The Ice Storm Murders Read online

  "Let me get you a mug."

  He took a porcelain mug, dotted with yellow daisies, from the cupboard and put it in front of Eloise.

  "Merci. Do you have a minute to talk to me?"

  Anne raised a quizzical eyebrow at her. How perceptive she was, Eloise thought. She knew how much she loved David before anyone else did.

  "Both of us?" said Anne.

  "Yes. I overheard something."

  "Who?" said Anne.

  "What?" said Thomas.

  Eloise laughed, a charming tinkle that went up and down a scale but then the corners of her mouth drooped, and she squeezed her fingers together in front of her.

  "Brad and Andrea. They were playing with the children when I slipped out to the bathroom. David wired the playroom so I can hear them from the bathroom and my room."

  "What were they talking about?"

  "Hamish, and getting him away from David, and wondering why David wanted the children. He suggested that David—David—"

  "David what?" said Anne.

  "David was one of those men."

  "Do you mean predators," said Thomas.

  "Oui, mais oui. That is what she meant. That's not true. It can't be true."

  "We'll have to watch Brad," said Thomas.

  "I think the mother is far more dangerous; she's so erratic. Folle."

  "Crazy?"

  "Oui, crazy with booze. I am afraid of what she will do now if she thinks David—"

  "Bring the children down to play as much as you can. Call one of us if you need to leave them," said Thomas.

  "Bien sûr. I will try."

  She sipped the drink Anne poured for her and related Brad's exact words. "I think she ran away from him, but I'm not sure where she went. I'd better go back up to the children."

  Andrea tossed the empty bottle of scotch in the trash and looked out the window at the falling snow, lighter now. She saw the outline of the dark pines around the field.

  What should she do? What should she do? That man was going to hurt the baby. Her tears overflowed, and she sobbed.

  No, she thought. No. She wouldn't let him do that to Hamish. What had Brad meant? Was that what he said? She tried to remember, but all that came was fear for Hamish.

  If the storm let up, she could take a snowmobile and escape. She was sure she could. There must be another property close by. Surely less snow was falling, and she could go now.

  But how would she reach him? The little witch was always there.

  Eloise had to go to the bathroom sometime.

  She crept down the hall to where the door to the playroom stood ajar. She waited.

  Finally, she heard Eloise say, "I'm going to the bathroom, right here. You watch Hamish for me."

  "I will," said Olivia.

  "Promise. Don't sneak out."

  "I won't."

  Andrea heard the door to the bathroom open and close. Did she click the lock? She pushed into the room. Hamish played on the floor, and Olivia sat at her table. She rushed across the room, scooped up the little boy, ran out the door, and down the hall to the stairs. Behind her, Olivia screamed for Eloise. Hamish whimpered on her shoulder. She whispered, trying to sooth the little boy.

  The kitchen was empty. Good. Andrea wrapped Hamish in a blanket, crammed her feet into her boots, and stepped outside the shed. The keys. Where were the keys for the snowmobiles? She remembered. On hooks by the kitchen door. Numbers marked in red. She took number seven. People shouted somewhere in the house, looking for her. Trying to stop her. Run, Run.

  A path worn by the wood-gatherers led from the house to the shed. Beyond that, David kept the snowmobiles in an open-walled barn under covers. The covers. How heavy were they? Could she pull them off?

  No footprints marred the snow beyond the woodshed. Andrea plunged forward into the snow; her feet slipped on the ice and she collapsed to her knees. Hamish screamed and yelled for Eloise. She hushed him, struggled to stand, and crashed to her knees again. The shouting came closer.

  Anne washed her hands and finished putting on a touch of blusher and mascara.

  "Anne, Thomas, help."

  Eloise. Anne jerked open the door, interrupting Eloise in mid-knock.

  "Andrea's taken Hamish."

  "Taken him where?"

  What got into that drunken brain? And how much danger was the child?

  "I don't know."

  “She went downstairs,” said Olivia, peeking out from behind Eloise.

  Then she was taking him outside, into the storm.

  "I'll find her. You and Olivia find Thomas or David and wait in the kitchen where it's warm."

  Downstairs, a blast of freezing air met her. The kitchen door hung open. The wind rushed in and rattled the row of snowmobile keys, but number seven was missing. Did Andrea think she could escape with Hamish?

  Anne grabbed a jacket, stuck her feet in someone's, a much bigger someone's, boots and tramped along the trail to the shed. The snow, heavier now, obscured the landscape beyond the building.

  Andrea's struggling figure loomed, a dark shape ahead of her, and Hamish's cries, dampened by the storm, reached her.

  How was she going to pull her up and keep Hamish safe? Behind her, someone called her name. Thomas?

  The old woman struggled on the ice, still clutching a wailing Hamish, his pyjamas soaked and snow caking on his head and eyelashes.

  "Andrea, give Hamish to me, and I'll help you up."

  "No. I have to keep him safe."

  "He's hurt. His chin is bleeding. Don't you see the blood?"

  Anne reached for the baby and plucked him from Andrea's arms. Andrea fell into the snow and lay there, her shoulders heaving. "He'll hurt him."

  "He won't. That's nonsense."

  "Brad—"

  "Brad was winding you up."

  Thomas reached them.

  "Go back to the house with Hamish. You're both freezing. I'll look after her."

  Anne passed David on his way to help Thomas. Their eyes met, and he nodded once, but raced on.

  In the kitchen, Eloise stripped Hamish, towelled him off, and redressed him in the clothes she'd warmed by the fire. Anne dashed up to her room, grabbed her medical bag, and was cleaning the scrape on his chin when the two men returned with Andrea strung between them like a bag of heavy laundry.

  "Put her near the stove," Anne said. "I'll check her ankles."

  "She can't or won't walk," said Thomas.

  Beth and Kevin came down the stairs with Olivia, who ran to David. He picked her up and cuddled her. Beth and Kevin pushed open the door to the living room and disappeared inside. Not concerned about her mother or too angry to talk to her?

  Anne examined the ankles, testing for signs of a break. The Ottawa rules, she thought, remembering to check three points for pain that would indicate a broken bone.

  "Nothing fractured, but she has a bad sprain. I'll wrap it for her."

  David stood in front of the elderly woman, his feet planted wide, and his face contorted with fury. "Where did you think you were taking Hamish?"

  "Away from you, you pervert."

  David drew back and glanced at the others. "Does anyone know what she is talking about?"

  "Brad suggested to her that you had evil designs on the children," Thomas said.

  "What?"

  "He wants his hands on the child and the money, I imagine," said Anne.

  Andrea shifted in her chair and looked down at Anne, who wound a tensor bandage around her foot and ankle.

  "What do you mean?" said Andrea.

  "He wants you to have custody so he can access Hamish's trust."

  "But, but."

  At that moment, Brad and Trevor walked into the room. "What's going on?"

  "Your mother tried to run away with Hamish on a snowmobile, but she fell and sprained her ankle. Apparently, you suggested danger to Hamish. If she had succeeded in leaving on a machine, they both would have died, and that would have been on you," Thomas said.

  Brad's f
ace lost all colour, and he fell into a chair. "I wanted her to proceed with a legal suit."

  "Meanwhile telling her I was a pedophile, you louse."

  David grabbed Brad's shirt collar and dragged him from the chair. It flipped backwards, crashing into the door behind. Thomas's hand gripped David's fist, before it slammed into Brad's face. "Put him down, Dave. You don't want to do this."

  David threw Brad back against the table and stepped back. "You—"

  Brad shook his head. "She took it that way. I didn't say that."

  "I heard you," said Eloise.

  "I'm, I'm sorry."

  "You mean it'th, it's not true," said Andrea. "You made it up?"

  "Now, Mom."

  "No. I could have killed him. You always were a liar, from a child."

  Brad stumbled away from the table and through the swinging doors to the living room, followed by Mike and Trevor.

  "Always a liar," said Andrea, her speech slowing and her eyelids drooping.

  But was he also a killer, Anne wondered.

  Frantic voices in the hallway drew Beth out of her room. Anne and Eloise rushed down the back stairs but Olivia, abandoned, stood at the door of the nursery.

  "Olivia, come here and tell me what's wrong."

  Olivia's eyes filled with tears, and she hugged Beth's legs. "Eloise said to look after Hamish, but that lady came and took him away."

  "Which lady?"

  Olivia knuckled her eyes. "Mrs. Barr—I don't know."

  "Barrington?"

  "Yes."

  Beth picked up the child and called Kevin. "Kevin, come downstairs. Mom did something really stupid this time."

  She carried Olivia to the stairs, but the child squirmed until she put her down. Olivia's hand crept into hers. Kevin reached them and asked what had happened.

  "She took Hamish," Olivia said.

  "What's that, sweetheart?"

  "She came into our room, and picked him up, and ran away."

  “Let's go down and help," Beth said.

  Kevin followed them down the stairs into the kitchen, in time to see Anne and Hamish come back. When Thomas and David returned with Andrea, Beth walked away into the living room. Kevin followed her, leaving Olivia clinging to David.

  "Beth?" said Kevin.

  Beth turned dry, angry eyes to him. "She has to go somewhere to dry out. We can't go on with her doing increasingly dangerous things."

  He folded his arms around her but she shrugged away.

  "After we're out of here, we'll make a plan."

  "What will we do if she won't—"

  "Later."

  He gathered her into his arms, and she clung to him, reassured by the strength and common sense that flowed into her from his embrace.

  By lunchtime, Anne had searched the freezer and found enough food for several meals. The cook must be a baker, she thought, counting the loaves of bread, cakes, cookies and pies stacked on one side and on the other, packages of simple-to-cook meats, like steaks and chops and casseroles of chicken and ground beef.

  The bread thawed quickly in the warming oven of the wood stove. The eggs, perishable and a health risk if left too long out of the fridge, she carried to the cold room. She made egg salad and put together sandwiches. Those and pickles and spiced olives would do for lunch. She set the table and rang the dinner bell.

  Thomas burst through the swinging doors. "Are you all right?"

  "Lunchtime."

  He wrapped his arms around her. "You do scare me."

  Before he said more, others arrived, and they sat, mostly in silence. Carmel ate a corner of a sandwich and drank water.

  Mike wolfed down three sandwiches, three cups of coffee and two generous slices of cake. Eloise chattered away as she fed the children, but the others sat in silence.

  Anne carried a tray of sandwiches and coffee over to Brad and Andrea, who huddled near the stove. Andrea's bony fingers encircled her wrist, like a snare of twigs. Why so bony when the rest of her was well-padded? Anne pried her arm loose. "What is it?"

  "What are you going to do with me?" Andrea asked, her voice trembling and slurring her words.

  "I wrapped your ankle."

  "No, what will you tell the police?"

  "We'll have to tell them everything that happened this weekend, but that will include why you thought you had to rescue Hamish. I don't think anything will happen to you."

  Andrea's face crumpled into the easy tears of the drunk, and she clutched at Anne. Anne moved away from the grasping hand.

  "Thank you, thank you."

  "It's just the truth, Andrea."

  Back at the table, David scowled into his lunch and rounded his hands into fists. "She shouldn't get off that easily."

  Eloise patted his hand. "She isn't responsible, David."

  David looked into the upturned face and smiled. He beams, Anne thought, as though he'd never seen her before. And maybe he hadn't. At least not that way.

  Chapter Fourteen

  After lunch, Anne and Thomas slipped away to their room.

  "We have to talk," he said.

  "About the situation here or about us?"

  "Eventually about us, but you said you would decide by the time we left. Are you closer?"

  He stood at the window, one arm raised to hold the frame, his back stiff. What could she say? She didn't want to lose him, but she still wasn't sure about committing to marriage. "All I can think about is this trouble and if anyone else is in danger."

  "Tomorrow is the day we should be leaving, will you be certain by then?"

  "I hope so. I hope we can find out who killed Vanessa and move on to our problems."

  Her voice broke. Thomas left the window and sat beside her on the bed. "We're together whatever you decide."

  He put his arms around her, and she snuggled against his chest. Did he mean that she wondered? He said it now, but for the future?

  A staccato knock at the door interrupted her thoughts.

  "Who is it?" Thomas asked.

  "David."

  Thomas stood back from the door and opened it with his left hand. Always so careful, she thought. The CIA training stayed with him, always. The door swung open, David walked in, and Thomas closed the door behind him.

  David swung back, his hands curled into fists, but he relaxed when he saw Thomas. He cleared his throat.

  "Sorry to bother you, but I wondered if you had found anything in Vanessa's room. Are you any closer to figuring out what went on here?"

  "You'd better sit down," Thomas said.

  David, his face furrowed and panic in his eyes, found the chair behind him, and sank into it. He leaned forward, peering into Thomas's face and glanced at Anne, for reassurance, she thought. She couldn't smile; couldn't give him that.

  "What is it?"

  Thomas handed him the birth certificate and DNA results. When he finished reading, he frowned and shook his head. Like a confused dog, Anne thought. Not sure where to turn. "What does this mean? Who wrote Dad's name on this? Who tested my DNA?"

  "You don't recognize the handwriting? We wondered if it was Vanessa's," said Anne.

  "It looks like hers, but why—"

  "Either it's true, and she was your half-sister, or she was planning a scam or blackmail after you went through a marriage ceremony with her, or both," Thomas said.

  "I think Vanessa was your half-sister," said Anne. "You and she and Hamish share those same family ears your father had. She was very interested in your family genealogy and wanted me to investigate for her."

  His swift reaction suggested he hadn't known, that his response was genuine. "My sister."

  David bolted into the bathroom, leaving the door open behind him. Sounds of retching reached them and then of the water running. Not too hard to fake, but genuine, she thought.

  When he came back, his face pale and sweat beading on his forehead, he said, "I'm sorry. You know we—"

  "Yes."

  He moaned and hid his face in his hands. An ancient ta
boo broken, Anne thought. Something no one thinks about but almost all obey. Hardwired into humans, she supposed.

  "How could she? How could she?"

  "She must have wanted money and perhaps to punish you for being acknowledged when she wasn't," said Anne.

  "Dad would've acknowledged her if he'd known she existed. Why would he exclude one child?"

  His eyes swung between Anne and Thomas, searching.

  "Who knows why she chose this way?" Thomas said. "But she did, and you see that it gives you a motive for killing her."

  "But I didn't know. I didn't know."

  He collapsed back into the chair and sobbed, holding his head in his hands, rocking.

  Anne and Thomas waited, sitting side by side on the bed. Either he is a consummate actor or he had no idea, she thought.

  David raised his face, rubbed away the tears, and stuck out his jaw. "I didn't kill her and I want you to find out who did. Was there anything else in the room?"

  "No," said Thomas.

  He didn't want her to mention Olivia's toy, Anne thought. Not to anyone.

  After a time, David stood up and left without a word.

  "Hard to take," Thomas said.

  "Genuine, I think."

  "Yes. We'd better go down to see what's happening with everyone else."

  Anne and Thomas came into the kitchen in time to hear Trevor ask Mike where the dogs were. Andrea and Brad sat together at one end of the pine table, Trevor and Mike at the other. At the counter beside the sink, Eloise spooned bright-orange toddler food into a Bunnykins bowl.

  "Outside, I think," said Mike. "They came out with me when I went for wood."

  "Has anyone fed them today?"

  Eloise looked around from feeding Hamish. "Bien sûr," said Eloise. "I feed them when I get the breakfast for the children."

  Trevor crossed over to the back door and whistled. The two dogs emerged from the falling snow, covered in white, their tails down. Trevor grabbed the dog towels from their hooks by the door and dried first Andy, the poodle, and then Max.

  The pungent odour of wet dog soon mingled with the cooking smells. A scent that always made her happy, Anne thought, that brought back home and the small hound she loved so much when she was young.