It was an accident,” she said. “I’ll tell them that. I’ll tell them you were only trying to protect me.”

He shook harder, pulling his arms around himself as though to stifle the sobs. Bear moved closer, whining, and laid his huge head on the boy’s knee.

She reached out to touch his arm. “If we don’t surrender, we look guilty. You see that, don’t you?”

He shook his head.

“I’ll make them believe me. I swear, I won’t let them blame you for this.” She gave him a shake. “Rat, trust me on this.”

He pulled away from her. “Don’t.”

“I’m only thinking of what’s best for you.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Somebody has to.”

“You’re not my mother!”

“Well, you could use a mother right now!”

“I have one!” he cried. His head came up, and his face glistened with tears. “What good did it do me?”

For that she had no good answer. In silence she watched as he ashamedly wiped away the tears, leaving streaks on his soot-stained face. For days, he’d struggled so hard to be a man. The tears reminded her that he was just a boy, a boy who was now too proud to meet her gaze, to show her how frightened he felt. Instead he focused his attention on the packets of powdered creamer, which he ripped open and emptied in his mouth.

She tore open her own packets. Some of the contents spilled onto her hand, and she let Bear lap the powder off her skin. When he’d licked it clean, he gave her face a few licks as well, and she laughed. She noticed that Rat was watching them.

“How long has Bear been with you?” she asked, stroking the dog’s thick winter fur.

“Few months.”

“Where did you find him?”

“He’s the one who found me.” He held out his hand and smiled as Bear moved back to him. “I walked out of school one day, and he just came right up to me. Followed me home.”

She smiled, too. “I guess he needed a friend.”

“Or he knew I needed one.” Finally he looked up at her. “Do you have a dog?”

“No.”

“Kids?”

She paused. “No.”

“Didn’t you want any?”

“It just didn’t happen.” She sighed. “My life is… complicated.”

“Must be. If you can’t even keep a dog.”

She laughed. “Yeah. I’ll definitely have to sort out my priorities.”

Another silence passed. Rat lifted Bear’s head and rubbed their faces together. As she sat by the sputtering fire, watching the boy commune silently with his dog, he suddenly seemed much younger than his sixteen years. A child in a man’s body.

“Rat?” she asked quietly. “Do you know what happened to your mother and sister?”

He stopped stroking the dog, and his hand went still. “He took them away.”

“The Prophet?”

“He decides everything.”

“But you didn’t see it? You weren’t there when it happened?”

He shook his head.

“Did you go into the other houses? Did you see…” She hesitated. “The blood?” she asked quietly.

“I saw it.” His gaze lifted to hers, and she saw that the blood’s significance had not been lost on him. This is why I’m still alive, she thought. Because he knew what the blood meant. He knew what would happen to me if I stayed in Kingdom Come.

Rat hugged the dog, as though only in Bear would he find the solace he needed. “She’s only fourteen. She needs me to look out for her.”

“Your sister?”

“When they took me away, Carrie tried to stop them. She screamed and screamed, but my mom just kept holding on to her. Telling her I had to leave. I had to be shunned.” His hand tightened to a fist in the dog’s fur. “That’s why I went back. For her. For Carrie.” He looked up. “But she wasn’t there. No one was there.”

“We’ll find her.” Maura reached out and held his arm, the way he was now holding Bear. They were joined, the three of them, woman, boy, and dog. An unlikely union forged by hardship into something close to love. Maybe even stronger than love. I couldn’t help Grace, she thought. But I’ll do whatever it takes to save this boy. “We’ll find her, Rat,” she said. “Somehow this will turn out all right. I swear it will.”

Bear gave a loud whine and closed his eyes.

“He doesn’t believe you, either,” said Rat.

JANE WATCHED HER HUSBAND METHODICALLY PACK AN INTERNAL-frame backpack, cramming every nook with necessities. In went the sleeping bag and Therm-a-Rest, the one-man tent, winter camping stove, and freeze-dried meals. In smaller pockets he stuffed a compass and knife and headlamp, parachute cord and first-aid kit. No space was wasted, no ounce of weight unnecessary. He and Sansone had bought the equipment earlier that evening and now Gabriel’s items were organized on the hotel bed, small items clustered into stuff sacks, the water bottles wrapped with ever-useful duct tape. He had done this many times before, as a young back-country hiker, and later as a marine. The weapon now strapped to his hip was an unnerving reminder that this was not merely a winter camping trip.

“I should be going with you two,” said Jane.

“No you shouldn’t. You need to stay behind and monitor phone calls.”

“What if something goes wrong out there?”

“If it does, I’ll feel a lot better knowing you’re here and safe.”

“Gabriel, I always thought we were a team.”

He set down the backpack and shot her a wry smile. “And which member of this team is allergic to camping in any way, shape, or form?”

“I’ll do it if I have to.”

“You have no winter camping experience.”

“Sansone doesn’t, either.”

“But he’s fit and strong. I don’t think you can even lift that pack. Go ahead. Try.”

She grabbed the backpack and hefted it off the bed. Through gritted teeth she said, “I can do it.”

“Now imagine that much weight on your back as you climb a mountain. Imagine carrying that pack for hours, for days, and at altitude. Imagine trying to keep up with men who have about fifty pounds more muscle than you have. Jane, we both know that’s not realistic.”

She released the pack and it thudded onto the floor. “You don’t know this terrain.”