Missing in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Christmas River Cozy Book 9)

by Meg Muldoon

  He shook his head, frustrated.

  “Maybe the safe came programed with a number,” he said.

  I rubbed my face, staring back at the small metallic box.

  Even if Daniel knew how to break open a safe, the one sitting in Wes Dulany’s closet here would have proved to be difficult to crack. I didn’t know much about safes, but this one looked more expensive and heavy-duty than most run-of-the-mill cheap ones. It would need a professional to get it open.

  Which only added to the mystery.

  What was Wes hiding in there? What could be so important?

  “We’re going to have to get a search warrant for this,” Daniel said. “I shouldn’t even be trying to do this. I’m technically trespassing here. Then we’ll need to get somebody out here to crack it. And who knows how long that’ll take.”

  He ran his hands through his dark hair.

  Discouragement was written all over his face.

  I knew it wasn’t just the safe – it was the whole thing. Daniel and Deb were right – there was a bad feeling surrounding all of this. Like we’d been trying to climb a hill of dirt in a rainstorm.

  And as the hours ticked by, it was clear that the chances of finding Wes alive were getting slimmer and slimmer.

  Daniel pulled out his phone from his back pocket and scrolled through the screen. He hit a button, and then held it up to his ear.

  “I don’t suppose Judge Zimmerman will appreciate me waking her up at this hour,” he said. “But this could be important—”

  “Wait a minute,” I said abruptly, shooting up out of the office chair I’d been sitting it. “Hang up.”

  He did as I said without questioning it, and gazed back at me with a slightly puzzled expression.

  I brushed passed him, going back over to the safe. I knelt down, then started spinning the knob.

  12-24-28.

  I turned it until it wouldn’t go any further.

  I held my breath, glancing back at Daniel for a split second. He still had that confused expression on his face.

  I hoped I wasn’t making a fool of myself with this wild guess.

  As if sensing my hesitancy, Daniel nodded at me, reassuringly.

  “Give it a try,” he said.

  I pulled the lever, my palms perspiring.

  There was a clicking sound. And then a loud, pressurized pop.

  My mouth fell open.

  It had worked.

  It had actually worked.

  “I’ll be damned,” Daniel said in disbelief.

  He was clearly as surprised as I was.

  “How’d you know, Cin?”

  It took me a moment to answer – I was still in shock that my hair-brained, one-in-a-million idea had worked.

  “It was the date that Christmas Flynn first laid eyes on Lillian Reynolds,” I said, breathlessly. “At a Christmas Eve dance in Missouri in 1928.”

  I’d read about it earlier that evening in the history book I’d borrowed from Daniel’s nightstand.

  My husband’s eyebrows lifted into an expression of utter surprise.

  “But how did you…?”

  He trailed off.

  “I can read, you know,” I said, smiling slightly.

  He was speechless. But the look in his eyes said it all.

  He was beyond impressed.

  And seeing that filled me with a kind of warm, cozy feeling I couldn’t quite describe.

  It wasn’t every day that you impressed the county sheriff with your safe cracking skills.

  “Well, I’ll be damned, Cin,” he said, again, dropping down next to me. “I don’t know what to say. Except that I’m sure glad you followed me here tonight.”

  I felt his eyes studying me intensely.

  “You want to open it?” he asked.

  I nodded, swallowing hard. My hand trembled as I reached for the lever again. I found that I was a little breathless with the excitement of it all.

  I pulled gently and the door of the safe swung open.

  Daniel and I both held our breath as we peered into the dark, cavernous box.

  Something inside caught the light and sparkled.

  Chapter 36

  I stared down at the large saucepan, numbly watching as the apple slices browned and bubbled in a rich coat of butter, brown sugar, and whiskey. I stirred them occasionally, but I wasn’t thinking much about the batch of Whiskey Apple pies I was making or the Sweet Potato Maple Swirl pies that were in the oven and were perfuming the kitchen with a warm, toasty aroma.

  My mind was far, far away.

  Over 80 years away, in fact.

  Love is at the core, Lillian. Love is the light in the darkness…

  I tested the apples with the back of the wooden spoon. They were no longer firm – but they weren’t mushy, either. Just right for making pies. So I turned off the stove, pushed the saucepan to another burner to cool, and then went over to the coffee pot in the corner. I poured myself a big mug of the strong stuff and stared out the open back door at the woods.

  When we’d opened the safe in the early morning hours, I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting to find. I’d thought that maybe we’d find some money. Or maybe some valuable family heirlooms of some sort that Wes had inherited when his father passed.

  But in the end, there were only two items in Wes Dulany’s safe:

  A single gold coin – an extremely rare one that had been manufactured in the mid-1800s.

  And a faded letter that was so old, it seemed like a light breeze might cause it to disintegrate into ash.

  At face value, neither one appeared to be worth the heavy-duty, reinforced safe that Wes had put them in.

  But after studying them closer, it became evident why he’d kept them there.

  If it really was true, and the items were really authentic, then Wes Dulany had done something that no other Christmas Flynn treasure hunter – at least to anybody’s knowledge – had done.

  He’d found not only a small piece of the supposed bank robbery fortune.

  But he’d also found one of the legendary, long-lost love letters that Christmas Flynn had sent to Lillian.

  Though the gold coin was intriguing, for me, the letter had been the more interesting of the two. It was unusual, but moving at the same time, providing a very real snapshot into Christmas Flynn’s personality. Much of it seemed to be written as a free-verse poem, and spoke to how much he loved Lillian. And how much anguish he’d felt being away from her.

  But while the contents of the safe were plenty to spark the imagination and had been exciting to find, there was one thing that had become abundantly clear the evening before:

  We weren’t any closer to finding Wes. And the contents of the safe left us right where we were before – with practically nothing to go on and—

  “Well, I don’t see how you could go wrong with a flavor like that, my love. I mean, you said that was your very favorite cake flavor, didn’t you? So why can’t we have it at the wedding?”

  “I don’t know, Toby. I think having an entire peanut butter banana wedding cake might not go over so well with our guests. It’s unusual, and besides, what if someone’s allergic to peanuts? Cinnamon – please tell my fiancé that we have to think of our guests and that peanut butter banana cake will be too controversial.”

  I turned around. Tiana and Tobias had come through the swinging divider door into the kitchen, carrying various bags and jackets and hanging them up on the coat rack in the corner.

  I forced a tired smile.

  “Well, you’re right, Tiana,” I said. “It is good to think of your guests when planning the food at the reception.”

  I glanced at Tobias, who looked just slightly crestfallen by my response.

  “But it is your wedding, and everybody is there to celebrate the two of you after all,” I said. “I think Tobias is right, too – it’s only fair to have at least some of the wedding cake in your favorite flavor.”

  Tobias grinned.

  “See, hon?” he
said. “I was right.”

  Tiana let out a slightly exasperated sigh. But I could tell she wasn’t as put out as she pretended to be.

  In fact, I think that deep down, she was touched by the fact that Tobias was fighting so hard on behalf of her favorite cake flavor.

  “Okay,” she said. “We can have one layer of peanut butter banana. The smallest layer at the top of the cake. And the rest will be something like vanilla or chocolate – something everybody likes. ”

  Tobias chuckled and kissed his fiancée’s hand.

  “I knew you’d see things my way, love bug.”

  Her cheeks turned red.

  He went back over to the coat rack, pulling down an apron and tying it around his waist.

  “I suppose it’s opening time, isn’t it, Cin?”

  He still hesitated slightly when he called me by my name, but I was pleased to hear that it was becoming easier for him to use.

  “I’d say so, Tobias,” I said.

  He headed out of the kitchen, disappearing through the swinging divider doors.

  When he left, Tiana slid her apron over her head and came over to me.

  “Is there any news about Wes?” she asked, a hopeful expression lighting up her features.

  I shook my head.

  “Nothing yet,” I said sighing. “But we’re all hoping they’ll have a breakthrough today.”

  I didn’t mention anything about being at Wes’s house early this morning, or the safe, or the old love letter, or the gold coin.

  “And what about his wife Angie? Has her condition improved any?”

  I shook my head again.

  Before work, I’d stopped by the hospital to check on Angie. Her mother had been curled up, asleep on one of the hospital waiting room chairs. Deb had been asleep next to her, a pile of used Kleenex on the coffee table in front of them. I hadn’t wanted to wake either of them up, but Deb heard me and opened her eyes. There’d been no change in Angie’s condition, she’d said.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Tiana muttered, shaking her head. “Do they know how the poor thing might have gotten so badly injured out there?”

  “No, not for sure” I said. “But Daniel thinks she must have fallen off of a cliff or—”

  Tiana’s eyes suddenly bulged larger than monster tires and my breath caught violently in my throat.

  The sound of shattering glass ripped through my pie shop like a runaway train.

  Chapter 37

  “I… uh… I don’t know, miss. I think… I think so. But I don’t…”

  He was pale and his hands were shaking like leaves clinging to a branch in a mean autumn gust.

  I clutched his hands and led him over to one of the booths, navigating through a minefield of shattered glass scattered across the dining room floor. I checked the booth for any shards, and when I saw that it was clear, I helped him sit down.

  I couldn’t believe what had just happened.

  My eyes fell on the large, ugly brick sitting in the pile of broken glass, and I felt the honey-drizzled toast I’d had for breakfast start to crawl up the back of my throat.

  “Oh my God!” Tiana wailed, skirting the broken glass and rushing up to Tobias. “Honey, are you hurt? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

  She clasped a hand over her mouth.

  Her face was as ashen-colored as her fiancé’s.

  I turned my attention back to Tobias – I noticed several small streaks of dark liquid trickling down his arms.

  “Okay, Tobias,” I said, rummaging around in my apron pocket with trembling hands. “Okay. Just sit tight. Just sit…”

  I hit the three numbers on my phone and held it up to my ear. I was shaking nearly as badly as he was.

  “I had just unlocked the front door…” he mumbled. “I had just… and I was walking back over to the register when…”

  “9-1-1, please state your emergency,” a woman’s voice sounded from the other side of the line.

  My mouth was so dry that although I was trying to speak, nothing was coming out.

  “What’s your emergency?” the operator said a second time.

  I finally found my voice, but it came out weak and scared.

  “I’m calling from Cinnamon’s Pies downtown,” I said. “Somebody’s… someone’s thrown a brick through the front window.”

  Tobias closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against a trembling fist.

  Chapter 38

  I felt worse than if the brick had hit me instead of the pie shop’s front window.

  In fact, if I could have been the one in the dining room instead of Tobias when the brick came crashing through, I would have traded places with him in a heartbeat.

  I couldn’t get the look on his face out of my mind. He’d been completely shell-shocked. And though his physical wounds were minor – just a few cuts on the back of his arms from the shattered glass – I knew that the injuries were more than just physical.

  Most people would have been jarred by what happened if they were in Tobias’s shoes. But I was more concerned about him than I would be about most people. A Marine Corps veteran, I knew that Tobias had come home from his time in the service with a few scars on his soul. He’d developed a problem with alcohol shortly after returning home, and had found himself on the streets not long after. These past few years, he’d done an admirable job of piecing his life back together. He stopped drinking, worked hard at the pie shop, and even volunteered at the local homeless shelter in his free time. He’d even managed to open up his heart again, finding love and finally believing that he deserved to be happy.

  And though I knew he would probably be able to handle something like this, a small part of me was worried. He had looked so shaken and so scared. And even though I knew I wasn’t responsible for what happened, I also couldn’t help but feel rotten about it all. Really, really rotten.

  Who would do such a thing? Was it a random incident? Or had it been purposeful? Something aimed at my shop – at me? A message of some sort?

  I wasn’t going to lie – I’d made a few enemies over the years. It was hard not to when you were the wife of the county sheriff. But I couldn’t think of anything I’d been involved in lately that would warrant such a violent response.

  I shuddered just thinking about it all – about who could hate me so much that they felt the need to throw a brick through my window.

  “Now drink all of this, Cin,” Kara said, setting down a steaming mug of what smelled like spearmint and chamomile tea. “It’ll help with the nerves. And let me know if you need something a little stronger. You’ve got bourbon in the cupboard for those Apple Whiskey pies you make, right?”

  I nodded, taking a sip of the hot tea. It burned the back of my mouth slightly as is went down, but it felt comforting.

  “Do you want some of that bourbon?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  Kara placed a hand on my shoulder, peering at me with one of those troubled expressions that she got occasionally when something happened to somebody she loved. When Laila Mae tripped over a curb or John came down with a cold or I had something troubling me.

  “I’m so sorry this happened to you,” she said. “I mean, it’s unbelievable, Cin. Who would do such a mean-spirited thing?”

  I felt some more tremors rising up from my chest, the way they had been all morning.

  “I’ve been asking myself that same question,” I said. “That’s all I can think about. What I could have possibly done to make somebody…”

  I trailed off, swallowing hard. My throat as dry as a gravel pit.

  Maybe I was taking it too personally. But it was hard not to. Somebody throwing a brick through your shop window was pretty damn personal, all right.

  But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to figure out who would want to do that to me. True – I had a history of getting involved in things I probably should have just left alone. But the only thing recently that I had done that could remotely be controversial in any kind of
way was…

  I rubbed my chin.

  But, no. That was silly to even consider. That what Daniel and I had found in Wes’s safe last night could have anything to do with what happened this morning. How could those two separate incidences possibly connect?

  “It’s all right, Cin,” Kara said in a soothing voice, patting me on the shoulder. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  She’d known me long enough by now to understand just how my mind worked, and that something like this would cause me to over-analyze and speculate to no end about the reasons why this happened.

  “It’s not your fault, Cin. Okay? Whoever did this, whatever their reasons, really has got nothing at all to do with you. It’s their problem. And when Daniel finds the bastard responsible, you guys are going to sue the living daylights out of him and get the window paid for. Okay? So nothing to worry about, hon. Nothing at all.”

  I nodded, bringing the cup of tea back up to my lips.

  My hands were still shaking. And though Kara was doing her best to make me feel better, the money wasn’t the thing that I was most concerned about.

  “So Tobias didn’t see anything?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “No,” I said. “He thinks he saw a man pass by when he unlocked the door, but he couldn’t give Daniel a description. Said he only got a passing glance.”

  Tiana and Tobias had gone home after a few hours of talking to the local police, and the pie shop was now closed. As of now, I didn’t know when we would reopen.

  Daniel had stayed here at the shop for several hours after it had happened, too. He almost took the day off to stay with me, but I refused to let him do that – I knew his time could be spent better elsewhere. There were more pressing matters at hand for him. He had court again today, and I knew that every spare minute he had should be directed at finding Wes.

  And besides, I was lucky enough to have a best friend who had dropped everything the second she’d heard what had happened to come over and make me some tea.