Melting the Ice by Loreth Anne White Page A

railing as her brain computed facts. His pants were baggy, wide, cut snowboarder-style. His clothes gave him no form, just bulk.
    She was stuck in that space before perceived danger is recognized as real and adrenaline kicks the body into action, that space where time warps into slow motion.
    As he moved closer she saw the red-and-white bandanna wrapped over his mouth and nose. He wore reflective sunglasses. He was faceless. His hands were covered with pale latex gloves. Fear fell like a cold stone in her stomach.
    Hannah dropped her purse and took a step back, her heart stampeding in her chest. He’d cut off access to the village. Her only escape now was to run into the dark woods on the Moonstone bank.
    She turned, ran, staggering like a drunkard as the bridge lurched under her.
    He was toying with her. He wasn’t rushing. He wanted to see her paralyzed with fear.
    Perhaps that’s all he wanted, to get a kick out of frightening the life out of some woman. She would outrun him. She reached the end of the bridge where the slats dipped in a little gangplank down onto the dank trail.
    She uncoiled into a sprint the minute her feet hit solid ground but was jolted up short as her sweater snagged on the dry fingers of a dying Douglas fir.
    She wriggled free just as he hit her with his full weight, the force smacking her into the ground.
    The air in her lungs exploded from her rib cage as he sandwiched her to hard earth. She was stunned, winded, and sharp pain sparked and crackled along her ribs.
    Hannah groped in the dirt, grasped a cold rock. She could do no more than hold on to it, she was pinned flat into the soil and pine needles by his weight.
    What did he want? Is this what happened to Amy?
    Pinprick sparks of light started crowding into the periphery of her vision. She blinked them back with tears of pain.
    Focus, Hannah, focus. She fought the blackness circling her mind. She could taste soil in her mouth, grit against teeth.
    Focus.
    She allowed her body to go limp, waiting to see what he wanted from her.
    He grabbed a handful of hair, yanked her head sharply round. She used that moment, twisting violently under him, to swing the rock up to his skull.
    She felt stone meet skin as it cracked into his cheekbone, shattering the mirrored lens of his glasses.
    He grunted, swung back grabbing his cheek, momentarily off balance. She seized the instant, pushed up on her arms, pulled out from under him.
    Hannah scrambled up, started to flee, but he reached forward and caught her ankle. She tried to writhe out of his grasp as she fell, but the sideways movement crashed her down onto the rocks that hung over the river.
    She felt, more than saw, the angry water waiting below.
    Something dribbled into her eye. Warm. Blood. She could taste the metallic tang of her own blood in her mouth.
    All that held her back from the frigid froth below was her assailant’s painful hold on her ankle.
    She twisted her head, looked up at the faceless form that held her life in his hand. Blood oozed thick and black from the gash in his face, soaking into the bandanna over his mouth. She could see the yellow of her own dress refracted into a million shards in the broken mirror of his lens.
    He looked down at the water below, then at her.
    “Please.” She didn’t recognize the hoarse croak as having been uttered by her own swollen lips. “Please. Don’t. I have a son. Please.”
    He lifted the hand holding her leg and he let it go.
    Gravity did the rest.
    Hannah flailed out, grabbing blindly at rocks and roots as she tumbled down into the roiling maw below the bridge.
    Pain exploded through her skull as her head glanced off a rock and the glacial cold swallowed her body.
    Everything went instantly black.
    It didn’t go right. This would cost them. Perhaps he could still make it look like an accident. He got up, hurried to retrieve her sweater from the snag, dusted it off and laid it neatly on the rocks over the gorge. His bandanna was sticky with