Frozen by Jay Bonansinga Read Free Book Online

looked at Okuda. “Is there somewhere we can go, maybe a place we can talk?”
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    Night rolled in and flooded the hills and ice-crusted streets with indigo shadows.
    The parking lot of the Marriott Courtyard—barely visible through the front drapes of Maura County’s room—flickered in the cold, desolate light of sodium vapor lamps, which were winking on at odd intervals.
    She turned away from the window and went back into the small bathroom vestibule where her overnight things were spread across the counter. For some reason she had brought along her makeup kit in its little imitation leopard travel pouch. The kit contained a couple of different lipsticks, an eyeliner stick, a box of Q-tips, and a disc of blush-on that she hadn’t used in years. She looked at her pale face in the mirror. She felt ridiculous, trying to make herself pretty for her upcoming dinner with the profiler. She was a journalist, for Christ’s sake, and Grove was her subject. Plus, the man was married. Maura had noticed his wedding ring only minutes after meeting him.
    So why was she standing there, primping at the mirror like a high school girl on prom night? Whom was she trying to impress? A decade of failed relationships had reduced Maura to this—a desperate, needy woman looking for approbation in a world of fast-food relationships. In recent months she had even resorted to an Internet dating service with disastrous results. The last matchup was a creep from San Rafael rebounding from his second divorce. This loser had treated Maura to a live sex show at the O’Farrel, then a trip out to the Sybaris for a little light bondage and discipline. It was enough to turn a girl’s heart into burnt toast.
    She pulled her hair back in a tight ponytail and applied generous amounts of liner to each eye, trying to occupy her thoughts with the Iceman article. Grove’s strange reaction to the viewing of the mummy—as well as his mysterious behavior after ward—had not only mystified Maura, it also excited her, intrigued her. Occasionally an assignment will crack open like a Chinese puzzle box, and Maura had a feeling this one was about to do just that. She wasn’t sure how exactly, and Grove’s reluctance to explain until they met at dinner that night was a bit maddening, but Maura’s instincts told her that something important was unfolding.
    Her gaze drifted over to the photocopy taped to the edge of the mirror.
    When she had arrived at the motel earlier that day, she had spent some time organizing her notes and cassette tapes. She had brought along some Xeroxes of the mummy taken from her previous articles, and had taped a couple of the pictures around her room for inspiration. Now she gazed at that ancient face, and those parboiled, egg-white eyes gawking up at the black void of eons. There was something deeply disturbing about the expression preserved on that mummy’s leathery visage. At first it had looked like terror to Maura, or at least a kind of shock, contorting the Iceman’s features. But the longer Maura studied it, the more it looked like a sort of knowing stamped onto his face. But what did he know? What awful knowledge—
    Maura jumped at the sound of knocking.
    It took her a moment to steady herself before she made her way across the room.
    â€œYou ready?” Ulysses Grove asked her after she had opened the door and greeted the profiler with a wan smile. Grove’s topcoat was buttoned to the neck, his collar raised against the evening chill.
    â€œLet me grab my coat and my tape recorder,” she said, and started toward the bed, where her notes were fanned out across the cheap taffeta spread.
    â€œUm . . . about the tape recorder,” Grove said from the doorway.
    Maura spun around. “Excuse me?”
    â€œI’m going to have to ask you to leave it in the room.”
    She looked at him. “So this is off the record