Heart of Ice

It was a musky scent of cotton boxers, sweaty body parts, and, after his work was done, semen. He could barely breathe as he did what the man told him in a voice that seemed to know absolutely no gentleness whatsoever. Just do it. Satisfy me, cowboy. Get it done. I’ve got things to do now.

When the phrase “comfortable in his own skin” became common in the late 1990s, Michael Barton almost wanted to laugh at the very concept of it. He couldn’t stand the smell of his own skin. Before he was able to rein in some of his compulsion, he used to scrub his skin so hard that he left track marks on his thighs and stomach. A couple of times he even bled.

This is stupid, he thought. What happened to me in that garage with that freak doesn’t define me.

He learned to bathe with a gentler hand. He learned ways in which he could get even.

It doesn’t own me.

Deep down, he knew it did.

The morning Michael’s impulses could no longer be subdued by logic flashed through his mind. The morning had been cloaked in a veneer of ordinariness that easily masked his rage. His intentions. And yet, he knew it was the point of no return. He was getting ready for the flight out of town. Olivia poked her head into the shower and was nearly overcome by the scent of Irish Spring. She caught a soapy glimpse of her husband’s muscled torso, creamy clouds of soap rolling down in the hot spray.

“God, honey,” she said, “you think you could switch to Dial or something sometime?”

It was a joke, of course.

Olivia knew that her husband had his hygiene quirks. She knew that he’d have that scent on him when he was lowered into the ground.

We all have our quirks, she thought. At least, my man is a clean one, a decent one. Who could ask for anything more?

“I wish you didn’t have to go,” she said, handing him a towel.

“That makes two of us.” He wrapped the towel around his waist and faced the mirror to shave. “I’ll only be gone a couple of days. Just long enough to get in and get out.”

“I know, but you just got home.” Olivia stood behind Michael and looped her arms around him.

He bent down and kissed her quickly. “Gotta make a living.” He ran the shaving gel over his face. “I’ll be gone only as long as it takes to get the job done.”

He meant that. Every word of it.

He’d booked a flight to Seattle, then on to Spokane, Washington, where he’d rent a car for the drive to Cascade University. The girls, the stupid, evil, girls had made it easy, blogging about their lives, hopes, and dreams. He’d kill them one by one. First on his list was Tiffany Jacobs. Next, he’d go after Lily Ann Denton, down in San Diego. The last would be the chapter president. Her name was Jenna Kenyon.

He’d kill her last.

Chapter Sixty-three

Seattle

Irvin Watkins, a retired Seattle cop, was watching the TV—actually reveling in the majesty of his TV, was more like it. Just sixty-three, with a thatch of snow-white hair and lively blue eyes, Irv sat in the dark and drank some beer and took it all in. Life was so good.

He’d just upgraded to high-definition TV and felt like everything he’d been seeing on the screen now dazzled. Sporting events were now so crystal clear that he could almost smell the sloshed beer on the bleachers. The local newscasters looked like they’d aged twenty years as every wrinkle and pore seemed to be diamond-cut.

As he was watching the Seattle news, a blond newscaster who’d been on the air for decades updated viewers on the Mandy Crawford case across the state in Cherrystone. It caught his interest for two reasons. One, he knew of Emily Kenyon mostly by reputation from her days in Seattle. But he also knew that she’d been dating his old partner, Chris Collier.

“The husband of the missing woman—Mitchell Crawford—has been unable to make bail and awaits trial in a cell at the Cherrystone jail.”

“Wait a second,” he said aloud, though no one was there to hear him. He lived alone. Had been alone since his wife died in August. Irvin set down his tumbler of pinot noir. He didn’t need his glasses as he studied the man’s face on the TV. The HD made sure of it. The guy on the screen was eerily familiar.

He reached for his old worn-out phone book, old school all the way, and dialed. The call didn’t go through and the operator’s recorded voice indicated that he should check the listing and dial again.

He did, to the same results. It seemed. Chris’s number was dead.

“He must have gone to a cell phone,” he said, again, to himself. The whole world had. He dialed a buddy at the downtown precinct where he’d worked before retiring. Within two minutes he had Chris Collier’s cell number. He dialed again, this time getting voice mail.

“Hey Chris, Irv Watkins here. I think I’ve got something you might find of interest. Call me. Or better yet, come by and see me.”

It was stone cold that night and despite the man lying next to her, Donna Rayburn couldn’t get warm. She cuddled up next to her lover, but his cool body offered no comfort at all. She got up, grabbed a robe, and went in search of an extra blanket. She used a flashlight to guide her way down an unfamiliar hallway to a linen closet. The contents of the closet were as ordered as the linen section of Saks. Nothing was out of place. All colors were coordinated. On the edge of each towel on the shelf just below her eye level she noticed they were monogrammed with the initials of her host. She waved her light up another row, looking for a blanket. Those, too, were monogrammed. Donna gave her head a shake and pulled one from the top, exposing a blanket with another set of initials—ML. Who was ML? A wife, she’d never heard of? She thought it was creepy that he didn’t get rid of those towels. The guy wasn’t cheap. He had to have kept them because he wanted, rather than needed them. She took a blanket and went back to bed. She made herself a mental note to ask about the unfamiliar monogram in the morning.

Donna didn’t know that her question would be the last she’d ever ask.

Chapter Sixty-four

Cherrystone

The Cherrystone jail was in the basement of the county-city building next to the sheriff’s office. Jeffery Kirkpatrick had been the jailer for at least twenty years, though he professed not to have “a real fix” on the exact number of years. He figured whenever anyone wanted to know how long he was there it was either to push him to retirement or celebrate an employee anniversary. He didn’t want either. He was reading a Newsweek article on eco-vacations and thinking that a sunny day in Costa Rica might be