“What on earth did you do?” he asked her, upon seeing all the marks in the snow near the front porch. “Meet up with a bear, or something?”
“I fell, okay? Now come on. It’s freezing out here.”
Rick was still studying the prints. “I recognize that one. Must have hurt.” He patted her lightly on the rear end. “Are you okay?”
“Rick! Would you come on?”
“I’m working on it,” he said.
Except for Shannon’s footprints and the places where she had fallen, the only other tracks were those of the vehicle that had obviously left the house—and not long before they’d arrived, judging by the rate at which the tracks were disappearing. The porch was covered with snow, as were the steps. No walkways had been shoveled for quite some time, if the drifts were any indication.
“Must be an entrance in the garage,” he told her.
“So?”
“So I installed garage doors for a living at one time, as well,” Rick replied. “I know a few tricks of the trade.”
Shannon was stomping her feet to keep warm. “Then might I suggest you perform a couple before we turn into snowmen?”
Rick looked it over. As he thought, it had an automatic opener. Remembering that Shannon had one, too, he tried her remote to see if, by chance, the frequencies matched. No luck.
Shannon, meanwhile, was beginning to rethink her moral position on breaking and entering, and went looking for a suitable door for him to kick down. Using the shovel she had found earlier, she dug a little path around the house. It gave her something to do and helped keep her warm. By the time she got back to the garage, however, Rick had the door open.
“How did you do that?” she asked.
He put his finger to his lips. “Trade secret. If I told you, you’d go around breaking into houses higgledy-piggledy.”
Though tempted to whack him with the shovel, she tossed it aside and followed him into the garage. As he said, there was an entrance to the house. He pushed a button near it, and the automatic door rattled down. A light came on as it did so.
“Oops!” Rick said. “Trouble.”
Shannon joined him. “What?” Then she saw the fancy lock on the back door. “Oops is right. I guess we kick it in, huh?”
“I’m worried about you, Shannon. You seem to be developing a penchant for destruction.”
“Me? It’s your footprint they’ll find on the Bayers’ door.”
“True. So help me stop this senseless crime spree and look for a key to this lock. I know I used to keep one hidden in my garage, just in case.”
“Me, too,” Shannon agreed. “I guess cats are right. We humans are hopelessly predictable. What sort of key?”
“A plastic one. It’ll look like a credit card.”
Shannon made a face. “Fancy.”
“Nothing is too good for the Jeffrieses, apparently.”
“I just hope they have a good heater.”
It was Shannon who found the card, stuck in between the pages of a dog-eared workshop manual on a shelf above a tool bench at the back of the garage. The manual, she noted, was for a classic model Jaguar.
“If they really own this car,” Rick said, “I’d say good old Ralph and Kim are probably bloody rich.”
Shannon swiped the card through the groove in the lock. There was a click, and the door popped open. “Let’s go inside and find out, shall we?”
If they weren’t rich, the Jeffrieses were on very good terms with several credit card companies. The house had one of everything. Two, if they could be made to fit. There was even a color television in the kitchen.
Unfortunately, the place was also a pigsty. Especially the entertainment room, where dirty dishes littered almost every horizontal surface.
Shannon grabbed Rick’s arm and pointed to the floor, where a once-beautiful white Berber rug had recently taken a beating from which it might never recover. “Sure look like blueberry syrup stains to me,” she said.
Rick nodded. He had a puzzled look on his face. “Do you hear something strange?”
“What?” She was quiet for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. A sort of knocking sound. You don’t suppose...”
With Rick in the lead, they followed the sound toward the back of the house, where they found some steps leading to the basement. Rick flipped a switch and some lights came on to guide them. As they descended, an unusual smell reached them, one Shannon could only describe as that of fresh running water.
They had found the pool they’d been looking for. And there was something floating in it.
Chapter Nineteen
Whoever had used the pool last had forgotten to turn the water jet off. There was something caught in its artificial current, causing it to knock on the fiberglass side.
“What is that?” Shannon asked uneasily.
“Relax,” Rick told her. He stepped over to the side of the pool and fished out the floating object. “It’s just the hard plastic head off a Santa Claus lawn ornament.”
“That’s twisted!” Shannon removed her sodden coat and sat down on the redwood bench near the pool. “And just like Leo. He was here. But we’re too late.”
“From the looks of things, they took off pretty fast, too,” Rick said. He removed his coat as well, hanging it on the bench beside hers. “I wonder why.”
“Uh-oh.” Shannon looked at him, her eyes going wide. “You don’t suppose the Arnies arrived?”
“No, that’s impossible. They’re—” He stopped himself in the nick of time. “They’re not due until tomorrow.”
She was studying his face suspiciously. “I thought you didn’t know when they were going to get here.”
“I, uh, checked with Arnie central this morning.”
“Maybe they came in early. It would also explain why Angela and Emilio were in such a hurry before.”
In a way, she was right. Rick’s forehead furrowed with worry. “What was it Angela had said? Something about an old sot?” He turned and started back up the stairs. “I’m going to see if the phones work.”
“I have to call Lyon’s,” Shannon agreed, hot on his heels. “And my next-door neighbor. My cats will worry.”
The house had plenty of phones. Rick tried the one in the kitchen and another in the entertainment room before admitting defeat. He slammed the receiver down with a bang.
“This stupid weather!” He glanced at Shannon. “I can’t believe I let you pull off the interstate. We’d be safe and sound in Denver by now.”
“Maybe. Or maybe we’d be in a ditch waiting for a tow truck,” Shannon countered. “At least we really are safe here.”
“Yeah, right.” Rick kicked a pillow that was on the floor and sent it flying across the room. “Safe and stuck.”
Shannon’s hopes for a romantic evening were melting like the snow that still clung to her hair. “Earlier, you seemed to think that wouldn’t be so bad,” she reminded him.
“That was before I realized Angela and her pet stud might have gotten the jump on me,” Rick grumbled.
He was searching around for the television remote. When he found it, he turned the set on, muting the sound and clicking through the channels. At last he found one that was showing the latest Arnie the Arachnid news.
“Nothing so far,” Rick said after a moment, and plopped down on the couch with a sigh of relief. “I can’t imagine that they’d be sitting on their thumbs. Maybe he hasn’t sobered up enough to tell them anything.”
“Who?” Shannon asked, confused.
“That old sot, as Angela called him,” Rick explained. “I told you about him, remember? Well, I don’t think he just happened to fall down in front of the warehouse. He followed me there. I suppose it’s possible he decided not to tell them anything because I was nice and helped him. But then, he did warn me he’d stab me in the back for a couple of bucks. He’s probably just too hung over to remember what he saw.”
“And what did he see, Rick?”
He sighed again. It was time to fa
ce the music, or at least the overture. “There’s been a load of spiders at the warehouse all along.”
“You lied to me?” Shannon asked through clenched teeth.
“No. Or at least, not really,” Rick added quickly. “You see, they’re not actually Arnies.”
She frowned. “Then what are they?”
“Fakes,” he replied. She was too close to the edge for him to quibble over the fine points of toy spiders just now. “I had originally intended to let the Bayers steal them. That way, when they tried to sell them as the real thing, it would put them right in the cross hairs of a legal suit.”
“But then Leo was kidnapped,” Shannon said.
Rick had his feet up on the coffee table now, and was too wrapped up in his own thoughts to see how mad Shannon was really getting.
“Even then, I thought that if I foisted the fakes off on them as a ransom, the end result would be the same,” he went on. “But I decided it would be best to see if we could find Leo first.” He frowned. “Everything might still work out, I suppose. I just wish I could get to the warehouse and find out if Angela has the spiders.”
Shannon was in no mood to reassure him. She had her own problems, and it now looked as if he was partly responsible for the largest of the lot. She stood beside the couch now, looking down at him.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked.
“Probably,” Rick replied. He started to chuckle, but then caught sight of her face. It was a mask of fury. “Oh.”
“That’s right. Oh. As in Leo. You remember him, don’t you?” she asked in a soft tone that belied the anger she felt inside. “The little boy we came up here to find? Instead of wondering where your precious fake Arnies are, don’t you think you should worry about who has Leo and what they’re planning on doing with him, especially if you’ve lost those spiders?”
Rick patted the couch, indicating that she should sit down beside him. “Take it easy, Shannon. I’m sure he’s fine.”
Shannon had no intention of sitting down. In fact, she gave the coffee table a push with her foot, causing Rick’s feet to slip off. It jerked him upright on the couch, and Shannon bent down to meet him, her nose almost touching his.
“That’s probably true,” she agreed. “You’re the one who’s in trouble! Didn’t you think Pop and I should have been in on the decision on whether to use the fakes as a ransom?”
“I—”
“Didn’t you think it might have been better for all of us if you had simply handed them over right away?” she interrupted. “Instead of letting Leo go through all this?”
Rick wasn’t accustomed to being harangued by anyone, and didn’t intend to take it sitting down. He got to his feet, making Shannon back up quickly.
“All this?” Rick asked, looking around the entertainment room. “It appears to me that all Leo has been going through is two days of juvenile bliss.”
“That’s not the point!” Shannon exclaimed. They weren’t quite shouting at each other yet, but it wouldn’t be long.
“Then what is? Your concept of right and wrong?”
“My concept! What about yours?” she demanded. “You just unilaterally decided that you knew what was best for everyone, didn’t you?”
Rick scowled at her. “Stop playing the injured party. I told you from the very beginning that my major concern was getting something on the Bayers so I could work my way back into my daughter’s life. And it still is!”
Shannon nodded once, curtly. “Fine! From the very beginning, I told you that Leo was my main concern. And that hasn’t changed, either.” She put her hands on her hips. “But so help me, Rick Hastings, if it turns out that I need those spiders to get him back, you’d better find some but quick.”
With that, she stalked off and started searching the house. Rick watched her, the sway of her full hips taunting him, making him realize that what might have become a night of fantastic passion had just disintegrated into a foolish tiff.
Foolish because she was right. It was all his fault. He could almost hear Charlie telling him I told you so. In fact, he was saying it to himself. And worse.
“You idiot,” he admonished himself under his breath.
Shannon was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and he had just ridden roughshod over the one thing that concerned her the most. She was right about that, too. No matter who had Leo or how well they were treating him, it still hadn’t been right for him to hold the ransom for ransom, so to speak. If he had turned it over the night Leo had disappeared, they probably wouldn’t be going through this right now.
Of course, that would mean he might not have gotten as close to Shannon as he had, either. Had that been in the back of his mind all along?
Yes, it had. And it was high time he admitted that much at the very least. He followed her to the den, where he found her going through some papers on an antique rolltop desk.
“Shannon?”
She didn’t look up. “What?”
“I’m sorry.”
Shannon hesitantly met his gaze. “That’s a start.”
“I should have told you. I have plenty of excuses why I didn’t. For what it’s worth, the most important ones did have to do with people, not revenge. My daughter means a lot to me.”
“I know.”
“So do you,” he told her softly. “I think I sensed that would be the case right away. And I thought that if I helped you look for Leo, rather than turn over the spiders, maybe we could get to know each other better. Leo was fine, and he apparently wasn’t in any real danger. It seemed like a lark, almost. I guess I just didn’t realize how important the little guy really is to you.”
Shannon turned away, and he could see by the dim light of a banker’s lamp on the desk that there were tears glistening in her eyes. “Then you don’t know me very well at all, do you?”
“Be honest, Shannon. That’s your fault, not mine. You’ve let me close to you in every way but one. I don’t know you very well because you haven’t allowed me to.”
Shannon knew he was right. She also knew it was senseless to keep pushing him away when he neared the sore spot in her life. Rick was offering his help, and she needed it. It was plain to see how much she had helped him, simply by being there to listen. And he had been there for her all along.
“You’re right,” she admitted softly, tears streaming down her cheeks now. “I haven’t let you in. I don’t know why. It’s silly, really. I just...” She trailed off, sobbing.
Rick crossed the room and knelt beside the desk chair so that he could put his arm around her shoulder as she cried. He knew he was to blame for causing this sudden breakdown. But the roots of her sorrow clearly went much deeper.
When her sobs had lessened somewhat, he tried to get her to look at him. “I don’t know what’s troubling you,” Rick said softly. “But whatever it is, it doesn’t seem as if you’ve let it go. Talking will help.” He rubbed her back in gentle, soothing strokes. “Believe me, I know. You taught me that.”
Shannon lifted her head, nodding, and took the tissue he offered her. Her tears dried up quickly, which wasn’t unusual for her. She had cried too many of them in years past to allow them to linger for long.
But the pain was still there. And it was time to share it with someone who knew what such pain was like. “This thing with Leo has me so on edge because I couldn’t bear to lose him,” she began. “My head knows that he’s okay. But my heart isn’t so easily persuaded.”
Rick held her tightly. “Tell me why,” he urged.
“Greg and I...had a child together. A beautiful girl. She died in an automobile accident when she was just a baby.” Shannon started crying again, but softly this time. “Her name was Melissa. She was such a good baby, so quiet and always happy. We were on our way home from the market. I was driving and I...I never saw the other car. It ran a red light and hit us broadside. There was nothing I could do. She was killed instantly.”
“Oh, my Lord,” Rick said, his voic
e scarcely above a whisper. “Shannon, I’m so sorry.”
“I was knocked unconscious. To this day, I don’t really remember what happened. I do remember being in the hospital, on medication, for a long time. When I came out of the fog, I was just plain numb.”
“And your husband?” Rick prompted.
Shannon sighed. “Coped with things differently, I guess you’d say. I don’t remember seeing much of him while I was in the hospital. But when I came home, I was desperate for his love and support. What I got were accusations,” she said, the bitterness clear in her voice.
Rick was stunned. “Accusations. About what?”
“Greg believed it was all my fault,” she replied. “At first, I didn’t blame him for that. After all, it was such a horrible, senseless thing. But he just got worse. To him, Melissa’s death was a failure on both our parts, somehow. He wanted me to wallow in guilt with him. As he sank deeper into despair, I realized that what I wanted was to heal, go on with life. I couldn’t help him and he wouldn’t get help for himself.”
“So you divorced?”
“It took a while. A couple of years, holding on by a thread and watching him try to kill himself. I should be thankful his weapon of choice was food, I suppose.” She shrugged her shoulders, her tears once again fading away. “But then, if it had been alcohol or drugs, I would have left sooner, or perhaps someone would have been forced to intervene. But, yes. I finally divorced him.”
Rick nodded. “For which he never forgave you.”
She uttered a short, curt laugh. “And then some. He still calls me every year around her birthday, never the same day or time. He likes to catch me off guard. And always at work, pretending to be a customer, so I have to take the call.”
“That’s awful!”
“In a way, I’ve come to accept it as a form of therapy for both of us. It’s hardened me to the memory, and Greg has gone on to lead a more or less normal life otherwise. I’m okay with it most of the time myself, but this thing with Leo just seems to bring it rushing back.”
The Kid Who Stole Christmas Page 18