An Angel for Christmas

by Heather Graham

  The TV had given nothing but static since it had last gone out.

  “Hey!” Gabe called to her softly.

  She narrowed her eyes, looking at him. It was best, she’d decided, to keep away from both the men. Gabe had thought immediately that Shayne and Bobby should risk their own lives. DeFeo had openly voiced the thought that if it was Cindy in the stranded car, she might well be dead.

  “Is that a jukebox? A working one?” he asked her.

  She looked down past the pool tables.

  “Yes, it still works.”

  “Maybe it has some Christmas carols,” he said. “May I go look?”

  Morwenna looked at her father. Mike now maintained an iron grasp around the shotgun.

  Her father shrugged. Stacy looked up; Genevieve was on her lap and they were drawing pictures on a cocktail napkin.

  “Go ahead. And, remember, Dad will shoot you if you make a wrong move,” Morwenna said.

  Gabe eased himself out of the booth and headed down past the pool players. For a moment, Morwenna feared that she had been an idiot; Gabe could have stopped by one of the boys, slipped his bound wrists over the head of one of them and threatened to strangle him. He could have then threatened a life…using a child as a hostage to escape.

  She pictured the scene in her mind’s eye, and she almost cried out in fear and warning. But she saw that her father had no intention of risking the children. He had risen, and though Gabe couldn’t see him, Mike had kept himself in a position to shoot if Gabe had made so much as a move in the wrong direction.

  Gabe walked right by the pool players and down to the jukebox.

  He looked back at her with a rueful smile. “It works off of quarters.”

  “Here!” Mac spoke up from behind the bar and opened the cash register to find a handful of coins; he handed them to Morwenna. She met his eyes, and he nodded. “Lord knows, we could use something in here beyond the sound of that TV static,” he said.

  Morwenna walked down to the jukebox with the coins in her hand. When she reached it, she began to feed them into the machine.

  “You all have to be careful,” DeFeo said.

  “I am careful—always,” Mike told him.

  Gabe was able to hit the button that changed the pages.

  “A17. Nice, Bing Crosby and David Bowie singing together, ‘Little Drummer Boy’ and ‘Peace on Earth,’” he said.

  “You’re letting him run the show!” DeFeo warned.

  “He’s choosing a few Christmas tunes. A nice idea, really,” Morwenna said.

  “So, I’m stuck here in cuffs with a group that is going to be in big trouble when the real law arrives. But we all get to play Christmas tunes. Great!”

  She opted to ignore DeFeo.

  “Play what you choose,” Morwenna said.

  Gabe hit A17 without answering DeFeo. He flipped more pages. Morwenna was startled when Genevieve called out “Do they have ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’?”

  “Well, I’ll just bet they do,” Gabe told her. “And there it is! D22!”

  “I’d like ‘Do You Hear What I Hear?’” Stacy called.

  “And there’s the ever-popular ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’!” Mike called from the bar.

  He was still seated on his stool, still clutching the shotgun. What a contrast to Genevieve, who wasn’t questioning what she believed in any way. She simply liked Gabe.

  The faith of a child…

  Gabe began to push buttons. As he did so, Morwenna stepped back to join the boys gathered around the pool table. Connor grinned up at her; she realized that although he was still worried about his parents and aware of the tense situation in which the family found itself, he was doing all right.

  Friends had made that so—learning pool tricks from the Williamson family was easing the day for him.

  She smiled back at him. “A budding pool shark, eh?” she teased affectionately.

  He smiled back at her. “My dad…my dad is going to be okay, right, Auntie Wenna?” he asked.

  She saw that Gabe was still listening and obeying as the group in the tavern vied for selections on the old jukebox. His eyes were alight.

  She had been suspicious of the man from the beginning. Then she had begun to believe in him. Then she had found her way back to mistrust. And why? Because someone else spoke against him.

  She winced. Well, that hadn’t stood history very well. Proof was needed. Well, proof was what they awaited.

  “You dad is going to be just fine, Connor,” Morwenna said. “And so are we.”

  But just as the words left her mouth, the electricity went.

  And the tavern was pitched into shadow.

  Bobby braked the snowmobile just off the point where he thought the road made way for the lookout point. Shayne dismounted and instantly started for the car.

  “Bro! We have to be careful. That car is right on the ledge,” Bobby told him.

  Shayne froze in his tracks, as if at his statement, and Bobby saw that his face was white. And then he knew why. He couldn’t see that it was indeed Cindy in the car, but he could see the driver.

  And the driver was in a hooded parka, head down on the steering wheel. Frost and snow covered most of the windshield.

  There was no way to tell, until they touched the driver, whether the person was alive or dead.

  “All right, come on, Shayne, I want to bring you both—and me!—back alive. Let’s take it slow.” He reached into the side compartments on the snow-mobile. He got out the rope and the pulley chair, and followed Shayne as his brother more cautiously approached the car. He saw one of the huge light poles by the side of the road. It wouldn’t carry the weight of a car if something happened, but it would carry the weight of a man—and a woman.

  “Approach the car, and carefully open that front door just in case the ground by the back tires is—is gone. Grab the person out of the car, and screw whatever the hell else is in it, okay?” Bobby said. “I’ll tie us together with the rope.”

  Shayne nodded. “Let’s hurry,” he said.

  Bobby took the rope to the massive light stand and quickly tied it around, securing it with double loops. He hurried back to where his brother stood, already securing himself. He looked at Bobby. “Thanks,” he told him.

  “I’ll be right here, but not coming close. Until she’s out of the car, and you need me,” Bobby said.

  His brother moved toward the car then, taking every step carefully.

  Bobby looked back at the rope attached to the giant light pole, and then frowned as he looked up at the light. Dusk was settling on them more heavily now with each minute that passed.

  And the streetlight hadn’t kicked on.

  Strange, the lights usually came on automatically as dusk moved in.

  Unless, of course, the electricity had finally gone in the mountaintops here.

  And, if so, back at the tavern, his family was locked in darkness.

  Bobby forced himself to remain still, to watch his brother, and to wait. He couldn’t go screaming like a terrified child, and rush back to the snow-mobile and leave Shayne and the driver.

  What if the woman was Cindy, and she had skidded and lost control last night, and she had frozen to death already?

  He didn’t dare think it.

  What about his family, back in the tavern, suddenly pitched into darkness?

  His father was a smart man; he’d have his shot gun at the ready.

  But could he aim in the dark?

  “Almost there,” Shayne called to him. “And the ground feels steady thus far…don’t know about the back, and I’m not going to test it.”

  Shayne stood then by the driver’s-side door. He reached for it slowly, and opened it more slowly. He let out a cry as the driver slumped to the side, and into his arms. He fell to his knees, cradling the woman in his arms.

  Bobby heard a strange sound; it was like a rumble, but it was a quiet rumbling. He looked at the Subaru, and the back end of it seemed to be sinkin
g.

  “Shayne, get her out of there!” Bobby shouted. He went for the rope, ready to drag his brother if it went taut against the pole.

  But Shayne stood, cradling his ex-wife to his chest, and he started a stumbling run through the snow toward Bobby. And as he did, Bobby heard a creaking sound, once and again, and then growing louder, and he saw that the Subaru was slipping, slipping…

  There was a loud smashing sound as it hit the guardrail, and then a rumble as it burst through the railing and went tumbling down the mountain.

  “Brace yourself!” Bobby said, hunkering down.

  And Shayne dropped to a knee, covering Cindy’s body with his own. They both waited for an explosion.

  None came.

  Bobby stood slowly and walked as close as he dared to the ledge. He looked over, and he was glad to see that the Subaru had not exploded, or hurt anything other than a number of scraggly, half-dead winter trees and brush. It had landed—right side up—on a narrow ledge about fifty feet down.

  He looked at Shayne. His brother had gotten Cindy to the snowmobile; he had her wrapped in the blanket, and he was trying to urge some brandy through her lips. Bobby hurried over to them, falling to his knees in the snow, and looking down at his sister-in-law’s face. She was such a beautiful woman, but right now, he felt a burst of cold fear sweep through him. She was so white; her eyes were closed, and her lips appeared to be a strange shade of blue.

  “She’s—she’s—” Bobby began.

  Shayne smiled grimly at him. “She’s alive,” he assured her. “She’s…she’s a fighter. She’s going to make it. Her pulse is weak, but steady. She’s going to come around. We just have to get her back as soon as possible, and get her warm…and I can find out if any damage was done. She should get to a hospital, but the tavern will do. I need her to come around…to sip some of this.”

  Bobby felt words coming in a repetitious prayer.

  Let her live, let her live, please, God, let her live.

  “Come on, come on, come on…please, God!” Shayne breathed.

  Cindy suddenly choked, coughed and stuttered.

  Her eyes flew open in panic, and she strained at the arms that held her: Shayne’s.

  A weak scream escaped her lips, and then died as her eyes focused on Shayne’s face.

  “Shayne!” she said.

  “Hey,” Shayne said, his voice tremulous. “You’re all right. You’re all right.”

  Was she? Bobby wondered. God knew, she might be suffering from some kind of frostbite.

  She saw Bobby then. “Bobby!” she whispered. “My God, you two found me…how on earth did you find me? You couldn’t have known that I was coming. I didn’t know that I was coming until it was time to leave for the airport, and then I knew I—I knew I couldn’t leave for the whole week, and I tried to call you all, but no one was answering and I just took a chance, and, oh, Lord, please forgive me, Shayne… I meant to get here and beg that you all forgive me for showing up so rudely, and let me spend the holidays with the kids, too, and—”

  “Cindy, you may be suffering some real effects from this,” Shayne said gently. “Drink a bit more of this, and let me get you some water, too. We’ll wrap you up really tightly in the parka, because it’s even colder when we’re on the snowmobile. It will be slow going…the thing is only meant for two, but I know that we’ll manage. The tavern is warm, and once we’re there, we’ll talk.”

  “But, Shayne, I asked you to take the children, and I came here, and then…I thought I was going to die. I was terrified to move in the car.” She stopped speaking and stared at Bobby. “The car, I was in the car…”

  Shayne looked at him. “Um, well, it’s standing. But I have a feeling the insurance company might consider it to be totaled,” Bobby said.

  “Oh! Oh, God! It did go over! I was terrified when the car spun out and stalled, and then when the wheels wouldn’t catch. There was nothing for them to catch on!”

  “It’s okay, Cindy, you’re safe,” Shayne said.

  “Shayne, you risked your life for me,” Cindy said, her eyes filled with wonder as she looked at him. “After everything…but, it’s what you do, isn’t it?” Her eyes filled with tears.

  Shayne drew her to him.

  “Cindy, don’t cry. Please, don’t cry.”

  “But you forgive me?” she whispered.

  “Forgive you? For loving our children? Don’t be silly, Cindy, there is nothing to forgive. And you will always be a part of the family, and always welcome,” Shayne said.

  “And we’ll all freeze if we don’t get back,” Bobby interjected.

  He glanced at the light pole, and far up—at the light that wasn’t lit.

  Cindy was alive.

  And now, the worry that something had gone wrong at the tavern began to eat into him again.

  “We need to hurry, as much as we safely can,” Shayne said.

  Screw safely!

  Bobby’s urge to get back to the tavern was almost overwhelming. He began hurriedly gathering the equipment they had used, stuffing it into the compartments. He crawled back onto the snow-mobile and felt Shayne doing his best to get on with his ex-wife in his arms.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” Cindy asked.

  Where in the hell did they begin to explain?

  He’d leave that to Shayne, Bobby decided.

  He turned on the snowmobile’s lights—a contrast to the darkness now settling heavy on the mountains.

  The cold hit Bobby’s face as he revved the snow-mobile into gear; going back would be even more treacherous.

  He kept seeing the pool of light before him.

  And all he could think was dark, dark, dark.

  His family was trapped in the dark, with strangers whose intentions were still unknown.

  Chapter 10

  The sudden darkness seemed complete at first; the sun was almost down outside the tavern walls, and the shadowy world of the outside was now inside, compounded by the walls surrounding them.

  But it wasn’t completely dark.

  There was that moment when it was just suddenly dead silent, smoke gray, and dead still, and yet shapes and shadows seemed to run amok.

  They were frightened, of course; man’s fear of the dark was an instinct left over from prehistory when darkness meant the coming of fearsome beasts of prey.

  Morwenna wasn’t sure at all why such stark terror came to her. It wasn’t unusual that they should lose the electricity. Mac had a generator, and it would kick in soon. But she had the strangest feeling that this sudden darkness was worse than any other, and that something evil was moving about the room. Light couldn’t come back to them fast enough.

  Something almost touched her, and for a moment, she felt as if her skin was literally crawling, as if a horrible scent of death, decay and sulfur filled the air.

  She reached for Genevieve, terrified that the little girl was in some kind of danger. She groped blindly, watching shadows move.

  “Hey, folks, it’s okay, everything’s all right now. We’ve got an emergency generator,” Mac said.

  As if on cue, low light returned to the tavern, and the jukebox spun into action. Bing Crosby and David Bowie came on together.

  Morwenna looked instantly for her niece; she was standing beside and slightly behind Gabe, almost wedged against the jukebox. She had a wide-eyed look of fear on her face.

  “Baby, it’s okay,” Morwenna said. “It’s all right, see, the light is back on.”

  “Auntie Wenna, I was scared!” Genevieve said.

  Morwenna quickly hunkered down by her side.

  “It’s all right. It was just dark,” Morwenna said.

  But Genevieve shook her head. “No, didn’t you feel it…someone was here, someone very, very bad!”

  “Genevieve, no one else is here. It was just a matter of moments before the lights came back on.”

  Genevieve looked up at her. “No! No, Gabe saved me. He saved me from the bad thing, the evil thing that was here.”r />
  “Hey!” Mike said suddenly.

  Morwenna quickly glanced to her father. He had jumped up first, apparently to look for his family members, and to assure himself that they were all right.

  “What?” Mac asked.

  “He’s gone!” Mike said.

  Morwenna looked to the booth where Luke DeFeo had been sitting.

  It was empty.

  She quickly looked around the room. DeFeo wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

  She had the uneasy feeling that he had been near; that he had nearly touched her. And Genevieve.

  “Well, hell, maybe that’s just good riddance!” Mac said.

  “I didn’t hear or see the door open,” Connor noted, frowning.

  “Well, he is gone,” Stacy said. “Maybe—maybe it is just as well.”

  Gabe spoke up suddenly. “No, no, it’s not just as well. He’s still out there somewhere. And he’s dangerous.”

  “Dangerous? But,” Morwenna said, turning to him, “you said that he was a white-collar criminal. He said that you were the dangerous one.”

  He shook his head. “You don’t understand…you can’t understand. He’s—all right, he’s on the run. And he may want to bring a few down with him. You have to let me go after him.”

  He walked around the pool table, toward Mike. As he did so, Morwenna noticed the distance from the booths and around the pool table to where she was standing.

  Luke DeFeo couldn’t have come around the whole place so quickly. Could he? And yet she had the uncomfortable, uncanny feeling that he had.

  “But—he’s out there, alone in the snow. He won’t be coming back here,” Mac said.

  “He’s out there, and he’s thinking of something, and he will come back,” Gabe said firmly.

  “My sons are out there,” Stacy said. “My sons are out there, somewhere on the mountain.”

  “I can find him. I can stop him,” Gabe said. “Look, please. I was with you for a long time, and no harm came to you. Trust me. Let me go after him, before he finds a way to hurt anyone. Please.”

  A silence followed his words. Thoughts raced through Morwenna’s mind.