Michele Hauf - Storm Warning

Bay tilted his head, a casual thought process taking place inside his perfectly coiffed head. He wore a suit, for some damn reason, and it looked like his fingernails had been manicured for the glossy shine. Was that what women found attractive? Yikes.

“Go for it,” Bay said. “The locals are more likely to be comfortable talking to someone they know. When I consult on a case, I like to guide and keep track, but ultimately, this is your case, Cash. I’m not going to trample on your turf. And I’m starving. I haven’t eaten yet today.”

“Then The Moose is your next stop.” Jason picked up the documents Marjorie had left for him on his desk. “You staying in town?”

“There’s no motel. Snow Lake has a halfway decent Best Western and free coffee.”

“Not a problem. My office is yours. I’ll let you know what I learn.” Jason strode out and through the reception area, pleased that Bay was easygoing. Which would give him all the rope he required to control this investigation. He really needed this one. It was an opportunity to show the powers that be that he had what it took to manage real police work, and that the Frost Falls police force, as small as it was, was a necessity.

Instead of the snowmobile, he’d drive the Ford. He could use some warmth. Turning up the car heater to blast, Jason rolled down Main Street, the car tires crunching as if across Styrofoam as they moved over the packed snow. He loved that sound. It was hard to describe to anyone who didn’t live on snow six months out of the year. To him it meant home.

From here he could see the small parking lot in front of the gas station. No business name on the broken red-and-white sign above the station. It had been called just “gas station” forever, according to an elder member of the town.

And yet, when Jason cruised closer to the gas station, he saw the black SUV parked around the back side of the white cinder-block building. It was the one licensed to James Smith.

“What the hell?”

He pulled into the station lot. Hopping out of the truck and blowing out a breath that condensed to a fog, Jason quickened his pace into the station.

“Afternoon, Cash,” the owner said from his easy chair placed on a dais behind the cash register. Easier to see out the window and watch the town’s goings-on from that height.

“You rent out any cats this afternoon, Rusty?”

“I just did, not ten minutes ago. Local fellow.”

“Local?”

“Well, you know, he mentioned he was from Duluth. That’s local.”

It was. The port city that sat on Lake Superior was an hour’s drive east and within the St. Louis County lines.

“Gave him directions to the falls and told him to stick to the trails,” Rusty said, “but I think he went east. Idiot. Your brother still with the State Patrol?”

“Justin? Yep. He’s stationed near the Canadian border right now. Big drug-surveillance op going on.”

“Those marijuana farms.” Rusty shook his head.

“You betcha. What was the name of the renter?”

Rusty tapped a crinkled piece of paper hanging from a clipboard to the right of the register. “Smith. Sounded foreign. And not Canadian foreign. He was a mite different. Like those duck hunters they got on that television show.”

“Thanks, Rusty. Gotta go.”

Jason made haste to the truck, and before the door was even closed he pulled out onto the main road and turned to hit the eastbound road that led to the Birch Bower cabin. It was only five miles out, but with each mile the forest thickened and hugged closer on both sides of the narrowing road. It was as desolate as a place could get so close to a small town.

As he drove down the gravel road that the plow only tackled every Monday morning, he noted the snowmobile tracks lain down on the road shoulder. A couple of them. Freshly impressed into the crusted snowpack. One set must belong to Yvette. The other?

“Smith.”

In his next thought, Jason wondered if he were getting worked up over nothing. No. She’d said she didn’t know anyone in town. And yet she had looked at the SUV for a while.

Didn’t feel right to Jason. And if he’d learned anything over the years, it was to trust his intuition.

* * *

ONE OF THE reasons Yvette hadn’t minded leaving home for a while was that she’d been questioning her job choice for some time now. She’d never been fooled that being a field operative for an international security agency was glamourous or even 24/7 action-adventure. The job could be tedious at times. Mildly adrenalizing, at best. Most people associated spies with glamour and blockbuster movies. In truth, the average agent spent more time doing boring surveillance than the few minutes of contact with a suspect that might provide that thrill of action.

Yet beyond the intrigue and danger, a surprising moral struggle had presented itself to her when she was faced with pulling the trigger on a human target. She was not a woman prone to crying fits. And yet, the tears had threatened when she’d been standing in the field, gun aimed at a person and—she’d been unable to pull the trigger. Human life meant something to her. Even if the human she had been charged to fire at was a criminal who had committed vile crimes. She’d not expected to only realize such moral leanings until the heat of the moment, but that pause had changed her life irreversibly.

She asked for a change of pace and had, thankfully, been allowed to continue her work in data tech. A job that didn’t fulfill her in any tangible manner. It had become an endless stream of data on the computer screen.

Now seclusion in a snow-covered cabin offered an excellent time to consider her future. Did she really want to continue on this career path? Days ago, she’d started a list of pros and cons regarding her current employer.

Yvette tapped the pen beside her temple as she delved deep for another pro. She felt it necessary to write down the good as well as the bad reasons to stay or leave. Solid and tangible. Easy to review. Difficult to deny once inked on paper. Because she’d followed in her parents’ footsteps, career-wise. Had thought she was cut out for the gritty hard-core work it required.

Yet to her surprise, the desk job had, strangely, become more dangerous than fieldwork. She had seen something on the computer screen that she was not supposed to see. She just didn’t know what that something was, because it had been a list, and perhaps even coded.

Setting aside the pros and cons list and getting up to stretch, she exhaled. She’d been working on the list for an hour while listening to the wind whip against the exterior timber walls. A blizzard was forecast.

“Joy,” she muttered mirthlessly and wandered into the kitchen.

No thought cells could operate without a healthy dose of chocolate. Plucking a mug out of the cupboard, she then filled the teapot with water and set that on the stove burner.

She shook the packet of hot chocolate mix into the mug. Right now, she needed a heat injection. Her toes were freezing, even though she wore two layers of socks. And her fingers felt like ice. She’d turned up the heater upon returning from the grocery run, but it didn’t want to go any higher than seventy-four degrees.

With the wind scraping across the windows, she felt as if she sat in a wooden icebox. A glance to the fireplace made her sigh. A woodpile sat neatly stacked outside and behind the house. The owners had suggested she carry some in before too much snow fell, but she’d not done that. After she’d fortified her chilled bones with hot chocolate, she’d have to bundle up and bring out the ax to chip the frozen logs apart. The night demanded a toasty fire in the hearth.

The teapot whistled, and she poured the steaming water into the mug. Oh, how she missed the thick, dark chocolate drink served exclusively by the French tea shop Angelina. Unfortunately, the shop hadn’t come to Lyon, but she visited Paris often enough and stocked up when there.