by Meg Muldoon
She let out a long, dramatic sigh.
“But I’m afraid that you’ve forced my hand.”
I swallowed hard, gazing at Kara. And then at little Laila, sitting there, unaware of the horrors going on around her.
“It still… it still can work, Pam,” I said, swallowing back some bile that was trying to come up my throat. “I’m the only one who’s seen Moira’s book. I have it in my car. We can burn it. Nobody has to know. Kent Utley has already confessed to killing Moira. So you see – it’s an easy… an easy fix.”
I was about as see-through as a bottle of peppermint schnapps, but I had to try.
Pam tickled Laila’s ribcage. Kara looked like she was about to lunge toward them again, but then stood her ground, realizing that Syd was still aiming the gun at her.
“I won’t say a word about this,” Kara said, her voice trembling. “I’ll never tell a living soul. Just… please don’t hurt my daughter. Don’t hurt Laila.”
Pam smirked.
“Hmm… Do you think they’ll keep their word, Syd?” she said.
She gazed at Kara. And then at me.
“Can they be trusted?”
I stared at Syd – the unstable, twisted, obsessive person who, in addition to holding that gun, now also held our fate in her hands.
She looked at us with shifty, beady eyes.
“You’re asking for my opinion, Ms. Dallas?”
“Yes – your valued opinion, Syd.”
The tall woman’s face broke into a crooked grin.
“Well in that case, I’d say they’re both lying through their teeth.”
A series of hard, loud knocks erupted from the front door and Kara let out a muffled yell.
Chapter 69
“Syd is making her Belgian beef stew tonight,” Pam said, as if everything was right as rain here in the lodge. “There should be enough for all of us.”
Though Daniel couldn’t have known about the gun hiding up Syd’s sleeve, I knew that he must have sensed something was very wrong. He had to have known the second Syd opened the door and welcomed him inside the lodge.
But he kept his face fixed in a friendly expression – letting nothing on.
“Thank you for your hospitality, Ms. Dallas,” he said, stealing a long glance at Kara. “But I’m afraid we can’t stay. All that melting snow’s beginning to freeze on the road. If we don’t get down soon, we’re gonna have a treacherous time getting home.”
He reached for my hand. I gripped it like a life raft after the ship had gone down.
“C’mon, Kara,” he said, casually. “You and Laila better come with me, too. John will be worried if you drive home in this by yourself.”
Kara’s head bobbled like a desk ornament doll. She went over to Pam, grabbed Laila, and pulled the little tot to her.
She hugged her a little too tightly and Laila let out a few cries of indignation.
“Thanks again, Ms. Dallas, for your help with the Moira Stewart case,” Daniel said, pretending he hadn’t noticed the desperate display of affection. “It was integral to catching Moira’s killer.”
Pam looked pleased.
“I was just happy to help, Sheriff. Just happy to help.”
Daniel tipped his hat and then he put his arm around my shoulder. He let Kara and Laila go first, and then we began walking across the great living room toward the front door.
“Go straight to the car,” he whispered in my ear. “Take Kara there and—”
“Daniel, Syd has a—”
The clicking sound of metal on metal right behind us stopped me from finishing the sentence.
“On second thought, it really is too dangerous out there for all of you to be driving home,” Pam said.
Syd let out a blood-curdling laugh.
“We would be honored if you would stay and be our guests for the evening.”
Kara bolted for the door, but she didn’t get far before the explosion.
Chapter 70
Laila was wailing like the world had just come to an end.
I wasn’t sure that it hadn’t.
The acrid smell of gunpowder stung my nostrils and the air itself seemed to be ringing with sound aftershocks.
I grabbed onto Daniel as he stumbled forward. Dazed, confused, and holding his right ear, he was grunting in pain.
The gun had gone off only a few inches away from his head.
“Syd!” Pam shouted. “Did I ask you to do that?”
Kara was down on the floor, shielding Laila, and crying.
“No… you didn’t, Ms. Dallas.”
“Then can you please explain to me why you decided to shoot a hole in my roof?”
“I’m… I’m sorry, ma’am. I thought… We couldn’t let them get away.”
“Nevermind,” Pam said in a miffed tone, reminding me of a teacher scolding an unruly student. “What’s done is done. Grab the Sheriff’s weapon from his holster.”
Syd did as Pam said. She pushed the gun into Daniel’s back, reaching for his service weapon.
He didn’t fight to keep it. He was still clutching his ear and groaning.
“Now we’ve got four of them to take care of,” Pam said, still miffed. “Including a man of the law. This is not an ideal situation, Syd. Not ideal at all. And it’s only happening because you left that old woman’s purse.”
I glanced back. Syd looked like she either might fire the gun again out of anger, or breakdown in sobs.
Pam circled us, tapping her lips and staring pensively at us. Like we were squirming flies trapped in a web.
I now saw Pam Dallas for who she really was.
She wasn’t just a coward.
She was a vampire.
Someone who fed off of others.
Someone with a total disregard for life.
And someone who would stop at nothing when it came to her own self-interest.
“They’ll find out about this,” I said, my voice trembling. “You can’t kill us and not have people find out.”
“Oh, of course they’ll find out,” Pam said, crossing her arms and looking down at the floor, deep in thought. “But I think it’s all about what kind of story we can tell. Don’t you think, Syd?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am,” Syd said a little too eagerly, trying to redeem herself.
Pam tapped her lips again with her forefinger.
“I see this one being a story of domestic madness,” she said, smiling to herself. “Suppose our dear friend Kara here had been acting rather strange lately. Suppose she’s been acting odd throughout the entire workshop. And me – being the caring teacher that I am – invited her up to the lodge for dinner to see if everything was all right.”
Pam’s eyes lit up.
“And suppose she starts acting erratic and wild. I place a call to her best friend, Cinnamon, asking for help. Who in turn calls her husband, the sheriff, to help calm poor Kara down.”
Kara looked up from the floor, her mouth dropping in disbelief.
“You see, Kara here has been keeping a dirty little secret and she just can’t keep it quiet anymore. She’s the one who killed Moira that morning. Moira had ruined the writing workshop for poor, dear Kara and spread all those nasty rumors about her. Kara here is so distraught, so mentally unsound from not only the murder she committed, but from the pressures of motherhood, that she reaches a breaking point. She somehow manages to get her hands on Sheriff Brightman’s weapon, and, well… things spin out of control very, very fast. Before anyone knows what’s happened, Kara has not only killed Moira, but her best friend and the sheriff. The only survivors of the bloodbath are Laila – who will remember nothing – Syd, and myself. And perhaps we’re not quite unscathed, either. Perhaps I get grazed by a bullet in all of it—”
“You psycho—” Kara said, standing up and clutching Laila to her. “You pathological psycho!”
Pam looked pleased by the outburst.
“A good story always provokes emotion,” Pam said. “I’d say we have ourselves a winnin
g one here. What do you say, Syd? How does that story sound?”
“Like another bestseller, Ms. Dallas,” Syd said, happy to once again be in Pam’s good graces.
Things were going south quickly, and if somebody didn’t do something soon, we were all going to be nothing more than characters in Pam’s next book.
That one would probably get turned into a movie, too.
“Start with Sheriff Brightman, Syd,” Pam said, nodding to Daniel. “He’s the hero after all. He’ll want to interfere.”
My heart raced in my chest. I grabbed a hold of Daniel, who was still covering his right ear and moaning in pain.
The tall, gangly woman started coming toward us with big, heavy steps.
“You can’t,” I squeaked out in a wobbly voice. “You’ll be killing a cop. Just think of that. Think of what will happen to you if—”
But Syd wasn’t listening.
She had a look of determination and depravity in her eyes.
All she cared about was Pam and what Pam wanted.
And in this case, Pam wanted us all dead.
She pointed the gun at Daniel.
Her hands were steady and sure.
She had no doubts about the horrid thing she was about to do.
She had to be stopped.
I closed my eyes tight and lunged toward her, screaming.
Chapter 71
Laila screeched as another earth-shattering boom exploded through the lodge.
There was a long surreal moment in its wake.
Then, something heavy hit the pine floor next to me.
No.
No, no, no, no.
I opened my eyes, looking down at the body crumpled on the floor.
I just stared in horror at the motionless limbs, unable to believe my eyes.
Over Laila’s shrieking, there was a horrified scream.
I glanced up.
Pam cupped her hands over her mouth. Her eyes were bulging, and an unholy sound came from somewhere deep in her throat.
She was shocked and confused.
So was I.
But Daniel wasn’t.
He jumped into action, kicking the guns across the pine floor, away from Syd’s unmoving hands. He unclipped the radio from his belt and began speaking into it.
“Code 3, we need medical assistance at 1900 North Cascade Road, located on the eastside of The Christmas River Highway…”
As Daniel spoke, I heard the faint sound of footsteps from somewhere behind the large fireplace.
A second later, a rotund man emerged.
He looked queasy and blue in the face – like he hadn’t been breathing for the last ten minutes.
But Billy Jasper held the smoking gun at his side with a cool, steady hand.
And as I watched Daniel kneel down and apply pressure to the gunshot wound on Syd’s shoulder, I realized that this had been the plan all along.
Daniel’s ear wasn’t hurt, the way he’d pretended.
He was just biding his time.
“Everyone okay in here?” Billy asked.
I went over to Kara and hugged her. She was trembling like a leaf in a winter howler and sobbing uncontrollably.
But somehow, we were all unscathed.
“Nice shot, Billy,” Daniel said, looking over at his deputy.
“I’m bad at a lot of things, Sheriff. But hitting the target has never been one of them.”
Pam backed up against the far wall in the living room and slumped down to the floor.
Her hands were still clamped over her mouth. It was like she’d turned to stone the second the bullet hit her maniacal assistant.
“Do you want to arrest her, Sheriff?” Billy asked.
Daniel shook his head.
“You do it, Billy. This is all yours.”
The young deputy’s facial expression didn’t change, but in that moment, I could tell – it meant a lot to Billy.
Daniel tossed him a pair of silver handcuffs. Billy went over to Pam.
“Pamela Dallas? You’re under arrest for kidnapping, attempted murder, and conspiracy to commit murder. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will...”
Billy slapped the cuffs on her.
Then he helped Pam to her feet and walked her past us toward the front door.
Reading her the rest of those Miranda rights all the way to the patrol car.
That future bestselling tale of domestic madness would never see the light of day.
Chapter 72
“There we go,” I said, sliding the massive cookie structure onto the narrow platform in the shop’s front window. “Easy as pie.”
I readjusted the gingerbread house so that it was squarely in the middle of the platform. Then I dusted my hands off on my apron and stood back in the dark dining room, admiring it.
The first rays of morning sunlight streamed through the chalet’s sugar glass windows, and for a moment, standing alone in the quiet pie shop, I could have sworn that the chalet had come to life. It was as if I could hear those little marzipan people laughing and talking in front of the fire. As if I could see them sipping their hot chocolate and throwing coconut snowballs at each other on the buttercream lawn. As if the whole thing was really a real place.
I smiled.
I was glad that Brad was letting me keep his masterpiece.
I went over to the front door and flipped the sign to “open.” Then I peered through the window out onto Main Street.
The streets were mostly empty since it was so early in the morning, but it looked cozy and festive out there. Christmas lights and ornaments hung from the Aspen trees and eaves of the little businesses, glowing in the frosty dawn. A few muted rays of the low morning sun fell over Christmas River as gentle snowflakes began to tumble down from the iron-colored skies.
According to the news station, which I had left on in the kitchen, the mild weather of the last week was over and another storm was rolling into town. The weatherman was promising us a white Christmas later this week, and as I stared out the window, watching those flakes drift down, I felt my heart swell with something that could only be described as childish delight.
Here in Christmas River, most Christmases meant snow, and usually lots of it. But to me, and to anybody who could remember what it was like being a kid, waking up on Christmas morning to a winter wonderland never got old.
I paused for a little while longer, enjoying the peaceful view out my pie shop window, savoring the quiet moment as much as I could.
The holidays were so hectic – even without murder and mayhem – and a moment like this to just pause and enjoy the magic of the season was hard to come by.
Which was why I wanted to milk it for all it was worth, and then some.
“…So as you can see folks, things aren’t going to be too bad out there this Christmas. If you’re traveling, make sure you have emergency supplies in your car just in case. But if you’ve got your snow tires on, I wouldn’t worry too much – this storm doesn’t want any problems. It’s just passing on through. Now, we’ll send it back over to the news desk…”
The feed echoed from the kitchen.
“Thanks, Steve. Continuing with our coverage of the Moira Stewart murder case, bestselling author Pam Dallas pleaded not-guilty in court yesterday to counts of conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder. The judge in the hearing denied Dallas bail, citing her as a flight risk and a danger to society. Dallas, the bestselling author of the international hit What the Mountain Took, is a part-time Christmas River resident who…”
I let out a small sigh as the local news cut through my cheerful moment of holiday basking like a sharp paring knife.
It had been a few days since the fiasco up at the lodge. And in that time, Pam Dallas and her assistant Sydney Brooks had been arrested, charged with murder, and been the subject of national headlines across the country. Though the news media hadn’t found out yet about the reasons behind Pam’s involvement with Moira’s murder, and though they didn’t know
about what happened up at the writing lodge the night of her arrest, they were slowly beginning to piece things together. Some reporters like Marla Browning had come to the conclusion that Moira must have been blackmailing Pam, and that inevitably led them to investigate what she could possibly have had on her. I was sure that eventually, they would find out that Pam had lied about the details of her mountain ordeal, and the fact that she had actually caused her husband’s death up there.
I had the feeling that Pam’s movie – the one generating all that Oscar buzz –was about to get shelved in a very unceremonious fashion. Which I supposed was just as well. Money can’t bring you much enjoyment once you’re on the wrong side of some jail bars.
A chill worked its way down my spine, and I went over to the thermostat and turned the heat up.
Over the past few days, I’d been trying to remind myself that the situation had been under control from the minute Daniel and Billy had pulled up to the lodge, and had come up with a plan to get us all out safely. Kara and I had been in the dark about it, not knowing that Billy was breaking into the back of the house while Daniel acted as distraction.
But sometimes, especially late at night, I forgot that it had been so under control. I couldn’t help but think about how close we’d all come to being a blood-soaked news headline.
And I thought about how lucky we’d been to make it out of that lodge alive.
How lucky we all were to spend this week finishing up our last-minute Christmas shopping, wrapping presents, and eating that second helping of pie that we knew we really shouldn’t be eating.
How lucky we were to be able to watch delicate snowflakes dance in their joyful way out the window.
How lucky we were to once again enjoy all those small, wonderful, often unacknowledged things that made up our everyday lives.
Just then, I heard the squeak of the kitchen’s back door as it opened.
Chapter 73
Kara sounded like a grocery bag blowing around in a windstorm as she strutted into the empty dining room.
