Her Christmas Guardian

by Shirlee McCoy

  And sneaking out alone when someone had nearly killed her?

  That wasn’t such a great idea.

  He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Lamar’s number. The call went straight to voice mail. He left a message, figuring that was as good as asking permission.

  Chance wouldn’t see it that way, but Boone figured he was following the letter of the law. For now, that would have to be good enough.

  FOUR

  Please let me wake up from this nightmare.

  The prayer flitted through Scout’s throbbing head as Stella pushed her wheelchair outside. The full moon glowed from a pitch-black sky, the frigid November air slicing through her T-shirt and coat. Someone had washed all of her clothes, but she still thought she could smell the coppery scent of blood. Somewhere people were having a conversation, their voices drifting through the quiet night. A nightmare wouldn’t be so full of details. A nightmare wouldn’t let her feel the first drop of icy rain on her cheek or smell the frosty dampness of the air.

  Lucy.

  Gone.

  The thought lodged in her head and stayed there. The only real thought she could hold on to.

  An SUV pulled up to the curb and Stella opened the door, took Scout’s arm and helped her in. “Seat belt,” she barked, and Scout fumbled to snap it into place.

  Her hands trembled, but somehow she managed. She wanted one thing. To find her daughter. Everything else—the throbbing pain in her head, the sick feeling in her stomach, the fear that made her chest ache—didn’t matter.

  Boone didn’t ask for an address or directions to her house. He just pulled away from the hospital, merging into light traffic on the main road that led through River Valley.

  Scout knew exactly what she’d see on her way home. Dark trees stretching toward the moonlit sky, houses dotting the landscape, a few cars meandering along. She watched the landscape flying by, her eyes heavy with fatigue. She felt weaker than she wanted to, and she couldn’t afford to be weak. Not with Lucy missing.

  Boone turned into her neighborhood, bypassing the bigger fancier houses and weaving his way through main roads and side streets. He was familiar with the neighborhood and must have been to her house on several occasions. It wasn’t easy to find, tucked away from the road, the driveway long and winding. In the next lot over, Mrs. Geoffrey’s house was dark, the porch light off. She’d been planning to visit family for Thanksgiving and had asked Scout and Lucy to come along.

  They should have gone.

  Boone turned into the driveway, slowing as overgrown trees brushed the sides of the SUV. In the spring, Scout would have them trimmed. Her rent-to-own lease allowed her the luxury of doing whatever she wanted to the tiny little rancher and the acre it sat on.

  The lights were off at the house. She hadn’t left them that way. She always left the porch light burning and the foyer light on. Too many dark shadows around the house at night, and even with Mrs. Geoffrey just a few hundred yards away, Scout always worried that someone might be waiting in the gloomy recesses of the yard.

  Tonight, she had nothing to fear. She’d already lost everything. There was nothing more that could be done to hurt her. She opened the door as the car coasted to a stop, might have jumped out and run to the house if Stella hadn’t grabbed her arm.

  “Slow down, sister! You want to kill yourself before we find your kid?”

  She didn’t respond. The car had come to a full stop, and she wasn’t waiting any longer. She stumbled out, nearly falling to her knees, her body refusing to cooperate with her brain’s commands.

  Just move! she thought. It’s easy.

  Only it wasn’t. Her legs wobbled as she took a step toward the house, her purse thumping against her side. The keys were in it, and she needed to pull them out, but she wasn’t sure how she was going to manage that and the walk.

  “How about you not go rushing out of the SUV like that again?” Boone stepped into place beside her, his arm sliding around her waist. In another lifetime, she would have blushed at the zip of electricity that seemed to shoot through her at his touch. In this lifetime, she just wanted to get into the house, go into Lucy’s room, make sure that her daughter wasn’t waiting there for her.

  “If I were rushing, I’d already be in the front door,” she responded through gritted teeth.

  “If you were thinking, you’d have realized that anyone could be waiting out here. It’s a nice dark area. No streetlights. No neighbors around. You’re an easy target. Might as well put a bull’s-eye on your chest and stand out in the middle of Main Street,” he drawled.

  She hadn’t been thinking about that.

  Now she was, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching. She shivered, fishing in her purse for keys that weren’t there.

  She dug deeper, found her wallet, cell phone, spare change. The little rag doll that Lucy loved. She pulled it out, her heart burning with tears that she wouldn’t shed. Crying couldn’t bring her daughter back.

  “My keys,” she began, but Boone had keys in his hand. Her keys—heart key chain with three keys: one for the front door, one for the back, one for the car.

  “The police used them to access your place when they were looking for Lucy. They returned them last night.”

  And he’d taken them.

  She didn’t know how she felt about that, didn’t think it really mattered.

  The police had searched her house, just as Boone had said.

  Lucy wasn’t in there.

  She felt defeated, sick to her stomach and ready to collapse, but she was going to look in the house anyway, because she didn’t know what else to do.

  The door swung open on creaky hinges. She’d been meaning to oil them, but time had got away from her—all the busyness of going to work and being a mother had made anything extra nearly impossible to do.

  She walked into the dark living room, inhaling stale air and silence. No sound of Lucy giggling. No soft pad of little-girl feet on the floor. No squeals or cries. Nothing. The house felt empty and lonely and horrible.

  Her foot caught on something, and she fell forward, would have hit the ground if Boone hadn’t grabbed her arm.

  “Careful,” he said.

  “There’s something on the floor. I think it’s the couch cushion.”

  “How about we turn on a light. Then you’ll know for sure,” Stella said drily.

  The light went on, illuminating a room that had been taken apart. Couch cushions slashed and tossed on the floor, books torn and flung away. Photographs ripped from walls, their frames smashed. Lucy’s little stuffed bear near the fireplace, its stuffing hanging out like entrails.

  She started toward it, but Boone grabbed her arm. “Not yet.”

  “What—?”

  “Take her outside.” Boone cut her off, his face hard, his expression unreadable.

  That was it. A quick sharp command, and Stella grabbed Scout’s arm, started dragging her back toward the door.

  Only she wasn’t going, because this was her house, her daughter, her problem to solve. No matter how sick she felt, no matter how scared she was.

  She yanked away. “I need to check Lucy’s room,” she mumbled, more to herself than to either of the people who’d brought her home.

  “Not going to happen, sister.” Stella tightened her grip, dragging Scout backward with enough force to nearly throw her off balance. She had a choice. Go or fight. Normally, she’d go, because she was a rule follower, the kind of person who’d never take a stroller on an escalator or park in a no-parking zone. She didn’t try the grapes at the grocery store before she paid for them or take fifteen items into the twelve-items-or-less line.

  But she had to find Lucy. Had to.

  And if that meant fighting, that was what she was going to do.

  She
yanked her arm from Stella’s, tried to run through the living room and into the hallway beyond. It should have been easy. She jogged nearly every day, sprinted after Lucy all the time, across the backyard, through the local park.

  But her legs didn’t want to move, and she stumbled forward, moving in what seemed like slow motion, the hallway so far away she wasn’t sure she’d ever get to it.

  “Not a good choice, Scout,” Boone sighed.

  Next thing she knew, she was in his arms, heading back the few feet she’d managed to go. Outside again, the cold November air stung her cheeks, and she wasn’t even sure how she’d got there, where she was going, what she was looking for.

  Lucy.

  She zeroed in on the thought and held on to it, because she couldn’t seem to hold on to anything else.

  “Put me down!” She wiggled in his arms, trying to free herself. He just held on more tightly, striding to the SUV and opening the door. He set her in the backseat, leaned down so they were eye to eye.

  “Do us both a favor,” he growled, “and stay there.”

  He closed the door and walked away. She would have opened it and followed, but Stella was right there, hips against the door, back to Scout.

  Scout slid across the bucket seat, reached for the handle on the other side, heard a soft click and a beep. She tried the handle. The door wouldn’t open. She climbed over the seat and into the front, pushed the button to unlock the doors. Nothing.

  Someone tapped on the window, and she looked out, met Stella’s eyes. “Not going to open, sister,” Stella called through the glass. “We’ve got a special lock system for situations like this.”

  Like what? Scout wanted to ask, but Stella turned away, her attention focused on the edge of the property and the oversize trees that lined it.

  Standing guard?

  That was what it seemed as though she was doing—putting herself and her life on the line for Scout.

  Why?

  It was another question Scout wanted to ask.

  Later.

  First, she needed to find a way out of the SUV and back in the house. Lucy might not be there. Wasn’t there. She admitted it to herself, because living in a fantasy world wouldn’t help her get Lucy back. She had to be practical, had to be smart, had to trust that her daughter was okay and that they’d be reunited eventually.

  If she didn’t, she’d fall apart. That wouldn’t do anyone any good.

  She pressed a shaky finger to her temple, the bandage scratchy and thick, the throbbing pain of the wound it covered making her stomach churn.

  “Concentrate,” she muttered, looking around for some other method of opening the doors.

  Maybe the hatchback?

  Hadn’t she seen something in a survival show about unlatching trunks from the inside? Was it possible to do the same with the hatchback opening of an SUV?

  She crawled back over the seat, her stomach heaving as pain shot through her temple. Cold sweat beaded her brow, and her entire body seemed to be shaking, but she managed to get to the back section of the vehicle. She felt around for a mechanism that would open the door, found nothing.

  Two police cars pulled into the driveway, lights flashing, sirens off. Scout stayed where she was as several police officers ran past. She didn’t think they saw her lying on her side in the back of Boone’s SUV. She doubted it would matter if they did. They weren’t going to let her out of the vehicle, and Stella hadn’t budged from her place near the passenger door.

  Lights splashed out from the windows of the little rancher she’d lived in for three years. She knew each window, each light. Named them silently as they flashed on. Dining room at the side of the house. Her room in the front. Lucy’s room. Behind the house, trees butted up against the night sky, the canopy of the forest illuminated by moonlight. She knew exactly how far the kitchen light would spill out from the window above the sink, knew just how much of the backyard would be painted gold by it.

  Her heart thudded painfully as shadows moved in front of the window. Somewhere, her daughter was sleeping in a strange bed, in a strange house, with strangers all around.

  Best-case scenario, she was.

  Worst-case scenario...

  Scout refused to put a name to it, refused to allow herself to imagine anything other than her daughter lying in bed crying for her.

  She closed her eyes, trying to pray, wanting to pray. Her mind was empty of anything but fear and sorrow and the aching pain of her injury.

  A car engine broke the silence of the night, and she managed to crawl back over the seat. She sat there as a small Toyota pulled up behind the police cars. Scout knew the car. It belonged to her landlady, Eleanor Finch. The police must have called to let her know there’d been a break-in at the property.

  Eleanor got out of the car, but she didn’t approach the house, just stood and stared at it. Maybe this was old hat for her. She owned a number of properties in River Valley. Most of them were a lot more impressive and lucrative than this one. Scout figured that was why she’d been willing to do a rent-to-own contract on the rancher. It didn’t rent for enough to make it worth Eleanor’s while to keep it.

  She hadn’t ever asked, though. Eleanor liked her privacy. She wasn’t warm and fuzzy. Nor was she approachable. She’d insisted on three months’ rent as a deposit and the contract read that she got to keep it if Scout decided to break her lease.

  That had been fine with Scout. She hadn’t intended to break the three-year lease, because she’d pictured living there forever with Lucy. A nice little place in a nice little town filled with lots of nice people. Good schools. Pretty little church. Everything clean and tidy.

  Only it wasn’t anymore, and maybe the house wasn’t going to be a place for forever. Maybe it was just a stopgap on the way to somewhere else.

  Eleanor pulled out her cell phone and made a call, her gaze still on the house. Scout wanted to get out of the SUV and talk to her, but the doors were still locked tight and Stella was still standing guard. There was nothing Scout could do but wait and wonder what was going on in the house and when someone was going to come out and tell her about it.

  * * *

  Boone had been hoping for a ransom note. There hadn’t been one. No prints on the furniture, doors, pieces of broken frame. He watched as the local police processed the scene, staying out of their way because he didn’t want to get kicked out. He needed information. The more the better. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to be had. Someone had torn the house apart.

  Maybe more than someone.

  Maybe several people.

  Going through a house as thoroughly as this one had been gone through would have taken one person a few hours. A couple of people working together could have accomplished the job much more quickly.

  He walked down the hall, bypassing a uniformed officer who was dusting the bathroom door for prints. Even that room had been torn apart, medicine cabinet emptied, a picture pulled off the wall and taken apart, the frame in pieces on the floor.

  Lamar was two doors down, taking pictures of Lucy’s room. Like the others, it was a wreck, the mattress on the toddler bed slashed, the stuffing strewn all over the floor. Stuffed animals had been dismembered, picture books thrown from shelves. It looked as if a hurricane had blown through.

  “Find anything interesting?” he asked, and Lamar frowned.

  “I should make you leave. This is a crime scene.”

  “I’ve been in more than a few of them. I’ll be careful not to contaminate anything. Did you find anything?”

  “Aside from a mess? No. Whoever did this was careful. No prints on the doorknobs or any other surface in the house. I pulled a couple of kid prints off the underside of the bed in here, but nothing else.”

  “Someone wiped things down?”

  “Thoroughly.” Lamar nearl
y spat the word out, the look on his face a mixture of disgust and frustration.

  “Awfully knowledgeable petty thieves,” Boone said, even though he didn’t think the ransacking had anything to do with thievery. It had everything to do with the fact that Lucy was missing. He was sure of that; he just wasn’t sure what the connection was.

  “Neither of us believes that thieves did this,” Lamar muttered.

  “You have any leads on the kidnappers?”

  “Nothing. I’m hoping I can get a description from Scout tonight. If she got a good look at our perp, we may finally have a lead.” He eyed Boone for a moment. “Speaking of Scout, I don’t suppose you want to explain why you brought her here.”

  “She wanted to come.”

  “Sometimes my son wants to come to work with me, but he’s six, so I have to tell him it’s not a good idea.”

  “Scout isn’t six. She’s a grown woman, and she was going to find a way here with or without my help. I figured it was better to give her my help and a little protection.”

  “Maybe next time, you can convince her to wait for the police instead.”

  “I’m hoping there won’t be a next time.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that, Anderson. Things aren’t making sense, and in my experience that means there’s a lot going on under the surface, a lot we don’t know about, a lot that could cause Scout serious trouble.”

  “She’s already in serious trouble.” Boone pointed out the obvious, and Lamar frowned.

  “Not your problem. I’ve been allowing your team to do some investigating, but that stops if you get in my way.”

  “Maybe you should explain what that entails so I can avoid it.”

  “Let’s try this on for size,” Lamar responded. “You don’t take a witness out of the hospital without permission from me. You don’t take her to undisclosed locations or hide her away somewhere for safekeeping, either.”