“We both know you won’t.”

She wanted to argue, but there was no time. She tried to ignore the uneasiness slinking over her, grappled for the last remnants of a trust that had been shattered time and time again. But there was something in those familiar eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“I have to go,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“I love you.” Another step. Close enough to touch. Too close. “Please don’t go.”

A flash of resolve. A stab of regret. Spinning, she skidded down the bank, launched herself into a dead run across the lake.

“Wait!”

She didn’t dare slow down. A few yards out, she slipped, fell hard on her belly. Snow against her face, in her mouth. Ice groaning from the impact. A split second and she was back on her feet. She ran for fifty yards. Arms pumping. Boots sliding. Eyes flicking toward the bank behind her. No one there. But where?

She continued across the lake. Slower now. Ice creaking beneath her feet. Nearly to the center. Not much farther.

A sickening crack! reverberated across the ice. Water sloshed over the tops of her boots. Slush beneath her feet. The realization of a mistake. Another step and the ice crumbled. A trapdoor swallowing her feet first and sucking her down. The shock of cold burned like fire against her skin. She spread her arms, hands slapping against the ice. But the momentum dragged her down, plunging her into freezing blackness. Water closed over her face. Cold ripped the breath from her lungs.

Darkness and panic and underwater silence. On instinct, she kicked her feet. Paddled with her hands. She was a strong swimmer, had swam the length of this lake a dozen times last summer. Her face broke the surface. She sucked in a single breath. Chest too tight. Bottomless cold beneath her.

Sputtering, she reached for the jagged edge of the ice, gripped it with gloved hands and tried to pull herself out of the water. Her shoulders cleared, but the ice broke off in her hands, plunging her back in. Her boots were filled with water. Using her right foot, she toed off the left boot. One foot bare. Body quaking with cold. She could still make it …

Kicking hard, she grabbed the edge of the ice, tried to heave her body from the water. Again, the ice crumbled, sending her back into the water. No, she thought. No! Another wild grab. The ice was solid this time. A scream tore from her throat as she heaved herself upward, but her coat was waterlogged. She wasn’t strong enough to pull herself out.

“No…” She’d intended to scream, but the word was little more than a kitten’s mewl.

For the first time it occurred to her that she might have to abandon her plan. The thought of failure outraged her. After all the preparation, the hope and planning, after seeing to every detail, she was going to drown in this stinking fucking lake like some dumb animal that had wandered onto thin ice.