A Killing Frost

by Hannah Alexander

  “How do you know?”

  He looked at her and grinned. “It was a favorite parking spot when we were in high school. Don’t tell me you never-”

  “No, I never.”

  His grin widened. “Good for you.”

  “Don’t act so surprised. The rumors of my adolescent crimes have been hugely exaggerated.”

  “So you weren’t the one charged with vandalism for climbing Mr. Earle’s prized dogwood on the school grounds.”

  “I’m just saying-”

  “You’re saying you never went parking here,” Tyrell said.

  “Never.”

  “Amy didn’t-”

  “Amy was too busy working her way to valedictorian to mess around with messing around. So…who’d you go parking with?” Jama asked.

  “Why are you asking?”

  “I bet it was with Patty Miller.”

  “You’d lose that bet.”

  “Sandra Green?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with parking at the river and watching the moon float between clouds as you talk and dream and share a kiss or two.”

  A kiss or two? “Aha! So it was Sandra?” Jama felt a sting of unwarranted jealousy. “Did that often, did you?”

  His gaze on her was teasing. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell. Don’t you wish it had been with you?”

  She glared at him as he opened his door and got out.

  If only…

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  In spite of Jama’s vigorous insistence that they could find Doriann on their own, Tyrell did not agree. He wasn’t nearly as supportive of this action as he led her to believe. Although he felt fairly certain, as Jama did, that the FBI had not extended their search boundaries this far, he also knew the agents had surveillance equipment that could do the work of a hundred men. But like Jama, he couldn’t just give up searching for Doriann.

  And so he called Agent Sydloski on his cell phone, and told him about Jama’s speculation that Doriann had fled the barn and headed to the river. To Tyrell’s surprise, the agent seemed grateful for the input, but also adamant that Tyrell and Jama not get involved.

  Not that the feeble warning was going to stop Tyrell from walking the river’s edge.

  “Keep your light aimed directly at the ground in front of you,” he told Jama after he disconnected the call.

  “Okay, sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I thought I heard something in the trees.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know…wind? Air movement that could keep the frost from settling? Maybe signal a change in weather?”

  “Don’t I wish. Then we wouldn’t be burning hundreds of dollars worth of good hay to save the crops.”

  “Okay, not wind. Maybe that surveillance equipment you’ve been telling me about, placed in the treetops by the FBI to monitor all movement on the ground. The agents would have checked to see if the abductors managed to escape via the river, wouldn’t they?”

  Tyrell looked out across the pockets of dense fog across the waterway. “Yes, but something tells me the kidnappers couldn’t have gotten far without a boat, and considering the accident that landed them here in the first place, I doubt they came prepared. What you’re hearing is Fern Creek trickling into the river a few yards ahead.”

  Jama walked a few feet to his right, silent for the moment. They crossed the creek, then moved closer together as the tree line encroached over the riverbank.

  His attention returned to the fog. “I see something that reminds me of a jewelry store.”

  He heard a soft intake of breath beside him, and he wondered if she was thinking about the ring he had wanted to give her. He could see only her dark silhouette. The rhythmic swish of her jacket whispered a soft and steady pulse into the air.

  “The gemstones in the sky?” she asked. “The pearl of the moon and the sparkle of the stars?”

  “Wrong. Jama, you’re getting rusty at this game.”

  “Then the onyx glow of the moon’s reflection on the water.”

  “That’s a nice thought,” he said. “Much nicer than what I was thinking, actually, but not as fitting, because the moon isn’t reflecting on the water, it’s reflecting on the fog.”

  “I see some clear spots out there now.”

  “I’m looking at the fog, Jama.”

  “Okay, why would fog remind you of a jewelry store?”

  “Don’t you think it looks like the cotton the jeweler layers into the boxes?”

  “They don’t do that in jewelry stores. They do it in department stores for costume jewelry. The expensive stuff comes in fancy boxes with velvet linings.”

  “Oh.” He studied the fog again. “Then try this. Looking out across the river, seeing the patches of fog interspersed with patches of blackness, I’m reminded of the patches of darkness I sense in you.”

  Her steps slowed, then sped up. “Nice segue, Mercer.”

  He followed her.

  “I have a new job,” she said. “Secure for two years, at least. I know the people, so I don’t have to settle in with new patients. Maybe I’m more conscious of my high-school years now because there are so many people to remind me about them, but it isn’t something I’ve agonized over all this time. If anything, it’s a triumph, because given my school record, who would have expected me to come back and work in River Dance as a doctor someday?”

  “Yet you seem unhappy about being here.”

  “Maybe things are uncomfortable with my new supervisor, but that can happen anywhere.”

  Tyrell misstepped in the darkness, landed into water up to his calf with a splash, and stumbled out. “Would you slow down a little?”

  “Sorry.”

  “So you and Dr. Lawrence weren’t able to work things out today after you returned?”

  “Define what you mean by working things out. Nobody told me she was a missionary who had left her mission in Africa, and apparently her husband, as well.”

  Tyrell nearly stepped into another spot of water. “She told you this?”

  “Keep your voice down. Eric told me.”

  “Eric?”

  Jama explained what she had learned about Ruth today. “She must have contacted Eric Thompson about a job when she left Tanzania.”

  “A missionary? Really?”

  “My thoughts exactly. Eric told me not to ask her about it, which probably means I shouldn’t be discussing it with you, either, but since almost everybody in River Dance will probably know her whole life history within the next month or so, I doubt I’m breaking any sacred trust.”

  “Why would she leave her husband and their mission?”

  “I don’t know. It isn’t as if we share confidences. I’m surprised every time we exchange a civil word with each other.”

  “She’s obviously under a lot of stress, which can make some people unpleasant, and prone to building barriers for protection.”

  Silence for a few steps, then Jama asked, “Have I been mean to you?”

  He hesitated, thinking of the safest reply to that. “There are other behaviors that can suggest an emotional wound.”

  “This is interesting, Tyrell, listening to you philosophizing tonight.”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Not much.”

  “You are. Maybe that’s to distract me from developing another theory. Is there someone else you’ve been seeing since our breakup? Because that would provide a whole ’nother reason for this not-getting-married position of yours.”

  Jama hesitated, and Tyrell felt a twinge of dismay. Maybe he shouldn’t have introduced the subject. He didn’t want to know.

  And yet, he had to know. “Jama?”

  Her steps slowed, and then she stopped. Her breath sent puffs of mist in the air as she looked up at him. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  He braced himself.

  “Tyrell, don’t get a big head or anything, but there’s never really been anyone but you.”

  He realized he’d stopped breath
ing. He started again. “Don’t kid me.”

  She took a step closer to him. “You wanted honesty?”

  “That’s what I wanted.”

  “Then you got it.”

  “Then I don’t understand why-”

  “Now is not the time to get into it. Aren’t we looking for Doriann?”

  “You and I both know that even if she is following the river, she won’t have gotten this far.”

  “We need to keep going, anyway. The sooner we find her, the sooner we can get her warm and safe. Let’s go.”

  “Wait.”

  “Tyrell, don’t-”

  “The fog.” He pointed to the river, where whirls of mist floated in tufts across the lake. “You were right about the patches of water. It’s moving. That means-”

  “It means we might have been granted a reprieve from the freeze. The crops may be safe.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Monty will be relieved.”

  Tyrell resumed the trek along the river’s edge. They still hadn’t accomplished their most important goal tonight.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Whispers awakened Doriann. She opened her eyes to feel the warmth of Humphrey pressed against her belly and the hardness of the cave floor against her right side. Her fingers tingled because the dog lay across her arm.

  Where had the whispers come from? Had she had a bad dream?

  But the voices continued. She blinked in the darkness, then froze. He’d found her?

  She craned her neck, trying to see out of the mouth of the little cave. No light except for one patch of starlight through the treetops. But the stars seemed to blink on and off, on and off as she watched. Airplane?

  No, the moonlight showed her the swaying branch of a tree.

  Moving. Wind.

  Humphrey whined and sat up, then grunted when he bumped his head against the cave ceiling.

  The whispers weren’t coming from human voices, but from the leaves in the trees, rustling in the wind.

  Doriann rolled onto her stomach and inched her way forward until she could stick her head out of the cave and look around. She realized she wasn’t frozen to death.

  Though Humphrey no longer huddled close, she didn’t feel as cold as she had. Could the weather be changing? The best she could tell, this wind was from the south.

  Granddad and Uncle Tyrell would be so relieved!

  She shook her right arm to get some feeling back into it, scooting closer to the edge of the cave mouth. She listened. Definitely. Not much, but it was there. She felt it on her face, heard it in the trees, smelled smoke from somewhere, which meant that smell needed to be carried by the wind.

  She climbed from the cave and sat for a minute, dangling her legs over the ledge. “Thanks, God.”

  A girl never realized how much she could appreciate warm clothes and a warm home when she didn’t have either.

  She remembered a verse Aunt Renee read to them just the other day about the trees singing. That’s what Doriann believed was happening here. The trees sang with the warm wind. This forest was singing because the frost was being melted away, saving the leaves and shoots and shrubs and blooms.

  Doriann wanted to sing with them!

  A cold, wet nose touched her cheek, and she giggled softly. Humphrey responded by licking her chin and thumping the sides of the cave with his tail.

  And then he jumped down from the rocky outcropping of the cave and turned to look at her, whining.

  “What is it, Humphrey?” she whispered.

  His throat made a squeaky sound, as though he were fretful about something, then he took off at a trot down the dry creek bed.

  Doriann started to call him back, but then she heard something else over the wind: the voice of a man.

  The day’s terror returned through her whole body with a jolt. Humphrey bayed ahead of her, and the man’s voice came again from behind. Far behind.

  Clancy was afraid of Humphrey. Doriann had seen that in the barn. He would stay away from the dog if he could.

  Humphrey howled again-a hound on the hunt. The man fell silent. Good. This would be the protection she needed from that goon. And Humphrey was going toward the river-the way Doriann needed to go. He might even lead her all the way home.

  She scrambled down from the rock ledge and followed Humphrey by the light of the moon.

  The blanket of fog across the water continued to swirl in eerie shapes as the clear, star-studded sky hovered above. Tyrell was hungry after scrambling around in the forest and along the riverbank for hours. Why hadn’t he packed some food?

  He’d heard no complaint from Jama. In fact, for the past mile or so, he’d heard little of anything except a brief comment now and then about a possible tricky step over the rocks.

  “We can see the lights of River Dance from here,” he said as they reached a bend in the river.

  Jama stopped and turned, close enough for him to feel the warm mist of her breath against his skin.

  “I think we’re about halfway back to the area where we saw Doriann’s tracks.” Jama unzipped her coat. “I wonder how far she made it.”

  Her flashlight dimmed, and she shook it. “When the store opens in the morning, I want to buy a flashlight like yours. This thing’s been giving me fits all night.”

  He pulled more batteries from his pack and gave them to her, then watched her, holding his beam on her hands as she worked. He loved those hands, the compassionate care he had seen them convey to those who needed a healing touch. Like her, they were strong, gentle and sure.

  He’d been unable to stop thinking about her flight after Amy’s death. “Why Utah?”

  She looked up at him, squinting in the light, then shrugged and returned her attention to the battery. “Amy and I drove through there on our way to the Grand Canyon. It was so wide-open and wild. We stopped at a few of the trailheads and talked about returning someday. But someday never came.”

  “So you went there to feel close to Amy?”

  Jama shoved the spent, rechargeable battery into her pocket. “Lead the way.”

  He did. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  Silence.

  Time to drop that topic. “Where would you be if you didn’t have the obligation of your loan here in River Dance?” he asked. Something told him she wouldn’t be anywhere near here.

  “I haven’t thought about it.” She sounded relieved for the subject change, and perhaps just a little apprehensive that he might lead the conversation back.

  “Just off the top of your head,” he said. “Where would you be?”

  There was silence again, but this time he could tell she was running the question through her mind.

  “I don’t think it’s healthy to dream about what might have been.”

  “Is there a place you’d like to go after your two-year debt is paid in River Dance?”

  “Maybe to Hideaway. It’s a place down in southern Missouri. I hear they’re looking for doctors.”

  Tyrell felt a sharp pang of disappointment, but he knew he’d asked for it. What had he expected? That she would suddenly proclaim her undying devotion to him, tell him she wanted to be wherever he was?

  “Do you know someone there?” he asked.

  “Charla Dunlap, the lady who sold her land to the town for the River Dance clinic, was originally from there. She returned, after all these years, to work at a boys’ ranch. It sounds like a neat place, isolated from the rest of the world, where a boat is the fastest transportation to the neighboring towns.”

  “River Dance is pretty isolated.”

  There was a soft whisper of laughter. “I’m not isolated here. I’m surrounded.”

  “You want to hide away?”

  “I just told you I liked the idea of the place.” Jama sounded irritated. “Don’t keep trying to psychoanalyze me.”

  She was quiet for a moment, then she asked, “Where would you be?”

  “Here.”

  Their footsteps moved in tand
em for long moments.

  “You’ve always loved working the land,” she said.

  He thought about his concerns earlier today. “I have, but it doesn’t consume me the way it’s always consumed my father.”

  “Monty does a great job of balancing his work on the ranch with his family time. He had to work hard to support a family of seven…and eight, when they brought me in from the cold.”

  “I’m just saying that there are now modern ways to handle the ranch that my father didn’t have when I was growing up. There is more efficient equipment, which is expensive, but worth the cost when it comes to spending time with loved ones.”

  Again, a long stretch of silence except for the gentle wash of the mass of river to their left, and the sound of their footsteps on gravel.

  “All I’m saying, Jama, is that I would want to spend more time with my wife and family than Dad was able to do.”

  “Your father is one of the most loving, responsible, good men in the world.”

  “I think so, too.”

  He heard her steps slow behind him, and he tried to match his steps with hers, hoping she wouldn’t retreat back into her silence.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong, Tyrell. Nothing at all.”

  He turned to look at her, took a step closer to her, until he could almost feel her warmth. “Then I don’t understand why we aren’t engaged now, because there is nothing about you I don’t love.”

  “You don’t know everything.” She touched his arm. “Look, I’m sorry if I made you feel responsible for this. It’s me, not you.”

  And then she did retreat into silence. Minutes later, they heard the baying of a hound through the darkness. A few seconds after that, Tyrell’s phone rang, and he flipped it open.

  “This is Agent Sydloski,” came the curt baritone voice.

  “Yes?”

  “I understand you passed the roadblock in good time, but we’ve heard from the sheriff that your vehicle has not been seen in River Dance, and that Dr. Keith’s car is still in the clinic parking lot.”

  Great. They’d been caught. The sheriff’s office had one holding cell at the edge of town. Tyrell had seen it once on a class field trip.