Her throat closed. Through a sheen of tears, she stared at the glittering lights that showcased such a memory-filled tree. Her childhood dreams stirred deeper inside her the longer she peered at the pine.
Then the lights blinked off, throwing the room into shadows.
She shook her childhood delusions from her mind and quickly headed out of the den before she actually started picturing herself in a home with a family.
After making her rounds to double-check that the house was secured and the fire in the den was dying down, Elizabeth trudged upstairs, tired but not sure how well she would sleep. As she passed Abbey’s bedroom, she noticed a stream of light coming from under the teen’s door. Changing directions, Elizabeth knocked on it.
Abbey opened her door a few inches.
“Can I come in?”
“To check my room? I can assure you no one is in it.”
“No, to talk.” Bosco, with his tail wagging, came up to be scratched. She bent down to greet him.
A question dimmed any defiance in Abbey’s expression. She stepped to the side to allow Elizabeth inside. “Talk about what?”
“Tonight. The play. Whatever you want.”
“What if I don’t want to talk?”
“Then we won’t, and I’ll leave.” Elizabeth straightened while Bosco trotted to Abbey’s bed and hopped up on it.
“Why do you want to talk?”
Because I’m falling in love with your dad and I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts. Because I know you’re hurting and need someone to listen to you. “I don’t, but I thought you might have questions about tonight.”
“No, it’s pretty simple to understand. Someone tried to hurt me. Now I have to stay locked up here at the ranch with no friends visiting.” Running her hand along the dresser, Abbey strolled toward her bed as though she had not a care in the world.
“And you’re okay with that?”
“Sure, what girl doesn’t want to be stuck at home during the holidays when all her friends are going to the mall, to parties? And the best thing about my whole situation is that I have a maniac after me who wants to hurt me. I’d say just about any of my friends would die to change places with me.” She snapped her fingers. “Oh, wait, they really might die if they changed places with me.”
“Good. I’m glad you don’t have any questions and are okay with everything.” Elizabeth turned toward the door.
“Wait!”
Elizabeth peered over her shoulder at the teenage girl.
“Maybe I have one question.” Abbey leaned into the bedpost, hugging it.
She swung back toward the girl.
“What if this maniac isn’t found by Christmas? Will I be stuck here after the New Year?”
“You want me to tell you a piece of advice I learned to follow when I worried about everything having to do with my future?”
Abbey frowned. “What?”
“If my worrying about the future and what might happen will change it, then I should. But if stewing over something I can’t control won’t change it, then I need to give my worries to God and let Him deal with them. Do you think you can change this situation by worrying?”
Abbey shook her head.
“Then I wouldn’t waste my time. Use it instead to get to know your dad again. He’s trapped here, too.” Elizabeth moved a little closer to Abbey. “Tell you a secret. I don’t think he’s too thrilled about not being able to leave, either.”
Abbey sank onto her bed, still clutching the bedpost, and rested her head against it. “This stinks.”
“Yes, it does. But you can either be miserable or make the best of a bad situation. The choice is yours.”
“Just like that, I can make it better?”
“I didn’t say it would be easy, but your dad is doing the best he can to keep you safe. He feels the only way is here at the ranch where it is guarded while the police search for the person behind all this.”
“But there are no leads.”
“Some people on the list of suspects have been taken off. Others look promising and the police are concentrating on them. There’s Paula Addison’s boyfriend, Dwayne Olsen, who might be doing her bidding. Sam Howard moved back to the United States, not far from here, right before all this started. I don’t like coincidences. Kevin Sharpe hasn’t been found, and he has a reason to be upset with you and your dad. Jay Wilson is dead, but Joshua is trying to track down his family. He had two daughters and a son. So far only one daughter has been located. Lots of people are working on this, including your dad. He’s been going through files and doing searches on the internet. He wants this over with as much as you do.” There were a couple of others the police were delving into, but Abbey didn’t need to know the names as much that something was being done to end her nightmare.
“It’s not Kevin.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because he wouldn’t know how to do what this person has been doing—an explosive device, shooting out a tire, cutting your brakes. Kevin was more like Dad, a computer geek. And I know for a fact, he hated the thought of killing even a bird. He couldn’t understand why some boys in our class went hunting.”
“But he’s still missing and disappeared right before all this started.”
“It’s not him.” Abbey loosened her tight grip on the bedpost.
“Have you told your dad why you don’t think it’s Kevin?”
“He wouldn’t listen to me. I’m telling you.”
“I’ll pass it on, but your dad will listen to you.”
“Sure, because he’s got nothing better to do since he’s stuck here, too.”
Elizabeth rose. “Sarcasm isn’t very becoming to you.”
Abbey’s eyes widened.
“Good night, Abbey. I’ll see you in the morning. Remember, you control your attitude. Not the person after you.” Elizabeth strolled toward the exit. When she glanced back at the teen as she shut the door, a thoughtful expression had replaced Abbey’s defiant one.
Coming to work for Slade, Elizabeth hadn’t realized she would be a referee between father and daughter. But she hoped she could help these two mend their differences. She hated to see their relationship end up estranged like hers with her dad.
Walking through the living room the following Thursday, Slade caught sight of a guard outside the large window that faced the front yard. He stopped and stared out, watching the man with a large German shepherd patrol the grounds, illuminated by the security lights that came on as he moved from one area to another. A second guard was thirty yards to the left. Abbey was right. This was just like a prison, with guards and everything. Except that he could hear Christmas music coming from the kitchen where Mary and Hilda were preparing dinner. It lightened his mood.
I wonder what Joshua and Elizabeth would say if I snuck out. Slade smiled for a few seconds at the picture of him making his great escape, then the gravity of the situation hit him square in the chest, sucking the breath from him. If he felt this way, no doubt Abbey experienced it even more, and yet she hadn’t said much since the Saturday night of the play—five days before.
Five long days of nothing breaking on the case. The evidence the police found on the set’s sabotage hadn’t helped them garner any clues as to who was behind this. Neither had anything been found in the auditorium where the smoke bombs were remotely detonated. He even went through his video camera to see if he could find anything unusual, but the scenery that ended up falling blocked his view of backstage. And from Elizabeth’s position, she couldn’t see anyone behind the scenery either. Another dead end.
A noise behind him sent him flying around, his fists clenched as though readying himself to do battle.
“It’s only me,” Elizabeth said with a chuckle. “My stomach is rumbling. Whatever they are making smells wonderful.”
“Roast beef with vegetables, homemade rolls and for dessert, a red velvet cake.”
“Dessert? We don’t usually indulge, thankfully, or I would have to ex
ercise even more.”
“Mary is trying to get us into the Christmas spirit. The cake was the centerpiece for the holiday open house that we won’t have this year.”
“It’s usually a big deal?”
“We invite friends, employees at headquarters, people we want to thank. We also take donations to the Silver Chase Food Bank. Everyone brings a toy to contribute to the church toy drive for children who have one or both parents in prison. That part of Christmas I’ve always enjoyed. I can’t say I was too much into the rest of the holidays. I thought of what it was like when my wife was alive. Maybe it’s time to start some new traditions.”
“That’s not something I can help you with. I have no Christmas traditions. I never know where I’ll be each year.”
“Isn’t that lonely?”
Elizabeth’s eyebrows scrunched together. “I was always with people, standing back and watching their Christmas celebration or lack thereof, but yes, it is lonely.”
“So we’ve both avoided the holidays for different reasons.”
“Yeah, you had fond memories. I didn’t.”
“Our memories can be precious, but not when they stop us from moving forward.”
“Or our memories can be ones best left totally in the past but still have a hold on us that we haven’t been able to shake.”
“We can always make new memories.”
Her mouth tilted up in a smile that went straight to his heart. “To replace the old?”
He nodded. “Mary wants us to sing Christmas songs this evening after dinner. She says that’s what she misses most this year.”
“So that’s why we’re hearing them right now. Actually, for a good part of the past few days.”
“Yep. She found a radio station that plays Christmas music 24/7 until the twenty-fifth.”
“She wouldn’t want to hear me sing. I can’t carry a tune.”
“To Mary, that doesn’t matter.”
“You’ve never talked about your own parents. Are they alive?”
He missed his parents and wished his mom were here to give him advice with Abbey. “No. My father died ten years ago and my mother a few years later. I think she died of a broken heart even though the official cause was a stroke. But at least both of them got to see and know Abbey.”
Elizabeth ran her hand along the back of a wing chair. “I’m thinking of calling my father to wish him a merry Christmas.”
“You are? What made you decide to do that?”
“You.”
“Me? How?”
“Our discussions about moving on. Not letting the past dictate our future. I won’t be able to until I can tell my father I forgive him. He might not think he needs to be forgiven, but I need to do it. I need to have some closure on my childhood.” She moved away from him, prowling the living room as though restlessness had taken hold of her. “I don’t know if I can do it. I even tried a few days ago and hung up before it rang.”
Since he’d met her, she had inspired him to live for the present. He needed to make some changes or he would lose his daughter. Working all the time hadn’t been the best answer to dealing with his grief. Certainly not for Abbey. “But you found the courage to make the attempt. You’ll do it when it feels right.”
“My goal is by Christmas. Life’s too short to let this anger consume me.”
“That a good—”
“Dad, Elizabeth!”
Abbey’s urgent shout from the second floor landing propelled him across the living room and out into the foyer, Elizabeth next to him, her hand going to her gun. His daughter, her face drained of color, clutched the railing on the second floor.
“I got an email from…” Her voice grew raspier until she couldn’t say anything.
With Elizabeth slightly ahead of him, Slade took the stairs two at a time.
Abbey turned toward them, one hand still gripping the banister so tight her knuckles were white. Lifting an arm that shook, she pointed toward her bedroom. “It’s still on the computer. It’s about you, Dad.”
As Slade charged down the hallway, Elizabeth stayed with Abbey. He crossed his daughter’s room and saw the email, titled From a Friend, on the screen. The address from one of the free online services didn’t mean anything to him. Elizabeth came up behind him when he began reading the message, “I haven’t forgotten you, Slade. I’m coming soon. A friend.”
“Dad, it’s from him, isn’t it?”
He focused on the trembling in his daughter’s voice, not the words on the screen. She needed him at the moment. Pivoting, he drew her against him. “Probably. But the good thing is that we might be able to track this email to its source.”
Abbey bent back and looked up at him. “You can do that?”
“I should be able to.”
“Why did he send it to me?”
“To terrify you. But he also thought the email would more likely get to you and you would read it—I’ve got too many filters up for it to get through to me.”
“I thought it was from someone I met online.”
“Honey, this really might be a good thing. Let me see what I can find out. Why don’t you go downstairs and see if Gram wants any help with dinner? It should be ready soon.”
“I can’t help you?”
“One day I’ll show you some of my tricks, but I can work faster when I don’t have anyone watching over my shoulder.”
Abbey grinned. “I’m gonna keep you to that promise when this is all over with.”
He clasped her upper arms and looked straight into his daughter’s face, which now had a little color. “We’ll be spending a lot more time together. I have to admit, not as much as we have these past few days, but I’ll be cutting back on work. Lately, my company has functioned fine without my presence all the time.”
“You mean that?”
“Yep. You’re the most important person to me.” And that was why the person had sent the message to Abbey. Another taunt. This had to end soon, one way or another.
As Abbey left the room, Elizabeth stayed behind. “I’ll let Joshua know what has happened. Once you get a location, the police can move on it.”
“I know I’m getting my hopes up, but he’s got to make a mistake. I’m hoping this is it.”
Slade greeted the sheriff in the foyer late the next afternoon. “Thanks for coming out here. Let’s go into my office.”
“Where is everyone?” Sheriff McCain followed Slade.
“In the kitchen making snacks for tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Elizabeth had thought ‘the girls’ should have a movie night with snacks and everything.”
“Girls?”
“Mary, Hilda, Cindy, Abbey and Elizabeth. I wasn’t invited, so I dubbed it the girls’ night in.”
“Probably a good thing you weren’t invited. You should see some of the sappy movies my wife drags me to.”
In his office, Slade gestured toward two chairs. “So what have you all been able to track down?”
“We went through the videotapes of the internet café where the email you received was sent. Using the time on the email, we were able to narrow the suspects down to three people. Before we interview them, I wanted to show you their pictures to see if you know one of them.” The sheriff slid three photos out of a manila envelope and passed them to Slade.
He flipped through them. Two were young men, at the most only a few years older than Abbey. The last one was a balding man of about forty. “I don’t know them. What are their names?”
“On the backs of the photos.”
Slade examined each picture and then turned them over to see what the names were. “Still don’t mean anything to me. Are you sure these were the only people in the café at that time?”
“Yes, the owner said it had been a slow night. A couple of ladies came in, got some coffee and left. That was all.”
“I think we should show these to Abbey to see if she knows one of them.”
“Good suggestion.”
/> Slade pushed to his feet and headed toward where Abbey, Elizabeth, Cindy, Mary and Hilda were.
“I saw Joshua when I arrived,” the sheriff said as they came to the entrance into the kitchen.
“Yeah, he’s checking the grounds. He likes to periodically make sure the cameras are working and there are no breaches in the perimeter.”
“What are they making? It smells delicious.”
“Smells like cookies. Mary said something about Christmas ones they could decorate.”
“And she got your sixteen-year-old to go along with it?”
Slade chuckled. “Yes, which shows you the depth of my daughter’s boredom. Maybe with Elizabeth and Cindy here tonight she won’t feel totally surrounded by us old fogies.”
Abbey, with flour on her green sweater, peered toward him and the sheriff when they entered the room. Butter knife in hand, Elizabeth finished icing a snowman cookie and put it on the waxed paper for Abbey to decorate. The scene before Slade, the air laced with the aroma of sugar cookies and hot apple cider on the stove, made him wish the lawman was only at the ranch for a social visit.
“What’s up, Dad?”
“Sheriff McCain has some photos to show you. Where’s Hilda?”
Mary dried her hands on a towel. “She wasn’t feeling very well and went to her room to lie down. She’s coming down with a cold.”
With Bosco planted at her feet, Abbey rose and joined Slade. “Let me see. Is this the person who sent me the email?”
Sheriff McCain gave her the envelope, and she went through the pictures. Tiny lines wrinkled her forehead.
“Do you know one of them?” Slade spied the photo his daughter lingered over—the middle-aged man.
“I’ve seen him somewhere.” Abbey held up the picture for her grandmother to see. “Gram, doesn’t he go to our church?”
Mary retrieved her reading glasses from the chain around her neck and studied the photo of the balding man. “Yes, I think he does. He doesn’t come regularly, but I remember him being at the late service a month ago, right before Thanksgiving.”
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