Winter Break

by Merry Jones

  Harper hesitated. What was Leslie doing? Finding a psychobabble way to explain and wipe away all of her concerns? Was she no different than the others, convinced that Harper was losing it? Harper studied the familiar green eyes; they never wavered. She heard Hank saying, ‘Trust. Leslie.’ And her gut echoed his words. Hell, if she couldn’t trust Leslie, she could trust no one.

  Harper shrugged. ‘Agreed. So?’

  ‘So. There’s something I want you to do – before you even begin to deal with any of the weird events you told me about. And that is: take care of Harper. Step One: get rid of the crippling damaging tension. So we’re going to work on relaxation techniques. We’ve done this before, but not in a while—’

  ‘Seriously? That self-hypnosis crap?’ There was a gun upstairs and strangers all over her house, and she was supposed to hypnotize herself?

  ‘Yes, Harper.’ Leslie smirked, squeezing Harper’s hands. ‘That self-hypnosis crap. Now focus. Let’s start with breathing. Inhale through your nose, out through your mouth. Slowly, from the belly. That’s right. And close your eyes, envision a place where you are perfectly at ease. Where you are safe and secure and there’s no need to be on guard. And breathing deeply from the belly, let the tension out of your toes. And breathe. And let the muscles of your heels and ankles relax until they’re light enough to float. And breathe. Now your calves . . .’

  Leslie moved Harper up her body, releasing tension muscle by muscle, and, even though she wondered if Leslie believed her, by the time they reached her shoulders, Harper felt lighter. Easier. By the time they passed her neck, she felt more optimistic, half convinced that she wasn’t engulfed in skulduggery and danger. And when they were finished, for the first time in days, she felt refreshed and calm.

  ‘Damn,’ she smiled, stretching as if from a nap. ‘I meant to offer you tea before – would you like some? We have fresh cookies.’

  ‘You’re feeling better,’ Leslie grinned. ‘I’d love tea, but I don’t want you to get it. Tell me where everything is and I’ll fix it.’

  ‘No, we’ll both go.’ Harper got up slowly, started for the door.

  In the hallway, Leslie checked her watch. ‘I can only stay a few more minutes. I have more appointments—’

  An explosive crash interrupted her. Instantly, Harper ducked, pulled Leslie to the floor. Saw a car pull up to the checkpoint, and – bam. Her patrol vanishing in a flash of white heat. She smelled burning rubber, burning flesh. Felt herself flying . . .

  ‘Harper?’

  Leslie crouched beside her, repeating her name. Harper. Harper? Harper blinked, and Iraq slowly faded, replaced by the hall outside her kitchen. She took a breath, recovering, and got to her feet.

  ‘Sorry I pulled you down. Conditioned response – you all right?’

  Leslie nodded, standing, breathing shallowly. ‘Are you?’

  Harper had already headed toward the sound. ‘What the hell happened?’ It had come from the front of the house. The dining room? ‘Ma? Lou?’ she called, but got no response.

  The air mattress took forever to inflate, and Evan was sick of the sound of the blow dryer. In fact, he was sick of this whole week. Even though Sty wouldn’t admit it, everything had gone wrong, from the very first night when the kid had run outside into the snow. The motorcycle lady had seen him and, even though she hadn’t recognized them, she was suspicious. She kept calling the goddam cops. Had even brought them to the house. And if he hadn’t moved fast enough to stand in front of it, with Sty saying they were selling furniture, that nosy bitch might just have tried to examine the armoire. He could see her, opening a door, looking inside. The idea sent adrenalin through his veins. Because they’d have had no choice; they’d have had to kill them both.

  He thought about it, how close they’d come to actually doing those two babes. And killing a cop? Wow. Way beyond what they’d talked about. Finally, Sty would have to shut up with his lectures and let go of his tedious self-important plans; they would have propelled themselves far beyond the limp and tiresome crime of his role models, Loeb and Leopold. Instead, they’d have had to live in the moment, improvising. Acting on pure impulse, relying on their most basic and primitive instincts. He pictured what might have happened. Strangling would have been good. He’d have liked watching hope fade from their eyes, feeling the shift of vertebrae as life yielded to the force of his hands. Drowning one of them would also have been interesting. Filling the tub – maybe with icy water – no, that would freeze his hands. So nice warm bathwater. He imagined holding one of them under – maybe the cop. Feeling her body resist, then ease. Watching the release of bubbles. The fixed stare of her eyes.

  Evan pressed the blow dryer against the valve of the mattress, watching the material expand, amused that the mattress was not the only item on his lap that was expanding. And the beauty part was – or would have been – that if they’d killed those two, no one ever would have caught them. They’d have disposed of the bodies far away from here and from each other, and there would have been no evidence linking the deaths to each other, let alone to them. He and Sty would have been long gone by the time the corpses were discovered. Home for Christmas. Not even close.

  ‘You almost done?’ Sty stuck his head into the room. Deflating the fantasy. ‘We ought to move the armoire.’

  Damn Sty, constantly pestering, interrupting, pushing, anticipating, speechifying, intellectualizing, philosophizing, talking, talking, talking. And worse, cozying up to the Ninja Lady and her family. Becoming too visible, even though he was the one who insisted on meticulously sticking to, never deviating from his all-important, immutable, carefully devised, ultimately perfect and utterly fucking infallible Plan. ‘Yep. Just have to make a pit stop. Go on downstairs; I’ll be right there.’

  Evan turned off the dryer, listened to Sty’s footsteps descending the stairway. Plugging up the air valve on the mattress, he considered that maybe, if the constant prating became too intolerable, he might eliminate Sty, too.

  The two of them stood silent, wrapped in each other’s arms, staring at the metal pipe that had shattered a dining-room window.

  ‘Ma? You okay?’ Harper hurried in, looked them over, saw no wounds. ‘What the hell happened?’

  Vivian watched the pipe and shook her head.

  ‘Lou?’ Harper demanded.

  Lou’s eyes darted to the window. ‘We were in the living room, working on the tree, when: bam. We came in and saw this.’ He kissed Vivian’s forehead. ‘It’s all right, Viv. No harm done.’

  Really? No harm? Harper eyed what was left of her window. ‘Did you see anyone?’

  ‘No.’ Lou’s answer came fast.

  ‘A black car,’ Vivian sniffled, crying now.

  ‘That was nobody,’ Lou growled. ‘Just a passing car.’ His hand covered Vivian’s head, stroked her hair.

  Leslie stepped in, looked at the window, the pipe. It was about eight inches long. ‘Oh dear.’

  Harper moved behind her mother, circled around the pipe. Saw a cell phone duct-taped to the thing. Damn.

  ‘Everybody – OUT!’ she yelled. As she started for the door, Harper saw writing on the tape. Just one word: BOOM.

  ‘Let’s go – now!’ Harper commanded in her lieutenant’s voice. She shooed them, shoving them like a snowplow.

  ‘What? Out of the house? Why – is it a bomb?’ Vivian stopped crying.

  ‘Out.’ Harper grabbed coats from the closet and kept herding, meeting Leslie’s eyes, letting her know that, indeed, the place might blow up.

  ‘Who would toss a bomb into the house – I’m calling the police.’ Vivian stopped, looking into the living room. ‘Where’s my phone?’

  ‘Nobody said it was a bomb, Vivian,’ Lou guided her forward, ignoring the coat Harper held out to him. ‘Don’t get all hypersterical.’

  Vivian tilted her head. ‘Don’t get what?’

  ‘Ma. Move. Out.’ Harper gave Leslie her coat and put on a parka. ‘Hurry.’

  But nobody obeyed. Lou
blocked Vivian, who was trying to go to the kitchen. ‘I’ve got to get my phone,’ Vivian insisted.

  ‘Calm down, Viv.’ Lou put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Think about your blood pressure—’

  ‘Ma! Forget your phone. Just get out!’ Harper held the door open, waiting.

  ‘You don’t need to call the cops, Viv. It’s just a broken window—’

  Suddenly, the walls trembled and the air cracked; Harper gave an ear-shattering whistle.

  Everyone froze, gaping.

  ‘Listen up, will you? That thing could go off any time. Get out of the damned house.’

  She ushered them outside just as in the dining room, a cell phone began to ring.

  Reflexively, Harper followed her training and threw herself at the others, knocking them down the stairs, as far as possible from the bomb. She braced herself for the oncoming explosion, aware that the cell phone was the detonator, that its ring might be the last sound any of them heard. In nanoseconds, the house would blow, and they might, too.

  Flying down the steps, Harper had no time to think, only for snapshot impressions. Making impact, body-slamming her mother, shoving Leslie. Seeing Vivian fall and Lou try to grab her. Leslie grabbing the handrail and trying to balance, but tripping, bumping down the steps on her backside.

  And the sense of the ground slipping away as she lost traction. Her legs sliding, her body curling to protect the baby as she rolled downward into the snow. And Vivian’s hoarse screams. And the shock of cold snow on her skin as she lay flat, waiting for the searing jolt of the explosion. The hot blast, the caustic smell. And the inevitable flashback that would carry her back to Iraq, to another time, a different bomb.

  Harper wasn’t sure how much time passed before she realized that nothing was exploding, that the bomb wasn’t going off. She got to her feet, yanking Leslie’s arm to take her along, calling to her mother and Lou to move with them. Gathering everyone together at the street, where they stood clustered.

  And waited some more, just to be sure.

  Gradually, Harper realized that she was the only one watching the house; everyone else was watching her.

  ‘We were lucky; it was a dud,’ she finally said.

  ‘Harper. You pushed me down the stairs. You could have killed me or at least broken my legs.’ Vivian rolled up her pant leg. Her knee was pink and scraped. Swelling.

  Lou knelt beside her, examining the damage. Blood trickled down his forehead. Damn. How had he hurt his forehead?

  ‘You all right?’ she asked Leslie, who hadn’t said a word since they’d left the house. And whose skin looked oddly blue.

  Leslie didn’t open her mouth. She merely nodded.

  ‘Let’s go back inside.’ Lou took Vivian’s arm. ‘Your mother needs to get off her feet.’

  ‘Uh uh.’ Harper blocked their path. ‘Not till the bomb squad says it’s okay.’

  ‘The bomb squad?’ Vivian seemed surprised. ‘Ithaca has a bomb squad?’

  ‘Seriously? You’re making your mother stand here and freeze?’

  ‘Has anyone called the police?’ Leslie was coming back to life.

  ‘Nobody would let me get my phone, remember?’ Vivian shifted her weight from leg to leg, exhibiting her pain.

  ‘I have a phone.’ Leslie took it out and dialed.

  Lou watched her, looked at the sky, chewed his lip. ‘I seriously think we don’t need to call any cops.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  All three women responded at once.

  ‘Lou, my knees are killing.’

  ‘Maybe those boys would let us wait in their fraternity—’

  ‘No.’ Harper wouldn’t consider it. ‘I saw them leave earlier. They aren’t there.’

  Vivian frowned, climbed onto the porch, sat on the bench swing with Lou beside her. Harper sat on the front steps while Leslie called to report a broken window and a bomb. When she hung up, she said, ‘Oh my God, Harper. I have an appointment now. I have to go . . .’

  ‘Can’t you call and cancel?’

  ‘No. Not for this guy. He needs to see me. But I’ll come back. Right afterwards.’ She started for her car. Holding her backside and limping.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  Leslie grinned. ‘Good thing I have so much padding. I bet I’ll have some nice big bruises, but I’ll be okay.’ Suddenly, she stopped and rushed back to Harper, losing her grin. ‘Oh my, Harper. We’re so concerned about your mother’s knees and my bottom. What about you? Are you all right? The baby?’

  Harper hadn’t had a chance to assess herself yet. But she nodded. ‘We’re fine. Both of us.’

  ‘Lord. Someone threw a bomb through your window.’ She stepped close, whispered in Harper’s ear. ‘After what you told me, Harper, I’d keep an eye on Lou. In fact, maybe you should come with me?’

  ‘No, I’d better wait for the cops.’

  Promising to be back as soon as she could, Leslie gave Harper a hug, hurried to her little BMW convertible, eased herself in and drove off.

  Harper looked up the street, wondering what was taking the police so long. Then she turned toward the fraternity, saw the footprints leading out and back through the snow. The empty front porch. And suddenly, Harper was very cold.

  Even with the parka on, Harper couldn’t stop shivering. She closed her eyes, picturing what had almost happened. Her house in flames. Her flesh burned away. She’d seen what it looked like when bombs went off. Could hear men screaming, even now.

  Vivian was talking to Lou. ‘Who would do such a thing? And why? Can you believe it? And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Harper decides to tackle me. And I mean tackle. She threw me down the steps—’ She stopped, examining her knees. ‘Oh, God. Look at this. I’m all scraped up – my knees are going to be purple.’

  ‘You’ll be fine, Ma. The police will be here any second.’ Harper watched the street. ‘I’m sure they’ll bring an ambulance—’

  ‘Oh for the love of Pete,’ Lou grumbled. ‘Nothing happened. A window broke.’

  ‘Lou, someone threw a bomb into my house.’ Harper crossed her arms, fuming.

  ‘But it was a dud. Why the hell can’t we just forget about it? Leave the police out of it.’

  ‘Why are you trying to avoid the police, Lou?’

  ‘Harper! How can you ask such a thing?’ Vivian scolded. ‘Good Lord, I could use a Scotch.’

  Harper could, too. But unable to have one for several more months, she listened for sirens and thought about Lou. About why a bomb had been tossed into her dining room. About what would have happened if it had gone off.

  Gazing at the fraternity, Harper had another idea. ‘When did those boys leave, Ma?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This morning. How long did those two guys stay after Leslie came over?’

  ‘Oh, they left right away. Right after Lou wrapped up their cookies.’

  ‘And did you see where they went?’

  ‘No.’ Vivian frowned. ‘Why would I? What’s your point?’

  ‘Yeah, what are you getting at?’ Lou leaned forward, elbows on his knees. ‘Are you saying you think that they’re the ones who threw the bomb? Why would you think that?’

  Harper didn’t know why. But suddenly, she suspected it. Wasn’t it a big coincidence that they’d come over for the first time that morning and that, as soon as they’d left, a home-made explosive device had come crashing through the window? In fact, maybe they’d come over simply to see the layout of the house to decide where to throw it.

  ‘No way.’ Lou’s growl was low. ‘Why would they? Besides, those guys are too soft. They wouldn’t get their hands dirty building a bomb. If they even knew how to go about it. Which they wouldn’t. You think that’s what they teach at a fancy place like Cornell? How to blow up houses?’

  ‘You can get the recipe on the Internet.’ Harper rubbed her hands, trying to warm up.

  ‘They’re not the type.’

&nb
sp; ‘No? I think they are. I think those two are hiding some—’

  ‘No,’ Lou barked. ‘You’re getting it all wrong.’ He stood up, faced Harper, then Vivian. ‘The finger pointing at innocent people stops right now. Listen. I’m going to hurry up and tell you this before the cops get here. But what I say stays between us three.’ He stopped. Cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry, Vivian.’ He looked at the floor. ‘I haven’t been completely honest with you. I have a confession to make.’

  Lou’s eyes darted around as he told them about the unhappy former clients who’d been tracking him, threatening him because of some lost goods.

  Harper didn’t buy it. Not with the money and gun in Lou’s room, his story about Ed Strunk skimming cash, and Rita’s phone call warning of a hit. Besides, what kind of unhappy clients employed bombs instead of lawyers?

  ‘My trucks haul all kinds of cargo. We take everything everywhere. Some cartons apparently got lost in transit.’

  ‘Cartons.’ Harper echoed. ‘Weren’t they insured?’

  ‘Well, yes, but . . .’ Again, Lou cleared his throat. ‘We don’t actually check the contents of shipments. They were insured for paper goods. But it turns out these guys were using my trucks to move cash—’

  ‘Oh, Lou!’ Vivian covered her mouth, swooning.

  Harper watched her and stopped breathing; she’d seen that same swoon before. A memory surfaced: Her father’s hands locked in cuffs, the police taking him away.

  ‘Anyway, they blame me for their money going missing. Even though I had nothing to do with—’

  ‘Bull. That’s the money you said was Ed’s? The money in your room?’

  Lou gaped at her.

  ‘What money?’ Vivian did, too.

  ‘That money. That money has nothing to do with this.’

  Harper just looked at him.

  ‘Harper!’ Vivian scolded. ‘Wait. Are you saying you snooped in—?’

  ‘It’s my house,’ Harper said flatly. ‘I have a right to know who and what is in it. Is that their money?’