Page 15 of Frozen Secrets

Winnie pitched forward, both hands shooting out to lessen the impact of her fall.

The surrounding trees blurred a split second before she hit the ice and slid. Strands of hair ripped free and stung across her scalp. Chest spasming, she couldn’t catch her breath. She flipped onto her back, desperate for air.

To find herself staring up at a pair of green-gray eyes through a ski mask.

“You should’ve seen yourself just now. It was like watching a car crash.” The attacker—the one who’d claimed to have killed her father—cocked her head to one side. Her voice hinted at female, but the way she moved, how she straddled Winnie across her hips, said predator. That blade was in her hand. Identical to the one she’d found in Adrial after he’d collapsed, but this one was clean. Had he escaped? Had this woman… No. She couldn’t think about that right now. “But I guess your clumsiness makes my job easier.”

Winnie’s lower lip trembled, a result of the low temperature and the fear spiking through her blood. “Where is he? Where’s—”

“As admirable as your partner was, it didn’t do him any favors. Won’t do you any, either.” A icicle-thin laugh was lost to the gust of wind cutting across the lake. The killer rocked onto her knees, and the ice cracked beneath their combined weight. Freezing water worked through Winnie’s coat. Was she crazy? She was going to break the ice. It would take them both without mercy. “Too bad. I wanted to play with him a bit more, but I couldn’t risk you getting away. So I hurt him. Well, I hurt him more than the first time.”

Her stomach rolled. No. Adrial was alive. He’d survive this. They both would. Because that was the kind of man he was. He didn’t let the hard things win. Hadn’t he proven that by building an investigation agency in the face of losing the love of his life? He’d fight through this, too. The tip of the blade found its way along Winnie’s jaw. She couldn’t stop the shiver the sensation triggered. More water flooded her clothing, weighing her down, stealing her breaths from temperature shock alone. It slithered into her hair and crawled into the collar of her coat. “What—what do you want?”

“Want? What I want doesn’t matter. It’s what Arthur Hutton and Detective Tucker and even you deserve that matters.” The laugh was gone. A deeper, richer tone now possessed the killer’s voice. In an instant, she’d pinned Winnie’s hands above her head, then set the knife against her throat. The prick of pain was nothing compared to the desperation of knowing Adrial needed her. That she could do nothing while he suffered. She and her attacker weren’t much different in size, but exhaustion was already digging its claws into Winnie. That had been the point, she realized. To wear her out. To let the elements tear her down. And it was working. She could feel her body temperature dropping, her thoughts becoming jumbled, the shivering starting to lessen. Leaning forward, the woman pressed hard enough to exaggerate the crack splitting under Winnie’s shoulder. Another formed at her hip and darted out of her peripheral vision.

“I don’t… I don’t understand.” Winnie shook her head, a shard of ice cutting into the back of her scalp. She didn’t care. It kept her focused. Feeling. Aware enough to realize the killer had strapped a second—or third?—knife into a holster secured around her ankle. All she had to do was remember what her father had taught her. “I don’t know you. I’m not an investigator.”

“But you knew, didn’t you? You knew that evidence went missing during Lila Mercer’s investigation.” Warmth seeped from the tip of the blade. The killer had cut her, was pressing into her as tension coiled between them. “You knew what he’d done, yet you kept it quiet. For years. You’re just as guilty as he was in the end, and I’m going to make sure you and everyone else involved in the case suffer just like Lila did.”

“He?” The water was climbing, or she was sinking. It lapped around her ears and crested with every inhale. She was going to die out here. Lost to Hollow Lake just as Lila Mercer had been. Her heart thudded uncontrollably behind her rib cage. She couldn’t get a full breath. That same pulse seemed to ricochet through her head and spread. She couldn’t afford a migraine right now. She had to fight. She had to get to Adrial.

Winnie didn’t give herself three seconds, like Adrial had. She bucked her hips as hard as she could. The blade cut across her neck in a stinging path that lit up her insides, but the laceration wasn’t deep. She’d kept her head. She threw her weight into the roll, and the killer vaulted to one side, her knee slamming down onto the ice.

A burst of cracks exploded beneath them.

Flipping onto her stomach, Winnie tried to disperse her weight across the ice, but those tendrils of weakness only spread wider beneath her. The ice was giving out. Pops exploded in her ears as she clawed free from her attacker’s grip, echoing across the surface and growing louder. “You have to stop. You’re going to—”

The ice gave way.

Shocking cold took her under.

Her entire body seized up and the drastic change in temperature paralyzed her for a series of heartbeats. Winnie blinked against the watery darkness. She tried to crane her gaze up to find the hole she’d dropped through, but her hair had come unraveled from her braid. It blinded all sense of direction and proximity to air. Her lungs contracted around the few precious gulps of oxygen she’d managed before going under, but it wasn’t enough. She kicked against gravity, her hair tangling around her hands, but her boots and coat had filled with water. They were dragging her deeper.

Panic rose as quickly as the bubbles escaping her clothing. Her fingers brushed nothing but empty water as she caught sight of the break in the ice above. A shadow blocked out the weak streaks of sunlight penetrating through the person-size hole.

Her high-pitched whimper didn’t make it to the surface as she lost the few inches she’d gained. Winnie kicked again, but it was no use. Her body was giving out. Freezing. Slowing. The pressure in her chest didn’t hurt so bad now. She couldn’t feel her fingers or the wound across her throat. That was good, right? Surrounded by darkness, her brain went quiet, luring her into a deeper sense of peace she hadn’t felt…since before leaving Black Hollow. When she’d finally found a better half who’d promised to help her shoulder all the hurt and protect her from ever having to feel it again. Images flashed across her mind. She could picture his face so easily. All that dark hair, the eyes that only softened when he looked at her, his attempts to hide his smile when she made a terrible joke. What was his name? It felt important. He felt important. Why couldn’t she remember?

Stretching one hand out, Winnie brushed something sharp. The bite of pain jolted her senses and restarted something in her brain. She was drowning. Being sucked toward the bottom of the lake. No. She didn’t want that. Water sloshed inside her boots as she jerked. Her clothing was too heavy. Pain radiated through her right side as she tugged at her coat sleeve.

She hadn’t come back to Black Hollow just to end up like Lila Mercer. This was her chance to take back her life. To start over and figure out where she fit next. Winnie dragged her arm free of one coat sleeve then tossed her coat into the inky blackness that seemed to be growing thicker. She grabbed for her left boot and pried her foot free. Then the right. Instantly lighter, she released a small amount of dwindling air from her lungs and clawed in the direction of the bubbles. Her blouse and jeans were too tight, threatening to squeeze those last precious reserves of air from her chest, but she was so close. The hole she’d fallen through was right there.

Seconds felt like hours as she forced her limbs to swim over and over. Until she broke the surface. Fresh oxygen lanced down her throat as she dragged herself free of the water. The ice protested, but she’d lost the ability to move, to think, to do anything but breathe as she stared up at the overcast sky. Adrial. She had to get to Adrial. A heaviness she couldn’t fight against pinned her to the ice. Winnie struggled to keep her eyes open, her brain locking on the shift of movement in her peripheral vision.

“You just don’t know when to give up, do you?” A dark outline centered itself above her, but Winnie couldn’t make out any details as her vision failed. Or was it something more serious? “That’s okay. We’ll get there.”

Chapter Fourteen

He was dying.

There was no trying to convince himself otherwise. He’d lost too much blood. Adrial leveraged his weight onto his hands at his hips, angling himself in somewhat of an upright position against the nearest tree. It was hard when his entire body wanted to shut down, but he couldn’t stop. Not yet. Not until he’d found Winnie. She’d vanished across the ice, but he couldn’t see any sign of her now. Had she gotten away? Had she made it to the SUV? Had the killer—

No. Catastrophizing wouldn’t do him a damn bit of good out here. The longer he sat here trying to pull himself together, the more danger he and Winnie would be in. Blood pumped through the stab wound at his upper thigh and down his back, little pulses with every beat of his slowing heart. The blade had acted as a stopper of sorts, keeping him from bleeding out while at the same time tearing him up from the inside. Apparently, the killer hadn’t hit anything significant, but he couldn’t remove the knife until he had a way to stop the flow of blood.

His belt could work temporarily, but without a full serving of blood, his body would drop into hypothermia faster in these temperatures. Wind ripped at his coat and hair. Loose powder caused a sensation of a whiteout, cutting through his layers and settling on exposed skin. He couldn’t see the SUV from his position within the trees, but there was only one way he was getting out of here alive. And that was if Winnie hadn’t made it. Which meant… Which meant the killer might’ve caught up with her.

Hell. He’d have to risk it. To ensure she got out of this alive. Whatever this was. Arthur Hutton had been murdered, and while Adrial had lost respect for his former partner years ago, his heart hurt at the loss. For what they could’ve been had Arthur made better choices. For Winnie and the anguish that’d played across her face in learning her father had been violently taken from her. The papers had said the former chief of police had died from natural causes, but obviously something had been missed. And Adrial owed it to Winnie to find out what.

“First things first. Don’t die.” The pep talk did nothing to replace the blood he’d lost or give him a miraculous burst of energy and heat. Stiff fingers worked at his belt—every second harder than the one that came before it—until Adrial managed to release the latch. Unthreading the leather, he ground his teeth against the rush of pain shooting through his thigh. He couldn’t stop the groan that escaped, but it wouldn’t be the last one if his plan worked. Securing the belt above the wound, he tightened the strap until the edges dug through his jeans. The blade jostled to one side, and he slammed his head back into the tree to distract his brain from focusing on the tender muscle coming apart. The tourniquet wouldn’t last, but it’d buy him the time he needed. “And you get a trophy.”