“Don’t you ever do that again,” he’d said to her. His face was so scary she’d never forgotten it. She never let go of his hand again, either.
She talked to Sara Jean about what the awfulness could be.
“It’s just that the world sucks in general,” Sara Jean said, “and he doesn’t want you to find out yet.”
Julia sat in the truck pondering the suckitude of the world outside her window. It didn’t seem so awful. It just seemed… ordinary. She almost wished there was a monster out there. At least that would be something different.
And now Christmas was here and Sara Jean was not, and they’d be going soon. At least, that was the deal. But Mitch hadn’t said a thing about it, so maybe he’d changed his mind. She hoped so. She got all tight inside when she thought about leaving.
Julia kicked the front of her seat. Where was Mitch anyway? Miss Shelby must be talking his ear off.
Julia wouldn’t have thought he’d have that much to say—not with the way he acted around her before. Like if he got too close he’d catch something.
Her stomach growled.
What was taking him so long?
Just as she was thinking of unlocking the doors after all and going in to get him, he finally—finally—came around the corner of the house from the back.
“So?” Julia barely waited for Mitch to get behind the wheel. “What’d she want?”
He started the engine. “She wasn’t there.”
“What took you so long, then?”
“Long? I was gone like five minutes.”
“Locked up in here it seemed like a year.”
He tried not to smile. “Well, your prison term is up, Junebug, and I’ve got a surprise for you.”
Her jaw dropped. “What is it?”
He started the truck. “What kind of surprise would it be if I told you?”
“If I guess, will you tell me if I get it right?”
“No.”
“No fair!”
He laughed and pulled away from the curb while Julia bounced in the seat, impatient to be home.
“Is it inside?”
“It is if Neesy did what I asked her to.”
She was so excited she could hardly wait for him to turn off the engine when they got there. Before he set the brake, she was out of the car and racing up the walk.
Mitch watched her hurtle inside. She was going too fast to bother closing the front door, so he heard the scream as he was locking up the truck.
He smiled.
She ran back out and flung herself at him. He held her tight. “Merry Christmas, Junebug.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Do you like it?”
“It’s the most beautiful tree in the world.”
They walked inside, hand in hand. The evergreen filled the small house with the scent of thick, northern forests. He’d never paid much attention to Christmas before. They were often on the road or at a brief stopover. No place to put a tree let alone all the crap that went with it. So this was Julia’s first, and it didn’t disappoint. Her face was filled with awe and delight, her blue eyes sparkling.
“Want to decorate it?”
“With what?”
He held up a finger, went to the closet in his room where he’d hidden everything, and brought back glittery balls, tinsel, stars, snowflakes.
Julia spent a good hour taking everything out of the boxes, commenting on each ornament, separating the favorites from the less so. Then picking new ones and rearranging them.
He leaned over her shoulder from his perch on the couch. “Are you going to hang them or just look at them?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
To further the process, he made them hot chocolate, the good kind, with cream and real chocolate melted over a double boiler. He remembered days colder than this one, skating on the frozen lake behind the winter house, and the thick, rich chocolate that was always waiting when they plunged back inside, breathless and freezing. Not to mention bruised—at least he usually was if his brother was there. They weren’t allowed marshmallows, but Mitch threw a handful of the little puffs in Julia’s and, to spite the past, his, too.
He made popcorn to go along with the cocoa, and still the ornaments were splayed out on the floor.
“Jules, you just have to start somewhere. If you don’t like what you have, start all over.”
She climbed onto the couch and snuggled up against him. “But it’s our first tree. I want it to be perfect.”
He put an arm around her. “It will be.”
She sat there awhile, still undecided. So he gave her a little psychological push. “Want me to go first?”
“No!” She hopped off the couch, picked up a blue-and-silver ball, and hung it on a branch. Then she ran back to look at it.
“Pretty,” he said to encourage her.
She was reaching for a snowflake when someone knocked at the door.
Julia’s eyes widened. They didn’t get many visitors, and Sara Jean was away. “Oohh, another surprise. You didn’t say there was more.” She rushed off, excited.
She loved surprises.
14
Like most people in Crossroads, Police Chief Abe Marfield liked to spend Christmas Eve at home. But over the long course of his career, he’d also had a growing family, and Christmas was holiday pay. So when the kids were little, they often spent the holiday without him. Now that his kids were grown and had families of their own, Abe was home more often than not.
There was a certain irony to that, which, if he had to confess, was not as enjoyable as it should be. His wife, Irma, was on the phone half the night with one grandkid after another. And ever since the doctor had mentioned the few pounds he’d gained, she’d cut down on the gravy and mashed potatoes, so Christmas Eve dinner wasn’t even something to look forward to anymore.
He would have volunteered for holiday duty himself and spare the younger men, but now they were the ones with the growing families who needed the extra income. So it wasn’t entirely without pleasure when he got the call from Nathan Burgess.
“You better get down here, Chief.”
The deputy’s voice was sober, even anxious. All the excuse Abe needed.
“Irma!” he called into the kitchen, where his wife was setting the table for the two of them. “Got an emergency!”
“Now?” she called back.
He was strapping on his service revolver when she came out of the kitchen with her GRANNY SANTA apron on.
He shoved his arms into his jacket and bussed her cheek. “Sorry. Gotta run.”
She sighed, but they’d been married a long time, and this wasn’t the first emergency to take him away. “Hope it’s nothing too awful.” She tucked his jacket closer around him. “Be safe now,” she said. “And bring the boys around for apple pie if you want.”
He nodded, ashamed to be so eager to get back to work, even if it was just another Crossroads nonevent.
Not that he was complaining. Crossroads was the bridge between the demanding work on the streets of Chicago and retirement, which Irma was endlessly harping on and which he wasn’t ready for.
The town had been the perfect compromise. There’d been no murders, no gang shootings, and no armed robberies in the five years he’d been there. He’d had more than his share of drunk and disorderlies and domestic disturbances, but they paled in comparison to what he’d be doing if he stayed at the 07 in Englewood. And Irma had found her place among the church bazaars and the knitting club.
So Abe wasn’t expecting much as he sped over to Shelby Townsend’s house, where Nate Burgess was waiting outside with Shelby’s brother-in-law, Lewis Keyes.
“Ms. Townsend was supposed to go to her sister’s for Christmas Eve,” Nate said when Abe had joined them.
“And when she didn’t show up,” Lewis continued, “naturally we were worried.”
Keyes was a small, scrawny man whose aging red hair had paled to the color of the skin on his high, sloping foreh
ead. A pair of steel-rimmed glasses accentuated his watery gray eyes, which looked up at Abe with grave concern.
“She’s never late?” Abe frowned. Didn’t seem like much of a crisis.
“Well, sure, but not without calling.”
“And you tried calling her?”
“Yes, sir. No answer.”
“So Lewis, here, took a ride over,” Nate said.
“We’ve got a key, you see. For emergencies,” Lewis said. “And when I got in… Well, that’s when I called you.”
“Okay,” Abe said. “Let’s take a look.”
They escorted him around back and through the kitchen door. Nate led the way to the living room, which was evidently also Shelby’s office. A desk with a computer sat against one wall. Didn’t look like Ms. Townsend was much of a neat freak. But even still, the place was a mess. Pillows on the couch strewn on the floor. Chairs overturned. A bookcase disrobed of its contents. Abe scanned through the stuff on the desk. Announcements of Rotary meetings, a couple of births, the results of the high school holiday bake sale.
“And look.” Nate pointed to a stain on the middle of the floor.
Abe crossed over, then bent down to examine it. “Get an evidence kit.”
“You think it’s blood?” Lewis knelt and reached out to touch the blot.
Abe swatted his hand away. “Don’t touch it. In fact, don’t touch anything.”
“But who’d want to hurt Shelby?”
Abe thought about the call from the FBI agent asking about Shelby, but he didn’t want to alarm anyone yet. “Now, don’t go jumping to conclusions, Lewis. Could be a lot of explanations for this. We don’t even know what the spot is yet.”
Nate brought in the kit, and they both pulled on latex gloves prior to scraping up samples of the substance for testing. They were still kneeling on the floor when Nate drew his boss’s attention toward the desk across the room.
Abe looked over and didn’t see anything worth mentioning. The screen was dark. They’d already riffled through the papers, and it was all routine town stuff. “What?”
“Power light’s on,” Burgess said.
Abe homed in on a tiny green circle in the PC tower below the desk. It was right at eye level; if they’d been standing, Nate wouldn’t have spotted it.
“Good eyes,” Abe said. He rose and went over to the computer, where he pressed a key. The machine whirred back to life.
But when the picture resolved itself, Abe frowned.
Nate whistled. “Holy Christ.”
Lewis said nothing. But he turned paler than a pack of bones bleached by the sun.
Hannah Blunt looked up from the briefs on her desk. Her eyes were tired, and her head was beginning to pound. She opened a desk drawer, looking for the aspirin, and couldn’t find any.
“Pammy!” Her paralegal didn’t answer. She tried the secretary, but when Carol didn’t answer, either, Hannah pushed back from the desk and flung open the office door.
“Does anyone know—”
If anyone did, they weren’t saying. Largely because no one was there.
Well, of course no one was there. She’d given them the afternoon off, hadn’t she?
She rubbed her temples and retreated back to her desk. The pile of briefs suddenly looked like the mountain of straw some silly girl was supposed to spin into gold.
The hell with it. It was Christmas Eve, and she’d worked a full day. Plus.
She grabbed her briefcase, quickly sorted through the pile and took what she needed, then left the rest where it was. She retrieved her coat from the closet and saw that someone had pinned a bright red bow to the black collar. She frowned, went to take it off, then left it where it was.
She gave the decoration a wry smile. “Merry Christmas, Hannah Blunt.”
To celebrate, she’d go home and take a nice, long bath. The thought almost soothed her. Maybe she wouldn’t need that aspirin after all. She let herself out of her office and headed toward the exit. But something on the floor in front of the door stopped her. Gifts wrapped in Christmas paper.
It took her a moment to remember what they were and why they were sitting on the floor. To remind her not to leave without them.
Bitsy was supposed to have taken them over to the carriage house but in the rush to get away had forgotten. She’d called from Florida in a panic. Typical Bitsy.
Hannah picked up the boxes and fingered the shiny green paper. What was it about Mitch Turner that made her so uneasy?
Good-looking men always made her uneasy.
But Mitch was more Rochester than Darcy. And like Rochester, there was something about him. Some dark undercurrent no one but her seemed to see.
She closed her eyes. Tried a deep breath. She could take the gifts over tomorrow.
But that’s what she said yesterday and the day before and the day before that.
And she already had her coat on.
She gave the tub one last, longing thought. Then she grabbed the gifts and stalked off.
15
When the knock sounded, Julia dashed away like the puppy she wanted so badly.
Mitch ran after her. “Hold up, Jules! Ask who it is before you open—” Too late. He was rounding the corner when he heard the door open.
“Is your daddy home?” asked a deep, male voice.
“Miiiitch!” she cried.
When he got there, Mitch saw Chief Marfield and one of his deputies standing on the threshold, looking solemn and not at all in a holiday mood. A tall, wide-shouldered African American, the chief had a solid, authoritative air. This was a man you could trust to get things done.
Which didn’t endear him to Mitch. Even more so when he was standing at Mitch’s door on Christmas Eve.
His warning antennae, honed to perfection after more than a decade, went way up. The impulse to run suffocated him. But he had no chance. The deputy was already placing Mitch’s hands behind his back.
“Mitch Turner,” the chief intoned, “also known as Mitchell Hanover. You are under arrest for the murder of Alicia Ruiz and the kidnapping of her infant daughter.”
If it was possible to lose every drop of blood in an instant, Mitch would have keeled over in a pool of red. Was he even still standing? He heard the official words from a distance as though said to someone on another planet. It took the snick of the cuffs and the chill of metal on his wrists to bring him back to this one. When he did, it was to noise and chaos.
Julia was hopping up and down and tugging at him and the deputy. “What are they talking about? What are they doing? What are you doing? Wait! Don’t!” She gave the deputy a mighty push, and he expelled a puff of air but didn’t move.
“Sorry, little girl,” the chief was saying.
“Gotta do this,” the deputy mumbled, and Julia butted him in the gut. And when that still didn’t move him, she tried again.
Mitch reached out to stop her, but, of course, he couldn’t. “Jules.” She wasn’t paying any attention. He swallowed. “Julia. Julia!”
“What?” she yelled back. “Are you just gonna let them take you away? It’s Christmas Eve!” She glared at the two officers. “He didn’t do what you said. You’re lying.”
He knelt down awkwardly, his balance off because of his hands behind his back. “Come here.” When she did, he looked right into her stormy blue eyes. A pang of memory hit him, and for a brief minute it took him back, way, way back, all the way to the day this all started and the choice he’d made. The choice that had brought them all to this terrible moment. “It’s going to be all right,” he lied to her. “Just calm down.”
She inched closer to him and put her arms around his neck. “I’m scared,” she whispered.
If he could, he would have hugged her. “I know. But that’s what bravery is all about. Being scared and going on anyway. And we both know how brave you are.”
“I don’t want to be brave.”
“I’m sorry, Junebug. It’s just for a little while. Until we get this straightened out.�
�� How he managed to sound so calm was a miracle even he didn’t understand. Maybe it was all the times he’d imagined this happening. When it finally did, it seemed both inevitable and anticlimactic.
“Where were you today?” the chief asked.
He wobbled to his feet. “At Crick’s, like always.”
“And after?”
“After? Why?”
“Just answer the question.”
But those antennae were quivering maniacally.
“We went to see Miss Shelby,” Julia blurted out, her arms crossed, her face a thundercloud.
“Julia,” Mitch cautioned.
“What? We can visit whoever we want, can’t we? She wasn’t even there.”
The chief and the deputy exchanged a look. “Is that true, Mr…. uh… Hanover?”
“Our name’s Turner,” Julia said with scorn. “And I don’t lie.”
But the chief was waiting for it to come from Mitch. Julia was glaring at him. He nodded once, feeling like he’d admitted to a lot more than a visit. “She called me at the restaurant and asked me to meet her at her house.”
“Did she say why?”
He cut a quick glance over to Julia. “Not really.”
The chief seemed to catch the unspoken message. “All right, we can finish up at the station.” He, too, looked at Julia. “Do you have someone you can call?” Both men knew without specifying what he was talking about.
“You know I don’t,” Mitch said.
“What about the Blunts?” the deputy asked. “They rent you the carriage house, don’t they?”
“They’re in Florida.”
“She’ll have to go into child services,” the chief said.
His stomach flopped. “You can’t do that.”
“No other choice. Can’t leave her here.”
“If you’re talking about me,” Julia said with a scowl, “I can stay by myself. I’m not a baby.”
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