Christmas Spirit

by Rebecca York

  “No!” he shouted as he raised the instrument again, but this time Chelsea wasn’t helpless. She was able to crash the fist of her free hand into his mouth. Howling in pain, he toppled backward, landing against the table of instruments and scattering them across the floor.

  While he was trying to sort himself out, Chelsea rolled to the side, so that she could reach the other strap. Desperately she fumbled with the leather.

  Janecek was on his feet, advancing toward her again.

  Teeth gritted, she pulled at the buckle on the strap, trying to loosen her other hand. But her fingers were clumsy, and she couldn’t pull the end of the leather through the buckle.

  “You won’t get away,” he swore. “Even if I can’t get your heart, you won’t get out of here alive.”

  The doctor had almost reached her when the air around him seemed to thicken again. In a surge of translucent shapes, the ghosts were coming after him, trying to keep him from getting to her.

  But she saw the determination in his eyes. He was going to finish her off so she couldn’t talk—then get the hell out of town.

  Still fastened down by one hand and her two feet, the best she could do was roll away from the doctor, turning over the table and crashing to the floor.

  For a moment she was stunned. Then Janecek leaped around the table, coming at her again. With a growl of anger, he slashed at her, the blade slicing through the fabric of her shirt and into her flesh.

  She cried out in pain, but she wouldn’t give up. One of her legs had come free of its strap in the fall, and she kicked out at him, landing a blow to his gut.

  He howled again, then dived for her.

  Before he could inflict another slash into her flesh, she saw something in back of him. This time it was not a ghost. It was a man—running at full speed across the floor.

  It was Michael.

  She screamed his name. “Watch out. He’s got a scalpel.”

  As Michael closed in on the doctor, Janecek whirled around and swung his arm. Michael ducked under the knife, landing a blow on the man’s chin.

  Behind Michael, another figure entered the warehouse. Chief Hammer.

  He ran forward, his service weapon in his hand.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot,” he shouted.

  Both Michael and the doctor ignored him. With the men struggling, there was no way Hammer could get a clear shot at the doctor—if that was his intended target. She couldn’t be absolutely sure which man he wanted to stop.

  Michael grabbed the arm with the scalpel, bending it back so that the doctor screamed in pain.

  “Drop it,” Michael shouted, “or I’ll break your damn arm.”

  The doctor screamed again as the pressure increased. Finally, he dropped the blade and lay breathing hard.

  “Cuff him,” Michael panted.

  As he heard the words, the doctor made a desperate lunge for safety. Michael tackled him again and held him in place. “Do it now!”

  For a heartbeat the chief hesitated. Then he rushed forward and slapped handcuffs on the doctor. Michael ran to Chelsea. When he saw that she was cut, he gasped. “You’re bleeding.”

  “It’s not bad.”

  “It better not be.”

  He knelt beside her, freeing her other hand and her leg, then pulling a strip of cloth from the table and pressing it to her wounded shoulder.

  Chief Hammer was starting back toward them when something happened, something that made her eyes bug out.

  From out of nowhere came a shriek that sounded like the protest—or the triumph—of a long-dead spirit finally evening the score with the living.

  Then others took up the cry, and the air around them was filled with what sounded like a thousand unseen voices.

  “What the hell is that?” Chief Hammer cried out, running toward Michael and Chelsea. He crouched beside her as something flew over their heads. Something they could barely see.

  “Keep your head down,” Michael called as he bent over Chelsea, gathering her close, sheltering her body against the overturned table.

  The air inside the warehouse churned and boiled. Darts of light sailed over and around them as the sound rose, like some kind of indoor windstorm. And above the wailing of the wind, they heard Janecek screaming.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Suddenly, it all stopped. The wind, the churning of the air, the noise.

  In the utter silence, Hammer asked, “What was that?”

  “Ghosts,” Michael said. He wasn’t looking at the chief. He was looking at Chelsea.

  “What do you mean, ghosts?” the chief snapped.

  “Couldn’t you feel them, hear them?” Michael asked, his gaze still on her.

  “I don’t know what all that was.” Hammer stumbled to his feet and crossed the floor, where he knelt beside the handcuffed man.

  “He’s not breathing.” Bending lower, he began administering CPR.

  “I think you’re wasting your time,” Michael muttered.

  Another voice spoke from the door. Michael’s head jerked up, and he saw Rand McClellan and a state patrolman standing in the doorway. “I got your message. It looks like I arrived for the mop-up.”

  “Chelsea’s hurt,” Michael answered. “The doctor was going to take out her heart, but he only cut her shoulder.”

  McClellan winced. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his cell phone and called 911, reporting on Chelsea and the doctor.

  While the detective was talking to the dispatcher, Michael lifted Chelsea off the cold floor and laid her on the table. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine now,” Chelsea answered. “Thanks to you—and the ghosts.” She kept her gaze on Michael as she spoke.

  “Yeah, the ghosts,” he answered.

  “Where did they go?” she murmured.

  “I think they went to their rest.”

  Chelsea nodded and closed her eyes. She was still feeling dazed and still unable to completely come to grips with everything that had happened. Now that the emergency was over, she struggled to hold herself together.

  “I’m so sorry,” Michael said in a gritty voice.

  Her eyes blinked open again, and she shook her head. “No, I was stupid to run out of the house. You warned me to stay inside. But I was too angry to think.”

  “It’s not your fault. I…hurt you.”

  The sound of a siren in the distance made him glance around.

  Minutes later, paramedics rushed into the room. One headed for the doctor, the other ripped the top of her shirt and began examining her wound.

  As he worked on her, she heard his partner call out. “The doctor’s gone.”

  “What killed him?” Chief Hammer demanded.

  “I can’t determine that. You’ll have to wait for the report from the medical examiner.”

  “You need your shoulder stitched,” the medic told Chelsea.

  “I want to talk to the chief first,” she answered.

  He heard her. Looking uncomfortable, he crossed back to her.

  “Dr. Janecek told me he was bringing illegal aliens into the country,” she said. “Some of the women were being sold into sexual slavery. Some of them had to pay for their passage with a kidney or other organ.”

  The chief winced.

  Rand McClellan, who had been listening to the exchange, walked over and addressed the chief. “What do you know about that?”

  “Nothing,” Hammer answered, but the look in his eyes made her skeptical. Perhaps, she told herself, he was just too shell-shocked by his experience with the ghosts.

  “He told me he was going to take my heart for a transplant,” Chelsea told him.

  The chief swore and strode out of the building.

  “He knows more than he’s saying,” Michael muttered as the other medic bent over Chelsea.

  She nodded.

  So did McClellan. His mouth firmed. “I should have suspected the doctor. That woman whom you saw murdered—she’d had a kidney removed.”

  Chelsea gasped. “
Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “That was information confidential to the investigation. I checked at a bunch of hospitals, and I couldn’t find where the operation had been done. I should have started checking local doctors.”

  “That doesn’t mean you would have found anything,” Chelsea murmured. “He’d been getting away with it for years.”

  She stopped speaking as the EMTs wheeled in a stretcher.

  “We’ll take you to the hospital, Ms. Caldwell.”

  She looked at Michael. “Can he ride with me?”

  “Yes.”

  McClellan and his patrol officer were conferring as the EMTs wheeled her past. Michael climbed into the ambulance beside her, but there was no chance to talk privately.

  Then, when they arrived at the hospital, the doctor asked him to leave while he cleaned and stitched her cut.

  “Draper’s waiting to take your statement,” Michael said when he came back into the room.

  “What should I tell him?”

  “The truth.”

  She gave Michael a long look. “About the ghosts attacking the doctor?”

  Michael sighed. “Maybe you want to leave that part out.”

  “Why?” she pressed.

  “Because it just makes people think you’re a nut.”

  “But that’s no longer your personal opinion?”

  “You know it’s not. Or if you’re a nut, then I am, too. Because I went into the psychomanteum and begged Lavinia to tell me where to find you.”

  Her eyes widened. “You did?”

  “Yeah. How do you think I figured out where you were?”

  “I didn’t know.”

  A knock on the door interrupted the conversation. It was Draper, who asked if she’d mind reporting what happened. She gave him an account of her kidnapping. Then she said, “And there’s another guy who was working with the doctor.”

  “Franz Kreeger,” Draper answered. “He tried to kill Mr. Bryant and your aunt.”

  Chelsea sucked in a sharp breath as her gaze shot to Michael. “I didn’t know about that.”

  “We haven’t had much time to talk.”

  Michael turned to the deputy. “You believe us and not Kreeger?”

  “There was evidence in his car linking him to the doctor. We also found a woman’s purse with bloodstains. We think it will match the blood of the woman you saw murdered,” he said to Chelsea. “I’ve already talked to Detective McClellan. He’ll be over in the morning to collect the evidence and take Kreeger into custody.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Michael murmured.

  The officer shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then cleared his throat. “There’s something I want to say.”

  Both Michael and Chelsea instantly tensed.

  “I want to apologize,” Draper said. “That report you turned in about the murder…I told my wife about it and she told her friends. That’s how the story about the ghost got around town. I’m hoping you’ll forgive me.”

  “She had everybody whispering about me,” Chelsea said.

  Michael slung a protective arm over her shoulder.

  “And now they’re going to be talking about how you broke up a very nasty human smuggling operation and an organ transplant ring,” Michael said.

  “I’d rather they didn’t.”

  “They won’t get it from me,” Draper vowed. “But it’s news. It’ll be in the Gazette.”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  The young officer cleared his throat. “Do you need me for anything else?”

  Michael figured this was a good time to get some concessions out of the guy. “Actually, we could use a ride back to the House of the Seven Gables.” He turned toward Chelsea, who was wearing a hospital gown instead of her blood-soaked blouse. “And if there’s a shirt and coat she could wear, we’d appreciate it.”

  “I think the nurses can lend her some scrubs,” Draper said. “I’ll see what I can round up.”

  When the guy had left, Chelsea sighed. “He caused me a lot of trouble, but he didn’t mean to do it. That murder was big news in Jenkins Cove and a big deal for the local cops.”

  “You don’t hold a grudge.”

  “I’d like to put it behind me.”

  He nodded, marveling that she could let it go. When a nurse brought back scrubs, Michael stepped out while the woman helped Chelsea dress.

  Fifteen minutes later, they were met at the door of the B & B by an anxious Aunt Sophie.

  “Oh, Chelsea,” she exclaimed, eyeing the hospital outfit her niece was wearing. “Are you all right? I was so worried before the detective called.”

  Chelsea looked questioningly at Michael.

  “McClellan called her from the warehouse. Then I gave her an update while you were getting stitched up,” he answered.

  “Come into the living room and sit down. I was so nervous after you left that I went into the kitchen and started baking. We have apricot nut bread, spice cookies and cinnamon buns.”

  Chelsea laughed, then sank onto the sofa. Michael stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. He was bursting to speak to her about the two of them. But it didn’t look as though that was going to happen anytime soon.

  “Sit next to me,” Chelsea murmured.

  Sophie bustled off, and Michael sat.

  “We have to talk about us,” he said, hearing the gritty sound of his own voice.

  “As soon as we can get away. But right now you’re going to tell me about what happened with that man—Franz Kreeger.”

  “He was holding a gun on me. I assume he was planning to take me out to the warehouse and finish me off, but your aunt threw a pot of hot wax on him.”

  Chelsea winced, just as Aunt Sophie came back into the room with a plate of goodies.

  As she set them down, she said, “I knew there was something sinister going on in Jenkins Cove.”

  “You did?” Chelsea asked.

  “Yes. But I couldn’t prove it. Anyway, who’d listen to a nutty old woman?”

  “You’re not nutty,” Chelsea said quickly.

  “Of course I am. I have that psychomanteum upstairs. Don’t think I don’t know some people talk about me like I’m cracked. But I knew there were ghosts here and I knew that they could tell you—” She stopped and swallowed, then looked directly at Chelsea. “They could tell you what was wrong. That’s why I asked you to come back and help me here.”

  Chelsea drew in a sharp breath. “You what?”

  “But you weren’t ready to deal with the ghosts,” Sophie finished. She looked down at her hands. “It made sense when I thought of it. I didn’t know I was going to put you in danger. I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t! It was seeing the ghost out on the road that started it.”

  Michael slid over and put his arm around her, drawing her close.

  “No. It started with your seeing that other ghost—fifteen years ago,” Sophie said. “I kept praying that you’d finish what you began.”

  Chelsea nodded. “I tried so hard to forget about that.”

  “And it came back to haunt you,” her aunt said. “Let’s stop talking about it now. Eat some of the goodies I made.”

  For the next twenty minutes, they ate cinnamon buns and drank mulled cider while they told Sophie about what had happened in the warehouse. Finally, Sophie gave her niece a critical inspection. “You look done in. You should get some rest.”

  Michael scuffed his foot against the carpet, wondering if he was going to have to let Chelsea go up, then follow her when the coast was clear.

  Sophie waved her hand. “Both of you might as well go on up to her bedroom. I can see you want to be alone with her, Michael. I just had some things I needed to get off my chest.”

  Grateful to escape, Michael helped Chelsea up the stairs. At the entrance to her room, he hesitated. But she pulled him inside, closed the door and wrapped her arms around him.

  “I’m sorry,” they both said at once.

  “Let me get this off my ch
est,” he begged. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you why I’d come to Jenkins Cove. And I’m sorry I didn’t believe you from the beginning.” He cleared his throat. “There’s something else I should say. From the moment I got here, the ghosts tried to tell me I was wrong. When I left the house that first night, Lavinia or another one followed me down the street.”

  “She did?”

  “Yeah. She gave me this really spooky feeling, but I didn’t want to believe anything weird was happening so I convinced myself I was imagining things.” He sighed. “Now what are you apologizing for?”

  “For storming out of the house so Janecek could scoop me up.”

  “You didn’t know he was out there.”

  “But you’d warned me to be careful. I should have paid attention to that. I could have gotten us both killed.”

  “If you hadn’t gone out, Kreeger would probably have broken in and killed your aunt before going after us.”

  She winced.

  When he pulled her close, she gasped.

  “Your shoulder. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not that bad. Especially with the painkillers they gave me.”

  While he was holding her, he said what he’d been bursting to tell her since the warehouse. “I love you, Chelsea. I hope you can forgive me.”

  She tipped her head up so that she could meet his eyes. “I love you, too. That’s why I was so upset.”

  He gathered her to him, lowering his head and covering her mouth with his. His kiss conveyed all the passion he’d kept bottled up inside as he’d waited to be alone with her. When the kiss broke, she began to speak.

  “When I was strapped to that table in the warehouse, all I kept thinking of was how I wouldn’t get a chance to tell you I love you.”

  “Thank God you did. Because of Lavinia.”

  “And you. Janecek was still trying his damnedest to kill me when you got there. He thought that if I was dead, he could still keep his secret. He didn’t know the cops had already arrested Kreeger.”

  Michael held on to her, vowing he would never let her go. “So is it too soon to ask you to marry me?” he asked softly.

  She raised her head and looked into his eyes. “It’s pretty fast. But I don’t need to think about the answer.” She smiled. “It’s yes.”