3 Madness in Christmas River (17 page)

“You’re probably right,” he said. “And I don’t want to take Warren on if I can avoid it. You know that old man fights dirty.”

I hit him playfully.

“You know I’m gonna tell him you said that,” I said.   

He laughed.

We sat a few moments like that, watching the wind whip the snow around outside like a pack of sled dogs.  

“So did you finish up everything you needed to in California?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

He shook his head.

“When do you have to go back?” I asked.

“Not until we get everything straightened out here,” he said. “I’m not leaving until we find out who came after you.”

“What if you don’t find him?” I asked.

“Oh, I’ll find him,” he said, looking up at me seriously.

He brushed away a strand of loose hair from my face, and rubbed my cheek with his thumb.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said.

That was everything I had needed to hear for the past week. And for a moment, while he held me tightly, I forgot about the madness that had become my life. About Marie disappearing. About the Christmas tree. About the man in the mask who hurt Huckleberry. About the florist, the venue, the dress.

About the lies being spewed right now by the Christmas River rumor mill.

There was just me and him, and the sound of the wind blowing hard outside.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Owen pass by the office.

Our eyes met for a split second, and then he quickly walked past, disappearing out into the reception area.

And the brief moment in fantasy land collapsed.

Chapter 45

The wolf was back.

Snapping at my heels while I ran through the forest. Each step, I sank deeper and deeper into the snow. I struggled like a gazelle stuck in a tar pit, the heavy breathing of the predator at my back.

The wolf’s steely teeth ripped into the satin of my wedding gown. Soon, he was ripping into my legs. The smell of coppery blood stained the cold air as the wolf pinned me down into the snow.

I lay on my back, staring up at the star-studded sky, crying out in pain.

A shadow passed over me.

The figure of a man came into my view.

I couldn’t see his face. There was only darkness where eyes, lips and a nose should have been. Only a deep, pervading darkness.  

I screamed.

***

I woke up gasping for air, every muscle in my body tense and strained. My mouth as dry as a dead man’s.

I sat up, beads of sweat running down the sides of my face.

The room was burning up.   

I realized that I had left the small floor heater on by accident before going to bed, and the room had turned into a sweltering sauna.

I grabbed the glass of water by the night stand and sucked it down greedily. I got up and went over to the heater, switching the setting to “fan.”

I sat back down at the edge of the bed, trying desperately to calm down.

I tried to think of Daniel earlier, when he held me in his arms, telling me that everything was going to be okay.  

I tried to convince myself that he was right.

And I wished that he was here, in my bed, instead of at the station, working himself down to the bone trying to catch a criminal.     

Just then, I heard something.

A noise.

A rap, at the window.

My heart caught in my throat. I held my breath, straining to listen. 

I jumped.

Another rap, louder this time.

The man in the mask with the crowbar flashed into my mind, and for a moment, I was paralyzed with fear. The same kind of fear I’d felt in my dream.

But then I heard a voice, muffled by the wind outside.

Cinn-a-mon.

I forced my legs to move and pressed my face up against the cold window, peering down into the darkness.

When I saw him down below, all I could think of was Haley Drutman’s sour face looking back at me.

And what the rest of the town would think if they could see him there, below my window, in the middle of the night. 

Chapter 46

I was being idiotic.

Stupid, thoughtless, dumb… there were a lot of words to describe the way I was acting at the moment.

By all rights, I should have been safely tucked away beneath the cozy, warm blankets of my bed right now. Not driving into the cold, snowy woods in the dead of night.

And especially not with Deputy Owen McHale.

But there I was, having completely lost any common sense I’d ever had. Chancing my reputation, and Daniel’s trust.

I was kicking myself.

But there was a good reason we were going out into the woods at this hour. Owen had told me there was a break in the case, and that I needed to see it for myself. And even though I knew I shouldn’t have been there sitting in the passenger’s seat driving into the dark night, I had already made my choice.

“You really should have told Daniel about this first,” I said, breaking the silence that had encased the car like a layer of ice.  

“Well, if he weren’t asleep on a stack of files at his desk, I would have,” Owen said, glancing up into the rearview mirror. “Besides, there’s a reason I got you instead. I need you to see this. I need your opinion.”

I stared out the car window, watching the ghostly, frosty trees. They looked like towering stone giants.  

“I… uh, I wanted to say something to you, too,” he said, glancing over at me.

“And what would that be?” I asked, crossing my arms.

Maybe it wasn’t right, but I was mad at Owen. Mad that his drunkenness had made us both the subject of town gossip. Mad that I had to have showdowns with 20-year-olds in front of the entire town because of him.

He took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry about what happened,” he said. “I’m sorry that I’ve put you in a bad position.”

I didn’t say anything.

“It’s my fault,” he said. “I shouldn’t drink. I’ve, uh, I’ve had some problems with it in the past.”  

The silence dragged between us as the snow tires of the patrol car rolled along the snowy road.

“I hope I didn’t hurt you,” he said, glancing over at me. “You know, when I fell.”

“You’re a lot heavier than you look,” I said.

He didn’t respond for a while.

Then he cleared his throat.

“You were kind to me,” he said. “You could have turned me out, but you took my shoes off and gave me a blanket instead”

“You’re giving me too much credit,” I said. “I didn’t really have a choice. I couldn’t have turned you out in this kind of weather.”  

“Even if it was 76 degrees and sunny, you wouldn’t have turned me out,” he said. “You take care of people.”  

“I don’t know about that,” I said.

“You know, I woke up this morning with a hangover from hell,” he said. “But it was okay. Because for the first time in a long, long time, I woke up feeling like I had something to live for.”

I didn’t say anything.

“You made me feel better about it all,” he said.

“Well, good,” I said. “I’m glad.”

He lowered his voice.  

“Does, uh, does Sheriff Brightman know what people are saying?”

I rubbed my face.

“Of course he does. How could he not in a town this small?”

He muttered a profanity, and then glanced back at me.

“It’s my fault,” he muttered again. “I just wish that…”

He didn’t finish the thought.

“Wish what?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. He kept his eyes dead ahead on the road.  

We pulled off the highway onto a road that climbed up into the woods.

He killed the lights, and we slowly rolled along until an old cabin appeared in the distance on the right, lit by faint moonlight.

He pulled the car over to the side of the road and parked.

“It’s about two-hundred yards over there through the snow,” he said, nodding toward a thicket of trees next to the cabin.

He still wasn’t looking at me.

“What is?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” he said, pushing the car door open. “Try to be quiet.”

I looked out into the moonlit forest, icy fingers of fear squeezing tightly around my heart now.

Something about these woods scared me. Something I couldn’t put my finger on.

As I opened the car door, one thought replayed over and over in my mind.

I shouldn’t be out here.   

Chapter 47

I stood over the depression in the snow, struggling to catch my breath.

Aside from the hoots of a lone owl, the woods were deathly quiet. No wind, no rustling of tree branches, nothing but the sound of our boots crushing snow.

Owen walked around the side of a large tree, and came back with a large, rusted shovel.

“I watched him doing this earlier,” he rasped loudly, handing me the flashlight to hold.

“Who?” I asked.  

He didn’t answer. He dug the shovel into the snow, tossing loads of it aside until it began to turn a muddy color. He hit dirt and kept digging.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what lay at the end of this road, at the bottom of the hole.  

For a split second, I thought about Marie, and my heart started pounding like a jackhammer in my ears.

Could this… Could she be…?

I swallowed hard as a sickly sweet bile started climbing its way up the back of my throat.

Owen suddenly threw the shovel aside and knelt down in the snow, reaching down into the hole and carefully removing handfuls of dirt.

Then, he grabbed ahold of something.

I bit my lip, trying to prepare myself for the worst.

He lifted it out of the ground, and placed it lightly on the snow next to the hole.

My breath caught in my throat.

Chapter 48

I dropped to my knees, kneeling down next to it, the cold snow bleeding through my jeans.  

Of all the things I imagined might have been at the bottom of that hole, I wouldn’t have expected this.

The pink plastic orb lay on its side, bands of glitter circling it. Snowflake stencil decorations dotted its surface, catching the yellows of the flashlight.

The ornament was about the size of a large balloon.

And I was now more confused than ever.

“What is this?” I whispered. “What in the hell are we doing out here?”

Owen rolled the ornament toward him and inspected it.

“I don’t understand what’s going—”

There was a loud popping sound.

I watched as the ornament split into two hollow halves.

Owen took the flashlight from me and shined it down on the bisected pieces. I peered over, trying to figure out what—

My mouth fell open.  

Owen glanced over at me.  

“Do you know who this cabin here belongs to?” he whispered.

I shook my head, my eyes still on the ornament’s contents.

“He wanted you to forgive him yesterday,” he said, putting the ornament back together.

I inhaled sharply.

I was floored.

“Are you sure it’s his?” I said, in disbelief.

“I’ve been watching him all day,” he said. “I’m sure.”

He placed the ornament back in the hole, and started pushing dirt and snow back over it.

“What I need to know, Cinnamon, is whether there’s anyway that he would have this legally.”

I glanced over at the dark cabin.

I didn’t have to think too hard about the question.

A job building houses for poor families wouldn’t buy what was inside of the ornament.

A job like that didn’t provide the kind of income to buy thousands of dollars-worth of glittery, sparkly, breathtaking diamond jewelry.

Chapter 49

I took another sip of hazelnut coffee, trying to stamp out the chill that I had caught out in the woods earlier that morning.

I was in the pie shop’s kitchen, staring out the window, feeling more dead than alive.  

It was the first sunny day in what felt like ages. The trees, still encased in a layer of ice, sparkled in the late morning sun. Water dripped down from the roof, adding to long, sharp icicles.

I stood there, lost in a sea of memories. Thinking back to a time and to a person that I used to be. A person that I hardly recognized these days.

To a teenage girl who couldn’t have possibly known what she was getting herself into.

Back in high school, I spent a weekend one summer at Evan’s family’s old fishing cabin on the outskirts of Christmas River. Even back then, the cabin was old and falling apart.

Up until that point in our relationship, I hadn’t been serious about Evan. Part of me was still reeling from Daniel leaving Christmas River. And while I thought Evan was a nice enough guy, it had been clear as day that he was the one chasing me.

My heart was still set on a certain pair of green eyes that had left me behind in the dust.

Up until then, I could have gone either way about Evan. But it all changed after that weekend at the cabin.

I saw another side to Evan there. The side I fell in love with. A kind, gentle, sweet side. We stayed up all night talking and slept in until the afternoon. We went fishing and I caught a trout, and he lifted me up and twirled me around like I had just won gold at the Olympics.

When night fell, he built a fire and roasted hot dogs and made S’mores. We talked about our hopes and dreams for the future, about all the things we wanted to do once we got out of Christmas River.  

And in the light of the camp fire, he kissed my nose and told me that he loved me. And I told him what I felt in my heart then.

That I loved him, too.

That weekend, so long ago.

We left for home Sunday evening, both different people.

Evan was right in some ways.

We did have some good times when we were together.

But it just wasn’t enough to make up for what he did later.

That weekend was the last time I saw the cabin.

His family sold the property a few years later. After we got married, Evan would sometimes talk about saving enough money to buy it back one day, but we barely had enough money to pay the mortgage on the house, let alone buy a fishing cabin.