Page 149 of Chill Factor

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“Listen!” Wes raised his hand. “Did you hear that?”

“What?”

“Shh!”

Dutch lifted his cap away from his ear and listened hard. But all he could hear was the whistling of the wind and the occasional clump of snow landing on the ground after being blown from an upper tree branch. After thirty seconds, he said, “I don’t hear anything.”

“I don’t either now. Thought I did.”

“What did it sound like?”

“Like these.”

“Snowmobiles? Can’t be. Not Ritt’s anyway. I had the keys to all four of them.” On the key ring that William had given him were four keys for four snowmobiles. At the garage, it had been a quick process of elimination to see which two keys they needed for the snowmobiles they’d taken out. He still had the key ring in a pocket of his snowsuit.

Wes shook his head. “Guess it was my imagination. These things are so damn loud, they could do funny things to your ears. Anyhow, you

were saying that Lilly’s been . . .”

“She’s been up there for two days. Stranded. Without power. Why wouldn’t she have her cell phone in her hand, willing it to ring, trying to call out?”

“You’d think,” Wes admitted. “But maybe she’s not getting cell service up there. Maybe her battery is dead.”

“Or maybe she is.”

“Dutch—”

“Or maybe she’s hurt.” Or maybe she was snuggled up in bed with Tierney and resenting the intrusion of the ringing phone. They might not find her injured at all but rosy with health and purring with sexual satisfaction. He looked at Wes and knew that he was thinking the same thing.

“If she could get through, she’d be trying to call you, Dutch. I’m sure of it.”

Before he yielded to the temptation to push Wes over the cliff for patronizing him like he was a mental patient, Dutch pulled his ski glove back on. “If you’re gonna lead, step up the pace.”

Wes started walking toward his snowmobile. “I can’t go any faster. These switchbacks are brutal.”

“You knew that when you volunteered to come along. And by the way, why did you?”

Wes stopped in his tracks, turned back. “What?”

Dutch pushed his goggles up to his forehead and gave Wes a long, appraising look.

“What?”

“Why are you doing this, Wes? Don’t get me wrong. I want a crack at Tierney whether or not he’s Blue. But what’s your stake in this?”

Wes shook his head with misapprehension. “I don’t follow.”

“Yeah, you do. Don’t play stupid. You did everything but lick my dick last night to talk me into going after Tierney myself. I want to know why.”

“I explained why. You deserve the glory for capturing him, not the FBI. I’d bask in the glow of your success. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

“No, there’s nothing wrong with that. But I think you have another motive. And I think it has to do with Scott.”

“Scott?”

“You should know, Wes, that the more innocent you act, the more suspicious I become. Are you manipulating me? As I said, I want to take care of Tierney anyway. I’d just like to know before I do that I haven’t been played for a chump.” He gave Wes a hard look. “Did Scott have anything to do with the disappearances of those women?”

“Right. Yeah. Like he had the hots for Betsy Calhoun. Support stockings have always been a huge turn-on for him.”


Tags: Sandra Brown Mystery