Afraid to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

Well, she wasn’t going down without one helluva fight.

But he ignored her, turning on the damned Christmas music and going to work on the horrendous ice sculpture he’d created, a clear, frozen block, chiseled and scraped to his satisfaction. Instead of doing any more sculpting, if that’s what you’d call it, he set huge tongs on one end, near the feet of the thing, and elevated it onto a dolly.

Then, as she watched in horror, while the strains of “White Christmas” played from speakers mounted high on the cave’s walls, he moved the macabre ice sculpture, wheeling it out of the cavern, past her cell and along a natural hallway into the darkness beyond.

Chapter 29

At seventy-five, Harry Barlow hated snow.

He also hated small, loud children.

And tiny, yappy dogs.

And now he was outside, in the middle of winter, with the storm those idiots on the weather channel had been predicting for days bearing down on him.

The wind was raw as it howled down the river’s canyon, the snow in tiny, icy pellets and flying all over the place, smashing against his glasses, stinging his cheeks as he walked his wife’s damned dog.

If he had his way, he’d be back living in Florida on a golf course and drinking mai tais or gimlets. He’d go back to one of those adult-only communities, like The Palms, where, if there were small, irritating dogs, the gators would take care of them.

But because three years ago, after his beloved Winnie had passed on, he’d fallen in love with another lady in the church, Phyllis, who had been Winnie’s best friend, things had changed for Harry. He’d expected to settle in with Phyllis just as he had with Winnie, that essentially, he’d just gotten a new wife who would fill the four-hundred-dollar shoes of his first love.

Not so.

The trouble was that Phyllis, much more practical than his first wife, had decided that along with buying sensible, sturdy shoes, she and Harry needed to move from the warmth of the Sunshine State to here, in the middle of no-damned-where freezing Montana, what the locals referred to as the Treasure State. Oh, right. Such a treasure!

However, Harry was committed to Phyllis so he’d traded in his golf-cart lifestyle for an austere way of living in what he unaffectionately called The Sticks.

In Florida, people mounted marlin on the walls, here ... moose heads or antlers off dead deer, or even cougar hides were considered interesting art. It was enough to give Harry the willies.

But Phyllis had insisted they come to this godforsaken wasteland and take care of her mother, so now, the three of them were living in Mom’s apartment overlooking the falls. Somehow it had become Harry’s job to walk Baby, Mom’s nasty little toy poodle–Chihuahua mutt. Baby knew that Harry didn’t like him, too. He’d growl and bark and snap his sharp little fangs at him to the point that one time Baby had Harry cornered behind the pocket door of the half bath. For some reason Phyllis had found that incident uproariously funny.

It was enough to make him blush.

He was grateful only that Ralph and Bubba and Wiley, his golf buddies at The Palms, couldn’t see him bundling up twice a day, leash and plastic bag in hand, following after the foul-tempered Baby and cleaning up after him.

Enough was enough!

He’d warned Phyllis that, after the first of the year, he was flying south. She could come with him or stay here in this damned ice fortress.

Baby, whose real name was Baby Love Supreme–dear God, help me—after the ’60s singing group that Phyllis still adored, was in a particularly reticent mood this morning. He didn’t want to get on the elevator and had refused to lift his little leg on any of his usual bushes.

Worse yet, the second they got into the elevator car to the lower part of town, he decided to piss on the door.

Great.

January second, and not a day later! Harry was out of this frozen hellhole, without the stupid dog!

At least no one was in the elevator at this early hour, so Baby’s defiling of a public landmark might go unnoticed ... well, except for the camera mounted overhead.

Damn!

The car descended, and as it opened, another blast of winter wind rushed inside. Harry adjusted his gloves and watch cap, then walked the damned thing onto the sidewalk that had once been shoveled clear of snow, but now was piling up again.

Miserable weather!

Morning traffic had barely started threading through the empty streets, as it was still dark, too early for most people to be on their way to work. Streetlights offered thin blue illumination in the blustery snowfall, but the morning was cold as a Viking’s bare ass. He tugged on the leash and thought about leaving Baby tied to a parking meter while he went into one of the coffee shops and got his first cup. But the mutt, even dressed in his ridiculous green sweater, could conceivably freeze.

Phyllis wouldn’t be pleased if the thing died on him.