Snowblind Justice. Cindi Myers
href="#litres_trial_promo"> Chapter Eighteen
Snow sifted down over the town like a downy blanket, turning trash piles into pristine drifts, transforming mine ruins into nostalgic works of art, hiding ugliness and danger beneath a dusting of wedding-cake white.
The murderer lurked behind a veil of snow, fresh flakes hiding his tracks, muffling the sound of his approach, covering up the evidence of his crimes. Deep cold and furious blizzards kept others indoors, but the killer reveled in his mastery over the landscape. His pursuers thought he was soft, like them. They couldn’t find him because they assumed conditions were too harsh for him to survive in the wilderness.
And all the while he was waiting, striking when the right opportunity presented itself, his intellect as much of a weapon as his muscles. The woman who lay before him now was a prime example. She hadn’t hesitated to stop when he had flagged her down on the highway. He was merely a stranded motorist who needed help. He was good-looking and charming—what woman wouldn’t want to help him?
By the time she realized his purpose, it was too late. Like the officials who tracked him, she had underestimated him. The lawmen doubted his ability to instill trust in his victims, and were awed by his talent for killing quickly and efficiently while leaving no trace.
He lifted the woman’s inert body into the car, arranging it into an artful tableau across the seat. There was very little blood—none in the vehicle—and no fingerprints or other evidence for the sheriff and his deputies to trace. They would search and examine and photograph and question—and they would find nothing.
He shut the door to the car and trudged away as the snow began to fall harder, a sifting of sugar over the bloodstains on the side of the road, and over his footprints, and over the signs of a struggle in the older snow beside the highway. The killer ducked behind a wall of ice, and disappeared out of sight of the empty road. Wind blew the snow sideways, the flakes sticking to the knit mask he had pulled up over his face, but he scarcely felt the cold, too absorbed in the details of his latest killing, reveling in his skill at pulling it off—again.
There were no witnesses to his crime, and none to his getaway. The lawmen thought they were closing in on him because they had linked his name to his crimes. But they didn’t realize he was the one drawing nearer and nearer to his goal. Soon he would claim his final victim—the woman who had brought him to Eagle Mountain in the first place. After he had taken her, he would disappear, leaving his pursuers to wonder at his daring. They would hate him more than ever, but some part of them would have to admire his genius.
“I FEEL LIKE I should apologize for seventeen-year-old Emily’s poor taste in prom dresses.” Emily Walker looked down at the dress she had unearthed from the back of her closet that morning—too short in the front, too long in the back, entirely too many ruffles and a very bright shade of pink.
“It will be fine as soon as we straighten out the hem and maybe take off a few ruffles.” Lacy Milligan looked up from her position kneeling on the floor beside the chair Emily stood on, and tucked a lock of her sleek brown hair behind one ear. “You’ll look great.”
“Everyone is supposed to be looking at you when you walk down the aisle in that gorgeous bridal gown—not at the clashing train wreck of attendants at the front of the room,” Emily said. Watching Lacy wouldn’t be a hardship—she was gorgeous, and so was her dress. The same couldn’t be said for the bridesmaids’ makeshift ensembles. “Let’s hope the highway reopens and the dresses you chose for your wedding can be delivered.”
“Not just the dresses,” Lacy said. “The wedding favors and some of the decorations are waiting to be delivered, as well. Not to mention some of the guests.” She returned to pinning the dress. “With less than a week to go, I can’t risk waiting much longer to figure out how to use what we have here—including this dress.” She inserted a pin in the hem of the skirt and sat back on her heels to study the results. “As it is, I may be going through the wedding shy one bridesmaid if the highway doesn’t open soon.”
“The road is going to open soon,” Emily said. “The weather reports look favorable.” Since the New Year, the southwest corner of Colorado had been hammered by a wave of snowstorms that had dumped more than six feet of snow in the mountains. The snow, and the avalanches that inevitably followed, had blocked the only road leading in and out of the small town of Eagle Mountain for most of the past month.
“Travis tried to talk me into delaying the wedding.” Lacy sighed. “Not just because of the weather, but because of this serial killer business.”
A serial murderer who had been dubbed the Ice Cold Killer had murdered six women in the area in the past few weeks. Lacy’s fiancé—Emily’s brother Sheriff Travis Walker—had been working practically ’round the clock to try to stop the elusive serial killer. Emily thought postponing the wedding until the killer was caught and the weather improved wasn’t such a bad idea, but she wasn’t a bride who had spent the past six months planning the ceremony and reception. “What did you tell him?” Emily asked.
“I told him I’m willing to postpone my honeymoon. I understand that being a sheriff’s wife means putting my needs behind those of the town. And I’ve been patient—I really have. I haven’t seen him in two days and I haven’t complained at all. But Sunday is my wedding day. All I ask is that he be here for a few hours. The case will wait that long.”
“It’s not just Travis,” Emily said. “Half the wedding party is law enforcement. There’s Gage.” Emily and Travis’s brother was a sheriff’s deputy. “Cody Rankin—he’s technically on leave from the US Marshals office, but he’s still working on the case. And Nate Harris—he’s supposed to be off work from his job with the Department of Wildlife to recover from his ankle injury, but he’s as busy as ever, from what I can tell. Oh, and Ryder Stewart—he’s had plenty of time to help Travis, since most of his highway patrol territory is closed due to snow.”
“Then they can be here for a few hours, too,” Lacy said. “That may sound terribly selfish of me, but I put so much of my life on hold for the three years I was in prison. I don’t want to wait any longer.” Lacy had been wrongfully convicted of murdering her boss. She and Travis had fallen in love after he had worked to clear her name.
“Then you deserve the wedding you want, when you want it,” Emily said. “I hope my brother was understanding.”
“He was, after I whined and moaned a little bit.” Lacy stood and walked around the chair to take in the dress from all sides. “I didn’t tell him this, but another reason I want to go ahead with the wedding is that I’m beginning to be afraid the killer won’t be caught. Travis and every other lawman in the area has been hunting this guy for weeks. It’s like he’s a ghost. Travis and Gage and the rest of them work so hard and the murderer just thumbs his nose at them.”
“It’s crazy.” Emily climbed down off the chair and began helping Lacy gather up the sewing supplies. “At first I was terrified. Well, I guess I’m still terrified, but honestly, I’m also angry.” She patted Lacy’s shoulder. “Anyway, I’m not going to let the killer or the weather get me down. The weather is going to hold, the road will open and you’ll have a beautiful wedding, without my fashion faux pas spoiling the day.”
“I hope you’re right and everyone I invited can be here,” Lacy said.
“Who in the wedding party is still missing?” Emily asked.
“Paige Riddell. She recently moved to Denver with her boyfriend, Rob Allerton.”
“Of course.” Paige had run a bed-and-breakfast in town prior to moving