Deadly Christmas Secrets

by Shirlee McCoy

  Harper glanced over her shoulder and saw a tall, stern-looking guy who could have been thirty or forty or somewhere in between. Handsome in a polished way, his dark hair cropped short, his eyes the color of the summer sky.

  He smiled as he met Harper’s eyes.

  “You must be Harper,” he said, and she nodded.

  “That’s right.”

  “Chance Miller. One of the owners of HEART.” He stepped into place beside her, his gaze sliding from her to Stella.

  Stella seemed determined to ignore the look. Her gaze was focused on the wide double doors a few feet ahead. From the tension radiating from her, Harper would say she was probably planning a way she could run through them and disappear.

  “Nice to meet you, Chance,” Harper said. The tension between Chance and Stella was so noticeable, she was tempted to leave them to work out their differences. She might have done it if she weren’t worried about Logan and about Malone, and if she’d actually wanted to call Gabe for a ride.

  She didn’t.

  She didn’t want to go back to his place, didn’t want to look at all those old photos again, didn’t want to see Gabe and Maggie together, or think about all the things the two seemed to have that Lydia never would.

  Forever. She’d seen that in Gabe’s and Maggie’s eyes when they’d looked at each other—commitment, affection, the kind of love that lasted.

  She’d never seen that between Lydia and Gabe. Ever.

  It hadn’t been between Harper and Daniel, either.

  She could admit that now. All these years later, she could acknowledge that they’d never been meant for each other.

  “Wish it were under better circumstances, but I’ll be honest.” Chance smiled. “Most of the people I meet, I meet during times like this.”

  “Did Logan call you?” she asked, because she really was worried about him. He’d run off after a guy with a gun as if he did it every day, as if there were nothing to be afraid of, nothing to worry about.

  Maybe he did. Maybe there wasn’t. But she’d been afraid and worried, and if it hadn’t been for Stella bleeding in the front seat of the SUV, she’d have followed him into the darkness and done whatever she could to help.

  “He did. Twenty minutes ago. He needed a ride from the accident scene.”

  “Accident?” Stella snorted. “That’s one way to put it.”

  “Would you rather me say the scene of the shooting?” Chance responded, not even a hint of irritation in his voice.

  “I’d rather you...” Stella’s voice trailed off. “You can say whatever you want, boss. I’m tired. Since you’re here, I’m catching a cab and going home.”

  “You want off the case?” he asked, and she frowned.

  “This was never a case. I was helping a friend. Now I’m done. Tell Logan he can call me if he needs anything else.”

  She slammed through the double doors and walked into the emergency room waiting area.

  Harper would have gone after her, but Chance touched her arm. “Let her be.”

  “She just got stitches in her cheek. She might—”

  “She’s the toughest person I know. She’ll be fine,” he said. “Logan is talking to Detective Willard. I told him that I’d find you and bring you to him.”

  “Detective Willard is here?” The news was like a shot of adrenaline, and she headed toward the doors again.

  “This way, Harper.” He nudged her back the way they’d come. No bossy maneuvering, none of the macho stuff she’d have expected based on the way Stella acted around him.

  There was a story there, but she wasn’t nearly as interested in that as she was in the story of the girl in the picture.

  They wound their way through the emergency room and walked into a quiet hallway lined with doors. Chance knocked on one. It opened, and Detective Thomas Willard was there—tall, gaunt, his black eyes as solemn and serious as she remembered.

  “Harper,” he said with a half smile. “It’s been a while.”

  “Yes. It has.” She stepped into the room and saw Logan sitting at a long table, a cup of coffee in his hands.

  He had pine needles in his hair and a smudge of dirt on his cheek, and when she looked at him, she felt as if she was looking at someone she’d known forever, someone she might want to know for the rest of her life.

  Surprised, she stepped back and knocked into Chance.

  “We’ve got a lot to talk about,” he said, and she found herself moving forward again, settling into a chair beside Logan, looking into his dark eyes.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, the words raspy and a little tight.

  “I was going to ask you the same,” he responded. “You look tired.”

  “You look as if you’ve walked through the forest.” She reached out, brushed a few needles from his hair. It was silkier than she’d have thought, and she had to pull back, keep herself from lingering where she shouldn’t.

  “Just a few pine trees.”

  “Is Malone okay?”

  “He’s fine. The police cleared him to go. A coworker drove him to the safe house. He’s got Picasso and the kitten with him.”

  “Things could have been a lot worse,” she murmured.

  “They could have been,” Detective Willard agreed as he took a seat beside her. “I’m not liking what’s going on, Harper. Someone has it out for you, and I’d like to know who. I’d also like to know if it’s connected to what happened to your sister.”

  “How could it not be?” she asked.

  “It’s been four years since your sister’s murder. Anything could have happened since then. Do you have a boyfriend? An ex?”

  “Not a new one. Just Daniel, and we were over long before Lydia died.”

  “Coworkers?”

  “Detective, I’m going to make this really easy for you,” she cut in. “I live by myself. Out in the middle of nowhere. Other than church, I don’t go anywhere. I don’t hang out with anyone. I’ve had no deep relationships in four years.”

  That sounded...pitiful.

  “How about people you work with?”

  “I’m an artist. The art dealers I supply have never met me. I send my stuff in, and they send me the checks. It’s all very simple and impersonal. I don’t even use my real name. They don’t have my address. Everything is shipped to a PO box, and that’s not linked to my old life.”

  “Old life?” Chance asked, pulling out the chair across from her. He sat, his crisp white shirt wrinkle-free, his jacket stylish and good quality. She had a feeling there was more to him than met the eye, though. He didn’t just spend his days pushing papers in an office.

  “What I mean,” she said, trying to clarify without sounding even more pitiful, “is that I don’t have any contact with the people I knew when my sister was alive. I moved away, and I cut my ties.”

  He nodded as if it made sense.

  She wasn’t sure it did.

  She’d run because she’d had no one to stay for, nothing to hold her back, but that wasn’t something she was going to admit. It seemed a sad testament to all the hard work she’d done, all the connections she’d made in the business world, the people she’d gone to lunch with, worked out at the gym with, gone to dinner with.

  All those relationships? They’d been as much of a lie as her relationship with Daniel. Not a lie, maybe. But those friendships never had the depth she’d longed for.

  Sometimes she wondered if she was capable of that, if she had it in her to have more than her mother and sister had. They’d been surface people, content to jump from relationship to relationship, hobby to hobby, moment to moment.

  Harper?

  She’d always wanted something more.

  “Here’s the thing,” Detective Willard said, his gruff voice pulling her from things
she was better off forgetting. “The FBI is processing the package your brother-in-law received. They’ve found nothing on the newspaper article. Nothing on the scrap of fabric. No DNA. No hair fibers. Gabe says he’s sure the fabric is from Amelia’s blanket.”

  “Wishful thinking?” Logan asked, and Harper found herself looking at him again, meeting his eyes. Her heart leaped, but she ignored it. Told herself she was a fool for letting it happen. Logan was bigger than life, and she was content to live quietly—no fuss, no drama.

  “Gabe isn’t the kind of person who lets his feelings get the best of him,” she said. “He’s more likely to be cautious than not, and I don’t think he’d say that if he weren’t completely convinced. Besides, I thought the blanket was the same, too.”

  “Sure enough to testify in court?” Logan asked, and she shook her head.

  “The pieces do look like they came from Amelia’s blanket, but it’s been years, and I don’t remember exactly what the blanket looked like.”

  “You were convinced enough to call me,” Detective Willard said.

  It wasn’t a question, but she nodded. “Not just because of the blanket. The package left a bad taste in my mouth. I guess I felt as if someone was purposely trying to prod at the scars, you know? Bring everything to the forefront.”

  “Seems that what someone really wanted to do was get to you,” Detective Willard responded. “But why? It’s been four years. If someone wanted you dead, he could have easily come after you before now.”

  Logan must have been thinking that. He touched her hand, his fingers brushing across her knuckles. “Had anyone called you recently? Any unusual cars driving up to your house and leaving?”

  “Not until you showed up,” she said, clearing her throat, trying to put herself back in the place where she’d lived for years—the place where pain touched her only a little, where the wounds were scarred over and didn’t hurt nearly as much.

  “I’m not going to overlook the fact that Gabe was responsible for that,” Detective Willard responded as his cell phone buzzed. He took it from his pocket, glanced at the number. “I need to take this. Give me a minute.”

  He walked out into the hall, leaving Harper with Logan and Chance and the hard knot in her stomach that wouldn’t go away.

  “We’ll head to the safe house when we’re done here,” Chance said quietly. “Things will be clearer in the morning.”

  “What things?” Harper asked, standing and pacing across the room. There was a window, the shades closed. She didn’t open them. She didn’t want to look out at the world—the people moving through the parking lot, the Christmas lights shining from buildings and houses. She didn’t want to be reminded that life was going on without Lydia.

  “All the things that are worrying you,” he said simply. “I don’t know about you, but I could use something to eat. I’ll go to the cafeteria and pick something up. You vegetarian?”

  “No.”

  “Any allergies?”

  “No.”

  “You’re getting her a snack, Chance,” Logan said. “I don’t think it’s a life-and-death situation.”

  “It could be,” Chance replied as he stepped out into the hall.

  He closed the door, and she could hear his footsteps retreating. She wanted to follow. Mostly because standing there wasn’t accomplishing anything, and she felt the desperate need for action.

  “How’s Stella?” Logan asked. “Still getting those stitches?”

  “She’s done, and she wasn’t going to hang around waiting for aftercare instructions.”

  “You mean she wasn’t going to stay around Chance?”

  “I guess that’s true, too.”

  “They dated for about three minutes. It didn’t work out.” He moved toward her, tugged her around so they were face-to-face. “That little tidbit of information was supposed to distract you from your troubles. I see it didn’t work.”

  “Did you really think it would?” she asked.

  “I knew it wouldn’t, but I thought I’d try.” He smiled, and she found herself smiling in return.

  “I guess I’ll appreciate the effort, then. Even if it doesn’t change anything.”

  “What would you like to change?”

  “My decision to leave DC? My decision to believe the police when they said Amelia was probably dead? Everything I’ve done since the moment my sister called me and asked if she could spend the night at my place?”

  “Was it the first time she’d asked?”

  “No. She and Gabe would have a fight, she’d call me and tell me she was leaving him and needed a place to stay. She’d always leave for a night, and then return. He knew that’s what she’d do, and he’d just let her go.”

  “And you’d never said no to her?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then, why would that night have been any different?”

  “It wouldn’t have, but hindsight is twenty-twenty, and I’m always wishing that I’d said no, or that I’d caught her leaving the house with Amelia.”

  “She didn’t tell you they were going?”

  “No. She tucked Amelia into bed at eight. Just like she always did. We talked until ten, and then I went to bed. I had a meeting the next morning. An important one.” Not that she could remember what had been important about it. “When I got up in the morning, they were both gone.”

  “You couldn’t have changed anything. You know that, right?”

  “I don’t know anything anymore, Logan. I thought I had it all figured out. I was wrong.”

  “None of us will ever have life figured out. The best we can do is honor God, honor the people around us and enjoy the time we have,” he said gently, his knuckles brushing her cheek, there and gone so quickly, she wasn’t sure they’d been there at all.

  He was right. She knew that. She would have said it if the door hadn’t opened and Detective Willard hadn’t walked back in.

  The look on his face made the breath catch in Harper’s throat, and she found herself reaching for something, anything to hold herself steady. She found Logan’s hand, realized what she had and tried to pull away.

  He didn’t release his hold, just moved up beside her, his shoulder and arm warm against hers. “What’s going on?” he asked, and Detective Willard dropped into a chair, his face ashen.

  “That was Agent Lawrence with the FBI. A couple of news stations ran late-night previews of the story about Amelia.”

  “And?” Harper’s grip on Logan’s hand tightened, everything in the world coming down to that moment and the answer to that one question.

  “They got a call from a man in York, Pennsylvania. He said the girl is his daughter.”

  “So she’s not Amelia?” Harper asked, relieved, disappointed, frustrated.

  “I didn’t say that,” Detective Willard replied, the words like lead weights, each one heavier than the next.

  “Then, how about you tell me what you did say,” Harper suggested. “Because what I thought I heard was that the girl’s father called.”

  “Her father did call. He’s a pastor and was at the hospital with a parishioner who had a heart attack last night and needed open-heart surgery.”

  Get to the point, Harper wanted to shout, but Logan squeezed her hand gently, offering her the support she desperately needed. She kept her mouth shut and waited the detective out.

  “He was in the waiting room with the family, and the television was on. They all saw the news story, and they all knew it was his daughter.”

  “Is that why he called?” Logan asked.

  “He called because he’s a man of God, and he believes in doing the right thing. His daughter is nine. She’s in fourth grade, and she’s very bright. Her name is Autumn, but—” he squeezed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes for a second “�
��she’s always insisted they call her Amelia.”

  The room shook with that last word, with that name. Or maybe Harper was shaking. Logan nudged her to a chair, and she sat. “I don’t understand,” she murmured.

  “He and his wife adopted her when she was five,” Detective Willard explained. “She and her birth mom showed up at church one Sunday. The woman was really thin and sickly looking, so the pastor’s wife took her under her wing. Turns out the birth mom had cancer, and she was scared to death that Autumn would be left alone in the world. After a few months, she asked if the pastor and his wife would be willing to adopt her daughter.”

  “And then she passed away?”

  “No. She left. She said she didn’t want Autumn to remember her sick and dying. She wanted all her memories to be good ones. They finalized the adoption, and she left town. They never heard from her again. It never occurred to them that the woman might have been lying. She had a birth certificate for Autumn, baby pictures. A death certificate for the man listed as the father. It was all legal as could be.”

  “Except that it wasn’t,” Logan said quietly, his hands on Harper’s shoulders.

  “The father is devastated. His wife is going to be devastated.” Detective Willard shook his head. He looked as if he’d aged a dozen years in the past few minutes. “We shouldn’t have assumed that Amelia died. We should have kept searching.”

  “You couldn’t have known.” Harper offered the platitude by rote. All her thoughts were on the blonde girl with her sister’s face.

  Amelia.

  Lost and found again?

  “Amelia would be only eight.” She spoke into the silence, that one tiny fact niggling at the back of her mind. “Maybe everything the woman said was the truth. Maybe Autumn was her daughter. Maybe she really was sick.”

  “Maybe a little girl named Autumn wanted to be called Amelia?” Logan said softly, his hands smoothing along her shoulders, then drifting away. She felt cold in their absence and very, very alone. “It’s not a common name, Harper, and I don’t believe in coincidence.”

  “I need to meet the family,” she said, pushing away from the table, running to the door. She yanked it open and nearly barreled into Chance.