Kansas City Christmas (2 page)

Was simply showing up really enough? He turned his head and looked down into the sincerity shining from her dark eyes. No wonder his father had loved this woman so much. Edward leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Atticus can be pretty darn convincing.”

Susan stroked the neat, triangular flag that had been draped over his father’s coffin. Stress and sorrow had deepened the crow’s feet beside her eyes as she summoned a smile. “He doesn’t take no for an answer, does he.”

“Never has.”

“He’s stubborn, like your father. Smart like him, too.” Her smile faded into a wistful sigh. “Each of you has something of your father in him.”

Edward absently twirled his dark walnut cane in his right hand in the heavy silence that followed. He was more steel pins than bone from the waist down, his heart and soul gutted. What part of John Kincaid did he have left in him?

His mother didn’t need to be intuitive to sense his discomfort. She leaned her cheek into his shoulder. “Holden obviously looks like your father—sings like him and has some of that Kincaid Irish charm in him, too. Sawyer has his heart—his gentleness, his compassion—he’s just as eager to right the wrongs of the world as your father was. And you…?”

When she paused, Edward made a sound inside his chest that might once have been a laugh. “Hard to come up with something nice to say about me?”

“No. Hard to choose the right words to say so that you’ll believe them.” She turned in the seat to face him. “You’re the leader of this family now—”

“No.”

He shrugged away from her grasp and tried to retreat, but she simply followed him across the seat. “I know we’re all grownups. Your brothers are fine men and can take care of themselves. They’ve been taking care of
me
these past five days.”

His mother deserved better than an absentee son during a time like this. He should have been stronger. He should have been able to deal with this. “I’m sorry, Mom. I should have called. I was busy—”

“Coming to grips with the loss of yet another person you love.” Laced with a gentle understanding he didn’t deserve, the touch of her hand against his jaw was almost painful. “You were busy getting sober.”

For a moment, his eyes locked onto hers. “How…?”

Her pale mouth curved into a smile. “Your clothes smell clean. You trimmed that ratty beard. Your beautiful eyes are clear.”

“So I’m a bum who ignored my own mother in her time of need.” He turned away from her forgiving touch and intuitive gaze. “And you think
I’m
the leader of this family?”

She brushed her fingers across his jaw again, ignoring his sardonic tone. “Your father would be so proud of you today.”

He could pull away from the gentle touch, ignore the kind words. But the sheen of tears pooling in her eyes and spilling over did him in. Edward caught the first tear with the pad of his thumb and wiped the trail of sorrow from her cheek. “Mom…I…What are we supposed to do? Just because I’m the oldest doesn’t mean I can make sense of any of this. I can’t make this right.”

“But you can make it better. You
have
made it better, just by being here.”

“In a way, I can see one good thing about the girls not being here—I don’t know how I’d explain losing Dad to Melinda. She loved her granddaddy so much. I’m not eight and I wasn’t born with Down’s syndrome. And I
still
don’t understand this.”

“They were crazy about each other, weren’t they? John always called Melinda his little angel.” Susan Kincaid leaned her cheek into Edward’s hand. “I hadn’t remembered that. That’s a comfort to know they’ll be together again.” Wishing he had a handkerchief, Edward brushed away the new fall of tears. “Oh, Edward. I miss him so much.”

Some comfort
. His mother reached for him, caught him around the waist and hugged him tight. Edward reacted before he realized what the gesture might cost him. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close as his brittle defenses crumbled and her grief and confusion and anger flowed into his. “Just cry it on out, Mom. Just cry it out.”

Several minutes passed before her sobbing sounds became erratic sniffles and then softened into steadier, more even breaths. His shirtfront was damp and streaked with her makeup as she finally pulled away. Her face became lined with a frown of confusion as her fingers probed the front waistband of his slacks. “You’re not wearing your badge.”

His KCPD badge was locked in a metal box with his guns, gathering dust on the back shelf of his closet until he could decide if he would ever be ready to be a cop again. But that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Kincaids were cops. The call to protect and serve was in their blood. That call had taken everything Edward loved. Today wasn’t the day to explain his guilt, however. A logical excuse would serve well enough. “I’ve been on leave since a year ago Christmas.”

Confusion briefly morphed into maternal concern. “Your doctor cleared you to go back on duty, right?”

“If I tended to my physical therapy the way I’m supposed to, then yeah, the doc says I could build up my strength and pass the physical. But I just don’t think I can….” He squeezed his fist around the brass carving on his cane. The stick of heavy walnut had become a mental crutch as much as an aid for the physical pain that would never completely leave his rebuilt joints. Images of Cara’s golden hair and Melinda’s effervescent smile blipped through his mind. His last mental snapshot of his family had seen that golden hair matted with blood and his daughter’s face lying pale and expressionless against the snow. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to forget. But the task proved impossible, and he jerked his eyes open at his mother’s gentle touch on his face.

“Shh.” Susan Kincaid stroked his cheek and hair as though he was her little boy again, and she could soothe his hurts away with a maternal magic that somehow managed to salvage some pride while still making him feel better. Though this was no skinned knee they were dealing with today. “I’m not asking you to do anything you’re not ready for. I have plenty enough to worry about on my plate. Your brothers are set on investigating your father’s murder themselves.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” Sixteen months ago, he’d have been leading the pack to find the killer himself. “Don’t worry about them, Mom. The department has protocols in place. They won’t be able to play any official role in the case.”

She arched one eyebrow as she pulled her hand away. “It’s their
unofficial
curiosity that concerns me. We all want to find the killer, we all want justice. But I don’t want to lose anyone else in the process—I don’t want this to impact their careers or their lives any more than it already has.”

Edward nodded. “You want me to talk some sense into them? I don’t know that they’ll listen to me.”

“They’ll listen. They look up to you, son. They trust your wisdom about the world.”

“Mom, I—”

“Shh.” She pressed her fingers against his mouth, refusing to hear his protest. Right. He was the leader of the family now. Man, were they screwed. “Just…remind them to keep their wits about them. And to watch their backs.”

His eyes settled on a strand of gray hair that had fallen over her cheek. The gray hadn’t been there the last time he’d seen her. The woman who’d been the Rock of Gibraltar for them throughout their lives was more vulnerable, more fragile than Edward had ever imagined. An inevitable sense of resignation—that call to duty that he’d tried to drink into a coma—awoke inside him. It was grouchy and unsure—and maybe even a bit afraid to take on the world again—but his mother’s need had reawakened it.

Reaching out, Edward brushed the gray hair off her cheek and tucked it beneath the rich dark hair at her temple. “I’ll talk to them. I’ll help them however I can.”

She blinked away another bout of tears and nodded her thanks. “And one more thing?” Why not? “I don’t have your father’s badge.”

Edward tried to follow her unexpected tangent. Had it been buried with him? Did she want it back? Or had it simply been misplaced? “Where is it?” She shrugged. Okay. Not misplaced. “I’m sure the commissioner would issue a memorial copy—”

“No. You don’t understand.” Susan tugged at the front of Edward’s coat, then quickly smoothed it back into place. “I want the badge he carried with him as a detective and deputy commissioner for all these years. It was never recovered from the crime scene. I don’t know if it was lost during the struggle in the park when they kidnapped him from his morning run, or if one of those murderers kept it as some kind of souvenir.”

Edward reached for his cane, certain that she was asking the wrong son for this favor. “Like I said, I haven’t been a cop for a while. Sawyer or Atticus could—”

“Edward. Please.” Her brown eyes darkened with her plea.

A muscle twitched beneath the scar on his jaw. He’d barely gotten himself to the cemetery. He’d already agreed to talking some cautionary sense into his brothers. He wasn’t equipped to ask questions or search for clues or go anywhere near a police investigation—not when the consequences for getting involved were so high.

“I can’t have the man I love anymore. But he was truly one of Kansas City’s finest for thirty-six years. He left the military and became a police officer the year I found out I was pregnant with you. That badge represents the best years of our lives together. All that he did for this city, the man he was, the sons we raised. It represents so much more than just his job to me. Does that make any sense?”

He’d packed away everything that represented his wife and child when he’d lost them. But one thing he’d taken to heart from those first few sessions with his trauma counselor—every person grieved in his or her own way. While he wanted to erase every painful reminder of loss from his life, his mother wanted to cling to the memories. Edward understood what she was asking of him. He understood that he was asking it of himself as well, though he couldn’t be sure how he was going to make it happen, or when, or what it might cost him.

“I want your father’s badge. If it takes two days or two years or forever to track it down, I want it back.”

“Okay.” That single word hurt—down deep in his soul. Even though this assignment was an unofficial one, he was going to be a cop again.

“Okay? You’ll do that for me?”

Edward wasn’t in any kind of shape to be making promises to anybody. But he made this one to his mother.

“I’ll do it.”

December

With eight months of hard-fought sobriety inside him to filter his thoughts, Edward managed to keep a wiseacre response to himself as the teen with the bright smile behind the cash register chirped, “Merry Christmas!” and handed him his bags of groceries.

“Thank you for shopping with us, sir,” the girl went on, either genuinely caught up in the goodwill of the season or intent in her desire to impress her supervisor. Said supervisor, sporting a bit more weariness to his frozen smile, was pacing the bustling check-out lines, ensuring every customer had a positive shopping experience and would return to buy holiday turkeys and hams and whatever last-minute presents they might need in the upcoming two weeks.

At the girl’s tender age, Edward suspected it was the former. He tucked his billfold into the back pocket of his jeans and unhooked his cane from the edge of the counter before grabbing the two plastic bags. He sincerely hoped the young cashier would be way past his thirty-five years of age before learning to hate the cheer and dazzle and social expectations of the holidays as much as he did.

The economy might thrive on the holiday season. A few Pollyannas might. But Edward Kincaid did not.

For him, Christmas meant violence and loss and a lifetime of happiness and purpose he might never find again.

“Merry Christmas, sir.” The supervisor’s greeting echoed the cashier’s as Edward limped past.

His memory played a sweet lispy voice inside his head.
“Merry Christmas, Daddy. Did you get my bike?”

“I did. A purple one. Merry Christmas, baby.”

He blinked, as if a physical jerk could shut off the nightmare of those last few moments of his daughter’s life. If he never said those words again, it would be too soon.

Clamping down on the bile of regret that rose in his throat, Edward acknowledged the man with a nod and walked out the sliding door, turning his face to the biting wind of a Missouri winter. He relished the icy crystals in the air, stinging his face and neck. Winter had come early to Kansas City this year. Snow had been on the ground for three weeks now, long enough to pack into drifts against buildings and trees and for grading salt and traffic to coat the pavement with a slick, slushy glop. The moisture beading on his charcoal sweater and the unzipped black coat he wore indicated another layer of this snowy mess was on the way. The dropping temperature that seemed to settle in his mended joints confirmed it.

Edward plunged the tip of his cane into the slush beside the curb, feeling even that tiny step down like the jab of a pin in his right ankle and knee. The twinges in his rebuilt body were tolerable most days. According to the doctors who’d stitched him back together, he was as healed as he was going to get. Now it was just a matter of building strength and continuing with his physical therapy exercises to maintain flexibility. His youngest brother, Holden, had insisted on giving him his weight-training set when he’d upgraded to newer equipment. Months of PT had made Edward fit. Dragging himself to the weight bench every time the need for a drink tried to take hold was getting him back into fighting shape. With the idea in mind that he’d wind up an arthritic old man before his time if he didn’t keep moving, Edward stretched his legs out to lengthen his stride and crossed the parking lot to his black SUV.

He’d just tossed the grocery sacks into the back seat of the Grand Cherokee when the cell phone on his belt hummed with an incoming call. He climbed in behind the wheel, tossed his cane over to the passenger side and started the vehicle’s powerful engine before unclipping the phone and checking the number. It was his youngest brother, Holden.

Edward cranked the defroster and opened the phone with a grin. “What do you want?”

“Bah, humbug to you, too.” Holden’s deep-pitched voice was laced with equal parts teasing and reprimand. “Where are you?”

Watching the first crystalline flakes dot his windshield and then melt away, Edward arched a dark brow with knowing sarcasm. Baby Bro wanted something. “I’m sitting in the grocery store parking lot, trying to get comfortable in my new car. You know, I had my old Jeep all broken in before you borrowed it and returned it a totaled mess after your jaunt down to the Ozarks with your girlfriend. This new model the insurance paid for doesn’t feel like home yet. It still has that new upholstery smell.”

“Um, hello? Witness protection? Bullets flying? You’re lucky
I
didn’t come back totaled.”

Damn lucky. Despite Holden’s sharpshooter and survival training with KCPD’s S.W.A.T. team—and the loan of Edward’s vehicle and expertise in hiding out from the world—he’d barely managed to stay a step ahead of the assassin who’d targeted the woman who’d witnessed their father’s murder. Liza Parrish would probably be dead right now if Holden hadn’t stepped up to volunteer as her personal bodyguard. Along with Sawyer’s discovery of a dangerous conspiracy, and evidence that provided motive and a list of suspects that Atticus had uncovered, Liza’s testimony had given KCPD a good description of their father’s murderer or murderers.

Eight months had passed since John Kincaid’s beaten body had been found slain, execution-style, in an abandoned riverfront warehouse. Edward’s years of experience on the force warned him that the longer it took to solve the case, the harder it would be to find the answers they needed. But soon, very soon, KCPD would put someone behind bars for the vicious crime and justice would finally be served.

If the Kincaid brothers had anything to do with it.

Three of them, at any rate. He was willing enough to help out where he could, but it had been a long time since Edward had picked up his gun and badge. If he could remain on the sidelines, it was probably just as well. His last few days as a full-fledged cop hadn’t done the people he cared about any good.

Pushing aside a niggling thought that was part relief, part regret and all guilt, Edward turned his focus back to his brother’s call. “I guess I’d rather have you around instead of that old Jeep.”

“You sweet talker, you.”

Right.
I love you
came about as easily to his lips as
Merry Christmas
. Holden understood.

“So, what’s up?” Edward asked, noting how the snow gathering in the clouds above had turned the afternoon into a hazy twilight.

“I want you to come to Christmas Eve dinner at Mom’s house.”

Little Brother didn’t beat around the bush, did he.

Though the idea of a family get-together, with presents and ornaments and food and laughter and love, hit him like a blinding sucker punch, Edward buried his knee-jerk reaction beneath the sarcasm that laced his voice. “I’m busy on the twenty-fourth.”

“Bull—”

“Watch your mouth, little brother.”

“When are you going to move on, Edward?” Holden asked, managing to sound irritated and concerned at the same time.

“I’m working on it.” Edward idly looked out the window to see people hunched down in their coats and scarves against the weather, their arms laden with sacks and packages, purses and briefcases—all going somewhere with a purpose. He used to be driven like that. Catch some bad guys, save the day. Hurry home to make love to his wife and play kickball or tag or read a book with his daughter. Since their deaths, it had taken him four months to get out of the hospital and learn to walk again, the rest of the year to move out of his house to a cabin in the countryside outside of K.C.—to settle in a quiet place where the memories couldn’t find him. It had taken longer still before a visit from his family or a trip to the store didn’t drain every last ounce of his emotional energy. “I’m working on it,” he repeated.

“I know you’ve come a long way. But…please. This will be Mom’s first Christmas without Dad. I think we should all be there for her. I think we all need to be together.”

So, when did the youngest of Edward’s brothers start to sound like the wise old man of the family?

“I don’t want to ruin anyone’s holiday with one of my moods.” He groused a curse beneath his breath. “Staying away might be the best gift I could give Mom.”

“Nobody believes that but you, big brother.” Holden’s voice brightened, changing the tone if not the topic. “We’d love it if you’d come, even if it’s just for a little while. Liza and I have an announcement to make.”

“Surprise, surprise. Are you finally gonna make an honest woman of her?”

“Finally? Give me a break, Dr. Romance. I was in the hospital recovering from a sucking chest wound and a concussion after our run-in with Z Group’s assassin, Mr. Smith.” Holden’s news didn’t surprise him. With a hit man relentlessly trying to silence Liza’s testimony about their father’s murder, falling in love had happened fast. But even Edward’s cynical soul had been able to see the depth of what was between them. “Then we had to find a new place for Liza that had room for three dogs after her house got all shot up. Those are all legitimate excuses for delaying wedding plans with the woman you love.”

“Got that out of an etiquette book, did you?”

But Holden wouldn’t be dissuaded. “So, are you coming to Mom’s or not?”

“She knows I love her.” He deserved a little flak for dropping out of the family—out of life—for so long. But he was making an effort—improving his family relationships, day by day. The rest of the world would have to wait to get his charming self back into the thick of things. “I’m a lot better about calling her than I was even a few months ago. Talked to her last night, in fact. I know she’s planning a quiet family kind of thing—Sawyer with his wife and son and mother-in-law, Atticus and Brooke with her aunts, you and Liza, Uncle Bill.”

“You’re on the guest list, too. Even if you’re just there for a…”

For a what? Edward whistled a long breath between his lips, feeling, not for the first time, the pain his addiction had cost his family. “A toast?”

“Sawyer’s wife, Mel, is pregnant, so she won’t be drinking any alcohol, either. Maybe none of us will. You know how Mom likes that sparkling cider.”

“Relax, little brother. Mentioning booze is not going to make me go out and have a drink.” There were a dozen other things that might tempt him to go back inside the store for a six-pack, but the mere mention of alcohol wasn’t one of them. “I’m okay. I’ll…think about the Christmas Eve thing.”

“You’ve already decided not to come, haven’t you.”

“Maybe I can stop by on another day.” And he
would
make the effort to do so. It was one thing for him to suffer through the season, but now that he was sober, he knew there was no good reason for his family to hurt any more than they had to. “Congratulations to you and Liza, though. I promise not to tell anyone until you make a formal announcement.”

“I’ve got eight days to change your mind. I’m not giving up.”

“Didn’t think you would.” The interior of the new Jeep had warmed up enough that Edward tucked the phone between his shoulder and ear and pulled off his black leather gloves. “Now, do you have some other reason for calling besides pestering me about family reunions?”

“I might.”

“Come on. I’ve been sitting here long enough that it’s snowing again. So spit it out.”

Though he normally went out on calls with his S.W.A.T. team, Holden had been assigned to temporary light duty—aka sitting behind a desk—since going back to work at the Fourth Precinct after his hospital stay and recovery time. Edward could hear some papers rustling in the background as Holden’s voice dropped to barely more than a whisper. “We’ve come up with a lead on Dad’s murder that we—Sawyer, Atticus, Kevin Grove—the lead detective on the case—and me—believe we need
your
help to follow up on.”

“Me? I’ve got until January second to let Major Taylor know whether or not I’m coming back to KCPD. Until then, I’m off duty. I don’t even carry my badge anymore.”

“Exactly. You may have street connections that we could use beyond the standard pawn shops and fences.”

Edward had worked overt and undercover drug enforcement for most of his KCPD career. Once he’d had connections on both sides of the law. But since plowing André Butler beneath the wheels of his SUV, Edward hadn’t gone near any of his old “friends.” “You want me to do something illegal? Conduct a search without an official warrant?”

“All I want is for you to help us look for a ring. And maybe a couple of disintegrating bullets.”

“D
ASHING THROUGH THE SNOW
…”

Holly Masterson’s singing softened to a hum as she squinted at her computer screen and typed in the next line of her autopsy report.
COD—Natural Causes. Massive heart failure due to…

“In a one-horse open sleigh…”

Her fingers danced over the keyboard in time to the music playing over her earphones.
Indigent lifestyle of malnutrition, exposure to elements and lack of medical…

“…laughing all the way. Ha, ha, ha. Bells on—”

The red light flashed on her office phone, indicating an incoming call. Holly killed the music as she saved her report. She spared a few moments to back it up to a disk and send it to the printer before pulling off her earphones and answering the call. “Crime lab. Dr. Masterson speaking.”

“Do I really have to call you
Doctor?
Can’t I just call you Squirt, the way I used to?” Holly grinned at the teasing in her older brother Eli’s voice. “So, what’s keeping you at the lab so late tonight? I tried to call you on your cell, but it went straight to voice mail.”

After a half dozen calls from the same unnamed cell phone, with no one on the other end when she picked it up, Holly had turned hers off and plugged it into its charger. But she had helped Eli raise herself and their younger sister since she was in high school and their parents had died in a plane crash. They’d weathered their sister’s rebellious choices and cocaine addiction together. A wrong number was nothing to worry an overprotective big brother about.

“I like to call it ‘work’,” Holly deadpanned. “You know I man the late shift at the lab, or you wouldn’t be calling me this close to midnight. So what’s up?”

“A guy can’t call his sister just to see how she’s doing?” That dry wit was a Masterson trait. “So…your car’s running all right? You got the stopper on that bathroom drain fixed? You’re not dating anyone I need to check out?”