Chill Factor
“You’ve started to wheeze.”
“I’m all right.”
“Not for long.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You said that becoming emotionally overwrought can bring on an attack. Fear will do that.”
“I’m the one with the pistol, why would I be afraid?”
“You don’t need to be afraid of me.”
She made a scoffing sound and willed herself to resist his piercing blue gaze. “Do you expect me to take your word for that?”
“I would not harm you. I swear it.”
“Sorry, Tierney. You’ll have to do better than that. What were you doing on the mountain yesterday?”
“I told you, I—”
“Don’t insult my intelligence. It was a lousy day for sightseeing. Who goes sightseeing on a mountaintop when an ice storm is forecast? Certainly not someone with your experience of the outdoors.”
“I admit it was careless.”
“Careless? You? Out of character. Try again.”
His lips formed a hard, thin line, reminding her that he resented his word being challenged. “The storm rolled in faster than I expected. My car wouldn’t start. I had no choice but to walk down.”
“That much I believe.”
“I was taking a shortcut to avoid the switchbacks on the road. I got lost—”
“Lost?” She pounced on the word. “You, with the sixth sense for direction, got lost?”
Trapped in the lie, he faltered, then tried another tack. “You’ve been caught up in the mania.”
“Mania?”
“Over the disappearances. Every woman in Cleary is afraid that she may be the next to vanish. It’s a communitywide preoccupation. You’ve been here for a week. The panic has rubbed off on you. You regard every man with suspicion.”
“Not every man, Tierney. Only one. The one who doesn’t have a logical explanation for wandering around in the woods during a blizzard. The one who knew the location and layout of my cabin without my telling him. The one who refused to open his backpack last night, for reasons which are now obvious.”
“I promise to explain all that,” he said tightly, “but not while you’re holding me at gunpoint.”
“You can explain it all to Dutch.”
The features of his face turned hard and pronounced, as though the skin had suddenly been stretched tightly over the bones.
She withdrew her cell phone from the pocket of her coat. It was still showing no service.
“You’re making a mistake, Lilly.”
The words and the low, measured tone in which he spoke them chilled her blood.
“To let your imagination run wild will be a costly error.”
She couldn’t listen, couldn’t be swayed. He had been lying to her ever since that first disarming smile on the bus. He’d only been playing a role, one that must have worked well for him before. Everything he had done and said was a lie. He was a lie.