by Rebecca York
Ever since I left Baltimore for India, all I've been thinking about was
how much I needed you to help me get Shannon back."
He looked down at the baby in his arms.
"You have her back. Now, are you sorry you married me?" he pressed.
"No!"
Fiercely, she grabbed him by the shoulders.
"Maybe I haven't been making myself understood. I need you. I love
you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you."
The baby stirred in Steve's arms, and Abby automatically glanced down
to check on her.
One tiny fist was clenched tightly around a handful of Steve's shirt.
As Abby watched, Shannon reached out the other hand and grabbed her
mother's blouse.
Abby's vision misted as she looked down at their child.
"Steve," she whispered, "Look."
He followed the direction of her gaze, staring at the tiny human bridge
the baby had made between them.
"I think she's trying to tell us something," Abby whispered.
She saw Steve swallow hard.
As if she understood the conversation, Shannon gave a little tug on her
mother's blouse.
With a shaky laugh, Abby moved a couple of inches closer to her husband
and child.
She put one hand on the baby's middle.
The other stole around Steve's neck, tipping his head down toward
hers.
Their eyes locked.
Then their lips met.
At first the kiss was like a bonding, more spiritual than carnal.
But as Steve nibbled on her lower lip, Abby forgot where they were,
forgot everything but him.
A tiny fist pounding against her middle brought her down to earth.
"I think we'd better behave," Steve growled.
Abby pressed her knuckles against his cheek!.
"'I love you so much. And I heard what - you said to Singh outside the
temple."
"I didn't know you were eavesdropping."
"Well, I was, so you can't take it back. Shannon and I won't let
you."
He looked from his daughter to his wife.
"Are the two of you ganging up on me?"
"Yeah."
His hand gently touched the baby's face and then Abby's.
"God, you're something. You're both really something."
Abby tried to blink away the moisture brimming in her eyes.
"We both love you, too. A lot," she whispered.
"I thanked you once for giving me this," Steve choked out.
"And I told you we'd done it together."
"I'll keep that in mind."
"That's all I'm asking," she told him, sighing contentedly as she
relaxed into his embrace.
Turn the page for a bonus look at what's in store in WHAT CHILD IS THIS
21 Rebecca York's next 43 Light Street tale.
In the hallowed halls of this charming building you've seen danger
averted and romance blossom.
Now Christmas comes to 43 Light Street and in its stocking is all the
action, suspense and romance you've come to expect from Rebecca York.
Chapter One
Guilty until proven innocent.
Erin Morgan squinted into the fog that turned the buildings on either
side of Light Street into a canyon of dimly realized apparitions.
"Guilty until proven innocent," she repeated aloud.
It wasn't supposed to work that way.
Yet that was how Erin had felt since the Graveyard Murders had rocked
Baltimore.
Ever since the killer had tricked her into framing her friend Sabrina
Barkley.
Sabrina had forgiven her.
But she hadn't forgiven herself, and she was never going to let
something like that happen again.
.
- I She glanced at the purse beside her on the passenger seat and felt
her stomach knot.
It was stuffed with five thousand dollars in contributions for Santa's
Toy and Clothing Fund.
Most were checks, but she was carrying more than eight hundred dollars
in cash.
And she wasn't going to keep it in her possession a moment longer than
necessary.
Erin pressed her foot down on the accelerator and then eased up again
as a dense patch of white swallowed up the car.
She couldn't even see the Christmas decorations she knew were festooned
from many of the downtown office windows.
What Child Is This?
249
Tis the season to be jolly.
She sang a few lines of the carol to cheer herself up, but her voice
trailed off in the gloom.
Forty-three Light Street glided into view through the mist like a huge
underwater rock formation.
Erin drove around to the back of the building where she could get in
and out as quickly as possible.
Pulling the collar of her coat closed against the icy wind, she hurried
toward the back door-the key ready in her hand.
It felt good to get out of the cold.
But there was nothing welcoming about the dank, dimly lit back
entrance- so different from the fading grandeur of the iiiaible
foyer.
Here there were no pretensions of gentility, only institutional gray
walls and a bare concrete floor.
Clutching her purse more tightly, she strained her ears and peered into
the darkness.
She heard nothing but the familiar sound of the steam pipes rattling.
And she saw nothing moving in the shadows.
Still, the fine hairs on the back of her neck stirred as she bolted
into the service elevator and pressed the button.
Upstairs the print was brighter, and the tile floors were polished.
But at this time of night, only a few dim lights held back the shadows,
and the clicking of her high heels echoed back at her like water
dripping in an underground cavern.
Feeling strangely exposed in the darkness, Erin kept her eyes focused
on the glass panel of her office door.
She was almost running by the time she reached it.
Her hand closed around the knob.
It was solid and reassuring against her moist palm, and she felt some
of the knots in her stomach untie themselves.
With a sigh of relief, she kicked the door closed behind her, shutting
out the unseen phantoms of the hall.
Reaching over one of the mismatched couches donated by a local rental
company, she flipped the light switch.
Nothing happened.
Darn.
The bulb must be out.
In the darkness, she took a few steps toward the file room and
stopped.
Something else was wrong.
Maybe it was the smell.
Not the clean pine scent of the little Christmas tree she'd set up by
the window, but the dank odor of sweat.
She was backing quietly toward the door when fingers as hard and lean
as a handcuff shot out and closed around her wrist.
A scream of terror rose in her throat.
The sound was choked off by a rubber glove against her lips.
Someone was in her office.
In the dark.
Her mind registered no more than that.
But her body was already struggling-trying to twist away.
.
.
"No. Please."
Even as she pleaded, she knew she was wasting her breath.
He
was strong.
And ruthless.
Her free hand came up to pummel his shoulder and neck.
He grunted and shook her so hard that her vision blurred.
She tried to work her teeth against the rubbery palm that covered her
mouth.
His grip adroitly shifted to her throat.
He began to squeeze, and she felt the breath turn to stone in her
lungs.
He bent her backward over his arm, and she stared up into a face
covered by a ski mask, the features a strange parody of something
human.
The dark circles around the eyes-the red circle around the mouth, the
two dots of color on his What Child Is This?
251
cheeks-wavered in her vision like coins in the bottom of a fountain.
The pressure increased.
Her lungs were going to explode.
No.
Please.
Let me go home.
I have a little boy.
He needs me.
The words were choked off like her life breath.
Like the rapidly fading light.
She was dying.
And the scenes of her life flashed before her eyes.
Climbing into bed with her parents on Sunday morning.
First grade.
High school graduation.
Her marriage to Bruce.
Kenny's birth.
Her husband's death.
Betraying Sabrina.
Finishing college.
Her new job with Silver Miracle Charities.
he holiday fund-raiser tonight.
The events of her life trickled through her mind like the last grains
of sand rolling down the sloping sides of an hourglass.
Then there was only blackness.