Page 44 of Ice Cold Christmas
He spun around.
Melody stood inches away. The helicopter waited. Hunter waited.
But where in the hell is the truck’s driver?
“You don’t have a Christmas tree.” Melody stood in Victor’s den, and her hands twisted in front of her body. Those words hadn’t been the ones that she’d intended to say. She’d planned to go with something like…
When is the sheriff going to tell you who owned that wrecked and abandoned truck?
Where is the driver?
Are you really my fiancé?
And did you truly fuck me so hard that you’d make me scream for you?
Um, ahem. All good questions. Or, at least, she’d thought they were good. After finding the abandoned truck in the woods, Victor had done a fast search for the driver. He’d searched on foot, then from above in the chopper.
There’d been no sign of the missing driver.
Hunter had radioed the sheriff. Jamal Wroth had promised a full search. The sheriff had also promised to follow up with any discoveries that he made about the driver and the shooting at the Mage estate.
Victor and the sheriff had seemed awfully chummy when they spoke. She supposed that was a good thing. Wasn’t it?
They’d traveled back to the heart of Richmond. Victor had assured Melody that her bag would be transferred from the Mage house. He’d brought along a backpack, nothing else. Well, the gun, but nothing other than the backpack and the gun.
“I don’t have a Christmas tree in here because I didn’t exactly feel like decorating,” he told her, and she realized that her question had hung in the air for several uncomfortable moments before he’d finally replied. “Celebrating wasn’t big on my to-do list.” He sprawled on the black couch and watched her with a predatory gaze.
Predatory as in…he’s looking at me as if he could eat me alive.
She stopped twisting her hands and instead crossed her arms over her chest. “What was on your to-do list?” She knew what was on her list. Going to the estate. Getting inside. Finding out who left me for dead in the snow. And, hopefully, unlocking my past.
“My to-do list. Right.” The fingers of his right hand tapped against the cushions near him. “Teaming up with the Ice Breakers. Finding you. Finding the bastard who took you.” A slight pause. “Making him pay.”
He sounded so lethal when he added that final bit. She got the feeling that when he said “making him pay”—well, Victor wasn’t just talking about jail time.
She crept away from him and headed toward the fireplace. No fire crackled. The room felt cold. No decorations at all. No signs of warmth. A big, beautiful fireplace. A big, beautiful home, one situated in West Franklin. Historic, probably built in the early 1900s.
And how do I know that? Again, random facts that flittered through her head. But she could just look at the design and architecture and know that it dates to the early 1900s.
Corner lot. Gated entry. Big, heavy, wrought-iron gates that were paired with a tall, brick wall. Security cameras had been perched at all sorts of angles and in all sorts of positions around the house. The fireplaces appeared to be original—she’d caught sight of several fireplaces in the different rooms they’d passed. Arched entranceways dominated in the house. Wide windows. Ceilings that stretched up so very high.
Gorgeous architecture. Really. The beauty of the place made her want to sigh. But…there was just nothing personal there. Nothing that made the house feel like a home.
And being inside, well, she would have never even suspected it was the holiday season. Not a single wreath. No Christmas tree. No presents.
So cold.
“You were in Canada.”
Melody nodded. “Told you that already. Hamilton, Ontario.” At first. But then she’d started inching her way down.
“How the hell did you get back in the US if you didn’t even remember who you were? Not like you had a passport on you. I’ve got your passport locked up in my safe.”
Now that news surprised her. “You do?”
A nod.
She wet her lips. “I snuck in. For the right price, getting a fake ID really isn’t that hard.” A roll of one shoulder as she ambled away from the fireplace. “I got a job waitressing. Saved my cash. Tried to come up with a plan once a few bits and pieces started coming back to me.”
