Cold River - Carla Neggers [83]
Sean stood next to her as Devin and Toby climbed into the back of the van. He had his coat unbuttoned, as if he knew he didn’t have to be out in the cold again for a while. He started to speak, but Hannah jumped in before he could get a word out. “Have a safe flight,” she said quickly, then forced a smile. “Devin and Toby promised to call me when you land.”
His blue eyes narrowed in the gray early-morning light. “It’ll happen.”
Meaning he’d make sure her brothers didn’t get carried away with their excitement about their adventure and forget.
“You have my numbers,” he said. “Call anytime.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant but didn’t ask. “I will. Thanks.”
He hesitated, then got into the front passenger seat next to Elijah. Devin and Toby were laughing now, and they both turned and blew her silly kisses, as they had when they were little boys and barely realized how much older she was.
Hannah laughed and blew kisses back to them.
Then the wind blew, and she groaned at the cold and fought back tears as she ran inside to the warm café kitchen, Beth, Dominique and their work of the morning.
Twenty-One
Four days later—January 2—Black Falls, Vermont
Grit woke up on the second day of the new year to the same dark and cold he’d woken up to on the first day of the new year and the last day of the old year. A.J. and Lauren Cameron had set off fireworks up at Black Falls Lodge, as they did every New Year’s Eve. Elijah had dragged Grit up there. It was minus two outside, but he’d liked looking at the stars in the black Vermont sky.
The fireworks were fine. A couple of guests from the lodge, all bundled up in their Patagonia coats, had heard that he was a SEAL and Elijah a Special Forces soldier and had asked them if the fireworks bothered them. Elijah had politely said he liked fireworks. He hadn’t been home for them in years.
Grit had been tempted to take the head off a nearby snowman and shove it down their pants.
He was in that kind of mood.
“Ah, Moose,” he said aloud, “where the hell are you when I need you?”
Moose didn’t answer, and Grit decided it was okay. Michael “Moose” Ferrerra was at peace.
Grit climbed out of bed, performed his morning routine, which now included cursing the cold, the dark, the killers who were dead, the killers who remained elusive and—most of all—woodstoves.
He’d really come to hate woodstoves.
He was tempted to call Admiral Jenkins back—the admiral’s last message included a threat to send MPs after him—but Myrtle had called two minutes before Grit was fully awake with instructions for his morning.
Per those instructions, he left a note on his bed for Jo and Elijah that he was on an errand. Myrtle hadn’t considered a car. He borrowed Jo’s without her permission—he figured she wouldn’t mind—and drove up to Black Falls Lodge. Myrtle was waiting on the front walk in her new parka.
“Drive me to the village,” she said. “Don’t talk. Why’d you borrow a Secret Service agent’s car? What if it’s bugged?”
Grit grinned at her. “You and the drama. Being up here’s getting to you, too, isn’t it? One of these days we’ll have to go back to Washington and sort out our lives.”
“Let’s just hope we don’t go back in handcuffs.”
Again per her instructions, he drove her into the village. The sun was up. It was a bright, sparkling, bone-chilling morning in the Green Mountain State. Grit parked next to a snowbank. Myrtle complained she couldn’t get out and launched into a tirade about ice, snow, plows and town budgets, and he pulled up a few yards to where someone had shoveled a cutout in the snowbank to the sidewalk.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Grit asked her.
“In my next life, I’m managing a spa. I swear.” She kept her gaze forward. “We’ll talk on the sidewalk. I’m serious about this car.”
She got out, and Grit backed up and parked. He walked on the street up to the cutout and met her on the sidewalk. His leg hurt this morning. He ignored the pain as Myrtle finally looked at him with her lavender eyes and said, “Charlie Neal’s cousin Conor called my room at Black