Page 100 of Break The Ice

I stare down at him. “So, you're giving up?”

Raider shoves my hands off his jumper. “I’m not giving up, I’m thinking.”

I stare at him. “What?”

“I’m thinking. I’m going over every detail that I know in a place that is comfortable, and I’m thinking over everything and trying to find a way to keep her.”

I blink.

“You know he has to have been in her life, close enough but far enough away. I just can’t figure out how. Was it the man at the coffee shop, the neighbour? Perhaps he is a cop. Someone close but that you don’t pay attention to.”

“Raider, get up and get off the ice.”

“We’re going to have to protect her alone. The police aren’t going to do anything. So we need to investigate. I was never good at puzzles, Callan. I like strategy and games. But clues and small details. Those are the things I miss even when they are right in front of my face.”

Raider gets up in a rush and drags me with him. In his skates, he towers over me.

“You have a game on the weekend, don’t you?”

“Yes, and it's never meant less to me than it does right now.”

Raider pulls me up against him, lifting me off my feet, and skates us back to the side of the ice. He walks us through the doors and then sits his ass down on the seat, pensively staring at the ocean of empty plastic chairs.

“What now?”

“I didn’t know the police were like that. Whenever they’ve been called around my family, they jump to help out. They always believed us.”

“We didn’t have much to do with them. Dad always stopped drinking one drink short of us calling the cops on him,” I admit slowly.

“I’ve never felt more helpless or angry in my life.”

“That’s why we need to go back, so she can see we’re a united front.”’

Raider’s already shaking his head before I get halfway through the sentence.

“Yeah, I don’t want her to see me like this. I don’t want her to think I’m upset with her.”

I pause, flummoxed by Raider’s strange insights.

“You’re acting weird.”

“Am I?”

“Where's the emotional, angry Raider?”

“Oh, I already did all that. This is the calm after the storm.”

“I see.”

“Do you?” Raider presses his lips together. “Just hear me out. Would it be better to pay to send her away? We could send her to Kelly.”

I stiffen, staring at him. I can’t believe he just suggested that. I don’t know whether to be furious with him or grateful.

“What happens if he follows her there? It’s the same problem.”

“We could make sure she had a clean slate. Make it impossible for anyone to know.”

“Raider…” I trial off, hating that it’s actually a reasonably good option.

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