Page 47 of A Killing Cold

“Please don’t,” I whispered. It had been months since I got caught. Since I lost my temper or got distracted and asked a question out of turn. They were starting to relax around me.

“I’ve heard about you,” he said. He seemed to consider. “I won’t tell,” he said at last. “If you lift up your shirt for me.”

I considered, in turn. It was against the rules, of course, and I was well versed on the need for modesty in all things, but like most rules, it seemed to matter only if someone noticed you breaking it. Besides, wouldn’t he be in just as much trouble for asking?

So we made a deal. I made him shake on it, and then I pulled my shirt out of my skirt and lifted it, a motion without an ounce of sensuality but which satisfied him, despite the very matronly bra I wore underneath. When I lowered it, he was looking at me like I was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen.

After that day in Peter’s room, things escalated quickly. Deals were struck. Favors exchanged, secrets kept. My shirt came off entirely, and my bra. He was granted permission to touch and then to be touched. I could pretend that I was an innocent, manipulated by the more worldly older boy—barely older though he was—but while my education was sorely lacking, there was no point at which I didn’t understand the lines I was crossing or the significance of what we were doing. I wanted him as much as he wanted me. Maybe more.

And so when Beth and Joseph were gone for the weekend, I let him in the back door and brought him to my bedroom, and for the next twelve hours while his parents thought he was with his friends, we checked off as many forbidden things as we could think of. Our imaginations weren’t very expansive, but our enthusiasm made up for it. And every time he would hold me and look at me with wonder and say,Oh god, Theodora, oh god, and I knew that he was praying just to me.

We figured most things out. Where babies came from and how to keep them away wasn’t one of them.

Bad luck for us.

I might not have known exactly the mechanics of how I got pregnant, but I’d heard enough about Beth’s attempts, which hadn’t stopped after I arrived, and I remember her hushed and excited whispers that she’d missed her period. Mine was regular as clockwork. So when it didn’t come, I went to the library and asked for books on babies.Like pictures of babies?the librarian asked, and I said no, how a person gets pregnant.

I told Peter the next day. I was calm; he panicked. “We can’t have a baby. I can’t have a baby. My dad is going to kill us,” he kept saying, and I informed him there was another way out of it, but I was going to need money, which neither I nor the Scotts had.

Peter had been saving up all his money for a new bike; he had a few hundred dollars set aside. I convinced him he could give it to me or he could use it to pay for the crib and stroller he was going to need.

I worked out everything on my own. The timing. The bus ticket. The “flu” that I’d surely caught from the Russell kids down the street, a perfectly acceptable reason to spend the week curled up in bed.

It might have even worked. But I never got the chance to find out.

Turned out Peter’s father had noticed how diligently he was saving up his dollars and cents, and wanted to reward him for this sudden impulse toward delayed gratification and long-term thinking with the last fifty dollars to meet his goal. He was set to take him into town for that bike.

Peter couldn’t very well say that he’d given the money to me. That would have invited too many questions about why. So he said that I’d stolen it. His father knew there was more to it. He pressed. And Peter told him what we’d done.

WhatI’ddone. And what I meant to do.

He told them that it was my idea. My fault, every part of it, and they believed him, because Peter was a good boy and I—

I had always been a wicked child.

Peter’s parents spoke to mine. And together they decided enough was enough.

Something had to be done.

23

Every family has its rules, most of them unwritten. The Daltons have more than most.

I can’t afford to break them now. Not with this all-too-familiar feeling creeping over me—the sense that I am not safe here. That the shape of me does not fit within the boundaries that have been drawn, and I must hold myself with exquisite care to keep from straying over them.

And so when we’re summoned to the lodge for dinner, I don’t use my wounded hand as an excuse. I pull on my red coat and the scarf that blends into it and I follow Connor out. My body feels tender with the imprint of his touch. We haven’t spoken about my past again. I haven’t asked him why he’s lying to me about how we met.

As we gather around the table, I consider each of the Daltons. One of them surely sent the messages on my phone, warning me away—it has to have been someone here on the mountain. The little gift left on my windowsill is proof enough.

One of these people knows about Washington. About Peter Frey and what happened after.

Connor helps himself to wine. He drinks more here. Like he’s more relaxed—or like he’s trying to blunt his feelings. Alexis tuts over Sebastian’s refusal to eat anything but bread, trying to ply him with carrot sticks. My eyes drift across the table to Trevor.

Trevor would send those texts just to fuck with me, I reflect. Or with Connor, more accurately. I can’t discount that possibility.

Trevor catches me looking. He smirks at me and raises his glass, half-full with deep red wine. Alexis catches the movement as well. Her head swivels toward him.

“Trevor,” she says.

---