Cold Pursuit

Twenty-Nine

The storm had forced Melanie and Thomas back to the lodge. She washed her hands with Vermont-made goat’s milk soap in the ladies’ room. Thomas was getting on her nerves. He was so preoccupied with his daughter, never mind how irresponsibly she’d behaved. Melanie knew she needed to be understanding, but she hated Nora for all her dramatics.

She hadn’t thrown up. That would come later. Right now, she knew she needed to push her fury down deep and focus on making sure Kyle had a chance to execute his plan for her almost-stepdaughter and her no-account boyfriend. Melanie had her instructions. Kyle had found her before he went up on the mountain. She felt a familiar jolt of excitement mixed with panic at the prospect of doing her part to make everything work out.

“Mislead any search teams, Melanie,” Kyle had told her early that morning. He’d been so grave and humorless with all his misgivings about their situation. “Pick a spot and send them there. Anywhere but the north side of the mountain.”

He’d been so confident that was where Devin and Nora would be. Melanie had argued that they’d have to explain the lie to A.J. Cameron and any search teams once Nora’s and Devin’s bodies were discovered.

But Kyle had an answer for that, too. “We blame Devin for the misinformation. Leave that part to me.” He’d paused, then added, “He and Nora aren’t making it down the mountain.”

Melanie still had misgivings. The more she thought about why she and Kyle had been dispatched to kill both Drew Cameron in April and Alex Bruni yesterday, the more she didn’t like it. Drew had never made any sense-he didn’t fit the profile of anyone else she and Kyle had killed. Who was he? As far as she knew, he was just an old Vermonter with no serious connections.

Except, she thought, to Alex Bruni, a repeat guest at Black Falls Lodge.

What if the person-or people-who dispatched killers like her and Kyle, paid them and kept them from knowing too much about their targets, had decided Drew and Alex were threats to them? To their network of paid assassins?

That made screwing up that much more complicated and dangerous.

And if she suspected she and Kyle had been hired to kill Drew Cameron and Alex Bruni to protect one of their own, then Kyle suspected it, too.

No wonder he was so serious.

Melanie dried her hands. She liked the soap. It had a clean, soft scent. Roses, maybe? She didn’t know. She inhaled the scent, calming herself, and returned to the dining room. It was almost dusk now. Scott Thorne, the Vermont State Police trooper, had left after interviewing both her and Thomas, every indication suggesting an official search for Nora and Devin would be launched before long. Melanie had done everything possible to make sure that wouldn’t happen.

The handful of guests staying at the lodge seemed to enjoy being there during a storm. Three or four inches of snow had accumulated, enough to whiten the landscape. Conditions were worse at higher elevations. She wanted to go sit in front of the fire, but Thomas was still rooted to his chair at a table near the windows overlooking the terrace and the meadow. Lauren Cameron had brought them hot cocoa. She was so beautiful, and from a good family, too. Melanie imagined Lauren and A.J. having her and Thomas up to their house for dinner, becoming friends with them. But with Drew Cameron’s death, and now a series of deaths about to happen, Black Falls would be reeling for a while. Melanie wasn’t sure she and Thomas would want to spend much time there. Maybe they should put this experience behind them and make their own friends.

She pulled out a chair at the table and sat down, irritated when Thomas didn’t even look at her. He stared blankly out at the snow. A.J. had dropped into a chair across from him. A.J. looked serious and hard-bitten, but from what Melanie had gathered, he usually did.

“I just heard from Kyle,” she said with just the right touch of both relief and caution. “He got through to me on my cell phone just before his died. I could hardly hear him, but Nora’s fine. He ran into her above the falls. She didn’t have a clue anyone was worried about her.”

“Oh, thank God.” Thomas flopped back in his chair and almost cried. “Thank God.”

Melanie liked giving him the good news. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it, and she let her eyes fill with tears. “I know it’s a hard time for you, darling,” she said.

“Did he say anything about Jo and Elijah?” A.J. asked.

She shook her head. “No, but he only had a few seconds, really, before his cell phone died.”

A.J. said nothing, and Melanie sensed his skepticism. The Camerons were all so damn tough. The police could check her cell-phone records for proof that Kyle had called her, but they’d have to have a reason. She wouldn’t give them one, and if she did, she’d get out, flee. She didn’t want it to come to that, but she was prepared. She had money stashed. So did Kyle. They could disappear for a couple of years. Let things cool off. Then resurface.

Thomas pushed his cocoa aside and shot to his feet, and she bit back her irritation with A.J. His question had clearly spoiled Thomas’s sense of relief. “Then Jo and Elijah are looking in the wrong place,” he said. “They’re stuck in the storm now, too. What about Devin?”

A.J.’s eyes darkened, but he left the dining room without another word.

Melanie stood next to Thomas and hooked her arm through his. “You’re so warm,” she said, leaning into his shoulder.

“The snow’s piling up. The wind, especially up on the mountain…” He was clearly too distressed to go on.

Melanie slipped his arm around her waist and snuggled into him even closer. He was a little soft in the waist. Not hard everywhere like Kyle. But that was okay. “Kyle’s with Nora. He’ll do what he can for Devin. And Jo and Elijah-”

“I’m not worried about them. They’re both Black Falls natives who know these mountains better than anyone.” Thomas seemed to struggle to make himself sound optimistic. “They’ll do fine up there.”

Melanie felt a sharp prick of fear.

Then she thought-this could be good.

It could work to her advantage if Kyle didn’t come off the mountain, either.

Whatever happened, she’d do what she had to do. Kill Nora. Kill Devin. Kill Kyle, too, if she had to. Jo, Elijah. Thomas.

All of them.

But that was crazy thinking, an overreaction to her circumstances, although she relished how it made her feel, how it relieved her fear and her tension to picture herself killing all the people who threatened her and her happiness with Thomas.

He kissed her on the top of the head. “What would I do without you?”

Melanie squeezed him gently. Everything would work out. She and Kyle had yet to fail, and they understood what they were up against. They’d do what they had to, and that would be that.

Kyle would find a new partner, and she would marry Thomas.

They just had to get through the long night ahead.