by Stuart, Anne
“You really did rip off the old ladies at the apartments?”
“Of course. You needn’t be so disapproving.” Leona was sitting opposite her, the gun in one tiny little hand, a mug of instant coffee in the other. It was the first time Sybil had ever seen her drink coffee, but then, she’d never seen her hold a gun, either. It was a day for surprises. “I always left them enough to live on. None of them will want for anything. They just won’t have enough to leave their children.”
“Don’t you think that’s fairly rotten?”
“Not at all. The children never visit; they set their widowed mothers up in nursing homes and rest homes and retirement apartments and wait for them to die so they can cash in. Why should they get the money when they can’t even come to see the old ladies?”
“Very touching, Leona,” she said cynically. “But Mary Philbert’s children come every weekend; they take her everywhere, even on their summer vacations. As a matter of fact, she used to wish they’d leave her alone. And you ripped her off, just like the others.”
Leona shrugged her plump little shoulders. “What can I say? When it comes right down to it, I’m a rotten human being.”
“You won’t get an argument from me on that one,” Sybil mumbled. “Are you going to kill me?”
“Heavens, no! I don’t hold with physical violence. I’m simply going to keep you here until it’s safe to let you go. When Nick starts looking for you he’ll find a note at your house, telling him to sit tight and keep his mouth shut or they’ll find your body in the spring.”
“I thought you said you don’t hold with physical violence,” Sybil said, leaning back in the wicker chair. The mantel, like the mantels in half the summer cottages, was cluttered with golf tees, cross-country skiing wax, melted candles, sprung mousetraps and golf trophies. Old Mr. Barrington had won more than his share—there were cups and platters and even statues, all black and tarnished and forlorn-looking. Sybil eyed them wistfully.
“It’s an empty threat,” Leona said, and Sybil wished she could believe her. “You see, my husband comes up for parole in a couple of days. We need everything peaceful and quiet until that goes through. Then I’ll meet him in Canada and we’ll live quite happily on the money I’ve been making.”
“I thought your husband was dead.”
“You also thought I was a nice person and your professor a danger. Let’s face it, Sybil, you’re not a great judge of character.”
There was the quiet sound of teeth grinding, and then Sybil smiled. If there were only some way she could edge closer to the mantel and the nice heavy trophies. “So you’re going to hold me here so Nick will keep quiet until your husband gets out of jail? Then what will you do?”
“Tie you up, leave you and call Nick from the border. It’s only an hour away, Sybil. You’ll survive.”
“What if you don’t call him?”
“Then they really would find your body in the spring,” she said in a comfortable tone of voice. “Be sensible for once in your life. Swindlers are a much lower law enforcement priority than murderers. I’ll make sure your professor rescues you, whether you deserve it or not.”
“I wish I could believe you.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you do or not,” Leona murmured. “I have the gun.”
“So you do.” Sybil stretched her legs out in front of her, letting the coat slide down her lap. “I don’t suppose you feel like letting me take a nap. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“I imagine you didn’t,” she said with a nasty smirk. “You can sleep right there in that chair. It’s only eight o’clock—”
“We’ve been here six hours!”
“We’re going to be here a lot longer than that before I’m through. . . . What was that?” She swiveled around at the muffled thud outside the door, the gun pointing away for a brief moment.
Sybil didn’t dare hesitate. She leaped up, throwing her coat over Leona’s tiny figure. She grabbed a large pewter platter from the Men’s Handicap of 1978 and smashed it over Leona’s head. She kept struggling, so the Men’s Scotch Foursome cup followed suit, crumpling nicely. The gun went off, a bullet went whizzing through the coat to embed itself in the pine-paneled walls and a cloud of feathers filled the air. The Juniors’ Handicap of 1941 was the last casualty, its cup parting company with the granite base, and Leona lay still beneath the coat and the feathers.
Someone was at the door but she ignored the sound as she moved toward Leona’s motionless body, suddenly worried. She knelt down, gingerly lifting the corner of the coat, steeling herself for a gory sight. Leona lay there peacefully enough, an imminent black eye purpling her skin, her plump hand clasped loosely around the little gun. Her breathing was even and steady. With a sigh of relief Sybil stood up, when someone smashed through the door, and she was already pointing the gun at the newcomer.
It wasn’t an evil accomplice; it was Nick, looking like a panicked, angry god, and if she still harbored any doubts at whether he loved her those doubts were but to rest. She was in his arms before he moved, hurling herself at him with enough force to knock him backward onto the snowy porch.
“Are you all right?” he demanded, his hands running over her body, searching for injuries.
“Fine. I knocked the old witch out.”
“Good for you.” He kissed her, hard, fast and deep on her trembling mouth. “Now if you’d just listened to me in the first place . . . ”
“If you’re going to say I told you so,” Sybil warned, resting her head against his chest, “then the marriage is off. We’ll just live in sin the rest of our lives.”
“I won’t say I told you so.”
“Thanks.”
“Not when you already know it.”
“Nick . . .”
“Is there a telephone in this place? We need to call the police. We need to call Dulcy.”
“How did you find me? Did Dulcy know that Leona had taken me?”
“Dulcy guessed. She called me in Newton and had me hightail it back here. I think I broke the speed record.”
“I imagine you did. Thank God for Dulcy.”
“What about me?”
She grinned up at him. “Oh, I’ve been thanking God for you for weeks now, whether I knew it or not.”
“I’ll make the appropriate response to that after we call the police,” he said in a deep, sexy voice. “Where’s the telephone?”
She led him past Leona’s recumbent figure into the kitchen. “Is she okay?” Nick queried as Sybil began a tortuous leafing through the telephone directory.
“She’s fine. I clubbed her as hard as I could, but only the good die young. You want to see if the Barringtons have anything alcoholic in their cupboards while I try to find the state police?”
“Can’t you dial 911?”
“Not up in the boonies, you city slicker. Look over there.” She flipped through the thin pages, deliberately ignoring the noise in the living room, raising her voice so Nick wouldn’t hear. “Anything will do, even cooking sherry. I’ve never needed a drink so much in my entire—”
“What was that?” He whirled around, turning from the row of bottles.
“I don’t know. Maybe—”
“Damn it, she’s escaping!” Nick dove through the swinging kitchen door, with Sybil at his heels.
“Let her go, Nick,” she called after him.
He stopped on the porch, staring into the moonlit landscape, listening as the sound of a car faded into the distance. Not the rough, sturdy sound of Leona’s Pontiac. It was the elegant purr of a Jaguar disappearing into the night.
He turned to glare at the unrepentant Sybil. “She stole my car.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“But you wanted her to escape, didn’t you?”
She considered denying it, then dismissed the idea. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe as a Christmas present. So she’s a wicked old lady but I still didn’t want to see her in jail.”
“Even though she kidnapped you?”
“Even though she made a complete fool of me,” she said, moving closer and wrapping her arms around his tall, stubborn body. “So I’m stupid and sentimental. Let someone else catch her—they will soon enough. I just don’t want to be the one responsible. Not on Christmas.”
He sighed. “I’ll grant her one thing—at least she shot your damned leaking coat.”
Sybil looked over his shoulder at the feathery mess. “I like my coat!”
“You’re ridiculous, you know that?” he said gruffly, bringing his arms up around her.
“I know,” she said wearily. “Are you sure you want to marry me? Maybe you’ll regret it.”
“The only thing I regret,” he said, his hands running down the length of the red velvet dress and cupping her hips against him, “is the years I spent without you.”
“I won’t be a yuppie wife,” she warned.
“You’d be foolish to try. You’re going to terrorize the stately environs of Harvard, you’ll probably start a Cambridge branch of the Seekers of Enlightenment, I’ll be stepping over pendulums and L-rods and springer spaniels and piles of books wherever we live, and my children will all be witches.”
“Probably,” she said, loving the sound of it.
“And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Neither,” she said, “would I.” She reached up, feathering her lips across his. “Merry Christmas, Nick.”
He pulled her closer, that demonic glint in his eyes promising wonderful things. “Merry Christmas, Sybil. Let’s go home.”
“Home,” she murmured. “That sounds heavenly.” She pulled away, scooped up her shredded coat and headed for the door. “The one thing that puzzles me in all this . . .”
“One thing?” He flicked off the light and shut the door behind them, stepping out into the chilly night air.
“How did you know where to find me?”
“Dulcy told me.”
“But how did she know?”
“Someone saw you driving this way.”
“Nick, we didn’t pass anyone.”
“Well, she just used common sense.”
“Nonsense. She must have dowsed it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sybil, she couldn’t have—”
“She could have. After all, she’s a white witch.”
“I don’t care if she’s a purple witch. Besides, there are no such things as witches.”
“Have yourself a merry little Christmas,” Sybil sang. “Somehow I don’t think our troubles will be out of sight.”
He grinned at her from across the expanse of Leona’s old blue Pontiac. “Honey, they’re probably just beginning. Are you scared?”
She looked at him, her eyes clear and brown. “A little. What about you?”
“A little. Don’t worry, if I get rowdy you can always have Dulcy find a spell for me.”
“Or you can dose me with Hungarian love philtre.”
“Or maybe,” he said, “we can take care of it ourselves. Get in the car, Sybil, before I remember what happened to my Jaguar.”
“I never liked it anyway,” she murmured, climbing in.
“Do we need to stop at Dulcy’s on the way back?”
“Nope,” Sybil said with a sigh. “She’ll know everything’s all right. After all, she’s a witch.”
“She is not.”
“Is too.”
“Not.”
“Is . . .”
The End
(Please continue reading for more information)
Please visit these websites for more information about
Anne Stuart
Author’s Webpage
Facebook
Experience Anne’s other titles from Bell Bridge Books
Nightfall
Kindle
Now You See Him
Kindle
Lady Fortune
Kindle
The House Party
Kindle
Shadow Lover
Kindle
Barrett’s Hill
Kindle
Prince of Magic
Kindle
The Demon Count Novels
Kindle
The Catspaw Collection
Kindle
The Spinster and the Rake
Kindle
Break the Night
Kindle
When the Stars Fall Down
Kindle
Sign up for email updates about
Anne Stuart
(Please continue reading for more information about the author)
About the Author
ANNE STUART recently celebrated her forty years as a published author. She has won every major award in the romance field and appeared on the bestseller list of the NYTimes, Publisher’s Weekly, and USA Today, as well as being featured in Vogue, People Magazine, and Entertainment Tonight. Anne lives by a lake in the hills of Northern Vermont with her fabulous husband.
