Love you more than sauce on my tacos. Talk soon.
Me.
“Oh, Mom,” I said with a sigh.
She would hunt him like she’d hunted my father. She would probably never find either of them. Or at least I hoped not. The police would find Brooks. Eventually. I hoped.
I’d sent emails to my agent and editor already this morning. I was going to get back to work. I was sure they’d be happy to hear I was ready to try. I planned on calling Dr. Genero to talk about some sort of therapy, even virtual therapy if it wasn’t like a sitcom I’d heard about.
Detective Majors had emailed me about the blanket, but even though her words were positive, I sensed she felt the same way my mother did: frustrated by the dead ends.
The parolees were all gone. It was just me and Viola this morning. Viola had bought me breakfast at the café. I’d eaten the best pancakes I’d ever tasted. I was already excited to eat them again tomorrow.
Loretta and Trinity had gone back to Anchorage. I didn’t know what would happen to them, and we made no plans to keep in touch. I really didn’t think Trinity’s hometown of Washington, Missouri, had anything to do with me, but I would keep that fact filed away for a while.
George and Willa were taken to Juneau with plans to get them back to Detroit. Willa had at least told the truth, in the end. She had come to Benedict to let George and Linda know she still wanted money from them. Linda told her she was tired of living a lie—that really was the letter I’d seen Willa reading.
Time to come clean. Time to live an honest life. You should live honestly too, Willa. It’s the only way to live.
In fact, it had been Willa who Linda had been arguing with next to the lodge, but that argument hadn’t been about Willa wanting more money. It had been about the fact that Willa thought Linda shouldn’t have told George that she wanted to come clean, go back to Detroit. Willa thought Linda was in danger, that George wasn’t going to go back without a fight. It had been much worse than a mere fight.
Gril had gone over to Juneau to question George with the Juneau police. Apparently, George had broken quickly, admitted to killing Linda and making it look like a suicide. The ME and I, and every-damn-one else, according to Gril, had the measurements wrong. If inches had been used instead of centimeters, the police would never have thought Linda killed herself. My grandfather would be mighty impressed by Gril’s tenacity. But he’d be pretty darn angry we’d all missed the obvious. Gramps didn’t like it when the obvious was missed.
I smiled sadly to myself.
That was the thing I didn’t see coming, how much all of what had happened to me, in Missouri and here in Alaska, would make me miss my grandfather. Or miss him more than I already did.
George would face murder charges in two states—Michigan and Alaska. His three strikes would now be four, and the murder of his wife would trump everything. To satisfy everyone’s curiosity, Gril found the baby in Detroit. The expectant mother was, in fact, Linda’s niece. She hadn’t heard from her aunt for a few years and was happy to hear that the baby had given Linda some happy news, but desperately sad about the turn of events.
Willa was in trouble too, but I didn’t know how much. I was still impressed by her ability to hide in plain sight. I was doing the same, though I hoped with better intentions.
It was a new day, and I really wanted to begin a new life. I was safe from my captor. I was far away. More than that, I’d gotten away from him. I still didn’t remember the exact way I got out of that van, but I hoped it was something good, something that might have hurt that evil man even more than my rejection had. Maybe it would come to me.
However, there was something trying to edge its way into my thoughts.
What was it? Was it those moments I’d escaped?
I was going to have to close my eyes and think hard about it. I didn’t really want to, but I was compelled to.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes as my thoughts went back to the visions I’d seen yesterday when all hell had broken loose at the Rafferty cabin. This time, it was as if my memory could skim over things. I didn’t feel them quite so much. It seemed too fast, though; I was going to miss something important.
But, no, the subconscious doesn’t work that way. If it wants you to remember something, it won’t skim over it. It will stop right where it needs to stop and show you what it wants to show you. Well, that’s what it did this time.
And there it was.
I was in the van again, looking at the pink blanket and the envelope. Those things had let me focus on something other than Levi. That envelope was one he’d picked up from someone’s tardy mail run, when he’d been looking for money or credit cards he knew how to activate and use.
That envelope had been addressed to Levi Brooks.
My eyes popped open in the here and now. Oh, no, my kidnapper’s name wasn’t Levi Brooks. I’d been so sure it was because that was the name that had stuck with me, the only thing that had been so clear. But, Levi Brooks hadn’t kidnapped me. In a way, he’d saved me.
Oh no. Oh, fucking no, Mill would say.
I picked up the phone again, this time with shaky fingers to call Detective Majors, but it started vibrating in my hand before I could hit send. I recognized the number as Gril’s.
“Gril?” I answered.
“Beth, I need your help. We’ve had … there’s no way to talk around this, but we’ve had a body come ashore. I need you to come as soon as possible and help me with … some things. I’m sorry. Donner is on his way to pick you up.”
I nodded, but didn’t say anything as I hung up the phone.
I’d have to call Detective Majors later.
ALSO BY PAIGE SHELTON
SCOTTISH BOOKSHOP MYSTERY SERIES
The Cracked Spine
Of Books and Bagpipes
A Christmas Tartan (a mini-mystery)
Lost Books and Old Bones
The Loch Ness Papers
COUNTRY COOKING SCHOOL MYSTERY SERIES
If Fried Chicken Could Fly
If Mashed Potatoes Could Dance
If Bread Could Rise to the Occasion
If Catfish Had Nine Lives
If Onions Could Spring Leeks
FARMERS’ MARKET MYSTERY SERIES
Farm Fresh Murder
Fruit of All Evil
Crops and Robbers
A Killer Maize
Red Hot Deadly Peppers (a mini-mystery)
Merry Market Murder
Bushel Full of Murder
DANGEROUS TYPE MYSTERY SERIES
To Helvetica and Back
Bookman Dead Style
Comic Sans Murder
About the Author
PAIGE SHELTON had a nomadic childhood, as her father’s job as a football coach took her family to seven different towns before she was even twelve years old. After college at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, she moved to Salt Lake City. She thought she’d only stay a couple of years, but instead she fell in love with the mountains and a great guy who became her husband. After many decades in Utah, she and her family moved to Arizona. She writes the Scottish Bookshop Mystery series, which begins with The Cracked Spine. Her other series include the Farmers’ Market, Cooking School, and A Dangerous Type mysteries. Find out more at paigeshelton.com, or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Also by Paige Shelton
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
First published in the United States by Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group
THIN ICE. Copyright © 2019 by Paige Shelton-Ferrell. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover design by Jonathan Bush
Cover photographs: snow © Ievgenii Meyer/Shutterstock.com; town © Toni Hoffmann/ Getty Images; mountains © Vicki Jauron, Babylon and Beyond Photography/ Getty images; snow © Dataichi Simon Dubreuil/Getty Images
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-29521-7 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-29522-4 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250295224
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First Edition: December 2019