Chill Factor by Sandra Brown Read Free Book Online

directly into the wind, which forced them to keep their heads bent against it, sometimes walking blind through a maelstrom of ice pellets that felt like shards of glass when they struck the exposed skin of their faces.
    They stopped frequently to catch their breath. Once Tierney stopped suddenly, turned away from her, and vomited, leading her to believe that he had a concussion. At the very least. She noticed that he had begun to favor his left leg and wondered if he also had a fracture.
    Finally, walking became such an effort for him she insisted that he place one arm across her shoulders. He did so reluctantly, but out of necessity. With each footstep he leaned more heavily upon her. She slogged on.
    They reached a state of total exhaustion and continued only because they had to. The distance she had covered in three minutes by car took almost an hour on foot. They were stumbling over each other by the time they reached the cabin’s porch steps.
    Lilly propped him against a support post on theporch while she unlocked the door, then assisted him inside. She paused only long enough to shut the door and dump her handbag on the floor before collapsing onto one of the sofas. Tierney slid his backpack off and sprawled on the sofa facing hers, separated by the coffee table.
    For several minutes they remained where they’d landed, their breath soughing loudly in the darkness. Because she had turned off the heat before leaving, the room was cold. But compared with outside, it felt balmy.
    Lilly didn’t think she would have the energy ever to move again, but eventually she stirred and sat up. She reached for the lamp on the end table and switched it on. “Thank goodness,” she said, blinking against the sudden light. “I was afraid the electricity may have been shut off by now.”
    She unloaded the cans of food from her pockets and set them on the coffee table, then fished out her cell phone and punched in a number.
    Suddenly alert, Tierney sprang up and asked, “Who are you calling?”
    â€œDutch.”

CHAPTER
5
    L ILLY ’ S PREDICTION ABOUT THE CHAOS IN town had been correct.
    Dutch had been back for only a couple of hours, and already he was wishing for the peace of his mountain cabin. Formerly his cabin, he thought bitterly.
    Rush hour in downtown Atlanta had never been as congested as Main Street in Cleary this evening. It was bumper to bumper in both lanes, a ribbon of red taillights on one side, a ribbon of white headlights on the other. Everyone on one side of town seemed bent on getting to the other side, and vice versa.
    The sheriff’s office was dealing with the outlying areas of the county, leaving the township itself up to Dutch and his department. Now would have been a good time for a burglar to burgle, because no one was at home where they should be, and every police officer was busy trying to control the pandemonium generated by the approaching storm.
    The signal light at Moultrie and Main wasbusted again. On any other day it would be no big deal. Drivers would take turns, politely waving one another through the intersection and joking about the inconvenience. But today, when patience was wearing thin, the malfunctioning traffic light had caused a gridlock that was making motorists fractious.
    The officers not on the streets directing traffic were monitoring the crowds in the market, trying to prevent fistfights over the scant merchandise left on the shelves. There had been one altercation already over the last tin of sardines.
    With sleet pellets larger than grains of rock salt, the rapid accumulation would soon become nasty. As the weather system moved over the mountain and swept down the eastern face of it into the valley, picking up moisture, conditions were going to get even more unmanageable. Until the storm was over, and all the ice and snow had melted, Dutch could count on little or no rest.
    Glancing up toward the crest of Cleary Peak, he saw that it was