Colder Than Ice

Mordecai took out his binoculars and watched every move Lizzie made. He watched her sit on the porch, sipping tea with an old woman, watched the looks, the smiles, they exchanged.

They were close. The old woman was important to her.

Then the man came out to join them, and Mordecai’s body went stiff and his nerve endings prickled. The man had to be Bryan’s father—the resemblance between the two had told him that much. But what was he doing with Lizzie?

A short while later, she was running again. But this time the man ran with her. The bastard had no business there, Mordecai thought. Lizzie was his. Always had been, always would be. Dead or alive, she belonged to Mordecai.

He let them get a good distance away before starting his car and driving a little closer. He was careful not to get too close, and he never let them spot him.

God, how different she seemed…felt. The energy he sensed surrounding her was not the same as it had been before.

She’d changed.

She thinks she’s escaped you, Mordecai. Thinks she’s above you now.

Look at her, running. Trying to grow strong. She’ll fight you this time.

“She fought me last time,” he muttered. “Isn’t shooting me in the chest fighting me?” His chest ached a little at the memory, even though the Kevlar vest had ensured he only suffered a pair of broken ribs from the bullet she had fired at his heart…even as she kissed his lips.

She was weak, back then. And she still loved you, in some desperate, dependent way. She wept when she thought she had killed you.

But she’s not weak anymore. She won’t shed a tear for you now.

Mordecai decided to ignore the voices for a while, just the way he was ignoring the presence of the man, the interloper, and simply bask in Lizzie’s presence. In being able to see her, watch her. In being this close to her. God, how he’d loved her once. Still. As he should.

Jesus had loved Judas, even after his kiss of betrayal.

Mordecai followed her to where she lived, in a cottage just at the edge of Blackberry. He knew it when they slowed to a walk, entered the house. He even saw her opening the door with her set of keys.

They’ve seen the car, Mordecai.

“Yes. I know.”

You know now. You know where to find her. You can come back.

Nodding slowly, Mordecai drove past the two this time. He had to return to his rented home away from home, because there were things that needed doing. He’d begun the preparations, but he had to finish them. So he went to his temporary home. He took time to shower, to change clothes, to get a bite to eat, take his messages off the machine. The school had called. He phoned back and agreed to come in on Monday. Then he rechecked the cord he had run throughout every room of the house, along the baseboards, and the batteries in his remote control. Finally he drove out of town and got himself a different car.

A few hours later he was back at Lizzie’s house, in a dark blue, late model sedan almost as unremarkable as the first car had been. He’d transferred all his supplies into this one. The trunk was filled with various controlled substances, some of them too powerful even to be carried by the average pharmacy—like the vial of salmonella, a bit of which he’d used on poor Nancy Stillwater’s picnic lunch. Cruel, but effective. It wouldn’t kill her, though she would be terribly sick for a week, maybe longer. That was all he needed.

Mordecai didn’t kill unless Spirit dictated it. He wasn’t a murderer. He was a tool of God. Besides, Nancy wasn’t an evil woman. She’d even phoned him to see if he, too, had become sick. When he said he hadn’t, she ruled out her picnic lunch as the source of the food poisoning and wondered aloud where she could have picked it up.

He parked the car in a pull-off, where autumn foliage concealed it from view. Then he walked back to Lizzie’s house and took up a position on a tree stump just inside the edge of the woods across the street. This time he had a video camera, a digital camera and a pair of high-powered binoculars.

He never let her out of his sight for the rest of the day.

A woman delivered groceries around eleven. Beth ate an early lunch, alone at a small table in her kitchen. Yogurt and a banana. After lunch, a teenage boy showed up, and Mordecai recognized him even before he raised the binoculars for a closer look. It was young Bryan.

He and Lizzie worked over textbooks in the living room.

I have a private tutor. The boy’s voice repeated the words in Mordecai’s memory. He closed his eyes, thanked his guides for putting the boy into his path, apologizing again for doubting them earlier. The boy was more than just an honest young man and heir to Mordecai’s gift. And more than a signpost, pointing the way to Lizzie. He was connected to her in some way. Connected to him, too. He marveled anew at the intricate web of the universe and the complex machinations of almighty God. The brilliance of linking Mordecai to Lizzie through this new child. The son.

“No wonder I couldn’t find her right away,” he whispered. “She barely goes out. She’s entirely self-contained. Except for that run in the morning.”

When Bryan left, Lizzie worked out with a punching bag that hung from the ceiling in a corner of her living room, shocking him with the power and fury of her blows. Then she showered. Later she made herself a solitary dinner and went to bed. Alone.

Always alone, Mordecai. She’s changed. Like a lone wolf now, she thinks she’s independent, thinks she’s strong.

And you know why, don’t you, Mordecai? She’s waiting. She knows you’ll come for her, and she thinks she’s preparing. Thinks she’s going to be ready.

Thinks she can defeat you.

Defeat God.

Mordecai lowered his binoculars and closed his eyes. “Oh, Lizzie, Lizzie. Don’t you know you’ve only made matters worse by adding the sin of pride to the list of things for which you must be punished?”

He drew a breath. He didn’t want her proud and independent and strong. Before he revealed himself, Mordecai wanted Lizzie reduced to the needy child she had been once; the lost, confused runaway who saw him as a savior.

She has to die, Mordecai. It’s her fate. You need to correct a terrible flaw in history. She’s supposed to be dead.

He tightened his jaw. “She has to be taught. She has to be stripped of every ounce of pride and rebelliousness, and returned to a state of purity and humility. She’ll come to me on her knees then. She’ll beg me to take her back.”

Are you questioning us yet again? Haven’t you learned better? She has to die!

“Stop!” Mordecai pressed his hands to his ears, awaiting the pain that inevitably came when he questioned his guides.

The voices went silent, and the pain didn’t come. Not this time. But he was worried. If Spirit insisted, he would have no choice but to obey. Oh, if only there could be another way. Maybe, if Lizzie suffered enough, Spirit would be satisfied that she had found redemption. Maybe, if he could bring her down low enough, she could still be saved.

Impossible.

“I have to try.” He licked his dry lips and wondered why he hadn’t thought to bring along some food or water. But he knew why. The voices hadn’t told him to get those things. Maybe it was fitting that he fast while he watched Lizzie. Maybe there was a reason for it.

Lifting the binoculars again, he resumed watching her. He could see her clearly through the sheer curtains, from her blond hair spread on the pillows to the outline of her body beneath the sheets of her small bed.

She slept with the light on.

He knew now where Beth went when she went running in the morning. To that house, where the boy was living, with an old woman and a handsome man. The man who had accompanied Lizzie back to her house.

A dark flame burned in his belly. He didn’t like the man.

It’s the old woman she’s closest to, Mordecai. It was obvious from their interactions this morning.

Again he nodded. He was making progress, he thought. He was identifying the underpinnings that supported her in her fraudulent new life. She had students. She had friends. A home and a job. All of those would have to go. One by one, they would have to go.

“Whatever happens, from here on, Lizzie, it’s your own fault. And everything I do is for your own good.”

You’ve watched her enough for now, Mordecai. Tonight you’ve got other work to do.

Bryan sank down onto the sofa, took up the remote control and began flipping channels on the television. Josh came in from the kitchen, a coffee mug in one hand.

“I’m glad you came down,” Josh said. “I was going to come up.”

“To lecture me about school again?”

“No. Just to talk.”

Bryan shot him a skeptical look. Then he dropped the remote and leaned back. “Why not? There’s nothing better to do.”

“Beth predicted you’d get bored out here in short order.”

Bryan nodded. “I’ve listened to every music file I’ve ever downloaded, ten times each.”

“What would make it better?” Joshua asked.

His son looked surprised. “An Internet connection would help. My laptop’s set up for cable, but Maude says there’s no cable here.”

“Done. I’ll get on it tomorrow.”

“Really?”

Josh flinched inwardly. Had he been so self-absorbed that his son was surprised he would want to do something nice for him? “Sure. I’ll find out what the local dial-up service is and get you signed up. I’ll have to clear it with Maude first—it’s her phone.”

“I should have wireless.”

“We’re not going to be here that long, Bry. Dial-up will do.”

Bryan nodded. “Where is Maude, anyway? Gone to bed?”

“Out at the movies with her next-door neighbor.”

“Frankie the cop?”

“Frankie Parker.” Josh smiled. “I know, a police chief named Frankie doesn’t inspire much confidence.”

Bryan looked at him more closely. “You’re…different today.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know. Less tense. More laid-back.”

Josh nodded. “It’s a laid-back kind of a town. Hell, I don’t know, Bryan, maybe I’ve needed to take some time off for a while now. Or maybe it’s…that I’ve been sitting behind a desk too long. You know, when Kevin and I first started our own private security business, we did all the work ourselves.”

“Bodyguards-R-Us,” Bryan quipped.

“Yeah. Now, I don’t know. We’ve got three offices, dozens of men working for us, high-profile clients, and it’s all about paperwork.”

“It’s not fun anymore,” Bryan said.

Josh looked him in the eye. “You know what? You’re right. You nailed it. It’s not fun anymore.”

Bryan nodded. “So quit.”

“It’s not that simple, Bryan.”

“Sure it is. You don’t like what you’re doing, so stop doing it.”

Josh sighed, sensed himself getting impatient with Bryan, and Bryan getting impatient with him, and decided to change the subject. “How’d the tutoring go?”

“Fine.” Bryan reached to the coffee table for a magazine and began flipping pages. It was a copy of Vermont Dairy Monthly—a field full of fat cows on the cover.

“Any sign of that brown car lurking around?” Joshua asked.

“Nope, not that I saw.”

Josh sat down on the sofa beside his son. “Meant to tell you, that was a good call this morning. Spotting the strange car, telling me about it.”

Bryan shrugged, but at least he looked up from the magazine he wasn’t really reading. “I wasn’t sure whether to say something in front of Beth or not. It made her nervous, didn’t it?”

“Seemed to.”

“Guess she has reason to be.”

Josh nodded. “Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about that.”

“About what?”

“About me. About…Beth Slocum. And why I reacted the way I did when I first saw her.”

Bryan lifted his brows. They disappeared beneath the shock of brown hair that slanted across his forehead. “I thought that was none of my business.”

“You said that, Bry. I didn’t. I just…had to make sure she was who I thought she was before I said anything.”

“And now you’re sure?”

“Yeah.” Josh took a breath, telling himself that Beth’s advice had sounded great at the time. Carrying it out was another matter. “This goes back a ways, so bear with me. Before you were born, I worked for the ATF. It was one of the things that came between your mother and me. She hated it.”

“I know all about that.”

Josh blinked. “You do?”

“Yeah. Mom told me.” Bryan set his magazine back on the coffee table.

Josh nodded. “Okay. But she probably didn’t tell you why I was fired from that job. There was a cult leader, keeping underage kids, mostly girls, on a fenced compound, with armed guards and dogs. He was dealing drugs and stockpiling weapons, and no one was sure the girls who were there were free to leave.”

“The Young Believers,” Bryan said.

Josh lost his entire train of thought. “You know about them, too?”

“Sure I know. Mom told me about the raid that went bad. She told me about the girl you accidentally shot, how you lost your job over it. And she told me never to bring it up with you. She said it was the worst time of your life and probably the main reason you two broke up. She said the guilt ruined you.”

Josh just sat there for a moment, absorbing his son’s words. “I had no idea she’d told you all that.”

Bryan tipped his head to one side. “Doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear your version of it. Besides, what does all that have to do with Beth Slocum?”

“Everything,” Joshua said softly. He looked his son in the eyes. “It turns out she’s the girl I shot.”

Bryan bobbed his head forward, eyes widening. “But I thought the girl you shot was dead.”

“So did everyone else. Nearly everyone, I mean. For all these years, I believed it. When I went to see her in the hospital after the raid, she was in a coma. They told me she wouldn’t live, and the way she looked, I had no trouble believing it. She was…hell, she was your age.”

“And they let you think you’d killed her? I can’t believe no one ever told you. You recognized her when we first saw her, didn’t you?”

“I did. It had been a while—she was eighteen years younger and at death’s door when I last saw her, after all. But yeah, it’s not like that face hasn’t haunted me ever since. I just couldn’t believe it could really be her.”

Bryan nodded slowly, his eyes holding his father’s, almost probing them. “That’s what’s different, then.”

Josh looked at him, unsure what his son meant.

“The guilt you’ve been carrying around, Dad. Jeez, finding out you didn’t kill her after all must have been like having a lead weight taken off your shoulders.”

He nodded slowly. “You know, that’s probably it.” Then he frowned. “You ought to look into a future as a shrink, you know that?”

“Doesn’t take a shrink to nail that one.” He paused, studying his father’s face so closely that Josh wondered what his son saw there. Then he said, “Tell me the rest, Dad.”

He really wanted to know, Josh realized. He organized his thoughts and continued his story. “The cult leader, Mordecai Young, didn’t die in the raid, either, though for a long while everyone believed he had.”

“So that’s who they think might come after Beth?”

Josh nodded. “A year ago they crossed paths. She was a teacher—he’d kidnapped one of her students. She bluffed her way into the house were Mordecai was holding the girl, and then she tried to kill him.”

“No way.”

Josh nodded. “Shot him point-blank, right in the chest. But he’d vested up ahead of time. The Feds figured the most she’d done was piss him off, and that if he could ever find her, he’d return the favor. So she was relocated.”

“You think it might have been him—Mordecai Young—in that brown car earlier?”

“I don’t know. We should probably err on the side of caution, though.” He closed his eyes. “I don’t like her being in that cottage alone. It makes protecting her nearly impossible.”

Bryan opened his mouth, then closed it again and leaned back on the couch, looking stunned by all his father had revealed.

“What?” Josh asked.

“Nothing. Hell, I’m blown away by this. I can imagine how you must feel, but—no. Nothing.”

“Bry, come on. I wouldn’t have told you all this if I didn’t trust you. So if there’s something you want to say, spit it out.”

Bryan shrugged. “Just…I don’t know. Lying to her to protect her was one thing. Not telling her you’re the guy who shot her…It’s way worse. It feels wrong.”

“I know. But…she’d send us packing if she knew. And that would leave her unprotected.”

“I guess. But shouldn’t that be up to her? I mean, it’s her life, Dad.”

Josh sighed. “I know. And you’re right. I hate this, Bry. But Jesus, if I make the wrong move and she ends up dead…”

“You figure this is your chance to make up for the past.”

“It’s more than that. This isn’t about me. It’s about protecting Beth.”

“I don’t blame you, Dad. I mean, I disagree with you, but I don’t blame you. I guess I might do the same thing.”

No anger, no accusations. Josh couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t told his son the worst of what he’d learned by reading Beth’s dossier, though. That she’d had a child, a daughter who’d been adopted while she’d lingered in a coma, fighting for her life. And raised by someone else while she’d been putting that life back together again.

A daughter. A little girl she had lost because of him. And if there was one tragedy Joshua understood, it was the loss of a child.

Bryan didn’t need to know all that. That was Beth’s private hell—and his own.

“I just wish I could come up with an excuse to get into Beth’s house long enough to check the place out, make sure her locks are secure, things like that.”

The screen door creaked open, and Maude walked in, accompanied by another woman, one who wore baggy jeans and a sweatshirt with a one-horned moose on the front. Printed beneath the moose were the words, Is That Your Final Antler?

Bryan grinned at the sweatshirt as he got up, to relieve the women of the shopping bags they carried. “A movie and shopping in one night?” Bryan asked.

“It was a long movie. We got hungry,” the newcomer said. She had short copper-red hair, in tight kinky curls, and was younger than Maude. Late fifties, Joshua guessed.

“Boys, this is my good friend, Frankie Parker.”

Joshua was on his feet, as well. “Police Chief Frankie Parker?”

“The one and only,” she said, extending a hand.

“Frankie, this is my grandson Joshua and his boy Bryan.”

Frankie was smiling, but her smile died. “Don’t play with me, Maude. You don’t have any grandson.”

“As far as you or anyone else in this town is concerned, Frankie, I most certainly do.”

Frankie frowned at her.

“Trust me. It’s important. And it’s between us, Frankie. I knew you would hear about this and start snooping sooner or later. How much Josh does or does not want to tell you is up to him. All you need to know is that he’s here for a good reason. And that I trust him.”

“I don’t like this, Maude.”

“You don’t have to, Frankie.”

Frankie moved her gaze to Josh’s. “Good to meet you.”

“Same here,” Josh said, but he wasn’t happy about the situation. Clearly this woman knew more than she should.

“If you’re up to no good, I’ll find out.”

“I’ve got no doubt about that. But I’m not.”

Bryan looked worried, and when the old woman’s eyes fell on him, he said, “I’ll, uh, put these away for you.” He carried the groceries into the kitchen.

“Leave the dry goods right in the bags, Bryan,” Maude called. Then she turned to Frankie. “Thanks for helping me in with the bags, hon.”

“Anytime, Maudie. You…give me a call if you need anything.” She sent a lingering look at Josh, and he had no doubt she would be on the horn tomorrow, checking him out with every contact she had.

“Like I’m gonna need anything with these two strapping men around the house,” Maude said. She walked her friend to the door, waved as the other woman left, then turned to face Josh. “Don’t look like that,” she said. “What else could I say? She’s known me for thirty years. And unlike most folks in town, she knows I never had children.” She shrugged. “Besides, I trust her. She’s not going to blow your cover.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. I’ve know her for thirty years, too. And you might want to think about confiding in Frankie—God knows she’s not going to let this go until one of us does. She’s good at her job, even though she’s far from your typical law enforcement type.”

“You can say that again.”

She smiled. “Now, did I hear you saying you needed a chance to snoop around Beth’s house?”

He lifted his brows. “Why, you have an idea?”

“Well, since my range is on the fritz, I thought we could all have dinner at Beth’s place tomorrow night.”

“I didn’t know there was anything wrong with your range.”

She smiled, adding wrinkles to her wrinkles. “There’s not.”

“You oughtta work for the government, Maude.”

“Isn’t that what I’m doing?”

“I guess you are.”

Maude knew nothing about his reasons for being there, other than what he had told her: that her good friend Beth had some enemies from her past who might be a threat to her, and that he needed her help to make sure Beth would be safe.

That was all he’d needed to tell her.

“I’ll clear it all with Beth when she stops by on her run tomorrow morning,” she said.

Josh got the feeling Beth wasn’t going to have much choice in the matter. She was hosting them for dinner tomorrow night. Because what Maude Bickham wanted, Maude Bickham got.

Chapter Five

Saturday (wee hours)

Beth was dreaming. She knew she was dreaming, and she wanted to wake up, but just like before, she was unable to.

Her dream self lay in a hospital bed. She could tell by the antiseptic smell, the steady beeping of her monitors and the tubes she could feel at her nostrils, gently blowing cool, ultra-dry oxygen, and the one in her throat that she kept thinking would choke her.

She was asleep in that hospital. She didn’t think she was dead, but it wasn’t a normal sleep. She couldn’t wake up. She didn’t know where she was, and when she tried to think about who she was, or what had happened to her, a yawning black hole opened up in her mind. She felt close to panic at that gaping hole in her mind. It felt as if she were teetering on its edge, as if she might fall in and be swallowed up by its darkness, so she chose not to look there anymore. Instead, she focused on the sensation of a warm, strong hand that surrounded one of hers.

And from that point her senses opened wider, to admit the soft, tormented voice that spoke to her.

I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry.

She wondered what he was so sorry about. Was he somehow responsible for whatever had happened to her? But he held her hand, and he sounded so kind….

I don’t even know your name. No one does.

Not even me, she thought.

But believe me, I’d switch places with you if I could. I’d rather it were me in that bed than you.

She liked the man who held her hand. She wished she could find a way to tell him that it was all right. That she was all right. And then she realized—she wasn’t. She couldn’t wake up. Maybe she never would.

I’d give anything in the world if you would just open your eyes. I want to see them. Their color—I want to see that more than anything. He squeezed her hand a little tighter. Come on. Open your eyes for me. Open them.

Then there was a woman’s voice. She told him he had to leave. And on the way out, she said, “It wasn’t your fault, we all know that. She was in the line of fire. Any one of the agents could have been the one whose bullet hit her.”

And then she went on. “There’s really no point in your coming back here, you know. She doesn’t know you’re here. And besides, she’s not going to last out the week.”