Winter Prey

CHAPTER 13

The Iceman rode wildly across the frozen lake, off the tracks, a plume of snow thrown high behind the sled when he banked through the long, sinuous turns that would take him to the Circle Lake intersection. He could see police flashers streaming down through the town, but couldn't hear them: and they certainly couldn't see him. He was running without lights, his sled as black as his snowmobile suit, invisible in the night.

The gunfight had surprised him, but not frightened him. He had simply seen the truth: not tonight. He couldn't get at her tonight, because if he stayed, if he fought it out with whoever was inside-and it was almost certainly the cop from Minneapolis-he could be hurt. And hurt was good as dead.

Time time time…

He was running out of it. He could feel it trickling through his fingers. Davenport and Crane had taken something out of the LaCourt house, and it was almost certainly the photograph. But they had sent it to the lab in Madison: maybe it had been ruined in the fire after all. He'd talked to the cops who'd been there when they were looking at it, but they had no precise details. Just a piece of paper, they said.

If Weather Karkinnen ever saw the photograph, they'd be on him.

Weather: why was Davenport at her house? Guarding her? Screwing her? Why would they be guarding her? Had she given them something? But the only thing she had to give them was the identification, and if she'd given them that, they'd be knocking on his door.

The intersection came up, marked by two distinctively pink sodium vapor lights. He was in luck: there were no other sleds at the crossing. If they saw him running a blacked-out sled, they'd be curious.

He bucked through the intersection, up the boat landing, down the landing road, onto the trail built in the ditch beside the road. A moment later he turned onto Circle Creek, ran under the road and two minutes later onto the lake. He turned on his lights in the creek bed but kept cranking. There were more snowmobiles on Circle Lake, and he crossed paths with them, moving south and west.

He worked through his options:

He could run. Get in the car, make some excuse for a couple days' absence, and never come back. By the time they started looking for him, he'd be buried in Alaska or the Northwest Territories. But if he was missing, it wouldn't take long for the cops to figure out what happened. And if he ran, he'd have to give up almost everything he had. Take only what would fit in the car, and he'd have to dump the car in a few days. And he still might get caught: they had his picture, his fingerprints.

He could go after the other members of the club, take them all out in one night. The problem was, some of them had already taken off. The Schoeneckers: how would he find them? No good.

He had to stay. He had to find out about the photograph. Had to go back for Weather. He'd missed her twice now, and he was uneasy about it. When he'd been a kid, working the schoolyard, there'd always been a few people he'd never been able to get at. They'd always outmaneuvered him, always foiled him, sometimes goading him into trouble. Weather was like that: he needed to get at her, but she turned him away.

He bucked up over another intersection, down a long bumpy lane cleared through the woods by the local snowmobile club, onto the next lake, and across. He came off the lake, took the boat landing road out to the highway, sat for a moment, then turned left.

The yellow-haired girl was waiting. So was her brother, Mark. Mark with the dark hair and the large brown eyes. The yellow-haired girl let him in, helped him take off his snowmobile suit. Mark was smiling nervously: he was like that, he needed to be calmed. The Iceman liked working with Mark because of the resistance. If the yellow-haired girl hadn't been there…

"Let's go back to my room," she said.

"Where's Rosie?"

"She went out drinking," the yellow-haired girl said.

"I gotta get going," said Mark.

"Where're you going?" Smiling, quiet. But the shooting still boiled in his blood. God, if he could get Weather someplace alone, if he could have her for a while…

"Out with Bob," said Mark.

"It's cold out there," he said.

"I'll be okay," Mark said. He wouldn't meet his eyes. "He's gonna pick me up."

"And I'll be here," said the yellow-haired girl. She was wearing a sweatsuit, old and pilled, wished it were something more elegant for him. She plucked at the pants leg, afraid of what he might say; of cruelty in his words.

But he said, "That's great." He touched her head and the warmth flowed through her.

Later in the evening he was lying in her bed, smoking. He thought of Weather, of Davenport, of Carr, of the picture; of Weather, of Davenport, round and round…

The yellow-haired girl was breathing softly next to him, her hand on his stomach.

He needed time to find out about the photo. If he could just put them off for a few days, he could find out. He could get details. Without the photo, there wouldn't be a link, but he needed time.