For someone who has never given himself over to rage, it would be hard to understand. But for Daniel, it felt like shrugging on an old, soft suede coat that had been buried so deep in his closet he was certain it had long ago been given away to someone else who needed the cover. Lucid thought gave way to utter feeling. His body started to burn; his own anger buzzed in his ears. He saw through a crimson haze, he tasted his own blood, and still he knew he could not stop. As he gloried in the scrape of his knuckles and the adrenaline that kept him one step ahead, Daniel began to remember who he used to be.
Every brawl with a bully in Akiak, every fistfight with a drunk outside a bar, every window he'd smashed to get inside a locked door . . . it was as if Daniel had stepped completely outside his body and was watching the tornado that had taken up residence there instead. In the ferocity, he lost himself, which was what he'd hoped for all along.
By the time he was finished, Jason was shaking so hard that Daniel knew only his own hand at the boy's throat was keeping him upright. “If you ever ... ever come near my daughter again,” Daniel said, “I will kill you.”
He stared at Jason, trying to commit to memory the way the boy looked when he knew he was defeated, because Daniel wanted to see it on his face again on the day they handed down a verdict in the courtroom. He drew back his arm, focusing his sights on the spot just under the boy's jaw - the spot where a good, strong blow would knock him unconsciouswhen suddenly the high beams of an oncoming car washed over him.
It was the opportunity Jason needed to throw Daniel off balance. He pushed away and took off at a dead run. Daniel blinked, his concentration shattered. Now that it was over, he could not stop his hands from trembling. He turned to the truck, where he'd told Trixie to wait, and he opened the door. “I'm sorry you had to see . . .” Daniel said, breaking off as he realized his daughter wasn't there.
“Trixie!” he yelled, searching the parking lot. “Trixie, where are you?”
It was too goddamned dark - Daniel couldn't see - so he started running up and down the aisles among the cars. Could Trixie have been so upset, watching him turn into an animal, that she'd been willing to jump from the frying pan into the fire, to get as far away from him as possible, even if that meant she'd have to run into town?
Daniel started sprinting down Main Street, calling for her. Frantic passed for festive in the dark. He pushed aside knots of carolers and divided families joined together at the hands. He barreled into a table with a sugar-on- snow display, kids rolling long strings of candied maple syrup around popsicle sticks. He climbed onto a sidewalk bench so that he could tower over the milling crowd and look around.
There were hundreds of people, and Trixie wasn't one of them. He headed back to his car. It was possible that she had gone home, although it would take her a while to cover the four-mile distance on foot, in the snow. He could take his truck and start searching . . . but what if she hadn't left town? What if she came back looking for him, and he wasn't here?
Then again, what if she'd started home, and Jason found her first?
He reached into the glove compartment and fumbled for his cell phone. No one answered at the house. After a hesitation, he called Laura's office.
Last time he'd done this, she hadn't answered.
When she picked up on the first ring, Daniel's knees buckled with relief. “Trixie's missing.”
“What?” He could hear the bright blue edge of panic in Laura's voice.
“We're in town. . . she was in the car waiting ...” He was not making any sense, and he knew it.
“Where are you?”
“In the lot behind the grocery store.”
“I'm on my way.”
When the line went dead, Daniel slipped the phone into his coat pocket. Maybe Trixie would try to call him. He stood up and tried to replay the fight with Jason, but he could not dissect it: It could have been three minutes, it could have been thirty. Trixie might have run off at the first punch or after the last. He had been so single-minded about wanting to do harm that he'd lost sight of his daughter while she was still standing in front of him.
“Please,” he whispered to a God he'd given up on years ago.
“Please let her be all right.”
Suddenly a movement in the distance caught his eye. He turned to see a shadow crossing behind the brush at the far end of the parking lot. Daniel stepped out of the circle of light thrown by the streetlamp and walked toward the spot where he'd seen the dark overlap itself. “Trixie,” he called. “Is that you?”
* * 8
Jason Underhill stood with his hands braced on the wooden railing of the trestle bridge, trying to see if the river had completely iced over yet. His face hurt like hell from where Trixie's father had beaten the crap out of him, his ribs throbbed, and he didn't have any idea how he was going to explain his battered face in the morning without revealing that he'd broken the conditions of his bail and interacted with not one but two members of the Stone family.
If they were going to try him as an adult, did that affect the rest? Once they found out that he'd approached Trixie, would-he get sent to a real jail, instead of just some juvy facility?
Maybe it didn't matter, anyway. Bethel Academy didn't want him to play next year. His hopes to go professional one day were as good as dead. And why? Because he'd been considerate that night at Zephyr Santorelli-Weinstein's house and had gone back to make sure that Trixie was all right.
Three weeks ago, he had been the number one ranked high school hockey player in the state of Maine. He had a 3.7 grade point average and a penchant for hat tricks, and even kids who didn't know him pretended they did. He could have had his pick of high school girls and maybe even some from the local college, but he'd been stupid enough to fall for Trixie Stone: a human black hole who camouflaged herself as a girl with a heart so clear you might look at it and see yourself.
He was seventeen, and his life was as good as over. Jason stared at the ice beneath the bridge. If his trial started before the spring came ... if he lost. . . how long would it be before he saw the river running again?
He leaned down, his elbows on the wooden railing, and pretended that he could see it now.
