I grabbed a tee-shirt and pulled it on over my black plaid pajama bottoms as I stumbled to the door. The door shook as she beat on it. When I unlocked it and yanked it open her eyes widened. "Oh I'm sorry. I just…what did you do to your hair?" Then she looked down and took a step back.
Her fear was palpable, but I couldn't understand why she backed up. Seconds before she'd been banging on my door and yelling her head off. A beat later I realized I had my gun in my hand.
Damn. I'd zoned again and picked it up by habit. I held the gun up, barrel pointing at the ceiling and motioned her in. After she went past me I put one foot in the center of my door frame and looked around my front yard, then up and down the road. She stood just behind me so I talked to her as I continued looking out the door. "Just ignore the hair. I do. What's wrong? Why are you scared?"
The fear I'd sensed when I opened the door remained. My presence wasn't as reassuring as she'd hoped.
"When—when I got home I got out of the car and started up the walk when I saw a shadow. It moved inside my house. So I ran back to my car and watched as someone moved past my windows. I googled your house—"
"You should have called the police," I said in a low voice. I narrowed my eyes and took a last look at the darkened street before I shut the door and locked it. After making sure the safety was on I set the gun on the side table in front of the steps where I kept my keys. Two deep breaths before I looked at her again. Her wide eyes stared at me. "What is it?"
"You are the police." she had her arms crossed in front of her as if wrapping them around herself. "You just look so much like Jason, or you did at first. But like this," he nodded to me. "You don't. You're very different. I mean you're shaped different."
"I'm not Jason." I found myself watching her closely, drawn in by the curves of her face and the way her lips moved over her teeth. They were red, her lips. In fact, she looked nice for a counselor coming off a late shift. "Wait—how late were you working?"
"I didn't leave till 1:05 or so. I have a lot of paperwork I'm behind on and doing it sort of gets my mind off of Jason."
"So, you did care more about him than you thought."
Donna shrugged. "I guess. I mean I don't know. I've never lost someone like him. And it sort of…I'm a little spooked." She took a step closer to me. "You really are shaped different."
"Shaped different?" I yawned. This was sort of an odd interruption but I wanted to go back to sleep.
"Jason wasn't as—" she shivered. "I don't know. Built? You're lean where he was skinny. You stand up straight and alert where he slumped and tended not to notice anything around himself. And you…have something very different about your eyes."
"You said I looked fiercer."
"Yeah. Your eyes are awake." She rubbed her upper arms with her hands. "And if you're living in this kind of cold no wonder you're awake. Geez Jack. You like it cold just like Jason did."
I hadn't even noticed it was cold. I shifted my attention from her to the environment. "Sorry—you're cold?"
"Yes." Her teeth chattered.
I kept my thermostat at seventy degrees normally, though due to the ongoing heat and the overtaxing on the city's power grid, there'd been a few rolling blackouts to prevent more transformers from shorting out. I'd compromised from keeping it higher while I was gone but cranking it way down when I was home.
"Jack? Are you okay? Now you're looking a little dazed."
I could see her breath. It shouldn't be that cold.
"I'll check the thermostat." The meter hung on the wall just behind her in the hall to the kitchen.
Twenty-nine degrees.
Fuuuuck.
The lever setting the temperature was pushed all the way down. I pushed it up to seventy and waited, listening for the furnace to kick in. When it did I turned to look at Sarah. She was watching me, smiling.
"You really don't want another episode of heat-exhaustion do you?"
"No." I couldn't remember pushing the lever that low.
"You're just wearing a shirt and pajamas and you're not even cold. I mean, your nipples aren't even hard." Sarah's eyes widened as she slapped her hands over her mouth. "Oh." She laughed nervously. "I said that out loud."
"Are you drunk?" I put a hand on her arm. "You're acting a little strange."
She nodded quickly and to my surprise moved into my arms. She wrapped her own around my waist as she tucked her head into my chest, under my chin. I felt her shaking, but I wasn't sure if it was from the cold or fear. I kept my arms and hands in the air, unsure of what to do. "Uh…Miss Blankenship—"
"Donna."
"Donna. I'm engaged."
"And?"
"And I'm not sure this is appropriate behavior."
I wasn't an antisocial person but I'd had so little affection during my childhood that touch to me meant something special. I saved my affection for Sarah, and if she decided to come over right at that moment— "Donna I need you to let go."
Seconds ticked by before she finally pulled back and folded her arms over her chest. "You could hang meat in here."
I laughed nervously. "Like you said, I didn't want to have another attack."
Donna frowned at me and her voice had a harsher tone. "I don't think hypothermia is the answer."
"I'm really not that cold."
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Yes."
"You said the two of you were never a couple?"
"No. I'll admit I knew he wanted to be."
"And we look a lot alike?"
"Almost identical—and I know where you're going with this." The corners of her mouth turned down. "I'm not here because I feel guilty he's dead and you look like him, so being with you absolves me of that guilt. I'm here because someone was in my house. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't attracted to you. You just seem…" She shrugged. "I don't know. More grown up?"
I leaned my head to the right, searching for just the right angle to look at her. "Grown up? More so than Jason?"
"You talk as if you've lived. As if you've seen things—some good and some bad. It might be what I see in your eyes. It's so hard to put a finger on it. It's what makes you different."
Her words touched me more than I'd ever allow her to know. Because if my mother was right, and my father had taken him when we were eight—then it made sense that he hadn't lived. That much was proved with no trackable life at all. The fantastic part of me, the one that toyed with the idea of him being Jack Frost thought the idea was more plausible. Jack Frost wouldn't possess the experiences that day to day life carved into us. Of course I didn't or couldn't understand what life as something like that would be. "You mean he had a sense of wonder about him? Was it childlike?"
"No, not childlike. More like…adolescent." She laughed. "He always wanted to play games. Didn't matter which. He told me he'd marathoned on video games for several days just after he started volunteering at the hospital. In fact, one of the kids there, a cancer patient named Amelia gave him her copy of some popular game and challenged him to beat her highest score." She frowned and I saw her eyes grow distant as if she were calling up some forgotten memory. "In fact, I think they used to play online."
"So, Jason had an apartment?"
"I don't know where he lived. He never wanted me to come there—he said he kept it very cold and I'd be uncomfortable. I never asked for his address."
I knew Crow had already checked Jason's volunteer record at the hospital, but Jason hadn't completed all of the form. No address and no phone number. "You think it's possible this Amelia knew his address?"
"She might."
"Would it be possible if I talked to her?"
Donna pursed her lips. "Maybe—if you do me a favor."
"What?"
"You come with Detective Crow to pass out presents at the Santa event tomorrow morning. I think it'd be a treat for the kids to have real live detectives participating."
Oh. Great. If there was one thing I disliked most about Christmas it was Sa
nta. Know why? Because my mom said if you rearrange the letters they spelled Satan. "And she'll be there?"
"Yes. Or I hope she will. Her cancer's in remission but I haven't seen her in a few days. I think it might help her a great deal if she got to meet Jason's brother. She and Jason talked all the time."
"Then I'll make a point of speaking to her," when I tried to move past her to the kitchen, she stepped into my path. "Donna—"
"Detective—I'm sorry. It's just…you're everything Jason wasn't and I hate the fact you're engaged—"
"And we have a baby coming which is very important to me."
She chewed on her lower lip. "Right—I forgot Dr. Heine was pregnant. So… I'm not going back home because I saw someone in my house, so if you want to call the precinct and report the possible burglary I'll do what has to be done." She pouted. "But I want to stay here tonight."
"Let me call over there and phone in a report. Might be able to get a black and white to check the place out." I went upstairs to grab my cell phone and heard her coming up behind me. I had her stand in the middle of the room while I talked on the phone.
Twenty minutes later the report was started and dispatch reassured me they'd send a car over to Donna's house. I let them know she'd be staying in a much safer place. And honestly I'd been calculating my budget for what hotel I could put her up in while we caught this guy.
But apparently Donna had other ideas.
I'd gone into the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my hands. I would dress and drive her to the hotel myself just to make sure she was safe. A small, frightened part of me liked having in the house with me, but the more by-the-rules part of me knew having a victim in my home wasn't exactly the best protocol. I could get into a lot of trouble if I wasn't careful. I sensed she was attracted to me. But I was so close to marrying the woman of my dreams I didn't want to screw it up.
But when I came out of the bathroom I didn't see her immediately.
That's because she was in my bed.
Naked.
In my bed.
I watched her as I moved to the other side. "Donna—"
"Don't think about it, Jack. Don't stop and wonder and don't worry. Please. I wanted to love Jason. He was every girl's secret wish for a man. Handsome, caring, considerate, loyal, and good with other people. Not to mention super with kids. But he just wasn't what I wanted."
I grabbed a few pillows, a blanket, my phone and headed to the couch. After I was ensconced in the blanket I called Sarah and told her.
There wasn't anything I ever wanted to hide from her because I didn't want to screw this relationship up.
-8-
Christmas with mom had always been a solemn affair. I couldn't remember ever having a tree because it was a pagan tradition and not Christian. So I never had presents under the tree. And if a family member did give me presents mom gave them back. Santa to me was little more than a commercial ploy used to grab money from parents who needed to buy their children's affection.
And we all know what mom thought of the old guy's name.
The one and only time I made a comment about not having presents or a tree like the other kids in school, I saw stars from the backhand she gave me. I never understood growing up why it was so important to ignore all the things she called unnatural. But to her all things were unnatural. More precisely, things not in the bible.
I was eleven when I saw Santa in the mall and watched as kid after kid crawled in his lap and told them what they wanted.
All I'd wanted back then was my real parents.
Joke was on me, wasn't it? I'd had one of them all along. And the other one was a goat foot devil.
Half of me believed her—what other explanation was there for what happened with the ice in the cafeteria and then at my desk? Even Crow admitted seeing it—unless he was just humoring me. And if he was then we were gonna have to scrap.
The other half of me believed my mom was crazy and needed help.
I called Sarah and told her about my deal with Blankenship and the kids. She gushed on the phone and insisted we ride in together. "Meet me at the coffee shop in an hour."
Donna was gone when I woke up, a thank you note left on the coffee table in front of the sofa where I'd slept greeted me when my phone alarm went off. I called in to the station to discover they never sent a car to Donna's house. Too busy with disturbances in town. The continuing heat was driving everyone insane.
Then I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. At first the white and silver hair occupied a slight streak along my temple. That morning it dominated most of the hair on the crown of my head. Washing didn't help—if anything it made it shinier. I didn't bother combing it because I didn't want to look at it.
That and when I tried to cup water in my hand after brushing my teeth the stream from the faucet froze. In order to rinse out the toothpaste I had to grab a bottled water out of the refrigerator, and even then I watched chunks of ice form inside of the plastic.
It was already 70º outside when I met Sarah at Starbucks.
Sarah's expression alarmed me as I approached her. She absently kissed my cheek as she reached up and toyed with my hair. "What happened to—"
"I don't know," I said in a low voice and steered her to the counter. "It was like this when I woke up this morning." I wasn't going to go into the other tiny problems with ice I'd had. I hoped it wouldn't happen to my coffee. If it did, Crow and I were gonna have another pow wow to brainstorm what to do about this.
"Hey Frost!" the guy behind the counter waved as we approached. Then his expression became puzzled. "What did you do to your hair?"
"Getting old I guess."
"No…not just that. You're going white and silver all over." He looked at Sarah. "You do that with a kit?"
She blushed. "No. But it is kinda sexy."
After we had our coffee and Sarah had her bear-claw, I drove us to the hospital in silence. I think Sarah sensed something was wrong and true to who she was, waited for me to share. So when I parked the car I left the engine running so the air-conditioner would prevent us from baking.
"Nothing happened last night." It just burst forth out of my mouth with no way to stop it.
Sarah slipped her hand in mine. "I know."
"I want you to really know it, though. That she slept in my bed and I slept on the couch." I looked to my right and into her beautiful brown eyes. "I want you to know you can trust me."
"Jack," She let go of my hand and touched my face. "I do trust you. I trust you more than anyone else on this planet. I've never had a lover who woke me up at 2:00 in the morning just to let me know he had company. I don't know of any man that would do that. So please," she leaned over and kissed my lips. "I trust you. Now, let's get out of this heat."
I wanted to tell her more. Tell her about the ice. Tell everything my mom said. But she was already getting out of the car and I followed behind her.
Crow was already in place and talking with the kids gathering in a large room on the second floor. Apparently Donna asking me was really his idea. The place looked like a first grader's school room, with hand made decorations tacked to the walls. It smelled of paint and Elmer's glue. Hand decorated snowflakes hung from the drop ceiling with fishing twine. They moved with the air conditioner that kept the room at a livable temperature.
Sarah disappeared and reappeared in her uniform of scrubs and long white coat, her hair up in a ponytail. My heart skipped when I saw her. Relationships between me and women hadn't always gone as smooth as I'd have liked. Most couldn't handle my hours, or my need to be cool.
Temperature cool, not like, appearance cool. I'd never considered myself a candidate for that kind of cool. Crow? Now he was cool.
But Sarah…
From the moment we'd met there was something there. She'd been in the ER by mere chance that night, and I'd been out on my first shift of being a detective. Crow and I'd collared a robber just outside a jewelry store a few blocks away. It'd been after midnight a
nd I had to chase him down an alley, through a back yard, around a few moving vehicles and into the waiting arms of Crow.
We'd nailed him.
And then I collapsed, a victim of my own weakness. Hot skin, erratic pulse, unconsciousness, Crow thought the robber shot me and I was in shock. He rode with me in the ambulance to the hospital where I met my angel.
Sarah Heine.
The courtship was slow and easy going—just the way we both liked it. She adjusted to my schedule and I adjusted to hers. A year later she confessed to me she was pregnant and we couldn't wait to get married. I'd somehow convinced myself I would never have something as wonderful, loving and normal as a family.
Now that dream was felt possible.
Until last night my life was complete. A job I loved. A woman I loved and loved me. A best friend beyond reproach. And a future.
Now?
I wasn't sure what was happening. A dead brother. An whack-job mother. A goat legged father. And a problem with ice. And worse—I was keeping most of it from the woman I loved.
I found Crow buried in the center of a tumble of little people in night gowns, pajamas, robes, and wheelchairs. He was drawing totems for everyone on a legal size pad of paper.
"Now you tell me your favorite things," he said to one of the young girls in a wheel chair. It was her delicate beauty and grace that told me she was a female, and very young. Her hair was gone and I watched as Sarah wrapped a blue and white scarf around her forehead and behind her ears. As I approached I saw the white pattern in the fabric was snowflakes.
Which made me think of the snowflakes on Jason's fingertips.
The little girl glanced over at me, and then did a double take. Her wide eyes glistened and she put her hands to her mouth. I thought for a second she was in pain or having a fit
"Oh my god," she said into her hands. "You do look like him. Miss Donna was right!"
Miss Donna. I hadn't seen Donna since arriving. I hadn't heard confirmation about the car I asked sent to her house either.
"Yes." Sarah held her hand out to me. "Jack, come here and meet Amelia. Amelia, this is Jason's twin brother, Jackson."
Frost Page 5
