Melting the Ice by Loreth Anne White

“Hannah!”
    Where in hell was she? Didn’t she get it? She wasn’t safe. This was no time to play games.
    Rex started down the hallway toward the elevator before remembering the towel around his waist. He cursed again and turned back to find some clothes.
    She didn’t have her car with her; she’d be on foot. Knowing her stubborn streak, Rex figured she’d probably decided to walk all the way home. That meant she would have to go back through the park.
    He didn’t like this one bit.
    He pulled on a white T-shirt and black jeans. Then, as an afterthought, he lifted the mattress, pulled out his .38 and shoved it into the back of his pants.

Chapter 6
    A mounting sense of anxiety squeezed in around her heart as she ran down the wide stone stairs of the five-star White River Presidential Hotel.
    She almost tripped, catching her balance at the bottom. She stopped momentarily to take stock. She felt as if she was suffocating. She needed to break free from Rex. His presence here in White River was sucking her down into a vortex of emotions she couldn’t bear to confront. She had to get home. She had to speak to her little boy, hear his voice.
    She didn’t have her car. She could catch a bus home. No, the walk would burn off some of her frustration. It was getting cool but there would be enough light for a while yet.
    Hannah shrugged into her sweater, clutched her purse under her arm and strode purposefully down the brick-paved walkway.
    The eclectic White River boutiques still had their wares displayed out on the stroll. Summer tourists picked among the displays for treasures to take to their loved ones back home. Others were enjoying sundowners on the patios. Music spilled out into the mountain twilight from restaurants, coffee shops and little bistros. She could smell garlic, wood smoke and barbecue.
    But she felt oddly detached as she hurried through the crowds, untouched by the holiday atmosphere. Biological weapons. Murder. It was all too bizarre, too impossible to contemplate against this serene backdrop.
    She turned down the path that led to the suspension bridge over White River. She wanted to speak to Danny, go to sleep and wake up realizing this was all just a bad, bad dream.
    The walkway cobbles gave way to gravel as the path narrowed and started its descent down through the heavy conifers toward the river. The scent of pine resin was thick in the evening air.
    It was darker and cooler as she got closer to the river. She could hear it, rushing swollen from melting glacial ice, ice that hadn’t melted in years, the ice of Amy’s tomb. It was this unusual melt, she thought, that had brought her body to light and Rex into her life. It had set a series of dominoes tumbling.
    Hannah stepped onto the wooden slats of the narrow swinging bridge, conscious of the white froth churning below her feet. She could see the water through the gaps in the wood. She gripped the cold, damp metal of the steel cable that served both as a railing and support for the structure.
    The bridge crossed this point in the river because it was most narrow here. The very narrowness of this rocky little gorge, however, drove the body of glacial water in a broiling surge through to the calmer pools and eddies below.
    She was halfway across the water, heading for the Moonstone side of the river, when she felt the bridge beneath her jerk. She steadied herself as it began to rock and bounce. Someone else had joined her in crossing. Probably some kids jouncing the bridge. Danny liked to do that.
    Gripping the railing, Hannah turned to look over her shoulder. A man, advancing, was making exaggerated movements that caused the bridge to buck and sway under her feet.
    The set of his shoulders, the way he filled the space between the railings, reminded her of a football player in line for the tackle. The hood of his voluminous gray sweatshirt was pulled low over his brow.
    Everything about his posture was threatening.
    Hannah froze and clung to the