“Shortstop,”
Nan said.
“Stop your whining and tell me why I’m here. I ain’t
got all night, there’s a card game going on.”
For some reason that surprised me. “You play cards? Since when?”
“Since always,”
Nan said. “
But I lost my best opponent when your grandpa
passed so I’m making up for the lost time.”
The visual of my Nan and the grandfather I’d never met together
again and playing cards made me smile. A big smile from somewhere so deep
within that it felt like I was in the fields in summer with the warmth on my
back.
“Focus,
”
Nan interrupted.
“You can croon later.”
“Renee here,” I scowled at Renee who had leaned against the grand
piano, “decided that Blob there,” I pointed to him on the stairs, “needs
justice in order to pass over.”
“Him?”
Nan asked.
“He’s older than me!”
“My point exactly.”
Renee wandered over, waving her hands through the spot where Nan
was speaking. “I need headphones or something,” she muttered. “What is she
saying?”
A breeze lifted Renee’s hair off her neck, and she shrieked.
Nan and Blob laughed.
I folded my arms and sighed. Scaring Renee was clearly the new
sport. “Can you figure out who this blob-specter-thing is?”
Renee hurried over to me and ducked under my arm. Commander Renee
Black, big hero, terrified of spooks. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders,
attempting not to shake my head at her. She was a dimwit.
She looked up as I thought it, shrugged, and burrowed in further.
“Don’t do spiders all that well either,” she mumbled, clutching hold of me.
“I’ll ask your grandpa
.
Get back to you when I know.”
I jumped, which made Renee
jump. Nan had been silent for so long I thought she’d gone.
“We’re leaving tomorrow,” I called out after her.
A tutting drifted on the air to me.
“Come now, Shortstop. If
you got made to stop here, you got things to do here.”
I hated the sound of that but she was gone before I could ask
questions.
“What?” Renee asked. I guessed she’d felt me tense. “What’s
wrong?”
Not wanting to scare or worry Renee anymore and pretty much
knowing that Nan was right, I walked to the kitchen and reached under the sink.
It took one quick turn to shift the stubborn stopcock.
“Nothing that some hot chocolate won’t fix,” I mumbled. “And a
change in identity.”
Chapter 6
THE NEXT MORNING Renee and I left Blob to his haunting and walked
on the snowy mountain road down into the little town. Martha and Earl had spare
ski jackets in the cabin but Renee’s jacket was a fetching bright pink and the
only one that would fit me was a violent purple color.
We trudged our way from the quiet lane the cabin was on and met
the main road of the town itself. We rounded the corner and Renee and I stopped
in unison. Both of us were awestruck at how much we’d missed in the darkness.
The roadway, which was covered up in a fresh fall of snow, was
lined on either side by trees that looked like they were standing at attention.
Their bare lower trunks, slim and straight, were topped off with white-covered
hats that speared up into the white sky. In front of the trees were benches,
which looked like somebody had shoved fluffy cushions on them.
The lights on either side looked like something out of a movie,
bubbles perched on top of green ridged posts that curved into a set of three
like a chandelier.
I stepped onto the road, then off it, then back on, then off it
just to get another shudder of awe as I checked out the twinkling shops. Some
of the buildings had those flat fronts which matched the pioneer flavor that
Martha had captured in her café. Then there were shops that poked out along the
sidewalk, the bay windows bright and welcoming topped with white hats of their
own.
It was the kind of place that should have had “resort for the
rich”embossed in great big letters on a sign someplace. I searched
around for something to tell me the name of this place but I couldn’t see
nothing. When I did spot a sign, covered by its own smattering of snow, Renee
dragged me past it. I guessed I still weren’t officially allowed to know where
I was.
“I thought it was tiny,” Renee murmured as we wandered past a log
cabin bar aptly named The Ice Cooler. It was easily as big as the main street
back in Oppidum. There were three hotels I could see, a cluster of shops all
selling ski equipment, and Martha and Earl’s café. They had a police and fire
and rescue station in one building opposite the café that looked much like the
flat-topped pioneer style.
If it weren’t for the few buildings in that style, I wouldn’t have
known we weren’t in a little Swiss village ready to ski the Alps. I would have
sworn by the chocolate box buildings that we were there. The mountain mist and
the heavy, bluey-white light made me feel like I’d wandered into a painting. I
officially loved this place.
I must have sighed out loud as Renee bumped my arm with her
shoulder. “You getting dreamy there. Let me guess, pecan pie?”
“Nope,” I said. “Not this time . . . but now that you mention it—”
“Sheriff first,” she said, shoving me forward. “Then you can feed
the beast.”
Grumbling, I followed Renee down the bustling sidewalk. There was
a nervous energy humming through the air as I watched people raiding the
grocery store.
“Polar vortex,” I heard someone muttering. “Like winter isn’t cold
enough up here.”
“That sounds ominous,” Renee said as we got nearer to the station.
“And that looks ominous.”
I followed Renee’s pointed finger to the small group gathered
outside the police station. The nervous energy was laced with panic and Renee
walked up to a man at the back and asked what had happened. He turned to look
at her like she had asked him if the mountains were tall.
“Avalanche,” he said. “Didn’t you hear it?”
“We were in it,” Renee answered.
The guy’s eyes widened and he dragged us both through the crowd
and presented us before the very harassed-looking deputy.
“Hal,” he said. “These ladies were caught up in it. Doc Mayberry
in there?”
Hal gripped his brimmed hat in the kind of manner that my father
always did. A gesture that showed alarm and annoyance all at once. “Well, you
sure don’t look banged up, but sure thing,” he said after a long silence. “Er .
. . come on up.”
I looked at Renee who shrugged. She wasn’t going to argue with
skipping the line. I could tell by her “not a word” face.
We headed into the station as Hal led us down the corridors.
Inside it was kinda like I guessed most police stations looked. Even walking
inside made the hair on my arms try and jump out and dive for cover. It was
never good when I entered a police station—I ended up arrested, escaping, or
getting charged with murder. I glanced over my shoulder at the doorway. Maybe I
should have just waited outside.
Renee touched my arm and gave it a squeeze. “It’ll be alright.”
I tried to smile off the rapidly building need to hurl myself
through the nearest exit. I looked to my right as we passed a set of double
doors. The fire crew were huddled around a table, looking at some kind of map.
I tensed as I felt the panic ripple over me from them. They looked calm but
they were anything but.
“So, you get hit anywhere?” Hal asked. His twang placed his origin
way more south than where we were now.
“Nothing too bad,” Renee answered. “But our car has probably ended
up down the mountain somewhere.”
Hal blew out a breath, took his hat off, dipped his eyes, and
crossed himself. “Yours,” he sighed and led us down the corridor, “and the other
poor souls down there.”
“Others?” Renee asked, glancing my way. Concern glinted in her
eyes. I was sure we’d been the only ones on the road but with the low
visibility there could have been cars up ahead of us.
I tried to shake off the flicker of a dream that I’d had that
morning. I had woken up in a sweat, sure that I’d just relived our adventure in
the night. Only now, the deeper we walked into the station, I realized that the
flicker had shown daylight.
Uh oh.
We got to the sheriff’s office before Hal could answer and he
knocked like a school kid on the principal’s door. I could see now that he was
a lot younger than he first appeared. His weather-beaten face aged him a good
ten years but he was young, maybe even younger than my twenty-seven years.
“Sheriff McKinley,” he said, opening the door. “There’s two ladies
here, they got caught up in it too.”
We headed into the room and I got a lightning flash of pain down
my left leg. I had to bite my lip not to yelp out loud. McKinley sat on his
desk with a bottle of whiskey in his hand as another guy, who I assumed was the
doctor, prodded at his leg.
“You got out?” McKinley asked. “Thought I was the only one who
made it.”
I could sense that Renee was itching to take charge. She was
highly trained in all sorts of emergency stuff and I was pretty sure before CIG
she had been involved in this kind of thing. Not that she’d ever
tell
me
nothing.
“That looks more recent than last night,” she said. “We were
caught in the run on the north side of town.”
McKinley scowled at his deputy. “Then, ma’am. I’m glad your—”
He howled as the doctor moved his leg and I bit back my own howl.
“Safe,” he grunted. “But we got a big problem on our hands.”
“Can we help?” Renee asked. Her mask was slipping away by the
second.
McKinley eyed her. “You a medic?”
Renee sighed. “No, sir. I’m a doctor but in psychiatry.” I wanted
to poke her. She
was
a medic and I was better than any sniffer dog at
finding people who were trapped. I went to speak but she elbowed me in the
ribs.
“My deputy will show you out,” he said.
I stepped forward. No way was I going to let the guy suffer like
he was. He had things to do. I knew from meeting his deputy Hal that although
he had a good heart, he was not ready to run a rescue operation.
“Can I take a look?” I asked the doctor.
“You got training?”
Ignoring the blast of panic from Renee, I nodded. “I was in the
army a while back. Seen some similar injuries.” I glanced at Renee whose face
remained impassive even though her aura was waving around like it was
performing acrobatics. “Emergency battlefield stuff but I might know how to fix
it?”
“We need that kind of help,” the doctor told McKinley. “You
trained for the cold weather?”
His question made me thankful that I’d been at Franken-Frei’s
mercy for all these months. Oh, I’d seen cold weather, I’d been dunked in
sub-zero waters for my trouble too. Even the memory made my skin sting.
“Yes, sir,” I said. “An’ I know that the doc here is not
specifically medic trained but she’s pretty handy in a crisis too.”
Renee glared at me but I knew she wanted to help as much as I did.
There was a time and place for secrecy but what kind of protection team were we
if we just stood by now?
“I was in Mountain Rescue for a while,” she mumbled.
All I could do was stare dumb at her and blink. Mountain Rescue?
It sounded like the truth too.
“It’ll do,” the doctor said, stepping aside for me. “Have at it.”
I took off my gloves, looked at the pretty black-looking
appendage, and knew exactly where to touch.
“Just hold still,” I said to McKinley. “This might tingle.”
Renee started to murmur a warning but I placed my hands on his
leg.
What am I going to tell them? What will happen? This is so unfair,
so damn unfair. Why?
The heat shot through my paws and I felt like my skin was going to
burn right off then and there. McKinley groaned in relief. Renee pulled me back
from him and the room swayed.
“You okay there?” the doctor asked me as Renee held me steady. I
fought the urge to be sick and bent over at the waist, sucking in my breaths. I
didn’t normally feel that way. I didn’t get it.
“She got hit herself last night,” Renee explained. “She should
really be resting.”
McKinley rubbed his stomach, the confusion clear in his eyes. He
was a handsome guy, like the rugged types that were always heroes in films. I
looked down at my hands and realized that I needed to get rid of what I’d
drained from him and soon.
“I gotta go,” I muttered to Renee. “Bathroom.”
“I’ll take you,” she said and hauled me down the corridor and into
the tiny cupboard-for-a-rest-room. “Aeron. What do you think—?”
“Water,” I snapped. “Turn on the damn water.”
Her eyes were wide in shock but she nodded and I shoved my hands
under the running water. Next thing I knew I was on my knees. The room spun. My
stomach crunched. I couldn’t breathe. I spluttered. Renee moved forward.
“No,” I barked. “Stay there.”
“Watch your head then,” she muttered. “You’ll be no good
concussed.”
The pain increased. I gasped, the air drained from me. The room
was crushing me. It started to get dark. I knew I was close to passing out.
“Now,” I told Renee.
She stepped forward and pulled me away from the sink. I dropped
down onto my back and lay on the floor shivering.
“Next time I decide to do this,” I said. “Hit me.”
Renee pulled me into a hug and tried to help me warm up. I just
hoped nobody wandered in. What a picture. Me lying on the bathroom floor
shivering with Renee clinging to me.
“At least the sheriff is fighting fit now.”
Sighing, Renee squeezed me tighter. “We have got to find a better
way of you getting rid of the ailments.”
I couldn’t argue with that, not a bit.