Cold Ridge

Ten

The Mount Chester School for Boys occupied three hundred acres on the outskirts of the village of Cold Ridge, its picturesque campus dotted with huge oak trees still hanging onto their burgundy-and-burnt-orange leaves under the darkening November sky. Carine was almost relieved when Ty said he needed to stop at the school to check on Eric Carrera, Manny's son. It gave her a chance to get her bearings now that she was back in her hometown for the first time in months.

She'd said little during the three-hour trip north. There was no taking back what she'd initiated at her apartment. She'd wanted it to happen. Emotionally, she was over Tyler North. Physically-physically, she thought, he was a hard man to resist.

"Did you notice my abs?" she'd asked him during the drive.

He'd almost driven off the road. "What?"

"My abdominal muscles. I've been running and swimming, doing all sorts of calisthenics." She didn't mention she was trying to pass the PJ preliminary fitness test. "Chin-ups. Flutter kicks."

"Sure, Carine. That's what I was thinking. Gee, she's been doing flutter kicks."

"Flutter kicks are the worst, don't you think?"

He hadn't said a word. Now, apparently as tense as she was, he used more force than was necessary to engage the emergency brake. "I'll be right back."

She watched him head up the stone walk to the late-nineteenth-century brick administration building, whose design was classic New England prep school, with its tall, black-shuttered windows and ivy vines, that died back in the autumn cold. If she'd lived, Carine thought, her mother could still be here, teaching biology to another generation of boys. Mount Chester was a solid private high school with a good reputation, but it didn't have the prestige of an Andover or Choate. Carine, her sister and her brother-and Ty-had all attended the local public school.

She knew sending Eric to Mount Chester had to be a financial stretch for the Carreras, but they believed it would be good for him to be on his own, although Carine suspected there was more to it than that.

She climbed out of the truck, immediately noticing that the air was colder, a nasty bite in the wind, but she could smell the leaves and the damp ground, not yet frozen for the winter. Fallen leaves covered most of the lawn, most already dry and brown, some still soft, in shades of yellow, orange, maroon, even red-although the reds tended to drop first.

"Eric'll meet us out here," Ty said, returning to the small parking lot.

Carine nodded, sticking her hands into her pockets, trying to acclimatize herself to being back in New Hampshire.

Eric Carrera shambled down the blacktop walk from the main campus and waved, grinning as he picked up his pace. He was dark-haired and dark-eyed like his parents, and small for his age, but the way he walked reminded Carine of his father, although he didn't possess Manny's economy of movement.

"Hey, Uncle Ty, Miss Winter," Eric said cheerfully, "what's up?"

"Your dad asked me to put eyes on you," Ty said.

"Because of what happened? Mom told me. She called a little while ago. She said she wasn't sure if Dad would have a chance to call. You know, because of the police and everything. She wanted me to know what was going on in case I heard it on the news."

"You okay?"

"Yes, sir."

He wore a hooded Dartmouth zip-up sweatshirt and cargo pants, but he looked cold and too thin. He'd joined Manny and Val Carrera at Antonia and Hank's wedding a month ago. Antonia had told Carine that Eric was doing well, managing his asthma and allergies with medication and experience, knowing what triggered attacks, taking action once he felt one coming on-calming himself, using his inhaler. He wore a Medic Alert bracelet and, in addition to his rescue inhaler, carried an EpiPen-a dose of epinephrine-everywhere he went. He could treat himself in an emergency, save his own life. At least now he knew what his deadly allergy triggers were: bee stings, shellfish, peanuts. His allergies to tree pollen and dust mites, although troublesome, were less likely to produce an anaphylactic reaction that could kill him.

But it had been a long road to this point, and it had taken its toll, not only on Eric, but on his parents. Carine had seen that at Hank and Antonia's wedding.

"How's school?" Ty asked.

"It's okay." Eric shrugged with a fourteen-year-old's nonchalance. "I'm playing soccer. I'm not on the varsity team or anything, I just play for fun."

"That's great. This thing with your dad-it'll get figured out."

The boy nodded. "I know. He called you?"

"No. I was in Boston today and talked to him."

"Oh. Well, I have to go. I have a French test tomorrow."

"Sure." Ty cuffed him gently on the shoulder. "You'll call me if you need anything, right? Anytime. I'm in town for a few days at least."

Eric cheered up, looking more energetic. "Yes, sir. Thanks. I heard about the seniors yesterday. What dopes. They don't think they did anything wrong."

"They did a million things wrong, but they were very, very lucky."

"The school warns us. They have a film. It talks about some of the people who died on the ridge. One of them used to teach biology here-"

"That was my mother," Carine said. "She and my father both died on the ridge when I was three. They weren't lucky."

Eric gave her a solemn look. "I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago, but the ridge is just as dangerous now as it was then. Weather reports are more accurate, and good equipment is readily available, but still."

"You have to be take proper precautions," Eric said. "I'd like to climb the ridge sometime."

Ty seemed to like that idea. "Your dad and I can take you up there."

Eric shook his head. "Dad doesn't think I can do anything."

"You think so? Then you'll have to educate him."

"And Mom-Mom worries about me all the time." He sighed heavily, as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, most of it in the form of his parents. "She keeps encouraging me to do things, but I know it scares her when I do."

"Does it scare you?" Ty asked.

The boy shrugged. "A little. Sometimes. I do it, anyway. The seniors, those guys you rescued-one of them picks on me. He says I'm skinny, and he calls me Wheezer Weasel. Not to my face, behind my back. I think that's worse. His friends laugh. They don't think I hear them, but I do."

"I guess there'll always be a certain percentage of seniors who pick on underclassmen. They see it as their job." Ty winked at the high school freshman. "Wait'll they get the bill for their rescue."

Eric's face lit up. "No kidding, they'll be so pissed! I can't wait!"

He coughed in his excitement, but there was a spring to his step when he headed back to his dorm. Ty watched him, his jaw tightening in disgust. "Wheezer Weasel. Assholes. I wish I'd known before I rescued them. I could have hung them off a ledge by their heels."

Except he wouldn't have, Carine knew. "The Carreras haven't had an easy time of it this past year. I hope the police come to their senses soon and realize Manny's not their murderer."

"He should call his kid."

Ty tore open his truck door and climbed in. Carine followed, shivering, the temperature falling with the approach of dusk. Once he got the engine started, she turned on the heat, but her shivering had as much to do with fraught nerves as it did with being cold.

"Manny told me he had a motive to kill Louis," she said. "Or at least what could be considered a motive. Do you know what he meant?"

"He's not giving anyone the whole story."

Which didn't answer her question, but Carine didn't push it. If Manny had told Ty more than he'd told her, there wasn't a thing she could do about it except respect their bond of friendship-because she wasn't getting it out of Master Sergeant North.

"I figure he meant that people could perceive that he had a motive to kill him," she said, "not that he actually had one."

Ty made no comment, his hands clenched tightly on the wheel.

Yep, she thought. Manny had told him. She leaned back against the cracked, comfortable seat. How many times had they driven along this road? Countless, even before she'd fallen in love with him. She'd known him all her life, but their romance had been a total whirlwind, catching them both by surprise. She'd tried to chalk it up to the adrenaline of her experience in the woods with the smugglers, the shooters, but that wasn't it. If he hadn't called off their wedding, she'd have married him.

"Just drop me off at my cabin," she said quietly. "Then you can go back to Boston and figure out what's going on with Manny. You know it's driving you crazy."

"We're going to Gus's, not your cabin. He said he'd have a pot of beef stew waiting." Ty shifted gears and made the turn into the village. It was just a few streets tucked into a bowl-shaped valley surrounded by the White Mountains, its Main Street dominated by a white-clapboard, early-nineteenth-century church and a smattering of storefronts, although it wasn't a big tourist town. "It was the only way I was going to get out of town. I had to promise to bring you by."

"For what, inspection?"

"Pretty much."

Carine groaned, although this development was not unexpected. She and her sister and brother might all be in their thirties, but their uncle, just fifty himself, liked to see them after a crisis, make sure they were intact. They indulged him, not just because they loved him and life was easier if they complied, but because they understood-he'd survived combat in Vietnam only to come home and lose his only brother and sister-in-law on Cold Ridge. If he sometimes was overprotective, he was allowed. But he'd never let his anxiety spill over into irrationally stopping his nieces and nephew from pursuing their interests, taking risks.

"Al lright," Carine said. "I'm not going to argue. Drop me off at Gus's. Then you can head back to Boston."

"Not tonight. I need some sleep. Rescuing three kids off a mountain, driving hither and yon, sleeping in my truck-" He glanced at her. "Making love to you. I'm beat."

"You don't get tired, North, and I wouldn't call what we did making love. We-" She grimaced, remembering. "Well, you know what we did."

"Sure do."

"North, I swear-"

"Relax. Gus'll never be able to tell."

Gus lived in the 1919 village house in which his brother and sister-in-law had planned to raise their three children. It was cream stucco with white trim and had a front porch, a small, screened back porch, dormers, bay windows, leaded glass, hardwood floors and a fireplace. Carine used to think he'd sell it once she and her siblings were off on their own, but he didn't. He hung on to it, redoing the kitchen and bathroom, updating the wiring. At the moment, he was wallpapering the downstairs half bath.

But he had the worst taste, and when Carine scooted into the half bath, she wasn't that surprised to be greeted by a tropical oasis of parrots, frogs and palm trees. The design was garish and out of place, but neither would bother Gus-or Stump, his big part-black Lab, part-everything-else dog, who'd tried to follow her in.

When she returned to the kitchen, her uncle was stirring a bubbling pot of stew on the stove. He grinned over his shoulder at her. "Bathroom makes you think you're in the rain forest, doesn't it? I thought it'd be good during March and April, when you're sure you'll slit your throat if you see another snowflake."

"I wouldn't mind being in the rain forest right now," Carine said, smiling as she hugged him. "I've missed you, Uncle Gus."

He'd driven down to Boston a few times to visit her and Antonia, but it wasn't his favorite trip, especially if it didn't involve Celtics, Bruins or Red Sox tickets. Antonia barely knew which team played what sport. Now she was married to a senator-Hank Callahan was Manny's friend, too, a tidbit the media hadn't sunk their teeth into since Louis's murder but no doubt would. Carine expected it was only a matter of time.

Ty had retreated to add wood to the fire, obviously giving uncle and niece a chance to reconnect. Gus nodded in the direction of the front room. "How're you doing with him?"

"Okay. I thought about shoving him into traffic and being done with him, but-Gus, yesterday was so awful-"

"I know, honey. I'm sorry you had to go through that." He set his wooden spoon on the counter. "Being back up here'll help you get your bearings, even with North around."

"I hope you're right." She leaned over his bubbling pot. "Gus, what's that in the stew? The green stuff?"

"Christ, you sound like you did when you were six, always sticking your nose in my cooking." He picked up his spoon again, stirring gently. "It's okra. You know, that stuff they eat down south. I thought I'd toss some in, see if I liked it."

"I'm not sure okra's supposed to be in beef stew."

"It is now. Set the table, okay?"

They ate in the kitchen. The okra wasn't a big hit with Ty, who left it on the side of his plate and said it looked like something out of a swamp. They'd pulled through a fast-food place on their way to New Hampshire, but Carine hadn't eaten much. She ate two plates of Gus's stew, and after dinner, she brought a stack of Oreos out by the fire. She sat on the floor, her knees up, and when Gus and Ty joined her, she told them everything that had happened to her over the past day and a half, start to finish. About her lunch and how she hadn't thought about photographing wild turkeys, about Louis Sanborn asking her if she wanted a ride and the toddler chasing the pigeons on the Commonwealth Avenue mall-and finding Louis dead, what she saw and heard, how she'd run out of the house and straight into Manny Carrera.

She left nothing out, except for launching into bed with Tyler North. He knew, she knew and Gus didn't need to know.

When she finished, her uncle got up and put another log on the fire. "I want you to hear me out on one thing, Carine." He stared into the fire, not at her, and its flames reflected on his lined, lean face. "Don't try to pretend you didn't see a man you know dead in a pool of his own blood."

"Gus, please-"

"Don't fight it. Don't hide from it." He shifted his gaze, glancing down at her. "Give it time. You'll learn to live with the memory."

"I don't have any other choice."

"That's just it. You do have a choice."

He brought in more wood while she and Ty did the dishes. Carine washed, dipping her hands into the hot, sudsy water, trying to stay focused on the simple chore, the routines that reminded her of normalcy. She and her sister and brother used to take turns doing the dishes. In his various home improvements, Gus had never seen the need to buy a dishwasher.

She rinsed a handful of silverware under hot water and set it in the dish strainer. "You've seen dead men," she said. "Men you knew."

"Yes," Ty said.

"What do you do?"

He lifted out the silverware into a threadbare towel. "Focus on the job I'm there to do."

"That must be when all the years of training pay off. Do you think Manny misses the work?"

Ty opened a drawer and sorted the dry silverware into their appropriate slots. "I think Manny's eaten up inside."

After they finished the dishes, Carine put on her barn coat, noticing her reflection in the window. She didn't look as raw-nerved and traumatized as she had earlier, but she was exhausted. "It'll be good to sleep in my own bed tonight."

"Sorry, toots." Ty shook his head, shrugging on his brown leather jacket. "You don't have a guest room, and I'm not sleeping on your couch. Been there, done that. I don't fit, even without you."

"Ty-you can't be serious." Once she got to Cold Ridge, she thought she'd be on her own, at most with only Gus's hovering to deal with. "I'm home. I'm safe. It's okay-"

He wasn't listening. "I have three guest rooms, and there's a pullout sofa in the den. You can have your pick."

"I'm not in any danger!"

"Someone broke into your apartment today."

"We don't know that."

"You were first on the scene after a murder yesterday. We do know that. And we know the police haven't made an arrest and are, in fact, barking up the wrong tree for their man. So-" he zipped up his jacket "-it's my house or here with the parrots and the okra."

"Let's not make this Gus's problem."

"Suits me."

She was left to choose between bad and worse- staying with Gus and Stump was clearly worse. At least at North's place, if it came to actually staying there, which she hoped it wouldn't, she'd be within short walking distance of her cabin, and there wouldn't be dog hair on her blankets. "All right. Have it your way."

"I know you're not giving in, Carine," he said cockily. "You're buying time. You think you can talk me out of it before we get to my place. Put yourself in my position. What would you do?"

"Give me a nine-millimeter to put under my pillow."

"You might be good at flutter kicks, but a gun's a different story."

"Gus gave us basic firearms instruction when we were kids. I can shoot." But she didn't want a nine-millimeter-she wanted her life back, and she thought North knew it. "You're in your Three Musketeers mood,

Ty. I'm not going to fight you."

"Because you don't know what happened yesterday."

"No, because I do know what happened." Her barn coat, she realized, wasn't warm enough for the dropping nighttime mountain temperatures. "I hope the police don't focus on Manny for too long. Whoever killed Louis-" She swallowed, feeling a fresh wave of uneasiness, even fear. "I don't want anyone else to end up dead. That's all I care about. Just catch whoever killed Louis, and make sure no one else gets hurt."

Ty nodded. "Fair enough."

Gus appeared in the kitchen doorway. "You two leaving? Carine, I'm here if you need me. Got that?"

"I know, Gus. Thanks. I love you."

"Love you, too, kid." His tone hardened. "North? You'll be wanting Carine looking better tomorrow morning, not worse."

A neat trick that'd be, Carine thought, but said nothing as she followed her ex-fiancé outside, the night clear, cold and very dark. But without the ambient light of the city, she could see the stars.

By the time they reached his house, Ty noticed that Carine was ashen, sunken-eyed, drained and distant. He'd watched the energy ooze out of her during their ride out from the village, along the dark, winding road to his place, the ridge outlined against the starlit sky, a full moon creating eerie shadows in the open meadow that surrounded the old brick house her ancestor had built.

He suddenly felt out of his element. What the hell was he doing? Even with the dangers and uncertainties of a combat mission, he would know exactly what was expected of him, exactly what he was supposed to do. Right now, nothing made sense.

Carine was used to his house-she'd been coming there since they were kids. His mother had given her painting lessons, helped to train her artistic eye and encouraged her to pursue her dream of becoming a photographer. As much as odd-duck Saskia North had been a mother to anyone, Ty supposed she'd been one to orphaned Carine Winter.

Carine insisted on carrying her tapestry bag to the end room upstairs and said she could make up the bed herself, but North followed her up, anyway. Her room was next to his mother's old weaving room, which he'd cleared out a couple of years after her death. The different-size looms, the bags and shelves of yarns, the spinning wheel-he had no use for any of it and donated the whole lot to a women's shelter. His mother would sit up there for hours at a time. Her room had a view of the back meadow and the mountains, but she seldom looked out the window. She had a kind of tunnel vision when it came to her work, a concentration so deep, Ty could sneak off as a kid and she wouldn't notice for hours.

He didn't know why the hell he hadn't died up on the ridge. Luck, he supposed. But he'd started to wonder when his luck would run out-how much luck did a person have a right to?

"It's so quiet," Carine said as she set her bag down on the braided rug. "I never really noticed before I moved to the city. One of those things you take for granted, I guess."

"It's supposed to be good weather tomorrow. On the cool side, but maybe we can take a hike."

"That'd be good."

Ty got sheets out of the closet, white ones that had been around forever, and they made the bed together, but Carine looked like she wouldn't last another ten seconds. "Sit," he told her. "Now, before you pass out."

"I've never passed out."

"Don't make tonight the first time."

"You've got your own medical kit downstairs. What do you call it?" She smiled weakly. "Operating room in a rucksack."

"Yeah, sure. If you start pitching your cookies, I can run an IV."

"Is that a medical term? 'Pitching your cookies'?"

"Universally understood."

"I'm fine."

But she sank onto a chair and started shivering, and he tossed her a wool blanket, then threw another one over the bed. He added a down comforter, thinking, for no reason he could fathom, of her and her ab muscles. Flutter kicks. Hell.

"Tomorrow will be better," he told her.

She gazed out the window at the moonlit sky. "I didn't win any battles today."

"No one was fighting with you, Carine."

"It felt that way. Or maybe I'm just fighting myself-or I just wish I had someone to fight with, as a distraction. I don't know. It's weird to be this unfocused. Last fall, at least we had the police out combing the woods for clues. I heard the bullets. Manny saw the guys, even if he couldn't get a description. This thing- it's like chasing a ghost." She paused, tightening the blanket around her. "What about you? Are you okay? Manny's your friend."

"Manny can take care of himself."

"You PJs. Hard-asses. Trained to handle yourselves in any situation, any environment."

"Carine-"

She didn't let him argue with her. "I know, just average guys doing their job. Thanks for coming after me." She got to her feet and looked for a moment as if she might keel over, but she steadied herself, grabbing the bedpost. "I think I'll just brush my teeth and fall into bed."

He wanted to stay with her, but he'd done enough damage for one day. "You know where to find me if you need anything."

He went back downstairs, hearing her shut the door softly behind her. They'd planned to fix up the place after they were married, turn her cabin into a studio. She was so excited about the possibilities of the house, he'd teased her about falling for him because of it.

Never. It could burn down tonight and I'd still love you.

Ty poured himself a glass of Scotch and sat in front of the fireplace, the wind stirring up the acidic smell of the cold ashes. He felt the isolation of the place. Three hours to the south, a man was dead. Murdered. Shot. The police thought Manny had pulled the trigger.

And he was on Carine duty. Manny was the one in Boston under police surveillance. Whatever he was dealing with, he was doing it on his own. His choice.

When he finally headed upstairs, Ty walked down the hall and stood in front of Carine's door, listening in case she was throwing up or crying or cursing him to the rafters, although he didn't know what he'd do if it was crying. The other two he could handle. He'd never been able to take her tears, as rare as they were, as much as he told himself she was stronger because she could cry. He remembered coming upon her in the meadow, sobbing for his mother soon after her death, and even then, when he never thought he'd let himself really fall in love with auburn-haired, sweet-souled Carine Winter, it had undone him.

But he didn't hear anything coming from her room, not even the wind, and he went back down the hall to his own bed.