Chill Factor

by Sandra Brown

  “Can I take your coat, Scott?” she asked.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  “No thank you, Miss Ritt. I won’t be here that long.”

  Plainly her curiosity was killing her, but she smiled pleasantly and said, “Well, let me know if you change your mind.”

  William waited until she had closed the door to the kitchen before indicating a chair. “Have a seat.”

  “I’ll stand.”

  William gave him a measured look as he pulled the napkin from his shirt collar and carefully folded it before setting it on an end table. “You sound out of sorts.”

  “I’m not going to take any more steroids.”

  Taken aback, William said, “Really? Are you noticing side effects since we began stacking?”

  They had started Scott out with oral steroids. Dissatisfied with the results and impatient to see improved performance more quickly, Wes had begun adding injections. While injections bypassed the metabolic process and alleviated some side effects, there were still serious concerns. Any usage could damage the taker’s body as well as alter his behavior. Scott had read about the particular dangers of combining or “stacking” the injections with steroids taken orally.

  “Increased sexual desire but decreased erectile function, eh, Scott?”

  William’s sly expression was not only infuriating but repugnant. What did this weird, creepy runt know about erectile function?

  Then William winked and laughed nastily. “Judging by your popularity with the ladies, I don’t believe sexual dysfunction is the problem. Are you worried about a few pimples?”

  Scott refused to be goaded. “I’m not taking them anymore. Not the shots and not the pills. My dad is paying you a lot of money for them. He’s paying you even more to keep your mouth shut about it. But it stops as of now.”

  Unruffled, William sat down on the upholstered armrest of the chair. “Have you discussed this decision with Wes?”

  “I don’t need to. I’m an adult.”

  “There’s more to being an adult than achieving your eighteenth birthday.”

  His tone was so condescending Scott wanted to punch him.

  “Forgive me for stating the obvious, Scott, but Wes will be opposed to this decision of yours.”

  “If he forces the issue, I’ll rat him out.”

  “To whom?”

  “For starters, the school board. Newspapers. Believe me, I’ll make myself heard.”

  “That would end his coaching career.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “You’re doing this to ruin your father?”

  “He ruined himself.”

  William pursed his lips as though he were thinking that over. “I see your point.” Then he raised his shoulders in a shrug. “But I’m confused. This sounds like a problem between you and Wes. Why are you here?”

  “One of your sugar tits is about to be cut off. You’ll lose money. I’m here to tell you not to butt in.”

  “Oh, I get it now,” he said with a laugh. “This is a threat.”

  “Whatever you want to call it.”

  “Scott,” he said in a patronizing tone, “Wes doesn’t need me to supply him with steroids. They’re easily obtainable. If I don’t provide them, he’ll get them from somewhere else. He can buy them online, for chrissake.”

  “Not without risk of being found out. There would be records. You’ve made it easy for him. I’m here to tell you to stop.”

  “I suppose there’s an ‘or else.’ ”

  “Or else I’ll tell the state board that you dispense pharmaceuticals without prescriptions.”

  “You can prove this?”

  “By clearing out my mother’s medicine chest.” That struck home. For the first time Scott saw a glint of apprehension in William’s eyes. He pressed the advantage. “If you and my dad give me a fight over this, I’ll expose you both. He’ll have to stop coaching, and your pharmaceutical license will be revoked.”

  “Oh, I doubt you would do anything that extreme.” His voice reminded Scott uneasily of a snake slithering through tall grass. “The repercussions would be too, too great.”

  “I don’t give a damn about the repercussions.”

  “No? Are you sure?” William stood up and gave him a sad smile. “What about your mother?”

  That was the one disturbing hitch to taking a stance against his dad. What would it mean to his mom if the real Wes Hamer was exposed, with all of his artifice, deceit, and bullshit stripped away? She would suffer public ridicule, and that would be painful for her.

  But Scott reasoned that by saving himself from Wes, he would be releasing her, too. No doubt she knew about his dad’s infidelities, and looked the other way in order to keep the family intact, or simply because she didn’t care. This afternoon, when she had learned about the steroids, she’d stood up to Wes. His mom had more backbone than people gave her credit for. Especially his dad.

  “My mom is none of your business.”

  William regarded him closely for a moment, then reached out and touched Scott’s hand. Repelled, Scott snatched it out of his reach. William merely smiled, but it wasn’t a warm expression. The opposite in fact.

  “I caution you to reconsider, Scott. If you begin revealing secrets, you’re likely to create a lot of unpleasantness for yourself. Exposing secrets tends to have a snowball effect. Once one is exposed, others inevitably follow, and each becomes larger and more destructive. Are you sure you want to start that ball rolling in your direction?”

  Scott tried to keep his alarm from showing. He must not have been successful, because William chuckled. Leaning forward, he whispered, “You do have a dirty little secret, don’t you, Scott?”

  “No.”

  “Of course you do. It involves Millicent.”

  CHAPTER

  26

  I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.”

  Scott turned to leave, but William grabbed his arm and whipped him around. Ordinarily the druggist wouldn’t have stood a chance against Scott’s athleticism. Scott could have broken him over his knee like a brittle stick. But he was so surprised by William’s aggressive and sudden move, he didn’t resist.

  “Then allow me to make myself perfectly clear to you, Scott. I’m talking about Millicent’s affair with Wes, although the word affair lends their fuckfests a romantic connotation that’s misleading.”

  Blood rushed to Scott’s head. “You don’t know—”

  “But I do, Scott. I do. See, your dear dad has twin compulsions. One is to screw every woman he can. The other is to boast about it. Surprising, isn’t it, and rather reckless, that he hasn’t realized the two traits are incompatible. It’s a fascinating psychological tendency that really should be examined.

  “But I digress. Where was I? Oh yes. Had there been any romantic love between him and Millicent, it would have been a Greek tragedy. A messy ménage to say the least. As it was, to hear Wes tell it, their entanglement was purely physical. He once referred to her as being constantly ‘in heat.’ ” William grinned. “Imagine. And this was going on while she was officially your sweetheart. Practically under your nose.”

  Scott’s heart was thudding. He was producing saliva at a vicious rate and couldn’t swallow it fast enough. A tide of heat rushed through his system, bathing him in sweat.

  “So, Scott, I advise you not to come to my house threatening me with exposure ever again. You’ve got far more at stake here than I.” Tilting his head to one side, William said, “You know, you’re very much like Wes, whom you seem to dislike. I didn’t realize until just now how similar you are.

  “Like him, you think your handsome face and powerful body entitle you to bully people. Wise up, son. There are various kinds of power, and one of the most effective is knowing things about people they would rather not become known.

  “For instance, I don’t think you or Wes would enjoy my telling those FBI agents, who coincidentally were at you
r house today, that he was fucking your girlfriend at the same time you were.

  “They may conclude that such an unsavory situation had created ill will among the parties involved. They may think—heaven forbid—that such a primal rivalry between a father and son could lead to all sorts of mayhem, including, but not limited to, disposing of the problem, which in this case happens to be Millicent.”

  “Oh, God,” Scott groaned. The toe of his boot caught in the rug as he spun around, causing him to stumble on his way to the entry. He wrestled with the doorknob in his haste to open it, then bolted through the door without even bothering to close it. The frigid air was bracing but not cold enough to stave off the nausea. He barely made it to the hedge that separated the Ritts’ house from their neighbor’s before he vomited.

  The spasms were violent, forcing him onto all fours in the snow, his head hanging between his shoulders. Even after his stomach was empty, he continued to heave painfully.

  Eventually the spasms subsided. He cupped a handful of snow into his mouth, let it melt, spat it out. He rubbed another handful over his feverish face. His sweat was making him chilled. He shuddered uncontrollably and clenched his teeth to keep them from clicking together.

  “Scott?”

  He raised his head and looked toward the sound of the voice. Marilee Ritt was standing poised on the back porch, about to pick her way down the snow-covered steps.

  “Go back,” he shouted.

  “You’re sick.”

  His legs felt like jelly as he struggled to stand up. She was halfway down the steps now. “Go back inside.” His voice sounded hoarse and panicky. Turning his back to her, he threshed his way through the dense hedge and cut diagonally across the neighbor’s front yard, wading through snow, responding blindly to the instinct governing him—escape.

  • • •

  “Hey.”

  Dutch, who’d been dozing in his chair, jerked awake, removed his feet from the corner of his desk, and automatically stood up. Assuming the worst, he said, “What now?”

  Wes waved him back into his seat. “Nothing. That I know of.” He removed a bottle of whiskey from his coat pocket and set it on Dutch’s desk, then took off his damp outerwear and hung the garments on the wall rack near the door. He blew on his cupped hands as he sat down across the desk from Dutch.

  “It’s stopped snowing,” he said. “But the windchill is still a few degrees below zero. They say it’ll get even colder when the clouds clear. Tonight will be one for the record books.”

  “Want some coffee?” Dutch asked.

  “No, thanks. I’ve drunk so much today, I may not sleep till June. I brought my own refreshment.” He nodded at the bottle of Jack Daniel’s. “Pass me your cup.”

  Dutch shoved his empty coffee cup across the desk. Wes uncapped the bottle, poured whiskey into it, pushed the cup back toward Dutch. He drank straight from the bottle. After each had taken a few belts, he gave Dutch a critical once-over. “You look like shit.”

  Dutch was aware of that. His raw, swollen face looked like a pack of wild dogs had been gnawing on it. “That ointment Ritt sent over by you is worthless.”

  “Those cuts are gonna get infected if you don’t have them seen to. Want me to drive you to the hospital?”

  “No.”

  “Ritt’s house?”

  “Hell no.”

  “He said he had something stronger if you needed it.”

  Dutch shook his head.

  “Have you had anything to eat?”

  “Snacks here and there.”

  “Dora could put together—”

  “I’m not really hungry.”

  Dutch assumed that Wes would get to the point of his visit sooner or later. In the meantime, he wished he would go away and leave him alone. He resented being mothered. He didn’t feel like making casual conversation. He wanted to wallow in his misery alone, thank you. If that sounded paranoid and self-persecuting, too bad. That was how he felt.

  And why shouldn’t he? He couldn’t make anything happen. Nothing he did turned out right. In fact, each action he took ended in disaster. His aborted attempt to take Cal Hawkins’s rig up the mountain road would probably result in several lawsuits. Hawkins might press criminal charges against him.

  On top of that debacle, his authority had been repeatedly challenged. Defying Begley’s warning, he’d driven out to Whistler Falls Lodge but had been stopped before he could get inside cabin number eight to see for himself the kind of evidence against Tierney the feds were guarding.

  He was the primo, number one law enforcement officer in this burg, yet Begley had burst out of old Gus Elmer’s cozy office and confronted him, accusing him of jeopardizing an ongoing federal investigation and talking down to him like he was nobody. Even his own men had grown surly and mouthy every time he gave them an order.

  “Dutch?”

  He snapped out of the vexing reverie and focused on Wes. “What are you doing here?” he asked querulously. “Why aren’t you at home cuddled up with your wife?”

  Wes snorted and took another drink from the bottle. “I’d rather cuddle up with that flagpole out there. It’s a hell of a lot warmer and cuddlier than my wife.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  With a dismissive gesture he said, “PMS, a headache, who knows? Who cares? Her panties are always in a wad over something.”

  “How’s Scott? Has he said anything about the meeting this afternoon with Begley and Wise?”

  “Why?”

  Judging by Wes’s knee-jerk reaction, the FBI interview was a sore spot. “No particular reason. Just wondering how Scott felt about it.” Dutch took a sip of his whiskey, eyeing Wes over the rim of the cup. “Scott seemed a bit hesitant with some of his answers to their questions. Was he lying?” He picked up a paper clip and reshaped it, then held it up to Wes. “Or just bending the truth.”

  “Look at it from his standpoint,” Wes said. “He was surrounded by five grown-ups, all authority figures, asking questions about him and his girlfriend. At his age, would you have been straightforward with them about your sex life?”

  “I wouldn’t be straightforward with them now.”

  Wes chuckled. “Well, there you go.” He stacked his hands behind his head, propped his ankle on the opposite knee, and settled back into the chair, looking like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  Dutch suspected otherwise. Wes hadn’t come here to pass the time. Nor was he concerned about sepsis on Dutch’s face or when he’d had his last hot meal. The whiskey was a nice, friendly gesture, but Wes wasn’t that thoughtful a friend. He had an ulterior motive or he wouldn’t be here.

  Dutch’s gut clenched when he considered what the purpose of the visit might be. Maybe the whiskey was for easing the pain. If so, he’d just as soon suffer it sooner rather than later.

  “Did you come here to fire me, Wes?”

  Wes’s sputtering laugh appeared genuine. “What?”

  “Are you the self-appointed committee representing the city council?”

  “Jesus Christ, Dutch. You are one paranoid son of a bitch, you know that? Where’d you get a wild notion like that?”

  “From what you said last night. Don’t you remember? You reminded me that you’d put your neck on the line when you hired me. You said that my failure would reflect poorly on you.”

  “Aw, hell. We were tired, edgy. Our nerves were shot. You were going a little bit round the bend on the issue of Lilly, and her being in the cabin with this guy. As your friend, I was only trying to shed a different perspective on things. Get you back on track. But you know,” he rushed to say when he saw that Dutch was about to interrupt, “over the course of this day, I’ve come closer to your way of thinking.”

  Dutch eyed him warily. “What do you mean?”

  Wes shot a glance over his shoulder at the closed door. He sat forward and lowered his voice. “You think as I think—hell, as the feds think—that this Tierney is our culprit, right? He’s kidnapped five women and
done God only knows what to them. And that blue ribbon shit? How creepy is that?”

  Dutch gave a terse bob of his head, unwilling to commit more than that until he knew where Wes was going with this.

  “And your wife—the ex being a minor detail—the woman you love is trapped up there with him. I admire your self-restraint, buddy. I really do. If I’d been in your shoes today, I would have killed anybody who tried to keep me off that peak.”

  “I nearly did.”

  “Hawkins doesn’t count.”

  Dutch took another sip of whiskey. Each swallow had gone down smoother, tasted better. “What are you leading up to, Wes?”

  “Let’s go get Tierney. You and me.”

  “Begley has a chopper—”

  “Forget that,” Wes said impatiently. “If they get to him before we do, we’ll never see him. He’ll be hustled away to Charlotte, put under lock and key. Even if he’s indicted, his lawyer will cause delay after delay, and five years from now we’ll still be trying to bring this psycho to trial and get justice for these ladies and their families. That’s not the law of the mountains, not the kind of law our daddies and granddaddies believed in.”

  Wes had a valid point. Dutch knew from his days on the APD how slowly justice was won, if ever.

  “I never have understood how the feds got involved anyway,” Wes said.

  “Kidnapping is a federal crime.”

  “Yeah, yeah, but that’s a technicality.”

  “A pretty damn important one.”

  Wes scooted forward until he was sitting on the edge of his chair. Propping his forearms on the desk, he leaned across it. “Cleary is your jurisdiction, Dutch. This is your town, your people, and the victory should go to you. Not to Begley or that four-eyed yes-man.

  “You drag Tierney down Main Street, parade him in front of the Gunns and relatives of the other victims, bring him to trial in this county, and you’ll be the local hero. You’ll be the bad-ass, don’t-fuck-with-me-or-my-town cop who solved the biggest crime in the town’s history.” He sat back and smiled complacently. “And I’ll be the one who had the smarts to hire you for the job.”