Deep Freeze (West Coast 1)

Just Josh.

And he was suspect, his motives for being with her murky.

But he’s all you’ve got.

She considered calling her old friends in L.A. and Santa Monica, but it was late and she’d just feel worse. Besides, the last few times she’d talked to Paige, it had been awkward. Paige hadn’t really said anything, but she’d been quick to let Cassie know she was busy and was obviously eager to get off the phone. And Cassie didn’t really blame her. She would have been the same way if the situation had been reversed.

Tears threatened her eyes. The movie didn’t hold her attention. She flipped the channel and saw her mother. “Damn!” There Jenna Hughes was, not even as old as Cassie was now, playing the part of a teenaged prostitute in Innocence Lost. Angrily, Cassie hit the Power button on the remote and the image faded. There seemed no way to get away from her mother. Even in the solace of her room. She felt a tear drizzle from the corner of her eye and she swiped it away angrily. What was wrong with her? She glanced at the clock. It was almost one…and the house had become quiet. She stole into the hallway and peered into Allie’s room. Both girls were conked out on the floor on a couple of air mattresses and sleeping bags. She eased to the stairs and looked down to the landing and Jenna’s room. The door was closed, no sliver of light at the threshold.

Everyone was asleep.

Back in her room, she reached for her cell phone and flipped it on.

A new text message read:

I luv you.

Her tears started in earnest. Josh was the only person in this godforsaken town who even had an inkling about who she was, the only one who cared. Swallowing back more tears, she quickly typed a reply:

I’ll be at the gate in 20 min. Luv U 2.

“I’m sooo outta here,” Sonja announced, whipping off her apron and tossing it into the hamper in the back room as country-western music pulsed through the speakers.

Lou, the cook, grunted his approval as he scraped off the grill. The only other person in the back area of the diner was the busboy, a useless, lazy kid who was perennially petulant and usually high on some unknown substance. He was wearing earphones, listening to God-knew-what, making his usual statement against his Uncle Lou’s choice in music. Now, he managed to look up and sent Sonja a “so what?” glance as he swabbed a mop inefficiently over the tile floor.

Tonight she didn’t care. She just wanted to get home to her husband and three kids. The last customer had left fifteen minutes earlier, and Sonja had wanted to pry him off his bar stool and physically toss him out the door. Who in his right mind would be out on a night like this?

Only the regulars at Lou’s, she decided, not for the first time, and made a mental note to find herself a better job.

She bundled into a ski jacket, wool hat, and gloves, then grabbed her beat-up backpack.

“I’ll see ya tomorrow, if the roads are passable,” she said, and elicited another grunt from Lou the Silent. Which was probably better than Lou the Chatterbox, or Lou the Know-It-All. Or Lou the Lech, she thought, as she fished through her purse, found her keys, then braced herself against the cold as she walked outside. “A damned Ice Age, that’s what it is,” she muttered.

The wind hit hard, slapped at her bare cheeks, and brought with it snow filled with hard little ice crystals.

To think she’d let Lester Hatchell convince her to move from Palm Desert to come up here. Palm-friggin’-Desert, where tonight it was probably seventy degrees—make that seventy degrees above zero. Unlike here on the shores of the Columbia Gorge. Beautiful? Yes. Even in winter. Livable? Hell, no! At least not in the middle of winter. Lord, please, give me palm trees, hot sand, and a piña colada any day of the week. Make that a bucket of piña coladas! It beats the hell out of pine trees, drifting snow, and hot-damned-toddies. Winter wonderland, my ass!

The subfreezing wind cut through her heavy coat, and even the Christmas lights glimmering on the eaves of the diner looked weak and pathetic. Why had she ever let Lester sweet-talk her into moving to this god-awful, freeze-your-butt-off spot? Why?

God, what a night!

She trudged across the parking lot to her little hatchback, a four-wheel-drive Honda encrusted in ice. Even the lock that she thought she’d covered carefully with an insulated piece of cardboard was frozen solid.

Fortunately, she had one of those battery-operated keys that heated the locks when inserted; she forced her key into the lock and smiled to herself less than a minute later when the door opened. She was glad to be going home to Lester’s incessant snoring and the kids sleeping all willy-nilly in their bunk beds. She’d had a bad feeling about this night from the beginning, that something wasn’t right. The intensity of this cold front seemed unnatural, and the conversations she’d overheard in the diner over the past couple of days were all laced with talk that this particular winter would be the coldest in over a hundred years.

Great! Just what we need, she thought. The local kids were already out of their minds at the prospect of no school for days. Her boy, Cliff, had been bouncing off the walls when she’d left for her shift around five.

With the cold slicing through her coat, she slid inside her little car and closed the door, then shoved the key into the ignition and flicked her wrist.

Nothing happened.

“No,” she whispered, trying again. “Don’t do this to me.”

Nothing. Not even a click.

She pumped the gas and felt a niggle of fear. That same dark premonition she’d had earlier.

Which was just plain silly.