Dead of Winter

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “Why do you think?” He manages a little laugh. “Because that’s where the ghosts hang out, isn’t it? It’s where you people go when you need to ask them a favor. I figured they could tell me where the rings are. Too bad you showed up before they could answer me. Guess you’ll just have to tell me instead since you claim to know.”

  “I do know.”

  “Where are they?”

  Misty takes a deep breath and does the very opposite of what every medium is trained to do.

  She delivers a big, fat lie.

  * * *

  “Are you tracking Jiffy’s phone?” Bella asks Grange, turning away from the stormy window to face him again.

  “We’ve put the process into motion. It doesn’t happen instantaneously. There are certain procedures we have to follow.”

  “But every second counts.”

  “And that’s why you need to trust that I’m doing my job and minimize the distractions.”

  Her temper flares. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Let’s face it, Ms. Jordan—it’s difficult to accomplish anything when you’ve got someone telling you she’s hearing Christmas carols in her head, someone else saying she had a vision of her child in danger but she lets him roam around anyway, and yet another person saying a kid had a dream, so that means he’s been kidnapped . . .”

  “He’s six!”

  “Mary Ellen Arden isn’t.”

  “Her son is gone. She’s beside herself.”

  “And what’s Pandora Feeney’s excuse?”

  Admiral Dee cheerily fills the silence. “Sail . . . Seashell . . . Shore . . .”

  Lieutenant Grange checks his watch. “I need to get down to the Arden house before it’s contaminated.”

  “I don’t think Luther would let that happen.”

  Something shifts in his eyes. “I know you and he have both been involved in a couple of cases here over the past couple of months, but I should remind you that law enforcement is experienced in handling this sort of thing.”

  “That’s what I meant. Luther is law enforcement.”

  “You mean he was. With all due respect.”

  “Steerage,” Admiral Dee sings. “Stowaway . . .”

  Smug, Bella thinks, watching Grange head for the foyer. Soulless.

  Someone has righted the leaning coat tree again. Probably Pandora, worried about marring the vintage wallpaper. As she watches, Grange snatches his jacket from it and opens the door.

  Off kilter, the coat tree sways.

  As he steps out over the threshold, it crashes down behind him. On its heels, the bang of a slammed door.

  “Mom?”

  “It’s okay, Max. Just the wind.”

  Through the window, Bella watches Grange retreat, accompanied by one last choice S phrase that begins with the word “son” and ends with something she doesn’t dare utter in front of hers.

  * * *

  Misty holds her breath, hoping Elvis bought her lie.

  “Wait . . . my rings are at Valley View?” he echoes.

  “Uh-huh.”

  He turns back to focus on the stormy world beyond the windshield, seeming to mull it over. His breath comes with effort, while she holds hers, waiting, praying.

  Please believe me.

  Please.

  “You’re wrong.”

  At last, she inhales. To her, it sounds like a desperate gasp. To him, most likely . . . normalcy.

  “Valley View is where I last saw the rings,” Elvis says. “It’s not where they are now.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I searched every square inch of that property with the metal detector. Every inch!”

  “When did you search?”

  “Middle of the night.”

  “You were prowling around inside Valley View with Bella and Max there?”

  “No. Outside. Don’t worry, I checked your yard, too. Retraced every step I took between Valley View and Glasgow Road that night. That’s why I blew up when you said Ginger was here. I thought she must have figured out about Yuri . . .”

  Yuri! That’s it. The blond man. The one whose name she’d been hearing as Rory, Harry . . . He’s Yuri, dead but not drowned in the lake the other night.

  He goes on, “I thought she might just be pretending to believe that story I fed her . . . you know the story, right? From Spirit?”

  “The story? Right.” She begins ticking off her fingers, hoping to convince him that she’s reciting a list she knows by heart, not making it up as she goes along. “I know you didn’t tell Ginger you lost the rings. You didn’t tell her Yuri is dead. You didn’t tell her you shot him. You didn’t tell her where you really are . . .”

  She pauses, watching him shove his inhaler into his mouth again.

  “You want me to keep going?” she asks after he puffs. She hopes not because she’s out of ideas.

  “Nothing else?”

  The way he says it . . .

  There must be something else. Something big.

  She closes her eyes. Again, the gun goes off. A man falls.

  The same man?

  No.

  She wishes that he would start driving again, but she opens her eyes just in time to see him put the car in park.

  “You’re the real deal, aren’t you?” He’s staring at her.

  “Sure am.”

  “So if you say the rings are over at Valley View . . .”

  “It’s not coming from me. It’s Spirit.”

  Let’s just be clear on that in case you decide to wave that gun around again.

  “Yeah? Does Spirit get confused?”

  “Never. Not about the rings and not about the other guy you shot.”

  He narrows his eyes. “The one from the hardware store?”

  She nods, her thoughts flying to gray-haired old Mitch, the proprietor. Jiffy talks about him a lot.

  Now imagining that her son could have had a run in with the likes of this creep there, or anywhere in the area, including their own backyard . . .

  Could have and did. And it’s all Misty’s fault.

  If she’s blessed in this lifetime with a second chance—at motherhood and marriage—she’s going to do things very differently. She’ll never again be so reckless.

  “When I saw who he was, I felt bad,” Elvis is saying with a shrug. “But he came barreling out there with a shotgun, and all I was doing was looking for what was mine. You never let anyone take what belongs to you. Never!”

  Having gone from contrite to belligerent in a nanosecond, he releases the steering wheel to clasp the gun in both hands. His shoulders are hunched as if he’s surrounded by bullies who want to take away the weapon.

  “I need those rings back. Now.”

  “I told you where they are.”

  He glares at Misty. “Are you sure the spirits aren’t lying? I searched that place.”

  “Spirit, not spirits. And you didn’t look inside Valley View. You said that yourself.”

  “How would they get inside when I lost them outside?”

  “Maybe someone found them and brought them in.”

  He blinks those watery gray eyes. “Who? The kid? The one who lives there?”

  Her heart pounds. “Max? He’s barely allowed outside. No, it wasn’t him.”

  “Your kid?”

  “My son didn’t find the rings,” she lies, though she can see him in her mind’s eye, doing exactly that.

  Finding them . . .

  Keeping them . . .

  Hiding them.

  “Okay,” he says.

  “Okay, what?”

  “We’re going to go get my rings back from her. She saw me out the window with Yuri, so I’ve been planning to get back over there and take care of her anyway.”

  “Take care of who?”

  “Who do you think?” He twirls the gun back into one hand, uses it to shift the car back into drive, and steps on the gas pedal. “Bella. That’s what you said, right? We’re going back to V
alley View. Only this time, I’m going inside, thanks to you.”

  * * *

  “Make one move,” Elvis tells Misty, keeping the pistol trained on her as he drives slowly up Cottage Row, “and you’ll regret it.”

  “I’m not moving. Don’t worry.”

  Through the falling snow, she can see Grange’s car parked in front of her house and a few others along the street.

  “Looks like you have company.”

  He’s right. As they roll past, Misty can see people silhouetted in the front windows of her cottage. What does it mean? Has Jiffy been safely returned?

  Or has something happened to him?

  No. No way. She’d have sensed it, the way she knew she was carrying him in her womb long before there was biological evidence. The way she knew Mike was her soulmate from the moment they met.

  The way she knows Elvis isn’t going to leave anyone alive at Valley View when he fails to find his gold rings hidden there as she had promised they are.

  What happens to her, Bella and her little boy, and whoever else is caught in the crossfire, will be her own fault.

  Wheezing again, Elvis pulls the truck all the way up to the top of the street, past the guesthouse. There are no more houses after Valley View, just the waterfront area and a small pier. He turns the truck around, aiming back down the street for a seamless getaway. Coughing, he turns off the truck, but the music is still playing.

  “It’s now or never,” the real Elvis sings, and he’s right.

  Now.

  In one swift movement, Misty opens the door and hurtles herself out into the snow.

  * * *

  Bella dumps an armful of jackets, umbrellas, hats, and Max’s book bag on the hardwood floor beside the empty coat tree. Not pretty, but one quick way to ensure that it won’t topple again.

  Shaping one of the extension cords into a neat coil, she looks out the window for any sign of Drew. Or, for that matter, Jiffy.

  Pandora had mentioned something about Jiffy being on his way home.

  So you believe her, then? You believe in this stuff?

  In all Bella’s months at Lily Dale, she’s never wanted so badly to subscribe to Spiritualism and its focus on instinct and the unseen. But hand in hand, she knows, goes an unwillingness to accept coincidence, so . . .

  Two murders.

  A connection between Virgil and Misty.

  Now she’s gone missing as well.

  Bella can’t ignore coincidence nor logic. Not with a pair of homicides. There’s no way Jiffy simply ran away because his parents argued this morning and his father said he’s not coming for Christmas after all. No way, after all this time and all that’s gone on, that he’s hiding here at Valley View.

  All right, then.

  She has to look at the facts, the clues . . .

  The emojis.

  If Jiffy sent those texts, then maybe they were meant to be clues to his location. Like an electronic version of those pirate treasure maps he and Max were so obsessed with.

  What might they mean?

  A pen and some trees.

  Is he in the woods?

  Churches and a bridge. And what about the picture he’d sent? The one that had made Bella think he was in the back seat of a car?

  Again, she thinks of Yuri and Virgil.

  Dead in the lake.

  Dead in the snow.

  Bella shivers.

  Reaching for the thermostat on the wall, she finds herself looking at the framed vintage regional railroad map beside it.

  A word jumps out at her so flagrantly that it might as well be illuminated.

  Bethlehem.

  * * *

  Misty heaves herself through a wall of wet, blowing snow, away from the pickup truck’s headlights.

  The drifts are deep, and she can’t move well. She’s leaving a trail as she goes, but she has to try to escape.

  She hears the driver’s side door open and Elvis cursing and coughing over the sound of real Elvis singing on the radio.

  It’s now or never.

  Never was not an option. And neither, she realizes, is heading toward Valley View with this armed lunatic on her trail.

  She might be able to get away. How far can he possibly follow her?

  She can hear him wheezing heavily somewhere behind her, coughing hard. Weaving in an effort to throw him off, she pushes on into the tempest, into the darkness.

  * * *

  “Pennsylvania. Just outside of Allentown . . .”

  Bella stares at the antique map, hearing Misty’s voice, telling her where her husband grew up, seeing the emojis of a pen and some trees.

  Pen . . .

  Sylvania.

  Just this week, Max had brought home first-grade homework about the colony’s establishment and William Penn.

  What if . . . ?

  “Hey, Max?”

  No answer.

  “Max?”

  Still no answer.

  “Max!” she shouts, whirling around. In the little room beyond the parlor, she can see that the TV is still on, but if someone were lurking in the house, he could have snatched her child in an instant.

  She rushes toward the room.

  There he is, remote control in hand, mesmerized by the television. Admiral Dee has been replaced by a ninja zombie.

  The rush of relief at finding him safe is accompanied by the knowledge that she had just experienced a mere shred of what Misty is going through.

  “Max?”

  He looks up and hastily tucks the remote control under a couch pillow. “What’s that?”

  “What?” She looks down and finds that she’s still holding the extension cord. “It’s for the Christmas lights on the porch.”

  “Yay! Are you turning them on?”

  “I . . .” She shrugs. Maybe she should.

  After all, there are no mystical stars to light the night. And Drew is coming, and so is Christmas, and . . .

  Hope. That’s what Bella needs right now. For Max.

  “Yes,” she tells him. “I’m going to try to get them to work.”

  “Can I help?”

  “No, it will only take two seconds, and it’s nasty out there. But listen, Max, did Jiffy ever tell you where his dad’s hometown is?”

  “Nope.” He turns back to the TV.

  “Is it in Pennsylvania? Bethlehem, maybe?”

  “Bethlehem is where the baby Jesus was born.”

  “Not that Bethlehem. Did Jiffy ever mention Pennsylvania?”

  “Yep. And so did Mrs. Schmidt. She said that William Penn—”

  “Max, what did Jiffy say about Pennsylvania?”

  “He said he went to a restaurant there where they have the best French fries in the world. It’s in a place called Allentown. Like Alan Katz. Do you know where it is?”

  “Yes.”

  Allentown. Bethlehem.

  “Good, because I want to go to that restaurant. It’s called Couch Potato. And by the way, people shouldn’t interrupt.”

  “No, they shouldn’t. I’m sorry,” she murmurs.

  Couch . . .

  Potato . . .

  Those were the emojis he sent on the text messages.

  Heart racing, Bella grabs her phone from her pocket, wondering if she should call Grange or Luther.

  Luther’s number is programmed into the phone. Grange’s is not. And Luther will believe her. Grange will not.

  “Bella?” he answers. “Everything okay?”

  She blurts out her theory that Jiffy’s father has taken him and is on his way to his hometown. He listens.

  “Do you know where in Bethlehem his father’s family lives?”

  “No, but Jiffy is Michael J. Arden the third, so his grandfather would have the same first name. Maybe you can look him up.”

  “Thanks. I’m on it.”

  He hangs up.

  “Mom? Are you going to plug in the Christmas lights?”

  She looks from Max’s hopeful face to the extension cord in her han
ds. He deserves some good news.

  She nods. “I’ll be back in two seconds.”

  * * *

  Elvis was right behind her, so near that Misty was certain he was closing in. She could hear him coughing and gasping for air and then . . .

  Nothing.

  She moves doggedly on but not straight ahead. She veers to the right and then to the left—for all she knows, running in circles or heading straight for Valley View, the last thing she wanted. But she’s running blind.

  Running? If only.

  She’s wading blind through drifts up to her thighs.

  A voice reaches her ears.

  “Help! Please!”

  Elvis.

  Nearby. Closer than she thought.

  “Can’t . . . breathe . . . Please . . .”

  Misty stops.

  “Afraid . . . to . . . die . . . here. Please . . .”

  The voice is muffled, coming from below. He’s on the ground. Gasping. Perhaps dying.

  This is her chance to escape. All she has to do to save herself is . . .

  “Please.”

  Save herself? What about him? A man is begging for his life. She’s been selfish her whole life—this is her chance to change.

  She turns back, torn.

  Every muscle in her body is urging her to keep going. Spirit, too, seems to be urging her forward.

  But how can she leave a human being to die alone out here? The snow will bury him alive.

  She takes a deep breath, something the struggling man can’t do. Might never do again.

  “Okay,” she calls to him. “I’m coming. Hang on.”

  * * *

  The bitter wind steals Bella’s breath as she drags the stepladder from the parlor out onto the porch. She has a flashlight weighing down her deep front pocket and the extension cord draped around her neck.

  Dusk has fallen out on the street. Now she can see scattered lampposts, lower thirds buried, bathed in a swirling grainy glow. No sign of Drew, although he should be here by now.

  She looks up at the light strings stretching along the eaves as she sets up the ladder. She’d told Max that this would only take two seconds, but who was she kidding? There’s no way she’s going to attach an extension cord to the nearest plug, stick it into an outlet, and voilà . . . Christmas.

  No, she’s going to have to disconnect everything and start from scratch.

  She sighs, drags the ladder over to the railing, and takes the white extension cord from around her neck, preparing to ascend. Worried that she’ll lose it if she tosses it onto the snow-covered porch floor, she fumbles with numb fingers to attach it to the end of the connected light strings.