Her Christmas Guardian

by Shirlee McCoy

  * * *

  Three hours, fifteen minutes and thirty seconds.

  That was how long Boone and Officer Lamar spent searching the house for the letters Amber had written. They looked in every closet, looked under every piece of furniture. They checked under throw rugs and in the trash can. No sign of the letters.

  “Someone took them,” Lamar growled as he dropped a basket full of clothes on the floor of Scout’s tiny laundry room. There was just enough space in the room for one adult, but somehow Lamar had maneuvered his way in. Boone wanted to tell him to back out, but he didn’t want to butt heads with the guy. Not when they were working toward the same goal.

  “It looks that way. Although, with the mess the perps left, it’s possible we missed it.”

  “We didn’t miss it.” Lamar smoothed his hair and grimaced. “First time in my career as a police officer that I wish I’d been wrong about something.”

  “Wrong about what?”

  “The Schoepflins. I was hoping we wouldn’t find a connection between them and the kidnapping. Too much hassle involved in pretending diplomacy to appease their high-class sensitivities. I’d much rather forget about them and look in another direction.”

  “What direction would that be? Drugs? Money?”

  “Who knows?” Lamar shrugged. “Scout could have walked into any number of scenarios. She could have seen something, heard something. Plenty of innocent people get pulled into trouble that way. Not that it matters. At this point, with those letters missing, I’d say the Schoepflins are the direction we need to look. I just hope it leads us to the kid. I have a daughter of my own, and I don’t like the idea of a toddler out there in the world with a stranger.”

  “Any luck tracking the cell phone that was used to call Scout?”

  “Not yet. The FBI is working on it.” He paused. “How about your team? And don’t tell me they’re not trying.”

  “As far as I know, we’ve come up empty.” Though he was pretty sure Cyrus was getting close. He expected to get a call at any moment, and when he did, he was moving out. Nothing was going to keep him from going wherever that cell phone signal had come from.

  “I’m expecting that the FBI will locate the signal before your people do. Don’t mess things up for them, Anderson. Don’t try to go maverick and save the kid on your own. We don’t need a hero—we need a live child to bring home to her mother.”

  “Your assumptions are insulting. I may work in the private sector, but I’m not doing it for the glory. Fact is,” he said, keeping his tone neutral, because Lamar looked as though he was pushing for a fight and Boone wasn’t in the mood to take him up on it, “there isn’t any glory involved in what I do. You ever see any of our team members talking to the press, building up HEART to get more clients?”

  Lamar scowled and didn’t respond.

  “Of course you don’t, because that’s not why we do what we do. Now, if you’ll excuse me—” he brushed by Lamar “—Scout’s probably wondering where I am.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Lamar called.

  Boone ignored him.

  He’d done his part. He’d played nice. He’d followed the rules and walked around the house looking for something he’d known they weren’t going to find. He was done. Time to get things moving along.

  He walked into the kitchen, saw Scout sitting at the kitchen table alone. She had deep shadows under her eyes and hollows beneath her cheekbones, but she smiled when she saw him, and his heart jumped in response.

  “Hey,” she said. “I was wondering when you were going to show up.”

  “Sorry it took so long. I got sidetracked.” He sat beside her. “Where’s Agent Rodriguez?”

  “She got a call a few minutes ago and walked out back. I don’t want to get my hopes up, but I’ve been sitting here wondering if maybe they’ve found Lucy. I’ve even been thinking about what I’m going to do when I finally get my hands on her again. Thinking about all the hugs and kisses that I’m going to give her.” She scraped at a little spot on the table and frowned. “That’s probably stupid, isn’t it? I should probably be preparing for the worst.”

  “No.” He covered her hand with his, waited until she met his eyes. “Stupid would be giving up hope.”

  “What is hope except the belief in something that you desperately want but aren’t sure is going to happen?” She stood and paced to the window above the sink, her slim body nearly shrouded by jeans and an oversize sweater. “It seems useless. Like sitting at a kitchen table answering dozens of questions about things that probably have nothing to do with my daughter’s disappearance.”

  “What kind of questions are we talking about?” he asked, curious about the direction the FBI was heading. More than likely, they were trying to rule Christopher out. Or rule him in.

  “We went over every delivery I’ve received in the past year. We talked about my friends, my work. She wanted to know about Amber, too. I told her about the letters. Funny, I’d put them out of my mind until all this happened.”

  “Yeah?” He moved up behind her, turned her so that they were facing each other. She looked tired, weary, discouraged—all the things he’d seen in all the faces of the waiting and wondering. He wanted to tell her that everything would be fine, that Lucy would come home to her and that they’d go on the way they had before. He couldn’t. Not if he were going to be honest.

  “Were you friends for long?” he asked instead.

  “Forever. She was like a sister to me. I hadn’t thought about that in a while, either.” She smiled, but the sadness in her eyes was unmistakable. “You know how it is when you meet someone and you just know you’re going to be friends forever? That’s how it was with me and Amber. We were completely opposite of each other and completely the same.”

  “I’ve never had someone like that in my life,” he said honestly.

  “I’m almost as sorry for you as I am for myself, then.” She walked past him, filled a kettle and set it on the stove to boil. “I don’t suppose you’re a tea drinker? All my coffee got dumped. I guess whoever ransacked my house thought I might be hiding something in with it.”

  “No tea, but if you’ve got anything to eat around here, I’d be grateful.”

  She laughed a little and pulled a box of animal crackers from the cupboard. “They didn’t dump these. I guess because the box was sealed, they didn’t think I’d hidden anything in it.”

  “Perfect.” He tore open the box and took a handful. He imagined they were what she gave Lucy as a treat, but he didn’t mention it. She looked wounded enough, and he didn’t want to add to that. “Did you give Agent Rodriguez the gift Amber sent you?”

  “She didn’t ask for it. It was just a Christmas-tree ornament. A glittery pink frame with a photo of us when we were kids in it. I kept it in the living room for a while, but Lucy loved it and always tried to get her hands on it. I finally just put it in a box with the rest of the Christmas stuff.”

  “Where’s that?” he asked, snagging another handful of crackers and handing one to her.

  “My landlady has a storage unit. She let me keep a few things there.”

  “Do you have access to the unit?”

  “Yes. I have a key to the lock and the combination to the front gate.”

  “Agent Rodriguez didn’t ask for it?”

  “She did, but she seemed more interested in the letters. She asked me what Amber said, if there was anything unusual in them. There wasn’t.”

  He nodded, but his mind was circling back to the picture frame. “I was thinking that maybe you want to decorate for Christmas before Lucy gets home.” He took a few more crackers. “I can send Jackson out to get that box for you, and he can bring it over here.”

  “I’m not in a holiday mood,” she said wearily, putting the cracker he’d handed her back in the box and taking a te
a bag from a small box in the cupboard. She poured water over it even though he doubted it was much more than lukewarm.

  “I don’t need you to be in the mood for it. I just need you to give me the information so that I can send Jackson to get the box.”

  “If that’s what you want, go for it.” She grabbed a scrap of paper from a pile on the counter, found a pen in a drawer and jotted the information down for him. He figured the FBI was already checking things out, but he made the call to Jackson anyway. He was just finishing the call when Agent Rodriguez walked in.

  She didn’t look happy.

  “I’ve got some unpleasant news,” she said without preamble.

  “Is it Lucy?” Scout asked, her face losing every bit of color. He slipped an arm around her waist, felt her whole body shaking. Was surprised when her hand settled on his side, her fingers clutching the fabric of his shirt.

  “No. Sorry. I should have made that clear from the beginning.” Rodriguez frowned.

  “Yeah, you should have,” Boone retorted, not happy with how pale Scout looked, how weak she seemed to be. He knew what it was like to wait, knew the helpless feeling, the desperation. Knew how easy it was to forget things like sleep and food. She hadn’t eaten the animal cracker. Had she eaten anything since she’d left the hospital?

  “We all make mistakes, Mr. Anderson. I’ve made my apology, so how about we get back to business? I spoke with the medical examiner who autopsied Amber Schoepflin’s body. He ruled suicide because of the circumstances Amber was found in, but he noted some bruising on her arms and a needle mark that was consistent with an injection. Toxicology reports showed that she had a high level of heroin in her body.”

  “Amber didn’t take drugs.” Scout frowned. “She didn’t even like taking Tylenol.”

  “That’s what her family said, but the circumstances were indicative of suicide and the M.E. ruled accordingly. With everything that’s happened, I’ve asked for her case to be opened again. I want the San Jose police to take a closer look at what she was doing before she died, because I don’t think she committed suicide. I think she was murdered.”

  TEN

  A million questions. That was what Agent Rodriguez was asking. Scout wasn’t able to answer many of them. She knew that Amber had been working as a reporter for the local paper, that she’d loved to party but never drank to excess. She knew that she’d broken up with her boyfriend and had been dating someone new in the months before her death, but she couldn’t remember the guy’s name and wasn’t even sure Amber had ever mentioned it.

  “How many times did you speak to Amber after you left San Jose?” Agent Rodriguez didn’t seem to be wearing down, but Scout sure was.

  She rubbed the back of her neck, trying to ease the tension there. “Not many. She was always afraid her family was listening in on the conversation.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Because they were crazy that way? That’s what Amber always said. I don’t know what she meant. I didn’t spend all that much time at her father’s place.”

  “Did she—?”

  “You know what?” Boone interrupted. “I think you’ve asked enough questions. Scout is still recovering, and she needs her rest.”

  “Which does she need more? Rest or her daughter’s return?”

  “If answering your questions could bring her daughter back, she’d be standing in this room right now.”

  “This is all part of the process,” Agent Rodriguez argued. “By gathering the facts, we can narrow down our search area.”

  “Is there a search area?” Scout asked, because it seemed as if nothing was being done. It seemed as if they were spending all their time in the kitchen, discussing something that had happened a year ago while her daughter got ready to spend another night without her.

  “Yes,” Agent Rodriguez assured her, but she doubted it was true. How could it be? Not only did they not know who had Lucy, but they had no idea where to look to find her.

  “I’m supposed to meet with the kidnapper at midnight. I need to—”

  “You may as well know up front that that meeting is not going to happen.” Agent Rodriguez cut her off. “It would be too dangerous, and the likelihood that your daughter will be at the park tonight is slim to none.”

  “You can’t keep me from going,” she responded, standing so quickly, her head spun.

  “Actually, I can. It may be your daughter who’s missing, but this is my case, and I can’t have you interfering. You try to go, and I’ll have my officers detain you.”

  “So, I’m just supposed to sit here and wait for the deadline to pass?”

  “Unfortunately,” Agent Rodriguez said, “yes.”

  The room seemed to close in around her, and Scout’s chest hurt so badly, she thought she might be having a heart attack. She wanted to scream, to rant, to rage against everyone and everything that was keeping her from her daughter. She couldn’t. She didn’t have Amber’s strength or Boone’s courage. She was just herself, a little meek, a little quiet. Darren had called her mousy, and she hadn’t been all that offended, because mousy was how she usually felt.

  Right then, she just felt suffocated. “I need some air,” she muttered.

  She didn’t wait for permission, just ran out the back door, raced across the little yard that she and Lucy had spent so much time in. She’d made it to the edge of the trees at the back of the property when Boone caught up. He pulled her to a stop, his hand wrapped around hers, his palm warm and just a little rough.

  “Next time, wait for me,” he said.

  “I couldn’t breathe,” she responded. “I really couldn’t.” Her voice broke, and all the tears she’d been holding back, all the fear and anxiety and anger burst out. She cried as if the world had ended, because she thought that maybe it had.

  “Shh,” he said, pulling her into his arms. He smelled like fresh air and sunshine mixed with something masculine and just a little dark, and she wanted to burrow into him, stay there until the nightmare ended and Lucy was home. “You’re okay.”

  “No. It’s not,” she sobbed. “Lucy is missing, and all I’m doing is sitting at my kitchen table, having tea and answering questions.”

  “I didn’t say it was okay. I said you were.” He eased back, cupping her face in his hands, his eyes dark blue and filled with compassion. “There’s a big difference, Scout. One you have no control over. The other you do.”

  “I don’t have any control over any of it—that’s the problem.” She stepped away, swiping at the tears.

  “You know what I’ve realized during the years my daughter’s been missing?” he asked quietly, his hair gleaming in the afternoon sunlight, his eyes deeply shadowed. “We don’t always have to be in control to be content. We don’t always have to know every outcome to have peace. Sometimes we’ve just got to trust that the things we can’t control are in God’s hands, that He’s working His good through the worst of circumstances.”

  Coming from anyone else, it would have sounded clichéd and trite, but Boone had lived her nightmare. He knew every ache of her heart. “I wish I had your faith. I wish that I could believe something good was going to come out of this.”

  “I wish I had my daughter,” he responded. “But I don’t, and because I don’t, I’m helping you find yours.”

  “It’s not a fair trade. Not for you.”

  “Nothing about life is fair.” He smoothed loose strands of hair from her cheek, his hand settling at her nape, kneading muscles that were taut from nerves and fear. “But I think you already know that.”

  She nodded, her heart pounding in her ears, butterflies dancing in her stomach. His hand felt warm and wonderful, and that scared her more than she wanted to admit. She’d made a big mistake with Christopher, her silly childhood crush allowing her to believe all the sweet lies he
’d whispered to her. She’d given up everything she’d believed in so she could believe in him.

  She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  She moved away, cold air cooling her heated cheeks.

  “What I know is that you didn’t have to help me the night of the accident, and you did. You’ve been helping me ever since, and I don’t know how I’m ever going to repay you.” That was the truth. Everything else—the butterflies in her stomach, the connection that seemed to arc between them when she looked in his eyes—didn’t matter.

  “I’m not doing this for payment. I’m doing this to bring your daughter home.” He raked a hand through his hair and sighed. “So, do me a favor. No more running outside when the mood strikes, okay?”

  She couldn’t promise that. If she thought it would bring Lucy home, she’d run straight toward a firing squad. “I don’t—”

  Something snapped in the woods behind them, the sound echoing on the still air and chilling Scout’s blood.

  One minute, she was standing, and the next, she was on the ground, Boone lying on top of her, the weight of his body pressing her into the loamy earth. She twisted, trying to see if something was coming. If someone was coming.

  “Don’t move,” he whispered, his breath tickling the hair near her ear.

  The world had gone still, the day silent. No birds chirping in the trees. No animals scurrying in the underbrush. Nothing but her quick panting breaths. “What—?”

  “Shh,” he murmured. “Listen.”

  She did. Silence. Then the soft crunch of leaves, barely audible, but there. Someone was coming, and her muscles tightened with the need to run. She wanted to spring from the ground, race back to the house, hide under a bed or in a closet, but Boone had her pinned to the ground, his weight crushing the breath from her lungs. Or maybe it was fear that was doing that.

  She could feel the thud of his heart through her shirt, feel his muscles contract as the footsteps stopped. “Listen to me,” he breathed. “We’ve got a line of underbrush separating us from whoever is there. As long as you stay low, you’re gold. Understand?”