An Angel for Christmas (14 page)

“Sorry,” he said. “He might be after something extremely tangible—like the snowmobile.”

She kept looking at him; he had changed his mind—regarding what he might have said to her.

“Gabe, what are you really trying to say?” she asked, and her concentration was so hard on his face as she tried to read what was behind his pas
sive expression that she stumbled and fell into him, bringing them both down into the snow.

“I'm sorry,” she breathed, pressing her gloved hands into the biting snow to rise above him, blushing.

He shook his head. “It's fine,” he said. He stared up at her for a long moment, and there was something of wonder in his eyes, and then he sighed. “We need to move,” he told her.

He laughed, getting his footing, and helping her to find hers once again.

“We've got to keep walking,” he told her.

“We'll freeze,” she agreed. “And we have to find them.”

“We will find them.”

“You're so sure!”

“Ah, well, you see,” he said lightly, “I believe in Christmas, for all that it means.”

“You're not talking about a lit tree and ornaments, are you?” Morwenna said, smiling at him. “You are sunshine and light,” she added dryly.

“Ah, well, I know that it's sometimes hard to see, and often impossible to understand, but I do
believe in a greater power, and I may be a cop, but I do believe that
most
people are inherently good. We have basic needs, and then we have wants…and then we have desires. We're easily hurt, and when we're hurt, we're defensive, and we lash out. There really are seven sins, you know,” he said lightly.

“And we all, in some way or another, fall into them all?” she asked.

“Not all of us into
all
of them,” he said, grinning. “And,” he added, “Christmas Day is special in many ways. You know—if you're a kid, you wait for Santa. If you're Christian, you believe in celebrating the birth of the man who taught us that we could be saved from all the bad we can fall into because we are human. No matter how people see their faith, the world is really one big family, and they say, too, that it's a family above and below the world as well.”

“Heaven and hell?” Morwenna asked him.

He grinned. “Think of it all as one big family. Except there was one child who was very, very bad in his behavior. He envied his sisters and his
brothers, and he envied every other creature, certain that everyone and everything was loved more than he was. And so let's say his parent sent him to stand in the corner, and while he was standing in the corner, he plotted a zillion other ways to get into trouble—and to get others to get into trouble with him. Now, as badly as he might be behaving, like any child, he's still loved. But his brothers and sisters have to look after him all the time, and make sure that he doesn't hurt others or get them into trouble with him.”

Morwenna stared at him incredulously. She laughed softly. “Okay, so we're all one big family. God and man and—”

“All the angels,” he told her. “Those who are well behaved, and, of course, the brother who just can't seem to behave. But, you see, here's the good thing—as bad as things look, and as bad as they are at times, we do have Christmas, when we celebrate the fact that good will outweigh what's bad. Belief is the hardest thing in the world…belief in what's intangible, and belief in ourselves.”

Morwenna looked ahead, and she didn't know
why, but she was suddenly reminded of the scene she had seen on television. Mexico. Over a hundred million strong—and a country with tons of tourist cities. But Alex had managed to get himself captured—with Double-D Debbie—for a few seconds on camera. She had been hurt, yes. Hurt—or had she felt humiliated? Or was it both? Of course she felt hurt.
But had she known? Had she realized, when they couldn't come to an agreement over the holiday, that there was something that…that just wasn't there?

And if she was so hurt, why didn't she feel it now?

Because she loved her brothers; her brothers loved her. And they were out there somewhere.

She turned and looked at Gabe and laughed. “You are one crazy policeman, you know?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. But I'm also a very lucky one today.”

“Why is that?”

“I happened upon people who prove the point that decency and goodness can so often win out. Miss MacDougal, I do indeed rest my point!”

She shook her head, smiling.

“If we find them,” she whispered then.

“We will,” he assured her.

“How can you be so certain that everything will be all right?” she demanded.

“Because of you, right now. Because I know that you won't stop until you find them.”

She laughed again, with a dry note in her voice. “No, you don't know the mountains. Terrible things happen so easily. There are high ridges that fall straight down a thousand feet. When there's weather, there are horrible potholes that can wreck almost any kind of vehicle. And there's treacherous ice. And the weather is so cold—we can all freeze on the mountain.”

He smiled at her again. “Well, then, I will have been privileged to have known you all.”

She met his eyes, and she felt oddly warm and certain despite the cold. “No,” she said softly. “I think we have been privileged to have known you.”

He looked back at her for a long moment.

“Look!” Gabe pointed out. “Look—there are some tracks, and something…”

“Something what?” Morwenna demanded.

“Something heavy was dragged through the snow,” Gabe said.

And it had been. There was a flattened path of ground ahead of them.

“Hurry!” Gabe said, and he started ahead of her, somehow making tremendous speed across the slick ground.

And then it seemed that the world around them groaned, as if there was a crack of thunder that had split the sky. The sound echoed and ricocheted through the trees.

“What…?” Morwenna began.

“He's found them,” Gabe said grimly. “DeFeo has found your brothers.”

 

Bobby had felt himself lose control; it had been like spinning on black ice…no, he had been spinning, but it's because they had hit something beneath the snow that shouldn't have been there.

The impact of the vehicle had shuddered down the length of him.

And then he'd landed in the snow, and for a moment, he was aware only of the cold, the feel of the air and the pain in his body. There was something on top of him. The world was white…

He was pinned beneath the snowmobile.

“Shayne!” He cried his brother's name. “Cindy!”

“Yeah, yeah…” Shayne said. “Cindy, Cindy…”

He felt his brother trying to scramble around him, pulling his ex-wife from the wreckage.

“Is she all right?” Bobby asked.

“I'm—I'm okay!” Cindy said.

“Bobby?” Shayne asked, rushing to his side.

“I can't—I can't get out,” Bobby said.

“Can you feel your legs, can you move them?” Shayne demanded.

His brother was there, down on his knees in the snow, next to him. Bobby tried to wiggle his toes and move his ankles. He didn't think that anything was broken; he was just stuck.

“Yes, yes, I can move everything,” Bobby said.

Shayne nodded. “All right, I'm going to try to
move the snowmobile. And when I do, you have to wriggle out quickly.”

“Gotcha.”

“Shayne, what do I do?” Cindy asked.

“You can try to add your weight when I lift,” Shayne told her. “Ready?”

Cindy stood by him, ready to lift.

But though Shayne was strong, and had Cindy's help, the weight of the snowmobile was just too much.

“Listen, you two just get back to the tavern,” Bobby said, forcing cheerfulness into his voice. “Get help, and get back here.”

“I'm not leaving you like this,” Shayne told him.

“Hey, Shayne!” Bobby protested. “We can't all just stay here—where will that get us?”

“I'm going to get a pulley system going…we've still got the rope. Cindy, you should probably be in a hospital, but can you take the rope—you remember how to do the knots, right?”

“Of course,” Cindy said. “Hey, I didn't spend time with Dad for nothing! I mean, your father,”
she amended quickly. “I've got it. I'm really all right, Shayne, I can help. Give me the rope.”

“All right,” Shayne said, pausing and looking around. “There…walk over there. That tree looks good and sturdy and it's at the right angle…take that end of the rope, Cindy, and make sure it's a good knot.”

Bobby heard the snow crunching as Cindy hurried off to do as she had been instructed. He watched as Shayne studied the snowmobile and the way it had fallen and then started to loop the heavy nylon rope around the snowmobile. “With the tree helping to create a lever system, we will get this thing up in no time,” Shayne promised him.

Bobby was able to grab his brother's ankle. Shayne looked down at him.

“If you don't get this up now,” Bobby said sternly, “you're going to take Cindy to the tavern, get Dad and Mac and come back for me.”

“I'm going to get it up. What, are you kidding me? Can you imagine Mom if I come back with
out you? Don't worry—I'm going to manage this!”

Shayne told him. “Cindy—”

Shayne went dead still, and quiet. Bobby tried to twist around and see what was going on; he couldn't.

He could only see his brother's face, and his features were knotted in a look of wary dread.

“What?” Bobby whispered.

But Shayne didn't look down at him.

Bobby heard someone else speaking, and he knew the voice.

Luke DeFeo.

“That's right, I have the pretty little ex-missus!” DeFeo said. “And nothing is going to happen to her. As long as you all play it right. I want that snowmobile. You're going to get it up and running, and then everything will be fine.”

Bobby strained and twisted, trying to see around the snowmobile. He managed to wriggle enough to look around the front; Luke DeFeo had Cindy in a choke hold against his body.

“I know what I'm doing,” he said quietly. “One
wrong move and her neck snaps. And I still get the snowmobile. Are we clear?”

“Perfectly,” Shayne said, ice in his words.

Bobby saw DeFeo smile. “Don't worry. I let her get a good knot on that rope before I nabbed her. Dr. MacDougal, now it's all up to you and your brother there. I want the snowmobile up, and I want it running, and when it is, I'll take your ex with me just down the road a hair, and I'll leave her for you gentlemen to find again.”

Cindy was staring at Shayne, tears in her eyes. Bobby knew why she hadn't screamed; she was flat against DeFeo's back, and his arm was in a hold that prevented her from uttering so much as a squeak. She looked at Shayne with apology in her eyes, and fear that she couldn't quite hide.

Cindy hadn't even known about DeFeo! She hadn't known anything about the strange night that had passed, or about the stranger day that had followed…

The darkness was beginning to settle around them in earnest.

And with the darkness would come a greater cold.

“I have to get to the tree with the lever,” Shayne
said. “I'm moving, and I'm going to need to be there. I'm going to get the snowmobile off my brother, and we'll get it up together. Don't do anything. I'll get you the damn snowmobile.”

“Fine. Do it,” DeFeo said.

Something of a little squeak did escape Cindy as DeFeo jerked her back and away from the tree.

Bobby cursed himself for getting stuck beneath the snowmobile. If he had just realized what could have happened, if he'd have tried to jump clear…

Bobby saw as Shayne moved, delving first into the storage compartment for the lever. He then heard his brother's footsteps crunching through the snow as he headed for the tree.

He could barely see Shayne anymore, and DeFeo was caught in the crazy light that emanated from the headlight of the snowmobile. There was something not quite right about the man.

He could hear Shayne, struggling with the pulley system he was trying to assemble and work with the tree and the rope. His brother, he thought, had it rigged, and he was using all his strength to pull.
The snowmobile seemed to ease up on Bobby; he tried to slip out.

His brother let out a grunt, having to stop for a minute.

“Or,” DeFeo said quietly, “you could leave me to deal with this. Take the little lady up to the tavern—and leave me here with your brother. What a fix! Desert your baby brother. What should you do, Shayne? You've got about two more minutes to move that snowmobile, or I'll take charge in the way that I see fit.”

“I'm not leaving anyone!” Shayne snapped.

“Then you'd better get going, right?” DeFeo warned.

Shayne faced him. “Really? Aren't you a bit of a fool? The minute you release Cindy, we'll all be right on top of you, you lying bastard!”

Bobby winced. He wasn't sure that threatening the man was the way to go. But Shayne wasn't going to leave him, and he wasn't going to let the man hurt Cindy. He was testing Shayne, trying to make him decide between the mother of his children and his brother.

“What do you care about the woman?” DeFeo asked him. “Didn't she leave you? Didn't she walk out on you, screw around with some other man using the money you worked for? The bitch is only here now because she couldn't stand you having her children.”

“If you hurt her,” Shayne said, “you will be a dead man.”

DeFeo started to laugh. Bobby blinked. He looked so strange in the glow that was cast by the headlight. He seemed bigger than he had been. He seemed to radiate a strange smell so powerful that it even reached Bobby where he lay, caught beneath the heavy snowmobile.