Kate's Christmas

by Sarah Holman

  “Medical files and SAT,” Kim said, holding up her tablet. “I also found a WAIS.”

  Patrick cocked his head. “What?”

  Kate tried to smile, but she was sure that it was pretty pathetic due to her fatigue. “Stanford-Binet, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, third edition. What was his IQ?”

  Kim shook her head. “One forty-three.”

  Thomas whistled.

  “That’s high,” Patrick said.

  Kate smirked. “Do you even know what that means?”

  He yawned and crossed his arms. “Yes, he’s intelligent.”

  Kim and Kate exchanged a look.

  “Anything over a hundred and forty is considered a genius,” Kate said and then yawned.

  Kim waved at them as she yawned. “Stop, it’s contagious.”

  Crossing his arms, Thomas huffed. “I’m immune.”

  “To a genius intelligence or the yawning?” Patrick asked.

  Thomas rolled his eyes. “Don’t you start. I sent Brian off so that I wouldn’t have to deal with that.”

  “Another interesting fact,” Kim said, pouring hot water over a bag of green tea. “He paid for the testing himself five months ago.”

  “This is a game to him,” Patrick muttered.

  “I would umm…agree.”

  Kate lifted her gaze. Toby had just entered the room, looking fresh and bright-eyed compared to the weary group inside.

  “Glad you could join us,” Thomas said. “I need your instincts. Do you think that Calvin will guess we are onto him?”

  Toby pushed his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose. “Unless you slip up, I’m guessing he thinks he’s been too careful and smart.”

  “The camera seems like a pretty sloppy mistake to me,” Patrick said with another yawn.

  Kim elbowed him and tried to stifle her own yawn. “I told you to stop.”

  Clearing his throat, Toby spoke. “He may not be able to help it. While there are many theories to what causes yawning, I…uh…subscribe to the belief that it’s caused mostly by a reduction of oxygen levels in a room, which would make sense for the number of people who are in here.”

  Kate hid a smile behind her hand.

  Thomas looked as if he was about to yawn and then he shook himself. “The camera, as I said before, wasn’t very visible.”

  “And I’ve just finished going through the video footage of that camera,” Kim said. “This homeowner keeps film for a week, which is good. I caught two instances of Calvin jogging by the place. The second time he stopped and stretched. He had been casing the place.”

  “Most businesses and houses don’t store video feed for long,” Thomas picked up. “But we’re checking into every possible feed to see if we can place him at more bomb sites.”

  “We need to make sure this sticks.”

  Kate was surprised by the tone in Patrick’s voice. It was more angry than she was used to hearing.

  Kim leaned toward Toby. “The last bomber we apprehended got off.”

  Kim’s phone rang. “Hello?” She sprang to her feet and grabbed for her FBI jacket. “He’s on the move.”

  Darkness

  Sunday, December 6 3:20AM

  Patrick wondered if the plague of darkness in Exodus was like this. The sky was full of clouds and the streetlights felt dim. The tension was so thick it could be felt. Kate sat in the passenger seat doing an excellent job of watching without looking too obvious. Both of them were listening intently to the chatter on their earpieces. Every undercover cop car and government agency vehicle had been mobilized. They had been sitting on this back street for a while.

  Images of his parents and sister and a happy Christmas that wouldn’t be popped into his mind. He quickly pushed them away. A year ago, if he had been asked to give up a Christmas for Kate, he probably wouldn’t have. Even six months ago, he probably wouldn’t have considered it for long.

  “I want us to be friends. Not just when I feel like it, not just when I want it. I’m not good at friendship. There are things I don’t get about being a good friend. Will you give me a second chance?”

  “Of course you have another chance. I would very much like to be your friend.”

  Everything had changed at that point. He had been protective before, but when she had asked for a second chance, there had been a change. He didn’t want to just protect her, he wanted to defend her. If he could make her world perfect, he would.

  “He’s turned off into a neighborhood,” Brian’s voice came into the earpiece. “I can’t turn without looking suspicious.”

  “You have to turn,” Kim said. “There’s too many directions he could go.”

  “Sorry, too late.”

  There was a pause, then Kim’s voice returned. “All agents. We have lost visual contact.”

  Patrick looked at the glowing dot on their screen that showed the last known location, which had been near them.

  He turned and watched the cross street behind them.

  “There he is.” Kate tapped his shoulder.

  Patrick turned. “How is he over there?”

  “Probably went the wrong way down the alley.”

  Patrick started rolling forward and left his lights off. He didn’t want to argue with Kate, but he wasn’t convinced it was Calvin’s car. In this kind of darkness, all cars looked alike. He turned the corner and they had a brief moment before the car turned onto another street. Kate had already reported their sighting.

  After seeing the license plate, Patrick was sorry he had doubted her. He waited for two seconds, then switched on his lights and followed Calvin as he turned out of the neighborhood.

  “Do you think he is onto us?” Kate asked.

  He glanced over and saw her chewing on her lip. “He probably is checking out the area. However, he could be onto us, but let’s hope not.” He focused all his attention on the road. He had to follow without looking like he was following. He felt something on his arm and he glanced down. Kate’s hand gripped his arm. He turned his eyes to her.

  She glanced at him and then down at her hand and quickly withdrew it. If he were a betting man, he would bet ten dollars that a pretty pink blush was blooming on her cheeks. He smiled to himself, then quickly sobered. She was nervous, and he couldn’t blame her. Cases like this were disconcerting for anyone, but Kate had lived through bombings before. This had to strike close to hard memories.

  “If he continues on this road for another mile, there’s a stretch of road where there aren’t any buildings or pedestrian walks close by. I suggest we converge there,” Kim said, a blue dot appearing on the screen to indicate the location.

  “Attention all units,” Thomas said in a clear voice. “We need to make this happen. Two local cop cars are moving into position. We are going to try to make this look like a routine traffic stop. Brian and the blue team, block the entrance ramps and divert traffic off the main street. Let’s keep people from getting into this. Red team, start moving onto the side roads near our selected location in case he tries to run and so we can clear traffic. Yellow team, move in to back up the local cops.”

  “Thomas must hate that the local cops are moving in first,” Kate said softly, barely above a whisper, as if she thought Calvin might hear her if she spoke too loudly. Or perhaps she was struggling for breath.

  Patrick glanced over. Sure enough, her breathing was growing rapid and shallow. This was a horrible time. He reached over and touched her neck. Her head jerked in his direction.

  “What are…you…doing?” she asked, but her eyes slid shut. She must not have realized that she was at the beginning stages of a panic attack.

  “Breathe, Kate.”

  Her eyes remained closed and her lips started moving silently.

  Patrick turned his full attention to the task at hand. He wanted to be there for Kate, but his job came first. He kept his eyes focused on that car, praying it stayed on the road for a little bit longer.

  His own breath caught as a police car pulled onto the
road. Two other cars followed, probably undercover police cars. He watched and let out a breath when Calvin’s car didn’t pick up speed.

  Three. Two. One.

  The lights on the police car came on. Calvin’s car surged forward. Patrick floored the gas pedal and raced in front of Calvin. He jerked his car in front of him and then started braking. The two other cars blocked Calvin’s exit onto the other lane. Calvin veered into the grass. All the cars followed and came to a stop.

  “Patrick?” Kate reached out a hand.

  “Stay here!” he yelled even though he didn’t need to. He pulled out his gun and opened his door, keeping it as a shield between him and the other car.

  A chill ran up his spine as Calvin looked straight at him and then glanced back at the officer yelling for him to come out with his hands in the air. He looked back at Patrick with a blank expression and then he reached down.

  “No!” Patrick started to move forward.

  An explosion broke through all other sounds.

  “Patrick!” Kate screamed.

  For a heartbeat or two, Patrick watched, wondering if Calvin could have made it and if everyone was okay. He turned and looked directly into Kate’s panicked eyes. He closed his own for a brief moment. There was too much to take in. Officers surged forward, and Patrick moved back around the door and slid into his seat, his pulse racing.

  “It’s over, Kate.” He felt sick. A kid had just blown himself up. However, everyone else was okay.

  Kate looked at him, not seeming to grasp the truth. Her breathing was uneven and her eyes had that dazed expression.

  He couldn’t stand it. He reached over and pulled her into a hug. “It’s over, Kate, we’re all safe. You’re okay.”

  She punched him in the arm, hard. Not the response he was expecting.

  “I wasn’t worried about me, you idiot. I was worried about you.”

  He would have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so somber. “Calling me pet names now? We must be better friends than I thought.”

  She glared at him.

  “I’m just doing my job.” His job would leave him with images that would haunt him. Seeing Calvin looking back at him would probably keep him from having a good night of sleep for a week or two.

  She said nothing but nodded and worked to control her breathing.

  Patrick didn’t know what was going on, but her concern did something to him. It warmed him, it made him ache. It made him want to hug her, to tell her everything would be okay. It made him want to… There was too much jumbled up for him to identify. At the moment, he had to help with a crime scene.

  The Prayer

  Sunday, December 6 6:20PM

  Kate walked up the Okes’ driveway. Already several police and FBI vehicles were parked in front of the house. An agent walked past her with a box of papers toward a car. She stopped at a checkpoint and glanced around as the agents checked her identification. There were neighbors gawking and pointing. A news van had pulled onto the street just as she had driven up, and was stopped by the first checkpoint.

  She was waved on and she entered the house. Logan sat on the couch with Penny as a policewoman talked with her in calm, even tones. Mr. Oke clutched his wife’s hands, tears streaming down his face. The pastor sat beside him, offering silent support with a hand on his shoulder.

  A lump formed in Kate’s throat. She swallowed it and pushed into the kitchen. Janice stood, her hands braced against a counter, facing a window into the backyard. Her shoulders shook.

  “Janice?”

  She spun around, wiping at her eyes, but the tears were replaced as fast as she could wipe them away.

  “Calvin couldn’t have done this. That isn’t who he is!” Her face crumpled and she sobbed harder. She lifted her fisted hands as if to shield her face and collapsed onto the floor. Kate reached out and was able to steady her a little. Janice grabbed hold and cried against her.

  “No! No!” she cried over and over again.

  Kate couldn’t do anything. She held Janice and prayed silent prayers over her. After several minutes, she felt like she was supposed to pray aloud so that Janice could hear.

  She shifted on the hard tile and looked around. She hoped that Kim, Brian, or Patrick would be there to do it for her. Maybe the prompting was just her imagination. She hadn’t slept in…she didn’t know how long. On top of that, this morning had been traumatic, even though she hadn’t even seen the most gruesome parts. Patrick had carefully shielded her from seeing the worst.

  Here she was again. Another wrong choice had torn apart a family. This would be the worst Christmas for this family. There would be a gaping hole where Calvin should have been. There would be people threatening them, angry at them for what their son had done. Thomas had already mobilized security to protect them, and it was likely they would need to be relocated for their own protection.

  What was wrong with people? Didn’t they think about how their actions would affect those around them? Hadn’t Calvin thought at all what he would be doing to his family? What had led him to make bombs and blow up people?

  Had Jason Ashbury and Steve Norris ever thought their financial misconduct would lead them to attempt murder? In the end, all their efforts had hurt the very people they had been trying to help.

  Had Billy and Sharleen Adams ever thought the drugs they were running would cost them their lives?

  What about in Ashland? Surely Randell Stone hadn’t started out as someone who would lie, steal, and kidnap to get his hands on technology. Did he consider it could ruin his company or cost him his life?

  She sucked in a breath as another thought struck her:

  Had she ever thought about the consequences of not listening to the conviction that God had given her? No, she had signed up with the Army not thinking the consequence could be nightmares, panic attacks, and images that would always haunt her. No, she hadn’t thought that the nudge from God might be keeping her from lifelong consequences. She hadn’t thought ahead. And her consequences were not as dire as some others.

  “It wasn’t Calvin,” Janice whimpered and curled into a ball like a child.

  “Janice?”

  Kate glanced up and saw the pastor standing at the threshold of the kitchen. His eyes were red.

  “It was a mistake,” Janice wailed, struggling to her knees. “Calvin wouldn’t do this.” She tried to stand but sank back down to her knees as another sob shook her.

  The pastor sat on the floor. “Janice, I want to tell you what you want to hear. I can’t wrap my mind around it either. Calvin didn’t seem to be the kind of man to do this, but… Janice? It was him. I helped your father identify the body.”

  “No!” Janice shouted and then sobbed so hard Kate wondered if she could breathe. The pastor wrapped his hand around her as she wept.

  Kate felt that prompting again to pray, but she felt even less inclined to do so with the pastor sitting there.

  Again, her mind went back to the choices that each person made and the consequences. Didn’t they all start with smaller choices? Often the smaller choices weren’t so much doing something as not doing something.

  She took a deep breath and leaned forward and placed a hand on Janice’s shaking shoulder. For one moment she didn’t know what to say, but then the words started coming, even if they didn’t flow.

  “Dear Father, we come to you with…with broken hearts.” She would pray even if she felt like an idiot. “We think of Christmas as a time when only good and happy things are supposed to happen.” Great, now she sounded like a Hallmark movie promo. She took a breath and continued. “But we know that You came to earth during a time that was full of trouble to offer us a hope that there was something better to come. May our hope, may Janice’s hope, be in that greater hope that You came to offer. And…amen.”

  She pulled her hand back and felt silly. It shouldn’t be this hard to pray. Would Janice think her silly? Would the pastor find fault with her words?

  Janice looked at her and tried
to speak, but instead, she squeezed her hand for a brief moment. The look in her eyes told Kate that her prayer had been welcomed.

  There was a tap on her shoulder. Logan stood there and tilted her head toward the door. Kate looked at Janice, still on the kitchen floor. The pastor sitting, listening to her and being there. They had to go. The case was over, and yet it wasn’t. Again, the sins of others would have far-reaching, and lasting, consequences.

  Kate stood and followed Logan as they left the kitchen, but they turned and went through the laundry room, out into the garage, and entered a car in the alley. Kim was behind the wheel.

  “They just gave Calvin’s name to the public,” Kim said as she started the engine. “Of course, some of the media was tipped off by neighbors and they already made the connection, but it’s about to be a zoo out there.”

  “Will the family be okay?” Kate asked.

  Kim glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “What do you mean?” Her tone seemed harsh.

  Logan sniffed and scooted close to Kate. “The police and FBI will keep the media from getting to the family, unless the Okes want it.” She sent a glare to Kim. “You can be nice to Kate.”

  Kate’s gaze jumped from the window to Logan and then to Kim. She knew Kim was irritated at her, but she hadn’t expected Logan to get into the middle of it.

  Kim was silent. Kate couldn’t tell if it was out of remorse or because she disagreed, but it didn’t seem to really matter. Now that it was all over, she wasn’t sure which she wanted more: sleep, or to curl up and cry at the injustice of what Janice and her family were going through.

  All Wrapped Up

  Monday, December 7 11:15AM

  “Everyone get some sleep and food?” Thomas asked, meeting each team member’s eyes.

  Patrick nodded and glanced at everyone. No one looked like the sleep had been restful or they had tasted the food. Logan and Kate appeared to have suffered the most. He couldn’t blame them. Being with the family in the aftermath of such a crime was horrendous. Hopefully, this team could pull together and cheer them up.