3 Madness in Christmas River

by Meg Muldoon

  “Well, forgive me for not feeling sorry for you,” I said. “I’d think most people wouldn’t mind getting that kind of attention.”

  “Not me,” he said, bluntly. “You know that girl, Haley Drutman?”

  I nodded.

  Haley had been the Christmas River High prom queen a couple of years earlier, but like many a high school royalty, she was now spending her days working at a fast food restaurant.

  “Well, she’s been following me,” he said. “I caught her sitting outside my house the other night. She had a pair of binoculars. Can you believe that?”

  I started laughing uncontrollably. He looked over at me.

  He actually started smiling.

  “It’s not funny,” he said.

  “Oh yes, yes it is,” I said.

  “I could have arrested her for that.”

  “But you didn’t,” I said.

  He shrugged.

  I tried to stop laughing.

  We turned down my street.

  “So you’ve never wanted to go out with any of them?” I asked. “What, are you too good for the ladies of Christmas River?”

  “It’s not that,” he said.

  He pulled up in front of the house.

  “Then what is it?”

  “I just… I don’t want to.”

  “But don’t you get lonely?” I asked.

  I regretted the words as soon as they slipped out of my mouth.

  I was now officially acting like a floozy. A floozy drunk.

  Who asked questions like that?

  He just looked at me, a long stare that made me feel uncomfortable.

  He didn’t answer.

  I started getting out of the car. He killed the engine and got out, coming around to help me.

  “I’ve got it,” I said. “I know you must think I’ve had too much to drink, but I haven’t. I’m just a lightweight these days.”

  “Well, I’d get the blame either way if you slid on the ice and hurt yourself.”

  He gripped my arm tightly and walked me up the steps to the porch. Frankly, I was glad to have his arm for support. The snow was now turning to drops of ice and accumulating in sheets on the concrete walkway.

  It was going to be hell to clean up tomorrow. The weather man had completely missed the mark on the storm.

  I rummaged around in my jacket pocket, searching for the keys. It took me longer than I wanted it to, and I was sure that Owen was convinced that Sheriff Brightman was marrying a drunk.

  “Well, thank you all the same,” I said, my cheeks growing red. “For the ride, I mean. And for listening to me.”

  I started opening the door, but then stopped, staring at him a long moment.

  “Are you going to find who did this?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  He said the single word so seriously and with such absoluteness, that for the first time since it happened, I felt a spark of hope.

  I started stepping inside, but realized his hand was still clutching my arm.

  I looked at him, hoping he would figure out that I was saying goodnight, but he didn’t catch my drift until I was practically pulling him inside the house with me.

  “Uh, well,” he said, dropping my arm quickly, like he’d been caught doing something bad. “I better get going.”

  He turned from me and galloped quickly down the stairs.

  Maybe it was just the cold, but before he left, I could have sworn his cheeks flushed.

  Chapter 23

  “I’m taking the first plane out of here,” his voice came crackling over the phone.

  I was lying under my comforter with the news station on in the background. I couldn’t quite get the chill out of my bones. Huckleberry lay in the corner of the room, sleeping soundly in his sheep’s wool dog bed that Kara had gotten him last Christmas.

  I leaned the phone against the pillow and watched the wind whip the ice-covered trees outside. Their branches were becoming as rigid as a dead body.

  After an entire day of playing phone tag, Daniel and I had finally connected. When I heard his voice, I felt both relieved and anxious. I didn’t know how he was going to react to the news about my car break-in and Huckleberry’s trip to the vet emergency clinic.

  His reaction was, typical of Daniel, action.

  “Daniel, you ca—”

  “I’ll let Captain Menendez know from the airport. I’m—”

  “There’s no way,” I said. “This ice storm is shutting the airport down.”

  “I’ll find a way to get there,” he said.

  I could tell that he was pacing back and forth in his hotel room. It was hard for someone like him to be so far away when crisis struck.

  Daniel didn’t like feeling like he was on the sidelines, helpless. It wasn’t in his nature.

  “Everything is fine here,” I said in my strongest voice. “Huckleberry’s okay, and I’ve got Warren and Kara to take care of me. I can’t risk having you flying or driving out in this storm. It’s too dangerous.”

  There was silence on the other end.

  “I’m just going to call the airport and see what the status is.”

  “Don’t,” I said.

  He sighed into the phone.

  “I’m going to try,” he said. “But if I can’t make it, are you sure that you and Huckleberry are all right?”

  The house boards creaked loudly in the wind.

  “We’re fine,” I said. “I think Hucks and my car got the worst of it. But we’re all just fine.”

  “Tell me again what he said,” Daniel said.

  I shuddered at the memory.

  “He told me that I better listen, otherwise I’ll end up like my dog,” I said.

  “What do you make of it?” he said.

  “It’s something to do with that kid in the photos,” I said. “I just don’t know what. I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

  “This all started when Marie took off, didn’t it?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Since the night you took off too.”

  He was silent for a few moments.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  “That I might as well be halfway around the world for all the good I can do for you.”

  “Don’t be like that,” I said. “You’ll be back soon enough. And in the meantime, Owen’s doing what he can.”

  He sighed again.

  “Well that’s good to hear,” he said. “But it doesn’t make me feel much better.”

  “C’mon,” I said. “Let’s change the subject. Tell me about the weather there. And the way the palm trees look outside your hotel window.”

  “I would if there were palm trees outside my hotel window,” he said.

  “Well, tell me what is out there. Every detail.”

  He started talking about the freeways and the way the smog looked, how ugly it was during the day, but how it made for beautiful sunsets. He talked about how he got stuck in gridlock traffic earlier that evening. He told me about the warm night air, and that he hadn’t worn a jacket since he got off the plane.

  I listened, watching the trees outside, now solidly frozen and ghostly white, wishing that I was there with him instead.

  Even with the smog.

  Chapter 24

  It was hard to sleep with the wind blowing as hard as it was against the house.

  I sat up, pushed my feet into my slippers and glanced over at Huckleberry, who was snoring lightly.

  He was going to be okay, but it hurt to see him looking bandaged up like that. It especially hurt at this early hour of the morning, when everything in the world just seemed at its worst.

  I wrapped my fleece robe tightly around my waist and crept quietly out of my room and downstairs. I put a pot of tea on the stove and watched the storm outside while it boiled.

  A slick layer of ice covered the porch railing, shining in the streetlamps.

  When the pot was ready, I poured myself a cup of peppermint tea and sat down at the table, fl
ipping through a Martha Stewart wedding magazine. Brides smiled, their faces beaming with happiness and joy, as if there was no such thing as ice storms, violent men in ski masks, or treacherous mountain passes.

  That’s how you knew that they were models.

  I had less than a month to go before the wedding, and I just hoped that things would simmer down.

  The idea of tying the knot in the month of December had, without me really admitting it, been kind of a dream of mine. My mother married my father in the holiday season, and growing up, I’d flipped through their old photo album at least a hundred times, admiring how beautiful the ceremony and reception looked in the snow. I dreamt that one day, I might have a wedding just as lovely.

  Not that it worked out for them, obviously. They were married just under a decade when my dad took off, leaving my mom and me alone.

  But somehow, that detail had never tarnished the idea for me. When I’d married Evan, it was the complete opposite of my dream wedding. It was a sweaty, humid day in early summer when we’d taken our vows down at the courthouse. Just about the least romantic thing ever. I probably should have taken that as a warning sign of a doomed marriage.

  When I had exhausted the magazine for at least the tenth time, I pushed it aside, and looked for something else to read, shifting through a pile of mail and magazines on the counter.

  I stopped when my hand fell upon the photo.

  I had told Deputy McHale that I’d give him the photo so he could compare it to the one left on my car. But I’d forgotten about it when he dropped me off earlier. So had he.

  I took a sip of my tea and straightened the picture out in front of me.

  Both of the photos seemed to be taken in the same series. The teenager was wearing the same leather jacket in both, with the same woodsy setting in the background.

  Warren had taken a look at the picture, and said he didn’t recognize the kid. But he said there was something familiar about him. He’d seen him before. He just didn’t know where.

  But who was he? And why did someone think I needed to see him?

  Was I supposed to know who this stranger was?

  And why did Marie disappear the very same morning the first of these appeared, the very same morning the Christmas tree was found vandalized? Was there a connection between all of these events?

  I thought long and hard about it, coming to no conclusions in the end.

  The only thing I could be sure of was that something strange was going on in Christmas River.

  And that I wished the sun would come up soon and melt all the ice and snow away.

  Chapter 25

  It took the street cleaners all morning to de-ice the roads.

  I couldn’t get to the shop until early afternoon.

  Before I left, I checked and made sure that Huckleberry was doing okay. He seemed to be sleeping a lot, but when I’d kneel over him and stroke his head, he looked up at me with an expression of hope that hadn’t been there the day before. I promised him that I’d bring home some Marionberry pie to cheer him up, and he slowly wagged his little nub like he understood.

  Warren said he’d keep an eye on him while I worked and did wedding errands. I had originally planned it as a busy day, packed full of getting things done. Aside from spending the morning at the shop, I had planned to visit Raymond’s Auto Body to check in on my car, go to Daniel’s house to tidy it up, and have my final dress fitting at Bethany’s Bridal Boutique. But with the ice, I realized that I would have to cancel at least half of my plans.

  I bundled up and headed over to the pie shop in the old Subaru that Kara’s boyfriend was letting me borrow until my windshield was replaced, driving at a snail’s pace on the streets which were still pockmarked with patches of black ice. I really should have kept the shop closed today, but I knew that the tourists who came to town specifically for Christmas shopping weren’t going to let a little ice stop them from seeing out their mission. And I knew that if I didn’t open, I’d be losing some money. Money that I could really use to pay off some of our bills related to the wedding.

  When I got to the shop, I was pleased to see that Chrissy had already gotten a head start on me and had opened. Many of the booths were already full, and while the ice storm was the topic of conversation, the customers hadn’t been fazed, judging by the large number of shopping bags piled at their feet.

  I went in the back, put on some Hayes Carll, and started churning out pies like there was no tomorrow. I decided that everything but the dress fitting needed to be postponed for today.

  I made a few Lemon Gingercrisp, Sour Cream Pumpkin Pecan, and Moundful Marionberry pies before taking off my apron and heading out. All in all, I was only there a few hours, but I knew the pies would last the customers through the rest of the day. I made sure to grab a half-consumed Marionberry pie from behind the counter before leaving, knowing a little healing dog at home would much appreciate it.

  Then I drove over to the wedding shop, where Kara was going to meet me. And where Marie, before disappearing without a trace, had promised to be when I had my final fitting.

  Part of me hoped that maybe by some small chance, she’d actually show up.

  Chapter 26

  My face grew bright red as Bethany squeezed the two sides of the zipper together and tried to pull the tab upwards.

  I looked in the mirror at Kara, who did her best to keep a calm expression on her face.

  But I could tell from her eyes, things were beginning to look dire.

  “Don’t you worry, doll. We’ll get it,” Bethany kept saying. “Or my middle name isn’t get’r’done.”

  Most of the time I didn’t mind Bethany’s hokey comments, but right about now, it was starting to grate on me.

  My stomach twisted as I stared at myself in the brightly lit mirror.

  The dress was a real stunner.

  The only problem was that it fit tighter than I had remembered it fitting.

  A lot tighter.

  And the most frustrating part was that except for the few whiskeys I’d had this past week, I had been killing myself trying to lose weight just so the dress would fit perfectly.

  Sally finally got the tab to budge, and it flew up the back of my spine, squeezing out all the air in my lungs.

  As long as I didn’t have to breathe, the dress fit fine.

  “Cinnamon, you just look like a princess,” Kara said. “That dress is absolut—”

  Kara stopped midsentence, noticing the pained expression on my face and the blue shade my cheeks were turning.

  “Maybe you should unzip that,” Kara said to Bethany.

  I nodded.

  “That’s a good idea,” I squeaked out.

  Bethany started pulling down on the tab, struggling to get it over the parts where the zipper was stretched. When she finally succeeded, I sucked in a deep breath, like I’d just come up for air from a world-record setting deep sea dive.

  “Jesus,” I said. “That was—”

  “Completely normal,” Kara said, cutting me off. “Happened to me to on the final fitting before my wedding. I was nervous as could be that I was going to walk down the aisle looking like a sausage stuffed into lace. But come the big day, the dress fit just right.”

  “I remember,” I said, trying to keep my voice from quivering. “You looked beautiful in that dress.”

  “And you do in yours, Cin,” she said. “You really look amazing.”

  I let out a very shaky sigh.

  “I just can’t believe that we’re down to a few weeks, and I’m barely fitting into it,” I said. “I mean look at me…”

  A few self-pity inspired tears rolled down my hot cheeks.

  “I am that sausage,” I said. “Only I’m wrapped in satin.”

  This wasn’t me. I wasn’t the kind of girl who cried over things like this. I liked hiking and playing poker and drinking whiskey and baking killer pies.

  I didn’t cry over wedding dresses, or the fact that I wasn’t fitting into mine.
>
  “Oh, honey,” Kara said, placing her glass of complimentary champagne down on the coffee table and coming over to the mirror. “You’ve just hit a rough patch and it’s all crashing down on you.”

  She hugged me, and I let out a few embarrassing sobs into her shoulder.

  “And besides, where in the hell is Marie?” I said. “She was supposed to be here.”

  “Don’t think about her right now,” she said.

  Bethany scurried away to somewhere in the back, avoiding my mini meltdown.

  “We’re going to get you into this dress come hell or high water, okay? And your wedding is going to be the most beautiful thing to hit Christmas River since Deputy Owen McHale.”

  She pulled away and then smiled, and I felt a tremor of laughter start at the base of my stomach and work its way up.

  Kara’s humor always had a way of getting to me, even when I was feeling really low.

  I wiped away the tears.

  “Ugh, you know, I didn’t even want to get a dress like this,” I said, looking back in the mirror again. “I only did it because Warren wanted to buy something really nice for me. I would’ve been happy to wear something a lot cheaper and a lot plainer.”

  “Yeah, but you deserve better than cheap and plain,” Kara said. “And believe me, when you see the look on Daniel’s face after he’s seen you in this, it’ll all be worth it. I promise.”

  I sighed.

  “I’m sorry for freaking out,” I said. “I’ve just… you know, been under a lot of strain lately.”

  “You don’t have to explain that to me,” she said. “Not after what happened yesterday. How’s little Hucks doing anyway?”

  I sniveled, trying to hold back another round of tears that were looking to set themselves loose.

  “He’s going to be okay.”

  “So are you,” Kara said. “Now, c’mon. Let’s get you out of this stuffy shop and somewhere more fun.”

  “Naw, I’ve got too much to do,” I said. “I’m already behind with this ice storm. I’ve got to get back to the shop and—”

  “Listen, hon, that’s the first thing that I learned in Yoga class. You can’t help anyone if you haven’t helped yourself first.”