Hot Ice

rubbed his knuckles over her cheek. “Why don’t you stay here and I’ll have a look?”
    Wanting to agree made her feel like a coward. “No, we’re in this together. If Magdaline or Gerald Lebrun are out there, we’ll find them together.”
    “There was a Magdaline Lebrun who died in childbirth, and her daughter, Danielle, who succumbed to fever.” Madame Dubrock shuffled back into the room with a tray of tea and hard biscuits.
    “Yes.” Whitney turned to Doug and took his hand. “Yes.”
    The old woman smiled as she saw Doug watch her suspiciously. “I have many hours in the evening to myself. It’s my hobby to read and study church records. The church itself is three centuries old. It’s withstood war and hurricane.”
    “You remember reading of the Lebruns?”
    “I’m old.” When Doug took the tray from her she gave a little sigh of relief. “But my memory is good.” She cast a look at the slumbering priest. “That too will go.” But she said it with a kind of pride. Or perhaps, Whitney thought, a kind of faith. “Many came here to escape the Revolution, many died. I remember reading of the Lebruns.”
    “Thank you, Madame.” Whitney dug in her wallet and pulled out half of the bills she had left. “For your church.” She looked over at the priest and added more bills. “For his church, in the name of the Lebrun family.”
    Madame Dubrock took the money with a quiet dignity. “If God wills it, you’ll find what you seek. If you need refreshment, come back to the rectory. You’ll be welcomed.”
    “Thank you, Madame.” On impulse Whitney stepped forward. “There are men looking for us.”
    She looked Whitney straight in the eye, patient. “Yes, my child?”
    “They’re dangerous.”
    The priest shifted in his chair and looked at Doug. So was this man dangerous, he thought, but he felt at peace. The priest nodded to Whitney. “God protects.” He closed his eyes again and slept.
    “They never asked any questions,” Whitney murmured as they walked back outside.
    Doug looked over his shoulder. “Some people have all the answers they need.” He wasn’t one of them. “Let’s find what we came for.”
    Because of the undergrowth, the vines, and the age of the headstones, it took them an hour to work their way through half the cemetery. The sun rose high so that shadows were thin and short. Even with the distance, Whitney could smell the sea. Tired and discouraged, she sat on the ground and watched Doug work.
    “We should come back tomorrow and do the rest. I can barely focus on the names at this point.”
    “Today.” He spoke half to himself as he bent over another grave. “It has to be today, I can feel it.”
    “All I can feel is a pain in the lower back.”
    “We’re close. I know it. Your palms get damp. And there’s this feeling in your gut that everything’s just about to slide into place. It’s like cracking a safe. You don’t even have to hear the last click to know it. You just know it. The sonofabitch is here.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and stretched his back. “I’ll find it if it takes the next ten years.”
    Whitney looked over at him and, with a sigh, shifted to stand. She propped one hand on a headstone for balance as her foot caught on a vine. Swearing, she bent over to free herself. Feeling her heart jolt, she looked down again and read the name on the stone. She heard the last tumbler click. “It’s not going to take that long.”
    “What?”
    “It’s not going to take that long.” She grinned and the sheer brilliance of it made him straighten. “We found Danielle.” She blinked back tears as she cleared the stone. “Danielle Lebrun,” she read. “1779-1795. Poor child, so far from home.”
    “Her mother’s here.” Doug’s voice was soft, without the excited lilt. He slipped his hand into Whitney’s. “She died young.”
    “She’d have worn her hair powdered, with feathers in it. And her dresses would have come low on the shoulders and swept the floor.” Whitney rested her head against his arm. “Then she learned to plant a garden and keep her husband’s secret.”
    “But where is he?” Doug crouched down again. “Why isn’t he buried beside her?”
    “He should—” A thought occurred to her then and she spun away, biting off an oath. “He killed himself. He wouldn’t have been buried here, this is consecrated ground. Doug, he’s not in the cemetery.”
    He stared at her. “What?”
    “Suicide.” She