Snowbound Snuggles

by T. F. Walsh

  “So that’s why you turned on the siren?” Her voice was deadly calm, and she took a sip of wine.

  He swallowed uncomfortably. If he was going to come clean, he had to do it all. “Yes. I was afraid I was going to miss the second half kick-off. I’m sorry.”

  She sat there, staring into the wine as if she could see the events unfolding there. He felt the need to fill the silence between them.

  “Once I got here, I realized my mistake and believe me I’ve regretted it ever since. Every time I listened to that 911 tape, I knew how badly I’d screwed up. If I’d booted it, I could have been here in half the time. I couldn’t have saved your husband or your son, but I might have spared you the beating. You almost died because of my stupidity and neglect. I’ll never forgive myself, and I can’t expect you to forgive me either. I swore no one would hurt you or Mandy again, and it’s a promise I’ve kept.”

  Nikki stared at him, and let the tears fall.

  “Ten or fifteen minutes would have made a big a difference, but at least you did come. You saved me and Mandy then, and you saved us in Colorado. I have to thank you for that, but you’re right. I don’t think I can ever forgive you for what you did.”

  “I’ll do everything I can to make it up to you . . . ”

  She drained her wine glass and stood. “Make it up to me? You’re joking. A dead child isn’t like a case of beer you can replace. Mandy must never realize what happened that night, but you have to understand that whatever there was between us is as dead as that baby. We’ll tell Mandy you’ll be leaving in a few days to go back to work and help someone else. She’ll miss you, but I won’t tarnish her hero in her eyes, not like he’s been tarnished in mine. I will play my part to make sure she doesn’t feel the tension between us. Make sure you do the same. The sooner you can leave, the better. I’m going to bed. Stay the hell out of my room.”

  • • •

  Jason closed the last of the folders on his desk. All the paperwork concerning Nikki and The Butcher was complete—the case closed. He’d been cleared of any possible wrongdoing and the shooting had been declared justified. He had an appointment in San Francisco with the FBI shrink next week, and assuming he passed his physical, he’d be back in Langley for New Year’s.

  Rick had asked him to stay at least until after the holidays, but he’d declined. A clean break was better for all of them. His brother had offered him a spot in the Larosa Sheriff’s Department, but how could he possibly live and work here, knowing he could see Mandy or Nikki at any moment? His heart ached as much today as it had two weeks ago when his life had ended.

  Ivan had called last week to say Interpol had found Carlotta Scarletti. Her body had been discovered in the woods just outside of Palermo. It looked like she’d been beaten and robbed, but they’d left her passport behind, and when the local police had run it, they’d contacted Interpol. Two agents had been sent to interview the locals and learn what they could, but apparently getting anyone to talk about any member of the Scarletti family was as hard as pulling hen’s teeth.

  Staying in the house that last week had been hard on both of them, but Nikki was adamant that, considering everything he’d done, they let Mandy get used to the idea he was leaving before he did. They’d been pleasant, polite strangers. The nights she’d cried herself to sleep had been the hardest. Once he knew for certain they were out of danger, he moved back into the motel.

  Memories of their farewell ate at him as surely as the acid of his guilt had. The child he’d come to love kissed him and reminded him that, when he was finished saving other people, he could come back and visit them again. Nikki had shaken his hand, thanking him for saving her daughter’s life and for saving her from The Butcher. No more, no less. What had he expected? Walking down those steps had been the hardest thing he’d ever done.

  He smiled ruefully. If he thought he’d been in love before, he was sadly mistaken. He’d cared for Denise and Erika, mourned their senseless deaths, but the pain of loss was nothing like the gut-wrenching agony he suffered now—and would probably feel to the end of his days.

  The phone on his desk rang, interrupting his musing.

  “Yes, Molly. What’s up?”

  “I have Elizabeth Bradley on line two. She says it’s important.”

  “Put her through.” He was supposed to meet Brad for lunch. There must be a change in plans.

  “Afternoon, Brad, what’s up?”

  “Jason, I think we may have found Carlotta.”

  He laughed. “You’re a week late with that news. Ivan called me last week.”

  “Ivan was wrong.”

  “What do you mean Ivan was wrong? He said she’s dead.”

  His heartbeat increased.

  “Someone’s dead, but it isn’t Carlotta. Jason, she’s here. She’s in California.”

  No! That’s not possible.

  “What do you mean she’s here?”

  It was hard to speak through the clogged emotions. If she wasn’t dead and was in California, she was still hell bent on seeing Nikki and Mandy dead.

  “I mean we finally managed to track her movements. Interpol knew she’d flown to a clinic in Mexico City in June, but according to her passport, she returned to Sicily three weeks later. The same passport they found on the woman in Palermo last week. Before he returned to Paris, Ivan had asked Greg to check to see if there had been any credit card activity, anything that might point to the fact that she was still alive, but there was nothing.

  “On a hunch, Greg contacted someone at the clinic in Mexico and asked about Carlotta Scarletti. Getting information from the Mexican government isn’t easy. Eventually, the director of the clinic admitted she’d only stayed a week and had moved into a hacienda outside the city. She’d hired a young nurse to go with her. With that information, Greg contacted the airlines to speak to the flight attendant who’d worked the first class flight to Rome. She remembered Carlotta. According to the flight attendant, it had been her first flight, and the young lady had been terrified. She’d been air sick the entire time.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You just said the woman had flown to Mexico City from Sicily that same month and Carlotta wasn’t a young lady. She must have had her passengers mixed up.” What the hell’s going on?

  “That’s what Greg thought until he found a missing person’s report filed with the Sicilian and Mexican authorities. Carlotta pulled a switch, Jason. She found a forger to alter the documents. She switched identities with her nurse. Liana Mendoza flew to Rome as Carlotta Scarletti, and Carlotta crossed into the United States from Tijuana, Mexico as Liana on August eighteenth—two weeks before the assault.”

  Brad paused, and he could hear her shuffling papers. The only thing Jason could think of was that Nikki and Mandy were still in danger.

  “How is that possible?” He was grasping at straws. “Why would the nurse do it?”

  “I don’t know, but a forger that good could mean a lot of trouble for the State Department not only here but in Europe, too. According to the girl’s parents, she did it for money and a job in Palermo looking after Carlotta’s sick father. When the girl’s parents didn’t hear from her, they reported her missing, but the importance of a missing person in Mexico is in direct proportion to her income.

  “So that’s the body the Palermo police found, and they of course used the passport as identification. She’d been dead three months. Interpol was getting nowhere with the locals; no one claimed to have seen Carlotta. Animals had a go at the body, but they recovered one decent hand and ran the prints. Ivan called me from Orly ten minutes ago. He’s on his way back.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Jason cursed a blue streak that would have his mother turning in her grave. “Do you know where Carlotta is in California?”

  “Jason, before you put on that hair shirt again, remember this isn’t your fault. We’d been led to believe Carlotta was some sort of invalid. None of us thought she was strong enough or crafty enough to do this. I talked to Alf Lindstrom,
my revenge-killing expert. He thinks Carlotta had to witness the man we know as Sam Hart’s torture and execution; maybe she was hoping to find out for herself who set that fire to her house. It’s even possible she participated in the crime.”

  “Greg tracked Liana Mendoza’s credit cards. She traveled up the coast to Santa Rosa. That’s where she was staying when the Hart murders occurred. From there she returned to San Francisco. She checked out of her hotel three weeks ago, about the same time Nikki had her father arrested. She slipped off the grid. She could be anywhere.”

  “That’s it. I’m taking Nikki and Mandy away from here tonight. Don’t ask me where I’m taking her, I don’t know, but I don’t want anyone else to know either. If that crazy bitch is out there, you have to find her and stop her.”

  Jason looked at his watch. Mandy would be home from school soon. If Carlotta was in the United States, maybe they needed to get the hell out of it. It was the best he could do. He’d get Nikki to grab their passports, and he’d take her to France. If she didn’t want his protection, then Interpol could take care of her. He wanted her safe—with or without him.

  “I have to go. I’ve got to contact Nikki. Keep me informed. You’ve got my cell number. We’ll be on the move, and it’ll be off most of the time, but I’ll check it at five each day.”

  “Will do. We’ll find her, Jason. She’s badly scarred from the fire. Her face isn’t one people will easily forget. Now that we know where to look, it shouldn’t take long to capture her.”

  Brad’s words chilled him.

  “Son of a bitch! She was there, Brad. Nikki had nightmares about a fire-scarred devil with a diamond earring. I’ve seen the drawings. I thought it was another man, a disfigured monster Nikki had created in her subconscious because of the pain. I’ll be in touch.”

  He hung up the phone, grabbed his gun out of the desk drawer, and reached for his hat and coat. He was halfway out the door when Molly yelled.

  “Jason, stop! There’s been an accident out on Dry Creek Road. According to the 911 caller, there’s at least one person badly injured. CHP are on their way, but we’re closer. Inspector Gomez asks that we attend, and they’ll relieve us as soon as they can. Buck’s out dealing with that accident at the Castella Winery, Lisa’s on vacation, Pete’s on the other side of the county, and Rick’s still in Santa Rosa. You’re all I have.”

  Suddenly, it was Labor Day night again, and he was standing there with a routine phone call interrupting the next thing on his list. Then people had died. Now Nikki and Mandy were in danger, yes, but he had no proof the danger was imminent. Carlotta might be in California, but she wasn’t necessarily in Larosa. This 911 call was a plea for immediate help, just as Nikki’s call had been. What if there were children trapped underneath a pile of steel and rubber? What if someone was lying there, bleeding out, praying to God to let her see her husband one more time? “Damn. Okay. I’ll check it out. Look, I need you to call Nikki and tell her to stay put, turn on the alarm, and wait for me to get there. Tell her Carlotta’s alive.”

  He ran down the steps to the SUV, put the magnetic light on the roof, and turned on the siren. He drove out of town faster than he ever had before. He headed for Dry Creek Road, wishing he were heading toward Nikki instead.

  • • •

  Nikki put down her brush and stared at the painting she’d finished. It was a portrait of Mandy, Danny as she remembered him, and the little Sheltie. She’d hang it in the sunroom over the fireplace. She’d grieve the son she lost and treasure the daughter she still had. She dropped the cloth over the canvas and began the process of cleaning her brushes.

  She’d converted the small room upstairs into a studio. With additional lighting, there was more than enough space for her to work. Since Jason had moved out, she spent long hours painting in here at night, falling into bed so exhausted that she didn’t dream of his arms around her. She’d welcome the nightmares instead of the longing she felt, always compounded by grief.

  She glanced at the wall clock. Mandy would be home from school in about twenty minutes. Christmas break started in three days, but Nikki couldn’t drum up any enthusiasm for the holiday. She’d put up a few basic decorations—a wreath on the door, lights along the veranda. Since she’d decided to spend the holidays with her mother in France, everything else had been put on hold. Nadia’s rehabilitation had gone well. Maybe they could find common ground as Jason had suggested. Mandy’s Christmas present, a pinto pony, would be delivered to Rick’s ranch when they returned in January.

  Ah, Jason. She wiped away the tears before they could flow down her cheeks. She should hate him for what he’d done, what he’d failed to do, but she missed him as much as Mandy did. She could swear the little dog did, too. While it was true he had taken his time to get to the house, he hadn’t done it purposely. He, and everyone else, had believed it to be a false call. Even her new friend Trudy said no one had taken the call seriously.

  If he’d hurried, would he have been in time to save her baby? She’d never know, but one thing she knew for certain: if Jason had walked in on The Butcher at work, he could easily have become a victim.

  That thought had kept her up more than one night this past week. Forgiving him for taking his time wouldn’t be easy, but she did owe him her life and Mandy’s. His timing had been perfect in Colorado, and she couldn’t forget that.

  She reached for her sketchbook and pulled out the drawing she’d made of him reading to Mandy. They looked so right together. Whether she liked it or not, she loved that imperfect man. She didn’t know how she was going to make things right between them again, but as soon as she got back from France, she was going to try.

  She finished cleaning her brushes and went downstairs to the kitchen. The pot roast was in the slow cooker. She’d added biscuits and an apple cobbler for dessert. A frisson moved through her as she remembered the last time she’d made a similar meal. She walked into the sunroom to close the windows she’d opened earlier. The temperature had dropped, and the wind whistled, making her jumpy. She was on her way up to her room to get a sweater when the doorbell rang. She retraced her steps, opened the door expecting to see Trudy, and her blood froze in her veins.

  Standing on the veranda, pointing a weapon she thought might be a Luger, was the monster who haunted her dreams. Despite the unfamiliar dark hair, the horrible burn scars and the diamond earring were just as she remembered them. She staggered and grabbed the doorframe for support, too stunned to do anything but stare.

  “Hello, Nicole. How nice to see you again. Do you remember me? You should. You stole from me, and the time has come for you to pay for your crime.”

  The woman forced her way into the house and closed the door behind her.

  “Such a nice home you have. Different from before, but comfortable. The child should be home soon. I’ve been watching you, ever since I realized who you were. You know, you almost got away.”

  She laughed, and Nikki heard the mania in it as her senses slowly returned. Her heart pounded.

  The woman walked over to the chair and used the gun to motion Nikki to the couch. Unwilling to upset her, Nikki complied and moved over to the sofa.

  “Sit. We can be civil while we wait. We were polite to one another on more than one occasion in the past. When you laid those charges against Thomas for borrowing from your trust fund, I realized I had you within my grasp once more. What an ungrateful child you are, so unlike the doting angel you were when you visited the casa twenty years ago. My, how time flies. ”

  Nikki tried to breathe normally and remain calm. When the phone rang, she jumped and moved to answer it.

  “Stop. Let it ring. Whoever is on the line will simply think you’ve gone off with your art supplies as you did in Sicily.”

  Nikki stared at the hideous woman. “What are you talking about? I’ve never been to Sicily, at least not that I remember.”

  “Ah yes, the convenient amnesia. Is that why you can lie in another man’s arms when your husband, the
man you stole from me, hasn’t even been dead a year? The Butcher disappointed me. He’d done almost everything I asked, but the police found you too soon. I was angry with him when I realized the child had escaped, but he assured me the men who’d missed her had paid for their mistakes. The Butcher convinced me it was better this way. I could make you suffer again, and that pleased me. But I felt I should take care of this final matter between us myself. It was a shame he got himself killed. It took me longer to get to you.”

  There was something about the woman that nagged at Nikki’s mind. Slowly, the images of that night came to her through the fog.

  “You were there that night. I did see you, but you looked different. Your hair—you didn’t have hair.”

  The woman grabbed her hair and surprised Nikki by pulling it off, revealing the fire-scarred head.

  “You mean like this? The doctors did a much better job on you than they did on me. My father refused to have my face fixed. He blamed me for my husband’s treachery. Yes. I was there. I wanted Leo to see his punishment. He took the money, my wedding ring, and left us to die, as I left you, but you survived, so we get to do it all over again. I can assure you, you’ll welcome death this time.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Nikki swallowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know anyone named Leo.”

  “Liar!”

  The woman jumped to her feet and moved swiftly to the sofa, slapping her hard across the face with the hand that held the gun. Nikki fell back against the cushions, momentarily stunned. She tasted the metallic tang of blood and felt liquid begin to ooze from a cut on her forehead and run down her cheek.

  The woman replaced her wig. “See what your lying made me do?” The woman pulled her into a sitting position and looked at her watch. “The bus is late. Fine. Let’s have it your way. Allow me to introduce myself, Ms. Longtain, as you call yourself. I’m Anna Maria Carlotta Scarletti Runions, lawful wife and now widow of Leo Runions, the man you stole from me.”