Snowblind(32)

"Something's growing," he said.

"Hey," she said, giving him a little slap on the arm that made him laugh and wince at the same time. "I'm serious."

"I know you are," he said, stroking her hair. "And I'm not gonna lie. It's a little fast. Kind of abrupt. What we had before  …  it didn't feel like romance to me, y'know? It felt like two people trying to save each other from drowning."

Angela kissed him gently, breathing words into his mouth.

"This feels different, doesn't it? From before?"

"Completely," he said, pulling her down onto the bed.

They made love again, lunch entirely forgotten, and if Doug forgot himself amid the passion and whispered his dead wife's name into her ear, Angela seemed not to notice, or not to mind.





Officer Harley Talbot hated the stereotype of the doughnut-eating cop, which meant that every time he pulled into the Heavenly Donuts parking lot he felt as if he were somehow betraying his fellow police. Not that most cops shared his concerns. A morning never passed at the Coventry police station without a couple of dozen doughnuts being put out on the table in the break room and then slowly devoured, usually by men. Even now, female officers had to work their butts off to be treated equally by their superiors, and one of the ways they did that was by staying fit, working harder, and making more arrests.

Harley appreciated that in so many ways. He knew what it was like to hold oneself to higher standards than those around you. His size and the unusual darkness of his skin caused people to make assumptions about him and he proved them wrong through his actions and words. It came in handy, being able to intimidate the hell out of most people just by looking their way without a smile on his face. But it could be tiresome as hell. The last thing he needed was another assumption being made about him. But Heavy D, as some of his brothers and sisters in blue called the doughnut shop, made the best damn cup of cocoa in town. And he loved his cocoa.

He'd been out all night looking for Zachary Stroud and had been ordered home shortly after sunrise. Four hours' sleep and a shower later and now he was in uniform and headed back to the river to rejoin the search.

Pulling into the parking lot of Heavenly Donuts, he slouched a little in his seat, barely conscious of it, then parked his patrol car up against a snowbank in the back. They had a drive-through, but he'd developed a nice rapport with the staff, and when he had a few minutes he liked to see them in person. When he went in and chatted with the owner, Rick Newell, or one of his employees, he always got an extra helping of whipped cream on his cocoa.

Harley worked hard to keep fit and treated his body right, but a man couldn't resist a little extra whipped cream. He was only human, after all.

As he strode to the doughnut shop, shoes squelching in the dirty slush, the door slammed open and a young guy hustled out and nearly collided with him.

"Whoa," Harley said, grabbing the guy's shoulders and nudging him back to arm's length. "Watch it, man."

The guy looked up and Harley blinked in surprised recognition. Nat Kresky went to the local community college and worked at Heavenly Donuts to pay his way. He still lived with his parents but covered the minimal tuition with his savings and what he made slinging coffee. Harley had never seen Nat without a smile on his face-the kid always piled on the whipped cream for him-but this afternoon, Nat looked lost in despair and confusion.

"Sorry," Nat mumbled, and tried to go around.

Harley grabbed his arm. "Nat, what's the matter? Something happen?"

Ordinary human concern had prompted the question, but so had cop instincts. Harley believed his were pretty good, and something told him this kid wasn't upset just about a girlfriend dumping him or bad news at home. He didn't know Nat well, but they'd talked enough for him to see how far off the rails his troubles had sent him.
     
 

     

When Nat looked at him, though, Harley wondered if maybe he didn't know the kid at all.

"I'm fine, Officer. Sorry, but  …  I'm fine."

He tried to pull away but Harley held him without effort.

"‘Officer'?" Harley said.

"Sorry," Nat replied, glancing down at his name tag. "Officer Talbot. Can I go now?"

Harley released him but blocked his way. "What's up with you, Nat? You hit your head? You okay?"

"I'm not okay," the kid spat, shooting an angry glance back at the door of the shop. "I just got fired 'cause I don't know how to work the stupid machines!"

Harley's insides gave a little twist. Getting fired was the least of Nat's troubles.

"Nat, what's my name?"

"What, did I pronounce it wrong?" the kid whined, glancing away with the petulance of a middle-schooler. "Officer Talbot."

"You don't know me?"

A change came over the kid instantly, like a wave passing through his body, an alarm bell that had just gone off in his head and echoed inside him. His eyes went dull and crafty.

"Course I do."

Harley didn't believe him. "What is it, then? My first name?"

Nat hesitated, caught.

"You screwed up at work 'cause you couldn't remember how to work the machines. That's what you're saying, right?" Harley asked. "There's not much to them, and Mr. Newell's a good guy, so I'm figuring it had to do with the cash register, screwing up orders, the kind of stuff you've been doing here for years."

Nat's lower lip quivered. "He thought I was on drugs, all right? They all thought I was on drugs! He should know I'd never … "

The kid silenced himself, turning away. "Just leave me alone, okay? I'm going home. I just need sleep."

Harley shifted to intercept him, not letting him leave.

"It's more than that, Nat, and I can tell you know it. You don't even recognize me and we see each other three or four times a week right inside the shop. Something's goin' on in your head. Hop in the car and I'll run you over to the hospital. You need a doc to check you out, make sure it's not serious."

Nat wouldn't look him in the eye. "I'm just going home. I'll get my dad to take me."

Again he tried to pass by and this time Harley grabbed his arm harder. He pointed toward the cruiser he'd parked in back.

"Get in," he said. "You wanna go home first, that's fine. I'll take you there. No way I'm going to let you drive. It's either me or I call you an ambulance."

Nat's lips were pressed into a thin, angry line. Harley had expected the kid to stamp his foot, but finally he started for the patrol car.

"Fine," Nat huffed. "But this is stupid."

Harley followed, hoping the kid was right. But you didn't suffer the kind of memory loss Nat was showing signs of without having something wrong with you, some trauma or an aneurysm or something.

As he got the kid into the backseat, he spared one last, regretful glance at Heavenly Donuts. He had a terrible feeling he wasn't going to get his cocoa today.





TWELVE





Recent years had brought some unseasonably mild winters, but this had not been one of them. The cold weather had swept down from Canada in early November and never really abated for more than a day or so. There were times when the sun shone brightly enough to chase the chill away for a few hours. Now, late afternoon brought on the early arrival of darkness that had always made Joe Keenan want to hole up inside his house with a book and a few logs burning in the fireplace. In early February, spring seemed somehow further away than ever.

He leaned against the hood of his unmarked, drinking weak coffee that tasted like it had been strained through a brown paper bag, and watched the industrious local-media people setting up lights for the live shots they would do during the five o'clock news. They'd be getting under way anytime now, and the reporters were choosing their shots, figuring out the best places to stand in order to have police or volunteer searchers-or at least the icy river-in the background.

Keenan knew what they'd be reporting: nothing. No headway had been made in the search for Zachary Stroud, which had been going on for nearly fifteen hours without a single lead beyond the initial discovery of the boy's blood inside the car. The vehicle itself had been removed long ago, as had the corpses of Zachary Stroud's parents. Searchers had combed the woods by the river and begun a door-to-door canvass, hoping to find someone who had seen the boy wandering in last night's storm or even this morning-maybe wet, maybe bleeding.

The Coventry Harbor Master had come out and taken a look at the river, confirming what Keenan had already guessed: while the current ran strong under the frozen surface, there was too much ice for them to attempt to drag the river in search of a body. State-police divers had gone into the water in midmorning, picking places up and down the bank to enter and search beneath the ice, but to no avail. Keenan didn't believe the boy had fallen into the river, but even if he had, the chances of their finding his body down there were slim.

He sipped his lukewarm, paper-bag-tasting coffee and watched the last of the sun sliding behind the roof-and-treetops on the western cityscape. Going without sleep had become just part of the job over the years, but that didn't mean he didn't get tired. His eyes burned and his body felt like he had suddenly found himself on a planet with heavier gravity, every step a slog. Since last night his only fuel had been crappy coffee and a slice of cold pizza, but he had passed beyond hunger by now.