Deadly Christmas Secrets

by Shirlee McCoy

  “Where’s Sandra?” she asked, something nudging at the back of her mind, a smidge of a warning that she thought she’d be wise to heed.

  * * *

  Sandra.

  Interesting that Harper would think of her. Logan had been thinking about her, too. He’d spent the past three days sitting next to Harper’s hospital bed calling himself every kind of fool for not thinking about the threat that could be hidden in Christmas cookies.

  Maggie was the simple answer to how antifreeze had gotten in the cookies. She’d taken the cookies from Sandra, scraped off the frosting, added the coolant and refrosted the batch. That was what the police were speculating, because Sandra had baked the cookies at Gabe’s house. He’d been in the kitchen with her. He’d helped her frost them and pack them in the plastic container.

  His story and Sandra’s matched, but there were a couple of hours between the cookies being finished and being handed over to Maggie. Sandra could have added the poison during that time. Or Adeline could have.

  Someone was lying, and the police had found antifreeze in the trunk of Maggie’s car. Her fingerprints were on the bottle and the lid.

  An open-and-shut case.

  Except it wasn’t.

  Maggie was a smart lady. It seemed as if she was too smart to let her crime be so obvious.

  Just thinking about it made his muscles tense and his chest tight.

  “Sandra is in a hotel. The police escorted her here for questioning after the hospital confirmed that you were poisoned. She didn’t want to intrude on Gabe and the Stanleys, so she’s kept herself holed up there.”

  “Adeline?”

  “Same, but she returned home after she passed a lie detector test.”

  “Did Sandra pass?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Maggie failed?” she pressed, ignoring the nurse’s suggestion that she lie down.

  “She passed, too.”

  “Then, why is she in jail?”

  “Because the antifreeze was found in her car, and she’s the one who insisted you eat the cookie.”

  “She was trying to help.” She frowned. “I think. My memory is a little fuzzy.”

  “It might be for a while,” the nurse said as she checked Harper’s IV. “Everything looks good. If there’s anything you need, just ring for me.”

  “I need to get out of here.”

  “That’s not going to happen until you can keep solid foods down and—”

  “Bring me a burger,” Harper said with such grim determination, Logan smiled. “I’ll show you how easily I can keep it down.”

  “Not today. We’ll try some clear liquids first. Tomorrow, we’ll see if the doctor—”

  “I’m not going to be here tomorrow,” Harper said firmly. “I want to be discharged tonight.”

  “The doctor—”

  “Can you ask him to come in here so I can discuss it with him?”

  “If you insist,” the nurse responded. “But I can tell you right now, he won’t sign the release forms.”

  She strode out of the room, rubber-soled shoes tapping on the floor, and Harper dragged blankets up around her shoulders and stood.

  “This isn’t a good idea,” Logan muttered, grabbing her waist and holding her steady.

  She smiled, her face pale as paper, her eyes rimmed red. She had black circles beneath her eyes and hollows beneath her cheekbones, but she looked about twenty times better than she had the day she’d collapsed. “I think it’s a great idea. I’ve always hated hospitals,” she said. “Are my clothes around?”

  “Harper, you’re in no shape to leave.”

  “I’m in no shape to sit around waiting for answers,” she responded, but she didn’t step away. “Those cookies could have been for me, Logan, but I’m worried that they were for Amelia. If she’d eaten one, she might not have survived.”

  “I know.”

  “Who would gain from her death?”

  “Maggie is at the top of the list. She might not want a ready-made family,” he said, tossing out one of the accusations the FBI had lobbed at the doctor. “She was with Gabe the night your sister was murdered, but there’s a possibility she orchestrated the crime, that she hired Norman Meyers to do the dirty work for her, because she wanted your sister out of the way.”

  “Then, why not kill Amelia, too?”

  “Because she was Gabe’s child? That’s what the FBI is saying. I say it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Especially this new twist—to suddenly reveal that Amelia is alive and then try to kill her? I can’t wrap my mind around that.”

  “Neither can I, so why is she in jail?”

  “Circumstantial evidence? Speculation?” Or the police and the FBI were trying to bring the real killer out of hiding.

  That had occurred to Logan, and it had occurred to Chance and Malone.

  “What about the woman who claimed to be Amelia’s mother?”

  “She definitely wasn’t Maggie. Both the Stanleys were certain of that.”

  “Was her name on the birth certificate?”

  “That’s an interesting question,” he responded, nudging her backward until her legs hit the bed.

  She sat, brushing her hand over her cotton hospital gown, smoothing wrinkles from the fabric. “Why?”

  “Someone broke into the Stanleys’ home a few months ago. Took some jewelry and a couple of hundred dollars they had hidden in a vase. They thought that was all that was missing. Until yesterday.”

  “Let me guess,” she said. “The birth certificate is missing.”

  “Right. They do know the birth mother’s name, though. At least, the name that was on the certificate. Jamie S. Daniels. The father’s name was listed as Ralph Daniels. The FBI can’t find any record of him.”

  Harper sighed, her shoulders slumping beneath the blanket. “What a mess.”

  “It is, but it’s going to get cleaned up.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “Trouble never lasts forever,” he said, dropping onto the bed beside her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders.

  He didn’t need to urge her to move closer. She moved without prodding, her arm bumping his as she leaned against him. He wanted to tell her everything would be okay. He wanted to promise her that her niece would be okay, that she’d be okay. More than anything, he wanted to be able to look her in the face and tell her that it was over, that the killer was in jail and she was safe.

  He couldn’t do that, so he stroked her silky hair and said nothing.

  “I’m a mess,” she murmured, touching a strand of hair that had fallen over her shoulder.

  “You’re beautiful,” he replied, and she shifted so that they were eye to eye.

  “You shouldn’t say things like that, Logan.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I might start believing that you mean them.”

  “I do,” he said simply, and she smiled the same sad-eyed smile he’d seen a dozen times before.

  “For now.”

  “How about we let that be enough? How about we just enjoy that God has given it to us, and we see where it leads?”

  She studied his face, her hand resting on his arm, her expression unreadable. Finally, she nodded. “I think that’s a great idea, Logan. I really do.”

  His cell phone buzzed, and she scooted back, her hand falling away.

  He glanced at his phone anyway and frowned when he saw Chance’s number.

  He answered quickly, knowing his boss wouldn’t be calling if there wasn’t trouble. “What’s up?”

  “Amelia is missing.” The words were blunt and to the point, the urgency behind them masked by the brevity of the sentence.

  “How?”

  “She disappeared during r
ecess. Another kid saw her talking to a woman, but that’s the last time she was seen.”

  “Any description of the lady in question?”

  “Short. Black hair.”

  It could have been anyone. Could have been, but Logan didn’t think it was. He thought it was the missing piece to the puzzle, the one that would snap into place and reveal the full picture. “You know who that sounds like?”

  “Sandra. Trust me, the police are well aware of it. Seeing as how she’s not at the hotel—”

  “I thought the local PD was keeping an eye on her.”

  “Who?” Harper demanded. He tugged her close, shifted the phone so she could hear.

  “She slipped out at some point. They knocked on her door when they got the call about Amelia. She didn’t answer. Looks as if she might have picked the lock on a door that connected her room to the one next to it.”

  “Looks as if they weren’t keeping a very careful eye on her,” he muttered.

  “At this point, it doesn’t matter. Amelia is gone, and we’re going to find her. Get Malone and meet me at the church.”

  “Harper—” He met her eyes.

  She shook her head, mouthed, “I’ll be fine.”

  He wasn’t worried about her being fine. He was worried about her staying put and staying safe.

  “I’ve already asked the local PD to send someone to the hospital. If Sandra is the killer, there’s no telling what she’ll do.” He disconnected, and Logan stood, dragging Harper along with him.

  “You heard what he said?” he asked.

  She nodded, her eyes wide with fear. “Amelia is missing. The police think Sandra might have her.”

  “Not that part,” he said, grabbing his coat from the back of the chair and shrugging into it. “The part about the police coming here.”

  “I heard that, too.”

  “Good. All you have to do is stay put. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t talk to anyone. Just stay here until I come back for you.”

  “Logan—” she started, but he didn’t have time for an argument, didn’t have time to list all the reasons she needed to do what he said.

  “I can’t concentrate on finding your niece if I’m worried about your safety. Promise me you’ll stay here.”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “I promise.”

  That was all he needed.

  He dropped a quick kiss on her forehead and ran out the door, his mind racing. Sandra missing. Amelia gone. The young girl had just been found. He couldn’t imagine her being lost again, maybe lost for good.

  For her parents’ sake, for Gabe’s and for Harper’s, mostly, though, for Amelia’s, Logan couldn’t let that happen.

  FOURTEEN

  She planned to do exactly what she’d promised.

  Eight hours later, she was still planning that.

  She’d gotten the doctor to have her IV removed, insisted on having her clothes returned. She’d changed back into jeans and the oversize sweater she’d gotten from the safe house. She’d eaten a bowl of clear Jell-O, sipped hot broth, paced the hospital room, the memory of Logan’s hasty kiss the only thing keeping her from opening the door and finding a ride to the church.

  She’d promised that she’d stay where she was.

  And she wasn’t going to break that promise.

  She wanted to, though.

  She did.

  Outside, the sun had set, flakes of snow drifting lazily from the dark sky. Christmas carols played, the strains of a familiar hymn drifting through the closed door, and she paced more.

  There was nothing else she could do.

  She’d tried to call Gabe. He hadn’t answered.

  She’d questioned the police officer stationed outside her door, and he’d been able to tell her only that they were working closely with the FBI.

  Cold comfort when Amelia was missing.

  Lost. Found. Lost again. Because of Sandra? Could she have done this to Lydia? To Amelia?

  If so, why?

  She dragged her cell phone from her pocket, dialed Gabe again. Still no answer. She tucked it back into her pocket, and the lights went out.

  Just like that the room went black.

  She stumbled to the door, yanked it open.

  An emergency generator roared to life, and dim lights illuminated the hallway.

  “Stay in your room until I figure out what’s going on,” the police officer ordered, nudging her back inside and closing the door.

  She waited, breathless, as people ran past the room. An emergency announcement blared, demanding that everyone shelter in place.

  No way. If there was trouble, she’d rather face it head-on than cower in a room waiting for it to find her.

  She opened the door again, came face-to-face with a woman she had no expectation of seeing.

  Sandra, her eyes alight with some strange energy, her mouth twisted in a macabre smile. “Harper. Finally. I’ve been waiting to reunite you with your niece. I’ve got a wonderful little party planned.”

  “What are you—”

  She didn’t get the words out.

  Sandra pulled a gun from her pocket and jabbed it into Harper’s chest. “No questions. We’ve got no time for them. Amelia is waiting.”

  “Where—?”

  Sandra lifted the gun and slammed it into Harper’s cheek with so much force, she saw stars.

  “I said no questions. Next time, you’ll get worse than that.” She grabbed her arm and dragged her through the empty hallway into a stairwell.

  She thought they’d head down, but Sandra forced her up. One flight. Then another.

  “It was so hard to find a safe place for us to meet. So hard,” she said as she opened the stairwell door and shoved Harper out into an empty corridor. No hospital rooms here. No nurses. It looked like offices, and none of them seemed occupied. “Fortunately, I’m persistent, and Amelia is such a sweet girl. A lot more like you than like Lydia.”

  “You killed Lydia.” The comment just slipped out, and Sandra shrugged.

  “She was in the way.”

  “The way of what?”

  “My relationship with Gabe. We were lovers, you know. Just one slip before marriage. That’s what he called it. He was drunk, but I was sober. I knew what I was doing, because I knew exactly what I wanted. Only the next day, he told me it was a mistake. He told me to forget it and move on. Hard to do when you’re carrying the product of it.”

  “You were pregnant?”

  “My daughter was born in New York. She died in New York. Lydia’s fault.”

  “Lydia knew?”

  “Of course not,” Sandra snapped. “I didn’t tell anyone. I thought I’d do the right thing. Have the baby, raise it. Let Lydia and Gabe’s relationship die a natural death, then step in and tell him he had a child, show him why we should be together.” She shoved Harper around a corner, the gun still in her hand. Harper thought she could have taken it from her, but she had no idea where they were headed, no idea where Amelia was, no idea if she was even still alive.

  Please let her be alive, she was praying silently, when something at the far end of the corridor caught her eye. A subtle shifting in the shadows, a flicker of movement in the dim emergency lights.

  Logan?

  Her heart jumped at the thought, hope soaring as she imagined a dozen armed men moving through the darkness. HEART members were experts at this. The FBI knew what it was doing. The Pennsylvania state troopers were trained for this kind of trouble.

  If they were at the end of the corridor, there was a chance Harper and Amelia would survive.

  There was a chance anyway.

  There was no way Harper was going down without a fight.

  She slowed her steps, trying to give help a little more tim
e to arrive.

  “If you were going to let the relationship die a natural death,” she asked, desperate to keep Sandra talking, to keep her distracted, “why did you kill my sister?”

  “I got tired of waiting. Plus, I was tired of hearing her complain about Gabe. She had everything, and she didn’t appreciate it. A husband who adored her. A little girl who was alive and healthy. My daughter was dead, because the stress of hiding my pregnancy from the man I loved because your sister had stolen him from me caused preeclampsia. The doctors delivered my little angel at twenty-four weeks. She died three days later. I was alone, and your sister? She just wouldn’t shut up about how she wished she was as free as I was. I freed her.”

  “I think she would rather you’d left her alone.”

  “Then, she should have shut up! I warned her. I told her that if she didn’t start counting her blessings, they might all be taken away. When she didn’t listen, I called her up and asked her to meet me. Told her I was only in town for the night. She came with Amelia. I was just going to talk to her, tell her how selfish she was being, but then I realized I could have what I wanted if she weren’t around. I could have my daughter. My lover.”

  “Amelia wasn’t your daughter.”

  “I was going to make her mine, but I couldn’t think of a way to explain that to Gabe,” she snarled, her eyes wild. “I couldn’t think of a way to tell him that I’d done him a favor.”

  “So you ran with Amelia?”

  “I did, but that wasn’t going to work, either, was it? I didn’t have a living daughter. Mine was dead. My family had never even known about the pregnancy. Neither had my friends. It isn’t as if I could have suddenly announced that I had a kid, so I gave her away, went back to New York, packed my stuff and returned to DC to claim what should have been mine all along. Only Gabe didn’t give me a second look. He gave me a job, though. I had plenty of qualifications, and we both just acted as if our little fling had never happened. Maggie’s fault this time.” She spat the name. “And there was nothing I could do to make him look away from her. When they got engaged, I knew I had to act.”

  “By sending me newspaper clippings about Norman Meyer’s death, by sending pieces of Amelia’s baby blanket?”