Free Ice Cold by Tess Gerritsen Page B

She looked at her sleeping companions and sighed. That someone would be me .
    She pulled on her boots and gloves, wrapped her scarf around her face, and unlatched the front door. Bracing herself against the cold, she stepped outside, closing the door behind her. Wind swept the porch, its bite as sharp as needles. The swing creaked in protest. Glancing down, she saw no shoe prints, but the wind would have scoured anything away. A thermometer mounted on the wall read twelve degrees. It felt far colder.
    The steps were buried in snow, and as she set her boot down on what she thought was the first step, her foot slid out and she fell. The impact shot straight up her spine and exploded in her skull. She sat for a moment, stunned and blinking in the dawn’s brightness. Sun beamed down from a blue sky and glared on a world turned blinding. Wind blasted a puff of powder into her face and she sneezed, which only made her head hurt worse.
    She got up and brushed off her pants. Squinted at snow glistening on rooftops. Between the two rows of houses was a swath of virgin white, inviting her to be the first to tread that perfect, untouched surface. She ignored the impulse and instead tramped around the corner of the house, struggling through knee-high snow to reach the woodshed. She tried to pull a split log from the top of the pile, but it was frozen in place. Bracing one foot against the pile, she tugged harder. With a loud crack, the frozen bark suddenly gave way and she stumbled backward. Her boot caught on something buried beneath the snow, and she sprawled to the ground.
    Two falls in one day. And the morning was still young.
    Her head ached and her eyes felt scorched by the sunlight. She was hungry and queasy at the same time, the result of too much whiskey last night. The prospect of pork and beans for breakfast wasn’t making her feel any better. She struggled back to her feet and looked around for the log that she’d dropped. Kicking around in the snow, she bumped up against an obstruction. She dug in with gloved hands and felt a hard lump. Not the log, but something larger, something that was frozen to the ground. This was what she had caught her boot on.
    She brushed away more snow and suddenly went still, staring down at what she’d uncovered. Repulsed, she backed away. Then turned and ran into the house.

T HEY MUST HAVE LEFT HIM OUTSIDE, AND HE FROZE TO DEATH,” SAID Elaine.
    They stood in a solemn circle around the dead dog, like five mourners at a grave, buffeted by a wind with a bite as sharp as glass. Doug had used a shovel to widen the hole, and the dog now lay fully uncovered, its fur glistening with snow. A German shepherd.
    “Who would leave a dog out in this weather?” said Arlo. “It’s cruel.”
    Maura knelt down and pressed her gloved hand against the dog’s flank. The body was frozen solid, the flesh hard as stone. “I don’t see any injuries. And he’s not a stray,” she said. “He looks well fed, and he’s wearing a collar.” On the steel tag was engraved the unlikely name of LUCKY. “He’s obviously someone’s pet.”
    “He might have just wandered out of the house and his owners couldn’t find him in time,” said Doug.
    Grace looked up with stricken eyes. “And then they just left him here, all alone?”
    “Maybe they had to leave in a hurry.”
    “How can anyone do that? We’d never do that to a dog.”
    “We don’t know what really happened here, honey.”
    “You’re going to bury him, aren’t you?”
    “Grace, he’s just a dog.”
    “You can’t leave him out here.”
    Doug sighed. “Okay, I’ll take care of it, I promise. Why don’t you go inside and keep that fire going. I’ll take care of everything.”
    They waited until Grace had retreated into the house. Then Elaine said, “You aren’t really going to bother burying this dog, are you? The ground’s frozen solid.”
    “You saw how freaked out she is.”
    “She’s not the only one,” said Arlo.
    “I’ll