Last Chance Christmas

by Hope Ramsay

  Earlier today, when he’d jimmied the window in his bedroom and escaped from his parents, his plan to make them stop and see reason seemed so clear-cut. He hadn’t intended to stay away for long—just long enough to put the fear of God into them.

  But it was cold out here. And his emotions were calmer now. If his parents were going to split up, nothing he could do would stop it. And, in the end, he’d wind up back in Michigan because that’s where Mom’s family was.

  He was going to lose Lizzy. No matter what. And it made him ache, especially since she had come to him the minute her church services were over. And she’d stayed and talked with him all afternoon. He’d poured his heart out to her, and she’d listened without judgment.

  “You know I don’t want to run away permanently. I just want Mom and Dad to think about what they’re about to do.”

  “It’s going to be okay. You stay away tonight and maybe your folks will realize how stupid they’re being. I know how hard it is to fit into a new place, but you’re doing okay. People like you on the school paper, and you’re good with your camera.”

  He touched the camera that hung around his neck. It was pretty funny how a week ago he would have been okay about moving back to Ann Arbor. But not now. Now he wanted to stay. He wanted more adventures with Lizzy.

  He wanted to kiss her again. He’d been thinking about that all afternoon. This might be his one and only chance. So he leaned in and touched his lips to hers. A hot reaction hit his body, and then, to his surprise, Lizzy opened her mouth.

  Wow. That was nice. It was a real kiss. He wasn’t sure what to do with it, but he improvised. Lizzy did, too. It was kind of wet and sloppy and interesting as hell.

  He forgot about how miserable and scared he was feeling.

  After a time, Lizzy turned her head. He backed off. They stared at each other, and a deep red blush crawled up her face. He had a feeling his face was red, too.

  Lizzy pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and checked the time. “Oh, crap, it’s almost four o’clock. My grandmother is going to bust a gut. The brat has her Christmas play tonight, and I have to be there. Are you going to be okay out here?”

  “I’ve got a blanket, a flashlight, and some granola bars. What more could a guy ask for?” Her warm body next to his?

  He stomped on that thought. Lizzy wasn’t that kind of girl, and he wasn’t that kind of boy. They’d already gone as far as they were ever going to go. And tomorrow he would probably be in the minivan heading back to Ann Arbor.

  Lizzy headed for the loft’s ladder. “It’s going to be quiet out here tomorrow and the next day because of Christmas, but I expect the workmen will be back out here on Wednesday. I’ll try to get out here tomorrow afternoon with some food. It might be hard. Christmas Eve gets real busy.”

  “I’m not going to hold out that long. I only intended to spend one night away from home,” he said, following her down the ladder.

  They got to the barn door, and he was just about to move in for another kiss when they heard a noise outside.

  She frowned and put her finger to her lips, then turned and peeked through the crack in the barn door. Her sharp gasp told David that Lizzy was surprised by the identity of the unexpected intruder.

  She moved away from the crack in the door and motioned for him to get his camera. He stepped to the small opening.

  Two men were standing on the artificial turf of the eighteenth hole. One of them was Sheriff Bennett. David didn’t recognize the other man, but he was old and walked with a cane. Lizzy made a motion for him to take photos, but he opted against it. His digital SLR might not have a mechanical shutter, but it still made a noise every time he took a shot.

  David took Lizzy by the hand and pulled her deeper into the shadows of one of the empty stalls. “I don’t want to make any noise with the camera,” he whispered against her ear. Her hair feathered against his cheek. He was completely aware of her hand in his.

  “Listen,” she whispered. “That’s Lee Marshall, the father of the guy who died in the swamp.”

  David turned his attention to the voices outside the barn. It was hard to hear what they were saying until one of them shouted, “Goddamn it, Billy, you killed my boy.”

  Lizzy tensed against David’s side. They looked at each other in the dim light. What the hell? The sheriff had killed Jimmy Marshall?

  David pressed his finger across Lizzy’s lips. “Listen,” he mouthed.

  The sheriff spoke. “The coroner is going to rule Jimmy’s death a suicide, Lee. I don’t know what gave you the idea that I committed murder.”

  “Because Jimmy was found out on that old hunting trail that leads to the Jonquil House.”

  “So?”

  “Jimmy hated the swamp. And I doubt that he’d ever been on that trail in his life. But your daddy used that trail all the time. That’s where we took Zeke Rhodes, all those years ago.”

  “Are you admitting something, Lee?”

  “Don’t you play dumb with me, boy. I already talked with your daddy, and he told me that you know all about what happened forty years ago.”

  Sheriff Bennett let go of a high-pitched, crazy-sounding laugh. “Yeah, well, you and the old man should have kept your traps closed. You know, Lee, this is a mess of your making, not mine. I’m just like my father, cleaning up your messes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean Jimmy came to me a week ago and wanted me to arrest you for what y’all did forty years ago. Now, you can see why I didn’t want to do that. I mean, there’s an election coming up next year. How do you think it would look if I had to explain how my daddy covered up a brutal beating, and all because the high-and-mighty Lee Marshall was involved. I don’t think it would go over too good. I’m sure the folks who want Stone Rhodes to run against me would have a field day.”

  “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, you killed my boy because of an election? You bastard.”

  “Lee, he was going to tell everyone about what happened. I was going to be forced to arrest you. Don’t you get it?”

  “What? Jimmy was my son. My heir.”

  Sheriff Bennett chuckled darkly. “I don’t think that mattered much to him. Jimmy told me that he was committed to winning back Hettie’s love any way he could. He said Hettie wanted him to take charge of this town and clean the skeletons out of the closet. I’m telling you, Lee, I did you a favor.”

  Lee Marshall let go of a sound that could only be called a wail of anguish. And then all hell broke loose.

  The sounds of a scuffle ensued. Then before David could figure out what to do next, the two men crashed into the barn door with such force that they broke through and tumbled onto the beaten earth of the Ark’s floor, just a few feet from where Lizzy and David were hiding.

  Sheriff Bennett’s gun was out of its holster and each of the men had a death grip on it. They were rolling around grunting and struggling, wrestling over the gun.

  David was so scared he thought he might pee his pants. He prayed to God to let him live while he simultaneously clutched Lizzy’s warm, warm hand. It didn’t matter who won the wrestling match. He knew with a dead certainty that he and Lizzy had heard too much. Both of these men were murderers.

  Beside him, he heard Lizzy whisper her own prayer. Only instead of calling on God, Lizzy was mumbling something about angels.

  Lark pulled the SUV over to the side of a red clay road that bisected Route 70 just north of Golfing for God. She was going to walk the rest of the way, since she was planning to trespass and engage in what was probably a felony. Pop wanted to be laid to rest on the eighteenth hole, and there was no good reason not to comply with that request. Once his ashes were scattered, no one would know the difference.

  Except for Lark.

  She could take some small comfort in the fact that she’d done Pop’s bidding one last time. Now was the perfect time for a drive-by funeral, too, while Stone was occupied with Haley’s play.

  A knot lodged in her throat as she headed dow
n the side road and tried without much success to push thoughts of Stone to the background. She was getting out of Dodge. Now. Tonight. Before any more grass grew under her feet. She would commit her crime and run like a thief in the night.

  She didn’t want a long-winded good-bye. For all intents and purposes they’d said their good-byes this afternoon. Hell, they’d said their good-byes before they even started. Her words had been clear. She’d told him the score going in. And he’d listened.

  Unfortunately, her heart hadn’t listened at all.

  But she would get over this. She’d be like Carmine. Carmine never committed. If a female love interest got too close, he hit the road. In that respect, she and Carmine were a whole lot alike.

  Lark turned onto the main highway. It was almost dusk. She needed to hurry if she wanted to catch the light at the golf course; she’d have to use her flashlight on the way back. She wanted to click a snapshot of the eighteenth hole before she left. Maybe she would start a family album with it.

  She was about forty yards from the parking lot when she realized that the county sheriff’s car was parked there. A gray Lincoln Town Car was parked there, too.

  Just her luck. She’d come to commit a crime, and a convention was under way at the intended scene. She halted in her tracks and was trying to decide whether to go or stay when gunfire erupted in the distance.

  Many years of training took over. She hit the deck hard and covered her head. This time she didn’t flash back to Misurata, but her pulse and respiration redlined. She felt vulnerable there in the drainage ditch by the side of the highway. She needed to find cover. She needed to call for backup.

  She reached for her cell phone only to realize that she’d left it in the console of the SUV, connected to the car’s USB dock. Damn.

  She pushed herself up off the ground and scooted into the woods that edged the highway. The screaming started just as she reached the cover of some tall pine trees. The noise came from off to her right, in the general direction of the golf course.

  She crouched there for a long moment, gulping down breaths as her heart raced. She needed to get back to the car.

  But someone was in really bad trouble.

  Her hands shook as she tucked Pop’s ashes into her camera bag. She ignored the tremors, took out her Nikon, and affixed the telephoto lens. Then she slung the bag diagonally across her shoulders so she could rest it against her back. The bag was bulky, but she had years of practice lugging it through war zones.

  She moved through the pine needles in a crouching run, careful to muffle any noise her bag might make and to keep at least one tree trunk between her and the frantic screams that seemed to be coming from Noah’s Ark. She had her camera in her hands, ready to go. But her stomach was churning with fear.

  She emerged from the pines near hole number three, Moses in the bulrushes. Something very odd was happening to the light. She glanced up at the sky. It seemed to be boiling. A cloud was literally forming right out of the blue, and the temperature was dropping. The light was very bad. Any photos she shot would be crap.

  Nevertheless, she hurried through the plague of frogs, sprinted past the Tower of Babel, then Jonah and the whale, and finally made it to the eighteenth hole. She crouched behind the statue of Jesus. Not that the fiberglass would give her that much protection against anyone with a gun. But it hid her from view, and allowed her to peer into the darkened maw of the Ark.

  The doors were open. She could just see a body lying in the opening. A pool of blood was spreading out from it.

  A dark vortex of fear gripped her. She couldn’t move. Her heart hammered in her chest. She slumped against the fiberglass of the statue and mumbled, “God help me.”

  Lizzy lost it the minute the gun went off. David cursed under his breath. Until she’d started screaming, there had been at least a tiny chance that neither Mr. Marshall nor Sheriff Bennett would realize they were witnesses.

  But it was too late now. Lizzy was staring at Mr. Marshall, who was lying on the floor with a bullet hole in his chest. He wasn’t dead, but he was in pretty bad shape, judging by the blood that was coming out of his mouth.

  Everything seemed to slow down in that moment. The sheriff’s gun was still on the ground, but instead of going for it, he turned in their direction, his bright, blue eyes going wide with surprise and then hard and dark with anger.

  There was murder in his eyes. David couldn’t beat this man. He was bigger and meaner and about a thousand times more frightening than his bully of a son.

  There was no Justin Polk around this time to save him. David had to do something or he and Lizzy would die. The sheriff was about to turn back to get his gun. David had to act.

  Now.

  David pulled his camera up to his face and squeezed off a shot. The flash fired, lighting up the suddenly dark evening. The surprising burst of light blinded the sheriff.

  David grabbed Lizzy’s hand and dragged her screaming from the barn, and he did what any smart person did when facing a bigger and stronger antagonist.

  He ran like hell.

  Thank God Lizzy was able to keep up with him, because they were running for their lives. He’d seen a lot of action movies, and he knew on some level that running in a straight line was a dumb idea. So he started zigzagging across the golf course. He bolted past the statue of Jesus, then turned a little to the right and pounded past Jonah’s whale, then changed directions and raced through a flock of fiberglass sheep.

  That’s when the shooting started.

  Lizzy shrieked again but she didn’t stop running. David changed course again, heading toward a phony mountain with the Ten Commandment tablets at its top.

  Another shot was fired. It felt like someone had just given him a sharp push in the shoulder. He stumbled but managed to keep running. His right arm went numb, and he dropped his camera. It swayed around his neck, bumping into his chest, chafing his neck. His side was burning.

  But he kept going, turning again, heading toward a life-sized Christmas display of Jesus, Joseph, and Mary surrounded by a herd of fiberglass barn animals. There were camels there, too, with bobbing heads.

  But everything was getting kind of dark. His vision was blurring. And he couldn’t breathe. Then, without warning, his legs buckled under him.

  He hit a patch of Astroturf and rolled. He came to rest against the statue of Mary. She was staring down at him with such a pretty look on her face.

  Lizzy’s face came into his vision. “Oh shit, oh shit, you’re bleeding all over the place.”

  There were tears in Lizzy’s eyes, and she was prettier by far than Mary. And way more alive.

  He wanted to kiss her again, but his attention was pulled away by the sight over her shoulder. The sky had gone strange with clouds and a light—amazing and utterly beautiful. There was music playing somewhere. Big music, sweet music, gentle music.

  He wanted to be a part of it.

  There was so much blood. Dark and sticky and it was everywhere. On the rubble of the wall. All over Jeb’s vest. His head was broken open.

  Oh, God, it was worse than that. His head wasn’t really there.

  Lark couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. She needed to run before the next rocket came. She needed…

  Someone came running past her.

  More gunfire startled Lark back to reality. She saw David as he was hit and went down.

  And something inside her snapped.

  She was on the eighteenth hole at Golfing for God. Misurata had happened months ago. She didn’t have a weapon, but she had a camera. She turned back toward the Ark, looking for the shooter. Looking for an angle for her own shot.

  Her blood ran cold.

  The sheriff of Allenberg County was standing not more than five feet from where she was hiding with his service weapon in both hands. He was taking aim at Lizzy.

  Lark reached into her camera bag groping for something to throw at him, and her hand found the small cardboard box. She pulled it from the bag and hurled it a
t the sheriff.

  Her aim was deadly. The box arced through the air just as Sheriff Bennett squeezed off another round. The bullet must have pierced the box because it exploded in midair, and Pop’s ashes swirled up into a sudden gust of wind in a crazy dance.

  What the hell? The ashes seemed alive as they swirled around the sheriff like a swarm of killer bees.

  He started cursing, and Lark decided it was time to run. She got to her feet and hauled ass across the golf course in a jagged line, heading toward the big crèche where she’d seen David go down.

  “Uh-oh,” Stone said aloud as he pulled his car into the parking lot at Golfing for God.

  “What’s the matter, Daddy?” Haley said. Her headdress had kind of fallen over one of her eyes, and it made her look adorable. She had to be the cutest shepherdess in Allenberg County.

  “Nothing, sugar beet. It just looks like Sheriff Bennett found David before I did.” Which meant the a-hole had found Lizzy, too. Knowing Billy, he’d go tell the world that he’d caught Lizzy in the hayloft with David. Billy was like that.

  He didn’t investigate real crimes. He just swaggered around and made Stone’s life miserable. It was a wonder the people of Allenberg kept reelecting him.

  Of course, there wasn’t exactly anyone brave enough to run against him. And the Bennetts had been running the Sheriff’s Department for decades. People in these parts weren’t all that wild about change. South Carolina was pretty conservative.

  “What’s that?” Haley said, cocking her ear. “Somebody’s screaming.”

  Dread precipitated into Stone’s gut. He turned off the engine just as another scream pierced the air. It sounded like Lizzy.

  “Crawl in the back and get down. Don’t move,” he ordered. He was out of the cruiser and had his weapon drawn. He sprinted down the path when a gunshot shattered the twilight.

  He increased his speed, pelting past Adam and Eve and into the paved plaza by the point-of-sale area. The eighteenth hole stood just beyond. The resurrected Jesus looked beatifically at Sheriff Bennett, who stood in target-practice stance with two hands on his weapon. Bennett was sighting something across the golf course in the general direction of Mount Sinai and the birth of Jesus.