Ice Cold: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

he’d been like two decades ago as a college student, carefree and hang-loose in his faded aloha shirt. No worries, be happy. That was Douglas, the man who could survive falls off rooftops and broken legs without ever losing his optimism. He was asking her to trust him now, and she wanted to.
    But she couldn’t ignore her own instincts.
    “I think we should turn around,” she said, and her answer seemed to wound him as deeply as an insult.
    “All right.” He sighed. “I recognize a mutiny when I see one. When I find the right spot, we’ll turn around. And retrace the thirty miles we just drove.”
    “I was on your side, Doug,” said Elaine. “Don’t forget that.”
    “Here, this looks wide enough.”
    “Wait,” said Maura. She was about to add:
That could be a ditch there
, but Doug was already turning the wheel, sending the Suburban into a wide U-turn. Suddenly the snow collapsed beneath their right tire and the Suburban lurched sideways, sending Maura slamming against her door.
    “Jesus!” yelled Arlo. “What the hell are you doing?”
    They had jolted to a standstill, the Suburban tilted almost onto its side.
    “Shit. Shit,
shit
!” said Doug. He floored the accelerator and the engine screamed, tires spinning in the snow. He shifted to reverse and tried to back up. The vehicle moved a few inches, then shuddered to a halt, the tires spinning again.
    “Try rocking it back and forth,” suggested Arlo.
    “That’s what I’m trying to do!” Doug shifted to the lowest gear and tried to roll forward. The wheels whined, but they didn’t move.
    “Daddy?” Grace’s voice was thin with panic.
    “It’s okay, honey. Everything’s going to be okay.”
    “What’re we gonna do?” Grace wailed.
    “We’re gonna call for help, that’s what. Get a tow truck to pull us out, and we’ll be on our way.” Doug reached for his cell phone. “We may miss lunch, but what the heck, it’s all an adventure. You’ll have something to talk about when you get back to school.” He paused, frowning at his phone. “Is anyone getting a signal?”
    “You mean you’re not?” said Elaine.
    “Could you all just check?”
    Maura pulled her cell phone out of her purse. “I’ve got no bars.”
    “No signal here, either,” said Elaine.
    Arlo added: “Ditto.”
    “Grace?” Doug twisted around to look at his daughter.
    She shook her head and whimpered: “Are we stuck here?”
    “Let’s all just relax. We can work this out.” Doug took a deep breath. “If we can’t call for help, we’ll have to get ourselves out of this. We’ll push the sucker back onto the road.” Doug shifted into neutral. “Okay, everyone out. We can do it.”
    Maura’s door was jammed tight against the snow, and she could not exit from her side. She crawled over the gearshift, into the driver’s seat, and Doug helped her climb out through his door. She landed in calf-deep snow. Only then, standing beside the tipped vehicle, did she grasp the scope of their predicament. The Suburban had tumbled off the shoulder into a deep ditch. The wheels on the right were buried up to the chassis. The wheels on the left weren’t even touching pavement.
There is no way we’ll push this monster out
.
    “We can do this,” said Doug with a burst of enthusiasm. “Come on, folks. Let’s work together.”
    “And do what, exactly?” said Arlo. “You need a tow truck to pull that sucker out of there.”
    “Well, I’m willing to give it a try,” said Elaine.
    “You’re not the one with the bad back.”
    “Stop whining, Arlo. Let’s pitch in.”
    “Thank you
, Elaine,” said Doug. He reached into his pocket for his gloves. “Grace, you get in the driver’s seat. You’ll need to steer it.”
    “I don’t know how to drive!”
    “You only have to steer it onto the road, sweetie.”
    “Can’t someone else do it?”
    “You’re the smallest one here, and the rest of us need to push. Come on, I’ll help you climb up.”
    Grace looked terrified, but she clambered up into the driver’s seat.
    “Good girl,” said Doug. He waded down into the ditch, landing hip-deep in snow, and planted his gloved hands against the rear of the vehicle. “Well?” he asked, looking up at the other adults.
    Elaine was the first to scramble into the ditch beside him. Maura followed next, and snow seeped up her pant legs and into her boots. Her gloves were still somewhere in the car, so she placed bare hands against steel so icy that it seemed to