Epiphany

by Rita Herron

  “I’ll take care of everything, Angel.” His gruff look sent her emotions skittering in a thousand directions. She wanted to believe he cared for her and Stevie, that he would always care for them, but she had never relied on anyone but herself. And Max would be gone the minute Gina’s killer was behind bars, just as he’d disappeared from her life the last time they’d made love months ago. If it wasn’t for her sister’s death, he wouldn’t be here now, and they both knew it.

  His expression hardened. “The kid belongs with you,” he said. “Any fool can see that.”

  “Let’s just hope a judge agrees.”

  “Trust me, Angel. Don’t worry.” He squeezed her hand.

  Angelica bit her lip and glanced at Stevie. How could she not worry? Max was convinced that Coper had killed her sister, but when he’d searched the man’s home and business the day before, he’d found nothing. Not the gun or any incriminating evidence.

  “Max, it’s only a couple of days until Christmas. I’d like to get a tree and decorate it here for Stevie.”

  He nodded, although he looked uncomfortable. “I was surprised you didn’t have one already.”

  She shrugged. “We all decorated the one at Stevie’s house together.” Sadness made Angelica’s chest ache. It had been the last thing the three of them had done together.

  “I suppose I can take you and Stevie to buy a tree this morning,” Max said.

  “You don’t have to stay with us, Max.”

  His jaw tightened. “I do until this case is solved, Angel. Stevie may remember the killer’s face at any second. And now that the story about Stevie was published, the killer may be getting nervous.”

  MAX HATED to put that shadow of worry in Angelica’s eyes, but after making love to her, he had to create some distance between them. Getting emotionally involved meant letting down defenses. Both personally and on the job.

  Something he absolutely couldn’t afford to do.

  Stevie finished his pancakes and Angelica reached for the plate. Remembering the sketch pad he’d taken from Gina’s, which the psychologist had used to encourage Stevie to communicate, he retrieved the pad and placed it on the kitchen table next to Stevie. “Here, you go, bud. I found this in your bedroom and thought you might want it.”

  Stevie’s eyes widened as he stared at the Dear Santa letter.

  “Looks like your wish list. Do you want to mail it to Santa?”

  Stevie shot up from the seat, grabbed a pen and drew long, ugly slashes across the picture.

  Angelica dropped the dish into the sink with a clatter and rushed to him. “Stevie, what’s wrong?”

  He grunted and scribbled in big jagged letters, No Santa.

  Max’s gaze met hers. He had no idea how to respond. He sure as hell didn’t believe in Santa. Didn’t remember if he ever had.

  “Yes, honey, there is a Santa.” Angelica knelt, lowering her voice, as she rubbed slow circles on the little boy’s back. “Santa is coming soon. We’ll mail your letter, so he’ll know what to bring you.”

  Stevie shook his head back and forth, then screamed and ran from the room, sobbing.

  Angelica turned to Max, a helpless sorrow in her eyes that left him searching for answers himself. He could catch Gina’s killer, he had no doubt about that.

  But how could he possibly give the little boy what he really needed?

  He was a broken man himself. A man who didn’t know the first thing about romancing a woman, about love and commitment or helping a traumatized child.

  A man who didn’t know how to be anything but a cop…

  While Angelica went to calm Stevie, he braced himself for a morning at a crowded tree farm. He’d rather take a bullet to his arm instead, but he hadn’t been able to turn down Angelica’s plea. And the poor kid…he had looked so miserable.

  But as they drove away from Angelica’s, the hair on the back of his neck prickled. Someone was watching them, he could feel their presence.

  He glanced over his shoulder, but he didn’t see anything. Still he cut through a side street, then another, unable to shake the sense that danger was dogging them.

  MAX STOOD BACK, silently watching, as Angelica and Stevie debated over the pine or fir tree. He seemed on edge, raising her own nervous level to a fever pitch.

  Was someone following them?

  Someone who wanted to hurt her nephew?

  Fear and frustration knotted Angelica’s stomach. Stevie had been even more withdrawn after his outburst over the Dear Santa letter, and Angelica felt lost as to how to help him. He stuck to her side but barely even smiled at the carolers or her as she chatted about stringing popcorn and making ornaments out of salt dough.

  Despair clawed at her. How could she possibly salvage the holiday for her nephew? She had bought him a few gifts, but she couldn’t possibly bring back his mother or give him the father in his Dear Santa picture.

  Max ushered them back inside his SUV while he and the man at the tree farm secured the pine tree onto the top of the vehicle.

  “How about we go to the mall next?” Angelica suggested. “We can pick out a few last-minute gifts.”

  Max slanted a nervous gaze toward her, wrapping his gloved hands around the steering wheel. “You want to shop in this madness?”

  “I thought it might get Stevie in the spirit. I want to buy Sheila and her son a present, too.” Besides, she wanted to purchase another train for the tree, and see her nephew’s face light up the way it had when she’d bought that first one.

  Max’s gaze shot to the rearview mirror again. “I suppose we’ll be okay in a crowd,” he conceded.

  His constant surveillance of the area spiked her nerves as they entered the busy mall a few minutes later. She clutched Stevie’s hand on one side while Max stood guard on the other.

  “Look at all the decorations, Stevie,” Angelica said, pointing to the fake snow.

  His solemn mouth tilted in a smile at a dancing animated tin soldier and a ten-foot singing snowman. A center area had been artfully arranged into a fantasy winter wonderland with moving toy elves, reindeer and a sleigh, and a North Pole designed for Santa. A long line of anxious and excited children and their parents snaked around the corner, preparing to visit Santa.

  “Do you want to get in line to talk to Santa?” Angelica asked.

  Max’s pained look suggested the line was too long, but she’d wait hours if it would make Stevie happy.

  Stevie shook his head and yanked at her hand, his eyes going wide.

  “Come on, honey,” she coaxed, “it’ll be fun. I want a picture of you and Santa together.”

  He twisted sideways, his expression frantic. “No, no Santa!”

  It was the first words he’d spoken since Gina had died.

  Max gave her a wary look, but she tried to pull Stevie nearer the line. “Please, honey, do it for Aunt Angelica.”

  Stevie fisted his hands and waved them in the air, “No Santa!”

  “Stevie, of course there’s a Santa,” Angelica said softly. “Remember last year he brought you that big dump truck and a scooter.”

  “Listen,” Max rasped near her ear. “If he doesn’t believe anymore, you can’t force it—”

  She glared at Max. Too much of Stevie’s innocence had been stolen already. She couldn’t let him give up on Santa at such a young age.

  “Stevie, please, Santa is going to bring you toys—”

  “No!” He yanked free of her hand, turned and ran: the opposite direction, ducking under the arms of a bearded man, then around the corner.

  “Stevie!” She jogged after him, repeatedly yelling for him to stop over the noisy din of music and voices.

  Max raced behind her, pushing through a cluster of teenagers ahead of her with his long gait.

  She caught up to Max and grabbed his arms, her heart pounding as her knees buckled. Stevie had completely disappeared.

  What if someone had gotten him?

  Chapter Eight

  Max scanned the mall, his p
ulse racing. Jingle bells trilled through the air, along with carolers, adding to the noise and Angelica’s screams for Stevie. Where the hell was the boy? And how had he gotten away from them so quickly?

  “Max, do you see him?” Angelica screeched.

  Her terror seared him. He wished he could reassure her, but the sea of people around them swirled into a fog, all the faces and jackets blending together. “No, I’ll alert security.”

  He grabbed her hand and they raced toward a security guard near the toy store. Angelica removed a photo from her wallet and showed it to the guard. “His name is Stevie North. He’s only five. Did he come in here?”

  “I didn’t see him. What was he wearing?”

  “Jeans and a dinosaur sweatshirt.”

  Seconds later the guard had issued an alert, ordered all the security to look for Stevie, and taken Max’s cell number.

  “Max, we have to find him.” Tears filled Angelica’s eyes, her voice shaking.

  “We will.” He squeezed her hand and they wove through the crowd, searching and calling Stevie’s name. Angelica stopped to ask several people if they’d seen Stevie, each time showing them the photo, her hands trembling more with every passing second.

  Grateful for his height, but needing a better vantage point to view the mall, Max pulled her up the stairs, then stood at the top, scanning the distance.

  Priceless seconds ticked by as they searched different directions.

  “Max, what if the killer has him?” Angelica whispered raggedly.

  He shuddered inwardly as she echoed his own thoughts, then squinted as he noticed a little boy on the lower level in front of a candy store, tugging a man’s hand as if he didn’t want to go with him.

  “Angelica, look over there!” He pointed to the child, but he couldn’t see his face.

  “Stevie!” She started down the stairs, screaming his name over and over. The boy turned and Max saw his face. It was Stevie—and he looked frightened.

  Max raced behind Angelica, using the walkie-talkie the guard had given him to alert security. “He’s on the lower level near the candy store. A thin man in a green jacket and red cap is trying to drag him toward the west entrance.”

  They raced past the North Pole scene again, fought through the crowd, yelling for people to stop the man.

  “Oh, my God, Max,” Angelica shouted. “He’s trying to take Stevie outside!”

  A guard jogged toward the entrance, but a shot rang out and the security man dropped to the floor. Mad chaos broke loose. People screamed and ran for cover. Children cried out and the carolers dived behind Santa’s sleigh.

  Max raced around them and finally reached the guard. His heart pounding, he dropped to check for a pulse and radioed for help. Angelica escaped past him, rushing ahead, and caught up to the man, but he clutched Stevie by the jacket with his fist.

  It was the man with the goatee he’d seen leaving Coper’s office that day.

  Stevie fought the man, twisting and pulling at his hand to escape. Max reached for his gun, contemplating how to get off a shot without hurting the boy or Angelica. He raised the gun. Aimed.

  No. He couldn’t fire yet. Angelica was in the way.

  “Let my nephew go!” Angelica cried.

  Max stalked slowly toward them, but the man raised his gun toward Angelica.

  “Don’t do it, mister,” Max warned.

  Stevie suddenly leaned over and bit the man’s hand. He bellowed in pain, dropped his aim, and Angelica stumbled forward as Stevie darted toward her. Max rushed forward to grab the man’s gun, but he raised it and fired openly. The bullet was heading right toward Stevie and Angelica!

  Max shoved Angelica aside, then dived in front of the little boy. The bullet grazed Max’s shoulder and he went down, covering Stevie with his body to protect him.

  Angelica screamed. Max rolled to his side to fire back, but the man grabbed Angelica and positioned her in front of him, then pointed the pistol at her head as he dragged her toward the door.

  Stevie’s shrill scream pierced the air as the man disappeared out the door with Angelica.

  ANGELICA STRUGGLED against the man’s firm grip, but he pressed the gun into her temple. “Move and you’re a dead lady.”

  She bit back a cry, grateful Stevie was safe. But she couldn’t die and leave him alone. Then who would raise him?

  And what about Max? He’d been shot. Was he all right?

  Fear tightened her belly as a guard raced outside the mall, but her captor yanked open the door to a white van and shoved her inside. He jumped in with a curse, started the engine and gunned it, the van soared away from the parking lot, metal screeching.

  “Who are you?” Angelica cried, trying to twist free of his grip. “And why are you doing this?”

  “My name is Hank Hummings,” he snapped as he waved the gun toward her. “Didn’t your sister tell you about me? I asked her to marry me.”

  Angelica stared at him in stunned silence.

  His bitter laugh sent a chill down her spine. “I guess not.”

  “You killed her,” Angelica said, vying for calm. “But why? I mean, if you proposed to her, why hurt her?”

  “She deserved it.”

  “What did she do to you?” Angelica sobbed.

  “I loved her,” he snarled. “But she found out about Coper’s prostitution ring. She took money from him to keep quiet. Then she changed her mind and threatened to expose him. I told her we should take the money and run, but she claimed she was going to clean up her life and give back the money.”

  Angelica’s mind raced. Her sister was going to do the right thing, turn her life around. And now this man had destroyed her good intentions and her life. “But if you loved her, how could you kill her?”

  His eyes looked crazed. “Don’t you get it? If she told on Coper, she’d hurt my mother. Everyone would know,” he screeched.

  Know what? That his mother had been one of Coper’s hookers.

  Oh, God. Angelica clutched her stomach, feeling ill.

  On the heels of the nausea, anger mushroomed inside her. This man had stolen Gina and Stevie’s future. She couldn’t let him kill her, too. Then he’d still go back for Stevie.

  A surge of adrenaline spiked her bloodstream and she tried to wrestle the steering wheel from him. He shoved her hands away, raised the butt of the gun and slammed it against her head. A sharp pain splintered through her skull, then she collapsed against the door and everything went black.

  “SAVE HER!” Stevie cried over and over. “Don’t let him kill her. Save her!”

  Max picked up the little boy and tried to soothe him as he raced outside to chase the man. All he saw was a white van disappearing from sight. “I will, buddy. I promise. Tell me, was that the man who killed your mommy?”

  Stevie sniffled, his head bobbing up and down. “’Cept he was dressed like Santa Claus.”

  The pieces fell into place. The artificial white hair fibers at the crime scene. The size 13 boot prints. Stevie’s reaction to Santa.

  But he still had no idea of the man’s motive.

  The paramedics raced toward Max. “You need to go to the hospital, mister?”

  “No, I’m fine. The bullet just grazed my shoulder.” His partner, Sheila, drove up and jumped from the car.

  “I heard what happened, Max.” She glanced at Stevie. “Hey, Stevie. It’s going to be all right, sweetie.”

  He buried his head into Max’s shoulder.

  Max had never felt so helpless. His heart was clenching, his breathing unsteady. All he could think about was Angelica and that she might be dead already.

  “It was Bevels?” Sheila asked.

  “No, some man connected to Coper, though.” His voice cracked. “I have to find Angelica, Shelia.”

  Shelia nodded. “I’ll go with you.”

  Max shook his head. “No, stay with Stevie.” He lifted the boy’s chin and wiped away tears. “Listen to me, son. I’m going to find Angelica. You have to be a big boy now and
go with Miss Sheila, okay?”

  Stevie’s chin wobbled. “You’ll bring Angel back?”

  His eyes were luminous with tears and too much terror. “Yes, son, I will.”