Page 44 of Cold as Hell

When Storm glances at me, I nod, and she approaches the dead wolverine. She moves slowly, as if it might spring back up, and I give a choked laugh at that.

“Good call,” I murmur, even as the storm swallows my words.

Storm has never encountered a wolverine, but she’s scented them, so she’s curious. Having seen how we reacted made her anxious. After all, it was just an oversized weasel, right?

No, wolverines are something else altogether. They are killing machines, predators who seem to lack the ability to tell when they’re outnumbered and should give up. Or, maybe, what they lack is the ability to give a shit.

I’ve heard stories of them fighting entire packs of wolves, and even when it’s clear they can’t win, they don’t stop. Fortunately for us, they might be the most elusive predator out here. I’ve heard there are as many wolverines as grizzlies, but I’ve spotted dozens of grizzlies and only two wolverines, both of whom thankfully took off.

So why didn’t this one?

The answer can be seen on the beast’s muzzle, coated with blood.

Dalton bends to pick up the wolverine. I’d say that with four shots in it, even that prized pelt won’t be much good, but he’ll try to do something with it, out of respect.

Storm has moved back ahead of us. She glances over hershoulder, and while I can’t hear it, I know she whines. I gesture for her to continue moving, slowly, and she does.

We follow right behind her, and we only get three steps before we see dark brown hair splayed on the ice, and a woman’s face staring sightless into the sky.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I run forward and lower myself beside Lynn. She’s on her back. I don’t need to check for a pulse. If those staring eyes, frozen open, didn’t tell me she was dead, the gaping wound in her stomach would. This is what the wolverine had been protecting. What it’d been eating.

I kneel there, and I know I should feel something, and when I don’t, guilt floods me. But it’s not that I don’t grieve for Lynn’s death. It’s that so much else spins through my brain that this isn’t fully processing.

Caught in the storm, realizing we are on ice, the wolverine charging. It’s too much in quick succession, and when I find Lynn, there’s a confused and exhausted piece of my brain that doesn’t know what to do with this information. We have been searching and searching, growing discouraged and even panicked, and now we’ve finally found her… and she is dead.

Was she killed by the wolverine? Almost certainly not. It could do the job, but at this time of year, it’ll only be scavenging.

There’s another reason why I highly doubt the wolverine killed Lynn.

She’s naked.

Lying on the ice, frozen stiff and naked.

The grief hits then. Grief followed by rage. I see Lynn yesterday at the general store, so eager to help find Kendra’s attacker. I see her light up when Thierry walks in.

After our early negative interactions, I haven’t known what to make of Lynn, but yesterday, I got my first glimpse of the woman I could have gotten to know, if not for the rest. That doesn’t negate the rest—she’d judged other residents and interfered with an investigation—but she’d realized her mistakes and tripped over herself to do better.

I should have done better, too. We all should have, and if Lynn’s loneliness somehow led to this, if she trusted someone she shouldn’t have…

“We need to mark the spot,” Dalton says in my ear.

His voice startles me from my thoughts. The storm rages around us, but he has let me kneel here beside Lynn without comment, because he knows I must.

“I can carry her back to town,” he says. “But we can’t stay out here.”

He’s right. Whether she was led out here or drugged like Kendra, her lack of clothing means I can’t imagine it’snota crime scene, so I need to investigate. Right now, though, that’s impossible. Even getting Lynn’s body back to town will be tricky. But we have to do that… or there might not be anything left to take back. It’s late winter, and even in a storm, that wolverine won’t be the only creature who’ll come at the scent of easy scavenging.

In abandoning a likely murder scene—and taking the body before I’ve examined it—I am committing unforgivable law-enforcement crimes. But leaving her body here would be a crime of a higher order.

Dalton helps me to my feet. Then he takes the wolverine over to a tree, and I frown in confusion, especially when I see he’s attached a rope to its thick tail. He hoists it up and ties it there, and my brain spins, baffled. It’s not even a good hide. Why is he—?

He’s marking the spot, like he said. The wolverine is hanging far enough from Lynn’s body that if it attracts scavengers, they won’t leave tracks over my scene. But that corpse will make it easy enough for Storm to find the spot again.

Once the wolverine is in place, we wrap Dalton’s scarf around Lynn’s torn abdomen. Then he lifts Lynn over his arms. Firefighter’s carry would be easier, but I don’t suggest it. He’s chosen the more awkward maneuver because it is more respectful.

He has to take a moment to adjust, and he moves back and forward, testing Lynn’s weight and finding his footing. As he does that, Mother Nature finally decides to give us a break. The wind dies down so fast it’s eerie, and I peer about, half expecting that when the snow stops swirling, we’ll find ourselves in some alternate dimension.

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