Page 1 of The Devil's Ice

Prologue

Helena, Montana

Christmas Day

The shouting and sound of things being thrown and broken had gone on for a while, with an intensity and pitch that would alarm pretty much anyone. But for the little blond boy in the smiley-face pajamas hiding under the bed covers, this was nothing new. It was, in fact, his life as he’d always known it.

He’d watched his father all day, watched him get drunker and more belligerent with every shot of whisky, and he’d been proactive in the only way available to a small child: he’d hidden his Christmas toys – a bright-red Matchbox car and a chocolate Santa the size of his finger – under the loose floorboard in his tiny bedroom. He’d known full well that it was just a matter of time before his Dad would start to wreck the Christmas tree, the decorations, the dishes from dinner… and the gifts. After all, it happened every year.

Honestly, he’d have thought by now that his Mom would know better than to put any real effort into the holidays, beyond a turkey and some gravy… though maybe it was best to avoid the gravy, since it always ended up everywhere and his Mom spent three days afterwards on her hands and knees, scrubbing dark brown stains from between cupboard doors and even the ceiling, somehow.

But in his heart he knew that his mother would keep trying to make Christmas nice – she tried for him.

Thatwas why the boy had any gifts at all: she scrimped on the groceries and salted away pennies and nickels at a time, saving up all year for a present, maybe two, for her only child. And every year, those same toys were destroyed: stomped on, or thrown against a wall, or broken in two with his father’s bare hands. That was why the boy was so determined thatthisyear, for the first timeever, he was going to get to keep a gift. He was going to have something of his own, for once.

He took a deep, shuddering breath as the sounds of destruction down the hall got even louder, the shouting worse.Thiswas the sign that things were going to go one of two ways now: in the first, his father would storm out of the trailer, slamming the door as he went, and he’d disappear for two or three days, taking their only car and trapping the boy and his Mom in the woods, far from the shops and his school. Too far to walk, especially in a Montana winter.

The boy knew that his Dad had a girlfriend, at least one, and he suspected that when he pulled his Houdini act, he ended up shacked up with one of them for the duration. Stopping by abar anda liquor store en-route, naturally. On the whole, the boy preferred things to gothisway – it meant a few days of peace and quiet, at least.

The other way that the situation could go, of course, was for his father to double down, triple down.Thatway always ended up with his Mom scrubbing gravy off the floor whilst sporting bruises on her face, and unable to eat solid food because of a broken jaw, or grimly cleaning with a broken wrist or arm. The boy really tried to help her with the chores when she was like this, but he couldn’t do much. He was only six years old.

He was just debating getting up and retrieving his car from its hiding place, bringing it into bed with him as company and comfort, when he heard the gunshot. Then another. And another. Then his father was laughing and laughing, sounding like he’d just been told the best joke in the world.

Without realizing what he was doing, the boy jumped out from under the covers, ran to the door, flung it open and stepped into the hall. From here, he had a clear view of the living room area – and so he saw everything,everything.His heart stopped dead in his chest, then juddered to life again, beating so hard, he was sure that the huge, laughing man standing over the woman without a face anymorehadto hear it, even from twenty feet away.

His father fell silent and looked up and over at him, and despite his drunkenness, those blue eyes were aware and alert. Fully awake. Heknewwhat he’d just done, and the boy watched as the man who’d just killed his Mom contemplated him coldly for a few seconds. With dawning horror, the boy suddenly realized that his father hated him.

Really, reallyhatedhim.

He froze, completely and totally and utterly. That small boy turned to a living, breathing ice statue in too-small pajamas. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see anything more, but then he opened them again. Somehow not knowing what his Dad was going to do was worse than actually watching it happen.

“She was cheating on me,” his father slurred, his voice hoarse from shouting and laughing. “Fucking whore. She got what was coming to her, believe me.”

The boy blinked. Seeing as his Dad had girlfriends, he wasn’t sure what the issue was – he had yet to learn the wordhypocrite.

“Oh, I know you thought she was a fucking saint, but you werewaywrong.” His father looked down at the woman’s body, looked at the blood snaking across the food-splattered floor, cutting a scarlet river through the mashed potatoes. “Stupid whore opened her legs for anything with a dick, did it anywhere she got the chance. What did shethinkI was gonna do when I found out? Huh?Huh?”

The boy opened his mouth, then shut it again. He didn’t yet know the termrhetorical question, but hedidknow that he wasn’t expected to respond to his father; it was clear that the man already knew the answer.

The answer was laying at his feet.

“So.” Now his father’s tone changed, became almost gentle. “I just need to do one last thing before I go myself.”

The boy had no earthly clue whatthatmeant, but he didn’t like it, at all. The calm and quiet was unnerving and disquieting, but he didn’t have any power here. He’dneverhad any where his father was concerned, so all he could do now was stand motionless in front of his bedroom door and look at the man pointing the gun right at him. Holding the boy’s fate in his hands, as usual. Some more.

It felt like minutes that he stood there staring at his father, staring down the barrel of the gun, but in reality, it couldn’t have been more than a few fleeting seconds… seconds that would stay with the boy for the rest of his life.

“Huh,” said his father again, but this time his tone was defeated. He lowered his arm. “I thought I could do it, but I can’t. Fuck me.”

He gave his son a long, searching look, then shook his blond head. “I’m gonna tell you one thing, kid, before I get on with it. If you remember nothing else that I’ve ever said, you remember this.”

Numbly, barely hearing his father’s words over his heartbeat pounding in his ears, the boy nodded.

“Don’t trust a woman. Not one, not ever. Don’t let one close to you.Neverlet one get anything over on you. Use ‘em, fuck ‘em, beat ‘em up if you feel like doing that… but don’teverlet one in.” He looked down at the woman sprawled across the floor, then raised his arm again. “Believe me when I say thatnobitch pussy is fucking worth it. Whores will wreck your whole damn life, if you give them the chance.”

“Daddy.” The boy’s throat thawed and opened just enough for him to croak out the word. “Daddy, what –”

His father moved so fast, the boy barely saw what was happening until it was all over: in a single, fluid motion, his father placed the gun under his chin, pulled the trigger, and was flung backwards like a rag doll. He fell heavily, his hand still clutching the gun. In a second of bizarre and diabolical observation, the boy noticed that he’d landed smack on top of the turkey carcass, and for some reason, that struck him as absolutely and hysterically funny.

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