Deadly Christmas Secrets

by Shirlee McCoy

  The small town had bedded down for the night, lights off in the houses, businesses closed. Even the local bar had turned off its sign. Stella sped through a green light, eased off the gas as she approached the sheriff’s department. The sheriff’s car was parked in front of it.

  “Want to stop in for a visit?” Stella asked. “See if the sheriff has ID’d the perp who shot at you earlier? Maybe they’ve found that car, too.”

  “No,” Logan and Harper answered in unison.

  She didn’t open her eyes, but her lips twitched.

  “Jinx,” she murmured, and he smiled.

  “Sorry. I stopped playing that game when my last brother went off to college.”

  “You have a lot of brothers?” she asked, finally opening her eyes. They looked black in the darkness, her lashes long and thick. She’d pulled her hair up into some kind of loose bun, and thick curly strands fell against her neck.

  She was a beautiful woman. More interesting than conventional. He didn’t think she knew it, though.

  “Three. I raised them after my parents died. Finished raising them, I guess you could say. The youngest had just started high school.” That was more than he usually told people, but then, he didn’t normally give people a chance to ask questions. The women he dated? They were like him—more focused on career than on relationships. They were happy to have a meal or two with him, see a movie, maybe go hiking or rock climbing. Other than that, they were content to do their own thing. That was the way Logan liked it.

  “It must have been tough,” Harper said, and he shrugged. It had been tough, but he wasn’t going to say that in front of Malone or Stella. They’d all been through tough times, and none was any more likely than another to rehash the difficulty.

  “We muddled through. I made sure all three finished college. That’s what my parents would have wanted.”

  “And then?” she prodded.

  Maybe she wanted a distraction. Something to keep her mind from going where he knew it must be—her niece. A little girl presumed dead four years ago.

  If she was alive, that changed everything.

  Harper had to know that.

  She had to be thinking about it, and maybe she didn’t want to.

  Hope was a double-edged sword. It kept a person going, but also kept him searching for something that might not ever be found. Logan had been there. Done that. He’d spent a long time thinking he could bring his mother home. That somehow, somewhere, she was still alive, still waiting for rescue. It had taken nearly a decade for him finally to let go of that hope. The fact was, he wasn’t certain he ever truly had. He’d just learned to live with the tiny bit of doubt, the little niggling thought that maybe if he just tried a little harder, searched a little longer, pushed a little further...

  He shoved the thought away, turned his attention back to the conversation. Distraction was something he could offer Harper. It wouldn’t do her any good in the long run, but for the ride to DC, it would help her relax, keep her from dwelling on things she couldn’t change.

  “After I got my brothers through college, I joined HEART.”

  “And the world is a better place for it,” Malone intoned.

  Stella snorted. “Moody much, Malone?”

  “That was a sincere compliment. If I’d been going for sarcasm, I would have changed the tone of my voice.”

  “The tone of your voice changes? I thought growls were the only thing you could manage,” Stella retorted.

  “Growls are effective in getting points across, and right now my point is this—I want to get back to DC. I’ve got some things to take care of.”

  “Things?” Stella echoed.

  “Yeah. Things. Thanksgiving is around the corner, and I’ve got a big meal I’m planning.”

  “For whom? You have family coming into town?” It was a good question, and Logan was curious to hear the answer. As far as he knew, Malone didn’t have family. He lived alone in an apartment just outside DC. He had no pets. No plants. Nothing that required any amount of time or attention. Logan only knew because he’d brought Malone home from the hospital after he’d nearly been killed by a sniper bullet while he was working a case in Turkey. He’d spent two weeks in a hospital there, one week in a hospital in Alexandria. When he’d been released, he’d asked Logan to bring him home.

  That was the first and last favor he’d ever asked.

  Logan got the impression that he wasn’t the kind of guy who ever wanted to owe anyone.

  “You’re nosy today, Silverstone,” Malone muttered.

  “How is asking a few questions nosy?” Stella demanded, and the next thing Logan knew, the two were bickering like old fishwives.

  That was fine.

  They tended to butt heads, but they worked well together. If there was a problem, they’d have his back and each other’s. That was all that mattered.

  Harper shifted beside him, her eyes closed again, a soft smile curving the corners of her lips. She looked younger, more vulnerable than she had when he’d first seen her.

  “Good memories?” he asked, his breath ruffling her hair.

  The smile fell away, and she met his eyes. “Just thinking about the way my sister and I used to bicker. We’d fight over nothing and everything, but we always came back together in the end.” She paused. “Until we couldn’t. It’s funny how we always think we’re going to have another day with someone, another opportunity to tell her how much she means to us. We think there’s going to be a tomorrow, but there isn’t always.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, because there was nothing else he could say. He’d lived through all the tired platitudes after his parents were kidnapped. He’d heard them a million times—I’m praying. God is in control. Your parents would want you to go on. Things will work out the way God wants them to.

  The last had always been the hardest to take, because he couldn’t believe that God wanted any family to be destroyed, that He wanted anyone to suffer.

  “Thanks,” she responded, her hands fisted in her lap.

  “I know it doesn’t help,” he continued, and she smiled again. This time, the expression was sad rather than gentle.

  “It’s better than a million words designed to make the speaker feel better.”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard all of them.”

  “I’m sure you have, too.” She rubbed at a spot on her jeans. It looked like a daub of paint, but she seemed determined to remove it. “Did they die together?”

  He didn’t have to ask what she meant. She’d circled back around to his comment about raising his siblings. His knee-jerk reaction was to sidestep the question. It was what he’d usually have done. The subject was a tough one, the pain still real even after so many years.

  “I don’t know,” he said, surprising himself with the honesty. It wasn’t something he talked about. Not even with his brothers. “They were on a short-term mission trip when they were kidnapped. My father’s body was found a few days later. My mother was never recovered. That’s probably the hardest part. The not knowing. That’s why I joined HEART, to give other people the closure I’ve never had.”

  “It’s my turn to say that I’m sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago, Harper.”

  “Does that make it hurt less?”

  “It makes the hurt a little easier to bear,” he responded, and she nodded.

  “I guess that’s true. Today, though, all the hurt seems fresh and new.”

  “Because you think your niece is alive.” It wasn’t a question, but she nodded.

  “It brings everything to the fore, makes me question everything that happened back then. I wish...”

  “What?” he asked, and she smiled that sad smile again.

  “That it wasn’t another hundred miles to DC.”

  “We�
��re not going to DC yet. We’ll head to the safe house first,” Stella cut in. “The boss is getting it ready. He’s using that place in Davidsonville. Remember it, Logan?”

  He remembered. An old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. It was large and unremarkable. Unless a person looked closely enough. Then he’d notice the security cameras, the ten-foot fence, the gate that opened with a code. Inside, it was comfortable and updated, a good place to spend a few hours after a very long day and night, but he didn’t think that was part of Harper’s plan.

  She stiffened. “I thought we agreed that we were going to see Gabe.”

  “It will be two in the morning when we reach DC. I don’t think he’s going to appreciate a visit at that time of the night.”

  “I don’t think I care,” Harper responded.

  “And I don’t think it’s up to you.” Stella glanced in the rearview mirror, her face pale in the dashboard light. She looked tired, and that worried Logan. Stella was never tired, never out of energy. Tonight, though, she looked done in.

  “You’re wrong.” Malone chose that moment to reenter the conversation. “It is up to her. She’s under no obligation to do things our way. Of course, if she messes up and ends up keeping us from finding her niece, that’s on her, too.”

  “Smooth,” Harper muttered, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

  “Hey, I’m just stating a fact. The other fact I’d like to state is this—she’s right about going to see Gabe Wilson at an unexpected time. From what I can gather, the guy has an answer for everything. If we give him enough time, he’ll figure out a way to twist every fact to benefit himself.”

  “He’s had four years to plan every word he wants to say,” Logan pointed out, but he was anxious to speak to the guy, too. They’d met a couple of times before HEART had agreed to take the case, and Logan had felt confident the guy was on the up-and-up.

  Now he wasn’t so sure.

  Gabe Wilson was getting married in a couple of months. His fiancée was the daughter of a well-known career politician, but she was accomplished in her own right—a pediatric neurologist with a great reputation. The press loved her. The community loved her. Wilson apparently loved her. The last thing he’d want was a rehashing of old drama. Maybe he’d been afraid Harper would hear about the engagement and make accusations about his involvement in her sister’s and niece’s murders. Maybe he’d been determined to keep her from ruining his chances of marrying into money and political clout.

  Maybe...

  But Logan was usually spot-on about people, and he didn’t think Gabe Wilson was calling the shots on this attack on Harper. Did he know who was? That was something Logan needed to find out.

  “I’m going to DC,” Harper announced. “I don’t care if I have to walk there.”

  Stella shrugged as if she didn’t care one way or another, but the tightness of her jaw said something different.

  “Suit yourself,” she said. “Better text the boss and let him in on the new plan,” she tossed out as she merged onto the interstate and headed south toward DC.

  EIGHT

  It had been four years, but Harper hadn’t forgotten the posh elegance of Gabe Wilson’s home. Lydia’s home, once upon a time, and she’d been so proud of that. Harper could remember her sister’s excitement, the way she’d pored over catalogs and walked through department stores. The house had been Gabe’s bachelor pad, but Lydia had been determined to put her feminine touch on everything. Now nothing of Lydia remained. No bright-colored flowers in a vase on the mantel. No faux-fur throw rug. No pink velvet chaise longue.

  “You okay?” Logan asked, his large frame blocking her view of the pocket doors that opened into the hall. It was for the best. There were too many memories there, hidden in photos and collages and framed paintings made by toddler hands. Harper had been surprised when the housekeeper had led them to the sitting room and asked them to wait. Gabe had known they were coming. She’d had to call him for the code to the community gate, and she’d thought he’d be waiting at the door.

  He hadn’t been, and she’d walked into the foyer, felt her stomach twist. No more glossy marble tiles or flowered wallpaper. Instead, dark wood floors stretched into the hallway, the once too-bright walls painted cream. The photos of Amelia still lined the walls, though. Baby. Toddler. Preschooler. Gabe hadn’t been lying when he’d said he’d kept all the pictures out. Everywhere she’d looked, she’d seen her niece’s chubby face or her sister’s smiling one.

  Her heart ached with it, and she’d wanted to turn around and leave. If there wasn’t so much riding on this meeting, if she wasn’t so desperate for answers, she might have done just that.

  “I’m fine,” she responded by rote, but she didn’t feel fine. She felt sick.

  “You’re pale.” He touched her cheek. Just a light touch of his finger. Then it was gone.

  “I’m tired.”

  “And?” he pressed, and she couldn’t keep looking into his eyes and not telling the truth.

  “It’s hard. Seeing all those pictures again.”

  “I’m sorry you have to go through this.”

  “I’m sorry my sister had to go through what she had to. I’m sorry for my niece. Whatever happened to her, she must have been terrified.” She swallowed down a hard knot of grief. “I want to know what happened. I want to know why. When they arrested Norman Meyers for the murders, it seemed like some random thing, as if my sister and niece were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If Amelia is alive, that changes everything.”

  She walked to the mantel that had once been filled with bits and pieces of her sister’s life. A pinecone she and Amelia had picked up at the park, spray painted with pink glitter and hung from their Christmas tree. A vase filled with a collection of flower petals that had fallen from every bouquet Gabe had given her. They were gone now, replaced by a simple framed photo of the family in happier times—Gabe, Lydia and Amelia.

  “They were beautiful,” he said quietly, and she turned to face him again, saw the compassion in his eyes and felt the ice around her heart melt a little.

  “They were. Lydia had a lot of problems. I’m not going to lie. She did. She deserved better, though.”

  He nodded. Just that. No flowery words. No talk about how God had a plan for everything. She’d heard all that before. After Lydia’s body was discovered, Harper had been surrounded by well-meaning people who’d all wanted to reassure her things would be okay.

  But they couldn’t be okay when the sister and niece she loved were gone.

  “Ever since I got that package in the mail, I’ve been thinking about our last night, about all the things I wish I’d said.”

  “What do you wish you’d said?” he asked.

  She could think of a dozen things—I love you. You’ve always been my best friend. I’m so glad we’re family. Those were at the top of her list.

  She didn’t give voice to them, though. She couldn’t. Not without her voice breaking and her heart shattering with it. “It doesn’t matter. Lydia is gone. The opportunity to say what needed saying is gone, too.”

  “It matters.” He lifted a small bowl from a side table, and she knew it was one of hers. The earthen tones, the subtle variations of colors. It was an earlier piece, the shape heavier and more solid than her newer pieces were, but it was definitely one of hers.

  “Yours,” Logan said, and then he turned it over, revealing her pseudonym. “Do you think he knows it?”

  “I don’t know.” She took the bowl from his hand, turned it over. Her signature was etched into the bottom, those names so similar to ones Gabe was familiar with that she doubted he hadn’t known. “He might. The names would certainly be familiar to him.”

  “Interesting.”

  “What?”

  “He didn’t mention that you we
re a potter when I met with him before taking his case.”

  “Maybe he didn’t think it was important.” She shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t really know.”

  “Seems like too much of a coincidence to me, Harper. Look at his house. This kind of art doesn’t seem like something he’d buy.”

  True. Gabe had modern taste—clean lines, sharp angles, everything streamlined and neat.

  “Even if he knew it was mine, he wouldn’t have known where to find me. My agent doesn’t even know my address.”

  “Maybe not, but I don’t like being taken for a ride, and that’s what this whole thing feels like—lies designed to get your brother-in-law what he wants.” He took the bowl back and set it down.

  “What, exactly, do you think he wants?”

  “That’s something we need to ask him.” He lifted a framed photo that had been sitting beside the bowl. Gabe was in it. His hair just a little longer than it had been when she’d known him, his arm around a pretty brunette.

  Maggie Johnson. His best friend when he was in high school and college. Daughter of Senator Eric Johnson, she was a pediatric neurologist who was known for her charitable contributions and her compassion.

  She was soft-spoken, calm, not easily rattled. The antithesis of Harper’s sister, and maybe a better match for Gabe.

  “His fiancée,” Logan said.

  “He mentioned that on the phone. They’ve been friends for a long time.”

  “Does it bother you that they’re more than friends now?”

  “It bothered me that they might have been more than friends before. Now? Lydia has been gone for four years. It’s not hurting her.”

  That was only part of the truth.

  The fact was, if she thought about it enough, she could be resentful that he’d moved on, found happiness, was living a life without Lydia in it.

  She wouldn’t think about it, though. She’d spent a year being bitter and angry. With God. With Lydia and Amelia’s murderer. With Gabe. With herself. She’d spent that year rehashing her last moments with her sister and niece, blaming everyone and everything for failing to save them. At the end of that year, she’d sat down at an old potter’s wheel that she’d bought secondhand, and she’d thrown her first bowl. It had been misshapen and rough, but she’d found solace in the work. In that solace, she’d found a little bit of peace.