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

by Meg Muldoon

  I knew that though he’d tried many a pie since then, the Pumpkin Gingersnap was still his all-time favorite.

  “I know this doesn’t help much,” I said, folding a sheet of plastic wrap over the pie. “I know not much does with this kind of thing. But, uh, I hope maybe it’ll help a little. And I just want you to know that I think you deserve the very best. And I just hope…”

  I swallowed hard, looking back up at him.

  “I just hope you don’t let this stop you from finding someone,” I continued. “Because you’re a really good man, Tobias. And you deserve someone who appreciates that.”

  I held out the pie, placing it in his hands.

  I wasn’t any fool. I knew a pie could only go so far in healing somebody’s broken heart.

  But I had to believe that it couldn’t hurt, either.

  “I, uh…”

  Tobias started, but he stopped.

  He seemed overcome with emotion.

  He cleared his throat, looking back at me, forcing a pained smile. The effort causing deep crow’s feet to appear at the edges of his eyes.

  He started saying something else, but then stopped again.

  I placed a hand on his arm and squeezed it.

  He didn’t need to say anything. I understood.

  “Just call me if you need something,” I said. “I really mean that.”

  He finally nodded, then grabbed his jacket off the coat rack.

  When he left, I stood in the back of the kitchen, gazing out at the darkening woods.

  And I cried for a long, long time.

  A lot had been lost this September.

  And a lot more had been broken in this shop than just the dining room window.

  Chapter 59

  A few days later, I closed the pie shop up early and took a stroll down to Meadow Plaza.

  I dug my hands into the pockets of my pumpkin-colored corduroy jacket, and let Chadwick and Huckleberry trot on out ahead of me along the cozy streets. The tourists had all but abandoned Christmas River for the time being, leaving behind locals and a sense of peace and quiet throughout downtown.

  The air was crisp, and all around, flame-tipped leaves were starting to fall and drift down from the aspens. The sun was warm, but the air was cool. In the distance, Mt. Charity rose up, covered in a thick layer of snow. I knew it was only a matter of time before the town was, too.

  When I got to the plaza, I stopped at The Christmas River Coffee Shack and ordered two regular coffees. Then I found a bench beneath one of those colorful, quaking aspens, and I took a seat. And, after a few minutes of sniffing around, Huckleberry and Chadwick settled down and lay at my feet, happily warming themselves on the plaza’s cobblestone bricks.

  I drew in a deep breath, looking around. Watching as a couple of kids – what looked to be two brothers probably no older than 12 – pass in front of me with a black and white collie. The two kids were gesturing wildly with their hands and walking fast, seemingly wrapped up in a heated conversation about a video game.

  I found myself smiling as they passed.

  Wes had been released from the hospital, and was staying in our extra guest room at the house for a few weeks. Deb didn’t have an extra room in her house, and since we had so much space, I thought it only right. Because even though Wes had been well enough to be discharged from the hospital, the physical wounds were only half the issue. There was more to it. Nearly dying in a dark cave, thinking you might not ever see your loved ones again, was something hard to move on from. Not to mention the fact that one of your best friends tried to kill you over some gold coins.

  Or that your wife had stopped speaking to you.

  Or that the thing you’d been obsessing over for years and years had turned to dust before your very eyes.

  And even though Wes pretended to be okay, the emotional injuries were obviously there. He didn’t smile as much. He’d shaved off his trademark beard. He didn’t crack jokes anymore. Those bright blue eyes of his had lost their luster. And most of the time, he seemed to be faraway and lost in deep thought, even when he was sitting there with you.

  He couldn’t be by himself the way that he was. And I figured that some homemade meals and a break from the haphazard and half-finished rooms of his father’s old house would be a welcome change of pace.

  I caught a glimpse of her as she rounded the edge of the plaza, coming from the south side of downtown. She walked slowly and deliberately. A woman who obviously wasn’t 100-percent healthy. Large sunglasses obscured her eyes. And her red hair hung around her face in an unkempt mess – looking nearly as bad as it had at the hospital when we’d seen her last.

  But I was sure that after what she’d been through, Angie Dulany wasn’t all that concerned about her appearance.

  I stood up and waved, catching her attention from across the plaza. She didn’t wave back, but I knew she’d seen me by the way she changed direction.

  Angie had been released from the hospital several days earlier. Daniel and I had showed up with flowers and a cake the day she was released, but we’d missed her by several hours. The nurses said her mom had taken her home early that morning without telling anyone.

  It had been almost as if Angie hadn’t wanted to see anybody. Least of all Wes, who she’d been refusing to talk to.

  None of us had heard anything from her since. But then, out of the blue, she’d called me this morning asking if we could meet at the plaza for coffee.

  I stood up, watching as she slowly walked over to me.

  “Angie,” I said with a warm smile. “It’s so good seeing you.”

  I reached out and gave her a gentle hug.

  Huckleberry and Chadwick lifted their heads to greet her. But she either wasn’t paying attention, or she had decided to ignore them.

  She took a seat on the bench, and I did the same. She kept her big, fly-eyed sunglasses on.

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  She shrugged.

  “Physical therapy’s a bitch,” she said, her voice scratchy and coming out barely above a whisper. “But I know I’m lucky. I know I could just as well be crippled for the rest of my life with what happened.”

  She drew in a deep breath.

  “I’m lucky to have my mom, too,” she said. “She’s been taking good care of me.”

  She smiled.

  “Maybe a little too good. I feel like I’m 16 again or something. I had to practically sneak out of the house to meet you here today. She’s got me on a very strict regimen back to health.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” I said. “She was beside herself when they first took you in. She was so worried about you.”

  Angie nodded, chewing on her lower lip.

  I wiped my palms off on my jeans.

  “You know, Angie, Daniel and I went to the hospital the day you were released. But we got there too late to see you.”

  She nodded again.

  “I just didn’t want you to think that we didn’t—”

  “No, I know you guys were there that day,” she said. “I just… I didn’t want to make a big fuss about it, you know? I hate people making fusses.”

  She stared out at the plaza. Her eyes, barely visible behind her shades, drifted over to the two boys. They were now standing with their backs to us, skipping pebbles on the surface of the Christmas River while the collie waded in the water.

  An awkward silence fell over our conversation. She swallowed nervously.

  I had a feeling we weren’t here this afternoon for idle chit-chat.

  I had a feeling that she had something she needed to get off her chest.

  Only it appeared she was having a hard time saying what she came here to say.

  “Why don’t you tell me?” I finally said in a soft voice.

  “Tell you what?” she said.

  From beneath the sunglasses, a lone tear slipped out.

  “Tell me about Kevin,” I said.

  She bit her lip and looked away sharply, as if the very ment
ion of his name was equivalent to someone stabbing her with a kitchen knife.

  Chapter 60

  Daniel had been the one to put it together first – that something was odd about Angie’s story. When she’d gotten her voice and her memory back and was finally able to tell her side of it all, Daniel said he’d had a strong suspicion that she was hiding something.

  And when she flat-out refused to talk to or see Wes at the hospital, it only went to confirm his theory.

  And now, the truth was finally coming out.

  “I wasn’t looking for someone else,” she said, lowering her head and staring down at the ground. “I never thought I’d be the kind of person who has an affair. You know? I always thought it was these insecure, morally-corrupt people who did things like that. But maybe that’s what I am. What I’ve turned out to be – one of those.”

  She had lifted up her sunglasses a moment earlier, and I could now see that her large eyes were pooling with tears. And it was clear from how red they were that this wasn’t the first time she’d cried today.

  “But he’s just been so self-absorbed these past couple of years,” she said. “That treasure was all he could seem to talk about or think about or care about. And Kevin had always been a good friend to me. You know, he’s the one who introduced me to Wes in the first place? Back in Tacoma – we were both part of the same hiking group…”

  She pulled a used Kleenex from the pocket of her cargo vest, and wiped at her nose.

  “I didn’t mean for it to happen,” she said. “But it just did. Kevin told me he felt things for me, and I realized that I felt something for him. And Wes’s been so disconnected from everything but that stupid treasure all summer long. You know, he didn’t even notice when I’d come home late? Didn’t even ask where I had been. He’d be in his office with the door closed all night, looking at maps and reading books and shutting me out.

  “I guess Kevin was just there at the right place and the right time...”

  She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “But he was just using me, all along. And I didn’t even know it,” she said. “I never thought it was strange how Kevin kept asking about this camping trip we were going on to find the treasure. I didn’t think it strange when he asked all these questions about where Wes thought the gold was, and about that letter he found. I didn’t give it two thoughts. I was just glad to have somebody to talk to. Somebody who actually paid attention to me for once.”

  She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand.

  “You know, when I saw Kevin in the clearing up ahead, when we were out at Mercy Face that day? I didn’t even think that strange, either. I was happy to see him. I thought he’d come out there to rescue me. Wes and I had been fighting all day. I wanted to turn back. But he wanted to keep going. And when I saw Kevin there... I thought…”

  Her voice began trembling with raw emotion.

  “He told me he didn’t need me anymore and that I’d served my purpose. Then he... he pushed me.”

  She fell silent as more tears streamed down her red cheeks.

  In a way, Daniel and I had been waiting for her to tell the real story for a while.

  But I hadn’t expected her to tell me, of all people, about it. Because while we were friendly, we most certainly weren’t close friends. We hadn’t really gotten a chance to be.

  But I supposed I had a reputation for being compassionate and a good listener. And it seemed that Angie could use both of those qualities right now.

  “Lying in that hospital bed all those days, all I could think about was how I’d ruined my life,” she said, clenching tightly onto the Kleenex in her hand. “Just what an idiot I was to get mixed up with not only another man, but a backstabbing bastard like Kevin. All I could think was… was what a Judas I am.”

  She bit her lip.

  “Wes’s always been good to me. He might have been wrapped up in that treasure, but I know he loves me. And I love him. And when I woke up in the hospital, and thought that he might be dead out there – dead, because of my unfaithfulness – I almost…”

  She trailed off, the emotion in her voice causing it to go completely hoarse.

  “I’m a horrible person,” she said after a long moment. “I deserved to die out in the woods that day. I don’t deserve Wes now. I don’t deserve anything.”

  Her body began quaking.

  I looked off into the distance.

  The story was painful just to listen to.

  I didn’t like to judge people. But she was right about one thing – it was terrible what she’d done to Wes. Cheating on someone who loves you, who you’ve promised to always be faithful to, was an awful thing to do. I knew from my experience of being on the other side of it.

  But Angie was wrong about something else.

  “You are not a horrible person, Angie,” I said, leaning forward, meeting her eyes. “And you didn’t deserve to die out there. You couldn’t have possibly known Kevin was planning this.”

  I shook my head.

  “People make mistakes,” I continued. “They hurt each other, and they don’t mean to. But it happens. And it sounds like things weren’t so easy for you these past few years, either.”

  She nodded solemnly.

  “You know, somebody once told me that there’s only one thing worth anything in this world,” I said. “Only one thing worth all the bleeding, all the cursing and crying and howling. One thing worth all the burning, the running, the thieving.”

  Angie looked up at me.

  I could tell she vaguely recognized the quote.

  “Want to know what that is?”

  She sniveled and gazed at me with expectant eyes.

  “Love,” I said. “Love’s the only thing in this world that’s worth anything. And if you still love Wes, then that’s all that matters, Angie. In the big scheme of things, if you guys can find that love again, then these last few months aren’t going to matter.”

  She leaned her chin on the palm of her hand, and looked off into the distance.

  “I don’t… I don’t know, Cin,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t know if I can ever come back from this. How will Wes ever forgive me? It’ll… it’ll crush him when he finds out what I did. He’ll never look at me the same again.”

  “You won’t know any of that until you tell him, Angie.”

  She fell silent, letting that thought settle in.

  “I don’t want to tell you what to do,” I said. “But if you want any chance at forgiveness, then you have to tell him. You have to come clean. The sooner the better.”

  I studied her face.

  “And for your own good, you have to explain this to Daniel, too,” I continued. “He needs to know that this was what you’ve been hiding. Because he knew you were lying when you gave your statement. He’s been thinking you were in cahoots with Kevin and that he double-crossed you out there.”

  She bit her lip. And after a long moment, she finally nodded.

  “Will…”

  She looked back at me, meeting my eyes.

  “Will you help me, Cin? Will you help me tell them? Because I don’t think I can face it on my own. I can’t…”

  The rest of the sentence remained unfinished. But the sentiment behind her words was true and honest as could be.

  “Of course I will,” I said. “Of course, Angie.”

  She smiled at me through the tears.

  It wasn’t going to be an easy road. And she may very well have been right – that Wes would never forgive her for her infidelity. And her marriage may be in ruins.

  But I did know something – that sometimes, even the best of us made mistakes. And that those didn’t make us horrible or terrible people.

  And that every once in a blue moon, other peoples’ capacity for forgiveness could be a surprising thing.

  Chapter 61

  I curled up my fist and pounded on the door another time, making it very clear to the person on the other side that I wasn’t going away until I found ou
t just what in the hell was going on.

  I was going to stay out here on the porch for as long as it would take. I’d set up camp if need be.

  She was going to have to deal with me. Whether she liked it or not.

  I glanced back behind me, watching as a green sedan rolled down the street, slowing for a second, as if the driver was lost. But shortly after, the car sped up and roared away down Holly Avenue.

  I wondered if they were in the market. There was now a big “For Sale” sign out in front of the little yellow house, courtesy of Deb Dulany, who Tiana had recruited as her real estate agent.

  I didn’t want to take any business away from Deb. But I couldn’t let Tiana leave. Not like this. Not without so much as an explanation as to why.

  “Tiana!” I shouted, pounding on the door again. “I know you’re in there.”

  There was no answer, but I was determined.

  I’d spent the whole night thinking about mistakes. After sitting with Angie at the Sheriff’s Office and helping her come clean to Daniel about what she was hiding, and then going back to our house where she admitted the affair to Wes, I couldn’t help but think about mistakes. Not that I thought Tiana had been cheating on Tobias – not at all. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was making a huge mistake of her own by leaving Tobias and by leaving Christmas River. And I couldn’t rest easy until I got to the bottom of it all.

  There had to be a reason for her to act like this. Something had to have happened.

  So first thing that morning, I headed to her house.

  “I just want to talk to you, Tiana,” I said, knocking hard on the door again. “Just… please.”

  I let out an unsteady breath. Waiting for the door to open. But it remained shut.

  “I have to know why.”