On Thin Ice

For the first time in her life Lauren was knee-knocking, bone-shaking terrified.

Adams bore down on her like a predator. Once, years ago, she’d watched as a polar bear slaughtered a lone seal who’d drifted away from its herd. It all came back to her now as she felt a dazed sort of panic, the kind she’d seen reflected in the seal’s eyes the second before the bear took it down.

Three strides, then two. Adams was almost on her, but she couldn’t will herself to let go of Paddy’s jumpsuit and run. She locked gazes with the roughneck, her teeth chattering from the cold. Adams reached out and—

To her astonishment, he grabbed the collar of Paddy’s jumpsuit and in one smooth motion pulled him out of the pit onto the ice.

“Move away from him.”

“Wh-what?”

“You heard me, move!”

She slid to the side, her arms dripping mud that would be frozen in— Oh, God, it was already frozen.

Adams shot her an icy look as he checked Paddy’s body for a pulse. Lauren knew he wouldn’t find one. That was the first thing she’d done when she’d discovered him facedown, floating in the reserve pit.

“Get the medic.”

The world spun around her. Bright yard lights reflected off blowing snow. Bone-chilling wind sliced her skin like a razor. She sat back on the ice as visions of Paddy O’Connor and her father—collecting rock samples, inspecting a worn drill bit, sharing a beer after a job well done—screamed through her mind in an avalanche of pain and tenderness.

She was barely aware of Adams starting CPR.

“I said get the medic! Now!”

His command snapped her out of her daze. “Y-yes. Of course.” She scrambled to her feet.

“Wait. Here.” He stopped the chest compressions long enough to shrug off his survival jacket and toss it to her. Then he watched her as she struggled into it, teeth chattering, her gaze pinned on his. For the barest moment she read something in his eyes, something she wasn’t prepared for.

Accusation.

“Have them bring the stretcher. Tell Salvio to order a medevac out of Kachelik. It’s closer than Deadhorse. That chopper that dropped you here isn’t set up for it.”

She nodded, took a second to get her bearings, then took off at a run, Adams’s unzipped jacket whipping her in the wind.

Two minutes later the camp was in an uproar. Twenty minutes after that, in the camp’s tiny infirmary, the medic—a freckle-faced kid fresh from advanced life-support training—pronounced Paddy O’Connor dead.

Lauren felt sick to her stomach.

Salvio wrapped an arm around her and moved her toward the door. “Come on, I’ve got just the thing for you.”

She tried to wave him off through a haze of tears, but he persisted, steering her back down the hallway toward his office. They passed Adams, gathered with the rest of the crew just inside the camp’s kitchen. His face was hard, his eyes black and unreadable. Surely he didn’t think it was her fault that Paddy’d been, that he—

“Did he make it?” one of the crew asked.

Salvio shook his head.

Some of these guys had worked for Paddy O’Connor since the beginning. Lauren had known the toolpusher all her life. What on earth had happened?

They turned into Salvio’s office and he directed her to the beat-up sofa. “Sit down.”

“No, I—”

He pushed her down onto the stained Naugahyde. She watched, in a daze, as he fished something out of his file cabinet.

“Here. Drink it.” He handed her a small, silver flask.

It didn’t surprise her at all that Jack Salvio ignored Tiger’s strict rules prohibiting alcohol in the field. She stared blankly at the flask. Why not? It couldn’t make her feel any worse, and it just might settle her nerves if not her stomach. He opened it for her, and she took a healthy swig. Whatever it was, it burned all the way down.

“Good. Now get some rest. You look like hell.”

She’d shed Adams’s jacket in the mudroom. Her clothes and her hair were caked with drilling mud, but that could wait.

“No, I’ve got to call in.”

“Phones are out. The weather.”

That’s right. She’d forgotten. Crocker had mentioned it to her on her chopper flight in. “So there’ll be no medevac to transport Paddy’s body?”

“Nope.”

“What about the satellite uplink? I’ve got to call my boss and tell him what’s happened.”

“Walters can wait. Along with the rest of the world. The uplink’s down, too.”

“But—” The satellite link was never down. “How can that be?”

“Dunno. All I know is it is.”

“What are we going to do?”

Salvio shrugged. “Shut it all down, I guess. The whole operation.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I ain’t kiddin’ at all. The second we report what’s happened we’ll be crawling with Tiger execs, OSHA agents, borough cops—the whole frickin’ state’ll be out here. Might as well get a jump on the shutdown.”

She looked at him incredulously. “But the exploration well… We’re nearly at target depth. The rock samples… If we don’t get them, if I don’t get them—”

Tiger had spent a huge chunk of this year’s exploration budget on the Caribou Island project. Her boss, Bill Walters, was counting on her. The accuracy of their geologic maps, Tiger’s position in the next round of land leases, her promotion—everything depended on finishing the well.

“Uh, excuse me…” The roughneck, Adams, stood just outside the half-open door. Lauren wondered how much of their conversation he’d heard. “I thought someone might want this.”

With a shock she realized he was offering her Paddy’s hard hat. Her stomach tightened. A man was dead, and all she could think about was the damned job. Tears pooled hot at the corners of her eyes. By sheer will she beat them back.

“You were out there.” She rose and stepped toward Adams’s outstretched hand. “Why?”

“Who, me?” he said, far too casually.