Ice Cold: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

abominable snowman?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “If he’s been inside this house, if he’s been skulking around watching us, why haven’t any of us seen him?”
    “I have,” a soft voice said. “I’ve seen him.”
    Maura had not noticed that Arlo was awake. She turned and saw that he was watching them, his eyes dull and sunken. She moved closer to him, to speak in a whisper. “What did you see?” she asked.
    “I told you yesterday. Think it was yesterday …” He swallowed, wincing with the effort. “God, I don’t know anymore how long it’s been.”
    “I don’t remember you saying anything,” said Elaine.
    “It was dark. Face looking in.”
    “Oh.” Elaine sighed. “He’s talking about those ghosts again. All those people he keeps seeing in the room.” She knelt beside Arlo and tucked in his blanket. “You’re just having bad dreams. The fever’s making you see things that aren’t here.”
    “Didn’t imagine him.”
    “No one else sees him. It’s those pain pills. Honey, you’re confused.”
    Again, Arlo tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry and he couldn’t quite manage it. “He was there,” he whispered. “Saw him.”
    “You need to drink some more,” said Maura. She filled a cup and tilted it to his lips. He managed to swallow only a few sips before he started coughing, and the water dribbled down the sides ofhis mouth. Weakly he pushed the cup away and collapsed back with a groan. “Enough.”
    Maura set the cup down and studied him. He had not urinated in hours, and the sound of his breathing had changed. It was coarse and rattling, a sign that he was aspirating fluid into his lungs. If he grew much weaker, it would be dangerous to force him to drink, but the alternative was to let him sink into dehydration and shock. Either way, she thought, we are losing him.
    “Tell me again,” she said. “What you saw.”
    “Faces.”
    “People in the room?”
    He took in another rattling breath. “And in the window.”
    Is someone there now?
    An icy breath whispered up her spine, and Maura spun around to look at the window. All she saw beyond the glass was darkness. No ghostly face, no demonic eyes stared back at her.
    Elaine burst out in scornful laughter. “You see? Now both of you are losing it! I’m beginning to think I’m the only sane person left in this house.”
    Maura crossed to the window. Outside, the night was as thick as a velvet drape, concealing whatever secrets lurked in the valley. But her imagination filled in the details she could not see, painting with splashes of blood and horror. Something had caused the previous occupants of this settlement to flee, leaving doors unlocked, windows open, and meals uneaten. Something so terrible it had caused them to abandon cherished pets to cold and starvation. Was it still here, the thing that drove them from this place? Or was there nothing at all out there except her own dark fantasies, born of fear and isolation?
    It’s this place. It’s playing with our minds, stealing our sanity
.
    She thought of the relentless sequence of catastrophes that had stranded them here. The snowstorm, the wrong road. The Suburban’s slide into the ditch. It was as if they were fated to end up here,lured like innocent prey into the trap of Kingdom Come, and any attempt to flee would meet only with more misfortune. Hadn’t Arlo’s accident proven the folly of trying to escape? And where was Doug? Nearly two mornings ago, he had walked out of the valley. By now, help should have arrived.
    Which meant he had not made it. Kingdom Come had not allowed him to escape, either.
    She gave herself a shake and turned from the window, suddenly disgusted with herself for entertaining thoughts of the supernatural. This was what stress did to even the most logical minds: It created monsters who didn’t exist.
    But I know I saw that print in the snow. And Arlo saw a face in the window
.
    She went to the door, pulled away the chair she’d propped there, and slid open the bolt.
    “What are you doing?” said Elaine.
    “I want to find out if I am imagining things.” Maura pulled on her jacket and zipped it up.
    “You’re going
outside?”
    “Why not? You’re the one who thinks I’m going insane. You keep insisting there’s nothing out there.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “Arlo saw a face at the window. It hasn’t snowed in three days. If someone was standing outside, their prints might still be there.”
    “Will you just stay