The Cold Nowhere Read Free Page B

her mother.
    Cat slipped to her knees and Stride folded her into his chest and hugged her with the tenderness he would give a child. Ten years had passed, but she was still a little girl. She was fragile and warm in his arms. He wanted to change the past for her and makeeverything right. He wanted to restore what she’d lost, but that was beyond his power. He couldn’t undo what was done or erase his mistakes. All he could do was make a promise.
    Not to himself. Not to Cat. To Michaela. A new promise to replace the one he’d failed to keep ten years ago.
    He would rescue her daughter.
    He would save her.

2
    The girl had vanished again. She was smart.
    He threw down the garage door with an angry jerk of his wrist, shutting out the noise of the wind. With the door closed, he stood in perfect blackness beside the snow-crusted Dodge Charger. He switched on the light, which illuminated the concrete floor, with its mud and grease. The garage was neatly organized. Metal shelves. Tools on peg boards. Chest freezer. He grabbed a plastic gasoline can and topped off the Charger’s tank. Gasoline spilled onto the wool of his gloves, raising pungent fumes. Despite the cold air in the detached garage, he felt sweat under his winter hat.
    He’d spent half an hour scouring Canal Park and the streets surrounding the city’s convention center. The girl had to be freezing. She had to be scared. There were moments when he knew she was close – he felt it – but wherever she was hiding, she kept out of sight.
    Smart.
    He gave up on the search as it got late. The Charger was stolen. It wasn’t safe to stay in the tourist area longer than necessary. He didn’t think the girl would call the police, but he knew that they patrolled the Canal Park area through the overnight hours, and he didn’t want them eyeing the Charger with suspicion. A car slowly making circles through the deserted streets attracted attention.
    He headed back to his hideaway in the forested lands north of the city. He could park the Charger, take his car from the garage’s other stall, and go back to his real life. Shed one skin, put on another.
    He slid open the second garage door and studied the woods outside before he made his escape. He was sheltered from the highway, and it was a lightly traveled road. No one could see him. The owners were snow birds; they wouldn’t be back for months. He had to be cautious about neighbors noticing tracks in the driveway, but few people lived year round on the lonely back roads, and the wind and snow would cover up his trail overnight. This had been his lair for a month. He would be gone long before anyone discovered it.
    His phone vibrated in his pocket, demanding attention. He knew who it was. Only one other person had the number for this phone.
    ‘She got away,’ he said, answering the call.
    There was no reply. He could hear mixed emotions in the silence. Terror. Relief. Then finally a voice: ‘Maybe we should just forget about her. Maybe it’s okay.’
    ‘It’s
not
okay,’ he said.
    ‘The girl doesn’t know a thing. Let her go.’
    ‘We can’t. Don’t you get it? She’s a bomb waiting to blow up in our faces.’
    He heard another long, tortured pause.
    ‘So what happens next?’
    ‘She disappeared again,’ he replied. ‘She’s on the run. You need to find out where she is.’
    ‘I already told you exactly where she was going to be tonight. You said you would handle it and you didn’t. You said it would be over by now.’
    His gloved hands squeezed into fists. He didn’t need blame. They were way past blame. He couldn’t believe that one teenage girl could put the entire scheme at risk.
    ‘Just find out where she is,’ he repeated angrily.
    ‘How do I do that?’
    ‘That’s your problem. And do it fast.’ He hung up the phone.
    He was breathing heavily. It was true; it should have been overby now. A teenage hooker had outsmarted him. He’d let her sneak through his grasp again. She should have