Page 50 of A Killing Cold

“Leave the cabin,” she says. “For now. Did you see?”

“I got rid of it.” I hesitate. “Do you want to come to White Pine? Just to warm up. Connor won’t be back for a bit.”

“I’m sure they’re holding a family summit. That’s their reaction to everything. Get everyone together and get everyone on board,” she says, her voice congested with tears. “Do you have anything to drink?”

“Plenty,” I promise her, and she nods. She follows me, sniffling occasionally, as we walk in awkward silence.

In the cabin I pour her a drink. She curls up on the couch, feet under her. She’s a small woman, and in this pose she looks almost childlike.

“You must think we’re awful,” she says as I take my own drink to the other side of the couch, perching on the arm.

I take a sip. I’ve pilfered some of Connor’s good Scotch. Not that I can particularly tell the good from the bad; the hard liquor I drink is usually smothered by fruit juice or Coke. “Honestly, I didn’t understandmost of what I saw.” I turn the glass slowly in my hands. She takes a generous swallow of her drink. “What exactly did Trevor do?”

She grimaces. “We’re not supposed to talk about it.”

“I got that impression,” I say as neutrally as I can. “He had a DUI, but it was more than that, wasn’t it?”

“He got the DUI and got his license suspended. Community service. Granddad thought it would be a good lesson for him,” she says, as if it goes without saying that otherwise Trevor would have gotten off scot-free. “Then three months ago he gets plastered and goes for a drive. Slams right into a lamppost.”

“Was anyone hurt?” I ask.

She tilts her glass back and forth, watching the movement of the liquid. “A girl. Young woman. She was in the passenger seat. Her name is Kayla. Luckily, she wasn’t hurt too badly. But we’re in the middle of this deal. It’s with—the names won’t mean anything to you, but it’s a Japanese company and the owner is a pretty conservative, traditional guy. He was on the fence about us in the first place. We can’t have any kind of scandal right now, with—” She stops. “Granddad paid Kayla to keep quiet. And I really shouldn’t be telling you this.”

She drinks. I watch her. She’s upset. She wants to talk. I’m inclined to let her.

“You don’t exactly seem happy about that arrangement.”

“He could have killed her. He could have gottenhimselfkilled. And it wasn’t the first time, or the second, or the third. He thinks that he can just call up Granddad and get out of whatever trouble he’s gotten himself in.”

“That’s what you wanted to talk to Connor about, when we first got here.”

She wets her lips. “Yeah,” she says. “I just don’t think he should be able to get away with it.” She takes another swig. Her glass is almost empty. I rise and go to fetch the bottle. I probably shouldn’t be encouraging this, but I’m not going to pass up the opportunity to loosen her tongue.

I tip more Scotch into her glass. She doesn’t stop me. Her hand shakes as she brings the glass to her lips.

“It was a onetime thing, you know.”

She’s not talking about Trevor anymore. “You don’t have to explain,” I tell her, but I sink down onto the couch beside her, my own glass, barely touched, cradled in both hands.

“It was a business trip. And I didn’t—we didn’t,” she says firmly, and looks at me as if she can prove the truth of it if she stares hard enough. “I didn’t know someone took the photo until they emailed it to Paloma. I don’t know how Trevor got his hands on it. He must have gone through our phones or something.”

“She already knew?” I ask, surprised.

“It was a few weeks ago. We’re… working through it,” she says. “God, it was so fucking stupid. I was drunk and stressed and it was Dad’s birthday, which is alwaysweird, and I don’t know what I was thinking. That’s not who I am. It’s not who I want to be. I promised myself I would never do that to someone, not like…” She trails off.

“Like your father.”

“You know about that?” she asks with a note of surprise.

“Trevor told me.”

She snorts. “Of course he did. He probably wants you to be worried Connor would do the same,” she says. “But Connor’s not like that.”

“I’m not worried about Connor cheating on me,” I assure her. There are other things to worry about.

She’s slowed down. Her eyes have an unfocused look like the alcohol’s started hitting her. “I thought my parents had this perfect marriage,” she says. “I know plenty of kids think that, and then their parents get divorced or whatever, but it really seemed like they did. And I keep telling myself that I won’t make the same mistakes. That I’ll be a better spouse and a better parent and everything will turn out okay, but how am I supposed to know what to do if I have no idea what went wrong? I can’t ask him. I can never ask him why he would do that to Mom. To us. How he could leave us like that.”

She stops. Her hand grips the glass so tightly I’m almost afraid it will shatter. She has the fearful look of someone who has said something she shouldn’t have, and I hate the satisfaction that slithers through me.

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