Cold Pursuit - Carla Neggers [105]
Nora saw something between them. A spark, a look. She wasn’t quite sure, but what it meant was obvious to her. Jo was falling for Elijah—and he for her.
“Elijah,” Jo said, “if Rigby comes back and tries anything, you know you can defend yourself, don’t you?”
He grinned at her. “Yeah, Agent Harper, I know.”
Nora got closer to Devin. “Avert your eyes while I change.”
He smiled weakly at her. “Sure, Nora.”
“Dev…you saved my life.”
“We’ll be okay,” he said. “Promise.”
She suddenly felt warmer, safer. Jo and Elijah would protect her and Devin.
They’d all be okay.
Twenty-Nine
The storm had forced Melanie and Thomas back to the lodge. She washed her hands with Vermont-made goat’s milk soap in the ladies’ room. Thomas was getting on her nerves. He was so preoccupied with his daughter, never mind how irresponsibly she’d behaved. Melanie knew she needed to be understanding, but she hated Nora for all her dramatics.
She hadn’t thrown up. That would come later. Right now, she knew she needed to push her fury down deep and focus on making sure Kyle had a chance to execute his plan for her almost-stepdaughter and her no-account boyfriend. Melanie had her instructions. Kyle had found her before he went up on the mountain. She felt a familiar jolt of excitement mixed with panic at the prospect of doing her part to make everything work out.
“Mislead any search teams, Melanie,” Kyle had told her early that morning. He’d been so grave and humorless with all his misgivings about their situation. “Pick a spot and send them there. Anywhere but the north side of the mountain.”
He’d been so confident that was where Devin and Nora would be. Melanie had argued that they’d have to explain the lie to A.J. Cameron and any search teams once Nora’s and Devin’s bodies were discovered.
But Kyle had an answer for that, too. “We blame Devin for the misinformation. Leave that part to me.” He’d paused, then added, “He and Nora aren’t making it down the mountain.”
Melanie still had misgivings. The more she thought about why she and Kyle had been dispatched to kill both Drew Cameron in April and Alex Bruni yesterday, the more she didn’t like it. Drew had never made any sense—he didn’t fit the profile of anyone else she and Kyle had killed. Who was he? As far as she knew, he was just an old Vermonter with no serious connections.
Except, she thought, to Alex Bruni, a repeat guest at Black Falls Lodge.
What if the person—or people—who dispatched killers like her and Kyle, paid them and kept them from knowing too much about their targets, had decided Drew and Alex were threats to them? To their network of paid assassins?
That made screwing up that much more complicated and dangerous.
And if she suspected she and Kyle had been hired to kill Drew Cameron and Alex Bruni to protect one of their own, then Kyle suspected it, too.
No wonder he was so serious.
Melanie dried her hands. She liked the soap. It had a clean, soft scent. Roses, maybe? She didn’t know. She inhaled the scent, calming herself, and returned to the dining room. It was almost dusk now. Scott Thorne, the Vermont State Police trooper, had left after interviewing both her and Thomas, every indication suggesting an official search for Nora and Devin would be launched before long. Melanie had done everything possible to make sure that wouldn’t happen.
The handful of guests staying at the lodge seemed to enjoy being there during a storm. Three or four inches of snow had accumulated, enough to whiten the landscape. Conditions were worse at higher elevations. She wanted to go sit in front of the fire, but Thomas was still rooted to his chair at a table near the windows overlooking the terrace and the meadow. Lauren Cameron had brought them hot cocoa. She was so beautiful, and from a good family, too. Melanie imagined Lauren and A.J. having her and Thomas up to their house for dinner, becoming friends with them. But with Drew Cameron