by Elise Noble
“Now, now, don’t be nosy.” I smiled as I elbowed Dan in the side. “Slippers are fine. We can pick them up tomorrow. You know how much we both love shopping.”
Dan cut me a “WTF” look because if shopping wasn’t my absolute least favourite activity, it was certainly in the bottom ten.
“Everyone deserves to have their wishes come true at Christmas, and if we can help you to find your sister, then we will. When did you last see her?”
A groan slipped out. Dan had been spending too much time with Bradley, hadn’t she? His bloody Christmas cheer was rubbing off on her. Dammit, that meant I’d have to go to the next Project Mistletoe update meeting, if for no other reason than to stop Dan from succumbing to the Yuletide equivalent of Stockholm syndrome.
Gwendolyn reached out a bony hand and patted Dan on the arm. “That’s sweet of you, but I haven’t seen her since I was two or three years old, apart from in my memories. And sometimes, I’m not even sure that they are memories. They’re more like dreams.” She turned to José. “Perhaps you could get that coffee for our visitors? And a plate of those sugar cookies?”
“But—”
“I’m absolutely fine, José.”
He didn’t look as if he believed her, but he did back out of the door. When his footsteps had gone quiet, Gwendolyn sighed.
“Bless that boy, he does worry.”
I tried one last time. “We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to.”
“Sometimes, it helps. There’s heartache, but it helps.”
Dan dragged a chair over and took a seat next to Gwendolyn. Uh-oh.
“If you want to take a break, you only have to say.”
“There’s really not much to tell. Just that I have parts of my life I can’t explain. I was abandoned as a young girl, left on the altar in a church, and I was sick, real sick. The doctors thought I wasn’t going to make it, and even now, my health still gives me trouble. My bones. They break too easily.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, dear. My adoptive parents were wonderful, and I had thirty-two good years with my Dirk, God rest his soul.”
“But you still miss your sister? Can you remember her name?”
Gwendolyn shook her head. “I’m not sure I ever knew it. But I have dreams—nightmares—that I’m locked in a dark room, and sometimes, there’s a baby lying next to me. A baby girl, and once or twice, a woman singing too. And I think… I think maybe that’s where I used to live.”
Wow. That wasn’t creepy at all.
“Did the police try searching for your birth family?” Dan asked.
“Oh, yes. They even appealed on the television. But nobody ever came forward. When I was young, I pushed it to the back of my mind, but now… More and more often, I find myself wondering what happened.”
Keep your mind occupied, and there wasn’t much space for unwanted thoughts. Take a break, and the demons ran wild. It made perfect sense. But although I understood where Gwendolyn was coming from, it didn’t change the fact that she was talking about a sixty-year-old mystery, and I was so busy right now with work that I barely had time to brush my damn teeth.
“Such a shame they had no luck. What size are your feet?”
Dan glared at me. “We’ll see what we can do. No promises, but I’m a private investigator and occasionally reviews of cold cases can throw up surprises.”
Gwendolyn beamed at her. “Really? You will? That’s very kind of you, sweetie pie. I always wished I could hire somebody, but money’s tight. The fees here… After I broke my hip again, I didn’t feel confident living alone.”
“Appletree Acres seems like a nice place.”
“Oh, it is. We have three lounges, a bowling lawn, and a weekly poker game. And nothing’s ever too much trouble for the staff. They even sneak doobies in for Mavis Hemingway.”
Pot and poker? Good grief.
“Speaking of the staff, can you tell us about José?” I asked. “He put in a Christmas request too.”
“José doesn’t touch the doobies, but he always brings me candied fruit.”
“I’m curious about his father. He said he wanted to hug him at Christmas, and we were wondering whether…uh, how should I put this…? José seemed a little sensitive when we mentioned your sister earlier, and we wouldn’t want to upset him by broaching a subject he doesn’t want to discuss.”
Gwendolyn lowered her voice to a whisper. “That’s probably for the best. José’s father is in Petersburg prison.”
This just got better and better.
“Does José visit?”
“Every week, but no visitors are allowed on Christmas Day. José chooses to work instead, but he always looks so downcast on what should be the happiest day of the year.”
“Do you know why his father’s in prison?” Dan asked.
“José doesn’t talk about it much, but I think it was drugs. Such a shame.”
Indeed it was. And now I had to find a way to convince the warden at FCI Petersburg to bend the rules and allow a Christmas visit. I didn’t know the man. Or woman? Honestly, I had no idea. No favours owing either. Shit.
The soft tread of rubber-soled shoes on tile heralded José’s return, and I conjured up a wan smile as he handed me a mug of coffee. Next year, I’d give in and let Bradley run riot at Riverley again. Even the pet turkeys were easier to deal with than this.
CHAPTER 7
“WHY DIDN’T YOU stick with the slippers?” I grumbled as we approached Crossroads. “Gwendolyn would have been perfectly happy with a pair of moccasins.”
Dan and I had fortified ourselves with coffee and more donuts, and I’d turned the car’s heater up as high as it would go. Even so, I still couldn’t feel my toes properly. I took another sip of my latte in an effort to warm myself up from the inside out.
“Aren’t you curious?” Dan asked.
“Not curious enough to give up sleep for the whole of December.”
“I’ll just take a quick look. See if I can get hold of the files, review the newspaper clippings, that sort of thing.”
“How? We’re talking sixty years ago. The newspapers’ll be on bloody microfilm, I bet you.”
“Maybe the Alaska office can help?”
When Dan said “Alaska office,” she was talking about our training facility. Five thousand acres of prime wilderness we’d bought two years ago. We ran survival courses and incident simulations for corporate types and other security firms, plus the sadists on staff came up with tougher challenges for our own people.
“They don’t even have an investigator on staff.”
“Surely they could send someone to the library? An admin assistant or something.”
“Gwendolyn didn’t even tell me what size her feet were.”
“She takes a six.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I put my foot next to hers, and they were the same length.”
Now do you see why Dan was the investigator and I was the assassin? I wasn’t even sure I knew my own shoe size.
“Show off. Bet it’s not so easy to find the sister.” The sign for Crossroads came up on the left, and I signalled to turn. How difficult would task number four be? “Do you think there even is a sister? I definitely don’t have time to hunt for a relative who doesn’t exist. I mean, I have to bribe my way into a federal fucking prison on the one day nobody wants to work. Well, José’s way. Do you know anyone who works at FCI Petersburg?”
“No, I— What the…?”
I slammed on the brakes as an SUV shot out of the driveway without slowing.
My first thought? Asshole.
My second thought? Hmm, that woman in the passenger seat looks really bloody scared.
My third thought? I don’t have time for a fucking car chase either.
But what choice did I have? A man driving a terrified woman out of a domestic violence refuge at speed—if there was an innocent explanation, I couldn’t see it. Dan was already on th
e phone by the time I spun the car around to follow, asking someone from Crossroads what the hell had happened.
“Hey, it’s Dan di Grassi. Did a brunette and a kid just leave in a hurry?”
A kid? Ah, fuck. I hadn’t even seen the damn kid. The SUV was a hundred yards ahead, a dark green Honda CR-V, two cars between us. Black’s Cayenne had a dashcam, but the angle had been wrong to catch the Honda’s licence plate.
I couldn’t make out the words on the other end of the phone, but there was no mistaking the tone. High-pitched. Panicked. Yes, we’d made the right call. I eased closer to our quarry as Dan tried to calm her contact down.
“Yeah, we’re following. No, no, hold off on calling the cops. We can do that.” Sure we could, but we wouldn’t. “Don’t worry, everything’ll be fine. What’s her name?” A pause. “Valerie? Okay. And the kid?” One of the cars in front of us turned off, and I maintained the distance. Not too close, not too far. We were heading through Meredith Creek now, five miles an hour over the speed limit between traffic lights. “Shay? C-H? Chay? Got it. I’ll call you back.”
“Well?”
“Mother and son. Valerie and Chay Jenest. A volunteer drove them to see the physician, and when they got back, a white male accosted them in the parking lot. The volunteer’s in pieces. The guy got right in her face, yelling at her to butt out of other people’s business.”
“The ex?”
“Sure sounds like it.”
“And Valerie? V?”
“I mean, she’s definitely not safe, so I’d say that’s a good possibility.”
That was the answer I’d been afraid of.
“Care to take a guess where the hell we’re going?”
“I have no fucking clue. Pull closer so I can get the licence number, and I’ll call Mack.”
Ten minutes and some funky manoeuvring later, we got our first clue. The Honda was registered to one Carol Halliwell of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Carol. It was as if the whole of Christmas was laughing at me.
Carol obviously wasn’t the driver of the car, but she could be a friend or a relative. Possibly an employer. Or even just some poor schmuck who’d sold the vehicle without transferring the title. Who knew? But if the car came from Cedar Rapids, there was a reasonable chance the driver did too, and Cedar Rapids was a fifteen-hour drive away.
“I’m not going to Iowa. We’re meant to be hunting down a twisted firebug this evening, or have you forgotten that? Was the kid wearing a seat belt?”
The woman was. I’d snapshotted her in my mind. And if she’d belted up herself in such a pressured situation, then chances were that she was safety conscious enough to have fastened her kid in too. How about the driver?
“You’re not shooting out the tyres. Who do you think you are? Carmen?”
Dammit.
“It was just a thought.”
Because we had to act quickly. We were rapidly closing in on I-64, and if our culprit managed to get on the interstate, who knew when he’d stop? And did I mention I needed to pee? That grande latte had gone straight through me.
Fuck my damn life.
We trailed our target through the streets downtown, past stores with twinkling window displays, costumed performers on the sidewalks, a life-sized model of Santa’s sleigh, and—because it was a Saturday—far too many excited children. Far too many witnesses to do anything drastic as well.
The car in front of us pulled into a parking bay, and we found ourselves behind the Honda again. Dan pulled her bobble hat down over her ears and sank lower in her seat as we all slowed for yet another traffic light. Then it hit me. I might not have known who the man in the driver’s seat was, but I knew what he was. An abuser. A control freak. A dickless wonder who thought he was entitled to get his own way and screw everyone else. And when challenged, men like that always reacted in the same way: with anger.
So I drove into the back of him.
Not fast enough to deploy the airbags, but I gave him a good jolt. Black’s Porsche was going to need a trip to the body shop, but wasn’t that why they called them bumpers?
“What the hell was that for?” Dan asked. “I could have driven after all.”
As predicted, our target was already out of the Honda, striding towards me with a face like thunder. I got my first good look at him. Five ten, a hundred and ninety pounds but soft around the middle. Neat light-brown hair slicked back from a face that could have been handsome if not for the sneer.
“Get the woman and the kid,” I murmured to Dan as I reached for the door handle.
I didn’t have to tell her twice. She might have been a few seconds behind my thinking, but we’d worked together for over a decade and now she knew exactly what she needed to do. I grabbed my handbag from the back seat and climbed out of the car, angling myself so that when the pissed-off prick went toe to toe with me, he’d have his back to the Honda.
“What the fuck did you do that for?”
A drop of spittle landed on my chin, and I made a show of wiping it away.
“Sorry, but you stopped really quickly.”
“There was a red fuckin’ light.”
Wow, this guy swore more than I did. “Yes, but it caught me by surprise. Does that ever happen to you? One moment, you’re driving along thinking about work, and the next…boom. The stupid light’s changed.”
“No, because I watch the damn road. You’re gonna pay for this, lady.”
“Oh, sure. That’s what insurance is for, right?”
Dan was at the Honda’s passenger door now, motioning to Valerie. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. Thankfully, Valerie was switched on enough to roll the window down, and whatever Dan said had her opening the door seconds later. I sent a silent “thank you” to Bradley for my ridiculous new purse, which was about the size of a suitcase, and began rooting through it.
“Gimme your damn details,” the man demanded.
“I know I jotted the insurance information down somewhere. Just a second.”
The guy looked as if he wanted to take a swing at me, but now the witnesses were working to my advantage. A small crowd had gathered, ghouls who treated other people’s misfortune as entertainment, and the cell phone cameras were already out. Was I bothered? Not really. I kept my head tipped forward, my hair over my face, and I’d hit the Honda hard enough that the Porsche’s front licence plate had ripped free of its Velcro and fallen face down on the road. Velcro? But of course—Black liked to be able to change the car’s identity quickly if the need arose. He kept three spares in the trunk. If somebody looked hard enough, they’d find today’s version was registered to a shell company based in the Cayman Islands.
“It’s in here somewhere.” I passed the guy a packet of Reese’s Pieces and a scarf to hold. “Are you in town for the Christmas market?”
He tossed my stuff onto the ground. “I don’t give a fuck about the Christmas market.”
Valerie was out of the car now. Dan got her to duck down while she opened the back door. Again, the milling crowd helped us out when a group of teenagers stepped forward to examine the damage.
“So you’re a bit of a Grinch? Have you seen that movie? Did you think it was too short? I thought it was too short.”
“Are you always this dumb?”
I put my hands on my hips. “Well, that’s not a very nice thing to say.”
“You drove into my damn car.”
“It was an accident. Haven’t you ever made a mistake before?”
“Look, just gimme your insurance details.”
“Hmm, perhaps I saved them in my phone? The company sent me an email, I’m sure they did.”
I caught a glimpse of the kid in Valerie’s arms, a pale, terrified face under a shock of dark hair. Dan herded the pair of them away from us into the crowd. There was a department store close by. One minute and they’d be gone, vanished into a chaotic maze of fake snow, tinsel, and Christmas music.
The guy fidgeted as I pretended to scroll through my messages. Not to worry. He could leave
soon.
“Ah, here it is. Let me write that down for you. Can you give me your information too? I should probably warn my insurance company that you’re going to call.”
Bradley had helpfully supplied me with a sparkly pen and matching notepad, and I carefully printed some fake details, trying not to smile. The moment I finished jotting the phone number, Mr. Impatient shoved my hand away and tore out the page. A second later, he’d scrawled his own name and number and thrust the paper into my hand.
Spencer Wallace, and the area code was from Iowa.
“You’re welcome,” I called as I stooped to grab the licence plate.
Thanks to the wonders of German engineering, the Porsche was still perfectly drivable, and by the time Spencer realised his passengers had disappeared, I was already halfway through a three-point turn. I even gave him a little wave as I sped into the distance.
Buh-bye, asshole. Nice knowin’ ya.
CHAPTER 8
“I REALLY AM so sorry about this.”
Those were the first words out of Valerie’s mouth when she climbed into the car an hour later. After I’d left the scene of the fender bender, I’d dumped the Porsche in a parking garage, donned a wig and a different coat from the emergency bag I kept in the boot, and snuck back to see what was going on. Spencer had abandoned the Honda at the side of the road, in a hurry judging by the angle, so I nipped into a nearby café, used the bathroom while the barista made my drink, then settled in to wait.
The prick circled the area once, twice, three times, looking angrier by the minute. But after half an hour, he demonstrated both his lack of competence and an absence of tenacity and fucked off back from whence he came. Good riddance.
“No reason for you to be sorry. It’s not your fault your ex is an asshole.”
I’d had the briefest of conversations with Dan while she hid out with Valerie and her son in the lingerie department. So far, Valerie had apologised fifteen times and counting while Chay had barely said a word. And Dan had single-handedly boosted Calvin Klein’s profit margin under the guise of blending in.
“You must be busy. I can take the bus…”
“To where?”