Hot Ice

bottle of Irish Mist.
    Had he gone out? Had he drained the bottle, tossed it aside, then stumbled out of the house?
    Her first reaction was acute embarrassment, the kind only a teenager can feel. Someone might see him—her friends, their parents. In a small town like Emmitsboro, everyone knew everyone. She would die of shame if someone happened across her father, drunk and weaving.
    Clutching her prized elephant, her first gift from a suitor, she stood in the center of the sloped-ceilinged room and agonized over what to do.
    If her mother had been home, she thought, suddenly furious, if her mother had been home, he wouldn’t have wondered off. She would have soothed and calmed him and tucked him into bed. And Blair had gone off as well, camping with his jerky friends. Probably drinking Budweiser and reading Playboy by the campfire.
    And she’d gone, too, she thought, near tears with the indecision. Should she stay and wait, or go out and search for him?
    She would look. Her decision made, she moved to the desk to turn off the lamp. More glass crunched under her feet. It was odd, she thought. If the bottle had been broken by the door, how could there be so much glass here, behind the desk? Under the window?
    Slowly, she looked up from the jagged shards at her feet to the tall, narrow window behind her father’s desk. It was not open, but broken. Vicious slices of glass still clung to the frame. With watery legs she took a step forward, then another. And looked down to where her father lay faceup on the flagstone patio, impaled through the chest by the round of garden stakes he had set there that same afternoon.
    She remembered running. The scream locked in her chest. Stumbling on the stairs, falling, scrambling up and running again, down the long hall, slamming into the swinging door at the kitchen, through the screen that led outside.
    He was bleeding, broken, his mouth open as if he were about to speak. Or scream. Through his chest the sharp-ended stakes sliced, soaked with blood and gore.
    His eyes stared at her, but he didn’t see. She shook him, shouted, tried to drag him up. She pleaded and begged and promised, but he only stared at her. She could smell the blood, his blood, and the heavy scent of summer roses he loved.
    Then she screamed. She kept screaming until the neighbors found them.

HOT ICE
A Bantam Book
    Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
    All rights reserved
Copyright © 1987 by Nora Roberts
    Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2002071665
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
For information address: Bantam Books, New York, New York.
    Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House, Inc.
    eISBN: 978-0-307-56770-3
    v3.0