Twin Threat Christmas

by Rachelle Mccalla

  “What’s wrong?” Officer Jensen crossed the room in two strides and crouched in front of the baby, who now sat perched on her lap screaming furiously.

  “I don’t know.” Alyssa had to shout to be heard over the baby’s cries. “He ate the oatmeal just fine, and I thought he wanted to drink the bottle. He reaches for it and takes one gulp, then pushes it away. He just keeps screaming. Do you think he’s in pain? Did I do something wrong? The oatmeal wasn’t too hot—I checked it first.”

  The officer picked up the bottle. “Did you warm the bottle first?”

  “Warm it?”

  “If he’s used to drinking it warm, he might not take it cold.”

  “No, I didn’t warm it. I didn’t know. Let’s try that.” Alyssa watched, helping when needed, memorizing the steps, as Officer Jensen heated water in a cappuccino mug, then placed the bottle in the warm water to heat indirectly. The baby watched them warily, his loud cries almost accusatory, as the policeman held out the warmed bottle.

  “He probably thinks it’s still cold,” Officer Jensen explained as he nudged the bottle toward the baby’s lips.

  Glaring at them, the baby sucked once and started to push the bottle away. Then, with an expression of surprise that might have been humorous had Alyssa not just endured long minutes of his screaming, he settled in and drank steadily.

  “There,” Alyssa said, hardly believing the child could throw a fit over something so simple. “I had no idea.”

  “Taking care of babies can be complicated.” Officer Jensen gave her a long look and cleared his throat ominously. “We have foster families that could—”

  “What? No. You’re not taking—” Alyssa felt instantly betrayed, but at the same time, vulnerable. True, she was utterly incompetent. But she was also the baby’s only legally living relative.

  “I’m just saying, I mean, for the child’s welfare.”

  “No. No—I haven’t broken any laws. I mean, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’ll figure it out, okay? This is my sister’s baby. He is all I have left—” Tears welled up in spite of her anger, and she hugged the baby close. For his part, the infant sucked contentedly at the bottle. Alyssa remembered that she needed to convince the officer to leave.

  “Thank you for your help. Are you done checking outside? You didn’t find anything?”

  “There’s a locked door near the woodstove in your workshop. Where’s the key?”

  “You can’t go in there.”

  “I need to.”

  “No, you don’t.” Alyssa realized she should have gotten rid of him sooner. But it had been reassuring having him there. And he had figured out about heating the bottle, which had been a huge help. But now he definitely needed to go. “It’s late. I’m sure you have a lot of things to do—”

  “I need to file a report about this visit.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do. You placed a 911 call. I responded. I need to fill in the blanks about what I found. If we need to reopen your sister’s case—”

  Fresh fear surged through Alyssa. She had to make the officer understand. “Look, Officer Jensen, you’ve been a huge help. Really, you have, but I should never have called the police.”

  “But you did.” The officer looked at her firmly, no hint of a smile on his face. If anything, he only looked that much more determined to fill out his report.

  Alyssa had to make him understand. “My sister has been missing for eight years. Everybody thought she was dead, and now her baby shows up in my manger. What do you think is going on? All I can think is—she’s in danger, the baby is in danger. She left him with me to hide him, to keep him safe, and if you fill out a report, what do you think is going to happen? Whoever’s after her is probably watching. Maybe they know about me, maybe they followed her—I don’t know what’s going on. I just know I can’t let you say anything about this baby to anyone. Filing a report would be the worst possible thing you could do.”

  The officer listened, his bluish-gray eyes studying her face as she spoke. When she finished, he hung his head, then sucked in a long, slow breath and looked at her again.

  Alyssa felt a trickle of fear at how he might respond.

  He spoke in a patient tone, his words slow, measured. “I responded to your call. I’ve been out here for close to an hour. The taxpayers deserve a report.”

  Alyssa fought to think of an honest answer that would satisfy the taxpayers without giving away to anyone what had really happened. “Say I panicked and called the police. That much is perfectly true. I didn’t realize I was supposed to take care of—of a relative’s baby. Say it was nothing, a weird fluke thing.”

  “You want me to use the words weird fluke thing?” The officer’s stoic expression broke, the words sounding absurd coming from his mouth. He cracked a smile, which she could tell he’d fought to suppress.

  Alyssa could barely keep from giggling like a love-struck teen at the sound of those words coming out of the handsome officer’s mouth. That and his dimple showed up again when he smiled. It was a good thing he didn’t flash that too often, or she might not be able to think straight. And she was not a love-struck teen.

  Whatever the case, it didn’t change the fact that he needed to go, and she needed to carry on. She had a wheelbarrow full of concrete mixed and ready to pour, molds greased and ready to receive it. If she didn’t get it done before she went to bed for the night, she’d have to start all over in the morning, and the wheelbarrow of concrete would be a total loss.

  Not that any of that was as important as keeping the baby on her lap safe. The child had sucked the bottle dry, and it now made empty air sounds. Alyssa tugged it from his hands, and he grasped after it and began to whimper when she didn’t give it back.

  “Do you think I should make him more?”

  Officer Jensen raised an eyebrow, which communicated, without words, a great deal of frustration. Alyssa realized she was consulting him, asking him for information. He’d already helped her, but she wasn’t helping him. And she certainly didn’t want to appear incompetent as a caregiver—not if he was still thinking foster care would be a safer place for the baby.

  She stood. “I’ll make him more.” For an unsure moment, she juggled both bottle and baby.

  “I can do it,” Officer Jensen offered.

  Alyssa eyed him warily. Why was he being so helpful? She wasn’t about to give him the key to her studio, no matter how nice he was. Not even if he flashed his dimple.

  “You might want to burp that baby while I heat this up,” the officer suggested.

  Alyssa looked at the baby, a little unsure how to proceed. She tried patting his back lightly. It was a little like her statuary—she always rapped the molds feverishly or set them on a vibrating base to get the bubbles to rise. It was surprisingly similar with babies, but she didn’t want to hurt him.

  He chewed his fist hungrily.

  “Try bouncing slowly, like I did,” Officer Jensen advised as he dunked the bottle in hot water to warm it. “Just don’t bounce him too hard, or he might throw up.”

  Tentatively, Alyssa stood, then bent her knees, dipping slowly before rising again. After a couple of dips, the baby let out a loud belch.

  “He did it!” Alyssa felt a rare thrill. The bouncing worked. She’d done something right!

  “Good job.” Officer Jensen grinned as he handed over the warmed bottle.

  Alyssa grinned back before she remembered that she needed to get rid of the policeman. “Thank you again for your help. Please don’t say anything about the baby in your report.”

  “I’ll be vague,” he conceded. “Can I use the key to the door in your workshop?”

  “No.” Alyssa offered the bottle to the baby, who took it and began to suck contentedly.

  “But what if—”

&nbs
p; “There’s no way anything having to do with my sister’s disappearance could be in there. Sorry.”

  Officer Jensen hung his head in resignation. “Fine. But if you think of anything—”

  “I’ll call—” she began, then realized she most certainly wasn’t going to do that, not if it might result in a written report.

  The officer must have picked up on her uncertainty as her voice trailed off, because he offered, “I’ll give you my cell-phone number. Where’s your phone?”

  Alyssa considered the offer for just a second before pulling her phone from her pocket and handing it over. It was a small concession that cost her little. She didn’t have to call him. But if she needed his help, it would be nice to know how to get ahold of him.

  “I put my number in under Chris. Call me if you need anything.” He held out the phone to her.

  “But after your shift ends—” Alyssa still held the baby, his eyelids sagging. She took hold of the phone and her fingers brushed Officer Jensen’s hand.

  Chris’s hand.

  “Call me anytime, day or night.” He stressed the words, not letting go of the phone as he made eye contact with her, as though looking for some sign of confirmation that she would call him if she needed to, even if it was the middle of the night.

  Alyssa felt the contact of his fingers. There was a connection between them, as though they were on the same team against the unseen foes who might be after the baby, as if they were parenting this child together.

  She blinked away that thought. Maybe she needed to get out among people more.

  “Anytime, day or night,” she repeated. Only then did he let go of the phone. “Thank you, Chris.”

  Chris nodded and headed for the front door. Just before he let himself out, he turned to face her again. “I’ll circle by several more times before my shift ends tonight and keep my eyes open for any activity. I’m glad your sister—” he swallowed, coughed, and Alyssa looked down at the baby who’d fallen asleep in her arms.

  “I’m glad,” Chris continued, “it looks like your sister is out there, still alive. I hope I can help—”

  Words seemed to fail him again.

  Alyssa offered him the best smile she could muster, fighting back all the other emotions that fought for dominance on her face. “Thank you for all your help.”

  Chris nodded silently and let himself out.

  * * *

  As the door closed silently behind him, Chris stood on the stoop and looked out across the statue-filled darkness, glancing especially long in the direction of Mary and Joseph and the little lambs clustered around their feet.

  He was not an emotional guy. He hadn’t cried since his own grandfather’s funeral, and he’d been ten then. But the thought of what Alyssa was dealing with—the thought that Vanessa might still be alive, out there somewhere, running from something, so desperate she’d leave her baby behind...

  Yeah, it was enough to make him a little emotional.

  Chris walked back toward his patrol car, passing by the workshop again. Judging from the exterior of the building, the room behind the door was much smaller than the main area, with all its equipment, storage and workspace. But it was bigger than a closet, a full room in its own right. There was only one window that he could see, but someone had propped a sheet of plywood in front of it from the inside, completely blocking the interior from view.

  Alyssa really didn’t want him to see what was in that room. Why not? Because she was hiding evidence of a drug-smuggling operation? Based on what he’d learned about her so far, he was starting to doubt it. But if not that, then what?

  * * *

  Alyssa placed the sleeping baby in the car-seat carrier and draped his little blanket across his lap. Was he really going to sleep? She felt exhausted, emotionally drained by all she’d learned. Maybe the baby was tired, too.

  But if he was willing to sleep, Alyssa wasn’t about to waste a moment. The concrete she’d mixed up late that afternoon would be starting to cure already. She needed to get it in the molds as soon as possible, but she didn’t dare leave the baby alone in the house, not if there was any chance somebody might be looking for him. She didn’t want him out of her sight for even a second.

  Lifting the car seat with both hands, she headed outside into the darkness. How many hundreds of times had she made this trek from back door to workshop in the dark without even thinking about it? She didn’t need light—she knew the path by heart.

  But tonight, even the familiar shadows of her statues sent a shiver up her spine. Had Vanessa really been here, if only long enough to drop the baby in the manger? Or had someone else come in her sister’s stead? Either way, was it possible Vanessa’s kidnapper may have followed her here? Was someone, even now, trying to track down the baby?

  Alyssa couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched.

  Alyssa ducked into the workshop, placed the baby in his car seat out of the way near the overstuffed chair, and got to work filling her molds with mixed concrete and clamping them each shut in turn.

  Then came the tricky part. In order for the sculptures to set correctly, they needed to be devoid of air bubbles. Normally, Alyssa would place them on the vibrating table that was made expressly for that purpose. But the device was horribly loud, and she had no doubt that if she turned it on, it would not only wake the baby, but terrify him, too.

  And she was so glad he’d finally gone to sleep.

  There was nothing else for it but to burp the statues by hand, one by one.

  Alyssa picked up the first statue, a little lamb—one of her bestselling, original designs—and clamped a rag over the air-vent hole positioned at the top of the mold. The little lambs were molded upside down, so the blank space on top was actually the flat base at the bottom of the animal.

  Covering the opening carefully, she shook the contents side to side. She didn’t dare rap on the mold, either, because the noise might wake the baby. After several long minutes of shaking, she set the mold to the side, etched her artist’s mark in the opening and started in on the next.

  She’d finished three of the six when the baby awoke, his cries sounding pained, like the gassy cry he’d let out earlier. Alyssa had wondered if perhaps she ought to try to burp him after that second bottle, but since he’d fallen asleep, she’d hoped she was off the hook.

  Scooping him up, she balanced him against her shoulder and patted his back.

  He screamed in her ear.

  She tried Chris’s slow-bouncing maneuver.

  The baby’s sniffles subsided. But when Alyssa tried to place him back in his carrier, he started crying again. It quickly became clear that he didn’t want to be put down. He was only happy when she did the slow bounce.

  So Alyssa held the baby in one arm and a statue in the other, hoping the slow bouncing would be enough to burp the statues, too.

  One by one, she bounced the statues and the baby, until her arms and legs ached from the effort. She’d already been emotionally exhausted by the long day and was now physically spent, as well. But even now, when she tried to place the baby back in his car seat, he started to cry.

  She bounced again. His cries subsided, and she looked around the room, her legs nearly wobbly with exhaustion. Her overstuffed chair beckoned to her from near the woodstove, and she pulled the chain to turn off the light before crossing the room to the chair.

  Carefully, she eased herself down. The baby sniffled a little, but didn’t cry.

  Alyssa closed her eyes....

  She didn’t know how long she’d been dozing with the baby on her shoulder, when a noise awakened her. She froze, disoriented at awakening in the dark with her nephew drooling on her chest.

  Had she really heard a noise?

  Yes, and now there were more noises. Murmuring men’s voices echoed from the othe
r side of the shelving units. Alyssa couldn’t see much beyond the physical obstructions, but she could tell whoever had entered—two men, if she heard the voices correctly—were carrying small flashlights. They kept the beams down, mostly pointed at the table where she’d placed her little lamb statues as she’d finished them.

  For an instant, she wondered if perhaps Chris had returned with another officer, but the voices didn’t sound like his, and from what little she could see of their potbellied silhouettes, they lacked his strong physique. Definitely not Chris, then. But who? The men were doing something with her statues. But what?

  One stepped a bit to the side. Alyssa could see his profile against the backdrop of the moonlit window. He pulled back his jacket and fished for something in his inside pocket, but even as he did so, his flashlight illuminated everything that had been hidden by his jacket. His belt. A holster.

  A gun.

  FIVE

  Alyssa froze, praying hard for her safety and that of the child who slept on her shoulder. So far, the men seemed oblivious to her presence, assuming themselves to be alone in the workshop. But if the baby awoke or made any noise, he could easily give them away.

  Then what might happen?

  Carefully, cautiously, she slipped her free hand into her pocket and wrapped her fingers around her phone. Should she call the police for the second time that day? She regretted the first call already. And she was in no position to answer the dispatcher’s questions or even to talk at all. It was all she could do to hold tight to the phone, prepared to use it at her earliest opportunity.

  Were these guys related to her sister’s disappearance? They didn’t seem to be looking for the baby—in fact, they seemed pretty focused on her statues. With their backs between her and the countertop, the men almost completely blocked her view of what they were doing, even if the shelving units hadn’t been in the way.

  The man had fished something from his pocket—a big bulging handful of something pale, almost shiny. It was simply too dark to see, especially with the full shelving units blocking most of her view. But she was grateful for the shelves because they kept her mostly hidden. As long as the men didn’t shine their flashlights directly her way, and as long as the baby didn’t make any noise, her presence might go undetected.