Ice Read online

  Okay, maybe that was worth going out in the weather for. Lorelei … women like her looked down their noses at him. It would be nice to have someone like her to do what he wanted to, to treat any way he liked. Yeah, that would be fun. Maybe he’d keep her. Maybe he’d get rid of Niki and train Lorelei right. A dose or two of meth and she’d be begging for it, willing to do anything he told her so long as he kept giving the ice to her.

  They had found several flashlights in the house and each carried one: a gun in one hand, a flashlight in the other. Carefully they made their way down the steps, and Darwin grabbed the door handle of the Blazer.

  “Don’t be stupid, Stupid,” Niki snapped. “If they’re hiding in the woods and we’re driving along in the Blazer, how the hell we gonna see them? Unless they’re dumb enough to be standing in the middle of the road, we won’t. They’re on foot, so we have to be on foot.”

  She called him stupid? he thought, the resentment bubbling again. He wasn’t the one who let Lorelei get away in the first place.

  He trained the beam of his flashlight down the driveway. The ray of light cut the darkness, but didn’t exactly illuminate the area for them. It was too dark and the flashlights weren’t all that great; they’d be fine for finding his way around a house if the power went out, but they weren’t a whole lot of good for a manhunt. Still, they were better than nothing. Lorelei and her pal had to be down there somewhere, and they weren’t armed. If they had been they would’ve fired back as they’d been making their escape. They were probably hiding, waiting until they thought he and Niki had gone to sleep before they snuck back into the house. Only reason anyone would stay out in this mess was if they had no choice.

  He’d shoot the guy on sight, get him out of the way, then there wouldn’t be any way for Lorelei to escape. His imagination took over, and he remembered how pretty and soft she was, how good she felt. Without watching what he was doing, Darwin took a step and his foot shot out from under him. He hit the ground ass first and the flashlight went flying, but he managed to hold on to his gun. The impact rattled his bones, stole his breath. Niki, damn her, bent over laughing.

  “Get on the side of the road, you moron,” she said, shining the beam from her flashlight into his face and effectively blinding him. Great. Now he wouldn’t be able to see anything at all for a while.

  Darwin slowly rose to his feet, edging off the driveway and onto the grassy shoulder. Once he was there, he retrieved his flashlight and a portion of his dignity. He looked down the slope, imagining the woman he craved to the bone hiding there, somewhere. He’d make her pay for this. He didn’t let Niki know how much his ass hurt, because he knew she’d make fun of him if she knew. Niki had a mean streak in her, and she didn’t care who she turned it on.

  Well, fuck her. No, forget that. He’d rather fuck Lorelei. Get rid of Niki, take Lorelei instead.

  “Oh, Lorelei,” he called in a singsong voice. “Where are you, Lorelei? Come ’ere, baby, come to daddy.”

  Niki laughed again. She was easily amused tonight, flipping from rage to laughter at the slightest reason. They eased down the slope. The icy wind blew the stinging rain into his eyes. His ass hurt. They were chasing after two people who had a head start, in the dark, but at the moment he didn’t much care about any of that. Lorelei was going to pay for running away from them.

  He remembered her expression of terror when he’d had her down on the kitchen floor. He’d liked that, liked the feeling of power, of knowing he could make her so scared she’d been about to pass out. Yeah, he’d like having her around for a while. He’d like showing her how ice could make her feel, like having her beg him for it—and for anything else he wanted to give her. “I think I want her high this time,” he said as he took careful steps down the hill. If she was high she’d like what he gave her, whether she wanted to or not.

  “You hold her down, I’ll shoot her up,” Niki said, then, like a light switch flipping, went straight into anger again. “The damn bitch!”

  “Works for me.” Reckless with anticipation, Darwin tried to hurry. His foot slipped again and his arms windmilled until he got his balance. Cursing, he slowed down. He’d better not fall; he might break something he’d need later. Snickering, he called out again. “Lorelei! Ready or not, here I come.” He laughed at his own pun—and Niki thought he was stupid.

  Gabriel reacted immediately at the flat crack of the gunshot, pushing Lolly up the embankment, back into the woods. A quick glance showed the flashlight beams dancing as the druggies came down the hill, not nearly as far away as he’d like. They hadn’t been forced to cut through the woods but had gone straight from the house to the driveway, which had saved them time. They weren’t more than fifty yards away.

  Fortunately, they couldn’t move any faster than he and Lolly could. Unfortunately, they could use their flashlights and they were armed. If they shone their lights into the woods at the right place at the right time, and they were halfway decent shots, he and Lolly would be sitting ducks.

  In this weather, hunkering down in the woods wasn’t a great idea. They needed to keep moving so they didn’t get too cold, but at the same time movement would give away their location. He just hoped tree limbs didn’t start snapping.

  He found a big pine and positioned Lolly behind it, concealing her as best he could between his body and the tree trunk. He bent his head so his mouth was close to her ear. “After they go past, we’re going to backtrack. They won’t expect it, and we can hide in the garage until morning.”

  She nodded, her head moving against his shoulder. Gabriel hoped he wasn’t making a mistake. He’d have liked to get to the truck, get some hot coffee, get this frozen knit cap off his head. He was losing so much body heat through his head that he wasn’t certain how much longer he could keep going, but he didn’t want to say anything to Lolly. He didn’t want her feeling guilty because she had his poncho. It wasn’t her fault two brain-fried meth addicts were hunting them down; none of this was her fault.

  “If we’re lucky, they’ll break their fool necks long before then.” He wouldn’t mind at all. He’d leave their bodies where they lay, and get himself and Lolly back to the house as fast as they could move.

  Again, Lolly nodded.

  Of course, they hadn’t had a lot of luck so far tonight; what were the odds they’d get lucky now?

  In the wood behind them, he heard the crackle of wood straining to resist the weight of the ice, and the sound sent a shiver down his back that had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with dread. Lolly heard it, too. Her head lifted, and he felt the stillness in her body as she listened, waiting. It was early in the storm for limbs to start falling, but when he took into account the number of dead trees in these woods and the wind that would make the limbs fall sooner, he knew they didn’t have long. The question was, how soon would limbs start to drop, and how widespread would the fall be?

  Dead limbs first; healthy limbs later. Then treetops would be splintering and falling; by morning entire trees would be coming down. If they didn’t get off the mountain soon, they weren’t going anywhere for a while.

  “Lorelei! Ready or not, here I come!”

  Lolly shuddered in his arms as she heard the lilting, savagely amused voice of the man who’d invaded her home. Gabriel didn’t like the way the man called her name, didn’t like the way Lolly trembled. She hadn’t given him any details about what had happened before he’d arrived—there hadn’t been time—but he knew how violent meth addicts could be. Whatever had happened—and he’d find out later, if they survived—she was handling it.

  He’d never thought he would be admiring of Lolly Helton, but damn if he wasn’t. Not only had she showed plenty of spunk and common sense, not once had she complained, though he knew her feet had to be excruciatingly cold in those inadequate sneakers. A lot of people, with perfect justification, would have been ready to sit down and give up, but Lolly just put her head down and kept going. Given that determination, something had to have h