Christmas Blackout

by Maggie K. Black

  She paused for a moment then shook her head. “I can’t believe I told you that.”

  If anything, she sounded disappointed with herself. But why? They’d talked for hours during those four days last summer. She’d told him all sorts of things about herself. He in turn had confessed stuff about himself that nobody else knew. Like how he’d decided he was never going to have a wife or family.

  “I was one when I moved in here actually,” she said. “We were pretty broke. My father left us a couple of weeks before Christmas and my mom had no way to pay the rent without him. The British expression is ‘he did a runner,’ so for the longest time I thought he’d literally leaped out a window and ran. Our flight landed Christmas Eve. We were the first two wanderers to be welcomed at Christmas Eve at The Downs.”

  He followed Piper past a towering woodpile, through a small back door and into the garage. His eyes ran over racks of ice-hockey equipment. A kayak, canoe and two surfboards lay on beams above their heads, and there was camping equipment on wall shelves. Steel-toed hiking boots hung on a peg by the door, next to two pairs of boxing gloves, some climbing gear and what looked like a heavy wool cloak. All of the gear looked high quality, well loved and as if it hadn’t been touched in ages.

  “So, if you keep the bed-and-breakfast open over Christmas, when do you take your own holidays?”

  “I don’t really.” She pulled off her coat, then pushed her foggy glasses up onto the top of her head. “The Downs is open and running 365 days a year.”

  Okay, he heard what she was saying, but there was something wrong with this picture. They were standing in a garage surrounded by incredible sports equipment. Sure, living in the Niagara region meant she could probably get in a bit of skating or cross-country skiing. But there were only so many times a person could hit the same patch of earth before wanting to try something new. And she could hardly surf or camp without taking a day off.

  “Yes, but the whole reason we met is because you were on holiday on Manitoulin Island this past summer—”

  “No, I was on the island for four days while my uncle was here helping movers pack up their things so they could move into the seniors’ home. My aunt’s health is poor, and a friend of hers who lived on the island invited her to stay for a few days. She wasn’t able to make the trip alone so I went with her.” She shrugged. “I’m going to need to run this place nonstop at capacity if I have any hope of starting the renovations by this summer. Even once they’re done, my uncle and aunt are going to need me around on a daily basis. Like I said, they have health problems.”

  “Okay, but what kind of health problems?”

  “My uncle has arthritis in his hands and arms. Not too bad, but he’s also seventy-two. My aunt’s a lot younger but she has mobility problems. She needs help doing things and getting places.” She wiped her glasses on her shirt and then slid them back on. But she still wasn’t looking at him. “If it’s okay with you, I’d rather not go into it right now.”

  He ran his hand through his hair. Why did it feel as if this conversation was one wrong sentence away from turning into an argument? His sister’s anxiety disorder had kept him from pursuing his own dreams for way too long, so he should be the last person to judge anyone else’s commitment to family. It was definitely time for a subject change. He looked around the garage and spotted a small tractor by the wall with a snowplow on the front. “Nice piece of machinery. I’m guessing you clear your own snow?”

  “Always. I also rake my own leaves in the fall and mow my own lawn in the summer.”

  “Well, how about I plow the driveway and hill, while you call the police?”

  She opened the kitchen door, pulled a key chain off the wall and tossed it to him. “Thanks. I’m also going to call my uncle and aunt, and the mechanic about your truck.”

  “Great. Tell him I have insurance but I’m happy to pay out of pocket if that speeds things up. Anything I can do to get out of here faster.”

  “Will do.” She walked into the kitchen.

  Benjamin opened the garage door and stared out at the dark, snowy night. What was it with Piper? There was this weird tension between them that he couldn’t get his head around.

  He’d told himself that when the time came to leave Canada, he’d do his best to make peace with everyone he left behind. But how could he make peace with Piper if he didn’t even know what he’d done wrong?

  * * *

  The steady clacking sound of fingers on a typewriter echoed through The Downs, like some kind of robust combination of music and water torture. Tobias Kasper wrote books on tactical warfare and was the kind of guest who treated the entirety of The Downs as an extension of his suite. Right now, the short, rotund middle-aged man sat in the middle of the living room, sporting a paisley bow tie and the kind of vest that some people called a waistcoat. He was pounding the keys of a machine that had to be at least sixty years old.

  Piper nodded to him politely and closed the kitchen door. The Downs’s galley kitchen was much smaller than she would’ve liked, while the living room was huge, with an old brick fireplace and a huge wooden staircase leading to a sweeping second-floor balcony. When it came time to renovate, they’d be knocking down the wall between the two rooms. But right now, she was thankful for something to muffle the noise.

  Her nerves were frayed enough as it was. She’d thought her heart was going to leap into her throat when Benjamin asked if he could take a suite for the night, and it finally hit her that he’d be staying around a little while longer. Benjamin had absolutely no idea the effect he had on her. And he was never going to know.

  The phone began to ring. Piper was about to let it ring through to the answering machine, when her gaze caught the name on the display: Silver Halls Retirement Home. She grabbed the phone. “Hello?”

  “Piper, honey?” It was Aunt Cass.

  Piper smiled. “Hi, Aunt Cass. I see you finally managed to get a turn on the landline phone.”

  Laughter trickled down the line. “I was about to use my cell phone. But your uncle started going on about saving minutes and I didn’t know if you’d gotten my text.”

  Piper’s sparkling, vibrant, sixty-three year old aunt was nine years younger than Piper’s uncle, and so very young at heart. Aunt Cass hadn’t wanted to do anything even close to retire when persistent, unexplained numbness in her legs and then her arms forced her and Uncle Des to move out of The Downs into the only available rental place in town where everything was accessible on the ground floor.

  “I’ve got an appointment for more tests at the hospital in Niagara Falls on January 12,” her aunt informed her.

  Piper grabbed a pen and wrote it on the calendar. “No problem. I’ll be able to drive you.”

  What kind of health problems? Benjamin had asked the question so casually, as if the answer was as simple as a sprained ankle or chicken pox. It had taken everything inside her not to groan, “We don’t know! That’s the problem!” She wasn’t even sure when her aunt’s limbs first stopped cooperating with her brain, like a frustrated marionette with intermittent strings. But after sudden numbness in her legs sent Aunt Cass tumbling down the stairs into the living room last summer, a broken arm and nasty bruises had woken them all up to the reality that their lives were going to change. Since then it had been a string of doctors, tests and possible diagnoses like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease. And prayers. Lots of prayers.

  Piper ran her hand along her neck. It was tender. Now she was about to tell them something that would make life even more complicated than it already was. “Now, Aunt Cass, please don’t worry, but I was just...accosted by a trespasser down by the barn.”

  “Desmond! Get your coat!”

  “No, wait! It’s okay.” Piper waved her aunt down, even though she couldn’t see her through the phone. “He’s gone and I’m fine! I am
going to call the police and file a report, but he was just looking for Charlotte Finn.”

  “The sad, blonde girl who liked puzzle books?”

  Trust her aunt to remember Charlotte as the girl who was sad and liked puzzles, as opposed to the one who’d smashed every single one of Aunt Cass’s cherished handmade nativity figures on the fireplace mantel. “Yes, her. I haven’t seen her or heard from her in years, and I told him so.”

  “Was it her young man?” Suddenly Uncle Des was on the line and Piper realized her aunt must be holding the phone up between them.

  “I don’t know,” Piper said. “I never met him.”

  “Tall. Big shoulders. Young lad.”

  “You met Alpha?” Piper blinked. “Six years since she robbed us and you never told me that!”

  “Didn’t know who the guy was. Just saw her smooching someone in the woods out my window one night when I was locking up. Told her to knock it off and come inside. He ran off and I never saw his face. I didn’t think it was anybody’s business. But I gave the police a description then and I’m happy to do so again now.”

  “You come by tomorrow and fill us in,” Aunt Cass said. “In the meantime, you might want to see if Dominic Bravo wants to rent a suite. You remember him? From youth group?”

  “Yeah, of course I do.” Dominic was a great guy. Sure, the former high school athlete was pretty quiet and shy, and floundered in school. But when Charlotte’s robbery rampage had included knocking Piper unconscious, Dominic had been the one who’d realized Piper was in trouble and had come to find her. “Didn’t even realize he was back in town.”

  “He’s back in town for a few weeks studying for the police academy. His grandmother says he’s staying with his sister and all her little ones right now, sleeping on their pullout couch.”

  “Good for him! My friend Benjamin is taking the final suite for tonight, but I’ll keep Dominic in mind. Speaking of which, I really must call the police now. I’ll come by and see you tomorrow.”

  She said her goodbyes and hung up the phone. When she heard a floorboard creak behind her, she turned. Tobias was standing in the doorway, leaning on his cane. As far as she could tell the cane was simply part of his eccentric style and fashion sense, as opposed to something he actually needed to walk.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I couldn’t help but overhear. You have a problem with intruders?”

  Piper stepped back. She hadn’t even thought through how she was going to tell Tobias and her other two guests about what had happened with Kodiak. “Yes, I was just about to call the police. Then I thought I’d call you, Gavin and Trisha together in the living room to update you all.”

  He ran one hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “You know, rumor has it that back in World War II, the enemy used the most inventive booby traps against the Allies, including exploding soap, oil paintings and chocolate. It’s all about thinking like a predator, Piper.”

  “How interesting.” She smiled politely. “But I’m sure if we do beef up security we’ll find something a little less dramatic.” A building as old as The Downs tended to attract a lot of quirky folk, but exploding chocolate was definitely a new one. “Speaking of history, have you ever heard the rumor that The Downs used to be used in alcohol smuggling?”

  “Oh, my expertise is in warfare, not local history.” Tobias shook his head. “But, I’d have thought most of the action took place closer to either Michigan or New York. This stretch of Lake Erie was supposed to be fairly uninteresting.”

  Downright boring is the way she’d have been tempted to describe it, if it wasn’t for Charlotte bringing unwanted chaos to her door.

  The next couple of hours passed in a blur. Cops came to take their statements. A tow truck took Benjamin’s vehicle to the garage. She called her other two guests, married lawyers Gavin and Trisha, but only got their voice mail. Tobias typed though it all.

  And Benjamin...

  She leaned back on the couch and looked down at her tea. Benjamin had been everywhere at once, plowing the drive, sanding the steps as the freezing rain continued to fall, taking coats as people came in and giving them back as they left again. He’d even found his own linens and made his own bed when she pointed him in the direction of his suite.

  Before she knew it, the clock struck eleven.

  “Why don’t you have a Christmas tree?” Benjamin’s voice cut through her thoughts.

  She looked up and only then realized that they were now alone in the living room. “I put so much work into decorating the barn, I didn’t really plan to do anything for inside the house. I’m going to cut down a tree for the barn tomorrow.”

  The fire dimmed in the hearth. Benjamin added some kindling, then got down on his stomach and blew on the flame. The dog promptly laid his head on top of him. Don’t let yourself get too comfortable, pup. He’s not staying long.

  “How did everything go when you called your sister?” she asked.

  “Okay.” He sat up and the dog moved with him. “But she sounded really stressed. I should be there making things easier for her, not adding to her problems. It’s bad enough I’m the guy who triggered her anxiety disorder to begin with by some stupid snowmobile accident. I don’t want to be the guy who makes her relapse right before her wedding.”

  There was a bitter edge to his voice that she wasn’t used to hearing, almost as if he was simultaneously talking and smacking himself on the back of the head.

  “I get that.” She leaned forward. “But don’t beat yourself up. You saved my life from a violent creep today. And that snowmobile accident happened way back when you were a kid.”

  “I was fifteen.” He turned back to the fire. “I was old enough to know better.”

  Piper pressed her lips together. Benjamin had been driving underage, on a highway, without a license and without a helmet. Those were a lot of mistakes to go through life hanging over his head. The older friend he’d been snowmobiling with hadn’t even survived the crash and the media coverage had been harsh and relentless. Long before she’d met Benjamin, she’d known exactly who he was—her generation’s poster child for foolishness.

  “Well, I’m going to sleep.” Benjamin stood. “I’ve got a long drive tomorrow.”

  “Good night.” She started up the stairs shortly after she’d taken care of the fire. The Downs had three unique guest suites on the second floor, but her room was up another flight of stairs in a large loft space with slanted ceilings and round windows.

  When she opened the door that led to a flight of stairs to her loft, she felt fur brush past her ankles, then Harry bounded onto her bed under the eaves. She snapped her fingers and pointed to the stairs. “Sorry, dog. I need to sleep. I can’t afford to be woken up in the middle of the night just because you feel like wandering.”

  The husky gave her a pointed look with sky-blue eyes that looked like his owner’s. What had she been thinking inviting a constant reminder of Benjamin to move into her home?

  “Tell you what. I’ll get a doggie door installed soon. Okay?” She let him down and locked the door behind him. Then she changed into a fresh T-shirt and track pants, set her glasses down on the bedside table and slid under the blankets.

  “Thank You, God, for bringing Benjamin here to save me,” she prayed as a sigh slipped through her lips. “Now help me protect my heart until he leaves.”

  Exhausted sleep swept over her before she’d barely finished her prayer.

  A creak jolted her awake.

  Piper opened her eyes and sat up.

  Her alarm clock read four in the morning. The room was cold.

  But it wasn’t the temperature that sent chills down her spine. It was the figure was standing at the foot of her bed.

  FOUR

  Fear gripped Piper’s body, pushing her back against the headboard. The intruder was no
thing but an indistinct shape in the darkness. But she could see it. Standing there. Inches away from the bed. Not moving. Just breathing.

  She reached toward her glasses.

  “Don’t move.” A whisper hissed in the darkness.

  Piper’s hand froze on the nightstand.

  “Don’t scream, either. You just stay quiet, okay?” It wasn’t the same voice as the man in the diamond ski mask. No, this one sounded uncertain. Agitated. Even nervous. Definitely higher-pitched, too. Female. “I don’t want to hurt you. But I’ve got a gun, okay? I’ll shoot you if I have to.”

  “Got it.” Piper slid her body even farther back until she could feel her headboard press into her shoulder blades. She didn’t know whether to believe the intruder, but didn’t want to risk it, either. There were heavy wooden doors on the bedrooms below and thick carpets to muffle sound. If she screamed would anyone even hear her?

  Help me, Lord. I’m terrified.

  The intruder was jumpy, too, and even seemed to be pacing. Knowing she was frightened, panicking and apparently armed didn’t make Piper feel any safer. How had anyone even broken in to her room? Piper’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, just enough to make out shapes on her bedside table. A cold breeze swept up her arms. Wind howled in the darkness. The intruder must have climbed the fire escape and come through her window. Piper’s fingers crept across the nightstand. “This house is full of people. Just leave. Now. Nobody needs to get hurt.”

  “I said don’t move.” The shadow moved closer. Her voice shook. “I have a gun, okay? I’m just here looking for something. I’m going to get it and leave.”

  Something or someone? Piper took a deep breath and fought the nerves from her voice. “What are you looking for?”

  No answer.

  “Who told you you’d find it here? Did he have a bear tattoo?”