So This is Christmas: The Adrien English Mysteries

by Josh Lanyon

“I know.”

  I laughed. “And that’s what worries you?”

  His lips tugged into a reluctant smile. “No.”

  I tipped my head. “Come on, let’s meet them halfway. If it doesn’t work out, well, next year we do something else for New Year’s. Something that doesn’t involve broken beer bottles and jail time for your mom.”

  He snorted. Picked up his coffee cup. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Don’t think about it toooo loooong,” I trilled softly. “I have to pick my outfit and get my hair done!”

  Jake choked on his coffee.

  Chapter Eleven

  I don’t think I really believed we would find the car.

  For some reason, I had started to suspect Ivor had, in the words of me dear old mum, “pulled a runner.”

  Even though, looking at it logically, an accident was the obvious explanation, the most likely explanation, when I did spot the smashed and splintered end of that guard rail, it seemed unreal.

  “Go back,” I told Jake. “Turn around and go back.”

  We had to drive on for a couple of miles before we could find a turnout. Jake hung a neat three-point turn, and we started down the road again.

  “There.” I pointed. He pulled as far to the side as he could, turned his hazards on, and we crossed the road.

  There were no skid marks, which was why I’d nearly missed it the first time. The guard rail was one of those old wooden ones, and the very end had been clipped off—also making it easy to overlook. The scrub and shrubs around it had been ripped out of the ground, and there were deep tracks where tires had churned through the mud on their way over the edge.

  The tracks had dried hard but were starting to soften in the rain pelting down from the huge cumulus clouds overhead.

  “Jesus.”

  Rain? Those fat, sleety drops threatened to freeze into actual snow. There were still patches of snow from the last storm in the shade along the side of the road, and the silence was so profound it seemed to swallow all sound as we stood there.

  Not all sound. I could hear the patter of rain, and the waterproof crinkle of our coats.

  Snow and pine trees. Four days after Christmas it smelled more like Christmas than Christmas had.

  I hoped whoever had gone over the edge had walked away, but that didn’t seem likely.

  Jake scanned the steep hillside with his binoculars.

  “Do you see anything?”

  He shook his head.

  I ran my fingers over the bare, splintered edge of the guardrail. Impossible to know when that had happened, but it looked relatively fresh to me. If a car crashed through, the driver would only have a minute or two—slightly over a hundred yards of a muddy, grassy slope in—which to try and save himself. Then the shelf of grass and trees fell away in a much steeper drop. A hell of a way down, judging by the frozen clack and clatter of pebbles scattering down the hillside.

  “There,” Jake said suddenly. He unlooped his binoculars and handed them to me. “Nine o’clock. There’s a glint of turquoise beneath those sugar pines.”

  I trained the binoculars in the direction he’d indicated and caught the glint of metallic blue beneath the branches. It was just about to the edge of the grassy slope. The tall pines had prevented the car from sliding off the shelf of rock and soil and plummeting to whatever lay below. “Got it.”

  Jake was already walking into the road, looking for landmarks as he tried to phone for help.

  “He might have made it out,” I said. “It’s not that steep from down there to here. Or he might have been thrown out of the car too.”

  Or he could be sitting behind the steering wheel, dead for the past four days.

  Jake swore. “I’m not getting enough signal.”

  I checked my phone. Shook my head.

  He came to stand with me at the guard rail. “It might be an old wreck. I need to make sure it’s not, before I drag emergency services up here. It’s best if you stay up top to flag—”

  “Save your strength for the climb,” I interrupted. “You know as well as I do that you going down there on your own is a bad idea.”

  “I don’t want you trying to make that climb.” Flat and uncompromising.

  It was sort of sweet, that innocent belief that he would deliver his commands and I would obey.

  “I know you don’t,” I said. “And I don’t want you trying to make that climb either. Although it’s more of a hike than a climb. But we’re both going. See, this is where all those god-awful breakfast smoothies and evening walks and other heart-healthy behaviors come in. There is no reason I can’t hike down there. It’s not that much of a trek, and I’m fully capable of making it—with or without you.”

  “Adrien, I’m not—”

  “Jake.”

  He shut up.

  “You’re not going to win this one, so quit wasting time.” I walked around the end of the barrier and started down the slope.

  I didn’t look back, but I heard the crunch of his boots behind me. If it was possible to convey disapproval with footsteps, he was doing it.

  In fairness, it was a tougher hike than it looked. And the patches of snow and ice made it more challenging still. But it was well within my capabilities, and definitely preferable to waiting at the top without a clue as to what was happening. The grass gave a dead, frozen bite beneath our boots. The sleety rain stung my skin.

  The car, a turquoise blue Kia Forte, was situated roughly one hundred feet from the road.

  Jake said, “It’s his license plate.”

  Pretty unlikely it could be a different turquoise blue Kia Forte, but still my heart sank.

  We could see from the tire tracks where it had jumped the berm, slammed down, and then slithered and fishtailed its way into a stand of tall sugar pines.

  Studying those snaking grooves of tire tracks, I asked Jake, “Do you think he was still in control of the car?”

  “No skid marks. So he either went over deliberately, or he fell asleep. I’m guessing he fell asleep.”

  As we reached the car, I saw through the broken glass that there was a figure slumped over the steering wheel.

  “Shit,” Jake muttered, moving past me.

  My legs felt suddenly wobbly, and I had to steady myself on the nearest tree trunk.

  What had I expected? A belated Christmas miracle? The minute we spotted the car, Ivor’s fate was a foregone conclusion.

  I leaned back against the tree and took a couple of bracing lungfuls of clean mountain air. Poor Kevin. How the hell were we going to tell him?

  What a horrible end to the holidays. To the year. To a life.

  Overhead, the wind made a ghostly sound through the tree branches.

  Jake was still leaning in the car, checking for whatever he was checking. “Hey, Adrien,” he said, and his voice sounded odd. “This guy’s alive.”

  “What?”

  He ducked out of the car and stared at me. His eyes were so bright they looked green. “I’m getting a pulse. Not much. But he’s hanging on.”

  “For four days?”

  Jake assented. “We’ve got to get him help.”

  “Yes. Right.”

  “We can’t call out. One of us has to go.”

  I knew what he was saying. If somebody had to go, then somebody had to stay. And Jake, police academy trained, was the better driver and the person best equipped to get help fast.

  “I’ll stay.”

  I could see the relief in his eyes. And the worry.

  He moved away from the car and rested his hands on my shoulders. “It’s going to be at least an hour. Probably longer. He’s circling the drain now. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry to do this to you.”

  “Go,” I said impatiently, because sympathy made it worse, and Ivor was the guy who deserved it, anyway. “I can handle this.”

  Jake squeezed my shoulders and took off at a jog up the slope. Not that I’d ever had a doubt who was in better
shape, but…

  After a moment, I braced for the worst and turned to look in the car. Good thing breakfast had been so long ago because the smell was unholy. Mostly it was blood. There was a lot more blood than I had expected. To add to the horror movie ambiance, a bone stuck out of Ivor’s thigh.

  I had to back away and gulp a couple more breaths of that pure mountain air. I took another look at Ivor. His face was a mass of dried blood and bruises, and he was covered in white powder, which I took at first to be snow, then realized it was from his air bag going off.

  Footsteps pounded toward me. I straightened up, and Jake delivered an armload of stuff to me. A blanket, bottles of water, and a tan canvas bag which probably contained a first aid kit, and which I was not about to try and use. This guy had enough problems without me trying to play doctor.

  Jake was breathing hard, but he locked a hand around my neck, kissed me, and without saying a word, sprinted off again.

  Here was a salutary lesson about keeping emergency supplies in your car. My emergency supplies consisted of a sweatshirt, a flashlight, a bottle of Evian, and a four-year-old Kind bar. Granted, I’d never been a Boy Scout.

  I shook the folds out of the blanket and tried to tuck it very carefully around Ivor. He never moved. In fact, I couldn’t tell if he was still breathing. I picked up his hand, and it was cold. Granted, it was cold out.

  I knelt down in the damp pine needles beside the open door, and still holding his hand, began to talk to him.

  “Ivor? I don’t know if you can hear me. And waking you up right now is probably not a good idea. But you’ve got to hang on. No matter how much it hurts. No matter how scared you are. People care about you. Kevin cares about you.”

  I fell silent at the sound of a car engine disappearing into the vast and windswept distance.

  This poor bastard. To wind up with me at his deathbed? Jesus.

  I’d had Jake.

  That had been one heck of a consolation prize. It had also been the reason I’d decided to live.

  I steadied myself, gave Ivor’s icy hand another squeeze. Tried not to look at that bone sticking up a few inches from my face. “Listen to me, Ivor. You can do this. You’re the only one who can do this. You can make it back. I’ve been in this same place. Well, it was actually the ocean, but same thing. Life-threatening injuries and everybody thinking you’re dying. Don’t do it. Don’t let go. Come home. Come home to Kevin. He’s waiting for you. Everything you want is on this side…”

  I must have talked—babbled—for ninety minutes straight before help finally, finally arrived. When it did show up, it came in a fleet of trucks with screaming sirens. I could have cried with relief. Maybe I didn’t really know Ivor, but I was starting to take his survival personally.

  Jake was first across the grassy slope.

  I so stiff by then, I could barely stand. Jake helped me to my feet and wrapped his arm around me.

  “You okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Is he—”

  “I don’t know. I thought for a while he might be. But…I don’t know.”

  We scrambled out of the way of the emergency services team, waiting and watching as the paramedics worked over Ivor for a few moments. Then one of them backed out of the wreckage and yelled, “We’ve got a pulse! He’s alive!”

  * * * * *

  Within the hour Ivor was airlifted to a trauma center in Modesto.

  Jake and I rendezvoused there with Kevin, and we all waited to hear whether Ivor would survive. The injuries sustained in the crash, though serious, were not life-threatening in themselves, but exposure, dehydration, and shock had left him in critical and unstable condition.

  Kevin was in rough shape, and it just wasn’t in me to leave him to face that wait alone.

  “Hell, yeah, we’ll wait with him,” Jake said when stepped out to get coffee.

  By the end of day on Thursday, the entire Arbuckle clan had flown into Modesto to gather at Ivor’s bedside, and while relations with Kevin were not cordial, no one tried to get him to leave or seemed to believe he didn’t have a right to be there. A truce seemed to have been struck. At least during the interim of waiting to hear whether Ivor would live or die.

  The Arbuckles paid Jake for his services. One thing in their favor: they were not cheap. They granted him a bonus on top of his regular fee, recognizing that he had gone the extra mile. In fact, he had gone the extra three hundred and forty-two miles.

  Mrs. Arbuckle asked me to send her regards to Lisa. Terrill pretended we had never been properly introduced.

  So that was Thursday.

  Which pretty much also described Friday—and Friday night. In between giving Kevin pep talks, I spoke to Natalie, who was phoning me with regular and slightly alarming updates from Cloak and Dagger. As predicted, Warren believed she should get rid of the baby ASAP. Angus believed they should get married immediately, even if the baby didn’t turn out to be his.

  “Please don’t rush into making any decisions,” I pleaded. “There’s plenty of time to figure this out.”

  To my astonishment, she agreed. “I know. I have to think for two now.”

  “Well, yes. That’s right.”

  “Which reminds me. When you get back down here, can you pick up some more of those Laceys cookies? They’re the only thing I can eat right now.”

  “Yes. I can do that.”

  “When are you coming back? Do I have to spend another weekend doggy-watching? Should I leave Mr. Tomkins at the store or do I bring him home to Porter Ranch?”

  “It depends on what happens up here. I’m hoping we’ll know by this evening.”

  “He misses you. Mr. Tomkins, I mean. He’s started sleeping on your desk.”

  “Just like me.”

  She giggled, which was kind of a relief. To hear someone laugh again.

  Angus also phoned. He was not laughing. He wanted me to convince Natalie that they needed to get married as soon as possible.

  “Look, you didn’t think your relationship was any of my business before, so don’t try to drag me into it now,” I replied. “This is between you and Natalie. Besides which, you don’t even know if this baby is yours.”

  “I don’t care. I still want to marry her. I told you I loved her.”

  I sighed. “I repeat, that’s between you and Nat. I don’t believe rushing into anything is a good idea though.”

  Lisa also had a choice thing or two to say about the den of iniquity disguised as a bookstore I was running.

  “You’re the one who insisted she come and work for me,” I reminded her. “Anyway, it’s even odds that rock band reject Warren knocked her up. My money’s on him.”

  “Please don’t use the phrase ‘knocked up’ when speaking of your sister.”

  “Just saying. I’m running a bookstore, not a dating service. Everybody involved in this is a consenting adult. Well, except the baby. Poor little germ.”

  Emma, who I managed to FaceTime with while Famille Dauten waited for their connecting flight in Amsterdam, was the one person who was unreservedly joyful about Natalie’s pregnancy. She was thrilled at the idea of being an aunt and busily picking out baby names. The top contenders appeared to be Boris for a boy baby and Scout for a girl.

  “That’s going to be really confusing if she’s got the same name as my dog,” I objected.

  Emma was unmoved. She pointed out that they would probably not share a birthday, and therefore there would be no problem with conflicting birthday cakes.

  I know when I’m beaten.

  Toward dawn on Saturday, Kevin got the news that the doctors believed Ivor had turned the corner. He had regained consciousness and was asking for Kevin.

  While the hospital staff remained guardedly optimistic, Kevin was jubilant.

  “He was coming home,” Kevin told us after the bedside reunion. “He wanted to spend Christmas together. He said spending that time with his family clarified his feelings. He wanted to be with me.” Kevin’s eyes were wet.
“I know we’re going to be okay.”

  Hopefully. Ivor had some pretty serious injuries and a long road to recovery, but having the right person at your side could make all the difference.

  I glanced at Jake and found he was studying me with a thoughtful expression. I smiled and he smiled, but I could tell something was on his mind.

  It took me awhile to remember what that something might be.

  “You know, we weren’t so far from Pine Shadow,” Jake said after we’d made our good-byes and headed for the freeway.

  “I know. It would have been nice to spend some time up there again.”

  He glanced at me. “It’s not too late. We could turn around and head back. We could celebrate New Year’s at the ranch and spend a nice, quiet weekend up there.”

  Yes. Perfect. The perfect way to start the New Year. In the place where I had first acknowledged that I loved Jake. And had suspected he even cared for me too. A couple of days of peace and quiet. Just me and Jake and a healthy distance from everyone else’s problems.

  “I would love that. Let’s make a plan and let’s do it,” I said. “But not tonight and not this weekend. We’ve got a New Year’s Eve party to attend.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “You know, you don’t have to go,” Jake said as we were dressing for his parents’ New Year’s Eve party.

  It was the second time he’d said it, and I paused in knotting my tie. “Do you not want me to go?” I wasn’t angry or hurt or anything other than concerned that this evening be what Jake needed it to be. Not like I was exactly looking forward to being the star attraction at the family freak show.

  “Of course I want you there. But…we’re Irish. We get drunk and say stupid things. I can’t guarantee that someone there tonight won’t say something stupid.”

  It was tempting to answer, “I’m English. We stay sober, kick ass, and enslave your lot for eight hundred years.” That would not have reduced his stress level any. I finished knotting my tie, assessing the results.

  The white and red candy cane tie—a gift from Lauren—made the Hugo Boss blazer and black jeans look less like I was going to a funeral.

  “It’s okay, Jake. I’m not going to have a heart attack if someone is rude to me. I work in retail, remember? Let’s go into it with a positive attitude.”