On Thin Ice (7 page)

“Do you remember Mount Katahdin, Meggie?”

“How could I forget?”

They couldn’t drive too far. The road had only been minimally plowed. When they got as far as the plowing would allow, Alec stopped the car. They got out and walked a few hundred feet. From this vantage point they had a clear view of the snowcapped mountain that had meant so much to them at one time.

Her eyes on Mount Katahdin, Megan said, “Of course I remember that mountain. I could never forget that trail, and hiking with all the kids.” She smiled. “I never thought I would make it.”

They talked for a while, reminiscing about the group of kids who had hiked up the mountain with them on that day. Alec surprised himself by even mentioning a few specific names. They stood in companionable quiet together remembering the day it all began for them.

“That was a good summer,” he said.

“A very good summer.” She wasn’t looking at him
when she said this. Her gaze instead had turned toward the mountain. He touched her hair and gently turned her face toward him. He looked down into her blue eyes.

“Your eyes. Such a pretty color. I don’t remember them being that way. Maybe it’s because you wore glasses then.”

She leaned back from him and laughed. “They’re contact lenses, Alec. You can get them in all different colors. If you get close enough, you can tell they’re contacts.”

He put one hand on her hair and drew her to him. Their lips found each other as if by instinct.

The kiss seemed to take both of them by surprise.

On the way back to the car, he took her hand and said, “I know this is awkward.”

“But lovely just the same,” she said.

They held hands as they made their way back to his car in the cold. He wished it could stay like this, just him and Megan, the way it used to be.

But it wasn’t. It never would be. As he got back in the driver’s seat he realized just how far they were from normalcy.

He had just kissed the woman he loved, yet a murderer was still out there, a murderer who could be following them at this very moment. He adjusted his mirror and headed back toward Whisper Lake Crossing.

Why did that dark thought intrude upon his thinking right now? He tried to push it aside, but while he held
Megan’s hand he remembered the line in the back cover of Bryan’s yearbook.
Megan will always be mine.
Why had he been so quick to say it wasn’t Bryan’s handwriting?

The truth was that he wasn’t sure.

The rest of the way home Megan thought about that kiss and about Alec. She thought about the almost tentative way his mouth had probed hers. He had called it “awkward.” And it certainly was. It was because she didn’t know what it meant or how she really felt. He had wanted to know if there was a chance for them. She wanted there to be, but she was afraid. When they got back into Alec’s car, they didn’t talk much. It was as if they were both trying to process what had happened back there. They were attracted to each other, that much was for certain, but could she trust him? Could she trust her rapidly beating heart? Could she trust anyone? She didn’t know the answer to that.

She needed to come to terms with the past. But on cold, lonely nights, her mind would go back to the day that her grandmother fell. Alec and his mother and father had come to the hospital when she had frantically called them. They sat with her and talked with the police about the suspicious fall. But then her grandmother, in her feeble voice, had pointed to Alec’s parents and said, “Your son did this. He pushed me.” Megan had immediately gasped, looking at Alec, her hand on her mouth.

Instead of saying something like, “That’s not true,” Alec had gotten red in the face, stood up and walked out of the hospital room with not a word to anyone. After a moment of surprise, his parents had followed him.

Her grandmother quickly corrected herself and said, “Not Alec. The other one. Bryan.” But by this time Megan was alone in the room.

At the time, it seemed that Alec knew something about her grandmother’s fall, something he wasn’t telling her.

She looked over at him. Because she had to know she asked, “You never told me in so many words, but do you still think your brother is innocent?”

It took him a long time to answer, so long that she actually looked away from him and at the white scenery speeding by. His silence said it all. He still didn’t believe his brother had pushed her.

His answer then surprised her. “I don’t know.” He said each word carefully, clearly. He shook his head slowly and said it again. “I really don’t know. At the time, yes, I thought he was innocent, because I couldn’t imagine why he would do anything to harm your grandmother. She was a lovely lady. It made no sense. But in the years that have passed, I have wondered.” She nodded up at him and swallowed. “I’m being honest with you, Megan.”

“Does your mother think Bryan is innocent?”

“She says she does, but there are times when I think
she’s saying that just because she feels she is supposed to and not because she really believes it anymore.” He said, “She has one son who is a convicted killer and one son who is a cop.”

Megan measured her words carefully. “And you feel you have to always be the one to give him the benefit of the doubt?”

Alec looked at her, his dark eyes hooded. “Someone has to.”

Megan closed her eyes. Nothing had changed. This was something they wouldn’t get past. He had apologized for not being there for her, for leaving her and the baby, but his family would always come first. She realized this now.

It hurt her so profoundly that this man who had just kissed her so tenderly still didn’t quite believe her. She knew that if Alec had to do it over again, he would probably make exactly the same decision that he had twenty years ago.

This would always be between them.

She turned away from him, blinking away hot tears. She was remembering. There was always a darkness stirring just beneath the surface of Bryan’s eyes. They would be joking and laughing, having a wonderful time and Megan might say something that she thought was pretty funny and suddenly Bryan would get a serious look on his face and say, “Megan, that’s not funny.” And he was serious. In short, she was a little
afraid of him. That’s why they only went out a few times. She never told this to Alec.

Even when Bryan came along on their dates, she didn’t complain that sometimes she was afraid of him.

You don’t mind do you that he comes along on our picnic? He’s had a bit of a rough day.

Sure, sure, I don’t mind.

She could tell Alec wanted to kiss her when he dropped her at her cabin at Trail’s End. And she felt so drawn to him that she wanted him to. And then she forced herself to get back in control. She backed away from him, fled inside her cabin and closed the door behind her. From around the edge of the curtain she could see the way he looked at the cabin door, puzzled for a few minutes, before he drove away.

Earlier she had toyed with the idea of inviting him in for a cup of coffee by the fireplace, but not now. She decided to e-mail her godmother Eunice. She needed to talk to a friend. Even if it was only by e-mail. Plus, someone should know that she was really here and not holed up in her apartment in Baltimore.

She ended up telling her godmother all about Alec, the murders, everything.

Her phone rang at ten-thirty and eagerly she answered it thinking the only person it could be was Eunice. They would have a good, long talk. Maybe Eunice would even pray for her over the phone like she did sometimes.

“Hello,” she answered.

“Hey there,” said a male voice she didn’t recognize.

“Hello?”

“This is Brad from next door. Welcome home.” He chuckled and in her mind she could see the glimmer of those big, white teeth.

“Thanks.”

“Hey, have you had a chance to cook up a Web design for me yet?”

“Not yet. I’ve been away all day. Just got home.”

“Not just all day, but all night, too. We came over. You weren’t there. Place was all locked up. We were worried about you.”

Megan was momentarily irked. She was a grown woman after all. She said, “I’m fine. Why would you be worried about me?”

“Oh.” He chuckled again. It was a big and hearty sound. “Not me so much, but Vicky. You know Vicky. She can be a mother hen at times.”

No, I don’t know Vicky.
What Megan didn’t need right now, with threats and murders on her mind, was someone she didn’t even know worrying about her.

“Vicky really was worried. Especially when your car was there all night and you weren’t. We thought maybe you’d gone out hiking and got lost in the woods. I thought of checking with Steve and Nori. Vicky was ready to call the police,” Brad said.

Megan softened. Maybe this was just honest con
cern. She wasn’t used to people, other than Eunice, worrying about her. Maybe that’s all this was. “I’m sorry that you were worried. I’m fine, really,” she said.

“So,” he said. “What about my Web site?”

“Brad, look, some things have been happening. If I’m still here a week from now, then maybe we could get together and go over it. Maybe after my own business here is done.”

“What business do you have here in the middle of winter, sugar?”

“Personal business. Uh, Brad, I’m not really comfortable with people calling me
sugar
.”

He laughed. “Oh. Sorry. That’s just me. I call everybody
sugar
. That’s what my mother called me. But I’ll try to remember not to call you
sugar
ever again.”

“I would appreciate it.”

“Hey,” he said. “What about right now? I’m still up. So, apparently, are you. If I came over there, I could show you what I want in terms of a Web site.”

At ten-thirty at night?
Megan tried to keep her voice light. In her line of work, she never wanted to turn away business. She needed every penny. But she also didn’t want a strange man coming over to her place at ten-thirty at night. “I’d love to Brad, but right now I’m afraid you wouldn’t get your money’s worth. I’m so exhausted I’m not thinking straight.”

“I understand. Sorry if I intruded. I’m really sorry about that. Sometimes I need someone to give me a
good punch to the back of my neck. I live on my own. That’s why I need a good woman to keep me in line.” More chuckles.

A good woman?
She was beginning to doubt whether she needed this guy’s business bad enough. “That’s okay,” she said.

“You have a nice night and pleasant dreams.”

“Same to you,” she said.

“And if you dream about me I won’t mind.”

She blinked and said goodbye. No, he definitely was not the kind of guy she wanted invading her space at ten-thirty at night. Before she went back to her e-mail, she made sure her curtains were drawn tightly and that her door was locked, and the dead bolts secured.

She sat on her bed, her computer in her lap, and clicked through some links. One client’s Web site was nearly completed. All she had to do was come up with a few more bits of artwork for one of the links. She would concentrate on that now, instead of thinking about Brad.

Twenty minutes later she knew exactly why Bryan’s girlfriend Lorena had looked so familiar. She gazed down at the picture on her screen for several minutes. It was close to midnight. She wondered if she should phone Alec this late. Even though this probably had nothing to do with the murders, Alec should know. His mother should know.

There, on the computer screen, was Lorena. That
same bored, pouty expression. That same stance. Except that in this picture, she wasn’t leaning up against a palm tree, she was leaning against a fence. Same picture. Just manipulated from that setting to this one.

Lorena, Bryan’s girlfriend, was not a real person. Megan regularly used stock photography for her work. In her surfing this evening, she had found “Lorena” at a site that assembled faces from stock photos to be purchased for use in products and advertisements. The name of this particular made-up woman was “Mandy.”

Megan was puzzled. Alec’s mother said that Bryan had met Lorena online. She seemed to indicate that the two were getting married, that they knew each other well. But that was impossible. She tapped her fingers on her computer. It was one of two things, she thought. Either the so-called Lorena was leading him on, or else Bryan was lying.

She bookmarked the page and then went to bed. She made a mental note to call Alec first thing in the morning. Even though their future was looking more and more doubtful, he should know this.

Hours later, a knock at the door woke her.

Sleepy-eyed, she forced herself up. The knock was insistent. Through the window, she saw the early-morning gray. She threw on her robe, tied it around her, ran a hand through her hair and went to the door.

A deliveryman stood on her front step with armloads and armloads of flowers. So full and so huge
were the blossoms, she could barely see his face behind them. But what she did see of him was grinning widely.

“A delivery,” he managed to say over the top of the riot of colors.

“What? Here? At my
cabin?
”
Were these from Alec? Could it be?

She smoothed her hair out of her face. She couldn’t believe her eyes.

“Is this the cabin named Grace?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I was instructed to get these to the Trail’s End cabin called Grace by seven this morning. No later. The guy paid extra.”

Alec, she thought. He had discerned how upset she was yesterday. The flowers meant that he finally believed her. She touched her mouth and remembered the kiss.

The delivery guy continued, “Whoever sent them must think you’re pretty special. Do you have a vase? Or two? You’re going to need more than one.”

“I have no idea what this cabin has.” She took one of the bouquets from his arms and laid them on the counter.

She took the other bouquet and placed it beside the first one.

“Sign here,” he said.

She did so. “Who are they from?” she asked innocently, although of course she knew.

“There’s a note in that first batch of flowers over there.”