{"id":4415,"date":"2026-01-04T00:24:33","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T00:24:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/broken-ice-goldman-matt\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T00:24:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T00:24:33","slug":"broken-ice-goldman-matt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/broken-ice-goldman-matt\/","title":{"rendered":"Broken Ice – Goldman, Matt"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Book Preview<\/h3>\n
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\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/span>1<\/span><\/p>\n

I saw Roger Engstrom three times\u2014the second two he was dead. But the first time he sat on a tufted leather chair in the Saint Paul Hotel\u2019s Harold Stassen Suite with a Yorkshire terrier on his lap. The dog was the result of neither intelligent design nor natural selection. Man created the Yorkshire terrier, and Man had made a terrible mistake. If your full-grown dog fits in a bag designed to carry keys and a wallet, it\u2019s not a dog you\u2019re toting around\u2014it\u2019s an accessory.<\/p>\n

Roger had curly blond hair threaded with silver, was tall and lean except for a soft belly that hung over his belt. He wore a navy long-sleeved polo tucked into khaki pants that rode up his legs revealing socks festooned with images of computer chips. <\/span>Duck boots covered his feet, protection from Minnesota\u2019s March slush.<\/p>\n

He scratched between the little creature\u2019s ears and said, \u201cThank you for seeing us on short notice, Nils.\u201d His voice was high-pitched and soft. \u201cThe Missing Persons unit of the St. Paul police are doing everything they can, but we know about your success in Duluth and then again last year in Edina. We hear you\u2019re the best there is, Nils. And our Linnea deserves the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roger referred to murder cases, not missing persons, but I kept that to myself. \u201cWhen did you first notice your daughter was missing?\u201d<\/p>\n

Roger looked to my right. His wife, Anne, sat on the loveseat beside me. I thought it strange Roger chose not to sit next to her but rather in the lone chair. It was his meeting, I supposed, and he was going to run it.<\/p>\n

Anne wore hiking boots, canvas work pants, and a plaid flannel shirt of reds and blues. She was dressed like a roofer but was far more feminine than her not-so-masculine husband. Her gray eyes looked out from behind oversize eyeglasses. The lenses were so big I worried birds would fly into them. She had shoulder-length chestnut hair with bangs that brushed the top of her glasses. Her hair color looked expensive and almost real.<\/p>\n

Anne said, \u201cLinnea\u2019s curfew was 11:00, but we fell asleep in the bedroom, so we don\u2019t know if she came back or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did she do last night?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe went to the hockey game. We all did. It\u2019s why most of Warroad is here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warroad, Minnesota, lies six miles south of the Canadian border. Its citizens and a few others refer to it as Hockeytown <\/span>USA, a deserved moniker considering the population is fewer than two thousand people, but no United States Olympic Hockey Team has won a gold medal without a player from Warroad on its roster. The tiny town has sent several players to the NHL and won four Minnesota State High School Hockey championships competing against Twin Cities\u2013area powerhouses and the hockey-centric Duluth schools.<\/p>\n

Anne said, \u201cLinnea sat in the student section with her friends. After the game, they all walked to dinner at Burger Moe\u2019s to celebrate the victory, and somewhere between the Xcel Center and the restaurant, Linnea disappeared.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo Linnea never made it to Burger Moe\u2019s?\u201d I said. Anne shook her head. \u201cThat\u2019s not even a two-block walk. No one noticed her leaving the group?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve spoken to Linnea\u2019s friends,\u201d said Roger. \u201cThey all said the same thing. She was there. Then she wasn\u2019t. There were over eighteen thousand fans last night and they all poured out of the arena at once. And no one saw anything unusual. That\u2019s why the police are treating Linnea as a runaway. That and she\u2019s still seventeen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut they\u2019re treating Haley Housh as a missing person,\u201d said Anne.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho\u2019s Haley Housh?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother senior from Warroad. She\u2019s missing, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anne relayed the information as if it were happenstance, as if she were talking about the weather or what they\u2019d eaten for lunch that day. \u201cWere Linnea and Haley together?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d said Anne. \u201cHaley and Linnea aren\u2019t close. They didn\u2019t sit near each other at the game, and Haley\u2019s group wasn\u2019t headed to Burger Moe\u2019s. All anyone knows is Haley disappeared from <\/span>the crowd outside the stadium like Linnea did. But Haley\u2019s eighteen, so they can\u2019t consider her a runaway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two girls from the tiny town of Warroad go missing at the same time. Only insular parents would believe that\u2019s a coincidence. The police wouldn\u2019t, and I sure as hell didn\u2019t. \u201cDo you have a picture of Linnea?\u201d<\/p>\n

Anne found a photo on her phone and handed it to me. If Anne had told me I was looking at a picture of her at seventeen, I would have believed her. The same chestnut hair. The same gray eyes. Only Linnea\u2019s were playful instead of resigned. Maybe more than playful. Maybe a little wicked. A girl with Linnea\u2019s looks would have an array of trouble offered to her. I turned toward Anne. \u201cDo you think Linnea ran away?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Anne said. \u201cLinnea\u2019s a happy girl. Popular in school. The only possible reason I can think she\u2019d run away is to take off with her boyfriend. But he\u2019s not going anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n

Anne looked at me with indifference or fatigue or perhaps numbness over her daughter\u2019s disappearance. \u201cLuca L\u00fc<\/span>dorf? He\u2019s Warroad\u2019s star player.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHave the police questioned Luca?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d said Roger. \u201cWe talked to him, too. He\u2019s devastated. He has no idea where Linnea could be. Hasn\u2019t heard a word from her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happens when you try her cell phone?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStraight to voice mail,\u201d said Roger. \u201cTexts don\u2019t register as delivered. And the police have had no luck tracking it.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a knock on the door. Roger got up to answer it.<\/p>\n

I lowered my voice and looked at the cold eyes under the chestnut bangs. \u201cHow long have you lived in Warroad?\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/span>\u201cFive years. We moved up from Minneapolis so Roger could start NorthTech.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roger opened the door. A tall man, nearly forty with blond hair and a boyish face, stood in a navy-blue suit he couldn\u2019t break the habit of wearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan I help you?\u201d said Roger.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry to bother you. I\u2019m a colleague of Nils\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course. Please come in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRoger and Anne,\u201d I said, \u201cthis is Anders Ellegaard. He works with me.\u201d I would have said works for me, but that\u2019s not how it is. If anything, it\u2019s the opposite. Before Ellegaard, I was on my own and worked out of my shitbox house and aged Volvo. But nine months ago, Ellegaard resigned from Edina PD and used his connections to secure start-up funding. Now we have an office downtown and a junior investigator and an assistant and, worst of all, a website. My life, as I knew it, went to hell the day Ellegaard leased us a copier. But I\u2019m making a steady living for the first time, have health insurance, and an IRA. And Ellegaard doesn\u2019t complain about me too often, so I try to keep my complaining about him to a minimum.<\/p>\n

Roger and Anne said a grave but pleasant hello to Ellegaard, then Ellie asked if he and I could talk in private. The Engstroms made a fuss about stepping into the bedroom, but I insisted Ellie and I leave the suite. We did and walked down the hall lined with silver room service trays piled with mostly eaten breakfasts, empty coffee cups, and spent napkins.<\/p>\n

When we were far from the Engstroms\u2019 eavesdropping range, Ellegaard said, \u201cHave you accepted the case?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot yet. Why? Did St. Paul PD turn up anything?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d He looked down, shook his head, then looked back <\/span>up. \u201cThe other kid, Haley Housh, they just found her body in a cave along the Mississippi River.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJesus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about to leak. Thought you\u2019d want to know before deciding on the Engstrom case.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnybody else in that cave?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. St. Paul PD\u2019s forensics people are setting up now to comb through it.\u201d Ellegaard and I stood in silence for a full minute. Then he said, \u201cToo tragic.\u201d I thought he might cry. \u201cI don\u2019t know, Shap. Maybe we should leave Linnea Engstrom to the police.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, I have three daughters. I can imagine all too well what the Engstroms are going through. But this smells like a runaway to me. If the kid doesn\u2019t want to be found, it will be hard to find her. Mostly likely, she\u2019ll come back when she\u2019s ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOr she\u2019s dead like Haley Housh. Or has been raped. Or drugged and kidnapped into trafficking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t do this, Shap. Don\u2019t make it seem like I don\u2019t care about a seventeen-year-old girl. That\u2019s malarkey and you know it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t say malarkey. That\u2019s not a word anymore.\u201d Ellegaard never swore. Or drank. Or jaywalked. He looked uneasy. I said, \u201cYou want to stick me on BrainiAcme.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a solid case, Nils. It\u2019s lucrative. It\u2019ll help build the firm\u2019s reputation.\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked up at Ellegaard\u2019s blue eyes\u2014they weren\u2019t ice blue or gray like Anne\u2019s\u2014they were blue like a baby\u2019s. The goodness in his veins must have preserved them that way. When he was a cop he could always be the good guy. You would\u2019ve never seen him on YouTube abusing his power. He wore a gold shield that <\/span>protected his moral code. Now he wore a businessman\u2019s getup, and his code was exposed and vulnerable. He needed me to help defend it. \u201cGive me a week on this, Ellie. If Linnea doesn\u2019t turn up by then, I\u2019ll work the BrainiAcme case.\u201d<\/p>\n

A maid pushed a cart of towels and toiletries toward us. We stepped aside so she could pass, and I helped myself to a sewing kit. You never know when you\u2019ll need one.<\/p>\n

Ellegaard said, \u201cAll right. What\u2019s your gut?\u201d<\/p>\n

I smiled at the tall man in the navy-blue suit, not because I had a gut feeling about Linnea Engstrom, but because Ellegaard asked for it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Book Preview \u00a0 1 I saw Roger Engstrom three times\u2014the second two he was dead. But the first time he sat on a tufted leather chair in the Saint Paul Hotel\u2019s Harold Stassen Suite with a Yorkshire terrier on his lap. The dog was the result of neither intelligent design nor natural selection. Man created … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[281],"class_list":["post-4415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-matt-goldman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}