"Come on, you little shit," she cooed lovingly, pressing his small body against her chest. "Let's get in. … "
The whisper came again, carried on the wind, a low susurrus that insinuated itself into her ears like the soft, chuffing laughter of mischievous children playing hide-and-seek. This time she heard it more clearly and she strained to listen, thinking there must be words in that whisper, that someone must be nearby. Perhaps lost or injured in the storm.
"Hello?" she called, turning toward the bushes that ran along the front of the house. The storm stole her voice away, carrying it off to be a whisper in someone else's ear, and her bright orange hair blew across her eyes.
Screw it, she thought, turning into the gale and slogging back to the front stairs. Somehow she had come a good twenty feet from the door without realizing it. Snow had begun to rime the fabric of her clothes and to cling to her cheeks and eyelashes.
Just as she reached the steps, Brady began to whine and tremble and then at last to growl. Cherie glanced round, wondering if he'd heard the whisper, too, and while she was turned away the dog twisted in her grasp and gave her a vicious bite to the hand, his teeth breaking the skin and digging in. Crying out in pain, she let go and the dog dropped to the snow, tumbled and righted himself, and then ran off into the storm so quickly that it was almost as if he had vanished.
In shock, she stood there and stared at the place where he had disappeared into the blizzard, wondering what she was supposed to do now. The temptation to just leave him out there was great, but if anything happened to him, she would never forgive herself.
"Son of a bitch."
She had to go in and warm up, put on some layers and a winter coat, hat, and gloves. But first she had to see to her hand, which was throbbing, the bite wound burning. For a long moment she could only stare at the punctures where Brady's teeth had torn her flesh, and then her gaze tracked down, to the sprinkle of her blood dripping into the snow, the crimson splashes quickly being whited out again.
How did I get here? she thought. How did I get to this night, home alone?
Sighing, she held her injured hand against her shirt and turned to mount the steps. As she did, she realized that the wind had mostly died, as if the storm held its breath … or as if something stood between her and the worst of the gale.
It whispered and it took hold of her throat with long, frozen talons. Another yanked her hair and her head snapped backward. In the sky she saw more of them, falling from the sky with the ice and snow, driven by the wind. They twisted and slunk through the storm, turning the wind to their favor.
Frigid fingers cut deeper than Brady's teeth.
As they lifted her and she felt her feet leave the ground, one unlaced boot slipping off and tumbling into the snow, Cherie began to cry.
Her tears turned to ice on her cheeks.
THREE
"Mr. Manning, you should not go out there," said the Chinese waiter. "You too drunk to drive good even without this storm. You should stay. Free food and drinks. Well, maybe free coffee. We all staying tonight. We have pillows and blankets."
Doug ruminated on that one for a blurry, boozy moment. Several waitresses had gathered to observe the waiter's attempts to get him to stay and he couldn't tell from their expressions whether they hoped he would or they'd rather he hit the road. If the manager of the Jade Panda was worried enough to make his staff sleep in the restaurant, maybe it was a mistake to try to drive in the blizzard.
"It's only seven or eight miles," he said, hearing the sloppy slurring on some words and cursing himself for that last whiskey. Or the last three.
You should stay, a voice said in the back of his mind. A surprisingly clear, sober, nonslurred voice. Don't be stupid.
"I … I can't. Cherie, my wife, she's expecting me."
"You call her," said the waiter.
Peng, Doug remembered. His name is Peng. Actually Chinese, unlike most of the other random Asians on the staff. White people don't know the difference.
"The phone is not working but you have cell phone, yes?" Peng asked.
Doug nodded, reaching into his pocket. So drunk that when he did, he felt himself slip off-balance and staggered a step and thought to himself, You are so fuckin' drunk. But not so drunk that he couldn't open up his contacts list and call HOME. Only after he'd stared at the screen for what seemed like forever, swaying on his feet, did he understand why the call was not going through.
No signal.
He shook his head, mind made up now. Stuffing the phone back into his pocket, swaying a little, he turned to the waiter-what the hell was his name again? He'd just known it.
"I gotta go," he said.
The waiter started to argue but Doug was already headed for the door. He slammed out into the night, rocked by the blizzard, the cold so sharp that it instantly numbed his face. The Mustang was halfway across the lot, next to the post that held up the Jade Panda sign, but the sign was almost entirely obscured. Beneath the dim light cast by the lampposts, the true strength of the blizzard was visible … thick, heavy snow falling at a clip like he'd never seen before.
Cherie would be waiting for him. She would be worried. In the morning, she would be massively pissed off at him for getting fired, even though he'd done it standing up for her honor. But he couldn't let her spend the night alone without any way of knowing if he was still alive. They fought like hell and she could be a total bitch at times and she took too many pills and he was worried about that, but she was his wife and he loved her. Couldn't imagine being with anyone else.
He had to get home.
Getting out of the parking lot was a bitch. The Mustang's tires slewed and spun and he ended up going right over the curb to get into the street, but once he was on the road and moving, he was all right.
Driving too fast. Way too drunk. In the middle of a blizzard New England would talk about for a decade.
But all right.
Until the warmth of the car's heater began to settle into his bones and the hypnotic swipe of the windshield wipers eased their gentle rhythm into the beat of his heart, and his eyelids began to feel heavy. So heavy.
Until he came to the end of Monument Street, where the choices were left or right, but the only thing that lay straight ahead was acres of snow-laden trees.
Doug snapped his eyes open in time to hit the brakes, but the tires found no purchase and the snowbank came up too fast and then he was through it and down the hill and the hood was buckled around a tree and his forehead was bleeding and the windshield was cracked where his skull had struck it.
He heard a tire spinning as the cold began to seep in, began to settle and accumulate quickly on the glass around him.
Half conscious, he thought he saw a face out there, beyond the spider-webbing of cracks in the windshield, but he knew he must be imagining it. The only thing outside the ruined Mustang was the storm.
The engine ticked as it cooled.
Doug closed his eyes.
More than half the city had lost power. Everyone had hunkered down to wait out the blizzard, and that seemed to include the hookers and meth-heads on Copper Hill, the city's worst neighborhood. Joe Keenan hadn't received a single call about gunshots or domestic violence tonight, but even if he had, he wasn't sure he would have been able to respond. The side streets were thick with snow, and if he got stuck in a drift somewhere he'd never hear the end of it.
Now he cruised along Winchester Street, noting the candlelight glow inside the old Victorians and Federal Colonials. Old-growth trees, weighted with snow, hung their branches over the road to form a surreal white tunnel. One of those old oaks had come down and taken the power line with it. Keenan rolled up in his patrol car, headlights washing over the figures in orange jackets, swaddled in hats and scarves and stomping their feet to keep warm as they cut into the splintered tree while others were dealing with the fallen power lines.
Thirteen lines down so far, Keenan thought. Gonna be a long night.
Tens of thousands were without power in Coventry alone, and these poor bastards were going to be working around the clock out here in the storm until every bulb was burning again. Right now they would be focused on cutting off power to the fallen lines-most of the cleanup and repair would have to wait until morning-so it surprised him to see them taking apart the massive fallen oak.
Keenan put on his blues, the lights dancing around the car, mixing with the red and orange emergency lights of the workers' vehicles and making strange, unnatural colors. One of the workers approached the car. Keenan figured him for a foreman, considering that he seemed focused mostly on drinking from a huge thermos while the others tried not to electrocute themselves.
"How's it going?" Keenan asked.
"Slow as molasses." The tall man took a sip from his thermos and then wiped the back of his glove across his thick, white mustache. "No easy way to do this even in the best conditions. But this is just nuts."
"Why not wait till morning?"
The foreman shrugged. "Guess they figure it's gonna snow half the day tomorrow anyway, so we might as well get started."
"I don't know how you guys are keeping up with the downed lines," Keenan said. "I've responded to calls about three of 'em already. They've all had the juice cut off pretty damn quick after we locate them, but just getting to them must a bitch, considering what a bang-up job Public Works is doing with the plowing."