On Thin Ice Read Free

answered. She hadn’t even attended the trial. She had disappeared, and he was the only person who knew why she had left town in such a hurry. She had been pregnant, carrying his baby. It was a secret they had kept from everyone.
    Their child would be almost twenty years old now. A grown-up person in his or her own right. Through the years he had thought of hiring a private investigator to find his child. He never did. He knew he didn’t deserve to be the child’s father. This was his penance for betraying Megan. He had done the only thing he could do in the ensuing years—he prayed daily for his child. He knew he had no right to ask, but another part of him reminded him that the baby had been his, too.
    Megan pulled off his hat and laid it on her lap and sighed. She fingered a few loose threads and looked out the window. He drove past a few businesses, mostly closed up for the winter now. With temperatures hovering at twenty degrees below, few people were about.
    Megan looked up, seemed to remember something, leaned forward and opened the glove compartment. She said, “This morning someone gave me this.” She pulled a square white card out of a manila envelope.
    He blinked at the large white rectangular card that Meggie held in her hands. The front of it was embossed in cherry blossoms and hearts. He recognized it immediately. It was one of their wedding invitations. She turned it over to show him the back. Written in large block letters were the words, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY NUMBER TWENTY. Their twentieth anniversary would have been on Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day was next week.
    He skidded slightly on the slick road. “Who gave you that?” he asked, quickly regaining control of the wheel.
    “This morning I went into a coffee shop and someone handed it to me. It had my name on it. Meg Brooks.”
    “What coffee shop?”
    “The one with the big boat painted along the side.”
    He nodded. “The Schooner Café. Who gave that to you?”
    She shrugged. “I don’t know. I walked into the coffee shop and a waitress came over and asked me if I was Meg Brooks. When I said yes, she handed me this envelope. She said that someone had come in a few days ago with an envelope to give me when I showed up. When I looked at her in surprise, she said that everyone who comes to Whisper Lake Crossing eventually stops in there for coffee.”
    “Who knew you were coming here?” he asked.
    “Nobody knew I was coming here.” She placed the invitation on her lap.
    Alec shook his head slowly. What was happening here? “Describe the waitress who gave that to you.”
    “She was blonde, big hair, sort of heavy, seemed talkative.”
    “That would be Marlene. She owns the Schooner Café.”
    He did a quick U-turn on the mostly deserted street.
    “Where are we going?” she asked him.
    “The Schooner,” he said. “We need to talk to Marlene. We need to figure this out.”
    Megan nodded. “That’s a good idea. Something weird is happening. I want to find out what.”
    They stopped at a red light. He looked long and hard at her. He wanted to protect her. This time he didn’t want to walk away from her. But this time would he be strong enough to stay?

THREE
    M egan could tell he was watching her, studying her as they sat across from each other at the Schooner Café. He ordered coffees for the two of them, even though she didn’t particularly want coffee. He hadn’t asked her. He’d gone ahead and ordered. Their waitress was a pretty, dark-haired, tall young woman whom Alec seemed to know.
    “My mother’s just at the bank for a minute,” the girl said in answer to Alec’s question. She poured coffee into two white mugs and set them down on the table between them. “Would you like something to eat? Would you like menus?”
    Megan shook her head and encircled the cup of coffee with her hands. It warmed them.
    Alec added, “No. We just need to see your mother.”
    “She should be back in a minute. You want me to call her on