Read Online A Wicked Snow by Gregg Olsen - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Gregg Olsen
Tags: english
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answered, glad for the chance to calm her voice. "Is Amber over there?"
"No. Is everything all right?"
"I'm sure she's with her dad. Sorry. Got home late. A million things on my mind and I forgot to call Ethan."
She thought of the woman walking her dog. Maybe she'd come by again. Maybe this time, she took Amber from the day care. Setting the phone down, Hannah noticed the red eye of the answering machine blinking at her. She pushed the button.
"Four new messages," the auto voice intoned.
There were three hang ups, each one ratcheting her fear to a new level.
Not more. Not her?
Hannah felt the warm flow of tears down her cheeks as she strained to hear. The last call was Ethan's voice. In the background she could hear the sounds of a public place, the clatter of dishes. Maybe music.
"Hannah," he said, with an irritated tone that she barely knew, "I'm trying to be understanding. But this is too much. You have too much on your mind. Or something. Amber's with me. We're getting something to eat. You know if I'd have left our daughter waiting alone, you'd have filed for divorce. Pull yourself together."
Ethan was right, of course. He almost always was. At that moment, she hated him for his cool head. She was floundering; a big messy mix of worry and fear had consumed her and held her hostage. There is a moment of truth for everyone, and Hannah knew hers had been squandered long ago. But knowing this only made her sick to her stomach at what she'd done--what she had somehow allowed to happen. She'd heard Ethan talk about family members, mothers mostly, who'd done nothing to save their children from unspeakable horrors of men with damp, sticky fingers, probing under the covers. She'd seen cases of her own come through the lab--the fragments of lives interrupted before they'd begun. Hannah had a sixth sense about cases like that. The Rorschach of bloodstains on a sheet. The minute tear in a child's underpants. A man's pubic hair under a murder victim's broken nail. Each spoke to her in a loud and menacing voice. They told her the words she hadn't heeded when she could have.
Stop it. Only you can save them.
Chapter Nine
Hannah sat up and stared into the darkness. Ethan rolled away, as though moving to allow her space to get in and out of bed. But she sat there, still. Her breathing so labored, so slow, she could see her nightgown rise and fall like a malevolent tide. In her sudden lurch to awakening, the memories she had sought to hold deep inside flooded her consciousness. There was no escaping them. As the foggy memory of the worst of days came into sharper focus, the words played in her head like the backbeat to a song that refused to die. She turned to Ethan, afraid she was saying them in a voice loud enough to be heard.
I should have killed her myself, she thought. I should have killed her when I had the chance.
A partial memory played...
It was about half an hour before midnight when an unexpected noise outside converged with the chill of a snowy December night and woke Hannah. She was only a thirteen-year-old girl then, but even so, she held a kind of strength within her that kept her both caregiver to her brothers and unwitting confidant to a mother she had ceased really trusting. But that night, more than ever, something was wrong. Certainly, she could feel and taste Christmas. Yes, there was the anticipation of a morning of surprises. All of it. But whatever spell the season had held in years past was annihilated by voices outside. It was her mother and Marcus Wheaton. Their declarations and murmurs overlapped, and it took Hannah a minute or two to grasp what they were saying.
She heard her mother first. It sounded as if she was calling out from across the snowy driveway in front of the wreath maker's shed.
"Get moving! We have about ten minutes, and as you know, ten minutes is barely a breath of time to do anything right. If you can't do it, I'll take care of the boys myself."
Marcus said something, but
"No. Is everything all right?"
"I'm sure she's with her dad. Sorry. Got home late. A million things on my mind and I forgot to call Ethan."
She thought of the woman walking her dog. Maybe she'd come by again. Maybe this time, she took Amber from the day care. Setting the phone down, Hannah noticed the red eye of the answering machine blinking at her. She pushed the button.
"Four new messages," the auto voice intoned.
There were three hang ups, each one ratcheting her fear to a new level.
Not more. Not her?
Hannah felt the warm flow of tears down her cheeks as she strained to hear. The last call was Ethan's voice. In the background she could hear the sounds of a public place, the clatter of dishes. Maybe music.
"Hannah," he said, with an irritated tone that she barely knew, "I'm trying to be understanding. But this is too much. You have too much on your mind. Or something. Amber's with me. We're getting something to eat. You know if I'd have left our daughter waiting alone, you'd have filed for divorce. Pull yourself together."
Ethan was right, of course. He almost always was. At that moment, she hated him for his cool head. She was floundering; a big messy mix of worry and fear had consumed her and held her hostage. There is a moment of truth for everyone, and Hannah knew hers had been squandered long ago. But knowing this only made her sick to her stomach at what she'd done--what she had somehow allowed to happen. She'd heard Ethan talk about family members, mothers mostly, who'd done nothing to save their children from unspeakable horrors of men with damp, sticky fingers, probing under the covers. She'd seen cases of her own come through the lab--the fragments of lives interrupted before they'd begun. Hannah had a sixth sense about cases like that. The Rorschach of bloodstains on a sheet. The minute tear in a child's underpants. A man's pubic hair under a murder victim's broken nail. Each spoke to her in a loud and menacing voice. They told her the words she hadn't heeded when she could have.
Stop it. Only you can save them.
Chapter Nine
Hannah sat up and stared into the darkness. Ethan rolled away, as though moving to allow her space to get in and out of bed. But she sat there, still. Her breathing so labored, so slow, she could see her nightgown rise and fall like a malevolent tide. In her sudden lurch to awakening, the memories she had sought to hold deep inside flooded her consciousness. There was no escaping them. As the foggy memory of the worst of days came into sharper focus, the words played in her head like the backbeat to a song that refused to die. She turned to Ethan, afraid she was saying them in a voice loud enough to be heard.
I should have killed her myself, she thought. I should have killed her when I had the chance.
A partial memory played...
It was about half an hour before midnight when an unexpected noise outside converged with the chill of a snowy December night and woke Hannah. She was only a thirteen-year-old girl then, but even so, she held a kind of strength within her that kept her both caregiver to her brothers and unwitting confidant to a mother she had ceased really trusting. But that night, more than ever, something was wrong. Certainly, she could feel and taste Christmas. Yes, there was the anticipation of a morning of surprises. All of it. But whatever spell the season had held in years past was annihilated by voices outside. It was her mother and Marcus Wheaton. Their declarations and murmurs overlapped, and it took Hannah a minute or two to grasp what they were saying.
She heard her mother first. It sounded as if she was calling out from across the snowy driveway in front of the wreath maker's shed.
"Get moving! We have about ten minutes, and as you know, ten minutes is barely a breath of time to do anything right. If you can't do it, I'll take care of the boys myself."
Marcus said something, but
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