Winter Prey

nothing coming out until: “My God, Frank, there’s somebody out there by the garage.”
    “What?” He frowned and went to the kitchen window, looked out. “Did you see him?”
    “No, but I swear to God, Frank, there’s somebody out there. I could feel him,” she said, catching his arm, looking past him through the window. “Call nine-one-one.”
    “I don’t see anything,” Frank said. He went through the kitchen, bent over the sink, looked out toward the yard-light.
    “You can’t see anything,” Claudia said. She flipped the lock on the door, then stepped into the kitchen. “Frank, I swear to God there’s somebody . . .”
    “All right,” he said. He took her seriously: “I’ll go look.”
    “Why don’t we call . . . ?”
    “I’ll take a look,” he said again. Then: “They wouldn’t send a cop out here, in this storm. Not if you didn’t even see anybody.”
    He was right. Claudia followed him into the mudroom, heard herself babbling: “I loaded up the stove, then I went around to the side to bring some wood in for tomorrow morning . . .” and she thought, I’m not like this.
    Frank sat on the mudroom bench and pulled off the Tony Lamas, stepped into his snowmobile suit, sat down, pulled on his pacs, laced them, then zipped the suit and picked up his gloves. “Back in a minute,” he said. He sounded exasperated; but he knew her. She wasn’t one to panic.
    “I’ll come,” she blurted.
    “Nah, you wait,” he said.
    “Frank: take the gun.” She hurried over to the service island, jerked open the drawer. Way at the back, a fullyloaded Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum snuggled behind a divider. “Maybe it’s Harper. Maybe . . .”
    “Jesus,” he said, shaking his head. He grinned at her ruefully, and he was out the door, pulling on his ski gloves.
    On the stoop, the snow pecked his face, mean little hard pellets. He half-turned against it. As long as he wasn’t looking directly into the wind, the snowmobile suit kept him comfortable. But he couldn’t see much, or hear anything but the sound of the wind whistling over the nylon hood. With his head averted, he walked down the steps onto the snow-blown path to the garage.

    The Iceman was there, next to the woodpile, his shoulder just at the corner of the shed, his back to the wind. He’d been in the woodlot when Claudia came out. He’d tried to get to her, but he hadn’t dared use the flashlight and in the dark, had gotten tangled in brush and had to stop. When she ran back inside, he’d almost turned away, headed back to the snowmobile. The opportunity was lost, he thought. Somehow, she’d been warned. And time was pressing. He looked at his watch. He had a half hour, no more.
    But after a moment of thought, he’d methodically untangled his snowshoes and continued toward the dark hulk of the garage. He had to catch the LaCourts together, in the kitchen, where he could take care of both of them at once. They’d have guns, so he’d have to be quick.
    The Iceman carried a Colt Anaconda under his arm. He’d stolen it from a man who never knew it was stolen. He’d done that a lot, in the old days. Got a lot of good stuff. The Anaconda was a treasure, every curve and notch with a function.
    The corn-knife, on the other hand, was almost elegant in its crudeness. Homemade, with a rough wooden handle, it looked something like a machete, but with a thinner blade and a squared end. In the old days it had been used to chop cornstalks. The blade had been covered with a patina of surface rust, but he’d put the edge on a shop grinder and the new edge was silvery and fine and sharp enough to shave with.
    The corn-knife might kill, but that wasn’t why he’d brought it. The corn-knife was simply horrifying. If he needed a threat to get the picture, if he needed to hurt the girl bad but not kill her, then the corn-knife was exactly right.
    Standing atop the snow, the Iceman felt like a giant, his head reaching nearly to the eaves of the garage as he worked his way down its length. He saw Frank come to the window and peer out, and he stopped. Had Claudia seen him after all? Impossible. She’d turned away, and she’d run, but he could hardly see her, even with the garage and yard-lights on her. He’d been back in the dark, wearing black. Impossible.
    The Iceman was sweating from the short climb up the bank, and the struggle with the brush. He snapped the releases and pulled the bindings loose, but stayed balanced on the