Jack Frost: Detective Jack Stratton Mystery Thriller Series

  JACK FROST

  A Detective Jack Stratton Novel

  Christopher Greyson

  Contents

  Also by Christopher Greyson

  1. Beware of Falling Rocks

  2. Alice Cries Foul

  3. Breathing Is a Must

  4. Not Worth Jack

  5. Homey

  6. Research

  7. Jack Rabbit

  8. A Trail Gone Cold

  9. All Charged Up

  10. Superfan Club

  11. White Flash

  12. An Unlikely Assistant

  13. Weather Jackpot

  14. Lying Eyes

  15. Business Is Booming

  16. Seeing Red

  17. Cookies Help

  18. Missing Madman

  19. Tent Trouble

  20. Complicated Colleagues

  21. Walkie-Talkie Trouble

  22. The Two-Headed Beast

  23. A Deliberate Act

  24. On the Fritz

  25. Something Special

  26. Leap of Faith

  27. Stunts, Lies, and Videotape

  28. Shelter or Bust

  29. A Big Deal

  30. Wind Walker

  31. Missing Footage

  32. Clogged Toilet

  33. Confused Accused

  34. A Violent World

  35. A Beast Outside

  36. Two-Headed Monster

  37. Night Watch

  38. Fire in the Hole

  39. Dereliction of Duty

  40. Powerless

  41. Target Practice

  42. Sitting Ducks

  43. Ghosts

  44. A Damsel in Distress

  45. Hide and Go Die

  46. Just Jack

  47. No Hanky-Panky

  48. Don’t Shoot the Messenger

  49. Tracks in the Snow

  50. Anyone Home?

  51. Divided We Fall

  52. Give Me a Name

  53. Into the Storm

  54. Vengeance

  55. Gone-dola

  56. Pull Over

  57. Chance

  58. I Didn’t Expect That

  59. Cliff-Hangers

  60. Hanging in the Balance

  61. Dead Weight

  62. The Winds of Tomorrow

  63. Grave Digger

  The Detective Jack Stratton Mystery-Thriller Series

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Christopher Greyson

  Novels featuring Jack Stratton in order:

  AND THEN SHE WAS GONE

  GIRL JACKED

  JACK KNIFED

  JACKS ARE WILD

  JACK AND THE GIANT KILLER

  DATA JACK

  JACK OF HEARTS

  JACK FROST

  Psychological Thriller

  THE GIRL WHO LIVED

  Epic Fantasy

  PURE OF HEART

  This book is dedicated to my son Christopher. Who, since he was a little boy, has been a wonderful example of how to act like a man.

  1

  Beware of Falling Rocks

  With his legs dangling forty-five feet above the floor of the indoor climbing gym and less than ten feet to go till he reached the top, Jack wasn’t about to stop now. He’d already scaled all the other courses today, and every muscle was burning, but this was the highest peak and the most advanced course, and he was determined to conquer it. He was going on assignment soon; he needed to shake the dust off his mountaineering skills or he was toast.

  Jack reached for the far climbing hold and grabbed it with his fingertips. His long legs swung out as he released his toehold. He hung by just his fingers, his body swinging above the mats below.

  He looked down at Alice, who had finished the last of the intermediate climbs and nervously watched him from the gym floor. “You’re getting a little high there, darling,” Alice called up to him. Since their engagement, she’d taken to calling him darling. Jack didn’t mind, though it seemed a bit old-fashioned. Pretty and petite, she looked all business in her climbing harness, her hands on her hips. She was still trying to figure out a way to go with him; he was sure of it. The way she fit with him and completed him, and wanted to be with him no matter what he was doing or where he was going, were only a couple of the astonishing things about his fiancée.

  But Alice wouldn’t be accompanying him on this assignment. Jack would be undercover and flying solo.

  He reached wide for a climbing hold and grabbed it. When he released his toehold, he hung by just his fingers until he found another cranny for his foot. He pulled himself higher, his sweaty body flat against the rough wall, but now he was stuck. The next hold was too far out for Jack to reach, even with his long arms. He should probably double back and take a different route to reach the top… but where was the fun in that?

  “Don’t!” Jack’s conscience and Alice called out at the same time.

  He didn’t listen to either of them.

  Instead Jack let go with his left hand, let his body swing back and forth, and flashed a quick grin at Alice before swinging himself toward the far-off grip and letting go completely.

  For a moment, he was suspended in midair fifty feet above the gym floor. It was as good as flying, and so was the thrill—he hadn’t realized he missed it so much.

  His left hand closed around the targeted climbing hold, but he was sweaty, and his fingers slid across the slick plastic. Then his pinky and ring finger slipped off altogether. Still, he managed to maintain his grip, if only with three fingers, which was far better than lying on the mat below in failure.

  One last climbing hold before the top. He’d have to rock back and forth to get near it. His sweaty hand was slipping.

  Alice gasped. The sound ripped through him like buckshot. Jack’s blood ran cold as a feeling he hadn’t known for a very long time sliced through him.

  Fear.

  And that was his critical mistake. Fear was his kryptonite. He lost concentration. His mind, at first focused solely on the next hold, leaped instead to thoughts of his future and everything he now had to lose. As if he were catching a glimpse of the life he wished for, his eyes opened wide, taking it all in: Alice, and all his plans and dreams.

  His fingers unfurled, and he fell like a stone, clawing the air for the climbing wall, just out of his reach, as he plummeted. Jack heard Alice scream his name, saw some people far below snapping to attention, and tried not to look at the thin mat forty feet below, which would do nothing to cushion his fall.

  He shot his feet straight out in front of him, as if he were sitting on a floor, arched his back, and propelled himself toward the wall. The last-ditch effort engaged the friction plate and cam on the belaying device, and he knew it had worked when the safety harness dug into his groin with a sudden jerk. He spun slowly like a watch on a chain as his belayer lowered him to the floor.

  “That was awesome, man,” the twenty-year-old fellow adrenaline junkie yelled. “You looked like freaking Batman, flying through the air!”

  Jack grinned.

  “You are not going to do anything like that ever again, Jack Stratton, or you’ll… I’ll…” Alice’s lip trembled, which was never a good sign. Her big green eyes blazed, but the fire went out as they welled up with tears.

  “Yeah, man. She’s right,” said the belayer. “You try that on the mountain, and dude, you’ll die.”

  2

  Alice Cries Foul

  Jack leaned back in his chair. “Do you know when I’m going on site?”

  “That question is at the top of my list
.”

  They were the first to arrive in the drab conference room. The long oak table had six chairs pulled up to it, but Jack didn’t know how many people would be attending. He poured himself and Alice each a glass of water from the pitcher in the center of the table, straightened his tie, and sat down again next to Alice, whose excessively good posture in front of her laptop screamed, I wish I were anywhere but here.

  It had been a bumpy ride since being forced out of the Darrington PD, but he’d come a long way. He didn’t love being a bounty hunter and private investigator as much as he had being a cop, but it paid the bills. And when this opportunity came along to provide undercover security and do some investigation—with a little extra risk thrown in—he didn’t hesitate.

  Alice was clacking away, completely engrossed, and biting her lower lip, a sure sign she was nervous. This meeting was important to both of them; it would be their first big insurance investigation, and they wanted to get it right.

  He leaned close and whispered, “We’re going to nail this, don’t worry. You’re locked and loaded.” He nuzzled her neck and drank in the sweet lilac scent of her favorite perfume.

  She let out the breath she’d been holding and nudged him with her shoulder. “Get serious, Jack. They’ll be coming in any second.”

  Their relationship had had its bumps, too, from knowing each other when she was just a kid in foster care at Aunt Haddie’s, to Jack’s taking her in as a tenant, to their becoming investigative partners, and now… engaged to be married, but they were working on building a new, wonderful life together. This new insurance niche could provide steady work and a solid foundation to build their dreams on.

  The case was interesting. Jack would be working undercover on the set of the hit show Planet Survival. An accidental death had occurred during filming a year ago, and it had recently been followed by a threat on the lives of the remaining crew. There was no concrete link between the two events… but that was part of what the show’s insurance company wanted Jack to find out.

  He had to admit he was intrigued by the idea of being on the set of a TV show, especially a big production like this. Planet Survival was the leading program in the “competitive reality survival” category. Contestants risked life and limb battling with each other for a spot in the next episode. The contestants’ only goal was to survive—both the competition and the hazards of nature. And that was the appeal of the show, really. The competitions were deliberately dangerous and harrowing to watch. Viewers at home couldn’t get enough of these brave—and slightly crazy—contestants going head-to-head. Each of the show’s seven seasons so far had been filmed in a different exotic locale, from remote tropical islands to treacherous frozen mountains. Most slunk home after defeat, but more than a few had ended up in the hospital. The one person who survived would get a boatload of cash, endorsements, and the coveted title of Supreme Planet Survivalist.

  And despite the dangers inherent in filming a show like this, Planet Survival had managed to accumulate success and dodge tragedy for its entire run—until now. After the accidental death of a crew member, production had been halted mid-season, for the first time in the show’s history.

  By the time they’d gotten the go-ahead to resume filming, winter was over, and they’d had to wait to start production again. Which led to them being here today.

  The door opened, and Brian Strickland entered. As the son of the owner of the insurance company, Brian was the heir apparent. He’d just been promoted to acting vice president, and he seemed as eager as Jack to make sure this deal ran smoothly. Jack and Alice had spoken with Brian several times over the phone, but this was their first time meeting in person. He was short, with a bushy mustache, a comb-over, and a thousand-dollar suit. He held the door open for an attractive black woman, who glanced down at her watch and frowned as she entered.

  Jack rose from his chair and extended a hand across the table. “Good morning. I’m Jack Stratton, and this is my business partner, Alice Campbell.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Stratton.” The woman shook Jack’s hand and then Alice’s. “Leah Coleman. I’m the executive producer of Planet Survival. Call me Leah.”

  Her conservative black jacket and slacks would have fit in well at any Fortune 500 company, but Jack felt, along with the strength of her grip, some hardworking calluses. Simple diamond stud earrings complemented her subtle champagne eye shadow, dark eyes, and deep-brown skin. She wore her black hair short. And she smelled as expensive as she looked. Chanel No. 5.

  Brian ran a hand over his head to make sure his hair was still shellacked in place. “Since Planet Survival is the biggest policy McAlister Insurance has ever written, we’ve assigned Alice and Jack to your policy, Ms.—ahh, Leah. They’re our best investigators.”

  Leah looked from Jack to Alice then back to Jack, sizing them up.

  Jack pressed his knuckles against the table. He hated lies. The only reason he and Alice were the company’s best investigators was because they were the company’s only investigators. And, to be honest, this was their very first job for McAlister. Then there was their youth, which had to add to Leah’s skepticism. Though people always assumed he was older, Jack was only twenty-seven, and no one meeting twenty-two-year-old Alice for the first time could possibly guess how seasoned and tough she was. But they needed this job; the trick was to make hunger look more like determination than desperation.

  Brian took a seat at the head of the table. “Well, shall we begin?”

  The others sat as well, and Leah set her coffee down. “Confidentiality is paramount, given the show’s renowned success and the special circumstances surrounding this very unfortunate accident. They’ve both signed the nondisclosures?”

  Brian turned as white as a ghost, and began blinking as if sending a distress signal to a passing ship. A few more seconds passed while he cleared his throat and rifled through his papers.

  “We signed all thirty-seven pages,” Jack assured her.

  Alice added, “We understand completely. Privacy is a core value of our organization—a cornerstone of our business.”

  “We’ve taken a number of steps to preserve your anonymity,” Brian said. “The papers all reference Blue Stone, LLC, and there’s no mention of Planet Survival or any of its affiliates.”

  Leah folded her hands neatly on the table. “And those steps are greatly appreciated. But I still don’t understand this latest request for additional security. We run a completely closed set. We resumed taping four days ago, and everything’s running smoothly, except for the fact that while I’m here, my show is going on four thousand feet above us without me.”

  Brian held up his hands in a gesture of apology. “I appreciate that this presents an additional burden on your production, but I think it’s called for.” He picked up a remote, the lights dimmed, and the television on the wall behind him came to life. “This is the note that was pinned to your lodge door.”

  A handwritten note was projected onto the screen. The blue letters were boxy and easy to read:

  THE WRATH OF THE MOUNT MINUIT IS UPON YOU INVADERS. ONE LIFE WAS REQUIRED FOR YOUR DESECRATION LAST YEAR. HOW DARE YOU RETURN TO THIS SACRED LAND!! LEAVE NOW OR YOU NEVER WILL, AND KANIEHTIIO MOUNTAIN WILL BE KNOWN AS ONEKWENHSA MOUNTAIN!!

  “Alice did some research and identified those names as Native American. Iroquois, to be exact,” Brian said. “The last line translates to ‘If you don’t leave now, the snow mountain will be called blood mountain.’ It’s a direct threat against the ‘invaders’—which clearly refers to Planet Survival’s production team and cast. Due to the substantial insurance policy that my company is carrying, I must insist that additional security measures be taken to ensure the safety of those insured.”

  And your investment, Jack wanted to add, but he kept his mouth closed.

  “We talked about this, Brian,” Leah said. “We agreed that on-site security would be too disruptive to the show.”

  Brian smiled. “That’s why I propose that th
e security go undercover. They’ll pose as a new crew hire.”

  “The crew is bare-bones. It’s part of Planet Survival’s allure. I don’t know how anyone you add would be able to blend in.” She tipped her head toward Jack and Alice. “And adding two people is completely impossible.”

  “We’re not looking for two slots, just one. Jack is ex-military, with stellar mountaineering skills.” Jack hoped that wasn’t another lie on Brian’s part. “He has the rappelling and climbing experience necessary for this detail. I’m sure you can figure out some job he can legitimately do without letting on what he’s actually doing,” Brian said, seemingly pleased with himself.

  Alice turned to Leah. “Actually, I think it would be a great idea if both Jack and I were on set.”

  “Impossible.” Leah crossed her arms. “I’m struggling to think of a plausible role for Jack.”

  Brian opened a folder and put his hand down on the thick stack of papers inside. “In the spirit of open communication, let me reiterate that the policy does contain an observation clause. This is not a request; it’s a requirement for coverage.”

  Leah eyed Brian for several moments, like a poker player assessing the table. Then she folded her cards and spoke. “When would this observation start?”

  Brian turned to Jack. “How soon can you be ready?”

  “I’m packed and ready to go,” Jack said.

  Leah held up a hand. “Slow down. Getting a waiver through the union will take some time.” She took a sip of coffee, hiding a faint smile behind the rim of the cup. “At least a few weeks.”

  “I already checked on that,” Alice jumped in. “You can use the ‘local contractor’ clause of the contract and hire us as nonspecialist local contractors. You won’t need a waiver.” She glanced at Brian. “Jack and I are a team. We can work something out.” Jack backed his partner up with a nod.

  Leah pointed at the policy. “The policy states ‘observer.’ One. I don’t care who, but there will only be one.” The muscles in her delicate jaw tightened as she clenched her teeth.