A Killing Frost

by Hannah Alexander

  “Do you remember the age-old question?” Tyrell settled his smoky-dark gaze on Jama again. “What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?”

  “Injury?”

  “Most likely. Unless the irresistible force isn’t as irresistible as it seems.”

  “Or if the immovable object isn’t as immovable.”

  “So which are you, and which am I?” Tyrell asked.

  Jama grimaced. Here she’d thought he’d given up on that subject. “Shouldn’t we just focus on Monty for now?”

  “You don’t think Dad will want the same answer as soon as he wakes up? Don’t you want to be ready for the poor man, considering his weakened condition?”

  “Have I reminded you lately that you have a manipulative streak?”

  “So are you saying I would be the irresistible force? That would make you the immovable object.”

  “One of the theories is that the immovable object will be smashed to pieces at impact.” She paused, closed her eyes. “Even if it wants to be moved, it can’t.”

  “Or both could be destroyed,” he said. “Or both could carry the scars of that impact forever. Or the two could meld together and become stronger than either was before.”

  She opened her eyes. He couldn’t know how much she wanted the last possibility to be true. And how frustrating it was to know that it was her own fear that prevented it.

  A nurse approached the table as Jama and Tyrell prepared to leave, announcing that Monty was out of surgery.

  She handed Tyrell his cell phone. “Your mother says you need to call your sister, Heather. She’s asking to speak with you.”

  Tyrell took the phone, pressed Speed Dial and walked to a quiet corner of the cafeteria.

  As he listened to Heather, Jama saw his expression turn to stone.

  Tyrell’s fingers went cold all of a sudden, and he felt a tightening in his chest as his sister, the solid, calm, sensible twin, sobbed at the other end of the connection.

  “Missing? How long? What happened?”

  “We don’t…we don’t know. Oh, Tyrell, I’m so scared. She never went to Renee’s this morning. She told me she felt sick, and she was caught up on all her subjects, and the cousins were driving her crazy-you know how they can be. All over the place all at once, and they never stop talking. I can’t imagine how Renee manages to teach them so much when they never sit still, but she’s so good with them, and Doriann has just blossomed under her schooling-”

  “Honey, slow down.” As a cardiothoracic surgical chief resident, Heather had nerves of supersonic titanium. Which was why her sudden jabbering frightened Tyrell badly.

  “What is it you’re trying to tell me?” he asked.

  “I let Doriann stay home this morning. Alone.”

  “That’s not unusual. You’ve done that before.” Not that he approved, and he’d made his opinions known quite strongly in the past.

  “I know I shouldn’t have,” she said, “but I understand how it feels to need quiet time to yourself.”

  “What happened, Heather?”

  “I called her at home, and she didn’t answer. I tried her cell, and it sounded as if she answered, then hung up. I kept calling, and got her voice mail. She hasn’t answered any of my calls.”

  Now he was getting really scared. Doriann Streeter was a strong-willed eleven-year-old, but she would not frighten her parents like this.

  “Perhaps she’s in a place with no cell reception,” he suggested.

  “You know how she is. She doesn’t sit in one place for more than five minutes, and even if cell reception is sketchy, I’ve tried enough times, I surely should have gotten through.”

  “So you went home and she wasn’t there, either?”

  “That’s right. She and I had a few words the other night about how much I’m away from home, but I thought we’d gotten that straightened out. She understands the demands of my residency program.”

  Tyrell had his doubts about that. Sure, he was proud of his sister, but it didn’t seem to him that leaving a daughter at home alone most of the time, or handing her over to your sister to raise, was something any kid was going to completely understand. But what would he know? He wasn’t a parent.

  “She is probably still mad, and just doesn’t realize you’re worried,” he said.

  “I know she likes to go to the park alone sometimes,” Heather said. “She goes to see the animals in the zoo, and she’s mature enough to go by herself.”

  Tyrell held his reply. An eleven-year-old had no business walking unaccompanied along the streets of Kansas City, even in the bright morning sunlight. But remarking about that right now would not be helpful.

  “Any ideas?” he asked.

  “One, and it terrifies me. We heard a report that two people were seen earlier this morning abducting a redheaded child only two blocks from our apartment. The police are following all leads.”

  Tyrell closed his eyes as a sick dizziness threatened to flatten him. He felt a hand on his arm. Jama’s hand. She squeezed, and he saw her eyes filling with dread.

  “So if that is what happened,” he said over the phone, keeping his voice calm for the sake of his sister and Jama, “are there any leads?”

  “Reports are that this couple has headed east on I- 70.”

  “Toward St. Louis, then.”

  There was a catch in his sister’s breathing, and a gasp from Jama, who squeezed more tightly-no longer giving strength, but needing it.

  “Heather Danae, you’ve got to keep it together.” Remaining calm no longer seemed possible, yet he needed to do so anyway.

  “She’s everything to me,” Heather said. “If I’d paid more attention to her this morning-”

  “Right now regrets and second-guessing yourself won’t help.”

  “This could be something more than a random incident,” Heather said.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “The couple are suspected to be killers. They may be the two who went on a rampage and killed several people across state lines, two of them doctors. This couple is on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.”

  The words were a kick in the gut, and the strength went out of Tyrell. He found a chair and sat in it. Jama sank down beside him, close.

  “Mark was moonlighting on an E.R. shift a week or so ago, and a man came in demanding painkillers,” Heather said. “Mark didn’t comply.”

  Tyrell understood. He’d heard enough of his brother-in-law’s stories to imagine the variety of people treated in the Emergency Department. Weekends were the worst, when “patients” tried to con the E.R. docs into giving out narcotics, opiates and other addictive drugs. Mark had been around long enough to know when he was being scammed.

  “One of the other docs had his car window smashed in the doctors’ parking lot that night,” Heather said. “Mark parks there, too.”

  “You think Mark was the target, but the guy got the wrong car?”

  “I do. Mark tells me not to jump to conclusions. The man stole Mark’s prescription pad, then tried to have a script filled at a pharmacy. The pharmacist checked it out-saw something wasn’t right. Mark called the police, and the thief, Clancy Reneker, was arrested. He went into a rage, broke away from the officers, and then he and a woman went on a rampage across Kansas, Missouri and Illinois.”

  Tyrell couldn’t bear the thought of his beautiful, precocious niece in the hands of drugged killers, especially someone bent on revenge.

  “I don’t think I can take this,” Heather whispered. “If those people kill my daughter, I’ll die with her.”

  “Now stop that,” Tyrell said gently. “Don’t jump to conclusions. Just go with what you know. You’ve prepared yourselves for the worst. Let’s back off a little and think where else she might be. Might she have just gone to the zoo and forgotten to charge her cell phone?”

  “She charged it last night.”

  “Okay, then, what if she’s still so upset over your argument the other night that th
is time she went against character and intentionally turned it off.”

  “She wouldn’t-”

  “She’s eleven. She’ll be a teenager before you know it, and you know how she thinks she can conquer the world.”

  Heather was silent for a moment. “Renee fosters that concept, you know.” There was a return to poise in Heather’s voice.

  “Of course.”

  “Mark and Renee and Chet are all at the zoo looking for her now. The police are conducting a massive search of the area.”

  “Then I hope we’ll hear very soon that Doriann has been found and is in deep trouble with her parents. I’ll have a few things to say to her, myself.”

  There was a soft sigh. “Glass half-full, right?”

  “Cup overflowing.”

  “I love you, Tyrell. I wish you were here. I’m just so…very scared.”

  “I know.” Me, too. Terrified.

  “Tell me how Dad’s doing.”

  “We haven’t seen him yet, but I guess you’ve been told he’s out of surgery. Thanks to Jama, they caught the problem and it should be fixed now.”

  “Jama’s the hero of the day. When’s she going to become my sister-in-law?”

  “That hasn’t been decided.”

  “Tell her I want to be matron of honor.”

  Tyrell understood her need for the small talk. “Renee already spoke for it.”

  “I feel a good catfight coming on.”

  Ordinarily, Tyrell would chuckle politely at the continued, loving rivalry of his twin sisters. He couldn’t work up a smile, and he was glad Heather couldn’t see his face.

  “Don’t tell Dad about this, Tyrell.”

  “Not until you’ve found Doriann and it’s all over.”

  “Are we going to find her?”

  “Any minute.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ear.”

  “You realize, don’t you, that we can’t tell Mom, either,” Tyrell said. “If we do, it’ll be like telling Dad.”

  Heather’s silence stretched into infinity. Being a son who had long ago stopped confiding every thought and action to his parents, he couldn’t identify, but he could sympathize. Possibly more than all the other Mercer siblings, Heather depended on her family for emotional support. She and Mark were devoted to each other, but their schedules were demanding and often staggered. Heather needed to talk to her mother about what was happening.

  Tyrell knew this.

  “Then we don’t tell Mom, either,” she said in a wobbly voice.

  “For Dad’s sake,” Tyrell said. “We can fake it for a few minutes.”

  “Or a few hours.”

  “Whatever it takes. I’m here for you, sis.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The small amount of information Jama had heard pounded through her ears. Her heart pumped with such force that she could feel the rhythm of it as she breathed in and out. She tried hard to remain calm.

  Tyrell’s shoulders slumped as soon as he disconnected the call, as if he had been holding himself erect for the sake of his sister even though she couldn’t see him.

  “I got the gist of the conversation,” Jama told him. “Fill me in.”

  His face grew paler as he explained. A deep chill settled in the pit of Jama’s stomach as she listened.

  Tyrell leaned his elbows against the table, his face more ashen than Jama had seen it in four and a half years.

  Witty, lively Doriann, too intelligent for her own good, filled with faith and joy, was the delight of the whole Mercer clan. She could beat her grandpa at chess, she had a tender heart for the wounded, animal or human. One of her best friends in the world was Monty’s hunting hound, Humphrey.

  Fran was proud that her brilliant, redheaded granddaughter looked just like her at the same age. And had the same assertive and gregarious personality.

  Tyrell continued to recount Heather’s side of the conversation, numbing Jama with helplessness as she took it all in.

  “I’m still clinging to the hope that Doriann is at the zoo and just hasn’t been found yet,” Tyrell said.

  “You could be right,” Jama said, in spite of her conviction to the contrary.

  Tyrell reached for her hand, clasped it in both of his.

  “She’s resourceful.”

  He swallowed hard, squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath. “But she’s still a child.”

  “The FBI suspects the couple is on the way to St. Louis?”

  “It’s only a suspicion. They could be anywhere now.”

  The anxiety in his expression and his voice matched Jama’s own, and she knew she had to make another attempt to be strong-something at which she had failed so far today.

  “You know,” Jama said, “so many times these past years as we’ve grieved over Amy, Fran has reminded me not to look back at what could have been, because that’s wasted energy.”

  He nodded. “Mom’s always said that.”

  “And the unproductive remorse only interferes with the optimism that needs to be the driving force of our lives.”

  “That sounds great in theory, but it doesn’t work when my niece may be in the hands of desperate people. I want to call out the National Guard.” Tyrell punched the palm of his hand and got up to pace.

  “Was there any suggestion about what we can do to help search?”

  “None,” he said. “Prayer is our only option.”

  “We can do that, and we can spread the word to churches in River Dance.”

  “If we do that, someone is sure to let it slip to Mom, and even Dad, and I worry about how that will affect his recovery.”

  “So do I, but don’t you think prayer is more important right now than silence?”

  Tyrell nodded, reached for Jama, enfolded her in his arms and held her close. She tried hard to stop her trembling. He didn’t need to know how frightened she was. And how much comfort she felt in the circle of his strong arms.

  Doriann skittered behind a tree at the edge of the woods and stood listening for a moment before peering around the trunk. The old barn looked as if it had been punched in the roof by a giant fist, and both ends of the peaked roof leaned toward the broken middle. The siding had once been red, but years of weather had washed it to gray-pink.

  Doriann had her jacket zipped up to her neck, and her hood covered her hair-she’d made sure to tuck every red, wet strand underneath the muddy cloth. She wasn’t taking any chances.

  Clancy hadn’t stopped cussing and raving since he and Deb left the river, but it was hard for Doriann to hear anything now because the barn stood half a field away from where she hid. She needed to hear. What were they planning to do? Were they really going to sleep in there?

  Doriann studied a stand of bushes halfway between the tree and the barn. It was the only cover she would have if she tried to get closer. She studied the building, and saw cracks in the weather-worn wood. Could Clancy or Deb see through those? Would they even think about looking?

  The left end of the barn didn’t look so bad.

  Clancy’s voice suddenly rose again. For sure, he and Deb wouldn’t be peeping through the cracks to see if anyone was there if he wasn’t even bothering to keep his voice down. And so Doriann ran across the open field, past the brush, all the way to the left corner of the barn. As quietly as possible she dropped to her knees while Clancy ranted a drugged tirade. Tirade? Yes, that was the word.

  “That brat was my ticket to freedom,” Clancy said.

  “You’re free now, aren’t you?” Deb asked.

  “I’m being hunted like an animal.”

  “So what are you going to do, go find another doctor’s kid to kidnap?” Deb asked. Her voice was quieter than before, not so harsh. Maybe Clancy had her as scared as Doriann.

  “No, I want that doctor’s kid. That doctor’s just a man. He’s not a god. He looks through people as if they don’t even exist. I’ve seen too many others just like him.”

  “People who’ve looked at you like that?” Deb asked.
>
  Silence for a minute, then, “How far to River Dance? We’ll get the stuff there.”

  “How? We don’t know anybody there, and you don’t just walk into a drugstore and buy-”

  “You didn’t answer me,” Clancy said. “How far to River Dance?”

  “How should I know?”

  “You saw the road signs, didn’t you?”

  “We’re maybe about four or five miles away, my guess, but nobody’s going to sell us anything.”

  “They’ll sell us wine. At least we’ll take the edge off with a couple of bottles. Hide out someplace where nobody will be looking. Stay underground, out of sight for a while. We could hit a drugstore later, or a doctor’s office.”

  “With what? Your gun’s in that swamp, you moron!”

  There was a loud smack and a grunt, and Doriann could imagine more of Deb’s teeth flying across the barn floor.

  “Don’t call me a moron!” Clancy shouted. And then he called Deb a lot of names that Doriann had never heard before.

  Deb didn’t argue.

  “You want to know what happened to my last partner?” Clancy asked.

  No answer.

  Doriann wondered if he’d knocked Deb out. What if he’d killed her?

  Jama had every confidence in Dr. George’s ability to care for Monty. Nevertheless, she walked into the recovery room with her stethoscope around her neck, more as something to focus on than to utilize.

  When she saw Monty lying, eyes closed, most likely still half-under the anesthesia, she was glad for his grogginess. If he were alert, he would pick up on her anxiety.

  “So,” Monty said without opening his eyes, “remember your promise?”

  She couldn’t prevent a smile. He could still recognize each of his kids by the sound of their footsteps.

  His eyes opened then. “You promised that as soon as we got me taken care of, I could interfere-”

  “I remember. You’re amazingly lucid under the influence of anesthesia.”