“But what about Susan?”

  “We go on as before. This could be the last winter storm, we have to use it and finish the job.”

  “But this guy, suppose the cops—”

  “Lloyd, shut the hell up. There’s nothing between us and him. He slipped on a rock in the wrong place.”

  “But—”

  “We don’t need no witness.”

  “El—”

  “You did the right thing when you hit him.”

  Like hell, I thought through the pain.

  “Now pull yourself together and g—”

  “Will you listen to me?” he roared. That bought him a moment. “One body on a beach is one thing, but two on the same beach and the cops will know something’s wrong. They won’t buy two accidents the same night in the same place, dammit.”

  Ellie must have thought it through. “Okay, I can see that. You got me nervous with all your jumpin’ around, so it’s hard to think clear. You settle down, and I’ll figure out what to do.”

  “I know what to do. We put him in that car and drive him some other place.”

  “Drive him where?”

  “Don’t matter. Why’s he out here, anyway?”

  “How the hell would I know?”

  “Did he follow us from the bar? A couple guys were givin’ you the eye.”

  “He wasn’t any of them,” said Ellie. She snapped off the flashlight. “No one there was this fancy.”

  “That’s a nice coat he’s got.” He bent to finger my lapels.

  She slapped his hand away. “Get it later.”

  Grunting, he bent to grab my ankles.

  “I can do that,” she said. “Go find that idiot wife of yours.”

  “What?”

  “Go get Susan before she runs into somebody else!”

  Evidently used to taking orders, Lloyd loped away. Ellie glared down at me with scowling displeasure.

  She possessed a big, hearty body, strong enough to drag me over the sand and up to the road. With effort she might even hoist me into the car.

  She leaned closer; more of her face came into swimming focus: wide-set eyes, narrow nose, shapely lips parted enough to show the edges of her teeth. If she noticed this dead man was making involuntary tears I was a goner. I couldn’t take another slam in the skull.

  Her bare fingers touched my face again, cold, tickling as she lightly brushed at the sand on my cheeks.

  What are you up to, lady? I wondered uncomfortably. Who gets this close to a corpse?

  As though she’d heard my thought, she paused, head up for a furtive look in Lloyd’s direction. She stood, going out of my range, pacing one way, another, as though searching. Over the wind, I could hear her breath begin to quicken. Maybe a car was coming. Maybe even a cop. A cop would come in handy about now.

  No such luck. She returned, kneeling close by my side. The clean line of her neck escaped her coat collar; I was aware of the blood pounding within that healthy, forceful body, the suppressed excitement. With a terrible sinking horror I abruptly understood what drove her heart to such a pitch, what inspired the intense concentration in her expression.

  Her gaze dropped to me again, her eyes bright and wicked. If she’d not had a heartbeat I’d have thought she was a vampire herself working up to feeding on a dead man.

  One more flick of her nail on my still face. Deliberate.

  She smiled and with a deep sigh lay down on me. She stretched full length over me.

  Oh, God.

  I tried to recoil, to push her away, and could not move. Blinding pain shot through my skull for the effort. Ellie settled firmly into place, pulling her skirt out of the way, legs straddling me.

  She licked her lips, wetting them thoroughly. Then she lowered her head. Our mouths touched, sliding over one another, cold as shards of ice on the lake. Her tongue eased in and leisurely worked against mine. It probed and curled and raked over my teeth. It forced itself deeper until I should have gagged; only I couldn’t.

  I was inert flesh. Dead flesh. Safe to play with, safe to—

  The probing turned to suction. She drew hard on my tongue, taking it in her mouth, sucking it like a piece of sweet fruit. She teased and nipped and pulled it out as far as she could before releasing. It dropped free, bulging as though I’d been strangled.

  Her hips ground against mine, leg muscles taut with building tension, breasts rubbing my chest. I felt her warmth through our clothes and was revolted.

  A soft, gasping moan escaped her; her fingers clawed my shoulders. Her teeth clamped together, turning the moan to a sharp sibilant. Then, with an exaggerated sigh, she emptied her lungs completely and her full weight collapsed on me.

  Her returning breath sawed the air. Eyelids drooping, face flushed from the release, she might have been beautiful under different circumstances. With a cold fingertip, she pressed my tongue back where it belonged and kissed me again to seal my lips shut.

  “We have a secret,” she whispered, ending with a strange little breathy giggle.

  I wanted to vomit.

  I wanted to tear things apart.

  I wanted to goddamn move.

  Getting off me, Ellie pulled my clothes together and buttoned my coat to make things look right. That finished, she rose, straightened her own clothes and brushed sand from her legs, peering down the beach where Lloyd had gone.

  She called his name in an absolutely normal tone. I didn’t catch the reply, but she did, and must have found it exasperating. Snarling ripe language, she went after him.

  Tears of rage seeped from my gritty eyes. Ellie might have at least closed them, too. Clouds, racing high above my little concerns, swam in and out of focus. The stinging eased, the sand finally washing away. Ages crawled past before I was at last able to blink. I was pathetically grateful for the progress, and at the same time despairing at how long took.

  Who were these lunatics? A violator of corpses giving orders, a not too bright lug with a rifle, a half-frozen terrified girl named Susan—apparently his wife—tearing around a supposedly deserted beach at three in the morning. Lloyd and Ellie might not be intending murder, but until I found out otherwise, it seemed a solid assumption. What could the girl have done that made her death necessary?

  My guess was nothing. She was some kind of inconvenience and had to be gotten rid of, and they were using the weather to do the dirty work. People always died when winter storms swept through, the cold cutting down the weak and vulnerable the same as any predator. It was no bother to me, but that poor girl wouldn’t last. She might already be gone.

  My arms suddenly twitched with returning life. Muscles in my legs flexed, a promise of full recovery to come, but I couldn’t wait; I had to push things.

  Awkward and queasy, I twisted onto my belly, wanting to scream. The world kept spinning after I’d stopped. Silver lights flared, full of pain. Vanishing would have instantly healed me, but it was too soon to try. I was already hovering on the edge of blacking out. Damned wood.

  Blood would have helped. It always did when I was hurt. Why the hell hadn’t I stopped at the Stockyards on the way over? With my body flushed full of hot red life, the wallop I’d taken might not have affected me as much, and then that sick bitch Ellie wouldn’t have—

  On the other hand, I’d have missed Susan. A moment either way and I’d be driving home, oblivious to her dying alone in the cold.

  I kept seeing her walking, head down, the hope in her eyes when she saw me, that awful fear replacing it—

  Come on, it’s just a bump on the noggin. You’ve had worse. Get moving.

  Slowly, I bellied over the frozen sand toward the lake. Wounded animals are drawn to water. That described me well enough. Halfway there, I progressed to a crawl, but collapsed just at the shore’s edge, dizzy, half-blind, and trying not to whimper. I dipped a hand into the searing cold of free-running water and splashed the last sand from my eyes, swearing with violent sincerity. My face burned as the wind dried it, but I could see again.

  Very gently, I slopped water against the swelling lump on the back of my head.

  That woke me up—like a five-alarm fire with the bells going off between my ears.

  I hissed at the jolt and for a long moment was in too much shock to move. The cure was worse than the injury.

  A few eternities later the crippling agony abated in microscopic increments. When the ringing died down, I cautiously peered around. No sign of the others. I managed to get vertical, unsteady but it would serve.

  Lloyd had payback coming. I plotted a number of destructive things once I got my hands on him. Topping the list was a new use for that damned wooden rifle stock in relation to his ass. After that, I could toss him in the lake to find out if he knew how to swim.

  As for Ellie. . .

  I wasn’t responsible for her bizarre appetite for private gratification, but she sure as hell could have kept it to herself.

  There was a vile taint in my mouth from her kiss. It was imaginary, but I had to get rid of it.

  Though absolutely unable to drink anything but blood, I stooped and swilled a huge gulp of lake water and swallowed, knowing what would happen.

  The stuff struck the bottom of my gut like a sword. I took another gulp and forced it down. The sword jumped as though alive. Another drink, and it started cutting. I closed my throat off to keep it down.

  The sword sliced and twisted, doubling me over with cramp. Then everything came spewing out. I’d wanted to vomit; it was this or carry along the slimy touch of Ellie’s lips forever. I needed a physical rejection of what she’d done to me.

  I spat the last drops into the lake, regarding the endless stretch of shifting waves. Sky, earth, and water, ancient, but alive. A different kind of life from mine, but wise and tolerant of one man’s little troubles. I should hate this place, but couldn’t. It was too big for such nonsense.

  Rubbing my mouth on my sleeve, I wiped away the last trace of Ellie.

  Time to go to work.

  Woozy but full of terrible purpose, I trudged toward higher ground, gaining enough height to check the beach. Lloyd was a small figure far, far down the northern end. He moved fast, but erratically, circling and doubling in his tracks. Ellie stood on the road in a spot where she could overlook most of the area. She had the flashlight on and helpfully stabbed its pale beam in Lloyd’s direction.

  Susan was nowhere in sight. The sickening thought that she’d dropped in her tracks someplace to curl up for a last, freezing sleep kept me going.

  I plodded unsteadily back to where I’d fallen. My crumpled and forgotten hat marked the spot. Punching out the dents and sand, I put myself in the girl’s place, trying to guess where she might have gone while Ellie and Lloyd had been distracted with me. How much time had that taken? Had it been enough for her to get to the road? It was something I might have tried in hope of flagging down a car or finding cover on the other side.

  The city glow reflecting from the clouds was enough that Ellie might spot me crossing the road. She wouldn’t see details, but a dark figure in her peripheral view would set her off and bring Lloyd running.

  Vanishing was out of the question for the present; my head buzzed painfully. I’d been through this kind of thing before. Too soon and the attempt could injure me further, even knock me unconscious.

  I’d have to do things the hard way and wait for the right opportunity.

  Lloyd was an unintentional help as his search for Susan took him farther along the beach. Ellie kept even with him, playing the light around. When her back was turned, I topped the rise and sprinted across. The land dipped down again on the other side, but not by much. There was no shelter, just dead grass, gravel, and snow that hadn’t melted before the latest cold front blew in. A hundred yards ahead in the middle of a flat, exposed field was a sparse stand of trees. Would Susan have tried for it? I was acutely conscious of the wasted time if I guessed wrong.

  My doubts dropped away when I spotted a footprint in a patch of snow. The toe of a woman’s shoe pointed right at the trees.

  While Ellie faced the beach, I hurried over the open ground, throwing glances over one shoulder along the way. The first sign of her swinging in my direction and I’d have to drop flat. At night she’d see a moving object more easily than a still one.

  I made the trees, ducking gratefully into their cover. Evergreens, thank God, with dark, obscuring snow-trimmed branches between me and Ellie’s flashlight. I blundered through them, looking for the girl.

  She was curled up all right, just as I’d imagined, but not asleep yet. Her legs were drawn tight to her chest, and she shivered like a dozen earthquakes. When she heard me, her breath caught halfway between a sob and a moan.

  “It’s all right,” I told her, just loud enough so she could hear my voice and know I wasn’t Lloyd. “I’m here to help.” I was afraid she might bolt again, but she looked too cold to move.

  Her face was marred by sheer pain. I yanked off my hat tossed it at her. It landed by her feet and she stared, unable to understand.

  “Put it on, honey,” I said, unbuttoning my coat.

  She stiffly obeyed. I shrugged the coat off and got it around her shoulders, threading her thin arms through the sleeves. She didn’t say a thing when I rocked her back and swept it under her feet to put the cloth between herself and the ground. It was like hugging a block of ice. I had a wool neck scarf as well and wrapped it around her head to tie the hat down. She looked like a child playing dress up.

  “Better,” she whispered, the word coming out with difficulty, but laced with gratitude.

  “You’re Susan? I heard them talking.”

  A shivering nod.

  “Lloyd’s your husband?”

  Another nod.

  “Who’s Ellie?”

  “His sister.”

  Nice family. “They want to kill you?”

  She moaned again, an affirmative as far as I could tell.

  “You know why?”

  “Money for me,” she murmured cryptically. Then like a child added, “I want to go home.”

  “As soon as possible. I have to take care of Lloyd and Ellie before I can get to my car.”

  “I can walk.”

  “It’s too far.” I didn’t feel good about walking, either. After that dash, my head was ready to float off and explode.

  “Won’t there be a house?”

  “Nothing’s close enough. You sit tight and I’ll get us a ride. On second thought, move around. Can you do that?”

  “Think so.”

  There was liquor on her breath. Whatever false warmth a drink might have given would have worn off by now. The alcohol would do more harm than good in this cold.

  “They try and get you drunk?” I asked, helping her up. She was small; the hem of my coat dragged on the ground.

  “Yeah. We went out. Said it was a party for me. Made me drink, but I didn’t like it.” She couldn’t have been more than seventeen, if that much.

  “They wanted you to conk out, huh?’ I took a few steps with her to keep her steady.

  “Guess so. I got sleepy. Didn’t wanna drink no more. Kept telling Lloyd I wanted to go home. He wouldn’t listen, just laughed.”

  “What about Elle?’

  “She laughed too, but said we should leave. People were staring.”

  “Then they drove out here?”

  “Don’t remember. Ellie said I had to take my coat off to get ready for bed. But I was in the truck, not home. Woke up some. Knew something was wrong.”

  That’s for damn sure. We paced and turned, paced and turned. Even when slowed by the trees and the advantages that toughened my body, the icy wind was at last getting to me. “Then you ran away?”

  “Pretended to be worse than I was. Told ’em I was gonna be sick. They took me out of the truck. I asked Lloyd for my coat, but he said I’d just mess it up and to hurry. Didn’t know where I was, just somewhere by the lake. Somewhere quiet. No lights. No people.”

  So convenient for Lloyd and Ellie. Get the girl drunk, let her pass out, and eventually she’d freeze to death. Tragic, but understandable in this weather. I could have thrown up again.

  “I ran. Lost ’em in the dark. It was so cold.”

  “I saw you on the beach.”

  “Thought you were Lloyd, then he come up behind you.”

  “Yeah, I know all about that part.”

  “You hurt bad?”

  “I’ll get by. You said they’d get money for you?”

  “Insurance. Lloyd has a thousand dollar policy on me.”

  “A thousand? He’s trying to kill you for—” I bit the rest off. A thousand or a million, it didn’t matter.

  “Mister, that’s all the money in the world,” she told me with awed conviction.

  To people like Lloyd and Ellie, that was true. Last summer Roosevelt had announced that the depression was over. Maybe for him, but the rest of us weren’t seeing much evidence.

  “Wish Lloyd hadn’t done it,” Susan continued, talking more to herself than to me. “Things were getting better. He hadn’t hit me for a good week; I thought he’d changed. Even Ellie was being nice. They were going to buy a store, they said, set up a real business. I’d ask where they were going to get the money and they’d just laugh, funnin’ me. Then Ellie’d say, ’We’re laughing with you, not at you, Susie.’ But I didn’t know what the joke was. I do now. Wish he hadn’t done it.”

  He was going to wish so too after I got through with him.

  “Susan. . .has Lloyd been married before?” The question popped out of nowhere. Some part of my mind was turning things over, trying to draw sense from the brief, but intense, impressions gained from Lloyd and Ellie.

  It surprised Susan enough to stop her pacing. “Yeah. He didn’t talk about her. He only said. . .said. . .she drowned. A stupid accident when they went fishing.”

  Or another murder. Or a real accident that inspired him to try repeating it for profit. Had there been other wives?

  Susan looked up at me. “How’d you know?”

  Then she got it and the realization was the same as if I’d smacked her with a brick. Why hadn’t I kicked myself, instead?

  “Oh, God,” she groaned. “Oh, God.”

  I pulled her tight. She shuddered, went still, and shuddered some more. No tears. Maybe later, but not now.

 

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