The Kid Who Stole Christmas

by Linda Stevens

  Chapter Eighteen

  As Shannon and Rick pulled away from the Bayer lodge, they could see that the clouds were moving in from the south with a vengeance now, boiling over the nearby peaks in a dark gray sheet. They had only gone about a mile, when the snow started coming down in big, fat flakes.

  Shannon was at the wheel, and Rick wasn’t making any macho noises about wanting to take over, either. Although he had been in some dandy snowstorms during his wanderings, especially back East, it had been years since he’d driven a car in one. Still, he couldn’t help fretting a bit.

  “Is this car pretty good in the snow?” Rick asked.

  “Decent. It’s a front-wheel drive.” She glanced at him and smiled. “I’ve never gotten stuck, if that’s what you’re worrying about.”

  “I’m not worried,” Rick objected.

  “Yes, you are. But you can stop. It’s going to take a lot more than a few snowflakes to keep me from finding Leo.”

  “That’s sort of what has me worried,” Rick muttered.

  Nevertheless, Shannon decided to start at the westernmost end of the corridor Rick had marked on the map, since the one house they needed to check there was also the one deepest into the mountains. She wanted to get there and back as soon as possible, because of a pass they had to go through that the State Patrol might close, should the storm become severe.

  Once back on the interstate, they both relaxed. Snow was falling, but the roads were still clear. It only took about half an hour to reach their destination. Shannon’s map didn’t give a street-by-street breakdown for the little ski-resort towns, so they had to stop at a gas station and ask directions. At the same time, they bought a better map. Like the gas they didn’t buy, it was enormously overpriced, but necessary.

  The house at the address Rick had tracked down wasn’t at all what they expected. Small and unassuming, even a bit tacky-looking among its ultramodern stone and glass neighbors, it was a simple frame home with weathered cedar siding and a single-car detached garage.

  There was a lot of traffic moving up and down the road in front of it, mostly pricey four-wheel drives with fully loaded ski racks on top. They had no skis, but the pair of amateur sleuths didn’t think they’d look too suspicious if they stopped and pretended to check their map, while covertly scanning the area for signs of kidnappers.

  “Satellite dish,” Rick said, looking at the side of the structure. “And I guess there’s enough space for an entertainment room in there somewhere.”

  “Hard to imagine any white carpeting inside, though,” Shannon said doubtfully.

  “True.”

  “What do you think we should do?”

  Rick sighed, then reached for the door handle. “I’m going to go ask to see their pool.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Nope.”

  With that, Rick climbed out of the car and dashed through the steadily falling snow right up to the front door of the house. Shannon watched, incredulous, as the man who came to the door ushered Rick in almost immediately.

  Ten minutes went by. Shannon was starting to have a horrible vision of Rick floating facedown in the pool he had so blithely gone to see. But he suddenly emerged from the house, waved to his host and dashed back across the street to Shannon. Though he did the best he could to brush himself off, his shoulders were still covered in a mantle of white.

  “Whew!” he exclaimed. “Really coming down out there.”

  Shannon sniffed. “Surely that’s not beer I smell on your breath? Not when I was out here worrying about your having fallen prey to murderous kidnappers.”

  “Sorry,” Rick apologized sheepishly. “But Bill brews his own, and refused to let me go unless I tasted some.”

  “Bill?”

  “The guy in the house. Bill Enright. He’s a retired heating contractor. A real nice guy,” Rick informed her. “But he does like his beer. Got the pool so he could swim off the excess calories year-round.” He leaned closer with a conspiratorial air. “Bill’s pension fund has done very well.”

  Shannon chuckled. “You’re doing very well, that’s for sure. Must have been one incredible beer.”

  “He did tell me the combination of it and the altitude might have a considerable kick,” Rick said.

  “Uh-huh.” Shannon pulled away from the house. “I think I’d better find you some coffee. I need you clearheaded.”

  “I’m fine,” he insisted.

  “You did remember what you went in there to do, right?”

  Rick scowled at her. “I know you, Ms. O’Shaughnessy. You’re just sore because I didn’t bring you one. And yes, I checked. No white carpeting, no kidnappers and no Leo. He did have a parakeet, though.”

  “Do tell.”

  “Its name was Ouch.”

  Shannon sighed. “I know I’m going to hate myself for asking this, but why did he name his parakeet Ouch?”

  “I asked the same thing. Bill told me to put my finger in its cage and I’d find out.” He chuckled. “Bill’s a riot.”

  Shannon got them both some coffee at a convenience store and then headed back east on the interstate. The snowfall was increasing, and it took them twice as long to get back to the pass. By then, Rick had sobered considerably. “My finger hurts,” he told her.

  “What did you expect from a bird named Ouch?”

  “My head hurts a little, too. I suppose I should have known better than to imbibe a beer called Malted Mayhem, as well, shouldn’t I?”

  “It was probably unwise,” Shannon agreed. “But then, so is driving in this weather.”

  “We could go back and stay with Bill. He did offer.”

  “Hah! I’ll take my chances.”

  She studied the winding road of the mountain pass up ahead of her. Snow had long since started sticking to the pavement at this altitude, and the conditions were far from ideal. If a sand truck hadn’t been about four vehicles ahead of her, her car wouldn’t have made it. As it was, they skewed sideways a couple of times on the long uphill climb, giving both of them a thrill they could have lived without.

  At last they reached the crest of the pass and started downward. Now, the biggest problem wasn’t getting stuck, it was sliding off into the deep ravines on either side of the snowpacked road. By taking it nice and easy, Shannon managed just fine. But caution did have a price. When they again passed the cutoff for the Bayers’ lodge, Shannon glanced at the dashboard clock. The return trip had taken them three times as long, and it was now full dark.

  “Where’s the next house?” she asked.

  “Well, the crossroad is about ten miles ahead. And I’d say it’s about another five from there.” Rick peered out the windshield at the snow. It was falling so heavily now that it was a virtual wall of white in front of them, reflecting the headlights back and creating an annoying glare. “I don’t think we’re going to make it.”

  “I’m doing fine,” Shannon objected.

  “Sure you are. Now. But you have a string of cars ahead of you blazing the trail,” Rick said. It amazed him how heavy the traffic was, considering the strength of the storm. “It looks like those who have to are getting out of the mountains while the getting is good. We should join them.”

  “No!” Shannon was adamant. “I don’t know what Angela and her paramour are up to, but if it involves Leo, I want him safely away from it.”

  Rick touched her shoulder. “We won’t do him much good stuck in a ditch and buried under three feet of snow, either.”

  “That won’t happen.”

  It was already two inches thick on the hood of the car, and they were moving. He could only imagine what the actual accumulation was. But Rick could tell by the look on her face that arguing with her was useless. And he wasn’t accustomed to weather like this. Maybe Shannon did know what she was doing.

  When they reached their turnoff and plunged into the blackness on their own, however, it became apparent just how much of an aid to navigation the headlights of other cars and an occas
ional streetlamp had been. Though it seemed impossible, the snow started falling even harder. Shannon had the wipers on high, and still couldn’t keep the windshield clear.

  They slowed down to a crawl, scarcely able to see one car length in front of them. The blowing, drifting snow made the road ahead seem little more than a footpath through the dense pine trees. It also had a hypnotizing effect as it danced in the glare of the headlights. Shannon felt as if the entire car was moving from side to side.

  “Uh, Rick?” she said at last.

  He was sitting in the passenger seat, arms crossed over his chest, a dour expression on his face. “Yes, Shannon?”

  “I think we’re in trouble.”

  “Really? But you said that wouldn’t happen.”

  She sighed. He had every reason to be mad, and he clearly was. “I was mistaken.”

  “Thank you for sharing that with me.”

  “Any suggestions?”

  “I assume you mean one other than the obvious, considering the approaching religious holiday.”

  “Yes. I started doing that a few minutes ago,” she said.

  “Me, too.”

  Rick glanced at the speedometer. They were barely going five miles an hour, and that was pushing the envelope. Except for the pitiful, snow-clogged glow from their headlights, they were immersed in inky darkness. As a final insult, it seemed the heater was having trouble keeping the windows from fogging up. He reached over and, using his glove, cleared a spot for Shannon to see out of.

  “Thank you,” Shannon said. “But I’m driving mostly by instinct, anyway.”

  “I thought as much. You’d better just stop right here. I’ll get out and scout ahead to see if I can find a place to pull off, and we’ll just wait for a snowplow to come along.”

  Shannon did as he asked. It was a relief to be able to stop concentrating on the road. There was a spot in the middle of her shoulder blades that felt as if someone had stuck a red-hot poker in her and left it there.

  Rick disappeared the instant he passed the front fender. An occasional gust of wind shook the car, as a reminder of what he must be going through outside. Shannon nearly jumped out of her skin when he knocked on her window.

  She rolled it down. Rick was a mass of white from head to toe. “I’m going to walk in front of you. Just follow slowly and try not to run me down, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Shannon rolled her window up again as quickly as she could, and even then the side of her head was plastered with blowing snow. Rick stood in front of the car and motioned for her to start moving. She eased forward. They crept along that way for what seemed like forever, but was actually only a few minutes and probably less than a hundred yards. At last, Rick stopped and held up his hands. Shannon stopped, too.

  He didn’t even bother trying to shake himself off until he got back into the car. It was a lucky thing that the coat he’d chosen had a hood, or his whole head would be a frozen snowball. As it was, his nose and cheeks were pink from being scoured by the blowing snow.

  “Go ahead and turn your headlights off,” Rick told her.

  “But how will anyone see us?”

  “We don’t want them to.”

  Shannon helped brush the snow off him, and then held her warm hands against his face. He moaned and nodded.

  “That feels good.”

  “We need to thaw you out.” She chuckled. “It sounded like you said we don’t want anyone to see us.”

  “That is what I said,” Rick said.

  He held his hands over his ears for a moment to warm them, too. Before, the car heater hadn’t felt very warm. Now it was heaven. But the windows were fogging up worse than ever, thanks to the snow melting off his clothes.

  Shannon frowned at him. “What did you do? Meet up with home-brew Bill out there?”

  “Better. Santa Claus.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well, somebody gave us a Christmas present,” Rick told her. “I didn’t go ten feet, before I ran smack into a mailbox. We’d come farther than we thought. We’re there.”

  “The house with the pool?” Shannon asked, mouth agape.

  “Yup. We’re sitting about a hundred feet or so down their driveway, parked behind a copse of juniper bushes,” he informed her. “The satellite dish is off to our right. It seems to be the sort of house to have a white rug, too. Give me a minute or so more to warm up, and I’ll go back out to take a closer look.”

  Shannon started pulling her gloves on. “No, you’ve played Arctic explorer enough for one night. I’ll go.”

  “It’s nasty out there,” Rick warned her.

  She wrapped her wool scarf over her head and down around her ears, then tucked it into the collar of her coat, which she buttoned all the way up. Her boots, though suede, had good soles and a dose of waterproofing on them.

  “I’m not made of cotton candy,” she said. “I won’t melt. Besides, it’s my fault we’re out here in this storm, so it’s only fair I do my share.”

  “Suit yourself, but be careful.” Rick held out his hands to warm them on the flow of air coming from the heater vents. “I’ll keep the home fires burning, so to speak.”

  “You do that.”

  Shannon got out of the car. She took about two steps and realized Rick had lied. It wasn’t nasty out; it was horrible! The wind howled through the trees, and made the snow hitting her face feel like stinging grains of sand. That wouldn’t have been too bad if she could move quickly, but every step was a struggle, the fallen snow already up to her knees.

  By chance, she found the remnants of some recent tracks. Evidently, a vehicle had pulled in or out of the driveway not long ago. This made the going much easier, though walking in one wheel track was still a little awkward. She followed it all the way up to the house, where the tracks disappeared into an attached garage. The snow was still falling so heavily that she didn’t worry much about being seen. Then, too, there were no lights on at all, not even on the front porch.

  It was deathly quiet, except for the wind, which even blew away the sound of her running car engine not more than a couple of hundred feet away. She moved toward the porch. As she did so, her boot caught on some sort of obstruction buried under the snow.

  Shannon fell flat on her face. “Oof!”

  She struggled to her knees, covered in snow, and grabbed for the bottom part of the porch railing to help herself up. But the railing was loose, and wiggling it dislodged a shovel that had been propped against the railing at the top of the steps. It came clattering down, just missing her head. She jerked back, which caused her to slip again and clutch the flimsy railing for support. The piece she was holding broke with a loud crack. Shannon went down again, on her rear end this time, thankful for the cushion of her coat and several feet of snow.

  “For heaven’s sake!” she muttered, getting carefully to her feet again. “Some spy I am.”

  But she had determined one thing, at least. Either there was nobody home, or they were deaf, because she’d made enough noise to wake the dead. She decided to go report this fact to Rick. Since snow now covered her from head to toe, she figured they were even.

  Rick thought so, too. “I feel much better now,” he said, laughing as she got into the car. “What on earth did you do? Roll in the stuff?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Shannon groused. “Suffice it to say, I have determined the place is unoccupied at the moment. Or the occupants are wearing earplugs. Either way, this is a dead end, too.” She looked at him plaintively. “Well? Aren’t you going to help me brush off? I helped you.”

  “Why bother? You’re just going right back out in it.”

  “Not me!” Shannon objected. “If you want to reconnoiter, do it yourself. It’s cold out there.”

  “It’ll be cold in here, too, as soon as the gas runs out.”

  Shannon crossed her arms. “I’m a Colorado girl, remember? I know what to do in emergencies like this. You only run the car for a few minutes every half hour or so. A
nd get out and exercise every now and then, to keep from falling asleep.”

  Rick shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’m going to go see if I can get into that house.”

  “You can’t do that!”

  “Why not? We did it just a few hours ago, and that wasn’t an emergency. In fact, it was even your idea,” he said pointedly.

  “That was different. We knew who the place belonged to.”

  “We know that here, too.” He reached up and turned on the dome light so he could read the piece of paper with the addresses on it. “Ralph and Kim Jeffries.”

  “But we don’t know them.”

  “We aren’t exactly pals with the Bayers, now, are we?” Rick said. “And I for one, am willing to bet the Jeffrieses are a lot nicer folks.” He reached out and brushed some melting snow off her hair. “We really don’t have much choice, Shannon. The temperature is dropping and we’re both soaked. There’s no telling when someone might come, but by the look of this storm, it could be quite a while, maybe not until tomorrow morning. And the next nearest house is miles away. It’s crazy to risk freezing, when we’re so close to this one.”

  Shannon knew he was right. There was also a part of her that realized their shared fantasy of earlier had a chance of coming true. They were going to be snowed in, and with any luck, would soon be sitting in front of a roaring fire.

  “All right,” she said. “But this time, let’s try not to break the door down if we don’t have to, okay?”

  Rick made a crossing motion over his chest with one finger. “I promise. Last resort. And who knows? The phones don’t seem very reliable around here, but if they are still working, we might even be able to call for help.”

  That didn’t sound nearly as romantic to Shannon, but it was the more responsible approach, she supposed. Still, she found herself half hoping that the phones were out again.

  As long as they might have to help themselves to the place for the night, they decided they might as well park right in front. Though it slipped and slid all the way, her car made it down the rest of the driveway. Shannon parked it right in front of the garage. When she turned the engine off at last, it seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. She gave it an affectionate pat on the wheel, then got out to join Rick in his search for a means of entry.