Christmas Confidential: Holiday Protector

by Marilyn Pappano

  She was afraid to even hope much for a good reception when she got there.

  But at least Sophy would surely welcome Boo.

  Chapter 2

  When a song about decking the halls came on the radio, Dean jabbed the button to shut it off. He’d like to deck something, but it sure wasn’t a freaking hall. What kind of P.I. was he if he couldn’t even follow one woman who stood out in every crowd she’d ever been in?

  Two, no more than three minutes—that was how long he’d been gone from the convenience store, just long enough to drive down the block and make a U-turn, and when he’d come back, Miri was already gone. Guessing she’d gone out the back door, he’d driven for an hour up and down the streets, through alleys and three times past the apartments where she used to live. He’d seen few blondes and none that was even vaguely familiar.

  For the past hour he’d driven in widening circles, so focused on the women on the street that he felt like a perv. Where would she go? She had no friends in Dallas, no family. With her lack of ties, logic dictated that after leaving prison, she would get the hell out of Texas and go someplace where she could enjoy Mr. Smith’s money in peace.

  But where? He’d gone over every conversation they’d ever had, trying to remember if she’d mentioned any place she would like to visit, any place she missed, but he came up blank. He’d talked about the future—in general terms, since he was posing as the new IT guy at John W. Smith Global and restricted from telling too much truth—but she’d never said a word about her plans. No I’d love to be soaking up rays on a Caribbean beach or hiking in the Rockies or eating my mom’s pierogies in Michigan.

  So, continuing with logic... To leave Dallas, she needed transportation. This close to Christmas, airline tickets were tough to come by. Buses and trains, he had no idea. She no longer owned the old Toyota, and—

  She’d asked the prison guard where she could catch a bus. When he’d wondered where she was going, she’d shrugged and said, Dallas, for a start. He’d directed her to the town nearest the prison, where she would have caught a Greyhound, if Dean hadn’t shown up, which would have delivered her directly to the bus station in Dallas—for a start.

  Since he didn’t have any other clues, he headed toward the station. Traffic was heavy, and tension made him grip the steering wheel hard when he was moving and drum his fingers on it when he wasn’t. He didn’t want to lose his shot at the finder’s fee. More than that, he didn’t want to disappoint Mr. Smith. If not for the business he’d thrown Dean’s way, the P.I. office would still be a barely-breaking-even one-man job. Now he had three employees, and he finished each month with a nice bit of change in the bank. He owed Mr. Smith.

  He didn’t like leaving a case unfinished.

  And he especially didn’t like being outsmarted.

  The bus station was busier than he expected. He couldn’t imagine a much worse fate than being stuck on a bus for endless hours, with no control over who sat beside him or what they did while they sat there. Plus, it put him in mind of grade school when he’d had to ride the bus every day, the target of three kids who’d lived to torment him. One, no surprise, had ended up in prison. The second was a career non-commissioned officer in the Marine Corps, and the third had become a minister. Holy crap.

  Finding a parking space half a block away, Dean locked the car and tugged his jacket tighter as he walked to the station. According to the weather guys, a cold spell was moving into Texas today on its way east. There was talk about snow for Christmas, something he could definitely live without.

  He walked through the terminal, scanning passengers. There were couples, families, people traveling alone, some toting bags of gifts, others with nothing more than a backpack or duffel, one clutching a big stuffed bear. None of them was Miri. After waiting in line, he showed the woman at the ticket counter Miri’s picture. Dorrie, with big hair and no smile, flashed it around at her coworkers, then handed it back without a word.

  Okay, the bus hunch was wrong. No one could have sold a ticket to Miri in the past few hours—the past few months—and not remembered her.

  He’d been so smug when he’d caught sight of her outside the prison. The day had sure gone downhill fast since then.

  “Hey, doll.” The female voice came from behind him and was unfamiliar, so he didn’t even look around until someone touched his arm.

  He turned his head, saw air, then lowered his gaze a foot or more to see a plump face smiling at him. The woman was as big around as she was tall, with brown curls, a Rudolph pin on her Christmas-themed sweater and earrings shaped like Christmas trees that flashed tiny multicolored lights. There was even a snowman bow in her hair.

  “Can I see that picture? I just got a glimpse of it at the counter.”

  “Sure.” He pulled the photo from his pocket, grateful he’d gotten the snapshot of Miri before her arrest and didn’t have to use her booking photo. “Have you seen her?”

  Instead of answering right away, she studied the photo, then him. “Pretty girl. Who is she?”

  “My girlfriend. We got into an argument, and she decided to take the bus to her folks’ house instead of riding with me.” He was good at lying, a skill he’d cultivated for his work. It had never bothered him before, but now guilt twinged inside him. Must be the holidays.

  “When my husband and I—” she gestured to a gray-haired man wearing a similar sweater and, no kidding, reindeer antlers on his head “—got here, I had to go to the little girls’ room, and I’m pretty sure this is the blonde who was in there. You should never argue during the holidays, doll. Have you bought her something nice to make up for it?”

  “There’s lots better ways to make up for it than presents.” Her husband grinned at Dean, and his wife rewarded him with an elbow to the stomach.

  “Did you see where she went when she left the bathroom?” Dean asked.

  The woman stood on tiptoe to scan the room. “She was wearing a blue coat and a tan baseball cap. Had all that pretty hair hidden away. Oh, and she was carrying a huge teddy bear. You’d think I would have remembered that first, wouldn’t you?”

  Teddy bear. Dean had seen a teddy bear, arms wrapped around it as if it were precious. He spun to look in that direction, but it had moved, so he scanned the room again. No buses had pulled out since he’d walked in, so she had to still be there, but where?

  “There.” The woman tugged his arm, then pointed out the front window at a slender figure in a blue jacket, the ragged head of a bear peeking up over one shoulder. “She must have needed some air. Go make up with her—and y’all have a really good Christmas.”

  “Thanks. You, too.” Dodging passengers, Dean reached the door in seconds, stepping out in time to get blasted by a cold wind. He didn’t call Miri’s name—he wouldn’t be surprised if she tried to ditch him again—but headed toward the massive concrete pillar where she stood.

  He hadn’t taken more than a few steps when a man came into view from the cover of the pillar and took hold of Miri’s left arm. She shook her head and stepped backward, trying to pull away without any luck. Instead, the man tightened his grip and started to drag her away from the station.

  Just a random mugging? Or did the guy work for Bud Garvin? Dean didn’t recognize him, but then, Garvin used a lot of muscle. It was tough to keep track of them all.

  Dean quickened his pace until he was jogging, his right hand automatically going to the pistol tucked in his waistband in back. “Hey,” he called. “What are you doing?”

  Miri’s expression when she turned was relief tinged with fright. It did something to his gut—her being scared, grabbed by a stranger. It made him queasy, but worse—for the other guy—it pissed him off. Retrieving the stolen money from her was one thing, but roughing her up? Frightening her? That wasn’t part of the deal.

  He stopped beside her, taking hold of her other arm
, fixing his gaze on the man. “I’d suggest you remove your hand before I remove it for you.”

  The guy grinned, and from the right a fist smashed into Dean’s jaw with enough force to sprawl him on the ground. He didn’t have time to let go of Miri, and she tumbled with him as a second man stepped out of the shadows of the pillar. He gave his hand a shake, then flexed his fingers. “Damn. Lucky for you, I didn’t break anything.”

  “I tried to warn you!” Miri snapped.

  Warn? She hadn’t said a word, had just looked like a modern damsel in distress, body trembling, eyes shifting, head shaking the tiniest bit.... “That’s what you call a warning? Next time try screaming, ‘Dean, he’s not alone.’”

  The first man smirked. “Dean, I’m not alone. Now, this pretty little girl is our Christmas present to ourselves. We found her first, so we get to unwrap her. You, get up and get out of here. Blondie’s coming with us.”

  Slowly Dean sat up. His jaw was throbbing, and his left elbow hurt from contact with the pavement, which was damn cold for sitting on. Sliding his right hand behind him, he rubbed his jaw with his left hand, worked it from side to side and decided it wasn’t broken, though he might have trouble eating the big thick steak he’d planned on for Christmas dinner.

  “Listen, guys,” he said pleasantly, despite the pain. His jaw might move side to side just fine, but up and down hurt. “There are a lot of people in the terminal, and some of them are probably watching through the windows. On top of that, there are cameras everywhere. And on top of that, I have my right hand on an HK .45 compact that is guaranteed to make your Christmas very unmerry.” He paused to ease to his feet and pull Miri up, too, then suggested, “You don’t want the kind of trouble Blondie will bring. Turn around, walk away and find someone else.”

  The first man moved as if he were going to argue, but the second one waved him back. After a long, silent moment, he gestured again, spun on his heel and walked away.

  Miri clung to Dean’s hand as the first man followed. Thirty feet away, he looked back, giving an obscene wave, then they turned the corner and disappeared from sight.

  “Do you really have a gun?” she whispered.

  “I really do.” He grinned at her. “A really big one. And I’m really accurate with it, too.”

  When a moment passed without either man coming back, she abruptly let go of him and stepped back, burying both hands in the bear’s ragged fur. “Thank you.”

  “Aw, I bet it kills you to say that to me. My car’s back that way—”

  She took another step back. “I’m not going with you.”

  “You think I’m gonna let you go back inside and give those guys another chance? No way, Miriam. Wherever you’re going, I’ll take you.”

  “Let me?” she echoed, holding the bear tighter. “I’m a free woman. I can do pretty much anything I want. The State of Texas says so.”

  “Yeah, well, my state of mind says you can’t. Jeez, you don’t know how those guys were planning to celebrate. They could have raped you, beat you or killed you. You think I want that on my conscience because I couldn’t persuade you to be reasonable?”

  Regretting the last word instantly, he reached out before she could find the words to slice him to ribbons. “Strike that. Bad choice of words. I don’t think you’re being unreasonable at all. I just—” He dragged his fingers through his hair, then exhaled loudly. A thin vapor formed in the air between them. “I owe you, Miriam. Let me take you and that god-awful bear wherever you’re going. You don’t even have to tell me exactly where. You want to go to California? I’ll take you to L.A. You want to go to Colorado, we’ll go to Denver. You can make the rest of the trip on your own then if that’s what you want. Just let me do that much for you, okay? It’ll be my Christmas gift to you.”

  She stared at him a long moment, her eyes narrowed, still annoyed by that “reasonable” comment, then she started walking toward the Charger down the street. Before he caught up with her, he heard her mutter.

  “Boo’s not god-awful. He’s beautiful. And you question my reason?”

  * * *

  Miri tossed her pack into the backseat, fastened the seat belt, then gathered Boo close again. She was grateful to be out of the cold, to be back in one of the few familiar places in her life. With the tinted windows obscuring her from anyone outside and Dean settling into the driver’s seat, she felt safe.

  It was stupid to think of Dean and safety in the same sentence. He would never physically hurt her, she knew that, but he’d deceived and disappointed her before, and those kind of wounds were usually far more difficult to recover from.

  Okay, so she just wouldn’t let herself be vulnerable. She’d spent two-thirds of her life on guard, protecting and hiding herself from emotional attachments. She’d learned too well the cost of caring and the inevitability of losing. The only person she could truly count on was herself.

  But that didn’t mean she couldn’t accept help from someone when it best suited her. She was cautious, not stupid.

  He started the engine and turned the heat to high. Cool air from the vents warmed quickly, chasing the chill from her feet.

  When he made no move to put the car into gear, she glanced his way and found him watching her. “What?” she asked automatically.

  “Where are we going?”

  His use of we made her stomach tighten. They weren’t a we and never really had been. She hadn’t been part of a we for so long that she didn’t know if she could even remember how. “East.”

  “Can you be a little more specific? The east side of Dallas? East Texas? East of the Mississippi?”

  It took a swallow or two for her to force the answer out. “Georgia. Atlanta.” Copper Lake was only ninety minutes or so from there. Surely she could travel that far alone without getting accosted, or maybe she’d even call Sophy to meet her there. Her sister might not want her showing up in her hometown, anyway, especially on the eve of the biggest family holiday of the year.

  He pulled out onto the street. “Do you mind if we stop by my place first to get some clothes?”

  She didn’t want to stop anywhere, not even to eat or spend the night, but he was doing her this favor, so the least she could do was be agreeable. “No problem.” Then she stared out the side window.

  Was this really a favor? Did he really care about anything that had happened between them? Or was the money his ulterior motive?

  People didn’t do her favors. You had to have some kind of relationship before favors came into the picture, and she didn’t have those. So he was probably looking for the money.

  That was okay, she told herself, but the tightening in her chest seemed to disagree.

  She’d been to his apartment a time or two when they were dating—when he was working her as a suspect. It was only about ten miles from hers, but another galaxy in terms of hope. The houses were older and well maintained, the businesses more prosperous, the streets safer. Bad things could happen anywhere—she knew that from her own experiences growing up in an upper-class Asheville neighborhood—but bad seemed less likely to happen here than in her own area.

  He rented a second-story apartment in one of those old, well-maintained houses, with a side set of stairs and a grandmotherly landlady occupying the first floor. GranMare, she’d called herself, the nickname the first of her fifteen grandchildren had given her when he shortened Grandma Mary, and the evening they’d met, she’d greeted Miri with a huge smile and an invitation to the next family dinner.

  “You need to come in,” Dean said as he shut off the engine.

  “I was planning to.” It was cold outside, and nearly getting kidnapped had shaken her confidence. It was flimsy enough, given her mission, that another hard shake would shatter it, and she’d take Boo and his bucks and beat it to the nearest hiding place she could find.

  Lightposts i
lluminated the street, but even without them, the Christmas decorations would have shown their way to the base of the sturdy stairs. Even the handrail was wrapped with clear white bulbs casting pale shadows on the creamy peach siding.

  Miri started up the steps behind Dean, remembering the bite of the wind as she, Sophy and their mother had wrapped multicolored lights around the porch railings of their house. Brightly colored twinklers that could make you dizzy with delight had been Mom’s favorite, and a big fresh-cut pine, and small paper bags half filled with sand that anchored a flickering candle lining the steps.

  To shut out the memory, she forced her focus to the present. “How is GranMare?”

  “Hasn’t changed a bit. If she catches sight of you, just be prepared, we’re not getting away without a mug of her mulled cider and a plate of Christmas candy.”

  The idea sounded too appealing for a woman who was guarding herself from emotional entanglements. Miri stared grimly at each step, placing her feet lightly, trying to be no more than a shadow in the night.

  By the time she reached the top, Dean had unlocked the door and gone on in. She stepped inside, closed the door behind her and waited. For a guy who lived alone, he had pretty good taste. The sofa was plain brown leather, taking no attention from the beautiful Persian rug on the floor, its weaving as bare in places as Boo’s fur. The smaller pieces—dining table, chairs, curio tables, bookcases—had been passed down from various relatives, and he remembered which came from whom.

  His furniture had a better pedigree than she did.

  She’d noted the holiday decorations and the fragrance of cinnamon drifting from a nearby unlit candle, and her gaze was skimming over photographs on the fireplace mantel when it stopped suddenly on a simple wood frame holding a picture of her. Slowly she tiptoed across the room to the rug, but she didn’t go any closer.

  It was her, taken sixteen months earlier when they’d gone to some sort of street fair. She wore a sleeveless dress in a watercolor pattern, and the high-heeled sandals that hadn’t seemed such a good idea after two hours of walking dangled from her fingers. And she was smiling, really brightly happily smiling. She didn’t remember the exact moment, but she did know what she’d been thinking.