Storm Warning. Michele Hauf
town sixty miles west from here. Susan had lived in Frost Falls all her life.
Another yawn preceded “Really? Do you know what time it is, Chief Cash?”
“I do,” Jason reported. He turned his head to block the wind that whipped at the front of the house. “Heard you found something interesting this morning.”
“I knew you’d be stopping by. Just thought it would be at a decent hour. Come in.”
Jason stepped inside the tiny rambler that might have been built in the ’40s. It boasted green shag carpeting in the front living area; the walls were painted pink and—did they have glitter on them? He stayed on the rug before the door. His boot soles were packed with snow.
“Just have a few questions, then you can head back to bed,” he said. “I know Saturdays are your busy night. Hate to bother you, but a woman has been murdered.”
“She was murdered?” Susan’s eyes opened wider. She clutched her gut and searched the floor. “I thought maybe she just died from, like, frostbite or something. Oh my God. I remember her. I mean, I didn’t touch the body, but I did see her face this morning. I always run to check on my aunt Sunday mornings, even though I’m so raging tired after my shift.”
“You...” Jason leaned forward, making sure he’d heard correctly. He tugged out the little notebook he always carried from inside his coat. Pen at the ready, he asked, “Remember her? The woman in the ditch?”
“Her and three others. It was Lisa Powell’s clique. Must have been someone’s birthday. They were loaded and loose last night. But the woman in the ditch didn’t look familiar to me. I mean, I don’t think she was from around here. It’s not difficult to know all the locals.”
Jason nodded and wrote down the information.
“She tipped me a ten,” Susan said with a curl of a smile. “Doesn’t happen often, let me tell you. The people in this town are so stingy.”
“She was with Lisa Powell, and—do you know the names of the other two?”
“Hannah Lindsey and, oh, some older woman. Might have been one of their mothers. They are all older than me, don’t ya know.” She tilted out a hip and fluffed back her hair with a sweep of hand. “Must be in their late thirties, for heaven’s sake.”
Jason placed Susan at around thirty, same as him.
“Not an issue right now,” Jason said. “How long were the women in The Moose? Did they all leave together? Who else was watching your performance?”
Susan yawned. “That’s a lot of questions, Cash.”
“I know. You got coffee?”
“I do, but I really don’t want to wake up that much. I usually sleep until four on Sundays. Do we have to do this now?”
“We do. You’ll remember much more detail now as opposed to later. And I have an appointment in Duluth in a few hours I can’t miss.”
Susan sighed and dropped her shoulders. “Fine. I got one of those fancy coffee machines for Christmas from my boyfriend. I’ll make you a cup. Kick off your wet boots before you walk on my carpet, will you, Cash?”
“Will do.”
Jason toed off his boots, then followed Susan into the kitchen, where a strange menagerie of pigs wearing sunglasses decorated every surface—all the dishware and even the light fixtures.
* * *
YVETTE LASALLE WANDERED down the tight aisles in the small grocery store set smack-dab in the center of Main Street in Frost Falls. The ice on her black hair that had sneaked out from under her knit cap melted and trickled down her neck. If she didn’t zip up and wrap her scarf tight when she went outside, that trickle would freeze and—Dieu.
Why Minnesota? Of all the places in the world. And to make life less pleasant, it was January. The temperature had not been out of the teens since she had arrived. Sure, they got snow and cold in France. But not so utterly brutal. This place was not meant for human survival. Seriously.
But survive she would. If this was a test, she intended to ace it, as she did with any challenge.
This little store, called Olson’s Oasis, sold basic food items, some toiletries, fishing bait and tackle (because crazy people drilled holes on the lake ice and actually fished in this weather), and plenty of cheap beer. A Laundromat was set off behind the freezer section. It boasted two washers and one semiworking dryer. The store was also the hub for deliveries, since the UPS service apparently didn’t venture beyond Main Street.
Frost Falls was a virtual no-man’s land. The last vestige of civilization before the massive Superior National Forest that capped the state and embraced the land with flora, fauna and so many lakes. This tiny town reminded Yvette of the village where her grandparents had lived in the South of France. Except Frost Falls had more snow. So. Much. Snow.
“Survival,” she muttered with determination, but then rolled her eyes. She never would have dreamed a vacation from her job in gorgeous Lyon would require more stamina than that actual job. Mental stamina, that was.
But this wasn’t a vacation.
Something called lutefisk sat wrapped in plastic behind the freezer-case glass. Vacillating on whether to try the curious fish, she shook her head. The curing process had something to do with soaking the fish in lye, if she recalled correctly from a conversation with the store’s proprietor last week. It was a traditional Nordic dish that the locals apparently devoured slathered in melted butter.
Not for her.
Fresh veggies and fruits were not to be had this time of year, so Yvette subsisted on frozen dinners and prepackaged salads from the refrigerator case.
Her boss at Interpol, Jacques Patron, would call any day now. Time to come home, Amelie. The coast is clear. Every day she hoped for that call.
Unless he’d already tried her. She had gotten a strange hang-up call right before entering the store. The number had been blocked, but when she’d answered, the male voice had asked, “Yvette?” She’d automatically answered, “Yes,” and then the connection had clicked off.
Wrong numbers generally didn’t know the names of those they were misdialing. And an assumed name, at that. Had it been Jacques? Hadn’t sounded like him. But he’d only said her name. Hard to determine identity from one word. Impossible to call back with the unknown number. And would her boss have used her cover name or her real name?
The call was not something to take lightly. But she couldn’t simply call up Interpol and ask them for a trace. She was supposed to be dark. She and her boss were the only people aware of her location right now. She’d try her boss’s number when she returned to the cabin.
Tossing a bag of frozen peas into her plastic basket, she turned down the aisle and inspected the bread selections. Not a crispy, crusty baguette to be found. But something called Tasty White seemed to be the bestseller. She dropped a limp loaf in her basket. She might be able to disguise the processed taste with the rhubarb jam that she’d found in a welcome gift basket when she’d arrived at the rental cabin.
When the bell above the store’s entrance clanged, she peered over the low shelves. A couple of teenage boys dressed in outdoor gear and helmets joked about the rabbit they’d chased with their snowmobiles on the ride into town.
Town? More like a destitute village with a grocery/post office/fish and tackle shop/Laundromat, and a bar/diner/strip joint—yes, The Moose diner offered “pleasure chats” and “sensual dancing” in the far back corner after 10:00 p.m. on Saturday nights. The diner did dish up a hearty meal, though, and Yvette’s stomach was growling.
Her gaze averted from the boys and focused beyond the front door and out the frost-glazed window. Had that black SUV been parked before The Moose when she’d arrived? It looked too clean. Not a beat-up rust bucket like most of the locals drove. And it wasn’t dusted with a