Page 85 of A Killing Cold

“I’d heard.”

“He’d been distant for a while. Going off on trips. The thing that I was angriest about, though, is that he involved Connor. He brought him up here. It’s how I found out. Seven-year-olds aren’t famous for being able to keep secrets,” she says dryly, and my heart gives a squeeze. She’s spent all these years thinking her husband had betrayed her. “You don’t involve your kids in that kind of thing. When I say that I can’t imagine what Irina is going through—it’s hard to understand until you actually have them that it isn’t just… Oh, love plus. Like it’s better or more than. It isn’t that. It’s animal. Feral. The need to protect them… You’d do anything.”

I take another sip, rather than tell her that in my experience, the instinct she describes is faulty in a distressingly high portion of the population.

“But sometimes…” Rose sighs. “I don’t know. I think the flaw of the Daltons is being too protective. I know that I was with Trevor.”

I think of Nick, saying how he tried to get through to him. The scars on his arms. How tired he is of keeping quiet about things. “I don’t think Trevor was protected when he actually needed it,” I say.

“What are you talking about?” Rose asks.

“Rose,” I say carefully. “When Connor told you about Mallory Cahill, did you tell anyone else?”

“I—well, yes, I suppose. I told Nick.” She laughs grimly. “And then I told Liam. Told him that I was filing for divorce. And you know, that’s the first thing he asked me, too. Who else knows. Like the biggest worry was people knowing what he’d been up to. He asked who I’d told and then he took off. He went straight to her, and—” She stops. She takes a sharp breath, realizing how much she’s said. “I’m sorry, I think I’m not thinking straight, with everything.”

“He came to Idlewood after you told him,” I say. He must have gotten word to Mallory, warned her that Nick knew where she was. Then he headed up himself, not stopping to explain things to Rose. “And that’s when he died, wasn’t it?”

“Why are you asking about all of this?” Rose says, suddenly defensive. “It was years ago.”

The dregs swirl in the bottom of my tea. “Has the sheriff come?” I ask, avoiding the question.

Rose frowns at me. “No. He can’t make it out today,” Rose says. “But Connor and Mr. Vance went to fetch the coroner.”

“What?” I say, alarmed.

“His vehicle can’t make it up the mountain, so they’ll have to bring him,” Rose says.

My pulse thuds in my temples. Connor left? He can’t have. Not without telling me. He wouldn’t leave me up here. He wouldn’t leave me with them.

“When did he leave?” I demand.

“Only a few minutes ago, I think,” she says, brow furrowing. “I’m sorry, I thought he would have stopped by to tell you.”

“I have to go,” I say. She isn’t sorry to let me go; she’s uncomfortable, embarrassed by what she’s shared. I walk out the door, a buzzing in my ears, and she doesn’t stop me. I have to get out of here. I have to catch up with Connor. I can’t do it on foot, but the UTVs—there’s one parked out back, by the shed. I can take that.

My boots are in the hall. I don’t know where my coat is, but the thought of putting it on makes me shudder. I can’t stop picturing that moment. The red at the edge of my vision. That keening cry—a rabbit, it was only a rabbit—echoes in my ears. She wasn’t supposed to die.

It takes my eyes a moment to focus on the laces of my boots as I do them up. The lights of the Christmas tree stretch into long-pointed stars.

I walk around the side of the lodge. My steps feel heavy. I jump at every noise. Wind dumping snow from a branch; the flurry of a bird’s wings. I feel a hand wrapped around my wrist, dragging me forward.

Hurry, Liam tells me.

Hurry, because he’s coming. Because he’s here.

I weave past the trash cans, hoping the concrete wall will help blockme from view if anyone glances out a window. The trees provide another screen. I hold my breath until the shed comes into view—the shed, and the four-wheeler parked outside.

I check the UTV. No key. I vaguely remember Magnus hanging them on a hook inside the shed—which is, luckily, unlocked. I haul open the door.

A corpse greets me. The deer carcass hangs, skinned and gutted, aging in the cold air. A few white strips of fat marble the deep pink flesh. The chest cavity gapes. The head has been removed. The air in here feels thick, faintly scented with blood. This deer isn’t the one that I helped dress days ago. Magnus must have stayed out, the day Connor almost killed me. He must have caught his quarry after all.

I cross to the workbench. The keys are there, dangling on a hook in a pegboard. I pocket them—and then look down. Sitting on the table is the knife Magnus handed me earlier: handle hand-carved from an antler, the blade folded neatly within it. I pocket that, too, and I’ve begun to turn when the slash of light coming through the door vanishes.

Nick Dalton is standing in the doorway. His hands are relaxed, loose at his sides. There is no malice at all in his expression. My stomach tightens with dread, but he only sighs.

“Hello, Teddy.”

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