Cold Fear by Brandon Webb & John David Mann

Author:Brandon Webb & John David Mann [Webb, Brandon & Mann, John David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2022-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

46

The three rode up the elevator in total silence. The only words exchanged between them so far had been a single sentence, spoken by Krista upon being introduced to them out by the side of the hotel:

“We should talk inside.”

Now she stood between the two, all three mutely facing the elevator doors as they rose. That she had placed herself between them was not an accident; she preferred to keep them as isolated as possible.

A trained observer could of course pick up reams of information from the way a person spoke, the words they chose, the topics they plunged into and those they avoided, the pacing and tone of their speech, the cant of their head, the look in their eyes, all this and more.

But there were things to be learned from people’s silence, too. In some ways, more revealing. Particularly with foreigners. Icelanders were by nature experts in silence. Americans, and to a lesser extent Europeans, found silence uncomfortable and would invariably rush to fill it.

Not these two.

On the outside, the dead man’s two friends were horrified, in shock, just beginning their long slide into what would become a deep lagoon of grief. At least that was what their exterior conveyed.

Yet they betrayed none of the typical signals of extreme stress—the uneasy shifting of position, the dry-swallowing, the ragged, uneven breathing. None of it. They were, as Einar might put it, cool as cucumbers.

An officer stood sentry outside the door, standing straighter as they approached from down the hallway. Placed there by the ever-eager Jón, no doubt. (Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.) Krista dismissed him with a nod and ushered the two Americans into their own suite.

With another nod, she indicated that they should proceed through to the living room area for their interview. She put the two side by side in the two-seater couch, their backs to the windows, and placed herself facing them in one of the room’s café chairs, putting her seat a good three inches higher than theirs.

Now she took a moment to look at them. The handsome smug one and the wily-looking one with the pinched features.

She strapped on a smile.

“So,” she said. “Let’s start from the top. What exactly are you doing here in Iceland?”

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