Mason caught Jeremy’s eyes. “She was attacked, but we scared the guy off. She’s okay, I promise. I’ve got this.”
Rosie clapped Mason on the shoulder. “You take care of your family. I’ll deal with the rest of this, all right?”
Mason nodded, grateful, but seething inside. “This piece of shit’s gone too far, Rosie. He’s gone too far.”
7
Monday, December 18
Mason called about two hours after he’d left us at his place, and to be honest, I was relieved. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was scared shitless. The little farmhouse was in the middle of nowhere. Empty fields with stalky dead weeds and snow and bare earth, woods beyond them, treeless and black. A big old barn out back that could be hiding an army, for all I knew. No one knew I was there, but I was still scared. My brain wouldn’t stop spinning a dozen scenarios. Suppose the killer had seen me with Mason and knew I’d be likely to hide out at his place, or followed us from the hospital and was just waiting to finish the job? Suppose it was someone we both knew?
Suppose you stop thinking about shit you don’t want to attract, Rachel?
It doesn’t really work that way, I thought, denying my own bestselling philosophy.
You’ve been thinking about Mason Brown a lot, and now he’s smack in the middle of your life again.
I didn’t want it like this, with another string of murders, Inner Bitch. Not like this.
Did you specify?
“Rache? You there?” Mason asked through the telephone.
“Yeah, right here,” I said. I was hanging out in front of the coffeepot. Misty was on the sofa, texting with God knows who. The house was too damned creepy, and had a loose shingle or something that kept flapping against the roof every time the wind blew and scaring the hell out of me. “We were beginning to think maybe you’d ditched us.” The wind howled, and I looked outside to see nothing but darkness.
“How is everything? Are you guys okay?”
“We’re fine.” I frowned, because his voice sounded...off. “What’s up, Mason? You sound weird.” Scared. He sounds scared and nerved up. Shaken. My knees quivered, and I pulled out a chair to sit down. Myrtle promptly collapsed on top of my feet and sighed.
“You don’t miss much,” he said.
“Blind people can’t afford to miss much. So what’s going on?” I reached for the cup I’d just filled and sipped it for something to do. The wind sent something skittering over the front porch, and I almost wet myself, then lunged to the door to look out and spotted what looked like a plastic jug tumbling off the far end. I sighed in relief and double-checked the lock.
“Marie was attacked.”
Just like that and my relief went out the window. “What? My God, like she hasn’t been through enough. Is she all right?”
“Yeah. Wouldn’t even go to the E.R. She looks like she went a few rounds with a prize fighter, but I think she’ll be okay.”
“Son of a—”
“It was the same guy, Rache.”
“What do you mean it was the same guy? That doesn’t make any sense.” His cop sense was off. He was too close to this.
“Since when do psychopaths have to make sense?”
He was practically quoting me back to me, I realized. I’d said something similar to him once, only a few months ago. “I know. I just... I don’t get it. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. He had a syringe.”
I cussed impressively, and imagined finding this jerk and cramming his syringe right up his ass. “So now what?”
“Same plan, just more of it. Marie, the boys and I will be staying at the lodge, too. And my mother. The police are parked outside their places for the night. We’ll get out of here tomorrow, maybe a little bit later than planned.”
“Your mother?” Did that sound as unpleasant as I think it did? I’d met the woman once. My first impression had been stone-cold bitch, but I really didn’t know her well enough for that to be carved in granite.
“I can’t get it out of my mind that this maniac keeps going after people connected to my brother. First, people with his organs and now his widow. If Marie qualifies just because she was married to Eric, then Mother might, too, even though Eric was adopted. I just can’t risk it.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to.” Oh, God, I did not want to spend Christmas with Mason’s mother.
Right, but you were just wishing you could spend it with Mason. Wish and it is granted, right, Rache?
It was just like my inner bitch to use my own titles against me.
Besides, you like the boys. Jeremy could be just the medicine Misty needs for her broken heart. And she might be just what he needs for his.
Was it just me, or was my inner bitch morphing into Pollyanna?
I felt for Mason’s family, I really did. His mother had lost a son only a few months ago. And Marie had lost her husband, quickly followed by her baby. Stillborn. What a nightmare. But as sorry as I felt, I barely knew them. And I wasn’t exactly the warm and gregarious type.
“Rachel?”
I silenced my inner argument. “Yeah, I’m still here.”
“I booked us a huge cabin. Mother refuses to stay in it, though. Says she’d rather be in the main lodge. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“So six of us in one cabin, then? I mean, couldn’t Misty and I get a room, too?”
“They’re full up. And besides, the whole idea of going up there is so I can keep you safe.”
“I know.” But he’d been planning to send me up there all alone before this happened, and he’d presumed I would be safe then.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said.
“You do not know what I’m thinking. You’re a good cop, but you’re not that good.” I had an eerie feeling I was wrong about that.
“I decided to go to the lodge with you right after you were attacked, Rachel. I just didn’t know how to broach the subject without either pissing you off or making it sound like a come-on.”
I shrugged and looked away, like he could read my face through the telephone line. “It wouldn’t have pissed me off. I do prefer your company to having my eyes gouged out.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” I swallowed hard. “Do you think your mother will be safe in the lodge?”
“She’ll be surrounded by people at all times, and I’ve talked Rosie and Marlayna into coming along. They’ll be in the lodge, too, for added security.” He sounded guilty. “That’s why all the rooms are gone. They booked the last one.”
“Wow.” I frowned, trying not to let my voice tremble and give away how scared I was. “You’re really worried about this, aren’t you?”
“I’m afraid to let anyone I care about out of my sight, Rachel. We’re just going to have to make the best of it.”
Wait a minute, stop the presses. Did he just say he cared about me?
“On the upside,” he went on, “we get to spend Christmas in a beautiful cabin at an upscale resort in the mountains.”
“Being stalked by a killer and surrounded by people I barely know.” He started to talk, but I ignored him and kept going. “I know I’m being a bitch, but it’s my first Christmas with my eyesight back. This isn’t how I was hoping it would go down. As un-me-like as it sounds, I was hoping for a really spectacular holiday this year.”
“I’m sorry. I really am. I’m just trying to make sure you get plenty more of them.”
I sighed. “I know you are. And I’m grateful. Besides, it wouldn’t have been so spectacular with my sis and fam out of the country anyway. I just feel like we should be trying to catch this guy, not going on vacation.”
“We are going to catch this guy. We’re just going to work on it together from a secure location where everyone will be safe. And Chief Subrinsky is up to speed on everything else. He’s working on getting through the red tape and HIPAA laws so he can protect all the other recipients. Everything that can be done is being done.”
�
�Okay,” I said, knowing he was making way more sense than I was just now. And who was I kidding? I was looking forward to spending the holidays with Mason Brown. Family or not. Killer or not. Was I a basket case or what?
8
Tuesday, December 19
I steered my rented SUV, a burgundy, all-wheel-drive Ford Escape, between the giant wooden signs that read Pine on the left and Haven on the right, and actually stopped and sat there staring with my mouth hanging open. The snowy, twisty drive wound uphill to what I could only describe as a log castle. The place had countless dormers, super steep peaks and green shutters with pine tree cutouts bracketing each and every window, including the twenty-foot-tall one front and center. Beyond that front window a massive Christmas tree twinkled with multicolored lights. Every peak and window and door was also lined in Christmas lights, white ones, all of them aglow. The driveway itself wound between pine trees, also all lit up in white.
“It’s like Santa’s workshop on crack,” Misty said, stroking Myrtle’s head as the bulldog snored on her lap. Her legs had to be asleep by now.
The car behind me blew its horn. One little honk, but still, it pissed me off. Mason’s mother was driving that car, a big flashy black Escalade. Marie was riding with her. The trunk and backseat were so full of gear that Josh and Jeremy had to ride with Mason. They were up ahead of us in Mason’s recently acquired manly green Jeep. Rosie and his wife, Marlayna, who I’d met when we’d all stopped for dinner at a rustic roadside diner thirty miles ago, were bringing up the rear in Rosie’s bright yellow Hummer. Marlayna seemed nice, but she was a little starstruck around me. She was my self-styled number one fan. Fortunately she didn’t seem like the type to go all stalker on my ass.
I liked her better than I liked Mason’s mother and was glad to have a female along who felt like an ally. Misty was too busy impressing Jeremy, and Marie was barely holding her pieces together. So it was Marlayna or nothing.
I got the car moving again, and resisted the urge to ooh and ahh out loud at the pristine beauty around me, glistening in the holiday lights. The place was like a Christmas card, and it was bringing my inner little kid to life. You know the one I’m talking about. The one who used to wait up for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, struggling to stay awake to hear reindeer on the roof, and scanning the skies for a red glowing nose. I hadn’t felt that way since my eleventh Christmas, which was the last one before I’d gone blind. I hadn’t seen the lights since then, either. This was a first for me, and it was choking me up.
I do not get choked up over pretty lights.
Yeah, hardass? Then why are your eyes burning right now? That’s right, blink it away.
Fuck you, Inner Bitch.
Hey, don’t get mad at me. You wanted a spectacularly Christmassy Christmas, and it looks like that’s just what you’re getting. Wish and it is granted, remember?
Mason led the way, apparently following the signs, which blurred in my vision a little bit, to the parking lot around back. No covered garage. We’d have to make do. He got out of the Jeep and waited while I parked beside him, and he was smiling and rubbing his gloves together when I got out.
“Isn’t this amazing?” he asked.
Good God, the man was sparkling.
And looking damn good doing it. Those dimples in his cheeks are ridiculous. Possibly illegal. And is that a little bit of his inner child I see in his eyes?
“It’s amazing,” Misty said from behind me. She set Myrtle down, and Myrtle promptly peed right where she was, unashamed. “How many Christmases has it been since you’ve been able to see the lights, Aunt Rachel?” Misty asked.
I shrugged and looked away, toward the giant log cabin’s rear entrance: a row of glass doors that opened out onto a paved patio with a big stone fire pit in the center. Several people were milling around the fire in colorful hats and scarves. Some were toasting marshmallows. All were smiling.
Good God, I’d arrived in Happy-Joy Christmastown.
The driver’s side window of the Escalade rolled down. “Mason, why didn’t you pull up to the front doors so I could have had a valet unload our luggage?”
His mother. She’d pulled into a parking spot nearby.
He looked at me, a subtle exchange to tell me she was irritating but lovable. The irritating part I got, the lovable not so much. “Mother, there was no point in the rest of us pulling up in front, since we’re all staying in one of the cabins. And there’s no point in them unloading the boys’ luggage, since they’re coming with me. I’ll carry your bags inside and get you checked in, all right?”
She pouted but nodded, put her window up, shut the Caddy off and got out.
Marie got out, too. “Let’s all go in,” she said. “This place looks amazing.”
She’d done a pretty good job covering up the bruises on her face with makeup. A cute brown hat and scarf set hid the lump on her forehead. Damn, her blond curls looked great in that set. I was a little jealous, because putting me in any winter hat and scarf, no matter how cute, just looked dumb. Her eyes were still haunted, but I thought this trip might be just what she needed to help her out of her grieving.
“I want to see the water park!” Josh shouted.
He and Jeremy had got out of the Jeep and were standing behind me, bracketing Misty. Teens must have some kind of gravitational pull on each other, I thought.
“All right, we’ll check it out,” Mason promised. “But listen. It’s important that I know where you are at all times. And that goes for everyone. Adults included. Okay?”
The boys slid a look at their mother, then nodded at him. I could see the look Jeremy exchanged with Misty. The two of them clearly knew we hadn’t told them everything. They also knew that coming up here had something to do with the attack on Marie, and I think maybe Misty also suspected I hadn’t told her the truth about my “accident.”
I felt guilty for being less than honest, but it was Christmas. I wasn’t going to burden the kids with nightmare images of organs being cut out of living people, that was for sure. I mean, it wasn’t exactly the kind of sugarplum I wanted dancing in their heads.
Mason dug through the Escalade to fish out his mother’s bags, then said, “I’m locking it. Let me have the keys.”
Angela shook her head. “I never take the keys out of the ignition. That’s why I insisted on the external keypad, so I never have to worry about where I left the keys.” She nodded at the row of numbered buttons underneath the front door handle. “Just punch in your father’s birthday. Twelve-eleven.”
Mason nodded and locked the oversized SUV.
Rosie and Marlayna had stopped out front and were already at the registration desk when we all trooped in. Holiday music filled the pine-scented air. I gaped like a tourist yet again, while Myrtle, insecure in a new place, pressed tight to my calf. I had a leash on her, though it wasn’t really necessary. She wouldn’t go far, especially if there were other dogs around.
The towering cathedral ceiling in the lobby was lined with gleaming logs that still had their natural shape, knots and all. White lights spiderwebbed above like stars on a clear night. The fieldstone fireplace was gargantuan. One entire section off to the right housed a bar, with more logs and shining shellac, and a smiling female bartender-slash-unemployed and underfed supermodel standing at the ready, nodding a happy hello to us. On the left was a gift shop, and then the front desk. I saw a sign beyond that, very rustic looking, pointing the way to Haven Spa and Salon and Pinewoods Bar, along with Northstar Dining Room, Polar Frolic Indoor Waterpark and Borealis Ski Shop. The place had everything.
Mason nudged me. I’d become hypnotized by the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree, the gleaming garland, the angel on top. I hadn’t even thought I’d missed these sights. Just how much I truly had was hitting me pretty hard in my emotional epicenter and sending ripples out through my entire being.
“This must be almost overwhelming for you, Rachel,” he said softly, leaning so close that his breath tickled my ear.
<
br /> I sniffed and shrugged. “That sappy music they have going isn’t helping any. I mean, Ebenezer Scrooge would get choked up in this joint.”
“Yeah.” He nodded toward the bar. “Why don’t you take the kids for a hot cocoa while I get things squared away at the desk?”
I nodded. “Okay.” I was not drinking hot cocoa. Hot buttered rum, maybe. Not cocoa.
The kids, Marie, Myrtle and I weaved through the customers toward the bar. We were stopped three times by bulldog lovers who wanted to pet Myrt. She didn’t mind the attention at all, and I was relieved, yet again, that most people were too busy noticing the dog to recognize me. I’d put on a pair of fake reading glasses—if it worked for Clark Kent—and my hair was tucked under my hat. I mean, yes, I’d done the talk shows over and over again, and I do tend to get recognized around Whitney Point, but that’s only because the locals know I’m there and have seen me out and around. In reality, who remembers the face of their favorite author? How many would you recognize on sight? Go on, try picturing them in your mind. You got Stephen King, and maybe Deepak Chopra, didn’t you? But if you could pick Amy Tan out of a lineup of similar-looking women, with the addition of a hat and unnecessary prop glasses, I’d say you’re a rare individual with a photographic memory. Eventually we found a table. A waitress was with us immediately. “Welcome to Pine Haven. Is this your first visit?”
“It is,” I said.
“Where are you from?”
Oh, God, she wanted to have a conversation. “South,” I said. “The kids have been dying for a cup of your famous hot cocoa the entire trip. Can I get three, please?”
“With marshmallows,” Josh said.
“And for the adults?” She was still smiling. I was glad I’d managed to avoid exchanging pleasantries without hurting her feelings. She didn’t look any older than Misty, after all.
“Can’t I have a real drink?” Jeremy asked.
“Absolutely not, Jeremy,” Marie said.
The waitress giggled. “I couldn’t serve you anyway, without ID. And if you had ID that said you were twenty-one, I’d probably have to confinscate it.” And yes, she said, “confinscate.” And then she giggled again. Note to self, pick a table away from this section next time.
Wake to Darkness Page 10
