Page 47 of Cold as Hell

“Time to get April?” Dalton asks.

I shake my head. “Time to get Will or someone else who can help you carry her to the clinic. If this isn’t a murder, we can get her body where it needs to be. There’s no rush for an autopsy.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I’m upstairs when Anders arrives to help Dalton with Lynn. I’ll meet them at the clinic. Part of me doesn’t want to. Part of me actually wants to use the excuse that I need to be off my feet. Whichwouldbe an excuse. I’m fine, and I can sit at the clinic. I don’t want to go because exhaustion is tripping my mental circuits, and I’m caught in a loop of self-blame.

If only we’d known Lynn was missing sooner.

If only we’d started searching sooner.

Logically, I realized that the first thing wouldn’t have happened because of Grant, and the second wouldn’t have saved her, because she’d been dead before anyone realized she was missing. But, like I said, I’m exhausted, and when I get tired, my brain can revert to old habits.

I screwed up.

I wasn’t good enough.

I need to do better.

So, yep, what I want is to stay home and huddle under the blankets and feel sorry for myself, as shameful as that is to admit. Fortunately, I know April needs me. While Anders canhelp with the postmortem examination, I’m the one who did the preliminary one, and so she needs to speak to me.

Anders and Dalton carry Lynn through the forest, in hopes they still won’t be spotted. I suppose we really should tell her husband she’s dead, but considering it’s his fault we didn’t search for her in time, I’m in no rush to notify Grant.

I head straight through town to the clinic. A few people are out, mostly shoveling the road, and the distant rumble of the ATV says someone is already clearing snow. Someone does head my way, but apparently, my gait says I am on a mission, and since the pregnant chick is beelining for the medical clinic, no one is going to stop her.

I enter through the front. April is with someone, her muffled voice audible through the closed door. A moment later, the door opens and Grant steps out. Seeing me, he stops short. I brace for him to ask about Lynn. I won’t lie to him. That crosses a line. But he only lifts a bandaged hand and says, “Ax slipped.” Then he starts to pass me before stopping and turning.

“Any sign of my runaway wife?” he says.

My jaw clenches, and I know I should tell the truth, but the flippant way he asks—and the fact that it seems an afterthought—means I can’t bring myself to do it. If I do, I won’t deliver the news with an ounce of compassion, and I’d regret that later.

“We’ll have an update soon,” I say, and brush past him.

“I still think she’s with Thierry,” he calls as the door shuts behind me.

I walk into the exam room and take a deep breath. April is putting away a gauze roll and doesn’t turn as she says, “He will be filing an accident report. I suspect he wants a few days off work. Do not give it to him. It is a minor cut, and he did not even bother to seek medical attention until now, when he seems to have realized it could earn him time off.”

I open the door to check the waiting room.

“He’s gone, Casey,” April says. “I would not have said anything until I heard the door shut.”

“It’s not that.” I head past her to unlock the rear door as I hear a boot on the back steps. “We found Lynn.”

She jerks up. “She’s injured? Why didn’t you radio—?”

“Because she isn’t injured, April. She’s dead.” I steel myself. “Hypothermia.”

I’m braced for comment, because that voice of recrimination in my head doesn’t come from nowhere. It’s from our parents, particularly my father, and… it’s also from my sister.

It’s easy to blame the autism. She doesn’t realize when she’s being painfully honest. But when it comes to how children treat younger siblings, they pick up cues from their parents, and the autism only kept April from realizing that it wasn’t her job to teach me by forcing my nose into my mistakes.

Yet part of that damaged relationship lies on my shoulders, too, especially when I struggle to acknowledge that she’s no longer the girl she had been. So I’m braced for her to say we should have been searching for Lynn sooner, and she only says, “I’m sorry.”

I nod, and my eyes dampen. I shake it off and open the back door just as Anders reaches for the knob on the other side. He meets my eyes and gives a tight nod, acknowledging what we found and understanding how I’ll feel about it. No, understanding how Dalton and I willbothfeel about it, because Dalton might be quieter in his self-blame, but he’s asking himself the same questions.

What did we do wrong?

How can we do better?

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