Twelve Slays of Christmas

by Jacqueline Frost

  Dad walked slowly to the window with a deep look of concern. “Not well. He’s new to Mistletoe. Probably only been in town five or six years.”

  I smiled. Only in a historic town was someone still considered new after five years.

  Dad spread the curtains with his fingertips. “Sheriff put him on a circuit. He circles the house and checks the garage, then back to the porch every few minutes. I don’t like it.”

  “Why?” Mom and I asked in unison.

  I couldn’t help wondering about her objection. Mine was that I didn’t know the guy from Adam, and apparently neither did my folks.

  Dad turned back to us, abandoning his post at the window. “Every time he’s out back, someone could walk right through the front door, and when he’s here, someone could walk in the back.”

  “The doors are both locked,” I reminded him. “Even if someone tried to break the door down, I could leave through the opposite one.”

  Dad dug a mass of keys from his pocket and worked one off the ring. “Keep this on you. It’s for the new pickup. You can drive it until you find something else or just don’t want it anymore. I won’t have to worry about you getting stranded anywhere or stuck in the snow as long as she’s your ride. I filled the gas tank last night and parked her out front beside your mom’s truck.”

  I accepted the key with a full heart. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Anything goes haywire while we’re gone, you get to that truck,” he said. “I keep a shotgun in the rack.”

  I looked at Mom.

  She patted my shoulder.

  The truck was a great gift. I wasn’t sure how I felt about needing a gun to protect myself from a lunatic who might chase me out of the house.

  Dad headed for the staircase. “If I’m going out, I’d better get cleaned up.”

  I waited for him to disappear around the corner before turning back to Mom. “I love when he says that, then comes back looking just like he did when he left.” Dad was like the guy on those paper towel ads, perpetually in plaid flannel and jeans.

  Mom sighed. “When you marry a lumberjack, you get a lumberjack. You know what I mean?”

  “We are who we are.”

  “All day.” She squirmed free of my legs, no longer able to sit still. “I’ll fix you some soup. That’ll make you feel better.”

  “And grilled cheese,” Dad called down the steps.

  Mom smiled at the ceiling. “Nothing wrong with his hearing.”

  “I can hear a squirrel sneaking past at twenty yards,” he said.

  “Take your shower!” Mom called. She rolled her eyes at me and mouthed the word men.

  I hobbled into the kitchen to help with the soup and grilled cheeses, mindful of my slightly swollen ankle. I couldn’t eat another bite, but I could be useful. I collected cheese and butter from her fridge and set them on the counter near the breadbox. “We had a great turnout today.”

  Mom lit the burner under her favorite soup pot and cracked the tops on a couple jars of her tomato soup. She loved canning her produce almost as much as growing it, and Dad loved eating it, which made her infinitely proud. One more reason they were the perfect couple. “You and Evan seemed to be having a nice time. It’s good to see the sheriff finally making friends.”

  I slid my knife across the butter and worked to balance on my good foot. “He’s a really nice guy. A little uptight, but that probably comes with the job.”

  “I’d imagine so.” She dried her hands on a dish towel and came to my side. “Let me help you butter the bread. All I did was dump the contents of a few jars into a pot.” She’d made the soup and the bread, but she probably wouldn’t see that as contributing to the immediate efforts, so I moved over.

  “If you see him at the square tonight, you should invite him over tomorrow. I think he plans to work and then spend Christmas alone.”

  “Ha!” she said, obviously shocked. “Not on my watch.”

  I smiled, utterly pleased, and grabbed a pan from the rack overhead. I set it on the stove beside her soup pot. “How about you fix ’em, and I’ll fry ’em.”

  “And I’ll eat ’em,” Dad’s voice boomed overhead.

  Mom pointed her buttery knife at the ceiling fan. “See what I mean?”

  * * *

  The house was extra toasty from the help of a heated oven when my parents finally left for the square. Mom had refused to leave me without dessert, so she shoved a pan of fudgy brownies in to bake after they finished off the soup and sandwiches. Ignoring the rich chocolate scents wafting from the stove was almost as difficult as pretending my cat wasn’t provoking me for entertainment.

  Cindy peered from the recesses of our Christmas tree, shaking the limbs and rattling the glass bulbs as she climbed. I would’ve chastised her if I thought it would make a difference, but I knew better, and the prowling and rebellion was partially my fault for strapping a Velcro elf hat onto her furry head when she came looking for her dinner.

  I texted Sheriff Gray a picture of her in the tree, dragging garland on the tip of her pointy felt chapeau. He responded with a picture of Whiskers curled lovingly on his lap.

  I turned my phone to face the tree. “Do you see that?” I asked her. “That’s how nice kitties behave.”

  Cindy growled and knocked another line of ornaments onto the tree skirt.

  I flicked the television off and rubbed my belly. “If we’re going to stay here,” I told her, “I’m going to need to take up jogging or cross-country skiing.” There was no chance of my willpower withstanding mom’s constant cooking, and my metabolism wasn’t what it had been in high school. “I need a high-intensity outlet or a new wardrobe.” The second option cost money I didn’t have, so for now I’d have to do jumping jacks. As soon as I healed from my last attempt at physical activity.

  The deputy paced across the front porch and back down the steps before disappearing around the side of our house for his umpteenth trip of the day.

  I opened an old copy of Mistletoe Magazine from Mom’s coffee table and thumbed through the pages until I couldn’t stand the silence. The air seemed weighted, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. I looked to the tree, wishing Cindy was more of a cuddle cat when I was being a baby.

  A quick rap on the front window set me on my feet with a squeak. I jerked my sore foot off the floor and peered into the darkness beyond the glass. Twilight had bled into night faster than I’d realized.

  “Hello?” a muffled voice called. “Holly?”

  I slid into my fuzzy slippers and hobbled to the switch plate, flicking the light on outside.

  “Oh!” The man on my porch rocked away from the window waving his hands over his face.

  “Mr. Nettle?”

  “Yes!” He blinked and rubbed his eyes. “Goodness.”

  I checked in both directions for the deputy but didn’t see him.

  “My parents have already left for the square,” I said through the window.

  “I know.” He popped the collar higher on his coat. “I saw them there, and your mother said you were looking to talk with me. I spoke with Mr. France today.”

  “You did?” Caleb France must’ve been making his rounds.

  “Yes. We had a lovely talk. You know, your parents seemed a little disappointed you weren’t with them tonight. I slipped away, thinking I’d fix two problems with one move.”

  “I’m not following.”

  He opened his palms and grinned. “I’ll bring you to the square, and they’ll be thrilled. Meanwhile, we can talk about Mr. France on the way. Though I’m still not clear what’s so interesting about him.”

  A strong gust of wind rattled the windowpanes and popped the fedora off Mr. Nettle’s head. He pulled his shoulders up to his ears and hunkered down in his tweed coat as he chased the hat across our porch. Wisps of gray hair fluttered over his bald spot, seeming to join him in the cap’s pursuit.

  Mr. Nettle’s car was parked beside the deputy’s cruiser, so when he made it back around, h
e’d know I wasn’t alone, and there’d be no mistaking who was with me.

  I cranked the dead bolt and pulled the door open. A blast of snow hit me in the chest. “You’re welcome to come inside for a minute,” I called against the brewing storm, “but I’m not leaving. I hurt my foot earlier in the Snowball Roll.”

  Mr. Nettle pinned his hat against the porch railing. “Gotcha!” He shook it back into shape with a look of victory. “I heard about your tumble.” He cast a remorseful look at my feet. “You’ll be okay?”

  “Yeah. It’s just tender. I guess I’m a little older than I realized.”

  He laughed humorlessly. “Aren’t we all?” He dashed his toes against the welcome mat and accepted my offer to step inside. “You should sit. I didn’t mean to keep you standing in the cold on a bad foot.”

  I waved him off. “Let me get you something warm to drink. You can even take it with you. We keep disposable everything at the ready.” Or we used to. “Let me see what I can find.”

  “Don’t go to any trouble on my account.” He turned his face toward the kitchen. “Are you baking?”

  I smiled. “Mom couldn’t resist. Her brownies are just about ready to come out of the oven. At least stay until they cool so I can send one with you, and maybe a cup of hot tea or cider too.”

  He looked around, uncertain.

  “It’ll only take me a minute.”

  Mr. Nettle took a seat and rested his hat on his legs. “I suppose there’s always time for tea.”

  “Good.” I smiled. “Make yourself at home. I’ll be right there.”

  I grabbed my phone off the coffee table and headed for the kitchen.

  “What was it that you wanted to ask me?” he called.

  “Um, give me just a second,” I called back to him. I hopped to the stove and tapped the sides of a barely warm kettle. I’d have to reheat it. I slid oven mitts over my hands and set the piping hot brownies out to cool, then switched the oven off.

  I bumbled back to the living room and leaned against the doorjamb. “It’s nothing now. I’d planned to ask you about Mr. France, but he called this morning, and I was able to talk with him for a bit.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes. He’s not as bad as I’d originally thought. I must’ve caught him at a bad time before.”

  “Everything’s fine, then? Got all your questions answered?”

  “Not really,” I admitted.

  Mr. Nettle rested one foot on the opposite knee and stretched his arms over the back of our couch. “Maybe I can still help.”

  I rolled my head against the doorframe. “Only if you’ve got any experience with grants or the HPS in California. Did you say you wanted tea or cider? I’ve already forgotten.”

  Something strangely uncongenial flashed in Mr. Nettle’s eyes. “Are you looking for a grant?”

  “No. It’s a long story,” I said, levering myself off the wall. “Never mind.”

  The air had changed inside my home, sending gooseflesh over my arms and standing the little hairs on the back of my neck at attention.

  “I just remembered you said tea.” I smiled. “I’ll go heat the kettle.”

  I hopped through the kitchen toward the stove, fighting a rush of inexplicable fear.

  An ugly possibility needled my mind. If Caleb France hadn’t been in direct contact with HPS, who had? Was it Mrs. Fenwick, or someone else?

  If the Historical Society had used a third party, like an accountant, to handle grant applications and receipts, the accountant could have lied. He could have kept the monies for himself. He’d have good reason to keep his crimes hidden. Would anyone check up on an alleged grant denial? Maybe not, and if Mrs. Fenwick hadn’t applied for a second grant this year, maybe no one would’ve known at all. I wetted my suddenly dry lips. What if Mrs. Fenwick had caught someone stealing the grant money, but the thief wasn’t in California. What if he was in my living room?

  I checked my pockets for my cell phone and new truck key, then cracked open the back door silently. An arctic blast of snow whipped through my pajamas. My coat and boots were in the living room. I said a silent prayer.

  “Where are you going?” Mr. Nettle’s voice sounded behind me at close range.

  I didn’t look back or bother to answer. I jumped into the snow with a wince and fell immediately over something on the ground. Panic jutted through my limbs as the object came into focus.

  The deputy in charge of my safety was sprawled beside a striped tree marker and a growing puddle of crimson blood.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Mr. Nettle looked down at me from his perch inside my warm house. “Come back inside. There’s no reason to go out like that. You’re hurt. Your feet will freeze in those slippers, and you’ve got no coat.”

  Sharp winter wind sliced through my thin pajamas, reinforcing his point and chilling me to the core. My body heat had melted the snow on my fleece pants, and the temperatures were attempting to freeze the cloth to my skin. Even so, going inside seemed like a decidedly worse option.

  “No, thank you,” I said politely while taking inventory of my capacities. The cold was doing a marvelous job of reducing my ankle’s sting, and adrenaline was working overtime to convince me it was warm enough to run and I was a track star. Unfortunately, neither of those things was true.

  I scrambled backward on the ground where I’d fallen over the deputy, avoiding his blood and a high drift of snow along the stone patio. I took stock of my fallen protector’s equipment as I put some distance between myself and Mr. Nettle. “You should get your coat from the living room,” I said. I didn’t want the deputy’s gun, but there was a radio on his shoulder. The spiral chord disappeared beneath him, attached to something I couldn’t see. “I’d hate for you to leave it behind as evidence when the sheriff gets here and finds us missing.” More so, I’d love for him to give me a head start running to the pickup out front.

  Mr. Nettle’s expression dimmed. “I’m not leaving you alone out here so you can skitter off and hide, and I don’t leave evidence. You should know that by now. I’ll be long gone—coat, hat, car, and all—before the business at the town square is done. Now come inside so we can talk this over.”

  I swung my chin left to right, trying not to fixate on the deputy. He was young and strong. His chest continued to rise and fall in shallow pulls. Movements so small, it seemed Mr. Nettle hadn’t noticed. The deputy could survive what Mrs. Fenwick hadn’t. I just needed to lure Mr. Nettle away before he finished the job. I also needed to call for help before he gave my head a whack with that tree marker.

  I rearranged my arms and legs, forcing myself onto my feet. I swayed gently with the wind. “If I come inside, what will happen?” I stalled, slipping my hand inside one pocket to work the buttons of my cell phone. The power button was easy enough, but there was no way to blindly discern anything else about the smooth screen’s surface. How could I make a call when I couldn’t see the numbers? I could have been updating my Facebook status with gibberish for all I knew.

  “You said you wanted to talk,” Mr. Nettle said. “Come back inside and we’ll talk.”

  I stepped forward, and he opened the glass storm door wider, extending his free hand to beckon me in.

  A knot of determination sank low in my gut as I resolved to make the only move I could. Mr. Nettle didn’t have a banged-up body and busted ankle like me. I had to slow him down any way I could.

  “Hurry up,” he grouched. “There’s no reason to drag this out.”

  I hung my head and lowered my eyes in a show of inferiority, then lunged at the open glass door and slammed it against his reaching arm with all my might, smashing the limb against the doorframe and shattering the glass in the metal frame.

  A shower of swears and spittle spurted from his mouth as he stumbled back, clutching his likely broken arm. Shards of glass tumbled into the snow-covered ground.

  I dove onto the fallen deputy before Mr. Nettle could get the door open again and wrenched the nig
htstick and sidearm from the deputy’s belt.

  Mr. Nettle fumbled onto the patio opposite me, still gripping his arm. “Get back here you nosy, no-good troublemaker, and I’ll at least give you the dignity of a final good-bye. I’ll stage a suicide and let you write the note.” He tented his eyebrows, as if to ask if that was a deal.

  I ran for the trees.

  The back door slammed shut behind me, sending a wave of echoes into the night. He must’ve gone back inside for his coat, but I was already headed in the wrong direction, into the shadows, away from the house and truck. I had nowhere to go. No coat. Sopping-wet slippers. What had I done?

  I couldn’t keep going. I needed to hide. Every step I took sent blades of pain through my aching foot and cast a sheen of sweat over my freezing forehead, not to mention the path through the snow that led straight to me.

  I cut between the rows of trees, where reaching branches had restricted the amount of precipitation on the ground. I pressed my back to a tree trunk for support and dialed the sheriff.

  A cheerful whistle raised into the air. “Holly,” Mr. Nettle sang. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

  The call at my ear connected with a loud click. “This is Sheriff Gray.”

  I pressed a shaking hand to my mouth, suppressing the sudden torrent of emotion. Help was just on the other end of my phone, but I couldn’t speak, could barely breath. I didn’t know where Mr. Nettle was or if he’d hear my voice if I answered Sheriff Gray.

  “Holly?” The sheriff’s voice came again, louder and firmer this time.

  I sucked in a rattling breath and scurried deeper into the trees, catching the limbs with numb fingertips in an effort to support my awkward stride. I slipped from row to row in the densest part of the forest. “Help,” I whispered into the phone, cupping one hand around my mouth to direct the sound into the receiver. “Help me.” I crouched to bury the gun in a pile of snow. I wasn’t going to shoot anyone, but I also didn’t want to be shot.

  Twigs snapped in the distance. The familiar stride of a brisk walk drew nearer by the second.