Wed To A Stranger?

by Jule McBride

  Nathan was too angry to heed the dawning comprehension in her eyes. “He’s not just your son. Malcolm’s my son, too. Of course I wanted to see him. I wanted to hold him. Touch him. Smell the sweet scent of his skin. But I would have stayed away forever to keep him safe. And then you went and advertised him as the perfect hostage. That’s why I’m here. To protect my son.”

  Fritzi wrenched away and headed toward the doorway at a running limp. When she reached it, she spun around. There were so many warring emotions in her eyes that he couldn’t read them all—fear and grief, anger and betrayal, desire and love.

  Nathan’s voice softened. “I came for you, too. You’re my family. Without you, I’m so alone….”

  Fritzi’s furious eyes glittered like jewels. “Your family? I know you were going to leave me again.” She flung a hand toward the front door. “So, why don’t you leave now? And before you go—is there anything else I should know about your…occu pation?”

  Nathan wished with all his heart he wasn’t a trained liar. “No.”

  “Good. Now, get out. I never want to see you again.”

  As Fritzi whirled around and fled upstairs, it took all Nathan’s doing—but he bit back one last remaining secret that could change the course of her life. Then he slowly turned toward the fire again. Its glowing embers had lost any power to warm him. Nathan was no longer in Alaska; Alaska was inside him. And God, was it cold.

  Because Kris Koslowski was coming.

  And Nathan had to protect a wife who no longer loved him, and a son he might never know.

  WE’LL GET AWAY FROM HIM, Malcolm,” Fritzi whispered, frantically clutching the baby to her chest. Downstairs, she’d played it so cool, but now the floodgates opened. And she cradled her baby and wept

  “We’ll get away from him, baby. I promise.”

  Fritzi pressed her quavering lips to Malcolm’s cheek and sobbed. Oh, she’d been a fool not to take the gun. How could she have left it on the table? It had been right there, within her grasp. Now she just hoped the chest of drawers she’d shoved in front of the door would keep Nathan out—at least until she figured out how to escape.

  Nathan. She couldn’t even think of him as David.

  He wasn’t the man she married. It wasn’t Nathan, but David who had held her through her nightmares. David who was sweet and kind and with whom she’d made this baby…

  But it was all a lie. David Frayne—a man with love handles and sandy brown hair and oversize glasses—didn’t really exist. He was a fantasy, a phantom. Desperate for stability, she’d fallen in love with a dream, not a real man. With nothing and no one.

  But then, the danger he’d put her in was real enough.

  Tears of pure terror coursed down her cheeks. When Koslowski came here, they’d be dead. Dead! She could die! Her little baby could die! Maybe it was Koslowski in the schoolhouse….

  Her shoulders shook with sobs. “We’re going to die, the way Mom and Daddy died.” she choked out, knowing firsthand that professional killers delivered their deadly blows quickly—without forewarning or mercy. Koslowski wouldn’t make mistakes. There wouldn’t be accidents.

  We’re all going to die!

  “Oh, no,” she moaned. As she rocked Malcolm, she wept in terror for the danger that would come. In grief for the love in which she’d so foolishly believed. And in fury for this past year of pain. How could David not have told her he was alive?

  “He didn’t even w-want us,” she whispered bro kenly. “He didn’t even want us to g-go with him.”

  And she would have. Fritzi would have changed her name, her face, her entire life. She would have gone anywhere on the face of the earth—if only she could have been with David. Before Malcolm, he was her whole world.

  But he wasn’t anymore.

  The man had made love to her without telling her who he was! He was never going to tell her. She thought of how he’d touched her intimately and aroused her body—and shuddered.

  What kind of man is he? She swiped at her tears, wishing she’d remembered the gun. Because in the morning, she had to get to Joe Tanook. It would still be dark, but if she left Malcolm with Abby, she could make it to the detention center. She knew enough to make Joe Tanook believe her now. And he’d have to help her and her baby escape from White Wolf Pass.

  Your baby and Nathan’s, she thought.

  And yet it just wasn’t true.

  That man had no rights here. She and Malcolm were his only family—and Nathan had lied and led killers to their doorstep. He’d betrayed them. And shattered her heart in so many pieces it would never mend. Fritzi felt a pain so deep she couldn’t even look at his face again. Not tonight. Or tomorrow. Or ever. All she wanted was to escape.

  Because she hated him.

  And because she had loved him even more.

  “MIRROR, MIRROR ON the wall—” Kris Koslowski bent toward the bathroom mirror and watched in silent awe as the brand-new face slowly began to emerge from the steamy fog.

  It was truly fascinating, this business of identities. The true irrelevance of names. Beyond them all—Montague, Koslowski, Dorian, and countless others—beat only one heart.

  The heart of a killer.

  A soft chuckle carried on the steamy air. “I believe I am the fairest of them all.”

  At least nowadays. Why had it taken so long to agree to such simple surgery? The old face wasn’t nearly so attractive. But in all fairness, it had been captivating in its way—with the shattered cheek, the drooping eye and sagging lip. People just couldn’t pry their eyes off it. The one side so smooth and perfect. The other barely human.

  “No wonder you became a revolutionary.”

  Or whatever one wanted to call it. A year ago it had seemed so right to come clean with all that knowledge—names, dates and juicy plots against governments. To flee to an island and forget all that carnage. But who could have foretold I’d developed such a taste for killing over the years?

  As the steam lifted, a full smile came into focus. An unmarred right cheek. A perfect face with clear, clean lines.

  The perfect face for the perfect killer.

  It was the kind of trustworthy face one wanted to take outside and show around town, so it was too bad there wasn’t more available entertainment outside the bed-and-breakfast. Nothing much to do but stretch and yawn and step into a thick terry robe. Maybe draw open the bedroom curtains…

  And there it was again! That fabulous face, mirrored in the reflective glass of the window.

  Outside it was so dark. This was beautiful country, almost sublime, really—the kind of place where people could find a thousand ways to die. No doubt, the innocent-looking snow hid countless predators.

  Countless predators just like me.

  And David Frayne. Or Nathan Lafarge, as he was calling himself nowadays.

  Too bad he hadn’t died the way he was supposed to. A coded note should have shown up in the New York Times days ago, listing a cozy vacation property in White Wolf Pass that was perfect for a family of three.

  But the ad was never placed. Which meant David Frayne had killed the hit man, John Oldman. Not that that name was any more real than the others.

  But this face. Real or not, it was remarkable. Without a single visible scar. Quite beautiful, really.

  “Ah…” Beyond that fabulous reflection, up the mountain, was Hannah’s cottage.

  And the one man left alive who could identify that face. Maybe the woman could, as well. A man and woman—and maybe even a child—who were all about to die.

  Just as soon as they showed their faces.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Fritzi?”

  Nathan knocked and waited. Last night he’d scaled the heights of ecstasy—then plunged to the depths of despair while Fritzi had barricaded herself inside this bedroom. He’d wanted to demand she talk to him, to break down the door if he had to. There was so much that needed to be said. But now it was morning and he still didn’t know where to begin.

  “L
ook, Fritz, when I left D.C., all I knew was that Mo, Al and Katie were dead. And that I—and anyone near me—could be killed. As a precautionary measure, I’d always made sure there wasn’t much to link you to me—only the two people I hired in Arlington. No one I worked with even knew about you, much less the location of your town house. I knew you’d be safe—but only if I put as much distance between us as possible.”

  Brushing his knuckles across the door, he knocked again. She still wasn’t saying anything. Under his breath, he murmured, “What are you doing in there?”

  Then he raised his voice. “Don’t you see? I had to contact my direct superior and get help. He got me new documentation, helped track down the surgeon who worked on my face, got copies of the police report you found in the cabin. By then, I knew the potential danger to you if Koslowski made the connection, so I was determined to make sure you were safe. And when I saw the ad with your name and Malcolm’s…” Nathan didn’t even have the words to describe the terror that had gripped him. He’d stared at the newspaper with the unseeing gaze of the dead, as if his eyes had frozen open. “Fritz, are you even listening?”

  Probably not. And with cause. He’d lied and left her, forcing her to have their baby alone. He’d come back into her life under false pretenses, too—bringing deadly danger, making love to her….

  And he was lying to her still. He knocked on the door a third time. He just wished she could understand why he hadn’t hauled her out of bed on their wedding night. Without accessing his numbered accounts, he’d had no real way to take care of her. “Fritzi, please, I love you and the baby so much. Please, say something.”

  Nathan turned the knob. There was no lock. If there were, she’d have used it against him long ago. Using his shoulder for leverage, Nathan leaned into the door and pushed. Inch by inch, the door opened, the heavy chest scraping across the hardwood floor.

  As Nathan squeezed his head through the widening crack, cold air blasted him.

  “Fritzi?”

  Just as he said her name, he realized snow was blowing through an open window. And that she and the baby were gone.

  FRITZI HANDED MALCOLM to Abby through the open door. “And remember what I said.”

  Abby clutched the baby against her bathrobe, her sleepy dark eyes full of fear. “Mitch and I are both here. If anybody we don’t know comes, we’ll hide Malcolm in the attic. I promise.” She grasped Fritzi’s arm. “Can’t you tell me what’s going on?”

  Fritzi shook her head, glancing apprehensively toward the snowmobile. She’d cried all night, dozing only briefly. Then she’d donned her snowsuit and parka and sneaked herself and Malcolm into this frigid, dark morning. She looked at Abby again. “I can’t say.” The less Abby knew, the safer she’d be.

  “Well, I’ll help you in any way I can.” Abby cradled Malcolm. “You’d better get down to Joe’s, if that’s where you’re going. And don’t worry about the baby.”

  Fat chance. Worry had eaten out Fritzi’s insides, gnawing at her all night. “I don’t know what I’d do without your help.” Fritzi squeezed Abby’s hand, then turned and went toward the snowmobile at a limping run, squinting against the driving snow.

  What if Joe Tanook still wouldn’t believe her? Fritzi stared through her goggles into the darkness and sped down the mountain, clenching her teeth against the biting cold, ignoring the snow pelting her cheeks, wondering how much she should tell the sheriff. Everything. Don’t let some skewed sense of loyalty to that man make you obscure the truth.

  This wasn’t her problem. She was a law-abiding citizen with information. The unidentified body in the No Name River was there because a government mission had gone awry a year ago. Nathan Lafarge, aka David Frayne, said he’d killed the man in selfdefense. If Nathan’s story was true, and the man really had fired an automatic weapon at him, then Joe Tanook would find expended shell casings buried under all that snow on the bridge. No doubt the sheriff hadn’t looked hard enough.

  He’s got to protect me and Malcolm. The words played in her head like a mantra. And the government’s got to clean up its own messes. Fury suddenly rushed through her like the wind—and she hoped the government would sweep Nathan Lafarge so far under the rug that he’d never see the light of day again.

  Not that they would. She blinked back tears. Officials had done nothing but stonewall her ever since the day her parents had died. She’d begged for answers, hoped with all her heart that the killers would be brought to a court of law—but they never were. That’s probably why Lady Justice is blind, she thought. Because she doesn’t see a damn thing.

  There’d been no justice for her parents—and there’d be none for her. She’d found David—only to realize he’d lied again and put their child in mortal danger. Deep in her bones, Fritzi knew Kris Koslowski was already here. Someone had been in that schoolhouse…. All at once, Fritzi wailed, “Oh, please, make the sheriff believe me this time!”

  But Main Street held only bad omens. Transformed by still-falling snow, it was bleakly dark and deserted. There was one street lamp, but snow swirled around the dome. Squinting into the distance toward the few lit windows of Julia Jones’s bed-and-breakfast, Fritzi could swear she saw a parked snowmobile. Did it belong to some new stranger in town? To Kris Koslowski? Was he staying at Julia’s?

  At this end of the street, white drifts shored against the doors of closed shops. The road had been plowed on previous days and the sidewalks shoveled into mounds so high, Fritzi couldn’t even see over them. She rode right down the center of the vacant street, walls of snow rising on either side of her like a canyon. Finding a break in the snowdrifts in front of J.J.’s general store, she parked.

  And then she felt the eyes. Cold, evil eyes that sized her up, that bored between her shoulder blades when she turned toward the sidewalk. Eyes—like the sweet, safe man you thought you married—that exist only in your wild imagination, Fritzi.

  “No one’s here,” she whispered. And yet she felt him. Kris Koslowski was close, watching her every move. Needle-thin tentacles of fear slid through her veins, then feathered into her capillaries. Her eyes darted anxiously up and down the street, then to rooftops and countless darkened windows. Yes, Koslowski was hidden in one of those dark rooms—watching, waiting.

  Standing in the open won’t help. Get moving!

  Fritzi hobbled over the break in the snow and onto the icy sidewalk, lowering her goggles and letting them hang around her neck by the strap. Just because no lights were yet visible at the detention center didn’t necessarily mean the sheriff wasn’t inside, she thought. But she’d been so sure that after eight the place would be lit up. Well, maybe Joe’s running late. After all, the snow’s still falling….

  If only the nagging sense that someone was watching her would pass. But the eyes felt even closer now. Like a dark presence right behind her. She fancied she felt hot breath on her neck, that the outstretched fingers of a black-gloved hand were an inch from her shoulders, reaching for her in the dark. Her muscles ached from tension—and she knew if she suddenly whirled around she’d be staring right into the deadly eyes of a killer.

  Don’t freak out. Just keep going, Fritzi. No one’s here.

  But the farther she got from J.J.’s, the more scared she became. With every step and breath, she was waiting to die. As if in warning, the hairs at her nape suddenly rose—then they seemed to crawl downward, prickling like insect legs on her flesh.

  Not a soul in White Wolf Pass was awake. She was alone in the soundless dark—and hemmed in. Only an approximate foot of the sidewalk was even passable. Connected storefronts loomed on her right; to her left was a snowdrift piled at least seven feet high. If Koslowski suddenly lunged at her from a doorway, there’d be no place to run.

  Something icy dribbled between her shoulder blades. At first, she thought it was perspiration, then realized it was only cold dread. Shivering, she forced herself to keep moving. But the snowfall was uneven, deeper in some places than others, and her ankle ached. Her eyes we
re swollen from crying last night, too, and her head throbbed. She peered from beneath a group of shadowy awnings. Up ahead, the detention center still looked dark.

  And those damnable eyes wouldn’t go away. She could almost see them—black and soulless. Devoid of all human emotion—except maybe hate. She crossed her arms, hunching her shoulders and hugging her parka. Speeding her steps, she slipped on the ice. Just as she caught herself, she imagined Kris Koslowski laughing at her, mocking her terror.

  She’d nearly reached the detention center, and she was still alive. Her gaze settled on the ornamental totem pole outside, its black-and-aqua paint so stark against all the snow. Her eyes—so hungry for signs of life—riveted on the stacked carved faces. At the top was a long-toothed beaver, then a wolf with menacing fangs and finally a bird with a long, sharp beak and curving wings. Carved inside the pupils of the giant bird were more bird faces…faces within faces. She thought of David, who looked so very different from Nathan, and shuddered again.

  A man was given one face. And as far as Fritzi was concerned, he should have to keep it. She blew out a shaky sigh, wishing the carvings weren’t so frightening, so primitive, and that the street wasn’t so silent. Even the howling wind had stopped. All she heard was the snow crunching beneath her boots. Then, far off—maybe from the direction of Hannah’s—she heard a dog bark. Was Brownie Mulray heading into town?

  Fritzi hoped so. Her eyes darted around furtively—ducking inside doorways and over her shoulder. In places, the snowdrift to her left dipped down far enough down that she could actually see the street. Could she bolt over the snow if Koslowski came at her from one of the doorways?

  And after she begged the sheriff to protect her and Malcolm from the killer, would she tell him that Nathan had killed the man on the No Name Bridge? “You have to,” she whispered through clenched teeth. If Nathan had killed a man in self-defense, he had an obligation to help Joe Tanook—whether or not he was a government agent and no matter from whom he was running. The bottom line was that she and Malcolm had done nothing wrong, and they deserved the sheriff’s protection—especially since a trained professional assassin was gunning for them.