The Christmas Target

by Shirlee McCoy

  She didn’t sleep. Not much. When she did, she slept lightly, every noise waking her. He’d learned that during long flights across the Pacific Ocean and long journeys in foreign countries. She also didn’t like being surprised. Ever.

  And his early morning visit?

  It was a surprise.

  Stella was expecting him later in the day, but he’d been worried about the coming snowstorm. If it hit the way the meteorologists were predicting, driving later in the morning might have been a problem. He’d decided to leave DC before the snow began to fall. If he got stuck in Boonsboro, no problem. But he’d been worried enough about Stella that he didn’t want to postpone seeing her.

  She’d been too quiet lately, and quiet wasn’t her style. Usually she was loud and decisive, more than willing to explain exactly how she thought things should go.

  As a matter of fact, he’d expected her to yank open the door as soon as the bell rang and ream him out for arriving before he was scheduled.

  She hadn’t, and he figured that could only mean one thing.

  Trouble.

  It whispered on the cold wind, splashing down in the heavy flakes that fell on his cheeks and neck. Light streamed out from a door that yawned open, the yellowy glow splashing across the back porch. He could see the interior of the house, the bright kitchen, the white cupboards and old wood floor.

  He didn’t bother walking inside.

  No way had Stella left the door open. Not intentionally. Not unless there’d been an emergency that had sent her running from the house.

  He eyed the snow-coated ground, crouching to study what looked like boot prints. Not large, and he’d guess a woman had been wearing them. There was another print a few inches away, a different type of shoe. Something without tread and nearly covered by a fresh layer of snow.

  “What’d you find?” Simon asked.

  “Footprints. Two sets. Heading toward the woods.”

  “Stella’s?”

  “I think so, and maybe her grandmother’s.”

  “Looks like she might have left this way,” Simon said, moving up the porch stairs and peering inside. “You want me to check things out, or do you want to split up and search the yard and woods?”

  The newest member of the team, Simon had worked for SWAT in Houston before joining HEART. He had keen instincts and the kind of work ethic Chance appreciated. He also had the same driving need to reunite families that everyone on the team possessed.

  He didn’t know Stella, though.

  Not well, and he couldn’t know just how serious this situation was becoming. Stella didn’t leave doors open. She didn’t take chances. She played by the rules, and she expected other people to do the same. Something had sent her running, and he was pretty sure he knew what it was.

  Who it was.

  Her grandmother.

  “If Stella were inside, she’d be out on the porch giving us a piece of her mind. She’s left for some reason, and I’m worried that reason might be her grandmother.”

  “She’s prone to wandering?”

  “She has Alzheimer’s, so it’s a good possibility.” Chance took a penlight from his pocket, flashing it into the yard. Snow fell in sheets now, layering the ground in a thick blanket of white. Soon it would cover whatever tracks the women had left. Once that happened, finding them would be nearly impossible.

  Please, God, help us find them before then, he prayed silently as he moved across the yard, his light bouncing over white snow and sprigs of winter-dry grass.

  A few yards out, it glanced off what looked like another footprint. Chance moved toward it, studying the ground more carefully, finding another footprint and another one.

  “This way,” he said, not bothering to see if Simon was following. He would be. They knew how to run a mission. No reason to go over all the variables, discuss a plan. With the temperature below freezing, there was no time to waste.

  Frantic people made errors in judgment. Like leaving a house in a snowstorm without letting anyone know they were going. Not that Chance would ever use the word frantic to describe Stella. She was one of the most clearheaded people he knew.

  If she’d panicked, there had to be a good reason. Her grandmother wandering around in the snow fit the bill. He’d met Beatrice twice. She’d seemed sweet, kind and very fragile.

  If she was out in the cold, she’d need medical attention. If the snow continued to fall and her footprints were covered, he and his team would need help searching the woods that surrounded the property.

  So, maybe, Stella wasn’t the only one who’d panicked.

  Maybe he’d been panicking, too. Acting on emotion rather than clear thinking. Not a good way to proceed.

  “Change in plans,” he said, stopping short and motioning for Simon to do the same. “Call 911. Let’s get the local authorities in on this.”

  “You want me to call it in as a missing person?”

  “Yes. I’m going to see how far I can follow the tracks. Get Boone and follow after you’ve made the call.” He jogged across the yard.

  The boot prints were faint but obvious. Stella had left the house recently. He wasn’t sure about Beatrice. He’d only seen one print that he thought was hers, and it had been left earlier. He hoped not too much earlier. He and Stella had their differences, but he only ever wanted the best for her. The best thing for her right now would be for her grandmother to be okay.

  She’d be devastated if something happened to Beatrice, and Chance would be devastated for her. Stella was special. She had depth and character and just enough stubborn determination to keep Chance on his toes. Of all the women he’d dated, she was the only one he hadn’t wanted to walk away from.

  He’d done it because it was what she had wanted.

  Or, at least, what she’d said she’d wanted.

  There were plenty of days when he regretted letting her go. He never mentioned it, and she never asked, but he’d have rekindled their relationship if she’d given any indication that she wanted to.

  Pride goeth before the fall.

  How many times had his father said that?

  Too many to count, but Chance was still too proud to crawl back to a woman who’d sent him away. That was the truth. Ugly as it was. So, they were stuck in a pattern of butting heads and arguing and caring about each other a little more than coworkers probably should.

  A little more?

  A lot more.

  “Stella!” he called, pushing through thick foliage. Someone had been there ahead of him. Branches were broken, the pine boughs cleared of snow. The thick tree canopy prevented snow from reaching the ground, but he could see depressions in the needles that covered the forest floor.

  He followed them, stepping through a thicket and walking onto what looked like a deer trail. Narrow, but clear of brambles and bushes, it would be the path of least resistance for anything or anyone wandering through the woods.

  “Stella!” he called again. “Beatrice!” he added. He could imagine the elderly woman wandering through here, finding the open path and heading in whatever direction she thought would lead her home.

  A soft whistle echoed through the darkness.

  Boone and Simon, moving into the trees behind him.

  He didn’t slow down. They’d find their own way.

  Cold wind bit through his heavy coat, and he wondered if Stella had dressed for the weather. If she’d left in a panic, would she have bothered?

  He jogged along the path, the dark morning beginning to lighten around him. The sun would rise soon, warming the chilled air. But soon might be too late, and he felt the pressure of that, the knowledge of it, thrumming through his blood.

  Somewhere ahead, water burbled across rocks and earth.

  A deep creek or river?

  He thought he h
eard movement and ducked under a pine bough, nearly sliding down an embankment that led to the creek he’d been hearing.

  He stopped at the edge of the precipice, flashing his light down to the dark water below. A shallow tributary littered with large rocks and fallen branches, it looked easy enough to cross once a person got down to it.

  He aimed the beam of light toward the bank, searching for footprints or some other sign that Beatrice or Stella had been there.

  Just at the edge of the water, a pink shoe sat abandoned on a rock.

  Not Stella’s. She never wore pink.

  “Beatrice!” he called. He needed to phone Simon and give him the coordinates. They could begin their search from there, spread out along the banks of the creek and work a grid pattern until they found the missing women.

  “Beatrice!” he yelled again.

  Someone dove from the trees, slamming into him with enough force to send them both flying. He twisted, his arms locked around his assailant as he fell over the edge of the precipice and tumbled to the creek below.

  TWO

  Stella had to take her attacker down. She knew that, and it was all she knew. Everything else—the darkness, the cold, the blood—they were secondary to the need to survive and to find Beatrice.

  She’d been a fool, though.

  She should have waited longer. Instead, she’d rushed out when she’d heard the man calling Beatrice’s name. Now she was trapped in a vice-like grip, tumbling down, unable to stop the momentum.

  Unable to free herself.

  She fought the arms clamped around her waist. Blood was still seeping from the cut on her temple and a deeper wound on the back of her head. Sick, dizzy, confused—she knew the symptoms of a concussion, and she knew the damage could be even worse than that. Brain bleed. Fractured skull. She’d been hit hard enough to be knocked unconscious. She needed medical help, but she needed to protect Beatrice more.

  She slammed her palm into her attacker’s jaw, water seeping through her flannel pajamas. The creek? Had she come that far?

  Had her grandmother?

  Fear shot through her, adrenaline giving strength to her muscles. She slammed her fist into a rock-hard stomach.

  “Enough!” a man growled, his forearm pressing against her throat, his body holding her in place.

  “Not hardly!” she gasped, bucking against his hold.

  Suddenly he was gone, air filling her lungs, icy water lapping at her shoulders and legs as she gasped for breath.

  She thought maybe she’d imagined him, that the head injury was causing hallucinations, or that she was hypothermic and delirious. Then a hand cupped her jaw, and she was looking into Chance Miller’s face.

  He looked as shocked as she felt.

  “You’re in DC,” she said, surprised at how slurred the words sounded, how difficult they were to get out.

  “No,” he said, his arm slipping under her back as he lifted her out of the water. “I’m here.”

  She thought she heard a tremor in his voice, but that wasn’t like Chance. He always held it together, always had himself under control.

  “Always perfect,” she murmured.

  “What?” he asked, and she realized they were moving, that somehow he was carrying her up the bank and away from the creek. Snow still fell. She could feel it melting on the crown of her head, sliding into the cut on her temple. None of it hurt. Not really. She just felt numb and scared. Not for herself. For her grandmother.

  She had to concentrate, to stay focused on the mission. That was the only way to achieve success. She’d learned that, or maybe she’d always known it, but it had kept her alive in more than one tough situation.

  “Put me down.” She shoved at Chance’s chest. “I have to find my grandmother.”

  “Boone and Simon will find her. You need medical help.”

  “What I need,” she said, forcing every word to be clear and precise, “is to find my grandmother. Until I do that, I’m not accepting help from anyone.”

  “We’ve already called the local authorities. They should be here soon. They can conduct the search while an ambulance transports you to the hospital.”

  “I’ll just transport myself back. So how about we make this easy and do things my way for a change?”

  “We do things your way plenty. This time, we’re not.” He meant it. She could hear it in his voice. She could feel it in the firmness of his grip as he carried her through the snowy woods.

  And he was right.

  She knew he was right.

  She needed medical attention.

  She needed help.

  But she couldn’t go to the hospital. Not while Beatrice was still lost in the woods.

  “Chance, I can’t leave without her. I can’t.” Her voice broke—that’s how scared she was, how worried. Her grandmother was out in the cold, and someone was out there with her. Someone who’d attacked Stella.

  More than one person?

  She thought so, thought she’d been hit from behind, but she couldn’t quite grasp the memory.

  Chance muttered something, then set her on her feet, his hands on her elbows as she found her balance. It took longer than she wanted, the world spinning and whirling, the falling snow making her dizzy. Her stomach heaved, and she swallowed hard. No way was she going to puke. If she did, it would be over. Chance would carry her back to the house and send her off in an ambulance.

  Focus on the mission.

  “Something is going on,” she said, afraid if she didn’t get the words out, she’d forget them. “Someone is out here.”

  “We’re out here,” he said, turning on a penlight and flashing it across the creek bed. Something pink sat near a rock a few yards away.

  “Not just us. Someone attacked me.”

  He stilled, the light holding steady on that pink thing, his gaze suddenly on Stella. “Who?”

  “I don’t know. He came out of nowhere. One person. Maybe two.”

  “Did you see his face?”

  “No.”

  “Did he speak? Say anything to you?”

  “No.”

  “How long ago was that?” He strode to the object, lifted it.

  Her grandmother’s slipper.

  Stella had bought them for Beatrice three Christmases ago, knowing her grandmother would love the faux fur and sparkly bows. Funny that she could remember that, but she had no idea how long she’d been out in the snow.

  “That’s my grandmother’s,” she said, that thickness back in her throat again.

  “Stella,” he said, the calmness in his voice the exact opposite of the panic she felt, “how long have you been out here?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe fifteen minutes.”

  “Were you unconscious at any point?” His gaze drifted from her eyes to the bleeding cut on her head.

  “Yes.”

  “So it could have been longer than fifteen minutes?”

  “Yes. Now how about we stop talking about it and start looking?”

  “Okay,” he said. Just that, but she felt better hearing it.

  Because of all the people she knew, Chance was the one she trusted most to get things done.

  His light illuminated the shadowy bank at the far side of the creek. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but the forest was tinged with grayish light. No sign of Beatrice that Stella could see, but, then, her eyes didn’t seem to be working well, everything shifting in and out of focus.

  In the distance, sirens wailed.

  Help coming too late?

  Please, God. Not too late.

  The prayer was there. Just on the edge of her thoughts, and she tried to follow it with more words, more pleas, but her mind was spinning, her thoughts scattering. Her stomach heaved, and she was on her kn
ees retching into dusty snow and pine needles.

  “It’s okay.” Chance crouched beside her, his cool palm on the back of her neck, his coat dropping around her shoulders. She felt him tense, knew he’d realized that she had another head wound. Double the potential for severe injury, and he’d be calculating the risk to her versus the risk of leaving the creek while Beatrice was still wandering around in the snow.

  If they went back to the house, Beatrice would probably die before anyone found her.

  The temperature was below freezing, the snow falling faster and heavier. And Beatrice’s slipper had been in the creek. Which meant she’d been in the creek, too.

  “I want you to wait here,” Chance said quietly. “I’ve already texted our coordinates to Boone and Simon. They’ll be here soon. One of them will wait with you until the medics get here.”

  Not a question.

  Not a suggestion.

  He really thought that she was going to wait at the edge of the creek while Beatrice wandered through the snowy forest.

  She struggled to her feet, following him as he stepped across the burbling water. He didn’t tell her to go back. He didn’t waste time or energy arguing with her. It was one of the things she’d always liked about Chance—he didn’t spend time fighting battles when he had wars to win.

  “There’s a print there.” His light settled on an impression in the muddy bank. “Let’s see how many more we can find.”

  He started walking parallel to the creek, and she followed, her heart beating hollowly in her ears, her legs weak, her body still numb.

  Voices carried through the woods, men and women calling out to one another. A search party forming, but Stella could only think about taking one step after another, following the tracks that Chance’s light kept finding. Bare feet pressed into the muddy earth. Bare feet in below-freezing temperatures.

  Stella was shivering uncontrollably, and she had Chance’s coat. Beatrice probably had nothing but her cotton nightgown and the gauzy robe she put on each morning when she got out of bed.

  She tasted salt on her lips and realized hot tears were mixing with icy snow. She never cried around other people. Ever. She was crying now, because she’d already lost her grandfather, and she wasn’t sure she could bear losing her grandmother, too.