Freeze Frame_a Snapshot novel Page 9

  I wash my hands, struggle back into my coat, and grab the massive pot taking up two burners on the stove, and carry it outside. Isla’s already greeting the guys and has hot coffee and bottles of water on the tables. Before long everyone is chowing down.

  “Anybody happen to know where I can get my hands on a Bernese Mountain dog?”

  Isla

  I haven’t said a word.

  Ben didn’t offer and I didn’t ask. Not when he brought up the subject of a dog, and not when the guys spent the rest of the meal discussing the drawbacks and merits of one dog breed versus another. He’d just winked at me, and although I should probably still feel a little left out of whatever he has going on in his mind, by the time the guys head back to work, I’m already getting used to the idea of a dog. So when he follows me inside to kiss me goodbye, and tells me he’ll explain later, I don’t make a fuss and just let him go.

  After cleaning dishes, getting rid of the garbage, and sorting the leftovers, I’m curled up on the couch with my laptop on my knees, Googling the hell out of the breed he mentioned. Big hairy beasts, but the puppies are adorable. They don’t stay small like that, though. My mind immediately starts working on a new idea for a series. Discovering the world through the eyes of a dog, or something like that. Images shot from a puppy’s eye level as it grows and learns. Furniture, trees, people, other creatures.

  I’m jotting down notes and ideas when a ping announces the arrival of a new email. Expecting one from Nate at SouthWest Printing, who was supposed to send me a quote on handling my online print orders, I quickly click on my mail server. Not from Nate.

  The email isn’t long, just a handful of words and a picture, but its impact is lasting.

  The image is of a boy, maybe eleven or twelve, with a shock of dark hair falling into his eyes, which are an eerily familiar ice blue color. The boy is smiling at the camera, his straight white teeth framed by full lips and a strong jaw, unusual for a child. It’s the caption that has me toss aside my laptop and rush into the bathroom, puking up my lunch in the small chemical toilet.

  -

  I hear the crunch of feet coming down the path to the dock.

  I’m not sure how long I’ve been out here, but daylight is almost gone and with it the temperature has dipped. I’m bundled up, though. The insulated sleeping bag has kept me mostly warm, except perhaps my face, even though I have my beanie pulled down over my eyebrows.

  “What are you doing out here?” Ben sounds curious and perhaps a little concerned, but I can’t bring myself to answer. Not even when he drops down beside me. “Pixie?” His gloved hand tilts my head his way and his eyes roam my face. “Are you upset about the dog? I should probably explain what brought that about; I should’ve probably done that before I threw you for a loop. It’s for Mak, and Stacie. Well, technically it’s not for Stacie, she doesn’t want a dog but Mak does, and I thought—”

  “Did you look at my laptop?” I cut him off, my voice raspy with cold. I’ve never heard Ben talk that fast before and I find it slightly unnerving. I can’t help but wonder if it’s guilt that has him ramble. The startled look on his face seems genuine, though.

  “Laptop? Why? Did I miss something?” He sounds sincere in his confusion. “Whatever it is, can we get out of the cold to deal with it?”

  My legs are stiff from being folded under me, for however long it’s been, and Ben’s hand shoots out to steady me.

  “What the fuck?” he bites off, noticing my involuntary flinch at his touch.

  “I...” I start to apologize but my head is such a mess, I can’t even find the right words. So I shake my head, pull the sleeping bag tight around me, and lead the way to the trailer.

  Once inside, I fold the sleeping bag, attempting to calm myself while buying time. But Ben doesn’t wait; he goes straight for the laptop, which is still lying where I tossed it on the couch. He sits down and perches the computer on his knees, while he pulls off his gloves with his strong, white teeth.

  Blowing some heat on one hand, he uses the other to open the laptop. I’m afraid to move and observe his reaction closely, looking for the truth in his face.

  “What the hell? Who is this kid?” he asks, looking up at me puzzled.

  “I was hoping you could tell me.” I try to be strong but my voice betrays me. Ben immediately looks back at the image, a little closer now; his eyebrows draw together.

  “Is this some kind of joke? Did you know he has a son?—is that kid supposed to be mine?”

  “Is it?” I counter, looking into his now angry eyes.

  “You think maybe I would’ve told you if I had a kid?” he snaps, before looking back at the screen. “This the same woman who wrote you before. I told you I don’t know any Julie Winton.”

  “What are you doing?” I ask when he starts two-finger typing furiously.

  “Getting to the bottom of this,” he growls when he’s done. He puts the laptop aside and pulls out his phone.

  “I have a favor to ask. I just forwarded two emails to you. They were sent to Isla. Can you see if you can find out where they’re coming from, and who the fuck that is? Much obliged.” Without another word he ends the call and tosses his phone on the table.

  Guilt is starting to eat at me when he throws me a look of disbelief. Is it possible I jumped to conclusions?

  “Ben...” I start, reaching out, but he pushes my hand away.

  “Not now, Isla. Not fucking now.”

  I watch as he grabs a couple of beers from the fridge, walks right by me, and heads outside, slamming the door shut behind him. The impact snaps something inside me, and for the first time this afternoon, I let the tears come.

  I’ve never felt anger like this from Ben before. The look on his face, like he’s almost disgusted to be in the same space with me. It hurts. Everything hurts.

  -

  I hear the squeak of the spring on the door.

  I’m not sure how long I’ve been lying here in the dark, but long enough to have my body shudder with every breath from all the crying. I kicked off my boots, and my pants at some point, and curled up on my side, the blankets coiled up around my ear.

  “Shit, Pixie,” I hear his deep voice say, full of regret, before I feel the mattress shift and his large warm body shape itself to mine. “Christ, baby. Don’t cry. You’re killing me.”

  Clearly that only makes me cry harder.

  “I was so mad you’d think I’d keep something like that from you, I didn’t stop to consider what it looked like from your side.” He slides his hand over my belly. “I’m sorry.”

  The softly whispered words trigger me to turn around and wrap myself around him.

  “That’s my line,” I tell him, still struggling to get my tears under control. “He just looks so much like you.”

  “I know,” he mumbles in my hair. “I don’t know what this is about, but I promise you, I’ll find out. That was Damian on the phone. He’s got a guy who’s good at this stuff.”

  Ben pushes up on his elbow, brushing aside the hair stuck to my wet face.

  “I’m sorry,” I offer when I notice the pained look on his face. “So much good stuff is happening, it’s been easy to lull myself into thinking I’ve processed it. Guess I haven’t,” I turn my face away, but Ben turns it back, his thumb stroking my cheek.

  “Wish I could make it easier, but I can’t. Trust me, though, that I would never do anything to make it more difficult. I have no secrets from you. I have no reason to lie to you, especially about something as major as having a kid.” He lies back down and pulls my head down on his shoulder. “We’re bound to run into rough spots here and there, right? We’ve just gotta trust we’ll struggle through together.”

  For a man who would get by using only the bare minimum of words needed, he sure has a way with them. Whether it’s the meaning of the words he uses, or the fact he’s taking the time to say them at all, I’m touched deeply.

  So deeply I don’t even try to stop as my feelings slip from my mo
uth.

  “Lying here, feeling your heat, hearing the steady beat of your heart—knowing I’ll get to wake up tomorrow morning to the same thing—it means everything. I want to freeze the moment, frame it, so whenever I get lost I can use it to find my way home.”

  “Jesus, Isla...” His voice is hoarse as his arms tighten around me.

  “I love you, Ben.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Ben

  I’d rather stay under the blankets with Isla a little longer, but the incessant buzzing of my phone, somewhere in the pile of clothes on the floor, compels me to get out.

  “Hang on,” I answer in a hushed voice, trying to pull up my jeans and yanking a sweater from the pile. Sticking my bare feet into boots and tagging my coat from the back of the door, I slip out of the trailer. Fuck, it’s freezing.

  A thin, shimmery layer of frost covers everything; the first strands of early morning light bouncing off it like silver. My breath comes out in thick cloud when I talk.

  “What’ve you got?” I ask Damian, whose name shows on my call display.

  “Jasper just had time to have a quick look at the image,” he says, referring to his tech guy. “It’s fake. The original picture is actually a stock photo, available on several sites, so that doesn’t help much.”

  “It looked more like a grainy snapshot,” I interject, remembering the substandard quality.

  “Made to look,” Damian corrects me. “The image was modified from the original. Eye color, jaw line, cheekbones. Jas was gonna send it to a friend of his, who knows more about image modification, while he gets on the email itself, but the guy won’t be able to get to it right away. I thought maybe your girl could have a closer look.”

  I curb my instinctive reaction to shut him down. Perhaps I should leave the decision to Isla, whether she wants to have a look or not.

  “Okay. Yeah, I’ll ask her. I’m more interested in figuring out who sent it, though. Obviously someone who knows me, but dammit, that could be a fucking long list of people.”

  “I’d focus on women. I know we can’t go by the name on the email, but this kind of thing screams disgruntled female to me.”

  “Only women, other than a handful of flings from my early twenties, were part of one or another undercover assignment. Part of the job. They wouldn’t even know my name.”

  “She wouldn’t need to,” Damian points out. “She clearly knows what you look like.” He’s right. And she knows it well enough to recognize me as a mostly shadowed figure in a picture. “It might help to try and remember some names,” he adds.

  The light flicks on in the trailer.

  “I’ll work on it. I’ve gotta go,” I tell Damian. “Appreciate the help. We’ll be in touch.” I end the call and head back to the warmth of the trailer.

  “Hey,” Isla greets from her favorite perch by the coffee machine when I step inside, quickly shutting the door behind me to keep out the cold. Instead of telling her, I walk right up in her space and show her how glad I am to see her. “God, you’re cold,” she mumbles against my lips.

  “We had frost overnight.” I shrug out of my coat and kick off my boots. Damn, I’ll be glad when we can move into the house. As much as I enjoy close quarters with Isla, this trailer is too damn small to hold big winter coats and boots for both of us. There’s no room to move.

  I drop down on the couch and catch Isla peeking through the small window over the sink.

  “It’s pretty,” she says, grabbing the cup she was hoarding from under the Keurig and bringing it to me.

  “Why do you do that?” I ask her, when I take the coffee from her. She looks at me puzzled, so I explain. “Every morning, you give me the first cup.” A small smile tugs at her mouth.

  “It makes me feel less guilty about disturbing your morning grump with my cheery disposition.”

  “Morning grump?” I growl, quickly setting my coffee on the table, before pulling her down on my lap.

  “You should see your face when someone says more than two words to you before you’ve had your coffee,” she teases. “It’s downright scary.”

  “You’re not scared,” I point out, tucking her head under my chin.

  “Nope,” she confirms. “But I was last night. Not that you’d ever hurt me,” she quickly adds, when she notices me freeze up at her words. “You were so angry, I was afraid maybe you’d leave.”

  “I’m here.”

  “I know,” she says, snuggling a little closer. “One of the last things my Aunt Kate told me was that if I kept my chin up and a smile on my face, troubles would bounce off. I’ve lived that, you know; the harder the hits, the bigger the smile.”

  “Hmmm,” I hum encouragingly, with my chin resting on her head.

  “First time I let down that shield was with you,” she says, putting a hand over my chest. I brace myself, because I know this, and I know what happened after.

  “And I lied to you,” I finish for her.

  “And you lied to me,” she confirms, wistfully. “I guess it was closer to the surface than I thought. Stupid, because I get why it was necessary, intellectually. Emotionally is clearly a whole different ball game.”

  “Anything happens, you come to me first. Okay?” I urge her. “Doesn’t fucking matter what it is, you come find me.” She tilts back her head and smiles up at me.

  “I will.” She pushes off my lap, bends over to give me a quick peck on the lips, and hands me my coffee, before turning back to the kitchen. “I need coffee.”

  So while she waits for hers to brew, I tell her about my conversation with Damian. By the time I’m ready to head up to the building site, she’s already completely immersed in Photoshop.

  -

  “Jim says the final electrical hookups can be done before the weekend,” I tell Isla, when I enter the trailer later that day.

  “Seriously? That’s amazing. Does that mean we can get in there and start painting?”

  “If we can get some space heaters going, then I guess. They still have to finish installing some of the plumbing hardware and hook up the furnace and air, but that won’t be done until the weekend. The guys have been pushing to get it signed off before Thanksgiving. They want to get home.”

  “I can’t blame them. They’ve been here virtually nonstop for the past month and a half,” she points out. “You know what that means, right?” Her face lights up and I can’t help smile back. “We need to go paint shopping.”

  She snickers when I dramatically roll my eyes.

  “Fine. Grab your coat; we’ll go now. Get it over with.”

  Isla slaps the lid down on her laptop and jumps up with a squeal.

  “Grab the color chips,” she waves her hand at the counter. “I’ve marked them all with sticky notes of what goes where.” I grab the binder and follow her as she bounces out the door.

  Like a kid.

  Isla

  I’m excited to go out.

  I spent most of the day cooped up inside, dividing my time between photo edits, my search for a Bernese Mountain dog, and trying to make some sense of the image of the boy. The first two were fun; the latter gave me a headache and filled me with foreboding.

  I’d found the stock image and used it as a guideline to lift off the segments that were altered on the emailed file. Eyes, hairline, lips and chin; those were different. I isolated them on a new layer, and pulled up a snapshot I took of Ben a while back. Just a quick picture taken one morning at the picnic table, but his face was fully turned to the camera. Then I started comparing details, and by the time I got to the eyes and found the same small gold fleck in the ice blue on the left side, I pretty much knew whoever it is used an actual picture of Ben.

  Looking for puppies was a pretty good distraction after that.

  “All set?” Ben asks, climbing in behind the wheel.

  “I’ve got them all,” I tell him, waving the paint chips in his face. “Every room, and all the sizes marked.”

  I’ve stayed away from the house for the most pa
rt, not wanting to get underfoot and maybe slowing things down, but I can’t wait to get in there and start doing something. Putting my own mark on it. I’m doing that with color.

  “Any luck with the picture?” Ben asks, as we pull on to the road.

  “Yeah. Some picture of you was used to alter the original. I created a separate file with all the parts; eyes, lips—the only thing that threw me was the chin, it was clean-shaven. When was the last time you shaved smooth?” Ben’s hand comes up as if by rote, scratching at the scruff he maintains there now.

  “Can’t remember off hand. I’ll think about it. We should probably send that file to Damian’s guy. See if he can do anything with it.”

  “Do you think we’re overreacting?” I ask carefully, but Ben still reacts sternly and instantly.

  “No. Absolutely not,” he says, his hand squeezing my leg to underscore his words. “First and most importantly, whatever the fuck is going on, they’re picking on you. I don’t like that.” I shouldn’t smile, but I can’t help myself, it’s cute when he gets all protective and growly. “Next thing to consider is that over the last twenty some years, I’ve not exactly made good friends in some levels of society. Someone may have decided to get some payback. You never know.”

  Well, that wipes the smile clear off my face. I don’t really have details on any of the work he’s done over the years, but judging by my involvement in his last undercover case, right here at the campground, it’s not without violence.

  “Oh.” The single syllable comes out on a sigh and I can feel Ben’s eyes on my profile.

  “Right,” he confirms, his hand finally easing up on my knee and now gently rubbing up and down my leg. “I’m not easy to find. We’re pretty much off the radar where we are,” he reassures me, but what he says raises another question.

  “Is that why you were so eager to build there?”

  He’s quiet at first, and when I look at him, his eyes are focused on the road but I can almost feel the wheels turning.

  “In part,” he finally admits, casting a quick glance my way. “Don’t get me wrong, anywhere with you would’ve been good for me. But when the opportunity came along to put down stakes right there on the mountain, I wasn’t gonna let any grass grow under my feet. Living in a trailer during the summer is easy. In the winter, not so much.”