Cold River by Carla Neggers Read Free Book Online Page B

father’s cabin. “Hannah, what are you doing?”
    “Getting ready to bolt. Sean. Damn.” She took in a sharp breath. “Scare me to death, why don’t you?”
    “I’m sorry I startled you.” He nodded to the snowshoes in her arms. “Were you going to beat me over the head with one of those?”
    “I was just trying to get out of here.” She hoped she sounded calm, sure of herself. “I figured I’d need snowshoes once I outran you—or whoever it was.” She smiled. “Of course, I was hoping it’d be someone I could outrun.”
    “Or a friend,” he said.
    “Yes. Or a friend.”
    Sean stayed just outside in the snow. He didn’t look particularly winded or tired from his trek up the mountain. But he wouldn’t. Hannah had never seen him in action as a smoke jumper, a job that required him to maintain a high level of fitness.
    She followed his gaze to the plastic-covered window. “I finally had to come up here and see for myself,” she said.
    “Why now?”
    “Initially law enforcement wouldn’t let anyone near this part of the mountain. Then we had the holidays, and I was so busy. This morning I knew it was time.”
    “What made you know?”
    Sean wasn’t letting her off the hook, but she had no intention of lying to him, or of giving him a full explanation. She’d been thinking about Drew’s old cellar hole for days, and seeing Bowie walk into the café with Elijah and Sean and the law there—their reaction to him—had forced her into action. Bowie was a stonemason. They shared a difficult past. He’d worked with her father and knew as much as anyone in the area about historic stonework.
    “I wanted to get things settled in my own head,” she said simply.
    “Did you succeed?”
    “I don’t know yet.” She walked past the woodstove, where Devin and Nora had taken cover when shots started flying. “Devin’s recovered physically. Psychologically—he seems to be doing all right. I think he is, anyway.”
    “A.J. and Lauren do, too.”
    Hannah started to say more, to tell Sean she was concerned about the effects of the trauma of the past months on her brother and his lack of direction, but she caught herself. “He’s strong. He’ll get through it.”
    “He’s had a hell of a time. You, too.”
    She let the snowshoes slide down her legs and stood them upright, leaning them against her thighs as she took in shallow breaths and looked around the small cabin. She pictured Elijah and Jo—armed, having headed up the mountain prepared for trouble—and the two teenagers huddled in the dark, a storm raging through the long night. They all had known a killer was out there in the cold. Had he run? Would he be back?
    Still suffering from his encounter with Kyle Rigby before nightfall, Devin had been semiconscious, barely aware of the storm.
    Then came morning…a foot of fresh snow…and the first shots that shattered the window.
    “When the shooting started, there was nothing Devin could do. Being so helpless was hard for him….” Hannah pointed at the rough-wood beams high on the back wall, her hand shaking. She wondered if Sean noticed. “You can see where bullets struck the wood. One lucky shot, and anyone in here could have been hit.”
    “Jo and Elijah had positioned themselves and Devin and Nora as best as possible.” Sean spoke with little detectable emotion. “Rigby had to have known what he was in for when he started shooting. He could have gone on his way. Instead, he waited out the storm and assaulted a cabin with an armed soldier and federal agent inside.”
    “Jo pinned Rigby down from the front window while Elijah sneaked out the back door to go after him.” Balancing the snowshoes leaning against her thighs, Hannah looked back at the woodstove. “Jo told Devin and Nora to stay low. He said she was cool and focused under fire. Rigby had a chance to give up, but he kept shooting.”
    “Devin did fine, too,” Sean said. “Eighteen years old, scared, targeted by contract