The Girl and the Black Christmas

by A J Rivers

  “You don’t?”

  I shake my head, sitting back and turning so I can look at him. He pulls my feet across his lap and starts to rub one of them through my thick socks.

  “It doesn’t make sense. She never seemed miserable. She talked about graduating. And we were close. If she was going to do something like that, she would have told me. Or at least, would have gotten in touch with me over all this time.” I glance down at my lap and rub away a bit of pie crust still clinging to one fingernail. “I looked into it when she disappeared.”

  I look up at him to gauge his reaction and it’s about what I thought it was going to be. He’s staring back at me, looking as if he’s not really sure how to react.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She just suddenly wasn’t there, Sam. We had plans and she never showed up, and I never heard from her again. It didn’t sit well with me, so I looked into it.”

  “You investigated it?”

  “I was eighteen and hadn’t even decided to go into the Bureau yet. I wouldn’t really call it investigating. But I poked around. I tried to figure out what happened. I knew something was wrong, but I hit nothing but dead-ends,” I say.

  “You never mentioned that to me. You told me she left school, and I remember your being upset about it, but you never said anything about looking into it,” he says.

  “I know.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I didn’t want you to react the same way everybody else did. They all thought I was just looking for trouble,” I admit.

  “You do tend to see things in the worst possible light first,” he points out.

  “Thanks.”

  “But it’s part of what makes you so good at what you do, so it’s not always a bad thing. I just hate that I couldn’t be there for you when you were going through that. Maybe I could have helped,” he says.

  I shake my head. “You would have just stopped me from looking, and that was something I needed to do. When I didn’t find anything and time passed without anyone’s raising the alarm about it, I figured I was just off-base and tried to put it behind me. I guess I didn’t.”

  Sam slides closer to me and cups one hand around my face, stroking it with his thumb. “Want to do some Christmas decorating? It might make you feel better. We could go to the attic and get the tree. Put it up.”

  “No. If Xavier showed up here and there were Christmas decorations up, he would probably have a heart attack and try to cut the tree down,” I say.

  “It’s an artificial tree,” Sam says.

  “He would find a way. You know, he called me this afternoon to remind me candle fragrances are as seasonal as flavors. I can’t burn a peppermint, gingerbread, hot cocoa, pine, or cookie-scented candle prior to the night of Thanksgiving, and only after we’ve eaten the meal.”

  “Why?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. But I mentioned the plan to go to the tree farm and cut down the tree Wednesday and he was all about that. He said as long as it’s not decorated, it’s still just a glorified houseplant. Like cut roses. Then it has its Thanksgiving night transformation to harness the magic of Christmas and usher it into our home.”

  He thinks over the words for a few seconds. “I’ll take it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Everything goes from calm to holiday chaos very quickly the next day. I was expecting a bit of a gap between Xavier’s and Dean’s arrival, and Eric’s and Bellamy’s following them later. As it turns out, both sets of friends arrive within minutes of each other and suddenly the living room is a pile of luggage, bags, and a massive gourmet gift basket as everyone hugs and talks at once.

  Xavier stands off to the side, looking around as if he’s getting himself accustomed to the surroundings. It’s not the first time he’s been in my house, but it’s a different situation and I can appreciate that changes things for him. I give him the space he needs and take Bellamy and Eric to their room first.

  One of the best things about having this house is all the extra space. There are plenty of bedrooms to accommodate everyone and still have my office and a little gym for Sam downstairs. That isn’t an original feature of the house. It’s actually fairly new. He still has his own place, but as our lives meld, more and more of him ventures over to my place.

  It’s not something we ever had a conversation about, but it seems we’ve settled on this being our home. There’s no set timeline or pressure, but at some point, he’ll put his house on the market and move everything over here. At that point, I imagine all the rooms in the house will have a few touches of him.

  I’m still trying to wrap my head around that. Not because I don’t want it to happen or I’m too tightly in control of the house to allow any space for him to make it his home as well. Simply because there are times when I wake up and still feel as if I’m at my grandmother’s house. I have a few brief moments of feeling like a little girl who’s going to go downstairs and find Gran making pancakes.

  The feeling always passes quickly, but I wonder what it’ll be like to see the little bits of Sam taking over corners of the house and buying furniture and other details together.

  I set down the bag I carried up to the room and pull Bellamy into another hug.

  “I feel as if I haven’t seen you in so long,” I say. “I know it hasn’t been that long, but it just feels like forever.”

  “I know,” she smiles. “Me, too.”

  She glances back at Eric and there’s something in the expression that flickers between them that makes my eyes narrow.

  “What’s going on?” I ask. “What was that look?”

  Bellamy steps back so she’s standing next to him and Eric slides his arm around her waist to hold her close to his side. They look at each other, and for a second it’s as if they’re lost in each other. It’s fun watching my best friends fall in love like this. Of course, I saw it coming long before either one of them would admit to it. And there was more than enough back-and-forth while they jockeyed for position and did their best not to look vulnerable to each other.

  But when they finally got themselves together and solidified their relationship, something came over them. It was as if they had been rolling around out of control and then clicked into place beside each other. They are secure and settled, more themselves when they’re together than they ever were when they were apart.

  They still squabble constantly. They bicker and poke at each other. But that’s just part of them. It would seem fake if that stopped being a part of their relationship.

  “We weren’t planning on telling you,” Bellamy starts.

  “Telling me what?” I frown. “Did you suddenly decide you’re too good for my pumpkin pie?”

  “No.”

  “Or you’ve waited until now to tell me you don’t want my turkey?”

  “Oh my God, no,” Bellamy says with a laugh. “It’s just that it’s Thanksgiving and we don’t want to be those people. We don’t want to seem as if we’re trying to steal your thunder or make a big deal out of anything.”

  “What is going on?” I raise an eyebrow.

  They glance at each other again, then back to me.

  “We’re having a baby,” Eric says.

  For a second, I can’t tell if I’m reacting or just standing here. My mind is reacting, but I feel as if I haven’t moved. Then I realize I have Bellamy in my arms and we’re both laughing and crying, hugging each other tightly and jumping up and down.

  “This is incredible!” I say. “Congratulations.”

  She steps back and looks at me, reaching out to brush a tear from her cheek.

  “We don’t have to say anything,” she says. “I don’t want you to think we’re trying to take over your holiday or get all the attention.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I say. “This absolutely trumps getting the biggest turkey in the grocery store or making my own pies.”

  “Pies, as in multiple?” Eric pipes up. “What kind?”

  Be
llamy shakes her head and give him a playful smack in the stomach.

  “Apparently not to him,” she says.

  “Pregnancy cravings,” he grins wryly. “I’m very sympathetic.”

  “So sympathetic in fact he’s having way more symptoms than I am,” she rolls her eyes.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask. “How far along are you? Why didn’t you call me? I have so many questions.”

  “So do I,” Xavier’s voice says behind me.

  I turn around and see his head poked into the doorway.

  “Hi, Xavier,” I say.

  “Banana room, or midnight in the garden of good and evil?”

  Of the other two bedrooms in the upstairs, one is painted a pale yellow, and the other became home to my grandmother’s angel collection when I found them in the storage unit.

  “It’s up to you and Dean.”

  He thinks for a second. “I like the banana. But I’ll ask Dean.” He steps back into the hallway, then puts his head in again. “Congratulations on the baby.”

  Bellamy’s mouth falls open as he walks away.

  “Was he standing there when I was talking?” I ask.

  Eric shakes his head. “No.”

  “How does he know? I’m not showing yet,” Bellamy says. “Do I look fat?”

  “No. But this is Xavier we’re talking about,” I shrug. “For all we know, he can hear the baby thinking.”

  “We don’t have to make a big announcement or anything,” Bellamy says. “I don’t want to stand up at the Thanksgiving table and do a toast with a champagne flute of cranberry juice. As I said, we weren’t even planning to say anything while we were here. But now that I see you, we couldn’t not say anything.”

  “Of course not,” I tell her. ”I would have been so upset if I found out you didn’t tell me while you were here.”

  “You can move them into a drawer,” I hear Xavier say.

  “Oh, no,” I say.

  The door cracks open again, and Xavier’s face appears in the doorway. “Dean says Sam’s workout equipment is sleeping in his room.”

  “I’m suddenly remembering what having big family holidays is all about,” I remark under my breath to Bellamy. “I’m coming!” Xavier nods, and I look back at Bellamy and Eric. “I’m really happy for both of you. If we don’t all survive this holiday season, consider naming the baby after the fallen one.”

  I walk out into the hallway and find Dean standing at the door to the bedroom full of angel statues. He’s staring into it like he can’t step through the doorway.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “Should have remembered that we relocated Sam’s gym equipment. We can move the angels. They were our grandmother’s. I don’t think I told you that when you were here last.”

  Dean looks over at me. “They were?”

  “Yeah,” I nod. “They were all over the house for a little while. Then she moved them to mainly her room and her sewing room. I think she didn’t want them to make my father sad.” I let out a slow breath as I lean into the room and look at all the little statues. “I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of them, so I put them in here. They are a little creepy, though. I think she might have purposely found the scariest ones she could.”

  “They deserve a home, too,” Xavier says.

  “Yes, they do,” I say. “But the bottom drawer or the shelf in the closet can be their home while you’re here if you want.”

  “You can put a sleeping bag in my room,” Xavier offers.

  “I didn’t bring a sleeping bag,” Dean says.

  “I did.”

  I nod and point at Xavier. “Always prepared. Anyway, you can decide later. Just drop your stuff and come on down. We’ll make some lunch if you guys are hungry.”

  Later, as we’re sitting around the kitchen table eating a spread of sandwiches and cold salads to gear us up for the heavy meal in two days, Sam looks at Xavier.

  “What’s your stance on lights on the tree?”

  “Strung or illuminated?”

  “Both.”

  “Stringing is acceptable before Thanksgiving for time-saving purposes. No illumination until the grand one, post-ornaments.”

  “And that is?”

  “On the other side of the dessert bridge,” Dean says, swallowing a mouthful of potato salad.

  Xavier nods and Sam looks at me. I reach over and pat his hand comfortingly.

  “We’re going to the tree farm tomorrow, right?” Bellamy asks.

  “Yep,” I nod. “Opening day. Oh. That reminds me. We have to bring our own saw.”

  Sam gives me a blank expression. “Do you have a saw?”

  “No. Don’t you?” I ask.

  “Power saws. I don’t have a hand saw.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why would I?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. It just seems like something you would have.”

  Xavier stands up, wipes his mouth with his napkin, and starts toward the front door.

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  “Aren’t we going to get a saw?” he asks.

  Dean stands up, followed by Sam. “I guess we’re going to get a saw.” He kisses me. “Be back in a bit.”

  As they walk toward the door, he shrugs into his coat. “Xavier, what’s with the gingerbread men? Can you not eat them because they’re shaped like men? Because they’re made with ginger? Or is it their faces?”

  “It’s the clothes,” Xavier says. “They’re always dressed for winter.”

  He opens the door and walks out.

  “So, could you eat a naked gingerbread man?”

  Dean closes the door behind him before I hear an answer.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Damn. Now I want to know if he could eat a naked gingerbread man,” I say.

  Bellamy and I look at each other.

  “Are we going to make gingerbread men?” she asks.

  “I don’t think we have any other option.”

  I pull up a recipe and Bellamy and I gather up the ingredients. As I’m raiding the spice cabinet, she looks at me, her eyes moving up and down my face as if she’s scanning me for information.

  “You okay?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “That was a lot of denial,” she quips. “Are you worried about my being pregnant? I don’t want you to think that it’s going to change anything between us.”

  “Bellamy,” I say with a laugh. “I’m not jealous of the baby. And it is going to change things between us. You’re going to be a mother. But I think that’s wonderful. I get to be an aunt and the two of you are going to be great parents. Just don’t let Eric start teaching the baby to hack until it’s at least like, three.”

  “I’ll do my best.” She reaches up into the cabinet over her head and pulls down a mixing bowl. “But are you sure you’re okay? There just seems to be something on your mind.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “You look as if you want to convince me of that,” she notes.

  “I got a really bizarre Christmas card yesterday,” I say.

  “From Xavier?” she asks.

  “See, I thought that, too. But no.” I go over to the drawer where I stashed it and show her.

  She reads the inscription and nods. “That is definitely weird. But it could just be from somebody who doesn’t know the song. Or thinks he or she is being funny? I mean, you are an FBI agent. Isn’t it your job to go find naughty people?” She cringes. “That’s not a sentence I ever want to say again.”

  “Maybe. And I probably would have thought that, too, if it was the only bizarre thing that happened in the last couple of weeks.”

  As we start mixing the ingredients in the cookie recipe, I explain to her about the emails from the unknown address while I was in Feathered Nest, then the call from the University.

  “And it’s not the same email address?” Bellamy asks. “I mean, the one that the University got and the one that you got t
he email from. They’re not the same?”

  “No,” I say. “I checked it just to make sure.”

  “And yet I get the impression you think they’re connected,” she says.

  “Do you remember Julia Meyer?” I ask.

  “No,” Bellamy says.

  “I knew her in college. We were in a class together, and then started running into each other on campus, so we started to be pretty good friends. Then sophomore year, she just wasn’t around anymore,” I say.

  “What do you mean she wasn’t around anymore?” Bellamy asks.

  We are each rolling out a massive piece of gingerbread dough and I hand her a cookie cutter to start cutting out the little men.

  “Just that. She wasn’t there anymore. She went home for Thanksgiving just the way she was supposed to. Then she came back to campus and we were supposed to get together to study for our last exams, and she didn’t show up. I never heard from her again.”

  “Was she reported missing?” Bellamy asks.

  “No,” I say. “According to her parents and the school, she left of her own accord. They say she must have decided that she didn’t want to continue her studies and was going to start a new life. There was never an investigation.”

  “Maybe they’re right,” Bellamy says. “College isn’t easy for a lot of people. And you mentioned there were some rumors about her. Maybe she was just embarrassed by a guy and didn’t want to deal with it anymore.”

  “But why wouldn’t she tell me? We were super close. At least, I thought. If it was some guy who embarrassed her, why wouldn’t she tell me about it, or at least get in touch with me after she left and let me know what was going on?” I ask.

  Bellamy shrugs as she transfers another cookie onto her baking sheet.

  “I hate to put it this way, but the two of you weren’t friends for that long. If she really did get overwhelmed by everything that was going on in her life and just needed to get away, maybe you didn’t factor into that. Don’t read too much into it, Emma. Don’t let yourself immediately go for the worst possible case.”

  I nod. “You’re probably right. It’s just the time of year and everything. It brought up a lot of memories.”