J. A. Jance - Fire and Ice: A Beaumont and Brady Novel

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TOMMY RETURNED TO THE ROOM THROUGH THE SWINGING DOOR beside

IN ACTUAL FACT, MOST OF THE PLAYERS WERE ALREADY ASSEMBLED

I CAUGHT UP WITH MEL IN FEDERAL WAY IN TIME

ABOUT THE TIME BUTCH STEPPED OUTSIDE TO GRILL THE STEAKS,

WHEN THE NEXT-OF-KIN NOTIFICATIONS HAD BEEN MADE, JOANNA asked Deputy

JOANNA PLACED THE CALL TO ERNIE WHILE PULLING INTO A

FOR SEVERAL LONG SECONDS AFTER BUTCH TURNED OFF THE ignition,

AS BEST MAN, JOANNA WAS DUE AT THE CHURCH FOR

WHEN JOANNA CHANGED CLOTHES, HER FIRST WARDROBE CHOICE that early

I WAS SURPRISED WHEN JAIME CARBAJAL ASKED IF I WOULD

DRIVING EAST ON 190, TOMAS RIVERA WAS SURPRISED TO SEE THE

The signaled warnings didnt concern Tomas all that much. He was sure the stolen SUVs four-wheel drive would get him through any snow on the roadway. Overworked cops would be so busy dealing with multiple fender-benders that he doubted theyd be on the lookout for stolen vehicles. It also seemed likely that it was too soon for the Department of Transportation to be doing avalanche control, but what if they were? What if he got stopped at the pass and had to wait for snowplows or ended up being stuck at the chain-up area for an hour or two? What if the girl on the floor in the far back of the SUV woke up suddenly and started making noisesthumping, bumping, or groaning? If people were standing around outside in the waiting area, he worried they might hear her or see her or start asking questions.

Despite the cold, Tomas found he was sweating. His armpits were soaked, and so were his hands inside the gloves, but he didnt dare take them off.

Wear gloves, Miguel had warned him. Whatever you do, wear gloves.

Since it wasnt a good idea to cross Miguel, Tomas wore gloves.

The poor woman had already been bound, presumably gagged, wrapped loosely in a tarp and dumped in the back of the 4-Runner when Miguel delivered the vehicle to him. Miguel didnt say where she was from or why she was there, and Tomas didnt ask. The less he knew about her, the better.

Take her out in the woods and get rid of her, Miguel had said. Theres a full gas can in the back. Use that. Throw her out, pull her teeth, douse her with gasoline, and light a match. When youre done, ditch the car somewhere far away. Understand?

Tomas had nodded. He understood all right. And he understood what would happen if he didnt. Tomas also understood Miguel and the men he worked with. They were rich and powerful, dangerous and ruthless. They were the kin hand it off to some poor dope who owed them and owed big; or to someone like Tomas who didnt dare step out of line for fear of what would happen to himor to his family.

Yes, Tomas thought. Someone just like me.

He understood what it meant to commit a mortal sin. If he didnt get to confession and died, hed go straight to hell. And if he didnt do what hed been told, hed be living in hell. In a way, he already was. He had paid good moneymoney earned doing backbreaking, dangerous delimbing work out in the woodsto have Lupe and the boys smuggled across the border and brought north. But having paid a small fortune to Miguels coyotes didnt mean Tomas and Lupe were home free. Miguel had made it clear that if Tomas didnt do what was required of him, what might happen to Little Tomas and Alfonso would be worse than death. For the thousandth time Tomas wished he had left well enough alone. Things werent necessarily pleasant or comfortable in the little tin-roofed shack where Lupe and the boys had lived in Cui-dad Obregon. But hed had no idea about the real price of bringing his little family to the United States of America.

So Tomas kept driving. He turned off the freeway at Cabin Creek Road and headed off into the maze of National Forest roads that carried loggers and logging equipment off into the wilderness. Thats why Miguel had come looking for him to do this particular job. Tomas knew all those roads like the back of his handbecause he had driven them himself, ferrying crews in and out of the woods. With severe winter weather setting in, the logging crews were out of the picture for the time beinguntil the snow melted in the spring. Or summer.

Even though it made it hard to see, Tomas was grateful for the deepening snow. There would be no tire tracks left for the cops to trace. And no footprints, either. By morning, all tracks would be nothing more than slight dents. And in weather like this, no one would be out there watching, either. Only the dumbest of cross-country skiers would venture this far off the main roads.

As Tomas drove, he wondered what the woman had done that merited this death sentence, but he didnt wonder too hard. That was Miguels business, not his.

Tomas stopped the SUV a mile or so short of Lake Kachess at a spot where yet another road wandered away from the one he was on. The intersection created a small clearing that was barely big enough for him to swing the 4-Runner in a tight circle without running the risk of getting stuck. When he turned off the engine, he was dismayed to realize that his prisoner was awake and moaning. Miguel had told him she was out for good, but clearly that wasnt true.

Shaking his head, Tomas punched the button that unlocked the hatch, then got out and walked through swirling snow to the back of the vehicle. Opening the cargo bay, he reached in and grabbed the tarp-wrapped bundle. As he pulled it toward him, the woman inside struggled and tried to roll away. Grabbing for her a second time, his hand caught on what was evidently a cowboy boot, one that came off in his hand. It surprised him and bothered him somehow. He didnt want to know she wore cowboy boots. He didnt want to know anything about her at all.

When he finally had her free of the floorboard, he let her drop to the ground. The force of the fall knoe disting roads were cleared, he traded the snowplow for either a road grader, which he used to carve even more roads, or a front-end loader, which could be used to accumulate slash the brush and branches left behind after the logs had been cut down, graded, and hauled away.

As long as he was riding his machinery, Ken didnt have to listen to anyone else talk. He could be alone with his thoughts, which ranged from the profound to the mundane. Just being out in the woods made it pretty clear that God existed, and knowing his ex-mother-in-law, to say nothing of his ex-wife, made it clear that the devil and hell were real entities as well. Given all that, then, it made perfect sense that the world should be so screwed upthat the Washington Redskins would probably never win the Super Bowl and that the Seattle Mariners would never win the World Series, either.

The fact that Ken liked the Mariners was pretty self-explanatory. After all, he lived in North Bendoutside North Bend, reallyand Seattle was just a few miles down the road. As for why he loved the Redskins? Hed never been to WashingtonD.C., that is. In fact, the only time hed ever ventured out of Washington State had been back in the 1980s, when his then-wife had dragged him up to Vancouver, B.C., for something called Expo. He had hated it. It had rained like crazy, and most of the exhibits were stupid. If he wanted to be wet and miserable, all he had to do was go to work. He sure as hell didnt have to pay good money for the privilege.

As for the Redskins? What he liked about them most was that they hadnt bowed to public opinion and changed their name to something more politically palatable. And when he was watching football games in the Beaver Bar in North Bend, he loved shouting out Go, Redskins! and waiting to see if anyone had balls enough to give him any grief over it. When it came to barroom fights, Little Kenny Leggett, as he was sometimes called despite the fact that he was a bruising six-five, knew how to handle himselfand a broken beer bottle.