Wind Chill

by Herron, Rita

  Gia reached out her hands and felt her sister’s soft hair, then her face. She yanked the gag from Carly’s mouth.

  “It’s okay, take deep breaths.” She traced her hands over Carly’s hair, then her tear-dampened face, checking for injuries.

  “Did he hurt you?” Gia asked through clenched teeth.

  Carly grabbed her hands and clenched them. “I’m all right…” she said between gasps. “He…drugged me.”

  “I know,” Gia said, hatred for the man rising from the depths of her soul. “I’m so sorry, sweetie.”

  “Not your f…ault,” Carly murmured. “I’m j...ust glad you’re here…”

  Guilt washed over her. She should have come sooner. Then Carly might be safe.

  “I’ve been scared out of my mind ever since you called,” Gia said in a strangled voice.

  She pulled her sister as close as she could, reassuring her with promises that they’d escape, then they’d trim the Christmas tree together.

  Just as soon as she nailed this psycho.

  There was no way in hell she’d let him finish the Twelve days, not by adding her and her sister to his body count.

  * * *

  12:10 a.m., December 20, Tinley

  Murphy continued to call Gia’s number, but each time it rolled straight to voice mail.

  Something was wrong. He felt it in his gut.

  Had she made contact with the killer? Had she figured out where he was holding her sister and gone after her on her own?

  That would be so like Gia. Not to ask for help.

  Dammit, he wanted to be there for her. Show her she wasn’t completely alone. That he’d always be there for her.

  Maybe she’d talked to her partner at the FBI.

  He called the field office Gia was assigned to and explained the situation. “I’ll have Special Agent Harmon contact you as soon as we hang up,” the agent said.

  He ended the call and sat down at the table with his head in his hands. The picture on the table mocked him. Carly and Gia, happy when they were little.

  Christmas, the time of year when families and the town of Tinley celebrated life and home and family and love.

  Yet this year Holly had destroyed the festivities, his mother was in the hospital, residents and tourists were panicked, a woman was missing, and another one dead in his town.

  And now Gia was gone.

  Find a good woman, Murphy.

  He had. Now he just had to save her from that monster.

  The sound of his phone trilling startled him, and he snatched it up.

  “This is Special Agent Brantley Harmon. What happened to Gia?”

  Murphy quickly relayed his concerns.

  “I saw that interview she did with your local reporter,” Brantley said. “For Pete's sake, she challenged the killer to come after her.”

  Murphy chewed the inside of his cheek. Gia wanted to save her sister, was willing to sacrifice herself. He didn’t like it one damn bit. But he did understand it.

  “I don’t know where she is. I keep calling and no answer,” Murphy gritted out, desperation building in his chest. “I’m at her sister’s house and she’s not here.”

  “Let me see if I can trace her phone,” Brantley told him.

  Murphy thanked him and waited while the man set the trace into motion. “Listen,” Brantley said. “Earlier, Gia asked me to pull footage of all the crime scenes and press conferences.”

  Murphy rubbed a hand across his forehead. “Yeah?”

  “I may have something.” Brantley cleared his throat. “There’s a man who showed up at more than one crime scene, and he appears at the press conferences.”

  Often perpetrators hung around the crime scenes to watch the chaos and fear caused by their actions. “A reporter?”

  “That’s what I thought at first, and the reason he didn’t draw suspicion. He had press credentials,” Brantley said.

  “But something’s off about him?”

  “The editor at the small press where he claimed he worked never heard of him.”

  Murphy released an expletive. “So, who is he?”

  “His press ID read Leon Miller, but that’s fake. I’m working on his real identity now. I’m also sending you his photograph.”

  The text dinged, and Murphy looked at the image. The man had short clipped dark hair. Was clean-shaven. Well dressed.

  And…something about him looked eerily familiar. Had he seen the man in town?

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  12:15 a.m., December 20, Tinley

  Gia and Carly clung to each other for a moment. Gia’s heart was hammering with worry. “I saw the blood on the floor in the shop. What happened, Carly? Where are you hurt?”

  Carly squeezed Gia’s hands. “It’s nothing, sis. I just cut my hand when I reached out to snatch at the tree to stay on my feet.”

  “Did he say anything before he took you?” Gia asked.

  “No, he just came into the store like he was looking for a gift. I told him I was about to close, that he could come back, then he grabbed me.”

  “Did you recognize him?”

  Carly’s breathing was finally starting to steady. “No…although something about him seems familiar. Maybe he’s been to the festival before and shopped at my place last year.”

  Gia’s breath tightened. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

  “He’s sick,” Carly said. “I faded in and out, but he kept talking to me. Saying things about Christmas and how he hated it. How he’d bought these extravagant gifts for his wife, but she left him just like his mother did.”

  “Did he talk about the ornaments?”

  “He said his mother used to celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas by giving him a gift each day.”

  “That’s the reason he chose the Twelve Days theme.” Gia pulled her sister’s hands toward her. “I’ll untie you, then you can untie me.”

  Together they began to work at the rope knots. A sliver of light seeping in through the crack in the door allowed Gia to see Carly. Her fingers felt raw, cold, numb, but finally she managed to unravel the knot. “What about Parker Whitman? At first we thought he'd abducted you.”

  “No.” Carly shook her head. “Parker’s nice. We had coffee, but he was so hung up on his wife, that I encouraged him to work it out with her. He was flying home and going to suggest they attend marriage counseling.”

  So, Whitman had been innocent.

  “Do you know a man named Folsom?”

  “No, should I?”

  “We have him in lock up. I thought he might be the CK. But he can’t be as he’s still in jail.”

  Carly’s hands sprang free, and she began to work at Gia’s ropes.

  “But I wonder how he knew about this place,” Gia said, thinking out loud.

  “Maybe his family used to come here,” Carly suggested as she loosened the ropes on Gia’s wrists.

  When Gia was free, she worked at the ropes around her ankles while Carly did the same.

  The wheels of time and memory spun in Gia’s head. She threw aside the ropes. “Carly, you said he sounded familiar. Do you remember when we were little and used to come out here with Mom?”

  “Of course, I do,” Carly murmured.

  “Remember that creepy boy Homer who used to give out the axes.”

  “Oh, my goodness, yes. You and I were just talking about him. He used to hide out in the woods with a saw and scare us when we were tree hunting.”

  “There were rumors that his father abused him, and his mother abandoned him." Her blood ran cold. “The profile fits.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “That Homer Hanes might be the Christmas Killer.”

  * * *

  12:20 a.m., December 20, Tinley

  Murphy paced while Gia’s partner ran the fake journalist’s picture through facial recognition software.

  His skin prickled with the sensation that Gia had left that photo of she and Carly on the table as a message.

  “
Hey, I got a hit,” Brantley said. “Hanes. He’s actually from—”

  “Tinley,” Murphy breathed, the truth dawning. “His parents owned the Christmas tree farm. Father’s name was Leon.” He pulled his keys from his pocket and ran for the door. “I think I know where he’s holding Carly and Gia.”

  The agent was still on the phone as Murphy started the engine. “Hanes has a juvie record,” Agent Harmon told him. “A foster parent reported him for abusing animals. Fast-forward to college and a girl filed charges of assault. Dropped them though and moved away. No word of what happened to her.”

  Murphy had a bad feeling. Perhaps she’d been his first kill. “See if you can find more on her. He could have murdered her and hidden the body.”

  Murphy battled the treacherous road as he drove toward the tree farm. “What happened to the mother?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m on it.”

  “Talk to his wife. Find out what she knows about him. Maybe she filed for divorce because she suspected he was a psycho.”

  He was half a mile from the farm when a tree snapped and splintered down in front of him. Murphy swerved to avoid hitting it but skidded off the side of the road. His SUV spun in a circle and careened sideways then stopped.

  He shifted into gear and attempted to back up, but his tires spun, digging deeper and deeper into the ground and slinging snow and ice. He pounded the steering wheel with his fist. The road was blocked.

  Wind snapped more branches and flung snow in a blinding haze. He had to keep moving though. Get to Carly and Gia.

  He yanked on his snow cap and wrapped a scarf around his neck and face, then climbed from the vehicle.

  The half-mile trek strained his calf muscles, and battered his body, but he kept moving. As he neared the tree farm, he scanned the property, but the whiteout conditions made it nearly impossible to see three feet in front of him.

  Finally, as he drew closer, he spotted the shed. He pulled his gun, then moved toward it, braced for an attack.

  * * *

  12:45 a.m., December 20, Tinley

  Gia tensed at the sudden sound. Not just the wind whistling.

  Him.

  Singing. “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

  Carly’s eyes flashed with terror. “He’s coming back.”

  Gia pressed her fingers over Carly’s lips. “Shh. Stay calm. I’ll protect you.” She frantically began sweeping the floor and walls with her hands for a weapon. An ax. Shovel. Anything.

  But the shed was empty.

  Because he’d planned this.

  Noise again. Homer’s footsteps.

  She patted her clothing for her phone or weapon, but the CK had confiscated them both. Desperate, she removed her boot and held it up, ready to attack.

  Carly pressed her back against the wall, struggling with the ropes.

  “Be still and curl up on your side away from him,” Gia murmured. “Pretend you’re still drugged.”

  Carly whimpered, but she did as Gia instructed. It pained Gia to see her sister look like a victim. But she had to think now. Set her own trap.

  Not succumb to fear.

  Darkness engulfed the interior space, sucking the air and light. It was so cold that Gia’s hands were beginning to feel numb.

  She gripped the boot in her hand and angled her arm, preparing an attack. The shed door screeched open, a faint sliver of light from the man’s pin light shining across the dank interior.

  Carly was shivering from the cold, unable to keep her cries silent. He seemed drawn to her anguish as he shuffled toward her.

  “Shh, it’ll be over soon, Carly.” Then he angled the light away from her sister toward the opposite wall where he’d left Gia.

  She lunged at him like a banshee and swung the boot at his head. She connected, hitting him in the side of the face and sending him reeling against the wall.

  He bellowed, momentarily shaken and stunned, then shoved away from the wall and lunged toward her. She balled her hand into a fist, but before she could deliver a blow, he swung a shovel toward her.

  She ducked but not in time. The hard metal connected with her temple and sent her down. Stars swam in front of her eyes, and the world spun.

  Carly jumped up and threw herself on the man’s back. He hurled her off, and she hit the side of the shed with a whack. Gia struggled to push herself up, but the cold barrel of her own gun stabbed her cheek and she froze, afraid to move.

  Afraid he’d kill her before she could get her sister out of this mess.

  She had to stall. Keep him talking.

  “Why here, Homer? Why at your childhood home?”

  His breath hissed out. He smelled of cigarettes and sweat, a sign he wasn’t as cool as he pretended. “Because I hated it here. Daddy made me clean up after everyone, chop up all the dead trees. Every day I watched all these smiling, screaming kids run around the woods, pointing out which tree they wanted. Then the family would pose for pictures in that damn sleigh. Happy families. Sickening.”

  Gia’s mind raced. “Sickening because your family wasn’t happy?”

  “When I was little, I thought they were. Then Daddy started drinking and was mean. He acted so nice to all the customers, but when everyone left, he turned into a monster.”

  A picture of Homer hiding behind the trees and frightening her and her sister flashed through her mind. He’d looked like a wild animal sometimes. Had he been acting out aggressions because he was a victim of childhood abuse? “He hurt you, abused you,” she said. “Did you tell anyone?”

  He shoved her against the wall, the cold metal of the gun brushing her skin. Carly lay still on the floor, unconscious from the blow. Gia fought through her rage. Getting Homer to talk would work in her favor.

  Maybe she could even convince him to relinquish the weapon.

  “Mama knew,” Homer said. “She tried to stop him, but he turned on her.”

  “Did she call the police? Reach out for help?”

  “No, she just walked out one day, disappeared, and left me here with him.”

  Had she walked out and left him? Or…had Homer’s father done something to her? He could have killed her and buried her anywhere on this tree farm.

  Gia made a mental note to have police search for a body once she and Carly were safe.

  “I’m sorry that happened to you,” Gia said. “Really sorry, Homer. Carly and I would have been your friends if we’d known.”

  He made a sarcastic sound, his gun hand trembling. “No, you wouldn’t. You were the goody-goody girls. You were scared of me.”

  She realized part of him had enjoyed instilling that fear in them. He’d gotten his first taste of the adrenaline rush from terrifying someone smaller than him.

  “What about your wife? She must have loved you to marry you.”

  His bitter look pierced her. “She said she did. Then she up and left, too. I had presents for her. Twelve of them, one for each day, but she said she didn’t want gifts from me. She didn’t want anything except to be free.”

  Gia twisted her hands together. “What happened to her, Homer? Did she leave or did you hurt her?”

  “She said she didn’t want presents, but I gave her one anyway.”

  “What did you give her?”

  “I let her live.” His bitter chuckle rattled in the air as he yanked a red scarf from inside his jacket.

  She summoned her strength to fight him, but he raised the gun and slammed it against her head. Pain ricocheted through her temple as she fell into nothingness.

  Then she felt his hands sliding the scarf around her throat.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  1:00 a.m. December 20, Tinley

  He had it all planned out. The two little girls who’d whispered and run from him when he was a boy were all his now.

  This Christmas was going to be the best ever!

  He stooped down and ran his fingers over Gia’s thick dark hair. It felt surprisingly soft, unexpectedly so with her cutthroat personality.


  Unconscious, with her hand curled beneath her head and her lips slightly parted, she almost looked like a nice girl.

  But she chased killers because she had a dark side herself. That was the only way she could do it.

  She liked the hunt.

  The hunt was over.

  He checked his watch. It was almost Christmas. Outside Holly raged on, cocooning them into their own private world.

  A world he’d once hated. Now it seemed fitting to be back here. Back where it all began. Back to the town that had been blind to what was really happening on the farm, where they came to smile and take their happy family pictures.

  Back to the two girls he’d wanted to like him.

  Now it didn’t matter. He’d learned how fickle women were. His mother. That girl in college. The wife who’d promised to love, honor and cherish him, then cheated on him.

  Gia moaned and lifted her fingers as if clawing for a way to push herself up.

  “It’s too late,” he crooned. “I have to finish.”

  But he wanted them both awake when he strangled them.

  Then he’d pose them in the sleigh for their yearly family holiday picture. They would be waiting, holding their ornaments, when the sheriff came looking for them.

  And he would be long gone. Back to his life for another year. To eleven months of bliss until the nightmare of the holiday descended again.

  Chapter Thirty

  1:20 a.m., December 20, Tinley

  Murphy cursed Holly as he stumbled through the snowy, frostbitten haze. Ahead he spotted his Jeep.

  He was right. Gia was here.

  No other vehicles. Only an ATV parked near the shed. That must be how the killer had been maneuvering during the storm.

  Gripping his gun, he ignored the biting sting of the wind and climbed the small hill toward the shed. Just as he reached the crest, he noticed movement.

  A shadow. No, a man. He was walking toward the sleigh, carrying something in his arms.