Hot Ice

altar, then drove himself hard between her thighs. With a howling scream, a second man fell on the other woman, dragging her to the ground, while the others tore off their cloaks to dance naked around the pit of fire.
    She saw her father, her own father, dip his hands into the sacrificial blood. As he capered with the others, it dripped from his fingers….
    Clare woke, screaming.
    Breathless, chilled with sweat, she huddled under the blankets. With one trembling hand, she fumbled for the switch on the bedside lamp. When that wasn’t enough, she rose to flip on others until the small room was flooded with light. Her hands were still unsteady when she drew a cigarette from a pack and struck a match.
    Sitting on the edge of the bed, she smoked in silence.
    Why had the dream come back now?
    Her therapist would say it was a knee-jerk reaction to her mother’s recent marriage—subconsciously she felt her father had been betrayed.
    That was bull.
    Clare blew out a defiant stream of smoke. Her mother had been widowed for over twelve years. Any sane, loving daughter would want her mother’s happiness. And she was a loving daughter. She just wasn’t so sure about the sane part.
    She remembered the first time she’d had the dream. She’d been six and had wakened screaming in her bed. Just as she had tonight. But then, her parents had rushed in to gather her up and soothe. Even her brother, Blair, came in, wide-eyed and wailing. Her mother had carried him off while her father stayed with her, crooning in his calm, quiet voice, promising her over and over that it was only a dream, a bad dream that she would soon forget.
    And she had, for long stretches of time. Then it would creep up on her, a grinning assassin, when she was tense or exhausted or vulnerable.
    She stabbed out the cigarette and pressed her fingers to her eyes. Well, she was tense now. Her one-woman show was less than a week away, and though she had personally chosen each piece of sculpture that would be shown, she was plagued with doubts.
    Perhaps it was because the critics had been so enthusiastic two years before, at her debut. Now that she was enjoying success, there was so much more to lose. And she knew the work that would be shown was her best. If it was found to be mediocre, then she, as an artist, was mediocre.
    Was there any label more damning?
    Because she felt better having something tangible to worry about, she rose and opened the draperies. The sun was just coming up, giving the streets and sidewalks of downtown Manhattan an almost rosy hue. Pushing open the window, she shivered once in the chill of the spring morning.
    It was almost quiet. From a few blocks up, she could hear the grind of a garbage truck finishing its rounds. Near the corner of Canal and Greene, she saw a bag lady, pulling the cart with all her worldly possessions. The wheels squeaked and echoed hollowly.
    There was a light in the bakery directly across and three stories down. Clare caught the faint strains of Rigoletto and the good yeasty scent of baking bread. A cab rumbled past, valves knocking. Then there was silence again. She might have been alone in the city.
    Was that what she wanted? she wondered. To be alone, to find some spot and dig into solitude? There were times when she felt so terribly disconnected, yet unable to make a place just for herself.
    Wasn’t that why her marriage had failed? She had loved Rob, but she had never felt connected to him. When it was over, she’d felt regret but not remorse.
    Or perhaps Dr. Janowski was right, and she was burying her remorse, all of it, every ounce of grief she had felt since her father died. Channeling it out through her art.
    And what was wrong with that? She started to stuff her hands into the pockets of her robe when she discovered she wasn’t wearing it. A woman had to be crazy to stand in an open window in SoHo wearing nothing but a flimsy Bill the Cat T-shirt. The hell with it, she thought and leaned out farther. Maybe she was crazy.
    She stood, her bright red hair disheveled from restless sleep, her face pale and tired, watching the light grow and listening to the noise begin as the city woke.
    Then she turned away, ready for work.
    It was after two when Clare heard the buzzer. It sounded like an annoying bee over the hiss of the torch in her hand and the crash of Mozart booming through the stereo. She considered ignoring it, but the new piece wasn’t going very well, and the interruption was a good excuse to