Frost bite chase adams s.., p.1
Frost Bite: Chase Adams Season Two, page 1
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Frost Bite
A Chase Adams FBI Thriller
Book 15
Patrick Logan
Prologue
PART I – The Wedding
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
PART II – The Storm
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
PART III – The Snowmen
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Epilogue
THE END
Frost Bite
Prologue
March 14th, 1993
Brackenridge Ski Resort, Denver, Colorado
The biting cold doesn’t slow the man down.
It never does.
He’s a product of the ice and snow. Born in it.
Thrives in it.
The girl is a different story. She barely made it an hour in the blizzard before her lips turned blue. At least when the frostbite numbed her fingers and toes, she stopped complaining.
He hated her whining. That incessant whine.
Please, I just want to see my mommy. Please, it’s soooo cold. Please, please.
Please.
He took a step back and observed his handiwork. It wasn’t… bad.
It wasn’t his best, either.
The problem was that it was too cold. Not for him, but for the snow. The weather had taken a turn over the past few days and as much as he wanted to wait for it to warm up, the urge to kill had grown strong.
It had been nearly a year since his last murder.
Too long.
Far too long.
The warmer weather would have moistened the snow, making his job significantly more manageable.
Still, he persevered.
The man cocked his head.
The bottom snowball had been the most difficult and he’d been forced to melt snow with a blowtorch to render it slushy enough to roll.
The second had been less troublesome.
Like all of his victims, he stood them upright, a task that he’d learned long ago was far easier the more frozen their little bodies became. He encased the girl’s lower half in the first snowball, packing it hard against both her snowsuit and the icy ground to ensure a solid base.
The middle section was only slightly smaller than the bottom but required significantly less snow to complete. He pulled her arms out of the ball, spread them wide. They stayed that way and would stay that way, forever.
Next, the man packed snow directly on the girl’s head, pressing it against her woolen cap, against her hood.
This proved difficult as the coat was made of some sort of synthetic material designed to retard accumulation.
But even this was only a minor inconvenience. He was experienced, proficient.
In the end, the only exposed flesh was the girl’s face, her small features frozen solid. Ice crystals had built up on her eyelashes and eyebrows, giving her an almost ethereal appearance.
Her eyes had been brown, but they soon turned gray, first with the cold, then in death.
With his first kill, this had surprised him.
The man liked to think that the way the color drained from their features was a reflection of their soul leaving their body. Sucked out by the cold.
By him.
The man stared at the girl’s face for a few more moments, imprinting her frozen expression of terror on his memory.
Is that what she looks like now, wherever she is? Is that what they all look like?
He would’ve stayed there for longer, much longer, but they were waiting for him.
The man sighed, his warm breath visible in front of him.
“Goodbye, my little snowman,” he whispered. “I’ll see you again next year.”
And the year after that.
And the year after that…
PART I – The Wedding
Chapter 1
In many ways, second weddings are better than the first. For one, the bride and groom tended to be more mature. They weren’t drowning in lust, unable to appreciate the nuances and significance of the day. The only downside was that the fiery ardor typical of newlyweds was often absent.
This wasn’t the case for Tate Abernathy.
He’d managed to catch a glimpse of Chase in her ‘wedding dress’. Foregoing the typical white gown, she’d chosen for a short, strapless, navy dress—one of just a few of the traditions they’d opted out of.
And she was absolutely stunning.
Tate had wanted to go to her then, hold her, kiss her, do other more nefarious things, but she’d just smiled and ushered him away.
Told him to get his ass ready.
Tate stared at himself in the mirror as he adjusted his tie. He wasn’t as good-looking as Chase, not even close, but was by no means ugly, and the exercise that his wife-to-be had forced him to partake in over the past few years had drastically improved his appearance. He would never have what his daughter referred to as an Instagram body, but he was no longer flabby and out of shape. Some of the dark circles around his eyes had lightened and what had once been loose skin beneath his chin had tightened significantly.
His flesh lacked the springiness of youth, but it was no longer hanging off his body.
Still, Tate’s job, stressful as it was, made it so that he would never have a vibrant appearance. He did the best with what he had—what more could one ask for?
Tate ran a hand through his hair and then cringed at the result. He was desperately trying to smooth it back into place when he heard the door open behind him. In the mirror, he caught Rachel’s reflection as she entered. She, too, looked beautiful. Looked a lot like her mother, in fact. Unlike him, her dark locks were expertly coiffed so that they curled and hung in great loops in front of her shoulders. She was wearing a dark spaghetti-strap dress that had a slight sheen to it.
Tate found himself smiling without even thinking about it. But then he noticed his daughter’s expression and his grin faded.
“Honey? What’s wrong?”
Rachel lowered her eyes and opened her mouth as if to speak, but then thought better of it. Her cheeks were slack, her bare shoulders rolled forward. Tate walked over to her, hugged her close.
She was shuddering slightly.
“Rachel? What’s wrong?”
“I miss mom,” the girl said, her voice hitching.
The comment surprised Tate.
Rachel didn’t talk much about Robin—neither of them did. In a way, this was similar to Chase’s silence when it came to her sister. True, Robin Levine—after their divorce had been finalized, she’s dropped the Abernathy and now went by her maiden name—was still alive, while the elder Georgina Adams was not. Robin was, however, out of the picture. Being incarcerated had a way of rendering true the old adage ‘out of sight, out of mind’.
“I miss her, too,” Tate said. His initial motivation for the comment was to comfort his daughter, but as soon as the words left his mouth, Tate realized that they were true.
He missed Robin.
Before the accident, his relationship with his wife had been healthy enough. Over the nearly twenty years that they’d been together, things hadn’t always been this way. Most of their issues stemmed from Tate’s job. Like almost all people in law enforcement, Tate had done his best to keep the horrors that he witnessed on a near-daily basis out of his personal life.
Shielded Robin from them.
But complete separation was next to impossible.
The worst of it had been when he’d been hunting The Sandman. Tate had been torn between two worlds, a young FBI agent with a toddler at home, Robin suffering from delayed postpartum depression. And his partner Constantine Striker… Tate spent a lot of his working hours babysitting the man, trying to ensure that he didn’t completely go off the rails.
Whether or not he’d succeeded—likely not—was irrelevant; the strain on his and Robin’s relationship had been considerable.
The only way they’d managed to get through it had been to put physical space between himself and Con and the State of California.
Did Tate feel guilty about getting marr
He did.
He often wondered if he would feel the same if Robin’s incarceration had been her fault and not because she was just covering for Rachel.
Perhaps.
Either way, the fact that he was free, living his life, getting remarried of all things and forming a blended family, while his ex-wife was rotting away in a jail cell, ate at him. But what he felt for Chase couldn’t be denied. Things were different with her, too, different than even how it had been with Robin at the very beginning.
For one, they were both in the FBI, which meant they had a level of understanding that Tate had never experienced with Robin. Two, Chase was… unique. He loved Robin, still did, but what he had with Chase was something special.
She was special.
Tate and Robin had attended the same high school in California in a small suburban town called Mill Valley. The high school catered to just over fourteen hundred students, and Tate had been two years above Robin. He’d seen her around enough to recognize her, but they never really spoke.
It wasn’t until after he’d graduated when Tate turned 21 and entered the bar scene did they have their first encounter.
Tate knew Robin was underage when he spotted her during his break from a degree in Psychology from Mills College.
Already a handful of pints deep, Tate approached her and joked that he was going to tell the bouncer that she had a fake ID. She’d flirted, told him that if he did that, it would be his loss.
They hung out that night, consuming God only knew how many drinks, but nothing happened.
Knowing only her first name, Tate, who was nursing a wicked hangover, had gone back to the bar the following night in the hopes of running into her again. Robin must have had the same idea because there she was.
Nearly dead and drinking nothing but soda water, but present.
Their relationship had blossomed. Not long after, they’d gotten married.
And they’d been happy.
If the accident had never occurred, Tate imagined that his life would be very different.
Not better, not worse, just different.
Guilt was an emotion that he didn’t usually have much time for, but every once in a while, it reared its ugly head.
Today, however, was supposed to be a happy day.
Guilt was supposed to know its place and remain in hiding.
“Rach, I spoke to your mom,” Tate said at last, easing back from his daughter and raising her chin with his thumb. “She’s okay with this, you know.”
Rachel had tears in her eyes as she nodded.
“I know.”
It was true; Tate had asked his ex-wife permission to date Chase, in a roundabout way, which, in retrospect, hadn’t been necessary. Robin had known that he’d been in love just by looking at his face. That’s what being together for twenty-odd years did.
And then, when Chase had finally decided to surprise him with an actual wedding date and put an end to years of procrastination, Tate had again gone to Robin.
She’d smiled, said she was happy for him.
It was unfair, but no one promised that life would be fair.
“Don’t cry, sweetie, you’ll ruin your makeup.”
Rachel grinned. Once more, Tate took a step back to observe his daughter. He recalled how she’d looked while he was hunting The Sandman with Con.
Big eyes, bigger smile.
Now she was a full-grown woman. It was clichéd, but they really did grow up way faster than anyone expected.
When Rachel didn’t say anything, Tate added, “Look, if you don’t want me to go through this, I won’t.” The words hurt, but he stuck by them. He loved Chase, loved Georgina, but his priority was, and always would be, Rachel.
“No,” she said. And then she beamed. It was no longer that big goofy grin that she had had as a toddler, but a more mature look. And it reminded him a lot of Robin.
Tate felt tears welling in his own eyes and he forced them away.
“I just want you to be happy.”
She sounded like Robin, too. Same voice, same words.
Tate leaned down and kissed Rachel on the forehead.
“I am happy, Rachel. I’m very happy. Now, go get ready. We don’t have much time. And Chase will go absolutely apoplectic if either of us are late.”
Chapter 2
Another major difference with second weddings is that you could do away with most of the first wedding bullshit.
Chase’s first wedding had been very traditional. Her father had walked her down the aisle to the tune of typical wedding music played. A priest read a sermon.
Her first dance had been with her father, her second with Brad’s dad.
They’d stayed up late, drank too much, Chase had pressed cake into her husband’s face.
Laughed.
Cried.
Had sloppy sex. Woke up with a headache for the first time next to the man she now called her husband.
The guest list had been mixed. Half friends of hers and Brad’s, half their parents’, who had collectively footed the bill. Chase knew only a handful of these people, and even then, only in passing.
Today was different.
For one, her parents weren’t in attendance. Her father was dead, and her mother was fully demented. Both of Tate’s parents were present, but they were advanced in their years and his father was in no shape to dance.
Then there was Georgina and Rachel.
There were no kids at that first wedding.
As for friends, well, not a single person from her first time around was in attendance today. This didn’t bother Chase as it might have others. The truth was that none of those friends stuck around. None of them remained by her side when her father had taken his own life or when her mother had gotten ill.
Or when she finally found Georgina.
Chase knew full well that this was as much her own fault as theirs. She was terrible at maintaining relationships. There was also the fact that bad things seemed to happen to people who got too close to her.
Still, despite everything, Chase was a tad nervous.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
She was standing alone behind the large wooden doors of the hall that she and Tate had rented for the occasion.
Chase raised her lids and peered through the glass insert. If it had been completely up to her, she would’ve chosen a town hall wedding and a small party afterward.
Tate would’ve been okay with that too, she knew.
But Georgina and Rachel wouldn’t even hear of it. So, she humored them, allowed the girls to plan almost everything.
She only vetoed a priest and a church.
But now, as Chase looked at the rows of chairs, recognizing the backs of the guests’ heads that were trained on the small stage, she felt a wave of nostalgia.
None of her friends from the first wedding were there, but some of her true friends had shown up today.
Director Hampton was seated near the back by himself. Stu Barnes, sporting a suit that was probably more expensive than the entire wedding, was also there. Chase spotted Floyd sitting next to Stitts, their presence bringing a smile to her colored lips.
Two others sat on her side of the aisle—a tradition that Georgina had insisted they honor—and it took her a moment to place them.
The first was a thin man with a shaved head and ratty blond goatee. The second was black, broad-shouldered, his suit struggling to contain his burly muscles.
Screech and Leroy, two members of the now-defunct PI firm DSLH Investigations. As much as Chase was pleased to see them, the fact that the two other members were missing caused her face to drop.
Drake and Hanna.
The last she’d heard of Hanna, the woman was on the lam following the death of The Straw Man killer who turned his victims into human skin suits.
As for Drake?
A pang of guilt tore through her insides.
Drake had been incarcerated, something to do with importing heroin into the United States.
Chase had worked with Drake years ago—Shit, was it really years?—back in New York City when they’d both been detectives. Their lives had diverged considerably since that time, with Drake going into private investigating after being kicked out of the NYPD, and Chase joining the FBI.
They’d collaborated on several cases over the intervening years, and each time, it felt as if their relationship hadn’t skipped a beat. It was always contentious, but every relationship Chase had was contentious. It was part of the package, take it or leave it.
