Cold Case Christmas

by Jessica R. Patch

  Nora paused, breath pluming in front of her.

  “Keep going,” Rush offered. If nothing else, he could at least get her out. Keep her safe and alive. He’d worry about himself later. Nora’s safety was his focus.

  Hopefully her leather gloves would protect her from the small shards of glass littered across the dashboard. With shallow breaths, Nora placed her hands on the dash and lifted herself from her seat, groaning in pain, but she managed to get her head out of the windshield and her hands onto the hood of the truck.

  The wind shook snow onto her body and she flinched.

  His truck shuddered again and she squealed.

  Carefully, Rush helped her scoot all the way onto the hood. “Can you see a branch or rock or anything to hold on to?”

  “I can’t see anything, Rush! I’m gonna die out here!”

  “No one is dying, Nora Beth! Find something! Once you have it, let me know and I’ll come out next.”

  Nora turned and looked at him. “What if I can’t? What if the truck falls when I climb off it?” Hysteria laced her tone.

  “Listen to me,” he pleaded. Fear would keep her glued to the truck and they’d both end up at the bottom of the mountain. “Climb on top of the truck and grab a tree branch.”

  She nodded and slowly stood, placing her hands on the top of the truck. Wind battered her; she nearly lost her balance.

  The branch splintered and cracked further; Rush’s heart raced. “Go, Nora!”

  Nora used her arms to push herself on top of the truck. The sound of metal above him told him she was reaching. “I got a branch... I’m on the mountain. Come out.”

  Now the tricky part. He had to move onto the console without kicking the gearshift sticking out beside his steering wheel.

  He grabbed the lever to push the seat back so he could maneuver. The branch shook and the truck did too. He froze, didn’t breathe.

  “Rush!” Nora called. “Hurry up!”

  Now that he had more legroom, he lifted his right leg and swung it carefully over the console, then using his arms for support lifted himself up and slid onto the console. Once he was in position, he made his way through the open windshield and onto the hood.

  Wind howled through the trees and it began to sleet again, but his adrenaline chased away the cold.

  About three feet up, Nora clung to a branch.

  “I’m coming. Hold on.” He didn’t want her to get ahead of him. If she slipped, he wanted to be behind her to catch her. Again, using his arms, he lifted himself to the top of the truck, but his foot swung inside the windshield, kicking the steering wheel and turning the tires.

  The branch cracked and the truck dropped farther down. Rush lost his balance and slid; his heart pounded.

  He grabbed the door, holding on and thankful the window was no longer there. Feeling with his foot, he worked to find a solid hold.

  Wood splintered at deafening levels, and his body screamed in pain.

  His throat tightened and sweat ran in trickles down his temples.

  The truck plummeted and he let go, catching a branch and hanging on by a thread.

  “Rush!”

  “I’m—I’m here,” he called. He found footing and worked his way up, slowly, steadily—slipping every few feet. It was snowy, rocky, uneven ground and slick from ice, but he made it to Nora.

  “That scared me half to death,” she said through chattering teeth.

  “Back at ya. Up ya go. Be slow.”

  She found another limb and used it for support as they made their way up the mountain. Nora stumbled and Rush caught her with one hand to steady her.

  “Who—who do you think hit us?” she asked.

  “Someone who knows how to drive on icy roads. Stop talking and concentrate on getting to the top.”

  Heaving, shaking and fighting for every step forward, they finally reached the top and collapsed on the shoulder of the road. Rush didn’t care that he was lying in snow. But a chill would come and they couldn’t afford to get sick. Nora lay beside him breathing heavy.

  “How you doing, Nora Beth?”

  “Well...let’s just say ‘over the hills we go’ is no longer appealing to me.”

  Rush laughed. “Amen.” Time to get out of the elements and dry. “Come on.” He pulled her to her feet. “We’re hoofing it.”

  “I’m not sure I can walk very far, Rush.”

  He wasn’t either but they had no plan B. Nora had been brave and resilient. She could make it a few miles more. Gently wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he coaxed her forward. “You can do it. I know you can.”

  Hunching from the snow and sleet, they trekked about a half a mile when headlights came into view.

  Rush’s stomach knotted.

  Blue lights flashed.

  “The cavalry.”

  Nora bristled against him as the window rolled down.

  Inside, Troy Parsons eyed them and smiled.

  * * *

  “Y’all look like you’ve been rode hard and put away wet. What happened?” Troy asked.

  Nora clutched Rush’s arm. Mighty convenient Troy being out on the road on this side of town an hour or so after they’d been sent over a mountain. Nora didn’t trust him. Not even a little, and she hoped Rush didn’t either. Not after what they discovered earlier today.

  “Someone sent us over the cliff. ’Bout a half mile back,” Rush said with steely eyes. Looked like he had the good sense to suspect Troy. “After we left Mama and Dad’s.”

  Troy sobered, and he shone a flashlight in their faces. “Get in! I thought y’all just broke down. You need a hospital.”

  Nora didn’t want to get in the vehicle with Troy. What if he was lying? Rush glanced at Nora and patted her hand. “All right.” He opened the back door of Troy’s Bronco. “Get in, Nora Beth.” He urged her to get in the backseat, but she wasn’t sure that was a smart idea. “We have to,” he whispered in her ear.

  He was right. The cold was catching up to her. Sweat had turned to chills. The crashing of adrenaline had her shivering on top of the cold. Their hair was soaked with sweat, snow and sleet. Reluctantly, she eased into the backseat. Her body was aching and stiff everywhere.

  Rush closed her door and hobbled to the passenger side. He got in the front seat and strapped in.

  Troy glanced in his rearview. “I’m taking you to the hospital. Don’t even start, Rush.”

  Nora touched the cut on her head. She wouldn’t turn down some heavy meds, but mostly she wanted warmth and a cup of hot tea.

  “What exactly happened?”

  Rush told him the gist of the story as Troy drove them to the ER. “I can’t help but think it came on the heels of us visiting Mac’s today.” Rush studied Troy. Nora couldn’t see Troy’s face from the backseat, but she didn’t miss the tightened grip on the steering wheel at the mention of Mac’s.

  “Oh, yeah?” Troy asked. “Find out anything important?”

  Yes! Tell him, Rush.

  “Mac’s in the Bahamas. We didn’t get to talk to him.”

  What? Rush! Why was he not questioning Troy? This man might have information, and the fact that he wasn’t coming forward with it meant he wanted it to stay a secret. He’d already been adamant it was an accident, lied even—possibly—about the weather conditions that night. Nora had been checking into it, but she hadn’t had the proper time to access the many different sites necessary for the research. Not with all the attempts on her life.

  Exhaustion was setting in and she didn’t have time to be tired. There were too many unanswered questions. Too many puzzle pieces that didn’t fit. Pieces Rush should be asking about.

  “Shame,” Troy said. “Guess you’ll have to wait.”

  Wait? He didn’t seem too upset about that.

  “Nora, hon, do you think all this investigating has b
een worth the pain? I’m worried about you,” Troy said. “Maybe it’s best if you leave this to the professionals and back off.”

  Someone knocked her down a side of the mountain. Quitting now was never going to happen. “What if it was someone you loved? Would you give up?”

  “I’m not asking you to give up. I’m asking you to step down. Difference.”

  She closed her eyes and trembled. “I can’t do that, Sheriff Parsons. I’m not breaking any laws.”

  He grimaced and moved from her line of sight in the rearview. “You’re blessed to be alive right now. I don’t want to get a call in the night saying I have to come out to your homicide scene.”

  She wasn’t so sure she believed that, but he was taking them to the hospital. He could have run them over. “Then I suggest you do more than what you’ve done so far. I didn’t see you fighting hard to find my mom seventeen years ago, and I haven’t seen you do much of anything now,” she spouted as he pulled up to the hospital.

  Troy’s tone turned hard. “What am I supposed to do about an accident, Nora? The coroner ruled it one. Not me. And I have other things to do besides look into why she left the party, got in her car and had an accident. You may not have closure, Miss Livingstone, but this case is closed. I’ve only let Rush work on it as a favor to you because of y’all’s history. But it’s put him in danger.”

  “Troy,” Rush warned.

  “No, it’s true. Your life has repeatedly been in danger—”

  “Which proves something sinister is going on!” Nora cried. “Why would someone want me dead if something bad didn’t happen that night?”

  “Maybe it did, Nora. Maybe someone from that night doesn’t want you digging up an affair and ruining a family that may or may not have gotten back on track. And I’m not being passive on the attempts on your life—I’m making sure bullets have tests run and prints are taken. That is an open investigation. What went on seventeen years ago is not!”

  Nora bounded from the car, the pain in her muscles protesting. But she slammed the door anyway and stalked inside.

  Rush followed and they said nothing while doctors attended to their wounds and stitched the cut on Nora’s head. Two hours later, Hailey picked them up and brought them back to the chalet. After changing into dry clothing, Nora eased on the couch with her laptop.

  “Before our pain meds kick in, what was that?” he asked. “Back in Parsons’s car?”

  “That was someone being proactive. That was someone taking matters into her own hands because...well never mind or I’ll end up having to apologize again later.”

  “Ah, so you want to call me names and hurl insults at me again.” He huffed.

  “You had the chance to question him, Rush. You caved. You’re too afraid of hurting his feelings. Or maybe you’re afraid to find out the truth—that he isn’t the man you thought he was. Well, guess what, Rush Buchanan...no one is! I’ve learned that.” She slammed her laptop on the couch and stood, enduring the pain in her joints. “At least I’m doing something to get the truth for my mom.”

  Rush inhaled sharply and ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek, his nostrils flaring. “First of all, don’t for one second think I believe you’re doing all this for truth for your mother. She’s gone. She doesn’t care about the truth. She doesn’t need answers. You want answers to prove she wasn’t running, but you already know that she was. This is about you. Answers you won’t and can’t get.” He stalked to her and stood toe-to-toe, his gaze drilling into hers.

  “But I’ve risked my life over and over to make sure you stayed alive and safe while on this hopeless quest because it’s what you want. Like I always have done whatever you wanted. Because I loved you!”

  Nora shrank back from the truth giving her another pounding. Rush was right. Again. As always. She tried to intervene, but he was on a tangent and he rightly deserved it.

  “I’ve kept quiet about what I saw that night. I’ve given in to all your whims,” he yelled. “I’ve watched you walk away twice! Twice, Nora. Twice you’ve killed me. And here I am doing what you want—for what? You to yell at me, tell me I’m not doing my job?”

  She’d killed him twice. Those words. This whole tirade wasn’t fully about the investigation but Rush’s heartbreak at Nora’s hands. Hands she’d promised to hang on a tree to show her love for him year after year. She was a horribly selfish person.

  “And for your information, I didn’t question Troy because if he is involved, why would I call him out on it when we were at his mercy? I had no weapon. No control of his vehicle—and things might have been different if you hadn’t been inside. But you were, Nora. And I was afraid if he is the bad guy, showing him my hand could have put you in danger.”

  Nora hadn’t thought of that. She’d been too focused on nothing but what she wanted. Answers.

  “And as steaming mad as I am right now at you, I’d do it all over again. Because, Nora, I still love you! I doubt I’ll ever not love you.”

  What? He...loved her? Now? In the present? “Rush,” she whimpered.

  He thrust a hand up to halt whatever she might be about to say. “Before you go reminding me that I’m a cheater and you’re moving to Florida and all the other excuses, let me tell you all the reasons I’m not going to act on it. You’re a runner, Nora. When things get difficult, you take off. Figuratively and literally. And I won’t be with a woman who can’t open up to me. Who will run from me and not to me. So, this time, you don’t get to leave me. You don’t get to hurt me. You don’t get to say things aren’t going to happen between us, that we’re over. I’m saying it.”

  She blinked back tears, every word crushing her with the weight of its truth and Rush’s own pain in every syllable. She’d hurt him. Time and again. She hadn’t meant to. Didn’t want to, but she had.

  “We’re never going to happen. And I hate it. I hate having to voice that out loud. Because all I’ve ever wanted is to love you. To make you happy. To be happy with you. But I don’t trust you, Nora. You think you can’t trust me because of all those years ago when I was dating Ainsley. But I can’t. Trust. You. I can’t trust you not to leave. How is that for irony for someone who didn’t want to be anything like her mother?” He shook his head, raked a hand through his hair and exhaled an exhausted sigh.

  Nora couldn’t form a word. He was so right it was scary. Talk about tough love.

  “I’m tired, Nora Beth. If Troy isn’t the bad guy here, then someone thinks we’re dead. I’m going next door to have a minute to myself and I’ll be back to bunk on your couch in an hour or so.”

  He slunk to the front door.

  “Rush,” she called. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s kinda too late for that, don’t ya think?” He closed the door behind him.

  Nora stared at the door for several long beats, then she locked it and leaned against it until she slid to the floor, tucking her knees under her chin. Burning tears exploded from behind her eyes and erupted in sobs.

  She was like her mother. In more ways than she wanted to admit. What was she going to do with that? God, I don’t know what to do.

  Her world had been crumbling around her for years, and now it was falling faster than she could breathe in and out. Everything was being stripped away and what was laid bare wasn’t pretty. She wasn’t who she wanted or needed to be.

  Nora had lost herself so long ago, she wasn’t sure she would be able to find her true self again.

  One thing she did know. It was time for a change.

  Inside out.

  ELEVEN

  Rush sat on the couch in Nora’s chalet with a cup of coffee warming his hands. He’d popped several meds throughout the night, and this morning he had a dull headache and body aches from yesterday’s events. His truck was totaled. Tow truck company was hauling it out this morning. Cell phones were gone. He’d have to get a new one today at some poi
nt, talk to Troy and deal with the aftermath of last night.

  When he’d returned, Nora was in her bedroom. He’d gone to the door to knock and hoped to apologize. He’d been angry and gruff. Not that what he said wasn’t true, but he could have said it with more constraint and compassion. But he’d heard her crying and he couldn’t bring himself to knock. Not when she’d called his motives into question about his hesitation to address Troy.

  Because it was true.

  He’d had plenty of time to talk to his mentor before they went over the side of a mountain. But Rush was afraid of what Troy might say—or what he might not say. When he’d brought up going to Mac’s he’d hoped for a better response. He’d known Troy a long time. His boss was hiding something—possibly an affair with Marilyn, which would wreck his marriage and relationship with Dan.

  The bedroom door opened and Nora entered the kitchen and living room looking bruised and battered. And beautiful. She left her hair down—likely to hide some of the bruises and abrasions. Her eyes were red rimmed. He stood and rubbed his hands on the sides of his jeans. “Hi,” he murmured.

  “Hi,” she said. “Coffee left?”

  “Yeah.” He motioned toward the pot. The silence was deafening. Awkward. Uncomfortable. “How you feelin’ this morning?”

  “Sore. You?”

  “Same.” His neck muscles were tight and not just from the wreck. “I’m sorry, Nora, for the way I came at you last night.”

  She paused, then put the carafe back in place and slowly stirred cream into her coffee. Her cherry scent wafted his way.

  After sipping her coffee, she turned toward him. “I’m sorry too. I hadn’t realized what you were doing and I was...I was scared. But it’s not an excuse for accusing you of not doing your job. You’re the most honest man I know. Full of integrity and compassion. You’d never lie.” She sighed over the coffee cup. “And if I’m being honest...I was scared all those years ago when I found out about Ainsley. Yes, I was mad about what it might do to my reputation, but mostly I was afraid. So I used my anger as a reason to go.”