Dead of Winter Read online

  But he’s propelled toward the house by some vengeful instinct, a relic of a hard, painful lesson in a hard, painful childhood. It’s the same compulsion that spurred his finger on the trigger.

  Trying to muffle a cough into his shoulder, he slinks through the darkness, fists clenched in his pockets. What will he do if he peeks in a window and finds someone looking back at him? If only he hadn’t left the gun—and his inhaler—in the glove compartment on Glasgow Road.

  Stealthily approaching the nearest window, he sees something dart across his path. Realizing what it is, he stops short.

  Really? A black cat? Now?

  Bad luck is the last thing he needs.

  “Hey, Sanchez, where’d you go?” a child’s voice calls from a few yards over.

  He attempts to swallow another fit of wheezing coughs.

  “Sanchez! You have to come inside with me and Albie. Come on!”

  He hears footsteps. Before he can react, a little boy appears a few yards away. He’s freckle-faced with unruly red hair, wearing a dark green ski jacket and pajamas tucked into snow boots.

  “Hey, Mister, did you see a black cat? Wow, are you okay?” he adds, as the violent cough catapults forth.

  Infuriated—by the cough, the inquisitive kid, the black cat—he shakes his head.

  “You’re not okay, or you didn’t see him?”

  “Didn’t . . . see him.” His voice is strangled amid another spasm.

  “Some people can’t, but Spirit can.”

  As he digests that cryptic, matter-of-fact comment, the brat adds, “By the way, you’re s’posed to cover your mouth when you cough.”

  He clenches his fists harder, and not because he’s trying to keep the rings on his fingers.

  Who needs a gun? He can just—

  Somewhere in the night, a door squeaks open, and a woman’s voice calls, “Jiffy! What are you doing out there?”

  The boy turns toward the house next door. “It’s okay, Odelia! I’m just looking for something.”

  “Well, whatever it is can wait until morning. Get back home before your mother comes looking for you.”

  He steps deeper into the shadows, certain that if the neighbor is hidden from his view, then he’s hidden from hers.

  “She never comes looking for me. She doesn’t know I need to be looked for,” the kid calls back to the woman.

  “Home, Jiffy,” she says firmly. “Right now. Let’s go.”

  He waits for the kid to tell her there’s a strange man lurking out here, but Jiffy seems to take that in stride, reluctantly turning toward home.

  Before he disappears around the corner of the house, the boy turns back. “By the way, if you see a black cat, he belongs to my friend Albie. Do you know Albie?”

  He shakes his head, seized by another sputtering spell as the effort to breathe burns his clogged airways.

  “Who are you talking to out there, Jiffy?” the woman calls.

  “Just Spirit. Hey, Odelia, have you seen Sanchez?”

  Heart pounding, chest constricting, he stands utterly still until the voices fade away and he hears two doors close firmly after them.

  Now what?

  Torn, he looks again at Valley View, then at the dinghy. The water is lapping at it, about to snatch it away.

  With a curse, he moves toward it. For now, the best thing to do is get out of here, back to the truck.

  After a few tortured steps, he halts, lungs aching fiercely. He struggles to inflate them, doubled over, hands splayed on his thighs.

  He just has to calm down. He can’t panic. Anxiety causes his chest to constrict even further. He sinks to the cold ground, hands cupped over his mouth to warm the air forced into his crippled lungs.

  When he’s finally certain he isn’t going to die, he looks up.

  Sure enough, the boat has left the shore without him, already too far out for wading.

  He bolts toward the shore but stops short of the water. In his condition, an icy swim would leave him floating facedown alongside his tarp-wrapped friend.

  Stranded on the wrong side of the lake, he can only watch his transportation drift away. He’ll have to head back toward Glasgow Road on foot and find a place to rest—overnight, if need be. He’s of no use to anyone if he keels over.

  Anyone?

  There is no more anyone, dude. You’re on your own now. Fresh start, remember? Moving on. Just not tonight like you planned.

  Fine. When he’s warm and dry and breathing again, armed with his inhaler and pistol, he’ll decide what to do about the kid, the neighbor, and whoever might have been watching him from the window at Valley View.

  It isn’t until he’s covered nearly a mile to the base of Glasgow Road that he realizes the priceless rings have slipped from his hands.

  Chapter Two

  “Zip your bag, Max,” Bella tells him as he grabs his yellow backpack, the same bright shade as the freshly sharpened pencils threatening to spill from the pocket. “And your coat.”

  “You just said it’s not going to be cold out today.”

  “It’s still December. Don’t forget your social studies project. Come on, let’s go; we’re running late.”

  Her fault. She took extra time to blow-dry her hair after her shower and put on some light makeup.

  Max grabs the rolled, rubber-banded poster board and opens the front door as Bella pokes among the jackets draped over the vintage wooden coat tree. Lily Dale’s fickle seasons demand an array of easily accessible outerwear—down parkas, Windbreakers, sweaters, slickers, hats, scarves, umbrellas . . .

  “Wait for me,” she calls, moving aside a heavy parka as her son races down the front steps.

  “Jiffy’s out there. See you later, Mom!”

  “Wait! I’m coming, too!”

  Bella recently learned that it’s not cool for a mom to escort a big first grader to and from the bus stop. Max had pleaded his case with help from Jiffy.

  “Name one Mom who goes down there. Can you name one? Can you?” Jiffy challenged and looked pointedly at Max.

  “I can!” her son had said on cue. “Her name is Bella Jordan.”

  “You’re the only one, Bella.” Jiffy, who would make a fine lawyer someday, had solemnly shaken his gingery head. “It’s bad for Max.”

  “Yeah, it’s bad for me, Mom.”

  Yet another moment when she’d wondered what Sam would tell her to do. That time, she’d known.

  Now she watches from the porch every morning as Max meets Jiffy in front of his house and they head down Cottage Row together. As soon as they disappear around the bend, she knows, they’re swallowed into a gaggle of older kids gathered at the bus stop just outside the gate.

  She gives up on finding a light sweater or fleece and looks around for a pair of shoes to throw on. Figures that this is the one day she didn’t leave any by the door. She hurries out onto the porch in her socks. “Max! I’m coming with you today! Didn’t you hear me?”

  He must have. That would explain why he’s already sprinted to the Ardens’ cottage two doors down, where Jiffy seizes upon the poster board.

  “Hey, a pirate spyglass! Can I carry it?”

  “Where’s your project?”

  “In my pocket.”

  “It’s s’posed to be on giant paper.”

  “My mom didn’t have time to get me some. Ahoy, mateys!”

  They’re off, leaving Bella standing helplessly in her socks.

  It’ll be fine, she tells herself. It’s fine every day. Today is no different. That scream last night was just an owl, like Drew said.

  Hugging herself in the brisk breeze that tinkles the wind chimes overhead, she watches the boys meander down the sun-splashed lane. The spyglass has transformed into a sword, a swashbuckling Jiffy climbing upon a stump to battle imaginary enemies.

  “Careful!” Bella calls, hands cupped around her mouth. “And get moving or you’ll miss the bus, guys!”

  She always waits on the porch until she hears it rumbling to
a stop, obscured by trees and houses but only about a tenth of a mile away. Afternoons, she returns to the porch and listens for it again. Even if Max and Jiffy take their time meandering back up the street, they appear within a minute or so.

  She doesn’t always breathe easily during that minute, but life seems a little less precarious every time she spots them at the foot of the lane.

  Now, as they disappear from view, she looks around as if she, like Jiffy, might find unseen enemies lurking. Or just a great horned owl.

  She’d forgotten all about the scream in the night until Drew had left and she was climbing into bed. Lying there in the dark, she’d reminded herself that she’s not the least bit superstitious. Somehow, that was easier to believe last night, on the verge of plummeting into a deep, dreamless sleep, than it is today in broad daylight.

  “Bella! I thought I heard you out here.” Odelia Lauder pokes her curly orange head out her front door. She’s wrapped in a fuzzy robe that’s also orange, though it somehow clashes violently with her hair as well as with her hot pink suede slippers and her pinkish-orange painted house.

  “Sorry, did I wake you?”

  “No, I was up. Just running a bubble bath. I have an early client this morning. Is everything all right?”

  “Yes, the boys just left for the bus, and I was trying to get them to wait for me.”

  “Didn’t I tell you it’s perfectly fine for them to walk down alone? The kids all look out for each other, Bella. You know that’s how things are here.”

  She nods. The locals are in tune not only with the rhythm of small-town life but, ostensibly, with powerful unseen energy. They sense when something is amiss.

  Right now, though, Bella is the one who’s feeling that something is . . . off.

  Odelia steps onto her own porch and peers at her from across the railings. “Ah, but today is different, isn’t it?”

  Her heart skips. “Different how?” Does Odelia know something she doesn’t? “Is Spirit warning you about Max?”

  “What?”

  “You said today is different. Did you mean—?”

  “I meant you’re all fancy, so I figured you must be going someplace special. Or . . . perhaps seeing someone special?” she adds, and Bella feels her face grow hot.

  “Fancy? I’m just wearing jeans, same as always.”

  On an ordinary morning, she’d be wearing them with a T-shirt, hoodie, maybe a fleece—or maybe all three in layers. Today, she has on a delicate silk blouse. It’s a frosty shade of blue that lies somewhere between her cobalt eyes and the pale December sky—aura blue, perhaps, she’d thought with a smile when she’d dug it out of her closet earlier.

  “And you’re all made up,” Odelia continues.

  “All made up?” she snorts, as if that’s the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard. As if she isn’t wearing mascara, eyeliner, and a touch of lipstick. “I was just trying to cover these darned circles under my eyes.”

  “You need to get more sleep.”

  “Can’t. I have way too much going on right now.”

  Odelia appears to consider arguing, then changes her mind. “Do you have any tea? Not the leaf kind that ridiculous woman is always prattling on about,” she adds, casting a dark glance across Melrose Park at Pandora Feeney’s cottage.

  “Yes, but coffee is stronger, and I’ve already had three cups.”

  “I don’t want you to drink it. I want you to put a couple of tea bags into the freezer and use them as a cold compress around your eyes tonight. It won’t work miracles, but it’ll help you look a little less like Dracula.”

  “Gee, thanks, Odelia. Way to make a gal feel pretty.”

  “You’re a beautiful girl, Bella. You just need to take better care of yourself,” she says as a cold gust clangs the wind chimes on both porches. “Brr. It feels like that snow is coming today instead of tomorrow.”

  “It isn’t,” Bella says. “Today is going to be warm and sunny. Tomorrow, we’re getting three inches of snow.”

  “Six to eight.”

  “I just checked the forecast fifteen minutes ago.”

  “I checked it five minutes ago. Things change by the second around here, Bella.”

  Don’t I know it.

  She hears squeaking air brakes down by the gate.

  “There’s the bus. I’d better get moving, Odelia. Now that Max and Jiffy aren’t around to ‘help,’ I can finally get some painting done.”

  Odelia smiles, well aware that a few days ago, the boys had managed to apply a lovely shade called Silken Taupe to everything—and everyone—in the third-floor bathroom.

  “Well, I’m guessing you have more than enough help today,” she tells Bella with a wink. “Tell him I said hello.”

  “Uh . . . Hugo? He’s not scheduled today.” Electrician Hugo Munson is a regular presence at Valley View, replacing the scary snap-crackle-and-pop wiring.

  “No, Drew Bailey.” Odelia waves and disappears inside.

  How the heck did she know . . . ?

  Her gaze falls on the bracketed sign hanging from a porch pillar.

  Odelia Lauder, Registered Medium.

  She shakes her head, retreating into her own house. She pauses to reach for the thermostat on the wall beside the coat tree, adjusting it downward in anticipation of the warm day ahead. Then she grabs a hooded sweat shirt to put on over her silk blouse.

  There. So much for fancy, Odelia.

  In the kitchen, she admires the finished backsplash as she opens the dishwasher and loads it with Max’s cereal bowl, spoon, and juice glass. Turning to the sink, she sees two mugs with soggy tea bags in the bottom and smiles.

  Last night, after reading Max a bedtime story and tucking him in, she’d come back downstairs to find the leftover pizza put away, dishes washed, and box recycled. The tea kettle rattled on the stove, preparing to whistle, and Drew was leaning over the counter with the caulking gun.

  “Put your feet up with a cup of chamomile while I finish this for you,” he’d said.

  “No way! I can do it.”

  “I know you can, but I’m already doing it, and I want to see it through.”

  “That’s crazy! Why would you want to do it?”

  “In for a penny,” he’d said with a shrug, and her jaw dropped.

  Sam’s favorite old saying. “Wh-what did you say?”

  “In for a penny, in for a pound. It means you finish what you’ve started.”

  “No, I know, I just . . .”

  She’d just wondered why Drew Bailey was sounding so much like Sam. Acting like him, too, when he talked on over Bella’s protests. “You take on too much. You have to let people help you.”

  “I do let people help me. Max took out the garbage just yesterday, and Odelia always—”

  “I’m talking about me, Bella. You have to let me help you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s what friends are for.”

  In that moment, friends was the perfect word choice, alleviating her reluctance to be alone with him. She’d sat sipping tea and chatting with him as he finished sealing the tiles. She can’t even remember what they had talked about, but it hadn’t been Sam, and it hadn’t been owls.

  She puts the cups into the dishwasher and, after a moment’s hesitation, the tea bags into the freezer.

  Beyond the window, a breeze sways the graceful bare branches of the ginkgo tree, and sunlight shimmers on the rippling blue lake. So picturesque, she thinks and then notices something lying at the water’s edge.

  Looks like a bag of garbage washed up, or maybe someone dumped it there. Or maybe, depending on how heavy it is, it had gone airborne on a strong west wind. A few weeks ago, a painted plywood reindeer had taken off in a storm from Mitch’s Hardware Store a few miles outside the gate and landed beside the Mediums’ League building in the Dale. That was front-page news around here, accompanied by the folksy photo caption, Yes, Virginia, Reindeer Can Fly.

  Bella had better go move the garbage bag befor
e an animal tears into it and scatters it across the lawn. She finds her sneakers by the back door and shoves her feet into them.

  Before she can step out the door, the house phone rings—unusual during the off-season. Who can it be?

  Who? the great horned owl seems to hoot ominously as she snatches it up.

  “Valley View Manor.”

  “Bella, it’s Drew. I’ve been trying to text you, but you haven’t answered, and I wanted to make sure you saw.”

  “I didn’t.” She feels her back pockets for her cell phone. She must have left it upstairs in her haste to get Max ready for school and make herself—as Odelia put it—“all fancy.”

  Before Drew had left last night, she’d accepted with gratitude his offer to come help her paint today.

  That’s what friends are for.

  Friends.

  “I hate to do this, but I can’t get over there this morning.”

  “It’s okay,” she says quickly. “I know you’re busy. I should have told you not to—”

  “No, I really wanted to help. But I got a call about an injured dog out on Route 60, and it sounds like she’s pregnant and may be in labor.”

  “Oh, no. Poor thing. How badly is she hurt?”

  “It doesn’t sound good.”

  “Are the puppies going to survive?”

  “Hard to say until I get there. I’m on my way now. Sorry to leave you on your own.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m fine on my own. I know your work comes first.”

  “It’s . . . it’s not . . . like that. I wish I could be there, but—”

  “No, I just . . . I meant . . .”

  She falters, as another conversation with her friend dissolves into awkward territory.

  She didn’t mean anything other than what she said. If it weren’t for Drew’s dedication to his veterinary practice, Chance and her eight kittens wouldn’t be thriving today. They’ve been such an important part of Bella and Max’s life here in Lily Dale . . .

  As has Drew himself.

  And so many others, she reminds herself after hanging up and heading outside toward the water’s edge. Odelia, her granddaughter Calla, Jiffy, even Pandora, and—

  She stops short.

  Now that she’s closer to the bag of garbage, she can see that it isn’t a bag of garbage at all.