Snow Blind

23

Iris was never certain what awakened her in the middle of the night – not in this house. Squirrels in the attic bowling with their winter cache of nuts; mice in the walls, shredding what was left of the hundred-year-old newspapers they used for insulation in the old days; branches from an overgrown tree scraping the siding; and once, a black bear coming out of hibernation long enough to poke around her barbecue grill for summer leftovers. You never knew.

And tonight she revisited her day in her dreams, from the slow grinding of her almost-dead battery in the morning to the crunch of snow under her feet as she followed the propane man’s footprints at night. Once again she saw Steve Doyle’s dead face and Julie Albright’s ruined one, which didn’t do a lot for a restful sleep, either.

She rolled her head to the right to read the digital clock. Three a.m. Plenty of time to snuggle back under the down comforter for a few more hours before her bare feet hit the cold floor, to start another day. She closed her eyes and started to drift off, thinking that she had to stop turning the heat down so low at night, because, damn, it was cold.

Some noises disturbed your sleep; some yanked you up out of blackness like you were a hooked fish on a line, snapping open your eyes and making your heart pound. Was it a real noise, or one you dreamed? You never knew that, either, so you lay there holding your breath, listening hard, waiting for it to happen again, afraid that it would, because the noise that Iris had heard sounded like a wild animal screaming.

She counted her breaths, thinking they were way too fast, trying to keep up with her heart. She got all the way to fifteen before she heard it again and sat straight up in bed.

Was that Puck? It sounded a little like the old cat, and then again it didn’t. It was incredibly loud, the kind of long, complaining yowl that made your blood run cold, and Puck never so much as meowed during the night. The only time she’d ever heard her make a sound like that was the time Mark had accidentally slammed her tail in the door…

She was out of bed before another second passed, racing down the stairs, flipping on lights as she went, her thoughts faster than her feet or heart, wondering what horrible thing had happened to the old cat, if she had the vet’s emergency number written down, if she could start the damn truck to get the beast to the vet’s office before she died of whatever injury she’d managed to sustain… and then Iris hit the kitchen and stopped dead.

The back door was wide open, a frigid wind was blowing through the screen door, filling the house with winter, and Puck was outside on the porch, yowling like a banshee.

It turned out that Iris was more cat owner than cop, because she jerked open the screen door to let Puck in before she ever thought of leaving prints on the handle. It was only after the streak of black, angry fur barreled into the kitchen and off to God knew where to warm up that she realized she shouldn’t have touched the handle. What that realization implied hit a second later.

Someone had been here. Inside the house. And maybe they still were.

Iris thought she had already felt fear this day – of the dark, the barn, and then the footprints – but how pathetic those silly little fears seemed now, in the face of genuine terror. There were biological reactions she’d never experienced, happening so fast she could barely catalog them. Muscles tensing to run or fight, adrenaline shooting through her veins, flooding her with heat while the shrapnel of a million shattered thoughts started ricocheting through her brain: Where is it safe, outside, inside, I have to get my weapon, should I search the house, was this in the handbook, how many electricians does it take to screw in a lightbulb, and isn’t adrenaline supposed to make you focus, goddamnit?

She took a deep breath and willed her heart to slow down and her knees to lock, willed all that pesky, mind-scrambling adrenaline to break down into its original, benign components and leave her alone, because she obviously didn’t have the kind of thrill-seeking personality that thrived on endorphins.

Nice career choice, Rikker.

For endless seconds she just stood there, frozen like a wild rabbit, hoping she’d blend into the landscape and the big bad wolf wouldn’t see her, but it was pretty likely that if the big bad wolf was in the house, or outside, for that matter, he’d be able to see her just fine with all the lights she’d turned on.

Now, Iris. This is when you call for backup. Right now.

Five minutes later a squad came roaring into the driveway, siren wailing, light bar flashing, the side spots busy on her yard. It slammed to a halt behind her SUV and Lieutenant Sampson ran for the house.

‘Inside or outside?’ he demanded in a harsh whisper when he came through the door. He was unshaven, barely dressed, with his boots untied and his jacket flapping open, but his eyes were sharp and busy.

‘I don’t know.’ She breathed it, more than said it, feeling what every other person in trouble probably felt when the cops showed up and took charge. Saved, protected, grateful. She wondered what it would be like to be on the other end of that feeling, and realized for the first time that this was why good cops became cops in the first place, and that this absolutely, positively was what she wanted to do with her life.

He looked at where she was, backed into a corner; a little pajama-clad woman in bare feet holding a butcher knife. ‘Where’s your weapon?’

‘Upstairs.’

‘Jesus.’

He made her follow right behind him, his body blocking hers. While he searched the bedroom and the closet, Iris pulled jeans and a sweater on over her pajamas, strapped on her belt holster and drew her weapon. They searched the rest of the house top to bottom, and found the open basement window last. ‘In this way, out through the door you found open,’ Sampson said.

Iris was frowning at a pile of scattered boxes near the old furnace. Clothing had spilled out of them onto the cement floor.

Sampson followed her eyes. ‘Fire hazard there.

Too close to the pilot light.’

‘They weren’t there before. They were stacked against the wall over there, taped shut.’

‘Anything missing?’

‘I can’t tell. They’re boxes my ex-husband left behind, some tools and winter clothes, mostly.’

Sampson put the extra light from his flash on the pile, frowned at something, and started toeing clothes aside. ‘Looks like your ex left his wallet behind.’

Iris looked at the square of leather he’d picked up with a gloved hand. ‘That’s not Mark’s.’

Sampson opened the wallet, looked at the license through the plastic window, then up at Iris with a strange expression. ‘Stephen P. Doyle. Jesus, Iris. Kurt Weinbeck was down here.’