“That’s the Coleman,” Don said. He fiddled with a knob and flicked his lighter. A ring of blue flames spurted.
“Cool. But what’s there to cook?”
He pointed to a row of large, dusty jars labeled with masking tape, all empty except for Sugar, Rice, Flour, and Macaroni.
“That’s it.” He picked up a pail. “I’m going outside to get snow we can melt for water.”
“Doesn’t the pump work?”
“ Jeez, at ten below?”
Heather boiled rice for breakfast. Don smoked right through the meal. After eating, he brought in logs from the woodpile outside the back door and lit a fire in the big stone hearth. Heather stretched out her hands to the warmth.
“Enjoy it while you can,” he said. “When the snow stops, I’ll have to put out the fire. Smoke from the chimney is a dead giveaway somebody’s here.” He dragged a chair to the hearth and settled himself.
Heather looked at her surroundings. The dark blue seat cushions were stained. Dirty white stuffing bulged from their burst seams. Dust covered everything.
“Doesn’t anybody ever come here?” she asked.
“A guy from the village checks every so often.”
“I mean come for a vacation.”
“Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“There was an accident.” He paused, shook his head. “Sooner or later the place will be sold. My dad and uncle are suing each other over the estate. Both their lawyers told them to stay away.” His lank hair fell across his eyes, and he pushed it back irritably. He hated questions, but if she didn’t ask, how would she find out anything?
“What are you going to do about the car?”
“Nothing, right now.”
“You can’t just leave it there. It’s covered with DNA.”
“I’ll figure out something.”
She suspected that Don hadn’t a clue what to do next. They were both in a bad spot. But Don’s was worse. What would he face if he got caught? Life? Twenty-five years? That was his problem. She wasn’t the one who had killed the Paki. Her smart idea was to turn herself in.
All this trouble to steal a few lousy bucks from the till of a corner store. Why had she let him talk her into it? Why was she such a fool?
Heather sat in front of the fire on a love seat with dirty cushions and stared at the flames. Don was dozing in his chair with his skinny legs stretched toward the fire.
This might be a good time to do something about her boots. She pulled the broken heel from her pocket. To make the two heels match, all she needed was a knife. This would be simple. She stood up, wincing when her feet met the cold floor, and carried her boots into the kitchen.
Don sighed, shifted in his chair.
In the drawer that held the cutlery, she found a knife with a saw-toothed blade. That should do. Holding the unbroken boot firmly against the countertop, she started to saw. The knife squeaked as it chewed.
Don must have heard. He bounded across the floor.
“What are you doing?” His fingers squeezed her wrist so tightly she dropped the knife.
“Fixing my boots.”
“Leave them.”
“I want to walk like a normal person.”
“You aren’t going anywhere.” Wrenching one arm behind her back, he propelled her to the love seat and dumped her onto it. “If you’re thinking of running away, forget it.” He stalked back to the kitchen, picked up her boots, strode across the room, and hurled them into the fire.
“No!” she yelled. Jumping up, she made a dash for the fire-place tongs. Before she could fork her boots from the fire, Don grabbed her shoulders. He held her fast while tongues of blue and green flames licked the leather of her boots. The soles peeled away from the vamps, and the heels sweated beads of glue. He didn’t let her go until two charred lumps were all that remained.
Morning sunshine sparkled on the lake. Around the cottage, evergreen boughs bent under their burden of snow. Don put out the fire.
“We’re going to freeze,” Heather whimpered.
“The fireplace will hold heat for a couple of days.”
“And then we’ll freeze.” The food wouldn’t last more than a few days anyway. Freeze or starve. What difference did it make?
She padded across the cold floor to the windows. Now that the air was clear, she could see the village at the end of the lake, smoke rising from snow-covered roofs. There was a tiny island in the middle of the lake. The only tree on the island was a dead pine. A rough platform of sticks balanced on the top, capped with snow.
“What’s that thing on the dead tree?”
“Osprey nest.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Why should I be kidding? This is Osprey Lake. Ospreys live here.”
“It doesn’t look like they live here now.”
“They fly south for the winter.”
“They’re not so dumb. At least they’re smarter than the people in those houses, stuck up here in the snow. What do they do all winter long?”
“They tend their trap lines. Except for Rosemary Bear Paw. She’s a bootlegger. When we were kids, she supplied us with smokes and liquor. She never asked questions. Never told secrets. Her house was painted blue.”
“Why blue?”
“So people would know which house was hers. There are no street addresses up here, you know.”
This was interesting. Rosemary Bear Paw must own a snowmobile. What would she charge for a lift to... where? Huntsville? Anywhere with a bus station. Heather had ninety dollars in her wallet. Would that be enough?
But first she would have to walk to the village — one mile across the frozen lake.
There was a junk room on the far side of the kitchen door. Heather had looked in several times, but never entered. Maybe the next time Don dozed off, she could search there for something to wear on her feet. She might even find the gym bag. Don must have hidden it somewhere.
She would like to know how much money was in that bag. She was entitled to half, wasn’t she? She had driven the car.
“Tell me about your brother,” she said as they sat at the wooden table eating their supper of boiled rice. “The boy in the photograph.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Just wondered. Was he a lot younger than you?”
“Five years younger. He was twelve when he died.
“You told me there was an accident. Was that it?”
“Yeah. Charlie drowned.” Don set down his spoon.
“Poor kid.”
“He bugged me to bring him up here fishing. I used to come up with some other guys. We didn’t want Charlie along, but Dad said we had to take him. We paddled over to the village and bought a couple of forty-ouncers from Rosemary Bear Paw. Charlie never had a drink before. The guys thought he went outside to throw up. Drowned in six inches of water right by the shore.” Don banged his fist on the table. “It wasn’t my fault. What kind of parents would throw out a seventeen-year-old kid because of an accident? When I phoned my grandfather, he hung up on me. It’s their fault I ended up on the street.”
“You weren’t exactly on the street when I met you,” she said. “You had a job pumping gas. As I remember, you had big plans.”
“I was waiting for a break.”
It had been a warm July day when Don first came into the drugstore where Heather worked. He had bought toothpaste. She remembered that because of his smile — the kind of smile that sells toothpaste on TV. Their fingers brushed when she handed him his change.
Next day he was back buying condoms. When she saw what they were, blood rushed to her face and she couldn’t meet his eyes.
“When are you done working?” he had asked.
She didn’t answer. But at 4 o’clock, the end of her shift, her heart beat fast to see him leaning against a black Mustang in the drugstore parking lot. He wore tight jeans and a dark green shirt open at the neck.