Chilled (A Bone Secrets Novel) (20 page)

The antidote had appeared the first time he’d watched his young cousin die. He been in the pool with her and simply watched. The rush that’d rolled over him as her last breaths left her lungs had addicted him. He’d sought more from other victims over the years, needing his fix, feeding hungrily on their terror as he physically squeezed out their life’s essence. But Alex Kinton was giving him the same dizzying rush in his brain and Darrin hadn’t laid a hand on him.

“I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. Maybe if I hadn’t been so tired your brother would still be alive.” He’d slowly let his eyes open, gradually dragging his gaze up from the floor, aching for the next reaction.

All color had rocketed out of Alex’s face, and his bloodless lips clamped together. His eyelids had widened the tiniest bit, and Darrin had held his breath. Alex had looked ready to
collapse. Instead, the agent had turned, made tracks down the hallway, and strode out the front door. Pushing past two residents, Darrin had darted to watch from the living room window. Outside in the hot sun, Alex had leaned on his palms on the hood of his truck and stared down at the asphalt between his arms. He’d looked like a man resting from a hard run or someone waiting to vomit. He didn’t move as Darrin had slowly counted to ten.

Then Alex had abruptly straightened and taken a hard look at the group home over his shoulder. Darrin had darted one step to the right, hiding behind the curtain. Had Kinton seen him staring? Kinton’s gaze had slid to the gate to the backyard and pool of the house next door and his shoulders sagged. With a rough yank, he’d opened his truck door, climbed in, and left.

Darrin had exhaled, suddenly exhausted.

Alex Kinton had just led him on a roller coaster of adrenaline that rivaled Space Mountain. No, better than that. Faster, higher. And Darrin wanted another ride.

He’d figured surely Alex would be back soon.

Instead, Alex had returned and snatched Darrin’s discarded cigarette butt for DNA.

Darrin hadn’t left any DNA with Samuel or Rosa. But he had with Kimberly Brock, Susan Mannon, Claire Hines, and others. He’d known it was virtually impossible to avoid leaving DNA behind. He tried his best. He’d always figured the best way to protect himself was not let himself be tested, therefore avoiding any connections. Thanks to a computer database and a cigarette, suddenly he’d been linked to several of his victims.

So simple. He’d been brought down by evidence any
CSI
television show addict could have spotted. How had he been so
stupid? Twenty years he’d slipped away from the police and then was brought down by something so trivial.

Him and Al Capone.

The day Darrin had been arrested had started like any other normal day. Until the swarm of police that showed up before breakfast. Alex had been there. Silent and watching. Staying back out of the cops’ way under the tree by the driveway.

Darrin had winked at Alex as the police pulled him down the driveway in handcuffs.

At least Alex had visited him in prison. It’d been Darrin’s idea. He’d reached out to the marshal, hinted that meeting with him in prison could be of benefit to other victims’ families. Alex had come, probably hoping that one day Darrin would confess to killing Samuel. Thanks to modern technology, he’d been linked to a lot of his crimes. But there’d been others the police didn’t know about. To keep Alex coming back he’d given names, dates, and locations, which Alex passed on to detectives. But never more than one tidbit a visit.

Alex had hounded Darrin, who soaked up every minute of it, getting off on the agent’s ragged grief and anger. In a way Darrin became Alex’s private therapist. Darrin wanted to know what made Alex tick. So he’d made Alex speak, telling Darrin about every shitty thing in his life in exchange for facts on Darrin’s victims. Now Darrin knew how it hurt to grow up with a retarded brother. Darrin knew about the selfish wife who made Alex choose between her and his brother. Darrin knew all too well about Alex’s asshole of a boss.

Quid pro quo.

He’d visit every few months. Sometimes every month. Each visit he seemed thinner and paler than the last. Like something was eating him from the inside out.

Alex had only crumbs of information to show for all the meat he’d sliced off his psyche and handed to Darrin. Alex’s visiting days were Darrin’s best prison days. He’d live for weeks off the buzz from being in the man’s potent presence.

Darrin rubbed his gloved hands together, annoyed with the bitter cold. It had been several months since he’d last seen Alex, and it’d made him irritable. Even with his pending escape, Darrin had been short-tempered. He’d known he’d have to give up the visits from Alex once he entered his new world in Mexico with a different identity, but that glorious future hadn’t kept away his irritation about permanently severing the bond with Alex.

There was some freaky compulsion that had pushed the two of them together. One angry man searching for answers and one empty man searching for emotion.

Brynn was past tears. Her face had dried as she dug, and she ignored the other men. She didn’t miss their furtive glances at her and at each other. She knew exactly what was on their minds.

How long do we dig?

She glanced at her watch. It’d been about twenty minutes since they’d started to dig. That wasn’t too bad. Surely Alex had ended up with some sort of oxygen cushion. He might still be breathing.
I won’t give up, I won’t give up.
She got a small burst of energy and bit her lip as she pushed her frozen hands deeper into the snow. Ryan rested on his knees and breathed hard.

“Take a break. You’re not a hundred percent,” Jim ordered.

“Just for a second.” He was out of breath and looked paler than Brynn liked. She figured she looked pale too. Every member of the team had shadows under their eyes.

Thomas paused and leaned on the shovel. “Maybe we should look somewhere else.”

“Where?” snapped Brynn. “You pointed here. You got another spot where you think you saw something?”

Thomas shook his head. “I’m just sayin’.”

“Well, unless you saw something, I vote we stay with this spot. There was a reason you led us here. Don’t start doubting yourself.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Skepticism and uncertainty swept Thomas’s face and he dropped his gaze. She’d put too much pressure on him. Now he’d feel responsible if they didn’t find Alex.

“No one else saw anything. This is our best spot,” she amended.

Thomas nodded without looking at her and started to shovel.

“Wait. Did you hear that?” Ryan held his hands out for silence.

Everyone froze and strained their ears. Brynn closed her eyes and heard silence.

“I don’t hear anything.” Jim’s gaze was searching in all directions. “What’d it sound like?”

“A soft ding. Like a chime.”

Brynn’s eyebrows shot up. “A chime? From what? Are you sure you heard something?”

Ryan’s face was tight with concentration. “I heard it. I know I did.”

“From where?”

Ryan glanced into the hole. “From there?”

“You don’t sound very certain.” Brynn pushed her hair over her shoulder.
Had he heard something?

“Keep digging,” was Jim’s advice.

The group was silent as they dug. Everyone’s ears stretched to the limit. A minute later Thomas jerked. “Was that it?”

“I didn’t hear anything!” Brynn cried. How could she miss

it?

“Yeah.” Ryan was nodding. “It did come from below us.” He attacked the hole with the strength of a healthy man. Thomas did the same, an excited light in his eyes.

“What’d it sound like?” Brynn asked between hard breaths, digging faster. The others’ excitement was contagious.
Please. Please. Please.

“Just like he said. A soft chime.” Thomas plunged the shovel in hard and halted. “There’s something here. Ryan! Dig right here!” He loosened the snow, and Brynn helped get the excess out of the way. They’d dug nearly four feet down.

She saw blue.

Please don’t be a backpack.

“It’s him! I know it’s him.” Ryan’s words were strangled as he fought back tears. Both he and Jim were in the hole, digging frantically. More blue was exposed, then the black of Alex’s pants. Thomas moved to dig at the other end of the blue parka.

“Oh, thank God. Thank God.” Brynn’s face was wet again.
Please be all right.
“Hang on, Alex, we’re almost there.”

Thomas uncovered Alex’s face. His white face. His eyes were shut, and he was so still.

“Is he breathing?” Brynn whispered. She felt nauseous; her arms and legs shook with exhaustion. Thomas shook his head as he brushed the snow away from Alex’s nose and mouth.

“Get him out, now!” Jim shoveled the last of the snow off Alex’s boots and gestured for Thomas and Ryan to grab his shoulders. Brynn grabbed a leg while Jim grabbed his belt. “On three. One, two, three. Out!” They all heaved at the same time. Alex’s left shoulder got hung up on the hole’s wall halfway up, and Brynn moved from his leg to free the shoulder. It was tight
maneuvering in the hole. They hadn’t prepared a big enough space for several working bodies, but Thomas and Ryan yanked Alex out with sheer brute force.

“He’s not breathing. Jim, get the mask from my pack. Left top pocket.” Brynn ripped off a glove and put two fingers below Alex’s jaw. Her arms shook, and her fingers were nearly numb. She couldn’t feel a thing except the pounding of her own heart.

“Can you feel it?”

“Shhh!” She hushed them and slowed her breaths to concentrate on feeling the ends of her fingertips. Alex’s chest wasn’t moving. “Get his airway going.” She closed her eyes to concentrate as Jim pulled Alex’s jaw upward and slapped the safety mask for resuscitative breathing over Alex’s nose and mouth.

There.

She felt a single beat at her fingertips. Then another. Very slow, but strong. His heart hadn’t stopped; he hadn’t been without air for too long.

“He’s got a pulse. Get him breathing.” Thomas and Ryan exhaled at her words.

Jim was already working at it.

“Come on, Alex.” Brynn watched Alex’s chest move with Jim’s powerful breaths. The beat under her fingertips increased slightly in speed and she nearly cried in relief.

He’s going to make it.

Behind her Ryan sat hard into the snow, and she studied his exhausted face. He’d overdone it. He’d been ill to start with, and now he’d pushed too hard.

But not too hard if it saved Alex’s life.

At that moment she heard a rasping breath from Alex. Jim pulled the mask off, and the two of them rolled Alex to his side as he coughed and took rough breaths. She met Jim’s eyes.

We did it.
He mouthed the words at her as his eyes filled.

Brynn brushed at her own wet eyes.

Ryan let out a whoop and pounded Alex on a shoulder. “Goddamn it, Kinton, you scared the crap out of us!” Ryan threw an arm around Brynn and laid his head on her shoulder, rubbing his eyes on her coat. She felt him sway with fatigue.

“Holy shit,” Alex said as he hacked and coughed and looked at the team with blurry eyes. He had snow frozen to his hair and eyebrows. Next to his icy, pale skin his lips now looked unusually red and flushed.

“Thanks.” He spit the word out with a gasping breath. Brynn brushed some of the snow out of his face and laid her cold hands on his cheeks to warm him. Compared to him, her skin was on fire. He blinked unsteadily at her, and she couldn’t breathe. The way Alex stared was setting off sparks in her brain.

“Hey.” She swallowed hard, unable to pull her gaze away. “I thought…We thought…” Her thoughts evaporated in the heat generated by the pounding heart in her chest.

Those steel-gray eyes of his turned sharp as razors. “I know. Me too. God, you look gorgeous.” Shivering lips pulled into a lopsided grin. “My lips are numb. So’s everything else.”

“We’ll get you warmed up.” She turned to the men and rattled off directions.

Alex sat wrapped in a space blanket in the cargo area of the plane and huddled over the tiniest portable stove he’d ever seen. He’d tucked everyone’s hand warmers into his armpits and into his pants, but he still shivered. He wanted to pick up the stove, wrap his coat around it, and hold it against his chest. Damn chills wouldn’t stop. His hand shook as he took a sip of the hot broth that Brynn had heated for him. It blissfully burned its way down his esophagus. He sipped again and sighed.

“Good stuff?” Ryan poked his head in through the open end of the airplane. When the avalanche had spun the body of the plane like a toy, it’d left the open end half-buried in a snowbank. A person could just squeeze through. They’d already decided to pack snow into the space to close it and use the hatch toward the rear of the plane for exiting and entering. After they looked for the packs.

Ryan’s shaggy hair poked out around his hood and his eyes looked like he’d pulled an all-nighter studying for college finals.

“Like single malt whiskey.”

Ryan’s gaze went to the little stove, and Alex wondered if he wanted to tuck it under his coat too.

“Got your pack from the top of the hill?”

Ryan nodded. “Two packs for the five of us. That’s not good numbers.”

“Someone will come in after us.”

Ryan shook his head. “I think we’ve had our window of good weather. The weather on my GPS is showing nothing but storms for the next two days.”

“We won’t starve in three days.” Alex watched Ryan pale and swallow hard. “Stomach still a wreck?”

“Let’s not talk about food.” His smile was feeble.

“GPS working?”

Ryan nodded. “They’re all showing the same readings now. I don’t know what the fuck was wrong with them earlier.”

Alex took a sip of salty broth as Ryan stepped all the way into the plane and held his hands out to the little stove. He studied Alex from head to toe. Alex raised a brow. “Surprised to see me breathing?”

“Yes.”

“Me too.” Alex stared at the stove and its glowing flame.

“What do you remember?”

Alex was silent for a moment. His stomach knotted as he pulled up the memory. “I remember seeing you and Brynn waving at me. I remember looking up the hill and seeing a wall of white rushing at me.” He took another sip. “I remember thinking I was a dead man and tried to run.” He rubbed at his leg. Brynn had shoved three Advil in his hand along with the broth, but his knee still felt like he’d been hit by a truck. Or an avalanche.