Silent Night

by Colleen Coble

  Libby had to resist the impulse to wave back. Her partner’s blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail under a sun hat, and she wore a hot-pink cover-up over her brown bathing suit.

  Nicole glanced at her watch and frowned. “Vanessa is late. Like I started to say earlier, I didn’t want to wait on her to see the lighthouse ruins, so I went out there alone. I have to show it to you. Wait until you see what I found. You’ll seriously freak! Hey, give me a call. This pier is one of the few places where my phone works. Isn’t that crazy—an entire island without cell service. Almost, anyway.”

  Libby picked up her cell phone, still connected to the computer. They could talk a few minutes. Before she could call, a small boat pulled up to the shore. Two men jumped out and pulled the boat aground. Nicole turned toward them. The men walked toward her. There was no one else in sight, and Libby tensed when Nicole took a step back. Libby punched in Nicole’s number. She watched her friend dig in her bag when it rang.

  When Nicole answered the phone, Libby leaped to her feet and yelled, “Get out of there. Go to your car!”

  Nicole was still watching the men walk toward her. “It’s just a couple of tourists, Libby,” she said. “You worry too much.” She smiled and waved at the men.

  Libby leaned closer to the laptop. “There’s something wrong.” She gasped at the intention in their faces. “Please, Nicole, run!”

  But it was the men who broke into a run as they drew closer to the boardwalk. As they neared the cam, Libby could see them more clearly. One was in his forties with a cap pulled low over his eyes. He sported a beard. The other was in his late twenties. He had blond hair and hadn’t shaved in a couple of days.

  Nicole took another step back as the older man in the lead smiled at her. The man said, “Hang up.” He grabbed her arm.

  “Let go of her!” Libby shouted into the phone.

  The man knocked the phone from Nicole’s hand and the connection was broken. The other man reached the two, and he plunged a needle into Nicole’s arm. Both men began dragging Nicole toward the boat. She was struggling and shouting for help, then went limp. Her hat fell to the ground.

  Barely aware that she was screaming, Libby dialed 9-1-1. “Oh God, oh God, help her!”

  The dispatcher answered and Libby babbled about her friend being abducted right in front of her. “It’s in the Outer Banks.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the boat motoring away from the pier. “Wait, wait, they’re taking her away! Do something!”

  “Where?”

  “I told you, the Outer Banks.” Libby looked at the heading above the video stream. “Hope Beach. It’s Hope Beach. Get someone out there.”

  “Another dispatcher is calling the sheriff. I have an officer on his way to you.”

  “I’m going to Hope Beach now.”

  “Stay where you are,” the dispatcher said. “We’ve got the sheriff on the line there. He’s on his way to the site. Don’t hang up until an officer arrives.”

  She had to do something. Anything but run screaming into the street. Libby looked at the computer. She could call up the video, save it for evidence. But the stream had no rewind, no way to save it. If she could hack into the site, she could get to the file. The police could save time and get the pictures of those men circulating. With a few keystrokes, she broke through the firewall and was in the code.

  Then her computer blinked and went black. And when she called up the site again, the entire code was gone. What had she done?

  Two

  Smog hung over the New York skyline and matched Lawrence Rooney’s mood. He studied the expansive view from his penthouse office on Fifth Avenue. The senator sitting in the chair on the other side of the gleaming walnut desk had better come through with the promised plum after all Lawrence had done for him.

  Lawrence kept his attention away from the senator long enough to make sure the other man knew who was in charge, then turned from his perusal of his domain and settled in his chair. “You have news for me?”

  Senator Troy Bassett tugged on his tie, then pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blotted his damp forehead. “The city is like an oven today,” he muttered.

  In his fifties now, he had once been handsome, but his blond good looks had been replaced by flab and gray hair. Lawrence had known him since they went to Harvard together. They knew each other’s weaknesses all too well. Lawrence had funneled a fortune into getting Bassett elected. But the rewards were coming—now.

  “The vote?” Lawrence prodded.

  The senator nodded. “Came through. The ferry system will be added next year.”

  “Excellent.” Lawrence sat back in his leather chair. “I will have possession of the land by the end of the summer.”

  “I thought the old man refused to sell it.”

  “Luckily for us, he died.” How he wished he could have seen Ray Mitchell take his last breath.

  Bassett lifted a brow. “Natural causes?”

  Lawrence laughed. “Of course. We both know I like to have my own way, but I’ve never stooped to murder. I’ve found money talks well enough that it’s not necessary.” A smile tugged at his lips. “Though there’s always a first time for everything.”

  “You’d met your match in Mitchell though. He was adamant.”

  “True enough. But his son has no such scruples. He knows when to take a good offer and run with it.”

  “So he’s agreed to your price?”

  Lawrence nodded. “He has. I was willing to go up another five million if I had to, but he didn’t know that. I got a bargain.”

  “You always do.”

  The door opened and Lawrence’s secretary stuck her head in. “Mr. Rooney, Mr. Poe is here to see you.”

  “Excellent. Send him in,” Lawrence said. “Stay,” he told the senator, who had started to rise. “Poe will bring us both up to date.”

  Kenneth Poe, in a navy suit and red tie, strolled into the office. Every dark strand of hair perfectly coiffed, he was the epitome of a gentleman. His usefulness to Lawrence had grown in the past year. If Lawrence had been blessed with a son, he would have wanted the boy to be like Poe. Smart, ruthless, and handsome. He was nearly thirty now and still unmarried. Perhaps it was time to introduce him to Katelyn. Lawrence couldn’t imagine a better son-in-law.

  “Sir,” Poe said, extending his hand. “Senator.”

  The men shook hands, and Lawrence ticked another box in Poe’s favor. He knew how to act around power and had made sure to show respect to Lawrence first. The boy must have taken a class on sucking up. Lawrence liked it.

  “I hope you have a signed bill of sale for me,” Lawrence said.

  Poe settled into the other chair and casually propped one foot on the opposite knee. “Unfortunately, we’ve hit a snag.”

  Lawrence frowned at Poe’s grave tone. “What kind of snag?”

  “It’s serious.”

  When Poe said something was serious, Lawrence paid attention. “How serious?”

  “A young woman came to town. Very smart and nosy. She found the cave. I’m not sure if she saw the contents.” He glanced at the senator.

  Lawrence pursed his lips. “We just need her out of the way long enough for us to get the land signed over. Can you put her in a safe place until we accomplish that?”

  “It’s already done. But what if that causes even more problems?”

  “If it does, we’ll deal with it later. I have a great deal of money riding on this, Kenneth. I won’t allow my plans to be derailed by a spelunker. Fix it.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.”

  Poe’s best was usually spectacular. Lawrence dismissed his concerns and began to think about what he would do with the money that would come pouring in when he turned Hope Island into the next Myrtle Beach.

  The sailboat was sinking fast, and so was the sun. Two people flailed
about in the water below. Chief Petty Officer Alec Bourne sat on the floor of the Dolphin helicopter with his feet dangling over the edge. “Take it lower,” he shouted over the roar of the rotors. His Coast Guard team received the call for help twenty minutes ago, and he’d prayed all the way out that they’d be in time.

  The hurricane had veered and was going to miss them, but its outer band stirred up fifteen-foot seas, and the small craft below had floundered in the wind and waves. It heeled to the port by about forty-five degrees. This distress call was likely to be the first of several for the day.

  Aircraft Commander Josh Holman nodded, and the helicopter hovered closer to the waves pounding at the boat. Alec leaned into the wind. The stinging rain struck his face, and he smelled the salty air as he waited for the signal from Curtis Ireland, his flight mechanic and best friend.

  “Stand by to deploy swimmer,” Josh barked.

  “Roger, checking swimmer.” Curtis slapped Alec’s chest.

  Alec inhaled, then flipped the hinged buckle and released his gunner’s belt, the last piece of gear that held him in the helicopter. He shoved off the aircraft. The wind buffeted him on the way down. The waves slapped the air from his lungs and he submerged, then popped to the surface and struck out for the first of the people in the water.

  A woman in the sea struggled toward him. When she reached him, she grabbed his neck and nearly took him under the water. “Calm down!” He pushed her away, then grabbed her from behind in the traditional rescue hold. She stiffened, then relaxed in his grip. He gave Curtis a thumbs-up, and the rescue basket began to descend toward them.

  “You’re going to be okay,” he assured the woman.

  “We hit a shoal,” she gasped, her lips blue. “We’ve been in the water for two hours.”

  “It’s almost over.” He grabbed the basket and got her inside, then signaled to Curtis to lift her to the helicopter while he went after her husband.

  Five minutes later he was back aboard the Dolphin too. Mission accomplished. The health service technician, Sara Kavanagh, began to check out the woman’s pulse and blood pressure. Both patients were swathed in blankets. They thanked Alec and his crew several times as the chopper veered back to the Coast Guard station, where medical personnel waited to attend the capsized sailors.

  On days like this Alec knew he was right where God wanted him. There were other days when nothing went right, or when they lost someone they were trying to save.

  He was smiling when he walked to the grassy picnic area of the station with his friends. Alec and Curtis had gone through training together. They were as different as two best friends could be. Curtis was the quiet, thoughtful one of the group. Though he came from money, he never flaunted it. Sara Kavanagh was the only female on their team. Her reserve kept the men at the station from making any inappropriate remarks, and she had earned their trust with her skills. He sometimes wondered if she and Josh Holman would end up a couple. Josh was a jokester and kept the rest of them laughing, but sometimes Alec thought he saw a special spark when Josh looked at Sara.

  “You’ve got three days off, Alec,” Josh said. “Gonna leave the island and head for the casino so you can win big and buy me a Jaguar?”

  “I think you’ll have to settle for a bicycle on what I have,” Alec said. “Me and Zach will go crabbing. I hear there have been some good hauls. Maybe I’ll make enough to build that back deck.”

  Sara was pulling food from a sack. “How is Zach?”

  Alec’s smile faded. He shrugged. “It’s only been two weeks. You know how it is with a teenager. One minute he’s got a head on his shoulders and the next he’s doing something so stupid, you’d think he was raised under a rock. He’s sure glad to be back on the island, though. He hated Richmond.”

  “There are bound to be challenges. You’ve never raised a kid before,” Sara said.

  “Darrell did most of the raising and I’ll figure out the rest. He’s all I have left of Darrell.”

  The small plane crash had been only six months ago, and Alec still missed his older brother with a painful ache. Zach was the spitting image of Darrell at that age too. The kid was a handful for his grandparents though, and Alec had taken custody two weeks ago. He should have taken him right from the start, but Alec’s mother had been adamant that the boy’s place was with them. And Darrell had named his parents as guardians.

  His cell phone rang and he grabbed it. The station was one of the few places on the island where his cell worked. The call was from his cousin Tom, who also happened to be the sheriff on this rock. “Hey, Tom.”

  “Sorry to bother you, buddy, but I’ve got Zach here in jail.”

  Alec’s stomach plummeted. “What’s he done?”

  “He and some of his friends took it into their heads to spray-paint graffiti on the school. I caught him with the paint. I think you should leave him here overnight. Might teach him a lesson.”

  The thought of his nephew in jail pained Alec, but he knew his cousin was right. “Whatever you think is best.”

  “While I’ve got you on the phone, I need your help. A woman named Nicole Ingram was abducted out at Tidewater Pier.”

  “Abducted?”

  “The Virginia Beach police called me. Her business partner saw it all on the cam.”

  Alec winced. “That had to have been rough.”

  “She was hysterical, according to the officer who called me. She’s on her way here. Can I get your team to keep your eyes open on this one? The kidnappers took her in a boat.”

  “Sure thing. You got a description of the woman?”

  Tom gave it to him. “Oops, got another call. Don’t come until lunch tomorrow to spring your nephew.”

  Alec ended the call and put his phone away. The others were looking at him with curiosity. “Zach’s in jail.”

  “So we gathered,” Curtis said. “What’d he do?”

  “Spray-painted graffiti on the school.”

  “I did that once,” Josh said. “It’s a rite of passage to adulthood.”

  “I never did,” Alec said.

  “Yeah, but you walk on water.”

  Alec grinned at the familiar joke. Just because he didn’t drink or smoke, most of the other men thought he was some kind of saint. The truth was far different.

  The story continues in Tidewater Inn by Colleen Coble.

  An Excerpt from Without a Trace

  One

  It was days like this, when the sun bounced off Lake Superior with an eye-squinting brilliance, that Bree Nicholls forgot all her qualms about living where the Snow King ruled nine months of the year. There was no other place on earth like the U.P.—Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. With Keweenaw Peninsula to the north and Ottawa National Forest to the south, there could be no more beautiful spot in the world. The cold, crystal-clear waters of the northernmost Great Lakes stretched to the horizon as far as she could see.

  But she’d never find those kids by focusing on the seascape. Pressing her foot to the accelerator, she left the lake behind as she urged her old Jeep Cherokee forward along the rutted dirt track. Bree’s best friend, Naomi Heinonen, steadied herself against the door’s armrest and looked over her shoulder at the two dogs still safely confined in their kennels. The Kitchigami Wilderness Preserve lay to the east, past Miser, a drive of only fifteen miles or so, but on this washboard road, it took longer than Bree liked.

  “Don’t kill us getting there!” Naomi shouted above the road noise.

  Bree didn’t reply. These lost children weren’t some vacationers without ties; they were residents of Rock Harbor, two of their own. And night would be here soon. If Naomi were driving, her foot would be heavy on the accelerator too. The preserve was a formidable tract that could swallow up two kids without a trace.

  The wind churned autumn’s red and gold leaves in eddies and blew them across the road like brightly co
lored tumbleweeds. Equally colorful trees crowded the hills like giant banks of mums. The U.P. in autumn was Bree’s favorite time, except when ever-shorter days put strangleholds on their search efforts.

  M-18 headed on east, but Bree made a sharp turn onto Pakkala Road, which would take them into a heavily forested area. In the spring, motor homes and SUVs pulling campers plied the road on their way to experience some of the last wilderness left in the Midwest. Today the road was practically empty.

  “Fill me in on what we know,” Bree said.

  “Donovan O’Reilly reported Emily and Timmy missing three hours ago. They were on some outdoor nature thing with their school,” Naomi said.

  Bree knew Donovan O’Reilly—he owned the local Ace Hardware store. His wife had left him and the kids nearly two years ago, and now his eyes had a haunted look, as though he wondered what fate would hand him next. Bree often stopped by Ace to pick up supplies for the ongoing renovation of her lighthouse home, and a friendship of sorts had developed between them.

  “One of the students said she heard Emily talk about seeing a raccoon,” Naomi continued, “so that might be what caused the kids to wander off. It’s not much to go on, but they’ve started searching.” She chewed on her lip. “You remember Timmy has diabetes? I wonder when his shot is due.”

  “I was thinking about that.” Bree imagined Donovan was out of his mind with worry. “Donovan asked me out last week; did I tell you that?” she asked. She’d been tempted to tell him yes. Her lighthouse echoed with silence, but she had realized it wasn’t fair to use someone like Donovan to ward off her loneliness. “I said no, of course.”

  Naomi didn’t reply, and Bree looked at her curiously. “What? You don’t like him? Didn’t he used to be your brother’s best friend? You probably know him and the kids pretty well.”

  A flush moved to Naomi’s cheeks, and she looked out the window. “That was a long time ago. I only see him at the hardware store now, and I like him fine. Why did you say no?”