Frozen Stiff Read Online Free Page B

midnight.”
    “Sometimes guys don’t think like that.”
    “I guess.”
    “Let him know how you feel.”
    Meg remembered how it had been when she and Curt had started going out. He could read her mind. He always knew what she wanted. It had been kinda scary. “I don’t want to have to tell him. He used to just know these things.”
    “He’s not a mind reader.”
    “I want it to be like before, when we could sit and talk for hours. I don’t feel like Curt has any time for me anymore. Like last night, all he wanted to do was play Wii with Andy. I mean, it’s fun. I like doing it too, but not the whole night. Then when Andy takes off, it’s like the night’s over for Curt. He’s bummed. Just wants to go home.”
    “Sometimes you can’t leave it to chance. You have to be very clear with guys. Tell him what you want.”
    “I guess.”
    “Like your mom last night. She asked me to marry her.”
    “For real?” Meg squealed.
    Rich gave his cute crooked smile and nodded.
    Meg imagined her mother in a big white wedding dress. She would be beautiful. Meg could see herself in the perfect bridesmaid’s dress with Curt by her side. “When’s the wedding? I’ve been waiting forever. It’s about time.”
    “Not so fast. I told her I’d have to think about it.”
    “Not really. You’re just teasing, right?”
    “Hey, I’ve waited years. She can wait a few days for my answer.”
    Meg ran around the table and hugged Rich from behind. “Can I be your best girl?”
    “You are my best girl.”
    New Year’s Day: 11 am
    Something shattered inside of Amy as she sat watching the EMTs carry a bundled Daniel Walker into the ambulance. Gary and Ted lifted the sling carrying the swaddled body gently into the back of the vehicle. What if Claire hadn’t come to check out the scene? What if Amy had just left him buried in the snow, thinking he was dead?
    “Gently, gently. I know you know this, but,” Claire said, not wanting to step on any toes, “in cases of hypothermia, anything drastic can trigger cardiac arrest.”
    Amy stood by the front door and watched, thinking, I would have let him die. I didn’t check him closely enough. I assumed. His death would have been all my fault. I might never even have known that he had still been alive. For some reason, that her mistake might have gone unnoticed made it all the more horrific.
    Claire came up next to her and said, “I’ll take Sherri. I don’t want her left alone, especially not in the house right now. We’ll need to come back here no matter what happens.”
    “What do you think happened to him?”
    “No way to know right now. We’ll treat the house as a crime scene until we know otherwise.”
    Amy would have left him in the snow to die. She would have been responsible for his death. When she had watched Claire lean over the frozen man and put her head to his chest, she had held her breath, thinking, what if he were still alive? How could that even be possible?
    Amy followed behind the ambulance as it screamed down the ice-covered roads, all she could think was what would have happened if Claire hadn’t come.
    I don’t know enough, Amy thought. I think I’ve learned so much and then something like this happens and I realize I know so very little. Daniel Walker would have died if it had been left up to me.

CHAPTER 4
    12:00 pm
    S herri watched as the doctor and the two EMTs slid Dan’s stiff, contorted body onto a plastic mattress in the ICU. They had explained that it was filled with warm water that re-circulated. As they started to attach electrodes to his body the doctor asked her to leave the room.
    “But he’s my husband.”
    An older nurse took her by the shoulders and walked her to the door. “We need to work on him and we don’t need any extra people in the room. We’ll come and talk to you in a few minutes.”
    The two women deputies were sitting right outside the door. They both looked up as Sherri walked out into the hallway.
    “They’re