Ice

ICE A continuing drought has set temperatures soaring in a fractured isolated community, where the arrival of CHRISTIAN, a battered and bruised stranger brings out the lies, deceits, deceptions and dangers once kept hidden and haul in diamonds for the victor. Among them is one solitary, determined voice, LAURA REGAN who is convinced that the drought will end, rain will come. It has to, as she constantly reminds SCAR, the alcoholic worker who sees all. In her late twenties, LAURA has already been served two eviction notices to quit the ranch she once ran with her husband. But since his suicide three months earlier and the circumstances surrounding his death, LAURA has found herself under suspicion. Not everyone believes it was suicide, he was after all much older than LAURA. The rumour was she was having an affair with Sheriff WILSON and a good few fingers have been pointing their way. Gossip has it she killed her husband with WILSON was suppressing the evidence, both waiting for a reasonable period of time to pass before becoming an item. Blackmailing her into staying with him is the price she will have to pay for his complicity. LAURA knows they couldn't be more wrong, she alone knows that the affair was between Wilson and her husband, retired bisexual city slicker. It was LAURA who has the power over WILSON. Even detective wannabe SHEILA who, like most others has her suspicions about WILSON, but SHEILA has her own priorities, like finding a way to get out of a backwater like Eden. But all other intrigue is put on hold when, first amnesia stranger Christian is found wandering in the scrub by Laura and taken back to her homestead. Concealed in his clothing she finds a cache of diamonds...and a Police Badge. The answer to all her money problems? or just the start of many more? Soon after MASON and HAYES, corrupt city cops turn up and start their own investigation. Searching as they are for a pair of murdering robbers. and the cache of diamonds. These two, working to their own agenda have little regard for anything, or anyone who gets in their way. They claim Christian, the amnesiac stranger hiding out with Laura CHRISTIAN is psychopath 'Taylor Baron', prepared to kill rather than share the spoils of a recent diamond heist. But WILSON doesn't trust or wholly believe the pair, once a city cop himself he is prepared to go along only so far with their investigation. And when WILSON discovers the body of a woman in a car wreck his suspicions about MASON and HAYES appear confirmed. Worse, the body is that of LUCY, also a cop, and SHEILA'S big sister. The relationship between LAURA and CHRISTIAN, starting as one of patient and carer develops into something more, something charged. But a sexual dependence brings its own complications, and recurring flashbacks from CHRISTIAN'S past make him edgy, particularly their contradictory nature. As the danger for LAURA and CHRISTIAN increases so their relationship blurs. Each knowing that the other has a goal, survival at any cost. WILSON suspects that LAURA knows more than she alludes and is playing a dangerous game with MASON and HAYES. CHRISTIAN'S returning memory brings back conflicting images; seeing himself as both a cop and a killer. It is a past he is afraid to remember. And then there is his relationship with the dead woman LUCY, a cop who worked with MASON and HAYES. WILSON finds himself unable to stay on the sidelines as he learns more about MASON and HAYES and the danger they pose. Too late CHRISTIAN has the final recollection, he is a cop, and every bit as corrupt as MASON and HAYES. He and LUCY had double-crossed MASON and HAYES after the robbery where all were involved. In fact LUCY was also double-crossing him and their arrival in Eden was no accident, SHEILA was the final piece to the puzzle where winner takes all, in this case the sisters. While in the middle of it all is LAURA, host to the missing Diamonds and a woman used to the struggle for survival in whatever form it takes. The climax is played out in an unforgiving climate as the drought ends and the rains come, changing the landscape and the lives of those caught up in a deluge that brings redemption for some, pain and death for others. And a fortune in Diamonds for the survivor. ICE © Clifton Stewart clifton_stewart@hotmail.com +44 (0) 7941 083096