Which was just bitchin’.
“Cookie, gee!” And his lead dog, bless her crazy heart, turned to the right, bumped off the street, over a field of snow, and onto Lake Moosehead.
The wind had blown away a lot of the snow here, making the sledding fast and slick, but it was easier on the SUV, too. Karl could hear the truck racing closer, still in reverse. His back felt like one fat target.
“Can you shoot at ’em?” he yelled at Molly.
She snorted. “I can shoot at them, but I won’t hit anything. Not while we’re moving anyway.”
“Shit.” Karl searched the far shore. There was the big ugly oak that twisted to the side, there was that tacky three-story A-frame which, okay, he was kind of jealous of, but not the time… and there was the little dip in the shoreline, totally unnoticeable unless you knew the area like your own hairy balls.
Which he did.
Karl made for that dip in the shore—the spot where Gopher Creek emptied into the lake.
Behind them something popped and the snow beside the dogs exploded.
“Crap! Those assholes are shooting at my dogs!”
Molly was usually pretty quick to speak her mind, but she didn’t reply, and that fact made him even madder than the shooting-at-the-dogs thing. She was scared—he could tell by the hunch of her shoulders—and that just wasn’t right.
Nobody should shut his Molly down.
They were almost to the shore now, almost to that dip, and the SUV seemed to know it. The big truck roared in their wake, suddenly gaining speed, about to crawl up Karl’s ass.
Nearly there. Nearly there. Sweet baby Jesus would they ever get there?
And then they were there.
The dogs and sled turned, riding along the shoreline, fifty feet out. The ice looked just the same here as anywhere else on the lake, but it really wasn’t. The water from Gopher Creek ran beneath, making the ice here thinner.
Dangerously thinner, especially if you were driving a three-ton SUV instead of, say, a sled and a half-dozen dogs.
The truck was right behind them, and for a bowel-loosening moment Karl thought he’d fucked it up. That they’d run down Molly and the dogs and it’d all be his fault.
Then he heard the sweetest sound in the world: a tremendous CRACK!
“Whoa!” He looked over his shoulder as the dogs slowed. The SUV looked like it was bowing to him, the front end tilted down at a forty-five-degree angle.
Someone shouted.
And then the ice just gave way.
The big truck disappeared in a geyser of dark water and ice chunks, splashing out over the top of the frozen lake.
“Oh, my God,” Molly whispered.
“That was…” Karl looked at her, wide-eyed “… the coolest thing ever.”
Her eyes crinkled so beautifully, and her soft, soft pink mouth spread in a smile, and for a moment everything was perfect in Karl’s world.
Then Cookie whimpered.
Cookie never whimpered.
He glanced up. She turned, trying to lick at her butt, and suddenly sat down as if she’d lost her balance. The snow was pink under her feet.
“Karl,” Molly said in a soft, sad voice. “Karl, she’s been shot.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“He’s been shot.”
Stu’s words were matter of fact, but Sam could see the worry in his eyes for his cousin. They were gathered by the meeting place that Sam had decided on: an old, abandoned barn just outside town. It was far enough away to’ve lost any followers, close enough that it wasn’t too hard to ski to.
Or at least Sam had thought that this morning.
Doug was sitting on his sled, white-faced, his mouth set in a grimace. His left arm was red from the shoulder down, wet with blood. It wasn’t a bad injury—the bullet had gone through and the bone wasn’t broken—but in the cold and with the blood loss, Doug might go into shock.
Sam turned to glance again over the snowy fields. The wind had picked up, blowing icy little snow crystals into his face.
May was nowhere in sight.
“She’ll make it,” Stu said.
“Should’ve waited for her,” Sam muttered. “Made sure she was out of town.”
“That wasn’t the plan.” Stu turned to look at his cousin. “Runner’s broke on Doug’s sled and besides, shape he’s in he can’t mush. I can let the dogs loose and put him in my basket with Dylan. It’ll be tight, but we should be able to make it.”
Sam nodded. “You’d best go ahead and take Doug and Dylan to my cabin.”
Stu frowned, glancing back at him. “You and Maisa were supposed to ride the rest of the way back.”
“You and Dylan need to get Doug out of this cold as soon as you can.” Sam shook his head. “You don’t have time to wait.”
“Okay.” Stu sounded relieved. He’d been sneaking anxious glances at his cousin. “You sure you both can ski all the way back to your cabin? Looks like we’re going to get more snow.”
Sam shrugged. “We’ll stop if we have to.”
He was more worried that May still hadn’t made the meeting place.
Sam and Dylan unhitched Doug’s team and helped him into the basket of Stu’s sled. By the time they were done, Doug was moaning quietly under his breath.
“Get going,” he said to Stu.
Stu nodded and yelled, “Hike!” to his dogs.
The dogs took off running.
Sam toed his skis back on and began heading back into town. Dark gray clouds were crowding the horizon, threatening more snow.
He needed to find May before the storm hit.
Ten minutes later, he slowed as he saw the old library up ahead.
A crackle of gunfire came from somewhere close, making adrenaline leap into his veins. Everyone should be out of town by now. There was no reason for shooting.
He bent and unlatched his skis, stowing them by the library, then began moving into town.
Black smoke still trailed from behind the police station. Sam had heard the explosion as he’d skied out of town and a corner of his mouth twitched grimly now. Beridze and his men would be getting very cold very soon with the backup generator out of commission.
Up ahead by Mack’s Speedy, another pop sounded. Not an automatic weapon. Was it May? His blood ran cold at the thought of May having to defend herself.
Sam drew his gun and started lunging through the snow, trying to get closer as fast as he could.
Someone came around the corner of the gas station.
Sam brought up his gun, but it was May and he hastily lowered it.
She looked at him, wide-eyed, and silently pointed behind her.
He nodded and waved her farther away.
She hunkered down by the far end of Mack’s Speedy. There wasn’t much cover there—only a concrete trash can—but it was better than nothing.
Sam began making his way along the side of the service station. He could hear panting close by. A muttered word, maybe in Russian.
Sam brought his gun up, ready, and paused at the back corner of the station. The wind was whistling, blowing the snow up into his face.
He couldn’t hear anything.
If the mafiya thug went the other way around the gas station he’d run into May.
Sam took a breath and rounded the corner.
The guy was right in front of him, but thankfully facing the other way.
He started turning as Sam pulled the trigger.
The first shot went wide, into the space the mafiya’s shoulder had been a second before, but the second shot nailed him squarely in the chest.
And then the thug’s rush hit Sam, making his gun swing up. Shots three and four went into the air as Sam was flung backward into the snow. The man’s breath was sour—from fear, from adrenaline, from exertion. It was a familiar smell, a smell that spun Sam back to Afghanistan and other sour-breathed men who didn’t speak English.
Death’s exhalation was international.
The mafiya thug sh
oved his forearm into Sam’s throat and Sam choked. Sam fought to bring his gun back around. The guy knocked back his hands once, twice, scrabbling for the gun, trying to make Sam drop it. But he was fighting with only one hand. If he raised the arm holding Sam down, Sam would wriggle free.
He couldn’t breathe. He was being slowly choked. It was animal instinct to fight the arm strangling him, but Sam brought his gun around one more time, hard and fast, pulling the trigger as he swung.
The shot deafened him.
The mafiya’s face disappeared in a haze of blood.
Sam pushed the dead meat off him and stood. His ears were ringing, and he tasted blood in his mouth.
The other man’s blood.
Wiping his face with the back of his sleeve, he glanced around. No one else was coming at him from the back of Mack’s Speedy.
He turned.
May stood there in a shooter’s stance, her face milk-white. Her lips moved and he could see that she said, Sam, but either the wind took the word away or his ears still weren’t working.
He strode toward her and took her arm, gently lowering the gun she held. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sam’s face was speckled with blood.
The dead man’s blood.
It was all that May could think about, running in circles in her mind: he was blood splattered. And he’d gotten that way saving her.
She’d known he’d been a soldier, known he was a policeman, but watching him grappling with the thug had made her see him as if for the first time. She’d heard the gunshots, knew Sam was in danger, and had gone to help without thinking.
Except he hadn’t needed her help.
Even held down by a thug who’d looked twice as bulky as Sam, he’d moved with quick, deadly precision. He hadn’t panicked. He’d simply shot the other man.
In the face.
“Where are your skis?” he asked, glancing up and down the street. The snow had started, whipped nearly horizontal by the wind.
May shuddered. She’d never seen such snowfall, storm after storm, one right after another. It was almost unnatural, as if the weather were a malevolent force intent on obliterating them.
“Back by the café,” she shouted into the wind. “He came after me before I had the chance to put them on.”
“Did you get the diamonds?”
She patted her pocket. “Yes.”
“Good.” He glanced back at the café. “We could get your skis, but they might be waiting there. I don’t want to take the chance.”
She gasped as the wind blew straight into her face. “So what do we do? We can’t walk back to your cabin in this.”
“I know another place.”
He had to let go of her hand so that they both could make their way through the snow. It was knee-deep on him, nearly hip-deep for her in places, and it was slow, awkward, sweaty work.
She kept her eyes on him as they made their way. His face was set and stern. He didn’t look as if killing the other man had affected him at all.
Maybe this wasn’t the first time he’d killed.
She shivered at the thought. Only days ago she’d thought him a simple good guy, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t bad, he wasn’t good, he was Sam—a man who’d had to make decisions, take actions that couldn’t be categorized as black or white. She’d thought him naïve. She scoffed to herself.
Turned out she was the naïve one.
She should’ve known that no one was entirely good or bad. That people were complex human beings, capable of doing all sorts of things in order to survive. Even small-town cops.
Maybe that was part of what Sam had been trying to tell her all along. She shivered again, because if Sam wasn’t all white, then maybe Dyadya—and she—weren’t all black.
She wasn’t sure what to think about that.
They were at the edge of town now. The prairie stretched ahead, disappearing into the white-gray of the clouds and the snow-covered ground, and it was nearly impossible to tell where they met.
Maisa bowed her head, trying to shelter her face in the hood of her parka. She should’ve worn a scarf. Her cheeks and lips and nose were numb, ice freezing on her lashes. She blinked hard for a moment, and when she looked again a small, single-story cabin was right in front of them.
Sam waded to the door and bent and began brushing away snow from the step with his hands.
“What are you looking for?” she yelled into the wind.
In answer he stooped and pried at a stone frog the size of a cat. When it didn’t move, he grunted and stood to kick it loose. The frog fell over and he picked it up. There was a hidden compartment underneath and he pulled off one glove with his teeth to open it with his fingers.
He took the key and unlocked the door.
The wind pushed them inside and Sam slammed the door.
For a moment Maisa panted in the dark room. The wind rattled the door.
“Stay here.” Sam opened the door again and disappeared.
Maisa blinked, staring at the closed door. Where the hell was he going? Had he just left her here?
She pivoted, her boots scraping against worn linoleum. She stood in a tiny entryway, demarcated by a half moon of linoleum. To the left was a living area with thin carpeting. To the right was an open galley kitchen with an ancient refrigerator, a narrow avocado-green stove, and a chipped sink. The cabinets were dark wood.
A doormat to the side of the door held two pairs of boots, neatly lined up. It was customary in winter in Minnesota homes to take off snowy boots or shoes, but now that she was out of the wind, she realized just how cold the cabin was. Maisa settled for wiping off her boots thoroughly.
She’d just stepped onto the living room carpet when the door banged open behind her.
She jumped, startled, as Sam stamped in, his arms laden with firewood, and nudged the door closed behind him.
He glanced up and saw her staring. “See if you can find some matches and newspaper. Magazines, if nothing else.”
Of course. She went to the kitchen and began opening the cabinets. Behind her, she could hear Sam tossing the logs down by the fireplace.
She finally found a box of matches in a cupboard over the stove.
She took it back to where Sam knelt piling the logs carefully in the fireplace. “I haven’t found any newspapers yet.”
“That’s fine. There’re some here.” He gestured to a pile of yellowing newspapers in a milk crate by the hearth.
She felt odd, standing over him when he was kneeling, so she sat on the cold floor, her knees drawn up to her chin. She watched as he crumpled newspaper and shoved it under the logs.
“Will they light, when they’re that wet?” she asked.
“There’s just a little snow from me bringing them in. Hopkins keeps his firewood under a tarp.” He was working as he talked, keeping his eyes on the fireplace.
She shivered. “You know the owner?”
He nodded. “Tony Hopkins, retired trucker. He takes a two-week trip to Las Vegas every January. Asks me to look after the place while he’s gone.”
Sam dusted off his hands and reached for the matches. He took one out, struck it on the box, and held the flame to the newspaper.
Maisa watched, nearly hypnotized, as the flames began to curl around the paper.
Sam fanned the tiny fire and it suddenly burst into a blaze.
She held out her hands to the fire. “Won’t someone see the smoke from the chimney?”
He shrugged. “In this weather? I doubt it.” He stood, gathering the wood he hadn’t used in the fire and stacking the logs neatly to the side. “Even if they do, they won’t be coming after us in this storm.”
He still wasn’t looking at her.
Maisa knit her brows thoughtfully and then rose herself, walking into the little kitchen. She went to the sink and turned the faucet handle but nothing happened.
“Water’s off,” Sam said from behind her.
Of course it was.
Maisa rolled her eyes at herself and took down a pot from the cabinet before moving to the door.
“What are you—?”
The rest of Sam’s question was cut off by the rush of the wind as Maisa opened the door. She leaned down and scooped snow into the pot, packing it down before shutting the door again.
When she turned back around, he was right behind her, frowning at the pot.
“Water.” She gestured with the pot and went to place it on the hearth next to the fire.
“Why do you need—?”
She was already exploring a little corridor just past the living room. As she’d suspected, there were two bedrooms along with a bathroom. Piled neatly on a shelf next to the tub was a stack of towels. She selected two and went back to the living room.
Sam was rummaging in the cupboards. “Are you hungry? Hopkins has some canned stew and a couple jars of grape juice. Some V8 as well.”
She winced at the thought of V8—or grape juice, for that matter, though since the water was off she might end up drinking that later. “I’m pretty full from Becky’s breakfast.”
“Yeah.” He came back with a glass. “Do you want to pour your water in here?”
She shook her head. “It’s not for drinking. Come sit here.” She patted the raised brick hearth.
Sam looked directly at her for the first time since he’d shot the gunman. She expected some resistance, but he merely nodded and sat.
She tested the melted snow with a fingertip and found it tepid. Maisa took a washcloth, wet it, and leaned toward him.
Sam flinched and something within her crumbled. She didn’t want to see Sam flinch away from anything—most particularly her. But she also knew that his reaction at the moment had very little to do with her. She took a deep breath. Time to put aside her own anxieties and concentrate on Sam.
She touched his cheek with the washcloth, gently wiping away the dried blood.
He held very still, staring at her face as she worked.