The Heart of Christmas

by Brenda Novak

  Just take your time. Don’t get in over your head.

  Brent walked in before she could respond. Not wanting him to see what she was texting, she slipped her phone in her purse.

  “Sorry that took so long,” he said as he sat down.

  “No problem. That wasn’t your sister again, was it?”

  “No.”

  “You must be relieved. Something come up at work, then?”

  “It wasn’t work, either. I just heard from an old friend.”

  She didn’t bother questioning him further. She could tell by his throwaway tone that this was all the explanation she was going to get. If she wasn’t mistaken, he was upset or frustrated or angry.

  “Did you order for us?” he asked, drinking some of his coffee.

  “I did.” She straightened her silverware. “The food should be here any second.”

  “Good. I’m hungry.” He shifted several times, then started to bounce his knee.

  “Are you okay?” She was about to tell him they didn’t have to stay for breakfast, that they could try to cancel their order, but he spoke first.

  “When will you find out whether you’re pregnant?”

  “In a week or two. At least, that’s what I learned when I looked it up on the internet.”

  He nodded.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Just curious.”

  She picked up the empty sugar packet and twisted it in her fingers. “Will you be terribly upset if I am?”

  “Yes,” he said—immediately and unequivocally. “I will.”

  * * *

  Breakfast turned out to be an uncomfortable affair. They ate and Brent paid the bill. Then he drove her home, all without more than a perfunctory comment here and there.

  When he pulled into her drive, Eve started to climb out, but paused with her hand on the door latch. The person Brent had been last night had been easy to want, easy to connect with. She was infatuated with that man. But this man... This man would always be a stranger to her because he wouldn’t let anyone be more than that. “You’re a difficult person to read. You know that.”

  A muscle moved in his cheek. “You don’t have to read me. I’ve been up front.”

  “About...”

  He wouldn’t look at her. “Just don’t get attached.”

  She stared at him for several seconds. “That’s it? Don’t get attached? After making love so many times? I’ve never had a man act as if he wants me with that same intensity. It’s more like...like you need me. Like it’s a gut reaction you can’t control. And I can’t help responding in the same way.” It was so potent. “When you’re like that it makes me feel...valued and desired. But then morning comes and—”

  “And what?” he snapped. “I’m gone in three weeks, Eve!”

  She gaped at him. “I know! I’m not trying to keep you here. But I thought we’d reached a point where the days we did have would be...I don’t know...different. Or are you just passing time, trying to distract yourself from your normal life, whatever it is?”

  When he didn’t answer, just dropped his head and pressed his thumb and finger to the bridge of his nose, she laughed without mirth. “Never mind. Forget it. I can’t take the contradictions. I don’t think even you know what you want.”

  Once she finished climbing out, she slammed the door. She wanted him to come after her, hoped he’d revert to the sensitive man he’d been last night. That person was someone special, someone worth fighting for. No matter how many unanswered questions she encountered, she still believed he possessed so much potential.

  But he didn’t chase after her. He sat in her drive for several minutes. She could hear his engine from where she stood listening in the hall. Then he drove away.

  * * *

  Eve rubbed her arms against the chilly air as she took Ted down to the basement. He’d called her not long after Brent had dropped her off to see if she could meet him at the B and B. He’d wanted to spend some time studying the layout of the murder scene, and she’d been so upset about how her night with Brent had ended that she’d agreed to do it right away, to distract herself from the frustration and disappointment.

  “I can see why you don’t like to come down here. It’s creepy, all right.” Ted poked around the old boiler, which hadn’t been in use since the previous owner installed central heating and air.

  “Any basement in a house this old would be a little off-putting,” she said. “But the murder of a child makes this one downright disturbing.”

  He left her standing at the foot of the stairs and threaded his way among dozens of pieces of old furniture, most of them draped, to reach the workbench her father had used when he maintained the property. “Not all of it’s old,” he mused, examining her father’s tools.

  “We haven’t changed much, just that small corner. My dad built a work area so he’d have a place to store his tools and extension cords, that type of thing. He uses it if I need something fixed and he’s in town to do it. But he’s gone so much these days that I usually hire James Reed.”

  “I know James,” he said. “He helped build the guesthouse behind my place.” He turned to look around him. “What do you plan to do with all this furniture?”

  “Nothing, for now. I’m just hanging on to it, in case I need it later.”

  “So where was Mary found?”

  She pointed to the closet behind her, under the stairs. “Right there.”

  “What made her father look for her here?” he asked when he reached it and opened the door to peer inside. “Did she come down here often? Because I tend to believe that this dark basement would frighten even a child of the Victorian era, especially one who’s only six years old.”

  Eve had meant to get him the collection of newspaper articles a team of researchers had dug up for Unsolved Mysteries. They would tell him almost as much as she could, since that was where she’d gotten the bulk of her information. But she’d been too preoccupied with Brent the past couple of days to search the attic, where she’d put them. “He told the police it was because she liked to play with a train set he kept down here, out of harm’s way.”

  “Harm’s way?”

  “He apparently said it wasn’t for her use. And with the boiler...this wouldn’t be the safest place for a child to play.”

  “You think he might have killed her for touching something he considered off-limits?”

  “That could be what triggered his temper. According to the reports I’ve read, that’s what some people believed. He carved the various pieces of the train himself, and they were quite intricate. There was a picture of one in the paper. Actually, it was a hand drawing.”

  “Has any of the train survived?”

  “No. The day after he died, his wife threw his train set and all his papers in the hearth and burned them up.”

  “I’m sure some found that symbolic.”

  “I would imagine.”

  Ted scratched his neck. “When and how did John Hatfield die?”

  “He fell down these stairs and broke his hip soon after World War I began. He was never the same after that.”

  “If Mary died in 1871, he must’ve been old by then.”

  “Seventy-something. I’m sure his age didn’t help his recovery.”

  “Did Harriett stay here long after he passed?”

  Eve bent to peer under the stairs as he was doing. She hadn’t opened that door since Unsolved Mysteries filmed here. “No. But no one’s really sure where she went.”

  The door at the top of the stairs suddenly slammed shut, and Eve froze as her gaze met Ted’s. “See what I mean?”

  “It could’ve been a draft.”

  “That slammed it with such force?”

  He didn’t seem convinced, either, but he shrugged as if it was possible. They waited to see if anything else was going to happen, but when nothing did, she went back to what she’d been saying about Harriett Hatfield. “Anyway, John’s nephew Willard, and his young wife, Betsy, came all the way fro
m Boston for the funeral and were planning to stay indefinitely and help Harriett with the house. But before they could even bury John, she slipped out, made her way to Sacramento where she could catch the train and...disappeared.”

  “Without saying a word to anyone.”

  “If you’re asking how she bought a ticket if she wouldn’t talk, I don’t know. Maybe she only talked when she had to.”

  “No one knows where she went?”

  “Most people think she went to live with her sister in South Carolina, where she was from.”

  He took the flashlight she’d brought down with them, turned it on and angled the beam into the corners of the closetlike space where Mary’s body had been found. “She was strangled?”

  “And beaten.”

  He grimaced, no doubt feeling the same distaste she did. “So what happened to this place after Harriett left?”

  “John and Betsy tried to stay on. They’d brought all their belongings. But they didn’t last long before heading back. Betsy didn’t like it here.”

  “Do we know why?”

  “The locals blamed it on Mary’s ghost. Said it wouldn’t give her any peace, since both she and her husband were strong advocates for John. They put the house up for sale but couldn’t get any offers. No one wanted to live in a haunted home, so it sat empty for several years and fell into disrepair—until it was purchased for half its value by an eccentric widow from Portland named Luddy Lewis. She came to live here, alone, in 1925.”

  “Luddy didn’t mind living with a ghost?”

  “The whole reason she bought the place was to put Mary’s ghost to rest. She said she could be the poor girl’s ‘voice’ and reveal her murderer.”

  Ted turned off the flashlight, and the basement seemed even dimmer than when they’d first entered. “How did she plan to do that?”

  “Claimed she could converse with the dead.”

  “Was she a fortune-teller?”

  “No, just...eccentric, like I said.”

  “Where did she get her money?”

  “That, I couldn’t tell you. I suppose from her dead husband’s estate.”

  “And did she learn anything from Mary after she moved in here?”

  “You can’t be serious....”

  “I’m curious as to what she might have claimed.”

  “She didn’t point a finger right away. But after several months, when a newspaper reporter confronted her, she said it was the boy next door. That he raped and killed Mary.”

  Ted straightened. “Really! What did the boy next door have to say about that—assuming he was still alive when this happened?”

  “The records aren’t complete enough to indicate which boy she was talking about. During the time Mary lived here, there were children, boys and girls, on both sides, so it seemed like a convenient answer to the puzzle—a way to come up with something original that couldn’t be disproved.”

  Turning the flashlight back on, Ted pointed it at the corners. “Did Harriett ever accuse her husband? Outright accuse him, I mean?”

  “Not that anyone’s ever said.”

  “She didn’t come forward, even after he died?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t you think she’d do that, if she truly believed he was to blame for murdering their child? If he was the reason she wouldn’t talk, why wouldn’t she advertise the truth once he was gone and could no longer punish her?”

  “Maybe she thought it was too late. Or she blamed herself. Felt guilty for not leaving him when she first learned he was dangerous or for being unable to stand up to him and protect her daughter.”

  “I guess it’s also possible that she suspected but didn’t really know,” he mused.

  “True.”

  “Has anyone ever tried to figure out where she went? Spoken to her family? Hunted down all the boys who were living nearby at the time to follow up on Luddy’s theory?”

  “Why would anyone bother to do that? Luddy was basing her accusations on something she said she heard from a ghost. You don’t believe there’s anything to it, do you?”

  “Of course not. But it’d be worth talking to everyone who might have some memory of the incident—or who knew someone with a memory of it.”

  “I don’t think Unsolved Mysteries went that far. Time is money for them, and they were chiefly interested in coming up with enough for a good segment, because it meant they could feature Simon, which was the real draw for them.”

  “They got the ratings boost they wanted.”

  “And we got what little information they managed to dig up, but it certainly doesn’t answer all our questions.”

  “That doesn’t mean the answers we want aren’t out there.” Eve prayed he was right. In recent years, she’d despaired of ever solving the mystery, but his interest gave her renewed hope. It seemed as though everything he touched turned to gold. Maybe he’d have luck in this, too, and Mary’s murderer would be identified despite the passage of so much time.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said, and Eve gladly led him up the stairs.

  As they reached the main floor, she expected him to say goodbye and leave her so she could go find those documents in the attic, but he didn’t. He stopped before they could reach the front door and gave her a searching look.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Sophia heard something at the salon when she was getting her hair cut that has us both worried.”

  Feeling immediately defensive, Eve crossed her arms. “So?”

  “You’re not even going to ask what it is?”

  “I know what it is.” Noelle had been gossiping. Eve had expected that. But it was a little disconcerting to hear that the rumors had reached Shearwood Forest, where they’d likely be regurgitated for weeks. “And I don’t think it’s any of your business.”

  He stiffened. “Maybe not as a past lover. But I was your friend before I was anything more, and I hope I’m still your friend.”

  “Stop that,” she said. “Of course we’re friends. We’ll always be friends. I told you, I’m just going through a rough patch.”

  “This rough patch...it’s because of the guy you met at Sexy Sadie’s, right?”

  “It’s because I’m turning thirty-five and don’t know what to do with the rest of my life!”

  “You were never confused before.”

  She didn’t have an answer for that. She didn’t understand why she suddenly felt so listless and dissatisfied. Maybe it was because Brent had shown her what she could feel, and it was heady and wonderful and more fulfilling than anything she’d experienced so far.

  “Is he the guy who was staying here?” Ted asked. “The one who came up and whispered in your ear when we were talking in the parlor?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Just curious.” He scowled at her. “God, why are you so defensive?”

  “Sorry.” She thrust her hands in her pockets. “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “What’s he doing in town?”

  “Taking a vacation for the holidays.”

  “All by himself?”

  “His sister is coming to join him tomorrow. Why?”

  “I thought maybe he was here on a job—you know, to protect someone, and I couldn’t imagine who it might be.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He’s a bodyguard, right?”

  A stab of foreboding made her uncomfortable, and she instantly thought of those odd scars on his body. “No. He owns a landscaping company in Bakersfield.”

  Ted’s eyebrows went up. “You sure?”

  She wasn’t. She wasn’t sure about anything when it came to Brent. “I think so. Why?”

  “Apparently Noelle asked whether or not it was wise to leave you alone with him, and he said she didn’t have to worry, that you’d be safe with him. That’s when he said he was a bodyguard.”

  “He was drunk, probably didn’t even know what he was saying.” Besides, that sounded like a typical Noelle flirtation. If
she’d really been worried about Eve’s well-being, she wouldn’t have dropped them off together, no matter what Brent said, especially when he’d had too much to drink. What murderer was going to admit his next victim wasn’t safe?

  But there was a note of authenticity in this that bothered Eve. Brent wasn’t particularly bulky, but he came across more like a bodyguard than a landscaper. Plus, Dylan had reacted to the wariness in him. And that moment when Brent had pinned her down on the bed made her think he was used to physical confrontations. So did the way he constantly scanned a room, as if assessing any potential threat.

  “Even if he was drunk, why would he lie? Personally, I think that’s when he’d be more prone to tell the truth.”

  “Maybe he was being facetious!”

  “Right. That makes sense.” He said that as though it didn’t make any sense at all, but Eve could imagine a man joking that way. I’ll look after her. I’m a bodyguard.

  Regardless, Ted moved on. “So how long will he be staying in Whiskey Creek?”

  “Until after Christmas.”

  “Will you be seeing him again?”

  As if she hadn’t had enough warnings, Brent had given her another one just that morning: Don’t get attached... No,” she decided. “I won’t.”

  14

  Rex hadn’t been able to reach Scarlet. He’d tried several times. She’d ducked his calls yesterday, when he’d been waiting for her at that home-style restaurant in Whiskey Creek. But she’d had a reason to avoid him then. She hadn’t wanted him pressuring her to leave the Bay Area and go to a town she wasn’t familiar with, hadn’t wanted to face the reality of the danger she was in. Now that he wasn’t expecting her until tomorrow, she should know he was just trying to check in—and that he’d worry if she didn’t pick up.

  So what was going on?

  With a curse, he tried for easily the tenth time. Then he called Marilyn at home. “Have you heard from Scarlet?” he asked without even saying hello first.

  “No. But it’s Sunday, in case you haven’t noticed. I don’t work on Sunday.”

  “You get the emergency calls.” Ordinarily, they came to him, but he’d asked her to take on that duty and to let him know if anything important developed. “This kind of work can’t be scheduled into office hours. I explained that when I hired you, and when I asked you to take on some additional tasks while I’m gone.”