On Thin Ice (4 page)

H
is son had died.

For twenty years he had prayed daily for a child who didn’t exist. But was what she did in not telling him any worse than what he did? Because when all the craziness happened, he had chosen his brother, his family, over Megan.

Alec remembered when his brother had come home on the night her grandmother died. He had been agitated, full of wild energy. He couldn’t settle down and kept running his left hand over a scratch on his cheek.

Alec had demanded, “What did you do to yourself? What happened?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing. I fell. Let’s go shoot some pool.”

“I’m going to Meggie’s.”

“No. No you’re not. You can’t. Not now. You’re going to come with me.” He grabbed Alec quite roughly and Alec shook off his grasp. “What’s the matter with you?”

Alec began to be afraid. This was the old Bryan. The angry Bryan, not the likable Bryan he showed to the world. This was the Bryan who would go stomping through the house shoving his foot through the wall. This was the Bryan who his parents couldn’t control, the Bryan his mother cried over. He decided to go with Bryan that night. He needed to placate him. If Bryan’s old demons were back, Alec needed to protect him. But even with these outbursts, no one could quite believe that Bryan would hurt an elderly woman, would actually commit murder. In the ensuing years Alec had wondered at his mother’s denial, his father’s preoccupation when it happened.

It fell on Alec, the oldest brother to protect the youngest son. No one told him to do this, not his parents, not his teachers, it was just something he took on himself.

And he still did.

The following morning he’d learned that Megan’s grandmother was in the hospital. She had fallen down the basement steps and broken her neck. She died on Valentine’s Day, the day he and Megan were to be married.

After Megan left his office, Alec sat at his quiet desk with the door closed and put a hand to his forehead to quell the pain that was starting there. He lifted up the receiver and punched in Bryan’s cell phone number.

“Bryan? This is Alec.”

“Hey, bro. What’s happening?”

“Paul’s dead.”

“Tell me you’re kidding. Please say you’re making this up.” Was there a hint of fear in Bryan’s voice? “How do you know?” Bryan asked.

“Mom and Dad called me this morning and told me.”

“Oh man.”

“The brakes on his car failed.”

A silence. “So, just like the others.”

“Yes. Just like the others.”

Alec held the receiver to his ear and looked at the e-mail messages still lying side by side on his desk. “I’m calling because I want you to be careful.”

A bit of a chuckle from his brother. “Don’t worry, bro, I’m pretty safe here. I’m not likely to go driving a car anytime soon. I never got my driver’s license after getting out. I don’t trust myself at the wheel.”

“Just watch your back.”

“Lorena does the driving for the two of us.”

“That’s good. Have you gotten any strange e-mails lately?”

“E-mails? None that I can really think of. You want me to go back and look in my trash folder?”

“I would, yes. And let me know. Mom and Dad would want you to be careful.”

“Don’t worry. If I feel in peril, I’ll just rob a bank. That’ll land me in jail. I’ll be safe in there.”

“Don’t joke, Bry. This is serious.”

Bryan promised he would be careful.

Afterward Alec felt heartened by the call. Bryan sounded good. Maybe things would get better. Maybe church was good for him. Maybe Lorena was good for him.

Yet always, always, there was that sliver of fear when he hung up from talking to his brother that things were not as good as Bryan made them out to be. He knew he needed to go out and see him. It had been a while. He needed to make sure his brother was okay.

She had always blamed her sins for her aloneness in this world. A Christian girl getting pregnant when she was eighteen was bad. She knew better. She’d been raised by a good church-going grandmother yet she had slept with her boyfriend. Just once. And had gotten pregnant. No wonder God was judging her.

When she first feared that she might be pregnant, Alec was the first person she told. They sat quietly on the park bench when she told him. The town was all decorated for Christmas. In the distance there were carolers.

She’d been surprised at his reaction. Instead of being upset or even afraid, he’d been pleased. He’d smiled. His dark eyes sparkled. Then he laughed. He had clasped his hands around her waist and danced them around the snow in the park.

Megan looked out of her kitchen window to distract herself from those thoughts. A woman was making her way toward Megan’s cabin now, over the mounds of
snow and rocks and roots in the back behind the cabin. The lights of a cabin glowed behind her like squares of bright yellow against the black sky.

When Megan opened the cabin door, the woman said, “I thought I would come and introduce myself.”

This was the woman she’d seen that morning with her husband in town.

“Hello,” Megan said. “It’s good to finally meet you.”

The woman wore a red plaid coat and a striped knitted hat with pom-poms. The whole outfit was rather endearing. She held the length of her brown hair with one hand to keep it from swirling around her face in the wind. She had broad cheeks and a generous smile.

“I’m Vicky.” The white streak in her hair didn’t make her look older, it made her look charming.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Megan.”

“I arrived the other day. I’ll be here a week,” Vicky said.

“I think I saw you this morning in town with your husband.”

Vicky laughed out loud, a boisterous sound, and leaned her head back. It was almost, but not quite a cackle. “My husband? We just met. That’s Brad. He’s in the cabin beside mine. Even though he’s a bit older than me, we seemed to really hit it off. I’ve always liked older men.”

“Wow.”

“He’s just such a big sweetie. You heard about the storm coming next week? I’m wondering if I should leave now or wait until the deluge of snow is over. It’s supposed to be one low-pressure system after another for a while. And that means snow, snow, snow. How long are you staying?”

Megan said she hadn’t given much thought to the storm, but that her stay depended on how long her business would take.

“Business,” Vicky said, and stuck out her tongue. “Me, no business for me. I’m on the rebound from a bad relationship and needed some time away. That’s why I’m here. Trying to get centered. I saw a catalogue with this place listed, so I phoned. Voilà! I’m here, and what a beautiful place.

“I’m sure this will be good for me. I’ve never done anything quite so spur of the moment before, coming to a cabin like this by myself. And then meeting a nice guy right off the bat. Brad and I had dinner last night at his place. I was over there introducing myself and then before you know it, he’s panfrying trout and eggs. We were going to head up to the lodge last night but we never quite made it.” Her eyes twinkled and Megan thought that it didn’t take Vicky too long to become interested in someone else after coming off a bad relationship.

“You want to come over? Brad wants to meet you.”

“Me? Now?”

“A little while ago, he said to me, ‘Have you met the woman in the farthest cabin over? What’s she like? We should get together all three of us,’ and so I thought, since it’s just the three of us here right now, why don’t you come on over to my cabin now. Brad’s cooking up shrimp with his special shrimp sauce.”

Megan thought about it. Maybe it would be nice to get her mind off everything for a while. “I can bring crackers and cheese,” she said. “Let me just finish off my e-mail.”

“You people with your e-mail. Brad’s the same way. Always with his laptop, day and night. Me? I don’t even have a computer. Don’t have TV either. Just me and my animals and my organic garden. Who goes on vacation and brings their computer?”

She came into Megan’s cabin and said, “Wow, you certainly got the deluxe model. I don’t even have a fireplace. Just a bitty woodstove. This is beautiful.”

“Yes. It is nice.” Megan had booked the most expensive cabin because she wanted a separate bedroom. Some of the cabins were little more than one room.

“Brad’s is like this too,” Vicky said. “Brad is a documentary filmmaker. He’s doing a documentary on the lake. You should see all the gear he has. Cameras, that sort of thing.”

On the way to Vicky’s cabin, she said, “Nori said you design Web sites.”

Megan said she did.

“Well, between you and me, I think it’s the Web site thing that has Brad interested in meeting you. He told me he’s in the market for a new Web site for his film company.”

When they got to Brad’s cabin, he called out, “Come on in, you two beautiful ladies.” When Megan approached, he took one of her hands in both of his. “So nice to meet you.” Even though they were inside, he wore his sunglasses.

Megan watched Vicky fuss with the fire and Brad panfry shrimp on the woodstove in a big cast-iron frying pan. Brad was a heavy man with wild hair and a shaggy gray beard, a bit of a crooked nose. But, what Megan noticed were his large white teeth which seemed to protrude a bit oddly and crookedly from his mouth when he laughed. Which was often. She wasn’t surprised that Vicky was attracted to this mountain man. He seemed nice and could cook, obviously. He wore a plaid cotton shirt and jeans and moccasins.

The little cabin smelled wondrously of garlic and butter and Megan found herself relaxing. Almost.

A kettle on the woodstove was whistling and Brad said, “I’m making tea for you ladies.”

The three of them stood around the steamy kitchen rich with aromas and drank tea and ate shrimp. At one point Vicky nudged Brad, “Tell her about your monster film.”

“Monster film?” Megan put her tea on the counter.

“He’s working on a film about the Whisper Lake monster.”

“I didn’t know there was a Whisper Lake monster.”

Brad leaned forward, grinning with all his teeth and said, “Yep.”

“So where does he go when the lake is frozen?” Megan asked.

For a moment his face darkened. “Well, I guess that’s the question, isn’t it?”

Megan felt an instantaneous flutter of disquiet which dissipated as quickly as it had come.

“Yeah, Brad,” Vicky said. “That’s what I keep asking. Wouldn’t it make more sense to come here when the lake
isn’t
frozen?”

Megan could hear the wind outside high in the trees. “I plan to,” he said quietly. “This is just the beginning. Just the beginning, ladies.”

After her second cup of tea and more shrimp, Megan felt satisfied. She was tired, yet Brad talked on and on. Vicky had drawn her knees up and seemed content to listen to Brad’s exploits. He’d been to the top of Mount Robson in Canada. He’d been bungee jumping in South Africa and done a film about clock-makers in Germany. After a full recounting of his African safari, Megan was dying to get back to her cabin and her comfortable bed and away from this man who now seemed pompous and self-absorbed her.
She couldn’t understand how Vicky could hang on his every word. When there was a lull in the conversation, Megan yawned and said, “Well, I think I should be getting back to my place. I’m dead tired.”

“No.” The way Brad said it so quickly took both women by surprise.

He said, “I’ve done all the talking here tonight, we haven’t let our guest introduce herself properly. Where’s home for you, sugar?”

Sugar?
“I live a little south of here.”

“Where’s a little south of here?”

“Oh, here and there. I’m from here and there.” Megan looked past him toward the window. She was feeling more and more uncomfortable, yet it was nothing she could name or her put her finger on.

Vicky playfully punched him again. “If our guest doesn’t want to tell us where she’s from, then that’s her business. Look at me, I didn’t want to tell anyone about my life but you got it all out of me.” Her giggle was a cackle.

He leaned over and kissed Vicky on the cheek. “But I want to know where a lovely young woman like Megan lives. I’m good with accents. That’s one of my interests,” he said.

She didn’t want to tell them where she was from. She didn’t want anyone to know she was here. She didn’t want to put anyone in danger.

Brad leaned toward her again and she could see his
eyes through the dark glasses. It was as if she had looked at those eyes in a dream. She drew back.

“I hear you do Web sites,” he said.

She hugged her knees and yawned again. “We can talk about that sometime.”

He said, “Do you have a card or something?”

“A business card? Not on me.”

Vicky stood up and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and handed it to Megan saying, “Please write down your information for Brad so we don’t have to talk business anymore.”

Megan wrote her Web site on the paper and handed it to him. He peered down at it, seemed satisfied, folded up the paper and put it in his pocket.

As Megan was putting on her coat, Brad said, “You know what day it is next week?”

The women shook their heads.

“Valentine’s Day. Women like you two should have sweeties to keep them warm I should think.” Megan stared hard at him, but he abruptly changed the subject. “You happen to know where I can rent a snowmobile around this place?”

Megan shook her head. “Maybe someone in town would know.”

Brad said, “Maybe the sheriff would know. I’ll contact the sheriff about it. Have you met him? Alec. Is that his name?”

There was something in his eyes when he said the word
sheriff,
almost a half wink.

“I have to be going,” she said. “I have to get back.”

Her hands trembled as she zipped up her jacket, and on her way back to her cabin, she thought about what he had said. The sheriff. What did Brad want with the sheriff? Why was he looking at her that way when he talked about the sheriff? And why did that request make her feel so uneasy?

A
t quarter after nine the next morning, Megan saw Alec’s car drive up the road and past her cabin and toward the lodge. She stepped into her boots and stood on the back stoop of the cabin as she watched him park near the lodge. He made his way not up the wide steps to the lodge door, but to another cabin close by. A brown dog bounded out to meet him and Alec bent down and scruffed him around his head.

She hated to admit it, but she loved the sight of him.

After she had escaped from the clutches of Brad and Vicky last night, she had sat at her laptop and done some online searching. She read again the accounts of the deaths of Sophia, Jennifer and Paul. Who was doing this? She wondered. None of it made any sense.

All night she had gone over lists in her head; old school friends, people who liked her, people who didn’t like her, current clients, former clients. But if
someone wanted to kill the wedding party, then why wait twenty years? Her head hurt from all the thinking.

She grabbed her jacket and put it on. She decided to walk up to the cabin that she had seen Alec enter. The snow that had been threatening last night had turned itself inside out and the morning shone with sun. It was even a bit warmer. She stepped into the felt-lined boots that Nori had loaned her, which belonged to one of her daughters. As clunky and big as they were, they kept her feet warm. She trudged up the cleared pathway. She didn’t see either Brad or Vicky. Good.

She knocked on the cabin door. Alec opened it. He seemed surprised to see her. She entered the warm room. A brown dog bounded playfully at her feet.

“That’s Chester,” Alec said with a grin. “Steve’s dog.”

“Where’s Steve?”

“I don’t know. I came here looking for him. I’m heading up to the lodge next.”

She bent down and patted the top of Chester’s head.

“I told Steve about us,” Alec said.

“That’s good. I guess.”

“He has some interesting ideas.”

“Really?”

Alec said, “Come for a walk with me. I want you to see something.”

He wanted to go for a walk? “Okay.”

“I also want to talk to you about something.”

“Okay.”

They took off up what looked like a snowmobile trail. It was plowed and easy to navigate. The path became steeper and more slippery as it went farther into the woods.

They had climbed up the trail and were at a cleared place which overlooked the lake. It was gorgeous, full of sun in the early morning.

“This is what I wanted to show you,” he said. His smile was shy. He wanted to show her this? Why? She asked him that.

“Because this is such a great view.”

She wondered if he was thinking about the first time they had hiked a path together. The two of them had climbed Mount Katahdin in Maine with a group from camp. That day was the day they fell in love. That was the day he had kissed her for the first time. As they stood together now, she found herself softening. Had he taken her up here so she would remember? Why did being with this man confuse her so much?

Down below them on the lake, Brad and Vicky were snowshoeing. She could almost hear their laughter way up here.

“My cabin neighbors,” Megan said. “Interesting people. I had shrimp and tea with them last night.”

“Shrimp and tea. Interesting combination.”

“It is.”

“That’s them?” He pointed.

“Yep.”

“The guy looks sort of familiar.”

“That’s what I thought. But I think it’s just because he looks like every picture of Santa Claus we’ve ever seen.”

Alec shook his head as if trying to loosen an annoying thought. “I wanted to tell you about Steve’s good suggestions,” he said.

“Suggestions about what?”

“He thinks we should get a copy of your class yearbook. Sophia and Jennifer were in your class. And Bryan, too.”

“Paul was a year older, and you were two years older.”

“Still,” he said. “A lot of our friends would be in that yearbook. Steve also suggested going through our old guest list for the wedding. Obviously someone kept their invitation.”

“Someone had two of them. Do you even remember who we invited?”

She was conscious that they were standing very close together.

He said, “Not exactly, but I’m sure between the two of us we could come up with a pretty good list. Do you have your high school yearbook? We could piece things together from it.”

Megan shook her head. “I honestly have no idea where my yearbook is. Maybe when I moved to Baltimore I left it at my grandmother’s house. I was confused then. I didn’t take a lot of my stuff.”

He nodded, a faraway look on his face as he gazed past her down to the lake to where Vicky and Brad were slowly maneuvering through the snow. Vicky punched Brad playfully in the arm. He reached down, grabbed a handful of snow and showered her with it. Megan could hear them laugh from here.

“Did you tell Steve about my grandmother?” Megan asked.

“I told him as much as I thought he needed to know.”

“Right.”

“So I didn’t tell him about your grandmother,” he said. “Nor about my brother.”

“So you didn’t tell him everything?”

“I suppose I didn’t.”

“That’s probably good.” She took a breath and continued, “All I want is to know why someone plans to kill me. I don’t know how going through an old yearbook and rehashing things will help anything.”

“It might jog a few memories, things we’ve forgotten, people we don’t remember. Names. Faces.” He paused. She waited.

Alec said, “My parents might have a yearbook. There might be something at their house.” They were making their way back down the hill. In the short time they’d been walking, the sun had disappeared and clouds were moving in.

He continued, “When my brother was sentenced to prison, my mother boxed up all of his stuff. I bet there’s
a yearbook in there. I was thinking of going to Augusta for a few days, see what I can find. I also want to talk to Paul Magill’s family. And the police there, too.”

Megan said, “I’ll go with you.”

Alec stopped on the trail and looked down at her. “You want to go with me?”

Megan thought about it. “I do. And if there’s time I’d like to drive by my old house in Bath. See if it’s like the picture.”

“Are you sure you want to come?” he asked.

“Yes. This whole thing is about me as much as it’s about you.”

“I was planning on staying overnight.”

“Fine, I’ll get a hotel.”

“My parents have a big house. I’m sure you can stay overnight there.”

“Okay. I’ll stay with them,” Megan said quickly. And then she thought about it. Staying with his parents? When they were engaged, Alec’s mother had been so kind to her that Megan began to wonder if his mother could be like a mother to her.

But then they seemed to side with Bryan. Against her. Or at least, that’s how it felt at the time.

She said, “Are you sure your mother would like to see me? Much less have me in her house?”

“My mother would love to see you. She often talks about you.”

Megan raised her eyebrows at that. They were stopped
in the path and stood underneath the snow-covered branches of a cedar. It was like their own private cave. “All of us,” he said, “my family, me, have done a lot of thinking about things since…everything happened.”

“What kind of things?” She looked at him expectantly.

He sighed. “A lot of things. Bryan has changed. God has changed him. If you had a chance to meet him you would see that. But back then, my mother would never admit that Bryan had problems. She’s never been very strong. But we, none of us, thought that he could actually kill anyone. I guess we’ve never understood why he would do it. That’s the big thing, the why. Your grandmother was such a nice person. Everyone loved her. I thought Bryan did, too.”

As Alec talked about the woman who had raised her, Megan felt tears form. He went on, “But he’s paid for it. Ten years in prison. We’re all trying to give him another chance.”

Megan thought about that. Would she ever be able to forgive the man who had pushed her grandmother to her death? In her own strength, she didn’t think so, but maybe with God helping her, she could. She asked, “Does he come home very often?”

Brad and Vicky’s laughter wafted up the mountain-side.

“I try to visit him from time to time. But he still feels lost and humiliated, I think. There are so many things
here he has to live down. He just doesn’t think people here will ever accept him the way he is now, changed. They’ll still remember the bully Bryan, the angry Bryan, the Bryan who could possibly murder.”

“Do your parents fly out and visit him?”

Alec shook his head. A small clump of snow fell from the tree and landed on his cheek. He brushed it away. “My father can’t fly. I’ve offered to take my mother with me, but she doesn’t want to leave my father. So, she’s waiting for Bryan to finally find it within himself to come home.”

“Maybe with his fiancée?”

“That’s what we’re hoping.”

Megan looked down at the expanse of frozen lake.

“Then tell your mother I’m coming, too. I’d like to visit her. I’d like to be a part of this investigation.”

“Can you leave today?” he asked.

“Today?” She raised her eyebrows.

“I want to get there and back before the storm hits. I’ll call my parents, tell then you’re here and that you’re coming. My mother will like that.”

I hope so, she thought. He took her arm and headed back down the trail. Could she forgive Bryan? Could she forgive his parents? Could she forgive Alec for not standing by her? Maybe meeting his parents was a start toward a life of forgiveness, a life of grace, a life of peace.

Brad and Vicky were heading right toward them on the path, but when they saw Megan and Alec, Brad
took Vicky’s arm and steered her abruptly away and down another path. It appeared to Megan to be deliberate. She looked at Alec sharply, wondering if he noticed that too, but he seemed to be lost in his own thoughts. She was about to say something, but then decided that she didn’t need to trouble him with the strange behavior of her neighbors. But, down at her cabin she was still troubled by it.

Megan sat quietly in the passenger seat of Alec’s car as they made their way out of town that afternoon. How strange, he thought, sitting so close to her yet having so much time and space between them.

They were not the same people as they were years ago. And he wondered if they had any future at all together. This crime would be solved, whether by him or by other police officers, and then she would be on her way back to her home and her life in Baltimore.

How he wished that things could have been different. How he wished he hadn’t messed up so badly back then. And now they were on their way to see his parents. Back when they were engaged, his mother had really liked Megan.

“You have chosen a wonderful girl to marry,” she had said. “Even though your father and I weren’t sure you were ready for a step such as marriage, we’re both quite taken with her. I think we’re all going to have a long and wonderful relationship.”

“Do you go back a lot?” Megan suddenly asked him.

He didn’t immediately know what she was referring to, back here? He said, “I visit my parents about once a month.”

“How’s your mother? You said she was frail.”

He shrugged. “You’ll see her. Things have been hard for her.”

Megan turned to look out at the snow-covered scenery scuttling past them. After a while she said, “I’ve never been back. Just before the trial I left. I never wanted to return.” She blew out a breath. “What’s our schedule?” she asked him.

“We’ll head to my parents’ house first. My mother’s expecting us for supper. She was so pleased when I called her this morning and said you were coming. Tomorrow I have to go to the police station to talk with investigators there. I also want to talk to Paul Magill’s parents. After that we’ll drive by your house in Bath and then head back to Whisper Lake Crossing.”

“Can I go with you to all those places?”

“I don’t know if you’ll want to.”

“Of course I want to. This concerns me. We’re in this together.”

He glanced over at her, at the determined to set of her mouth.

“Yes, we are, aren’t we?” he said. He hoped it was true now. He wondered if the two of them had a second chance.

They were quiet for the next few minutes. He wondered what she was thinking.

“Did the police have a chance to look at the invitations yet?” she asked.

They were still being examined in the forensics lab, he told her, but preliminary examinations for both of the invitations revealed that the box and the invitations were free of any kind of fingerprint evidence. Probably whoever had packaged up the invitations wore gloves. Stu had again questioned Marlene and her daughter, Selena, and other patrons in the restaurant that morning, trying to determine the identity of the black-haired man who had dropped off the envelope for Megan. So far they’d had no luck.

Alec continued, “Tonight we’ll have a look at the yearbook, go over our guest list and try to think about who might want to harm us.”

“People with grudges from the past. I can’t think of any.”

“Neither can I.”

He also told her that they had carefully searched the grounds where he’d seen the truck and they could find no gun shells. “I’ve even had a team out on the lake. Steve’s been out there. We can’t find anything.”

She said, “So whoever it was went out and cleaned up after himself.”

“It would seem so.”

She stared straight ahead.

Just outside of Bangor, Megan’s cell phone chirped. She looked down at it. “That’s my ring for a text message.” She played with a few buttons. “My neighbor at Trail’s End wants me to do his Web site, but…” She paused. “I don’t know how he got my cell phone number. Wait.” She looked up at him. “I guess I gave it to Nori and Steve. Maybe that’s how he got it.” She appeared to be thinking. “I wrote down my contact information for him, but just my Web site and the name I use as a designer.”

“What do you mean the name you use?”

“I don’t use the name Megan Brooks on my Web site.”

“Why not?”