The Last Noel

by Heather Graham

  “Please, Kat, I don’t know what they’ll do. Go for help.”

  “Go for help?” she inquired. “I barely made it to the car in this wind. See the way they’re all hunched over against it? Where am I going to go, Craig? How the hell am I going to get help?”

  Snowdrifts were everywhere. They were going to see her footprints, he thought, as the wind picked up, howling. Maybe the snow was blowing around enough to hide her footprints.

  He roused and took hold of her shoulders again. He could see her eyes. Gold and emerald. His stomach lurched. She’d been the first really good thing in his life, and he had screwed it up. “I’m begging you to get out of here and find help before Scooter sees you.”

  “There is no help, Craig.”

  “Then hide somewhere.”

  “Hide?” she asked indignantly. “They have my family. I can’t just run away and hide. Do you have a gun? If you have one, give it to me, damn it.”

  “Kat, I don’t have a gun.”

  “But you were with them.”

  “Kat, I’m begging you, go!”

  “Are you with them or not?”

  “Kat, I…”

  His head throbbed with pain and humiliation at the look in her eyes. If they caught her…Lord, if they caught her…He opened his eyes and looked up.

  She was gone, vanished into the snow.

  He prayed for the snow to fall faster, the wind to blow harder, to cover all traces of her escape.

  Scooter and the others had nearly reached the car. The door she’d used was still open, and her prints were still obvious. With a desperate burst of strength, he dragged himself out of the car and let himself collapse into the snow, thrashing to cover her tracks, his thoughts tormenting him.

  Once upon a time, he had lived in a different world. He’d been in love with a gorgeous redheaded coed. They’d saved money by eating in and watching old movies on television.

  Bogie.

  Bergman.

  Casablanca.

  Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world…

  Run, Kat, run.

  THREE

  Everyone left in the kitchen stared at Quintin except for Uncle Paddy, who continued to eat without even looking up. “Ye’ve outdone yerself, lass,” he told Skyler. “This is delicious. Isn’t it—Quintin? That’s yer name, right?”

  Quintin had been staring back at Skyler and Jamie, but now he turned his attention to Paddy. “Yes, it’s very good,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Skyler said. Ridiculous. She was thanking a killer for complimenting her cooking. But they had to get through this somehow, and if being polite was what it would take, then she would be as polite as if she’d been valedictorian of a finishing school.

  “You spend a lot of time cooking?” Quintin asked.

  “Not really,” Skyler told him, and without thinking, started to rise. He tensed. “Sorry. I just thought I’d have a beer,” she said.

  “I’ll have one while you’re up,” Quintin said.

  “Hell, I’ll be joinin’ that party,” Paddy said.

  Even Brenda spoke up. “Mrs. O’Boyle, I’d love a beer, too.”

  “I’ll just grab a six-pack,” Skyler said. Poor Brenda. The girl was probably wishing herself miles and miles away right now.

  She could have been with her own family. In fact, Frazier could have been with them, as well.

  She was the reason they were here instead. She had subtly tried to make him feel guilty for even considering spending Christmas somewhere else. But, Frazier, you really should come while we still have the house. You know we’ll probably get rid of it soon, since there’s no sense keeping it now that you kids don’t really enjoy it anymore. Just this year…

  Just this year. So Frazier was here with her, along with Brenda, and now they might well die with her.

  Stop thinking that way, she commanded herself, but she couldn’t help it. Could these men really let them live? They seemed ruthless enough to have killed already. And if you were going to go to prison for life, hell, what difference did it make just how many murders you were being punished for?

  “I take it there will be dessert?” Quintin said, almost as if he were a real guest.

  “Blueberry pie, apple pie, chocolate-chip cookies,” Skyler said.

  “Wow.”

  “My parents own a pub,” Jamie said.

  “So blueberry pie is Irish?” Quintin asked.

  “It’s universal, I think,” she told him.

  “What about pumpkin? I thought that was traditional,” Quintin said.

  “That’s Thanksgiving,” Jamie protested.

  “We can have pumpkin pie for dinner tomorrow, if you like,” Skyler told him.

  “Sure, I like pumpkin.” He frowned. “So where is this pub of yours?”

  “Boston,” she said.

  Quintin started laughing. “You live in Boston, and this is your vacation home?”

  “Hey, we could use some help over here!” Scooter shouted from the front door, interrupting the conversation.

  They all leaped up and went rushing out. Between them, Frazier and David were supporting a semiconscious man, his eyes closed, his legs barely moving as they walked. The mysterious not-a-cop, Skyler assumed.

  This man clearly wasn’t like Quintin or Scooter, hardened and with an edge. This man was younger. Not much older than Frazier and Kat, she realized.

  And he was hurt. A trickle of dried blood marred his forehead and matted his hair. Light hair. His eyelashes fluttered as he looked up at her, and for a moment his eyes went very wide, as if he knew her. As if he somehow recognized her. Which was ridiculous, she thought, because she’d never seen him before in her life.

  A pained smile tugged at his lips; then his eyes closed again and his head dropped. The only reason he was still vertical, she realized, was because her husband and son were supporting him.

  He looked as if he’d fallen face-first into the snow somewhere along the way, and he was tall, even slumped between her husband and son. He looked to be about their height, and except for his present exhaustion, in excellent condition, like an athlete rather than a thief.

  Really? she mocked herself. And just what did thieves usually look like?

  Like the other two men. Hard, dangerous, cold—and soulless.

  “Set him down on the sofa,” she said.

  As soon as they did so, she knelt down beside him and carefully probed the wound on his head. He cried out involuntarily, his eyes—dark blue, she saw in the light—fluttering open again.

  “Hey,” Scooter protested. “Don’t hurt him.”

  “Like it makes any difference,” Quintin muttered.

  “I’m just trying to see how badly he’s hurt,” Skyler said. “I think he may have a concussion.” She looked from Quintin to Scooter. “He should never have been out in that car. You could have killed him.”

  Her words were met with silence.

  Maybe they—or one of them, anyway, she thought, remembering Quintin’s cavalier attitude toward bringing him in—had been trying to kill him. Or else had taken the attitude that if he died, he died.

  “Told you,” Scooter said.

  “He deserved what he got,” Quintin snapped.

  Deserved…

  So who had cracked him in the head? Someone they had accosted earlier tonight?

  Or Quintin?

  “Jamie, can you get the first aid kit, please? It’s up in my bathroom.”

  She heard a click and looked up quickly. Quintin had clicked off the safety on his gun, and his finger was on the trigger.

  “I’ll just get the kit. I swear it,” Jamie said, staring at Quintin.

  “Please,” Skyler said softly. “This man is your friend,” she added, hoping it was the truth.

  “I’ll go with him,” Scooter said.

  “Make it fast,” Quintin said. “There’s still a meal on the table. And dessert.”

  As she listened to Jamie’s and Scooter’s footsteps on t
he stairs, Skyler realized everyone else was clustered around her. Frazier had his arm protectively around Brenda’s shoulders, but his eyes were on Quintin and the gun. Uncle Paddy was standing silent, leaning on his cane. David stood as tense as strung piano wire, watching her.

  The torment in his eyes was terrible to see. Worse than her fear that she would be shot. Almost as bad as her fear that her entire family would be massacred if they made a wrong move.

  Or even if they didn’t.

  As soon as Jamie came back with the first aid kit, she found the antiseptic and bathed the cut, happy to have something to concentrate on other than her fears. He stared at her steadily the entire time.

  She almost fell over when Brenda stepped forward. “I can see if there’s any kind of fracture, Mrs. O’Boyle. I’m pre-med.”

  “That would be great, thanks,” Skyler murmured, trying to hide her shock, though she did remember Frazier saying Brenda was brilliant.

  “Just a concussion,” Brenda said with surprising confidence a minute later. “I’m sure he’ll be all right.”

  Skyler and Brenda looked at one another. Even Skyler knew he shouldn’t be lying down on her couch. He should be in a hospital. But that wasn’t going to happen. He was going to have to make it—or not—on his own.

  Craig Devon.

  She couldn’t believe it.

  Kat’s mind raced. She’d made it around to the back of the house, where at least she could flatten herself against the house and get some shelter from the ripping wind. But despite the slight relief, she felt as cold inside as she did on the outside.

  Craig Devon was somehow connected with the monsters who’d invaded her house.

  She remembered—so clearly—the first time she’d seen him. It had been her first year of college and Craig had been just about the most gorgeous human being she’d ever encountered. It had been one of those storybook things: she’d noticed him across a crowded room, and then he had noticed her back.

  Looking back—as she often had after their breakup—she realized there had been something not quite right from the start. She had been madly in love with him, so much so that she’d avoided introducing him to her twin, because she hadn’t wanted Frazier going all brotherly and protective on her. She woke up each morning longing to stay in bed with Craig. She remembered all the times they’d laughed about some incident or other within her family. She’d told him all about her parents and her brothers; she’d talked about the pub and Uncle Paddy, about how much she missed her grandparents. She’d admitted hating their accent when she was a kid, because it marked them as strange, different from her friends’ families, then growing up and missing them so much because they had held such a wealth of knowledge about a different time and a different place. She had been an open book.

  He hadn’t even been a short story.

  Had he always been a criminal? she wondered now. Where had he and those monsters come from to wind up plowed into a snowbank in front of her family’s country house? Had he…

  Killed anyone?

  She refused to believe it.

  But there was no denying that he was somehow connected to the two men holding her family hostage.

  She thought back to the way they had broken up. Their relationship had seemed so full of promise. He hadn’t been a music major, like she was, but he had joined her and some of her bandmates often enough. He could play a guitar as well as many a weekend would-be rock star. His major had been international law, and he was a senior who’d made dean’s list every semester. He’d seemed to be the type of guy who would go off and solve at least a few of the world’s problems. He’d been popular and worked in the gym, helping the disabled students. He’d been…wonderful.

  She recalled how sometimes, when they’d been studying, she would look up to see him watching her. He didn’t move; he just watched her with the warmest expression in his eyes. Sometimes he would smile, then go back to studying. Other times he would drop his book, never taking his eyes off her. A slow, mischievous smile would curve his lips, and then the look in his eyes would become passionate. They were both young, after all.

  Before Craig, her sexual experience had been limited to three awkward occasions with Pete Barrows, her high school flame. With Craig, she’d learned what it was all about. The excitement. The climax. The longing created by the look in someone’s eyes, a scent, a word, a touch. He was gentle, forceful, exciting. Being with him was never awkward, but always incredible, frequently filled with laughter.

  She remembered one occasion, lying naked, waiting for her heart to slow and her breath to come naturally, when he had suddenly turned to her and asked, “Hey, do you know what they rated that new pirate movie?”

  “What?”

  “Arr,” he’d said, and they’d both laughed.

  “My God, that’s a horrible joke,” she’d told him, but she’d forgiven him immediately when he’d pulled her into his arms and they’d made love all over again.

  Her life had been perfect. She was getting good grades, having a wonderful time, and she was madly in love.

  Until, out of the clear blue, he’d told her that he was changing his life, that he didn’t really love her, that he was leaving right after he graduated.

  She had been stunned. She’d spent a week drinking and crying, and nearly flunked out. She’d gone to his graduation, hoping…But he hadn’t even shown up.

  She’d been mean to her parents and ignored her brothers. She’d spent what now seemed like half her lifetime wallowing in self-pity. But finally she’d pulled herself together, refusing to allow herself to self-destruct over a guy who had turned out to be a jerk.

  And now…here he was again. She could barely believe it.

  He had just…walked out. On her, on his life. And why? To become a criminal?

  Had he just woken up one morning thinking, Wow, it would be great to befriend the dregs of society and start robbing people, maybe kill a few?

  She realized suddenly that if she stayed where she was much longer she was going to start suffering from hypothermia, even though she’d put on the warmest clothes in her bedroom. She had to move. She was pretty certain she could slip back into the house through the basement window—the same way she had left.

  Numb, she made her way to the back door—which squeaked, which was why she hadn’t dared to use it—and slipped back through the window. She made a mental note to tell her father that a robber could easily break in that way, then laughed at herself, given that they’d let robbers—or worse—in through the front door tonight.

  She shivered and hugged herself, trying to both warm her body and thaw her mind, and looked around in the dim light filtering in from the stone stairway leading down from the pantry.

  The basement had seemed full of promise when she first headed down. She’d been certain there would be something down there that she could use as a weapon. The yardman was always leaving his tools behind.

  But not this time. The basement offered nothing but the Ping-Pong table, paddles and balls. It was swept clean. There wasn’t even a broom.

  But, if she’d found something, what good would it have done? There were two of them. Or three, if Craig regained a semblance of strength.

  No! her mind raged. Craig knew this was her family. He would never hurt her, and he would never hurt them. Or would he? What the hell did she know about him anymore? She hadn’t seen him since he had coldly broken things off and walked away.

  Had he become a dope addict? Was that what had changed his life? He hadn’t looked like he was on anything out there in the car. He had just looked injured. Had one of the others hurt him? Or had he been injured while attacking an earlier victim?

  She crept up the stone stairs that led to the pantry and the servants’ stairway in the back of the house.

  They didn’t have any servants, of course, but the house had been built back when there was huge money in Western Massachusetts. The size and isolation of the place—and the cost of heating it—had been the rea
sons her family had gotten such a good deal on the house years ago.

  She had hoped to escape to the neighbors’ house for help, but her nearest neighbors were at least half a mile away. In the storm, she wasn’t sure that she could find her way through the forest between the properties, but if she went by the road it would be more like two miles, and she knew she couldn’t last that long in this weather.

  And she wasn’t even sure the Morrisons would be there or that she could get in. Artie Morrison had told her father that he was buying a condo in Boca where he could head for winter, now that he and his wife were retired and the kids had moved away.

  After that, the next closest place was the jewelry and antique shop, and that was certainly closed for the holiday. Mr. Hudson was sick. He had cancer. Her mother had told her sadly that he was going to L.A. for the holidays, and that sometime during January, he and Ethan, his son, would come back together and close up for good, transferring what remained of the stock out to California, where Ethan and his wife now lived. After that…

  Another human being was at least five miles away.

  There was no hope of driving the cars; they were in the garage and the snow had already blocked the door. She’d had high hopes for the invaders’ car, which was how she’d come to discover Craig in the first place. But even if he hadn’t been in it, even if she hadn’t been stunned into shock, she couldn’t have driven it anywhere. Its nosedive into a snowbank had left the hood accordioned. That car was going nowhere.

  Obviously they intended to steal a car when the snow cleared. A car no one would need—because they wouldn’t leave anyone alive….

  Stop, she commanded herself. She didn’t know who these men were. Maybe they were so confident of their ability to get away that they didn’t care if anyone knew their names. Yes, they carried guns, but that didn’t mean they would use them.

  But they might. There was one dead lamp upstairs to prove it.

  At least it was just a lamp. At least the scrawny bastard who called himself Scooter hadn’t shot a member of her family. Yet.

  Breathe, she told herself. Breathe. Think.

  All right, so she couldn’t get help because she couldn’t get anywhere alive. And dead, she would do them no good at all. But she wasn’t doing anyone any good hovering in the basement, either.