White Wedding

by Jean Barrett

  Forehead resting weakly against hers, he crooned in a soft, smoky voice, “Now are you going to say the magic isn’t still there between us?”

  She couldn’t. The magic was there. Powerfully there! But the sex between them had always been an explosive thing. It wasn’t necessarily evidence of rediscovered love.

  “It’s no solution, Jack,” she said miserably. “It doesn’t mean that a union could work for us any better now than it did six years ago.”

  “I’m not asking for a commitment,” he pleaded with her. “All I’m asking is that you think about us getting back together.”

  She didn’t know. She was confused, torn by indecision. Was she falling for Jack Donovan all over again? Or was he right? Had she never stopped loving him at all, only hidden that love from herself in order to survive, to preserve her independence and get on with her life? There was one certainty. She was terrified of making a mistake, of being hurt all over again.

  “Do it, Lane,” he urged. “Say you’ll reconsider. For both our sakes.”

  “I—I’ll think about it,” she answered, relenting. “But that’s all I can promise.”

  “Sweetheart, that’s all I want.” He drew back, chuckling in relief.

  She sensed a premature elation in his reaction, and it worried her. “Please, Jack,” she cautioned him, “I don’t want you counting on anything.”

  “You can get drunk on hope alone, Lane. I found that out on my last dig in the Gobi.”

  There was a solemnity in his tone that alarmed her. “What happened? Something went wrong, didn’t it?”

  “You could say that,” he admitted. “It was a rough area, one of the worst. Three of us were involved in a cave-in.”

  “You were buried. Actually buried?”

  “It turned out okay. We all got out alive and unhurt. But an experience like that has an effect on you. It made me deeply aware of my mortality,” he confided. “I realized that I wasn’t getting any younger, and what if I’d died out there? What would I be leaving behind that’s worth something?”

  “All your accomplishments as a paleontologist,” she assured him.

  “Yeah, they matter. But in the final outcome, there are other things that are more important.”

  “Such as?”

  “Loved ones. Maybe a kid of my own. All the corny stuff that isn’t so corny after you’ve faced death.”

  Lane stared at him, a sudden suspicion beginning to steal into her mind. “Wait a minute, let me get this clear. You’re saying you want a child?”

  “It’s not out of the question, is it? We did talk about eventually having a baby when we were married. I remember telling you that you’d make a great mother. I still think so.”

  “Is that what this is all about?” she demanded.

  “What?” he asked innocently.

  “This longing of yours for us to be reconciled. That is it, isn’t it? I can see it in your face. You want to be a father, so you need a suitable mother. And that’s all you need.”

  He frowned at her. “Are you nuts?”

  “No, just a fool who almost made a terrible mistake.”

  There had been more times than she could count when she had been furious with Jack Donovan. But there had been no occasion in her memory when she’d been more outraged than she was now. It was all too clear. He didn’t want her because he loved her. He just wanted to use her to—oh, God!

  Lane couldn’t get away from him fast enough. Swinging around, she moved off rapidly along the beach. Though she couldn’t see it from here, she felt sure the dock, with the main trail leading from it, must be just around the bend to the right. All she wanted was the shortest route back to the lodge.

  She never turned her head, but she could hear Jack pounding after her, shouting for her to wait.

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” he called. “Will you just stop for two minutes and let me explain?”

  “I’ve done enough listening!” she cried into the wind. “Stay away from me, Jack! Find someone else to bear you a child!”

  It was just the wind that was making her eyes water so badly, she thought angrily. She wasn’t crying. She refused to cry.

  Either way, the tears were blinding her, causing her to stumble repeatedly as she picked her way stubbornly along the rocky beach.

  This was no good. The shore was too rough, the snow in spots too deep. No one had cleared a path here, as the trails had been cleared in the woods. She didn’t want Jack overtaking her, insisting she accept his arm. And she didn’t want to turn around and have to face him again.

  There was another choice. The ice was level, the snow cover on its surface much thinner—in fact, nonexistent in areas where the wind had swept it as clean as a broom. Not her favorite place to be, certainly, but she would stick close to shore where it was shallow and the ice solid.

  “Now where are you going?” he yelled behind her as she left the beach.

  She didn’t answer him. She marched out along the ice and found she was able to make much better progress in spite of the powerful wind that lifted the powdery snow into swirling clouds. There was no obstacle until she met a high, wide drift raised by the gale.

  Determined to let nothing stop her, Lane moved out farther along the ice, rounding the end of the snowy ridge. The area on the other side was one of those spots where the wind had scrubbed away the snow, leaving the pure ice exposed.

  The surface wasn’t as smooth as it looked, however. Lane caught the toe of her boot in a crack and went sprawling on all fours. Just what she needed for Jack to witness! She had no doubt that he was somewhere not far behind her. Could this whole humiliating situation get any worse?

  She started to pick herself up before Jack could rescue her. And that was when she saw it. There, drifting in the water just beneath her, distorted by the ice but unmistakable, was a human body.

  Her shock was so pronounced that for a minute she couldn’t breathe. It was the nightmare of her childhood all over again—that horrifying afternoon when her playmate had been trapped under the ice and drowned. Only this was no child. The body was that of an adult male. A man clad in a hooded jumpsuit that, even through the layer of ice, she could see was a startling blue.

  She managed to scramble to her feet just as Jack reached her. There was a grim expression on his face as his gaze traveled to the sight beneath her boots. By this time Lane was moaning like a wounded animal. She didn’t hesitate. She flung herself against the solid wall of his chest.

  His arms went around her, holding her close. She forgot she was supposed to be angry with him. Nothing mattered in that awful moment but the security of his strength, the comfort of his deep voice soothing her as she went on moaning.

  “It’s all right, sweetheart. I’m here. It’s going to be all right.”

  Her whimpers gradually subsided as she fought for self-control. She was still trembling, but she forced herself to break away from him.

  “We’ve got to help him,” she insisted. “We’ve got to get him out. Maybe it isn’t too late.”

  Jack said nothing. He dropped to the surface, crouching there as he examined the body pinned under the ice. Lane, feeling sick, turned her head away. She couldn’t bear to look. She had already seen far too much in those eternal seconds when her gaze had been riveted on the body stretched mere inches below her.

  Jack got to his feet, shaking his head. “There isn’t anything we can do for him.”

  Lane shuddered. She should have known it was hopeless. Before tearing her eyes away, she had glimpsed the face floating down there. It was white and contorted, the flesh rended by some terrible impact.

  “It’s Dan,” she whispered. “It’s Dan Whitney. You recognized him, too, didn’t you?”

  “Looks like it, but we can’t be sure.”

  “I am sure. Not just because of the clothes. His hand—his hand was up there tight against the ice.” It was an image she would never forget. Grotesque and desperate, as though the fingers were clawing for release.
“He’s wearing a ring I remember. A distinctive ring. I noticed it on his hand yesterday in Ephraim.”

  “Seems pretty certain, then.”

  “He never made it,” she said. “The poor man never made it. Oh, Jack, he must have fallen through the ice out there somewhere, and the currents dragged him under and carried him in here before he could help himself. It’s horrible!”

  His jaw tightened. He didn’t answer her for a moment. When he did speak, his words were slow and measured. “It didn’t happen that way. It wasn’t an accident. His face is shattered, Lane. I’d say he was ambushed at close range with a powerful gun. The bullets have torn up the flesh.”

  Lane stuffed a gloved fist against her mouth, staring at him. “Dear God, not again!”

  “I don’t think there’s any point in kidding ourselves. This island has had a second murder.”

  She cast a frantic glance in the direction of the shore, her eyes searching the trees as if expecting a sinister figure to emerge from the woods.

  Jack’s hand closed on her arm. “Come on, I’m taking you back to the lodge.”

  “I’m all right,” she tried to tell him as he started to lead her away from the scene. “We can’t just leave him down there like that. We have to get him out.”

  “Not without tools. The ice might be almost as clear as a window in that spot, but it’s tougher and thicker than it looks.”

  She didn’t argue with him any further. She was still badly shaken.

  “Besides,” he added, “we have to tell the others.”

  She hadn’t thought of that. He was right. The others were entitled to hear of their discovery just as quickly as possible. Lane tried to brace herself for that unpleasant necessity as they battled their way across the ice, the wind tearing at them relentlessly.

  Chapter Seven

  “It can’t be happening!” Ronnie wailed.

  If she expected a response, no one in the room gave her one.

  It was a half hour later. Jack, accompanied by Chris and Hale, had gone back to the bay to try to recover Dan’s body from the ice. The others waited in the lounge for their return.

  Lane stood numbly by one of the French doors and watched a solitary gull gliding above the tip of a majestic pine. She marveled at the bird’s efforts in such severe weather. The wind was stronger than ever.

  She went on staring at the pine long after the gull had vanished. She didn’t want to picture anything else in her mind. She didn’t want to remember the image of Dan’s body under the ice. She didn’t want her head throbbing with those two persistent questions that had no answers. Who? Why?

  Lane concentrated on another matter that was also disturbing but far more acceptable. Had she overreacted when Jack had expressed his desire for a child? The question worried her. Because if she had been unfair to him, then the subject wasn’t closed. They would have to talk again, and she would have to listen to him. She didn’t know if she could bear the emotion of another intense scene with him.

  “This just can’t be happening to us!”

  Lane thought she would start shrieking like a hysteric if Ronnie didn’t stop repeating the useless lament that none of them wanted to hear. They were experiencing an unbearable tension, their nerves raw. Except for Ronnie, however, each of them was handling it in an uncomplaining silence.

  Dorothy was perched rigidly on a straight-backed chair near the doorway to the foyer. Lane, turning away from the window, glanced at her in concern. Dorothy’s mouth worked soundlessly, as if she were silently praying.

  She must be more worried than ever about Nils, Lane thought. Wondering if he was still out there somewhere on the ice or whether the killer had got to him, too. Then another thought, unbidden and unpleasant, flashed into her mind. She remembered Dorothy and Chris this morning discussing Nils’s recent release from the hospital. Severe depression, Chris had said. Did that suggest some form of mental disturbance? No, it was an unjust speculation.

  Lane didn’t want to wonder about it. Her gaze shifted, focusing on Stuart. The teenager was seated cross-legged on the floor near his mother’s chair. The familiar sullen expression was on his mouth. He had an ornate ceremonial dagger in his lap that he’d lifted from the weapons collection in the library. He kept playing with the dagger, turning it over and over in his lap, as if to deliberately unnerve his mother.

  Stuart’s action troubled Lane, forcing her to recall another unwanted scene from this morning. Hale and Ronnie exchanging those knowing glances across the breakfast table, sharing some painful secret about Stuart.

  Lane’s gaze went lastly to Allison. She was huddled on the window seat in the bay overlooking one of the terraces. The news of her cousin’s death had shattered her. She had sobbed in Lane’s arms when Jack, as gently as possible, had told her. She looked pale now and anxious.

  Leaving her post, Lane went and joined her friend on the window seat. Allison reached for her hand, clinging to it.

  “It’s my fault,” she fretted. “If I hadn’t insisted on holding the wedding out here, Dan would still be alive. Teddy, too. I’ll never forgive myself.”

  Lane squeezed her fingers, offering a lame comfort. “No one is to blame, Allison. No one but the—”

  She never finished. The front door in the foyer slammed, announcing the return of the men. The three of them trooped into the lounge, bringing a wave of cold air with them. The women, along with Stuart, came to their feet, facing them expectantly.

  It was Jack who told them what they were waiting to hear. “The body was gone by the time we got there, carried out again by the currents. I’m sorry, Allison.”

  Allison issued a small whimper of anguish and sagged against Lane.

  Chris directed a look at his sister as the men began removing their coats. “The phone?” he wanted to know.

  Dorothy shook her head. “Still out.”

  “And the whiteout conditions on the ice are worse than ever,” Hale contributed dismally.

  “There’s no question of any of us trying to get through,” Jack added. “Not after what happened to Dan.”

  “Sweet Lord,” Ronnie cried, “we’re caught here with some fiend loose on the place! What are we supposed to do?”

  “To begin with,” Jack suggested, “I think it’s time we all of us sat down and talked. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t intend to just wait here without helping myself.”

  No one disagreed with his proposal. Seconds later they were grouped on chairs and sofa in a semicircle in front of the fire.

  “So, what are our options?” Hale demanded.

  Jack leaned forward in his chair. “With the phone down and the ice impassable, not many. I don’t think we can count on Nils, either. Sorry, Dorothy, but we’d be fooling ourselves to go on hoping he got through.”

  Dorothy’s face tightened, but she said nothing. It was her brother, Chris, who put into words what the others were unwilling to suggest. “You’re saying that the killer stopped Nils, just like he stopped Dan. That he doesn’t mean for any of us to leave the island.”

  Ronnie uttered a little scream of horror.

  “I’m not assuming anything, and neither should the rest of you,” Jack swiftly responded before Ronnie could start to babble on in a useless panic. “There could be any explanation for Nils, including the possibility that he did make it, or will make it. I’m just saying we can’t depend on it.”

  Ronnie was not about to be silenced. “You were all so sure that we were safe here! That this maniac had left the island and wouldn’t return! Now he’s back! Somehow he got through, and he’s here stalking us!”

  “Maybe not,” Stuart offered mildly. “Maybe he’s been here the whole time.”

  His mother glared at him. “Stuie, be quiet!”

  “Why? I’m not afraid to say it even if the rest of you are. That’s what you’re all thinking, isn’t it? That the killer could be one of us.” He chuckled gleefully. “Interesting possibility, huh?”

  Ronnie gasped
and then rushed on. “That’s preposterous! We’ve all been together the whole time. Someone has always been with someone else. Well, haven’t we?”

  She stared around the group in the long, uneasy silence that followed. The unthinkable had been expressed and, monstrous though it was, none of them could deny it.

  “It’s not so farfetched,” Hale muttered. “Not when you stop to think about it. Some of us are practically strangers to each other, and nobody’s been keeping track of our movements.”

  “Let’s not go off the deep end and start imagining things,” Jack said. “The situation is nervous enough as it is.”

  Hale turned on him resentfully. “And who made you the leader here, Donovan? Come to think of it, you’re off by yourself in that guesthouse. How do we know what you’re up to out there on you own?”

  Jack’s face hardened. Lane had never seen the proud Irish heritage so strongly evident in his bones. “I wouldn’t advise you to take that any further, McGuire.”

  “No? Then how about this one? Nils Asker. Maybe he’s not missing out on the ice. Maybe he’s lurking nearby. Sure, why not him? Wasn’t he alone out here with the florist and the last to see him? After all, we only had his word for it that Teddy Brewster was still alive and healthy when he left him.”

  Chris looked as if he was ready to pummel the lawyer. Dorothy laid a hand on her brother’s arm, stopping him.

  “Don’t,” Lane begged them. “Please, don’t let’s start turning on one another. Don’t you see it’s the worst thing we can do?”

  “Lane is right,” Jack agreed briskly. “Trying to determine who the murderer is at this point can’t help us, any more than speculating about why he’s struck down two people. Where is he right now? That’s all that matters.”

  “What are you saying?” Chris asked.

  “That I refuse to be a target, if it comes to that. The island is pretty small. If he’s out there, there isn’t much to conceal him. We’ve already searched the lodge. I say now we cover the outside and do our best to expose him.”

  “How?” Chris pressed him.