On Thin Ice. Debra Brown Lee

them on the counter.” She hopped off the stool, strode past him and flipped on the overhead fluorescent lights. “Over there.”

      He set the samples down next to the scope, then turned to face her.

      “What do you want?”

      She’d been crying, and she hadn’t slept. He could tell from the dark circles under her red-rimmed eyes. Brown eyes. Pretty, he thought, for the second time that day.

      “I saw the samples outside and thought I’d give you a hand.”

      “Right. You saw them. All the way from camp, in this weather.” She crossed her arms over her chest, and arched a neatly plucked brow at him.

      She was smart as whip. Smart enough, he reminded himself, to commit murder and hide the evidence.

      “No,” he said. “I was out here already.”

      “For the second time today. Why?”

      She was right to challenge him. Typically the crew didn’t lurk around the geologist’s trailer. It was off-limits to them unless they were acting under specific orders. Especially if the well they were drilling was important.

      Data—especially rock samples with traces of oil—was the whole reason they were out here. Good geologists protected their data, and right now Lauren Fotheringay was glaring at him with all the mistrust of a grizzly protecting her threatened cubs.

      He needed to figure out how to reach her, how to get close to her, and fast. If he didn’t, he’d never discover if she was the one the Feds were after. Or if she’d had a hand in Paddy O’Connor’s murder. The medic had called it a drowning accident. Not a chance. No one drowned in a reserve pit.

      Seth decided to gamble and go for the truth. Part of it, at least. He had to get Lauren to trust him. If the truth failed, he’d try seduction. That always worked with women like her—cool corporate princesses out of their element, thrilled by a chance to drag the bottom for some rough company.

      “Okay,” he said, flashing his eyes at her. “So the rock samples were just an excuse. I really wanted to talk to you.”

      The gamble paid off, though he wasn’t sure if it was truth or the promise of seduction that roused her interest. All he knew was that her frosty stance softened, along with the hard look in her eyes. She nodded at the desk chair in the corner. “So talk.”

      He sloughed off his jacket, set his hard hat on the counter, but ignored her offer to sit. She watched him like a hawk. Every move. He recognized the music now. The Chieftains. He liked this particular cut, in fact. “Nice music,” he said, and risked a smile.

      Those warm brown eyes of hers instantly frosted over again. She snapped the CD player off and resumed her icy pose of a moment ago. “Paddy didn’t fall in that pit. And he didn’t drown. He was murdered.”

      Her plain statement of the facts caught him completely off guard. For a split second he read something in her eyes, in the way she unconsciously bit her lip, that unnerved him. A feminine sort of fragility he wasn’t prepared for. A moment later it vanished, and her features hardened.

      “You were out there,” she said.

      “So were you.”

      “You think I killed him?”

      “Didn’t you?”

      Her mouth dropped open. “You’re joking, right?”

      “Am I?” Now he was getting somewhere. He’d push her right to edge and see exactly what she was made of.

      “You’re insane. Get out.” She turned away and gripped the edge of the counter. He could tell by the way she wavered on her feet that she was exhausted.

      Sheer instinct drove him closer. Perhaps she was more of a mystery than he’d first suspected. He’d thought he had her figured out, but he wasn’t always good at reading people on first impressions.

      “What did you and Paddy talk about?”

      “Nothing. I left the camp to come out here and—” She spun toward him and shot him exactly the kind of condescending look his ex-wife had been famous for. “What business is it of yours?”

      “I’m a witness. I saw Paddy come out here to your trailer, myself.”

      “He did no such thing. After I left the camp I didn’t see him again until…” She looked away, her cheeks flushed.

      “I saw you with his body. You were—”

      “Trying to save him.”

      “That’s not what it looked like.”

      She pursed her lips and glared at him, deadly silent, her small hands fisted at her sides. He could tell from the fire in her eye that she was mentally counting to ten. He used the time to consider the facts.

      Paddy O’Connor had been in damned good shape for a man pushing up against the far side of sixty. Someone as petite as Lauren could never have muscled him into that reserve pit against his will.

      Seth hadn’t had the chance to check Paddy’s body for marks. He’d been too busy trying to revive him. Now it would be nearly impossible to confirm his suspicions. Wrapped in plastic sheeting, the body was sequestered away in the big freezer in the camp’s kitchen, which was open around the clock.

      Lauren could have hit him with something, right here in the privacy of her trailer. Could have knocked him out cold, dragged him to the pit, shielded by the weather, then drowned him.

      He glanced around the trailer at the neat stacks of papers, rock samples and supplies. Everything in order, neat as a pin. No blood. No signs of struggle, or obvious weapons in sight. Not even any mud on the floor, except for his own footprints. Lauren Fotheringay was either innocent, or very very good. Seth suspected the latter.

      “I think you’d better leave.” She turned her back on him and shut down the microscope she’d been using when he’d arrived.

      He wasn’t giving up that easily. He decided to try a different approach. “You knew Paddy pretty well, didn’t you?”

      “Yes, I did. He was…” She paused, and for a moment he thought she might not continue. “He was my father’s best friend.” She swept some glass slides into a drawer and slammed it shut, her back rigid.

      Four feet away he could feel her anger, and something more. A carefully shielded vulnerability evidenced by the way her hand shook as she again gripped the counter for support.

      Seth knew all about her father. Everyone here did. But he hadn’t known Paddy O’Connor had been Hatch Parker’s friend. The dossier Bledsoe had given him hadn’t included that fact.

      “I’m sorry,” he said, and on impulse stepped toward her.

      “That’s okay. I’m just…”

      He looked down at her from behind as her knuckles turned white clutching the counter. Her shoulders shook almost imperceptibly, then her ragged breathing seemed to stop altogether. With a shock he realized she was crying.

      “Hey, don’t.” Without thinking, he gripped her shoulders to steady her. By accident he grazed his lips across her hair, catching a whiff of herbal shampoo as he leaned down to whisper in her ear. “It’s okay.”

      A fierce sort of compassion welled inside him. That wasn’t good. He was a federal agent, for Christ’s sake. Well, an ex-federal agent. Still, he was a cop, and he had a job to do. He was supposed to be questioning a suspect, not comforting a weeping woman.

      She turned in his arms. As her feet twisted between his, she faltered and reached for him. He caught her up, and her arms snaked around his neck. A second later her face was buried in his chest. She worked to get a grip on herself, but gave up the fight as he gently massaged the tight muscles of her back.

      “It’s okay,” he whispered, again, and stroked her