A Wicked Snow

and precision. Nice were clean, neat, and much harder to read.

“She leave a note?” Hannah asked.

“Not that we’ve found so far,” Ripp answered.

“Do the docs think she’ll make it?”

“Dunno. Hanging by a thread. I got a call into them for an update. Haven’t heard from anyone for an hour. I know she’s on life support. She’s already lost the baby.”

The baby. It had slipped Hannah’s mind that Joanne Garcia, mother of Mimi and Enrique, was pregnant with her third child. She’d been through hell with her children; no one could deny it. Enrique was murdered, Mimi was in protective custody, and the baby was dead before it had been born. Maybe the baby, Hannah thought, had been the lucky one.

“There’s something else,” Ripp continued in his know-it-all voice that annoyed those who knew he didn’t actually know much at all. “Some woman came to the lab today to talk with you. A reporter, I guess. From Ladies’ Home Journal or something—I didn’t get the name of the magazine. She said she wanted to talk to you for a profile she’s writing about female crime scene investigators. She wants to interview me, too. Not as a female, of course, but as a man who works with one of the best.”

“Not interested,” Hannah said decisively, despite Ripp’s attempt at sucking up. She had no intention of ever opening up that door. She never sought the spotlight, though she had had plenty of chances as Hannah Griffin, and a million times more as Hannah Logan, daughter of the woman who made the greatest escape in criminal history.

Hannah ended the conversation. “I’ll be home tomorrow. Page me if you need me, but let’s plan on talking late afternoon. And no interviews.” She knew Ripp was an attention seeker of the highest order, so she added, “At least not now.”

“But I want to,” Ripp said, his voice a little whiny, like a kid being cheated out of a snow cone. “I know it’s about you, but she wants to put me in the article, too.”

“No. No interviews with anyone.”

“I’m having lunch with her tomorrow. Got her business card right here. Very nice, embossed. Freelance Writer. Her name’s Marcella Hoffman.”

The name was like a bullet, and Hannah’s heart tumbled down to her feet. Her head split into two, atom- smasher time. Hannah remained mute. A pair of glazed donut goggles stared at her from a greasy supermarket bakery box. On the open door, she could see the office was labeled PRESS ROOM.

“Wheaton’s back,” a voice called.

Hannah turned toward the voice; she sat still, frozen in worry. “I have to go now,” she told Ripp. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Who was on the phone? You look upset.” It was Bauer. He stood in the doorway looking concerned. Hannah looked up and nodded. She was weary, and her eyes brimmed with tears. If she had been any closer to the edge, she would have been on the other side by now.

“Thanks.” she said. “I’m glad I look the part. This day goes down in history as one of the most draining of my life. And I’ve had a few of those.”

“That you have. Anything I can do?” Bauer asked, brightening his tone.

“No, I’m fine. It’s just office stuff,” she lied.

Hannah made no mention of the journalist or writer or trophy collector or whatever Hoffman could be termed. In reality, she didn’t know what to think about Dog Face’s sudden reappearance in her life. The timing was suspect. The shoes, the interview with Wheaton. All of it. The pendulum was swinging back to the events of that terrible Christmas. What, if anything, did Hoffman want beyond the obvious, the all-important, exclusive interview for the update of the Logan case? How was it that she found her after all these years? Marcella Fucking Hoffman. Her features were chalk.

“I’ll be fine,” she said once more, steadying herself against the corner by the doorway. “I’m working a child abuse/murder case and it looks like Mom tried to kill herself.”

“She a witness, key to the case?”

Hannah shrugged. “I’m not sure. We’re still sorting it out.”

Bauer backed off. He knew there would be time to talk later. They’d have to talk to decompress. Whether her pallid complexion had more to do with her phone call about her dead baby case or the business at hand with Wheaton, he couldn’t be certain. They started down the corridor to the interrogation room. He searched his mind for some words to ease the transition back to what they were about to continue, when the door swung open and the one-eyed blob appeared in his seat behind the table.

“Wheaton, this is all very interesting, but you’re twenty years too late to ‘not confess’ again. So you had nothing to do with the murders. We know. We’ve heard that before. I appreciate what you’ve said about Serena, and I’m sure her mother would like to lay her memory to rest. It has been difficult for the family.”

“Difficult?” Wheaton turned away and looked at Hannah. “You have no goddamn idea. Try serving twenty years for torching someplace, while the real bad guy, in this case a woman, gets off scot-free.”

Wheaton could have told Hannah and Bauer to get the hell out of Cutter’s Landing. This was his prison. But he didn’t. He elected to continue.

“Your mother is alive. I’m sure of it,” he said, still focused on Hannah sitting across from him.

Hannah felt the air sucked from her lungs, but she managed a response.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

“Yes, I’m afraid she is,” Wheaton said. He stared at Hannah, sizing her and tracing the lines of her face to see what reminded him of Claire. He thought her nose was very similar, even the shape of her eyebrows.

Bauer stepped in. “Where?”

“First I’ll tell you how, then why and where. I’m absolutely certain of the why and the how, but the where is something you might have to do some actual work on.”

Wheaton went on to restate how much he loved Claire, how he’d have done anything for her.

“Claire wanted me to pick her up at the five-way. But she didn’t come. I waited. Five minutes turned into ten, ten to twenty. I could hear the sirens and see the glow of the inferno more than a mile away. I didn’t see any footprints in the snow on the roadside. I thought something was wrong.”

Wheaton took a drink, gulping loudly, before continuing.

“I mean, this was planned to the minute. I panicked and got back behind the wheel. When I pulled forward to find her, I ran over something and I felt it pierce the tire.”

He said he got out and found a two-by-four with a row of nails running down the center like the spine of a dragon. He’d punctured only one tire, and that could be changed.

The recollection brought an odd look to Wheaton’s doughy face. Hannah couldn’t make out his affect, though she wanted to desperately. Was it regret? Anger? The prisoner’s good eye blinked rapidly. “She set me up. I didn’t want to believe it.” Wheaton looked down at the table again, searching for the words. “And I didn’t for a long time. We had plans. She loved me. It sounds so pathetic, I know. Anyway, the cops came as I was fixing the tire and wondering how in the hell I was going to get out of there.”

If Wheaton had hoped his story would bring sympathy from either Bauer or Hannah, he was mistaken. Maybe if he had said so a little earlier? Maybe if he had said so when it mattered? Wheaton fidgeted with the clear cord of his portable oxygen tank.

“I’ve had twenty fucking years to think about how stupid a man can be for the love of a woman. A fat man. A man with one eye. I mean, who was going to want me?”

As Hannah saw it, Wheaton’s words were in defense of why he had stuck by the woman for so long.

“Where is she?” Hannah asked. “Where did she go?”

“Alaska,” he answered. “Kodiak. If I know anything about your mother, she’s up there. Running a fishing lodge on the southern end of the island. It was her dream. Rock Point wasn’t remote enough. And God knew she had the money. Claire didn’t want…” he stopped for a moment. “She didn’t want nothing to hold her back. Not you or your brothers. And I guess, I mean, now I know, not even me.”

Hannah had another question. There was one victim she had always wondered about.

“My father,” she said. “Do you know? Was it an accident?”

“You know the answer,” Wheaton answered, his voice low and tired. “You’ve probably known it all along.” He