Page 55 of Cold as Hell

“We don’t entirely know what happened at this point,” Dalton says. “If you mean Thierry—”

“Who else?” Grant’s voice rises as he rocks forward. “She was with Thierry, and now she’s dead. Obviously he killed her.”

“We have no—” On the video, Dalton cuts himself short. At the same time, beside me, Dalton hits Pause and turns to me. “I wasn’t sure what to do here. We’d agreed we wouldn’t say it was murder just yet, but I wasn’t sure whether I should get into what Marlon said—that he never claimed it was Thierry with Lynn. I decided I should leave that for you.”

“Good call.”

Dalton hits Play on the video. His off-screen voice says, “We are not entirely certain how Lynn died, but we have not eliminated any theories or suspects.”

“What happened? Where was she?”

There’s a pause, and beside me, Dalton’s jaw works as he mutters, “It was so tempting.”

I know what he means. So tempting to answer that with a lash of blame.

What happened? Your wife froze to death the night of the storm, because you didn’t bother telling us she never came home.

“We found her outside town,” Dalton says on the video. “We believe she died of hypothermia, but that’s still being investigated.”

“Hypo…? Shefrozeto death?”

Another pause. This time, it’s Anders who answers. “In a manner of speaking. In these temperatures, hypothermia can set in quickly.”

“So she went with Thierry, and then tried to get back to our apartment and got lost? Froze to death in the forest?”

“We are continuing to investigate,” Dalton says. “We’re putting together a timeline now, and we hope to complete that soon. Casey will speak to you later.”

“Later?” Grant looks around. “Where the fuck is she? Isn’t she some kind of detective? My wife is dead and she’s, what, taking a nap?”

I flinch, even as Dalton’s hand squeezes my thigh.

On the video, Dalton answers with extreme care, each word clipped. “Casey was out searching for your wife after having a pregnancy scare. She is currently investigating. I decided to be the one to tell you, which isn’t part of the investigation.” A pause that extends a moment past comfort. “Unless it is. I’ll needyou to account for your whereabouts last night and early this morning.”

“You’re asking me for analibi? What do you think I did? Dragged my wife out there to freeze to death?”

I hit Pause and rewind to watch Grant’s face while he says that. It’s all outrage and flashing eyes, but I make a noise deep in my throat, and Dalton nods.

“Little too close to what actually happened,” he murmurs.

“Hmm.”

I hit Play. There’s some back-and-forth, Grant indignant that Dalton would think he’d done this, while Dalton dives in hard.

“Home,” Grant says finally. “I was in our apartment all night, because there was a damn blizzard, and my wife was out screwing another guy. Was I sulking? Maybe, yeah.” He glances to one side. “But was I also thinking that it was my own damn fault? That I’d screwed around first?” He looks back at Dalton. “Yeah, I was. So I sat in my apartment, and I drank a couple of beers. The bottles are still there, if you want to check. And before you ask, no one saw me, because I was…” He meets Dalton’s gaze. “In my apartment.”

“When did you leave?”

“Eight o’clock this morning. I got up at seven, and Lynn wasn’t there, so I sulked for a bit. Then I went to have a shower. There was a lineup. I was behind Frank. He wanted to chat about the blizzard. Typical weather small talk. Some storm, huh, blah blah. I let him talk. By eight, I was joining another line, this one at the commissary, for breakfast that wasn’t coming because someone forgot to close the damn chimney. I was behind Dana and the boys. Didn’t say much more than hello. I left when it was clear we weren’t getting breakfast.” He stops. “How much more of this do you want?”

“That’s enough.” Dalton looks down at the bandage on Grant’s hand. “Remind me how that happened again?”

His jaw tenses. “Cutting wood.” He yanks back the bandage. “See? Not scratches from my wife trying to escape as I murdered her.”

I pause to look at the mark. It’s a cut, maybe an inch and a half long.

When I resume the video, on it, Dalton says, “Explain to me how you got that with an ax.”

“Putting it away, okay? I was careless.”

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