Perilous Christmas Reunion

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  “In one half mile,” the computer voice said from his phone, “turn left onto Pine Ridge Road.”

  Chris laughed. “Pine Ridge? A ridge in the lower peninsula?”

  She managed a half smile. “It’s a fancy subdivision. For some reason, developers like names like that. It makes it sound as if you’ll get some mountain-vista-type view.”

  “Some water and trees would suit me fine for a view,” Chris said. “And that should be easy to come by up here.”

  “It is.” Her smile flickered and died.

  If he hadn’t been driving, Chris would have kicked himself. Her house had stood with a view of water and trees—had stood there for fifty years or more.

  Glad of the diversion, he slowed, flicking on his turn signal to exit from the two-lane highway to the subdivision road. Other vehicles slowed behind him, headlights off in the brightening morning, harder to see against a backdrop of trees and snow. Oncoming traffic whooshed past, one car, two, then an opening wide enough for him to slip through and make the turn.

  The new road wound through trees so uniform in size and distance from one another, they couldn’t be from a natural forest, but planted. Then the view opened to a lake surrounded with houses so similar they appeared more like game pieces set on a board than dwellings for individuals.

  “How do you figure out which house is the right one?” Chris asked.

  “I’ll recognize Donna’s house.” Lauren peered through the windshield toward the houses on the left. “It faces the lake. She’s a successful Realtor and she also got a great settlement from my father, apparently.”

  “She must have. These houses can’t be cheap.” Chris scanned the houses for numbers. “Her house number is four-forty-one.”

  “The numbers are above the garage doors in script. I remember that, and I remember if you pass your house, you have to drive all the way around the lake because they made this road too narrow to turn around, so it’s one-way.”

  “And the residents put up with it?”

  “For a view of the water? People put up with a lot for that.”

  “It’s a man-made pond.”

  “It’s big enough for small motor craft and fishing and—I think someone wants to pass us.” She had her head tilted so she could look at the rearview mirror.

  Chris glanced in the mirror too. Sure enough, a gray sedan rode their bumper. “Not very bright with these patches of ice on the road.”

  Nonetheless, he pulled off to the side to let the sedan pass. The driver floored the pedal as though the pavement were dry and the road a straightaway on a racetrack. In moments, the dull-colored vehicle vanished around a curve. Chris half expected to hear squealing tires and a crash. But the morning remained quiet and calm in the community, as he pulled back onto the road. Few people were out that early other than an old man in a robe, pajamas and slippers retrieving his newspaper from the front stoop to the right, and a girl of no more than ten or so walking an Irish wolfhound nearly as big as she was on the left. Chris braked to let her cross the road and head for the beach, where snow covered the sand.

  “How far to Donna Delaney’s?” Chris asked.

  “Around the curve where that sedan turned. Not far.”

  An odd sensation of anticipation tensing in his gut, Chris took the curve at a more sedate pace than had the sedan. He didn’t want to pass Mrs. Delaney’s house, and instinct told him to keep a lookout for unusual activity.

  Like someone running across the frozen waters of the lake.

  “Chris!” Lauren cried the same instant he spotted the figure setting out from the edge of the lake—not running, but skating.

  Chris slowed. “Who do you think it is?”

  Lauren pointed at the lake, her face as white as the snow. “I think—I think it’s Ryan.”

  EIGHT

  Before Chris could hit the brake, Lauren had the door open and was running across the road.

  “Stop,” he called after her.

  Ignoring him, she darted between two houses along a—thankfully—shoveled sidewalk, until she reached the beach. A fairly shallow man-made expanse of water, the lake appeared frozen solid. The skating man must have known it would be. Experience of a resident, or did she recognize the way her brother skated, smoothly, effortlessly? The brother, who had taught her to skate, to cross-country ski, to downhill ski. Quite simply, to love winter.

  Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it was a resident who liked to skate to get his morning exercise when the weather made running impossible. Ryan had been wounded after all, hadn’t he? This man didn’t seem to move like he was injured. Besides, how had he got this far without a car?

  Because he had one. That gray sedan. Someone had picked him up. An accomplice? A kindhearted and probably foolish motorist giving a ride to a hitchhiker?

  No matter. She had to know the truth even if she made a fool of herself getting there.

  “Lauren, stop.” Chris was gaining on her. In boots, he was better equipped for running in the snow than she was in her moccasins.

  She might as well have been trying to run in sand. Snow filled her shoes and weighed down her feet. With one step she landed knee-deep in a drift, and with the next, her foot slid on ice under the top powder.

  Chris’s hand beneath her elbow prevented her from falling. “You can’t go after him, Lauren.”

  “I can’t catch him.” She sank to her knees in the snow.

  Chris took off across the ice in pursuit of the skater. Chris wore winter boots, not good for running—especially on ice—yet he seemed to be gaining on the skater. Conscious of her jeans growing wet as her body heat melted the snow beneath, Lauren watched the two men who had meant the most to her in her life.

  They were still a good fifty feet apart, Ryan not quite as fast as she thought he should be able to go on skates, Chris faster than she expected for someone in snow boots on ice. Chris shouted, too far away for Lauren to catch the words. She guessed what they were: “Stop! Deputy US Marshal,” or something of the sort.

  Ryan merely set his runners shrieking over the ice.

  And now his limp was obvious, one leg dragging just a little behind the other with each gliding swoosh of a stride forward. It slowed him. Lauren knew he could skate so much faster than this, and he was lagging.

  But not enough for Chris to catch him. The gap grew to a hundred feet, a hundred fifty. And then an island in the lake with some trees growing from it blocked the men from view. Lauren rose, brushing snow from her jeans, and turned toward Donna’s house. She wasn’t sure if she could do anything for Ryan or Chris other than pray for their safety, pray Ryan would be smart and let himself get caught, pray that Chris did nothing stupid.

  She didn’t need to worry about that. Chris Blackwell didn’t do stupid things, except maybe fall in love with the daughter of a criminal. He’d said he didn’t care. Her father lived far away and had nothing to do with their lives. She had changed her name so it wouldn’t be the same as her parents’.

  Then Chris’s father was murdered by a sniper while transporting a prisoner, who had then escaped. Chris changed careers, and Lauren came to her senses.

  Twice since she broke her engagement, Lauren’s father had come under suspicion. Each time, a grand jury failed to return an indictment for lack of evidence. When Ryan had been arrested, their father assured him he would go free, as well. But the prosecutor was convinced he had enough evidence for an indictment.

  And Ryan had run, making himself appear guilty to the public. The escape would probably firm up the prosecutor’s case in the eyes of the jury. How could Lauren believe her brother was innocent now? He kept running from the law.

  Why had Ryan tried to get to his mother? Donna surely wouldn’t give him shelter. She knew better than that. She knew her house was one place the law would seek her son. Yet there he was, flying across the lake and away from Chris.


  Ears straining for any sounds off the lake, beginning to shiver from her wet pants and shoes, Lauren headed for Donna’s house. Steps led from the beach to a hedge-trimmed lawn bisected with a walkway straight to the deck. The walkway was already shoveled. Paw prints in the snow suggested why—Donna had a dog she needed to walk. A dog! She had, according to Ryan, ignored his pleas for a pet when he was young. Yet the telltale signs of a canine ranged across the snow. Not a small purse-sized dog judging from the indentations, but something substantial.

  And dangerous?

  Lauren mounted the steps from the beach to the lawn. A woof like a roll of thunder reverberated from the house. Lauren paused at the top step. “You can’t be all that dangerous,” she said aloud to convince herself. “Surely the homeowners’ association here wouldn’t allow a vicious dog.”

  She continued up the walk and climbed a second set of steps in order to reach the deck. No more barks. That was promising. He—or she—had given a warning and settled to wait for the visitor.

  Lauren turned toward the lake at the top of the deck steps. Higher up, she might be able to see more of the action on the lake.

  She did—Chris returning. He stalked across the ice with his hands thrust into the pockets of his coat, his head down. He might have simply been protecting his face from the cold by tucking his chin into the collar of his coat. Or he might be a man defeated, thwarted yet again. Lauren suspected the latter. Those were the controlled strides of a frustrated or maybe an angry man.

  She decided to wait for him. “Coward,” she muttered to herself.

  She didn’t want to face Donna and the dog on her own.

  Then, behind her, the door opened. “Saber, sit.” The voice was deep and rough like that of someone who had smoked too many cigarettes. Indeed, the stench of stale tobacco smoke rolled into the pristine morning air.

  Lauren recognized the voice and the smell. They belonged to Ryan’s mother, Donna Delaney, her father’s first wife with a razor blade for a tongue, and now a dog named Saber for a companion.

  Slowly, Lauren faced the woman she hadn’t seen in three years or more—and her canine. Her black Labrador had a pink rhinestone collar and huge doggy grin, tongue lolling from one side, big brown eyes shining with gentleness and a tail that wagged so hard it seemed to stop her from sitting as commanded.

  “Saber?” Lauren laughed. “More like a sweetheart.”

  “I wanted a pit bull, but the homeowners’ association doesn’t allow them.” Donna frowned at the dog, but her hand stroking the glossy black head spoke another message.

  Donna had once been a beautiful woman, with a smooth, olive complexion and thick, dark hair. Now two lines like an eleven marred her forehead between her eyebrows. Too much makeup, even that early in the morning, disguised the true color of her skin—skin too unlined not to have been treated with surgery or Botox at the least. And her hair was a startling ash-blond in comparison to her deep brown eyes.

  She raised those eyes from the dog to Lauren. “So, Lauren Wexler, what has the cat’s daughter dragged in?”

  “My mother was not—” Lauren clamped her teeth shut on the reflexive defense of her mother.

  Her mother didn’t deserve defense. She had taken another woman’s husband. She had abandoned him and her child. Lauren could forgive her with the grace of God, and she wanted to find excuses for her, yet in the end, her mother was responsible for her own defense, as she was responsible for her own actions.

  “I’m here with Deputy US Marshal Christopher Blackwell,” Lauren said instead.

  His footfalls crunched on the brick steps to the deck. “Good morning, ma’am. I am here on official business.”

  “I watch the news. But if you’re looking for my son,” Donna said, “he isn’t here. I haven’t seen him.”

  “He just skated across the lake.” Chris joined Lauren on the deck.

  Donna shrugged.

  The dog pawed at the door, bouncing up and down as though wanting to get to Chris to maul him with love, surely not murderous intent.

  Lauren smiled at the silly creature, though something ached in her heart.

  “Did you give him those skates, a vehicle to drive away in, any other kind of assistance?” Chris fired the possibilities at Donna.

  “It’s morning. I haven’t seen or talked to anyone.” Donna started to close the storm door.

  She hadn’t answered any of Chris’s questions.

  “There wasn’t enough time for her to do anything,” Lauren pointed out.

  “She could have met him outside if she knew he was coming,” Chris said.

  “I haven’t left the house,” Donna said.

  “Did you walk the dog?” Lauren asked.

  Donna pointed to a hook beside the door. “She goes out on a chain.”

  “May we come in and talk to you?” Chris asked.

  “No officer of the law is coming inside my house without a warrant.” Donna closed the door further, nudging the dog out of the way.

  Lauren lunged forward and grasped the handle to the screen door. “May I use your bathroom, please? And do you have a comb and an extra toothbrush? I have nothing.” She didn’t need to fake the tears in her eyes. “My house burned down.”

  “The lake house?” Donna’s voice, if not her artificially smooth face, shimmered with shock. “That’s terrible. Were you careless with the woodstove?”

  “No, some men did it because they thought I had Ryan.”

  Donna’s hand slipped from the door handle. The door swung back. “Maybe you better tell me what you’re talking about.”

  “I can wait in the Jeep,” Chris offered.

  “You can come into the kitchen. Saber, don’t—”

  She issued the feeble command too late. The instant Lauren stepped over the threshold, the Labrador flung herself into her arms, licking any skin she could find, wagging from ears to the tip of her flat tail.

  Lauren hugged her and laughed, then her arms were empty as the dog turned her affections on Chris.

  “Great guard dog,” he said with a laugh in his voice.

  “She must think you’re not a threat.” Donna strode into a kitchen large enough for a small table and chairs tucked into an alcove overlooking the lake. “Sit here. I have coffee, but nothing to eat.”

  Lauren believed that. Donna was rail thin.

  “Bathroom’s that way.” Donna pointed down a hallway. “Extra toothbrush in the vanity. What kind of coffee do you want, Mr. Deputy US Marshal? French roast, French vanilla...” She opened a cabinet full of boxes of coffee pods for a single-serve coffee maker.

  Lauren scuttled out of the room, figuring she had about five minutes before Donna got suspicious. Fortunately, the house was a small ranch-style with two bedrooms and two baths, a dining room and living room. The dining room looked barely used, its formal furniture free of ornaments, china stacked behind glass doors of the cabinet. The living room appeared almost as untouched, other than a grimy ashtray on a side table and a paperback novel facedown on the sofa. The master bedroom, however, was a mess of lived-in chaos with clothes draped over a chair, the TV on an all-news station with the sound turned down and shoes from spike heels to ballet flats scattered from one end to the other. Nothing in the room suggested Ryan had been there.

  Lauren entered the guest bath, located a toothbrush and comb and set to work making herself feel slightly less scruffy, though her clothes were hopeless.

  But they were the only clothes she owned outside her home in Grand Rapids, where Chris wouldn’t allow her to go yet.

  Her looks didn’t matter. Chris cared only about her safety because letting her get hurt would make him appear rather incompetent, and Ryan might try to contact her again. How he would do that Lauren didn’t know, but twenty-four hours ago, she had no idea her life would turn upside down as it had. Anything was possible.<
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  Even, possibly, Donna setting the skates outside for Ryan without looking at him so she could claim she hadn’t seen him. But why would either of them bother?

  Lauren studied the sink and tub for signs of recent use. They were spotless. Not so much as a dog hair marred their porcelain perfection. Likewise, the guest bedroom appeared to have been unused except for a rumple in the center of the bedspread to which several short black hairs clung.

  Ryan’s hair was chestnut like Lauren’s. Like their father’s.

  She started to exit and return to the kitchen, then caught sight of the closet door. It wasn’t open. Nor was it fully latched.

  Feet silent on the thick carpet, Lauren reached the closet in half a dozen steps. She started to grasp the handle, then slipped her hand up her sleeve before turning the knob. It held men’s clothes. It wasn’t surprising Ryan would leave things here as he did at Lauren’s house. No way to tell what might be missing. The floor was empty, where maybe shoes had stood earlier. The shelf, however, contained a backpack, a shoebox with receipts poking from beneath the lid and—

  A case for ice skates.

  Heart thudding slowly and sickeningly hard in her middle, Lauren drew the case from the shelf and popped up the lid. It was empty.

  “Lauren, what’s taking you so long?” Donna demanded from the kitchen.

  Lauren wiped her eyes on her sleeve. No sense in crying. She knew Ryan had been here. She had seen him.

  She started to close the case, but stopped, her eye catching a bulge on the inside of the lid. A pocket. No doubt it held blade treatment materials. She didn’t need to look. Looking might help Chris catch Ryan if the pocket held anything else.

  And shouldn’t she do that? Help the law catch her criminal brother? Wasn’t she being a criminal by not doing what she could to apprehend her brother?

  She looked inside the pocket. It held a flat can of waterproofing, soft cloths, some kind of oil—

  And a USB drive.

  Lauren grabbed a tissue from a box on the bedside table, removed the USB drive and slid it into her pocket just as Donna knocked on the bathroom door.