Chapter Seventeen
Nina watched the dance of the flames in the wood stove while she waited for Liam to return.
He had been gone for a long time, hadn’t he?
Were the dogs giving him trouble, refusing to come back inside?
Should she go out to help him? But that would mean getting up, getting dressed and braving the cold. She was so warm and cozy here.
She jumped as something hit the front deck with a heavy thud, then relaxed as she recognized the sound of someone stomping snow from their boots. Smiling, she sat up, the blanket pulled around her. The door opened, ushering in a rush of icy air. “Hey, shut the door!” she called.
She threw off the blanket and turned to greet Liam, then gasped.
A dark figure stood by the door—a man dressed in black, with a black ski helmet.
He unfastened the helmet strap and pushed it up and off his head, revealing reddened cheeks and mussed brown hair.
“Hello darling,” he said. “It’s so good to finally see you again. ”
* * *
Wet. Something wet and warm. On his face. But the rest of him was freezing. Liam tried to push whatever it was away, but he couldn’t move his limbs. The wet warm thing was tugging at his arm, and shouting so loudly it hurt his ears.
He opened his eyes to darkness and the painfully loud, sharp barking of a dog.
His throat burned, and when he tried to swallow, he couldn’t.
Breathing was hard, too. He groped at his throat and felt the binding there.
Fighting panic, he dug both thumbs beneath the ligature and pulled.
The skin of his neck tore, but whatever held the string in place released. He yanked it away and tossed it aside.
The barking ceased, and Angel and Sky swarmed over him, licking his face and hands.
He moved them gently away, then braced against Sky and shoved onto his knees.
The effort winded him. He had to wait for his vision to clear before he could stand.
His throat ached, and his head pounded. The memory of his attack came into focus, and he looked around for the person who had tried to strangle him.
The snow around him was trampled and spotted with dark drops of what might have been his own blood.
He put a hand to his neck and felt dampness where the string had cut deeply into his skin.
The reality of what had happened hit him with the force of a truck.
Where was Nina? Had the person who attacked him gone after her?
He stumbled forward on feet that didn’t seem to want to work right and moved toward the cabin. He was still ten feet away when a terrible scream rent the air, the sound cutting him in two.
* * *
“Shut up!” Nicholson ordered. “It won’t do any good to scream. No one will hear you.”
He had aged since Nina had last seen him. His face was heavier, with sagging jowls, and pockets of loose skin shadowed his eyes. His hair was thinner, too, the brown color the dull of dry earth. She backed away from him, her gaze focused on the knife in his hand.
“You’ve been very naughty, darling, trying to run away from me,” Nicholson said. He took a step toward her.
Cool air on her bare legs reminded her she was wearing only her thermal top.
Heart racing, she grabbed the first item of clothing she saw—a pair of insulated snow pants that had been drying on a chair by the fire—and pulled them on.
She added the wool sweater hanging next to them.
Finally, she grabbed the pair of wool socks.
“Why are you putting on all that?” Nicholson asked. “I liked you better the other way.”
“I’m cold,” she said, and pulled on the socks. She felt less vulnerable with the heavy clothing on, despite the knife he held.
Her gaze shifted to the door behind him. Liam would be back soon. And the dogs. All she had to do was keep away from that knife until Liam returned.
“Don’t think that Irish dolt is going to help you,” Nicholson said. “I’ve already made sure he won’t.”
Ice formed in the pit of her stomach. “What have you done with Liam?” she asked.
Nicholson frowned. “Why do you care about him? I’m the one who really loves you. I always have.”
Had he killed Liam? Had he stabbed him with the knife he threatened her with now?
Her gaze flickered to the blade, but she saw no blood.
And she couldn’t ask him the question. The answer would be too horrible.
Instead, she tried a lie. “I wasn’t looking for Liam,” she said.
“But we have friends joining us. When I heard the snowmobile earlier, I thought it was them.” But it must have been Nicholson.
“Liar!” He took another step toward her, knife brandished. “I heard your friends talking this afternoon. About your romantic little getaway to the mountain hut. As if I’d never find you here.”
“Friends? They were talking to you?”
“When you left your house and I couldn’t find you, I started following your ski patrol buddies,” he said. “I knew sooner or later they’d reveal where you were. I didn’t realize they’d give up your location so quickly.”
“Are you saying they told you where I was?”
“They were talking about it openly, in a bar. Anyone could have heard them. After that it was easy for me to find you.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “What do you want from me?”
“I want all of you,” he said. “You’re really all I’ve ever wanted.” He shot out his arm and grabbed her wrist, his fingers like iron prongs digging into her. “Come on. I don’t want to waste any more time.”
“What? No!”
“Yes.” He yanked her hard, toward the door. “You have to do what I say now. You’re coming with me.”
“At least let me put on my boots,” she said.
“If I let you have your boots, you have to promise not to run away from me.”
“Where would I run?” She already knew the answer to that question. The only thing around for miles was snow and freezing cold.
“You’re smart enough to realize that, at least.”
Her snow boots stood ready by the door. She shoved her feet into them and tightened and tied the laces, using the time to try to think of any way out of this. She saw no weapon within reach, and no way to call for help.
“That’s enough dawdling,” he said. “We need to go.”
Reluctantly, she straightened. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“Someplace where no one will disturb us.” He fit the helmet on his head once more, then took hold of her wrist again. “Come on. And if you think you can run away, remember I’m very fast with this knife, and the knife is very sharp.”
* * *
Liam was still thirty feet from the cabin when the door opened and two figures emerged. A man in a black helmet led the way, pulling Nina behind him, her blond hair bright in the moonlight. This was the man who had strangled him and left him for dead. It had to be Aaron Nicholson.
Liam’s first instinct was to shout and rush forward, but Nicholson had Nina and a knife.
If Liam tried to run at him, he might very well use the knife on Nina.
Sky stared at the pair and growled low in her throat.
Liam grabbed the dog by the collar and held her close, his other hand clamped around the dog’s muzzle.
Sky looked at him with hurt eyes but remained still.
Angel said nothing. The little dog was shivering despite the quilted jacket he had put on her, and he worried how much longer she would last in the cold.
The man—he was sure it was Nicholson—pulled Nina through the snow, toward a snowmobile parked in a stand of fir trees. He shoved her onto the seat of the vehicle, then slid on behind her and leaned forward to work the throttle. The engine roared to life and they lurched off.
As soon as the snowmobile was out of sight, Liam ran toward the cabin.
Once inside, he raced to dress in his warmest clothing.
He grabbed his pack and laced on his ski boots.
Then he stoked the fire, filled the dogs’ water and food bowls and headed out.
“You can’t come with me,” he told them, as they watched him make his preparations.
“You’d freeze to death out there.” He only hoped he didn’t do the same.
He blew out the propane lamp that provided the cabin’s only light, then set out on skis to follow the tracks of the snowmobile.
* * *
Nina’s heart pounded painfully as Nicholson’s arms tightened around her, holding her in front of him on the snowmobile.
She struggled against panic. She needed to think.
He had the knife out of sight now, maybe on his belt.
She was sure he would keep it within easy reach.
He raced the vehicle over the snow, jolting over the uneven ground so that her teeth repeatedly slammed together.
She tried to brace herself with her feet, but they kept slipping on the icy running boards.
If Nicholson crashed the vehicle, he at least had a helmet to protect him.
She had nothing. The cold wind stung her nose and ears.
She wished she could pull up her hood, but when she tried to move he didn’t even slow the vehicle, just reached up and boxed her ears.
“I need my hood!” she screamed at him. “My ears are freezing.”
He loosened his grip on her enough to pull the hood up over her hair, then patted her shoulder. “You’re welcome!” he said.
As if she would ever thank him. She stared into the darkness ahead, trying to figure out where they were headed.
The moon bathed the landscape in silver light, and the snowmobile’s headlight projected a cone of even brighter illumination directly in front of them.
Nothing looked familiar, but the landscape seemed to be increasingly more barren, with no houses or signs or even very many trees.
She decided they were climbing, possibly above the tree line. What shelter could he possibly have found up here? Or did he only mean to bring her somewhere more remote, where he would kill her and leave her to be found, possibly months from now, by summer hikers or fall hunters?