Cold Justice: A Judge Willa Carson Mystery (The Hunt for Justice) by Diane Capri Page B

there had been snow on the road, the white Toyota would have been all but invisible. As it was, the blacktop beneath its wheels had provided enough contrast for me to see it. Thank God.
    George flipped on the Jeep’s flashers and unbuckled his seatbelt.
    “Where are you going?” I asked him, still checking to be sure I hadn’t broken any bones, trying to calm my heartbeat which was still pounding “Wipeout” in my head.
    Without answering, he opened the door and stepped out onto the center of the road. “George?”
    “I’ll be right back. The driver may be in trouble here,” he said, in what turned out to be the understatement of the century.

CHAPTER THREE

    We hadn’t seen another vehicle for a while, and leaving the Jeep in the middle of the travel lane didn’t seem wise. The snow wall on the right shoulder left us no choice. If another vehicle slammed into the Jeep, I didn’t want to be sitting inside it. Time to get out while I still could.
    After a couple of tries, I realized we were so close to the snow wall on the right that I couldn’t open the passenger door wide enough to exit. Swell.
    I wiggled around and lifted one long leg and ridiculously huge boot over the console in the middle of the Jeep’s front seat, straddling the gearshift for a few moments before I managed to get the other leg over.
    There are plenty of times when being almost six feet tall is a real handicap. Climbing around inside of vehicles while dressed like a Laplander was one of them.
    Eventually, I managed to get myself out through the driver’s side door and joined George where he was standing, stock still, at the Toyota. His gaze focused straight ahead.
    The first thing I noticed was the driver.
    A man. Thirty-five, maybe forty. Impossible to guess his height or weight because of his position and attire. He was dressed in heavy winter gear like we were, except his hands were bare of gloves and very pink with cold.
    His head was bowed and he slumped forward slightly, held in place by his seat belt. Maybe he’d had a heart attack or a stroke or something. Maybe he would be okay.
    Why wasn’t George trying to get into the car and help the guy?
    My gaze rested on the Toyota’s windows and I recognized the whole problem.
    Involuntarily, my breath sucked in with a vacuum-like roar in the silence.
    The driver’s side window was shattered but still in place. The passenger side window was blown out, but a few shards remained, covered with blood and flesh and bone. And gray matter that could only have been the driver’s brain. Some of the smaller grisly bits had already frosted over in icy crystals. The rest was probably embedded in the snow bank opposite where we stood.
    My joy in this magic world had shattered, too, just like the glass on the Toyota’s windows. Nerves hummed along my body unrelated to the frigid cold. Warnings I didn’t heed.
    The scene was surreal. A murder in the middle of nowhere, nobody around, the Toyota and its occupant blending with the pure sparkling snow but sticking out, too. Unmistakably murder.
    The area felt sinister to me now, menacing. I looked around for the shooter, even as I knew he was probably long gone. If he were nearby, watching, he’d wear camouflage to make him invisible. Either way, I didn’t see him. Which made things worse instead of better.
    I’d seen gunshot wounds to the head that weren’t fatal, but I could tell even from a distance that this wasn’t one of them. Still, to be sure, I opened the door, pulled off my glove, reached through and touched his cold and bright pink flesh above his carotid artery to confirm.
    He felt frozen, almost, which made me wonder how long he’d been sitting here, dead or alive. The interior of the Toyota smelled like blood and frost. Or maybe my imagination conjured those odors because as cold as he was, the smells should have already dissipated.
    I stepped back and re-gloved. The temperature was way too cold for unprotected flesh to be exposed