Cold Conspiracy

He spotted her SUV up ahead, parked behind a blue sedan. Jamie, hands in the pockets of her parka, paced alongside the road. He didn’t see Donna—she was probably in the car.

He pulled in behind Jamie’s SUV and turned on his flashers. Jamie whirled to face him. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“I got a call to assist the sheriff’s department.” He joined her and nodded toward the car. “What have you got?”

“Another dead woman.” Her voice was flat, as was her expression. But he caught the note of despair at the end of the sentence and recognized the pain shining out from her hazel eyes. He had a sharp impulse to pull her close and comfort her—but he knew right away that would be a very bad idea. She wasn’t his friend and former lover Jamie right now. She was Deputy Douglas, a fellow officer who needed him to do his job.

“I’ve got emergency flashers in my car,” he said. He glanced toward her SUV. Donna sat in the front seat, hunched over and rocking back and forth. “Is your sister okay?”

“She’s upset. Crying. Better to leave her alone for a bit.”

“Do you know who the woman is?”

She shook her head. “No. But I think it’s the Ice Cold Killer. I didn’t open the door or anything, but she looks like his other victims—throat cut, wrists and ankles wrapped with tape.”

He walked back to his truck, retrieved the emergency beacons and set them ten yards behind his bumper and ten yards ahead of the car. As he passed, he glanced into the front seat and caught a glimpse of the dead woman, staring up at him. Suppressing a shudder, he returned to Jamie, as a Rayford County Sheriff’s cruiser approached. The driver parked on the opposite side of the road, and tall and lanky Deputy Dwight Prentice got out. “Travis is on his way,” he said, when they had exchanged greetings.

“I was headed back to town to get ready for our meeting when I saw the car,” Jamie said. “It wasn’t here when I drove by earlier, on my way to the Pickaxe snowshoe trail.”

“The meeting has been pushed back to four o’clock.” Dwight walked over to the car and peered inside. “Do you know who she is?”

“I don’t recognize her, and I never opened the car door,” Jamie said. “I figured I should wait for the crime scene team.”

“Did you call in the license plate?” Dwight asked.

Jamie flushed. “No. I… I didn’t think of it.”

“I’ll do it,” Nate said.

Radio transmission was clearer here and after a few minutes he was back with Jamie and Dwight, with a name. “The car is registered to Michaela Underwood of Ames, Iowa.”

The sound of an approaching vehicle distracted them. No one said anything as Sheriff Travis Walker pulled in behind Dwight’s cruiser. Tall and trim, looking like a law enforcement recruiting poster, the young sheriff showed the strain of the hunt for this serial killer in the shadows beneath his eyes and the grim set of his mouth. He pulled on gloves as he crossed to them, and listened to Jamie’s story. “What time did you drive by here on your way to the trail?” he asked.

“I left my house at five after nine, so it would have been about nine thirty,” she said.

“Your call came in at eleven fifty-two,” Travis said. “How long was that after you found her?”

“I had to drive until I found a signal, but it wasn’t that long,” Jamie said. “We stopped here at eleven forty-five. I know because I kept checking the time, worried I was going to be late for work.”

Travis glanced toward her car. “Who is that with you?”

“My sister, Donna. She never got out of the car.” One of the dogs—the big husky—stuck its head out of the partially opened driver’s-side window. “I have my dogs with me, too,” Jamie added.

“All right. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

The others stood back as Travis opened the driver’s-side door. He leaned into the vehicle and emerged a few moments later with a small card, like a business card, and held it up for them to see. The bold black letters were easy to read at this short distance: ICE COLD. “Butch is on his way,” Travis said. Butch Collins, a retired doctor, served as Rayford County’s medical examiner. “Once he’s done, Dwight and I will process the scene. I’ve got a wrecker on standby to take the car to our garage.”

“It must be getting crowded in there,” Nate said—which earned him a deeper frown from the sheriff.

“Nate, can you stay and handle traffic, in case we get any lookie-loos?” Travis asked.

“Sure.”

“What do you want me to do?” Jamie asked.

“Take your sister home. I’ll see you at the station this afternoon. You can file your statement then.”

“All right.”

Nate couldn’t tell if she was relieved to be dismissed—or upset about being excluded. He followed her back to her SUV and walked around to the passenger side. The dogs began barking but quieted at a reprimand from Jamie. Donna eased the door open a crack at Nate’s approach. “Hello,” Nate said. He had a vague memory of Donna as a sweet, awkward little girl. She wasn’t so little anymore.

“Hello.” She glanced toward the blue sedan, where Dwight and Travis still stood. “Did you see the woman?”

“She’s not anyone we know,” Nate said. “A tourist, probably.” More than a few visitors had been stranded in Eagle Mountain when Dixon Pass, the only route into town, closed due to repeated avalanches triggered by the heavy snowfall.

“Why did she have to die?” Donna asked.

Because there are bad people in the world, he thought. But that didn’t seem the right answer to give this girl, who wanted reassurance. “I don’t know,” he said. “But your sister and I, and Sheriff Walker and all his deputies, are going to do everything we can to find the person who hurt her.”

Donna’s eyes met his—sweet, sad eyes. “I like you,” she said.

“I like you, too,” he answered, touched.

“All right, Donna. Quit flirting with Nate so he can get back to work.” Jamie turned the key in the ignition and started the SUV.

“You okay, Jamie?” he asked.

The look she gave him could have lit a campfire. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?” she asked. “I’m a deputy. I know how to handle myself.”

“I wasn’t implying you didn’t.” He took a step back. “But this kind of thing shakes up everybody. If you asked the sheriff, he’d probably tell you he’s upset.” At least, Nate had known Travis long enough to recognize the signs that this case was tearing him up inside.

“I’m fine,” Jamie said, not looking at him. “And I need to go.”

Look me in the eye and let me see that you’re really okay, he thought. But he only took another step back and watched as she drove away. Then he walked into the road, to flag down the ambulance he could see in the distance.

JAMIE SHIFTED IN the driver’s seat of the SUV, as uncomfortable as if her clothes were too tight. Nate had looked at her as if he expected her to dissolve into tears at any minute. He ought to know she wasn’t like that. She was tough—and a lot tougher now than she was when they had been a couple. She had had to develop a thick skin to deal with everything life had thrown at her.

She was a sheriff’s deputy, and she had seen dead people before. She wasn’t going to fall apart at the sight of a body. Though she had forgotten to call in the license plate of the car, which she should have done, even if she wasn’t on duty. And she should have stayed and helped process the crime scene.

If she had been a man, would the sheriff have asked her to stay? No, she decided, her gender didn’t have anything to do with this. Travis Walker was as fair a man as she had ever known. But she had had Donna with her. She had to look after her sister, and the sheriff knew that. They had discussed her situation before he hired her. With their parents dead and no other relatives living nearby, Jamie was responsible for Donna, and might be for the rest of her life. While Donna might one day want to live on her own, with some assistance, most programs that would allow that were only available in larger cities—not small towns like Eagle Mountain. As long as Donna wanted to stay in their childhood home, Jamie would do whatever she could to make that happen.

She was happy to take care of her sister, but it meant making certain adjustments. She wasn’t free to go out whenever she liked. She couldn’t be spontaneous, because she had to make sure Donna was safe and looked after. She didn’t think many men her age would be open to that kind of life.

Which was fine. She didn’t need a man to make her complete.

She didn’t need Nate Hall. When his plans changed and he decided to go away for college, he had shed her as easily as if he had been getting rid of last year’s winter coat or a pair of shoes he’d outgrown.

He had told her he loved her, but when you loved someone, you didn’t treat them like you were doing them a favor when you said goodbye.