Cause to Fear (An Avery Black Mystery—Book 4)

PROLOGUE At thirty-nine years of age, Denice Napier could not remember a winter quite as cold as this one. While she had never really minded the cold, it was the bitter bite to the wind that unsettled her. She felt a gust sweep across the banks of the Charles River as she sat in a canvas chair, watching her kids skate, and she sucked in her breath. It was mid-January, and the temperature had barely broken double digits for the past week and a half. Her kids, more clever than she cared to admit, had known that such drastic temperatures meant that most sections of the Charles River would be frozen over completely. That was why she had gone into the garage and dug out the ice skates for the first time this winter. She laced them up, sharpened the blades, and packed three thermoses of hot cocoa—one for her and one for each of her kids. She watched them now, skating from bank to bank with the sort of reckless but beautiful speed only kids are capable of. The section they had come to, a straight but narrow section just through a strip of forest a mile and a half away from their home, was a complete sheet of ice. There was about twenty feet from bank to bank and then a wider expanse of about thirty feet or so that reached further out into the frigid river. Denice had clumsily gone onto the ice and set down little orange cones—the ones her kids sometimes used for soccer drills—to show them their borders. She watched them now—Sam, nine years old, and Stacy, twelve—laughing together and actually enjoying each other’s company. This was not something that happened very often so Denice was willing to put up with the bitter cold. There were a few other kids out, too. Denice knew a few of them but not well enough to strike up a conversation with their parents, who were also sitting on the bank. Most of the other kids on the ice were older, probably in eighth or ninth grade from what Denice could tell. There were three boys playing a very disorganized game of hockey and another little girl practicing a spin move. Denice checked her watch. She’d give her kids ten more minutes and then go home. Maybe they’d sit in front of the fireplace and watch something on Netflix. Maybe even one of those superhero movies that Sam was starting to like. Her thoughts were interrupted by a piercing scream. She looked out onto the ice and saw that Stacy had fallen down. She was screaming, her face looking down toward the ice. Every mother-based instinct raced through Denice in that moment. Broken leg, twisted ankle, concussion… She’d gone through just about every possible scenario by the time she raced down to the ice. She skidded and slipped as she made her way to Stacy. Sam had also skated over to her and was looking down at the ice, too. Only, Sam wasn’t screaming. He looked frozen, actually. “Stacy?” Denice asked, barely able to hear herself over Stacy’s screams. “Stacy, honey, what is it?” “Mom?” Sam said. “What…what is it?” Confused, Denice finally reached Stacy and dropped to her knees beside her. She looked to be unharmed. She stopped screaming once her mother was there with her but she was trembling now. She was also pointing to the ice and trying to open her mouth to say something. “Stacy, what’s the matter?” Then Denice saw the shape under the ice. It was a woman. Her face was a pale shade of blue and her eyes were opened wide. She stared up through the ice in a frozen state of terror. Blonde hair snaked this way and that from her skull, frozen in a position of disarray. The face that stared back up at her, all wide eyes and pale skin, would revisit her in her nightmares for months to come. But for now, all Denice could do was scream.