Dead of Winter Page 21

  Not even a third of the way through this one, she’s nearly defeated, depleted, and—

  Her foot turns on a rock buried deep in a drift, throwing her off balance. She topples into the snow. It isn’t a long fall, cushioned by a downy drift, but it knocks the wind out of her.

  Lying there, she closes her eyes, wet snowflakes falling down her face like teardrops.

  I need to find my son.

  In her mind’s eye, she sees a schoolyard.

  A child.

  Not Jiffy.

  The boy is small, dark-haired. He’s wearing thick horn-rimmed glasses and shorts that are pulled up too high at the waist and cut so long they brush the tops of his knobby knees. They aren’t bruised, scraped, scabbed, and scarred like Jiffy’s knees are. And he’s different. Timid. Frightened.

  Wide-eyed, shoulders hunched, he clutches a metal lunchbox with both hands as a couple of oversized bullies try to grab it.

  She hears Elvis, coughing above her, barking, “This isn’t nap time! Come on; get up.”

  She opens her eyes. His fleshy face looms over her, eyes narrowed behind his glasses. The frames are golden aviator style, but the eyes are the same. He’s still holding the gun, but with his other hand, he’s fumbling in his pocket.

  Misty takes a deep breath. “Someone hurt you. A long time ago. You were just a little boy.”

  He stops fumbling. The eyes are startled, then narrow. But in them, distress mingles with anger.

  “A lot of . . .” He pauses, trying to catch his breath. “A lot of people . . . hurt little boys.”

  “I hope you’re not one of them.”

  He coughs, long and hard, glaring at her and shaking his head. But why should she believe that he’s not a child predator?

  “I’m looking for my son, Jiffy Arden. Please. Red hair. Talks a lot. Huge Star Wars fan.” The last part is a lie. She’s not even certain Jiffy has ever seen the movie, though Mike is certainly a fan.

  But it seems to resonate with Elvis.

  If she only knew what it means to him, as well as the other thing she’s supposed to be connecting to him, something about . . .

  No, not Jiffy.

  But right now, what else matters?

  “Have you seen my son?”

  “Yeah. I’ve . . .” More coughing. “I’ve seen him.”

  “Where is he?”

  He shrugs, hacking away, his gloved hand back in his pocket.

  “Please tell me. I’m so worried.”

  “Yeah? If you’re so worried, such a great mom and all, then why’s he walking around this place at all hours of the night alone? Why didn’t you meet him at the bus stop? Why doesn’t he wear a coat in a blizzard?”

  The lengthy speech dissolves in a sputtering fit of violent coughs. Misty is as shaken by his words as he appears to be by his inability to catch his breath—and not just due to a rash of maternal regret.

  “You saw him today,” she says, trembling. “Where is he?”

  He ignores her, wheezing, and takes out an inhaler at last.

  If she weren’t down here flat on her back, she could have made a grab for it. But that’s why he waited until she was incapacitated. By the time she’s back on her feet, his moment of weakness will have passed.

  He starts to put the mouthpiece to his lips, is seized by a coughing spell, and fumbles it. The device drops to the ground and disappears into the snow inches from Misty’s hand. She whips off her glove and plunges her bare hand into the icy spot before he can react. Making contact with the inhaler, she closes her fingers around it and looks up at him.

  “Give . . .” He pauses, huffing, pressing his arms against his straining ribcage. “Give . . .”

  “Give it to me!”

  Elvis’s voice, inside her head only, echoing words Spirit gave her earlier.

  In this moment, staring into his frightened eyes in a flushed face, she can’t imagine that it might have been anything more crucial than the inhaler clenched in her hand. But to him in that moment . . .

  Someone had had something he’d desperately needed. Something that he would have killed for.

  He tries again to speak. “Give . . .”

  Misty sits up and glances at the gun in his trembling hand. Then she holds out her fist, turns it over, and opens it. He plucks the inhaler from her palm and sticks it into his mouth, gasping.

  He presses the top, sucks the medication deeply into his lungs, and holds it there, eyes locked on hers.

  “Please,” she says. “I’m begging you to tell me where my son is.”

  He exhales slowly. She braces herself for the answer, expecting a lie. When it comes, she’ll regret that she didn’t hurtle the damned medication into the snowy woods.

  “Tell me,” she says again. “I want the truth.”

  “Truth, lady. I swear I have no idea,” Elvis says, and with a sinking heart, she believes him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  As far as Bella is concerned, Virgil’s missing rifle validates the squatter theory. He had probably spotted a trespasser through the window, grabbed the weapon, and gone out to confront him, not realizing he’d been dealing with an armed career criminal. His killer must have taken the shotgun.

  “That does make sense,” Fred agrees, leading her back outside to find Luther after speaking with the sheriff and a detective.

  Both are concerned about Virgil’s connection to the missing boy and his mother. She’d mentioned the car with Canadian plates that had been parked at her house yesterday, too, and the woman in the turquoise Mustang. They promised they would do everything possible to locate Jiffy and Misty.

  Somehow, in the mothball-scented overheated house, she’d managed to forget that it’s possible to be chilled to the bone or breathe too much fresh air. Enveloped in a bracing white whirlwind, she follows Fred over to Luther. He’s standing to the side with Grange.

  “Where do you think Mary Ellen Arden might have gone?” the lieutenant asks her without preamble.

  “I have no idea. I left her house right after you did, and she was still there.”

  “Well, did she say anything?”

  Make sure you keep a good eye on your kid . . .

  “Say anything . . . like what?”

  “Anything you think I should know,” Grange replies. “Anything she might not want me to know.”

  “She’s worried sick about her little boy, Lieutenant.”

  “And why would she give you her phone?”

  “She didn’t give it to me. Calla was using it to call for help because she left hers at Valley View. She accidentally left with it.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “Valley View.”

  Along with ailing Max, innocent and worried about his friend.

  “I need to get back to my son now,” she says, mostly to Luther.

  “I’d like to talk to him, Ms. Jordan.”

  “He’s sick in bed.”

  “Bella, maybe he can tell Lieutenant Grange something that will help find Jiffy,” Luther says, and she nods. She won’t stand in the way of anything that could help.

  “I’ll be over as soon as I’m finished here. Just make sure you both stay put until I can get there.”

  “Darn. We were going to head out to the beach to build sandcastles.”

  His mouth quirks at her sarcastic comment. She wonders if it might go from grim to grin, but it doesn’t.

  “One more thing,” she says. “Can you please send someone over to the Ardens’? Just in case Jiffy shows up and finds an empty house.”

  “Anything else you’d like me to do, Ms. Jordan?”

  His turn for sarcasm.

  “Nope, I’m good.”

  Back in the car with Luther, Bella borrows his phone to text Calla, who assures her that all is well and that Max gobbled two pieces of toast and an apple.

  Now we’re on game three of Candy Land. Guess who lost the first two?

  That is punctuated with a googly eyed emoji that gave Bella another slight
measure of relief. Reminded of the strange text message she received earlier, she tells Luther about it.

  “It’s not like it was a ransom note or anything,” she says, “but the timing makes me wonder if it has something to do with all this. Especially now. If Virgil was going about his business and crossed paths with a psycho killer, then that means Jiffy could have . . .”

  She shakes her head, staring at the bleak world beyond the sweeping windshield wipers, unable to voice her darkest fear.

  “We’re going to stay hopeful and do whatever we can to find him.”

  “And Misty.”

  “And Misty,” Luther agrees, but Bella can tell by his expression that he isn’t convinced she had nothing to do with her son’s disappearance. He probably suspects that she was involved in Virgil’s murder or is a part of the Amur Leopard.

  Is she? Bella herself doesn’t know for a fact that she’s innocent. Why, then, is her instinct to defend her?

  Back at Valley View, Luther accompanies her inside to make sure all is well. She can hear Max and Calla laughing behind his closed door, and a quick once-over ensures that the place is otherwise empty.

  “I’d like to take a look at those messages on your phone,” he says. “I’ll run the number just in case.”

  “Good idea.” Finding it, she sees a new text from Drew. Moving past it, she shows Luther the pen and tree emojis.

  “I’m going to guess wrong number,” he says, “since that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with anything. But send me a screenshot, and I’ll see what we can find out.”

  Headed back to the scene, he tells her he’ll shovel the steps and walkway before he goes.

  “No, I’ll do that. You shouldn’t be shoveling.”

  “Now you’re getting on my nerves, kid,” he says with a good-natured sigh and hugs her. “You just lock up and sit tight. Leave the shoveling to me and the case to law enforcement. I’ll be a quick phone call away if you need me.”

  “Thanks, Luther. I hope Jiffy turns up soon.”

  She wants him to reassure her that he will. Instead, he says, “I hope so, too.”

  She doesn’t like the look on his face any more than she likes the heaviness she’s lugged home, like a clunky duffle filled with stuff she doesn’t need but can’t let go.

  Left alone in the quiet house, Bella spots Chance on the window seat in the parlor. Her back paws are balanced on the cushion, front paws on the sill. Her whiskers twitch, and her tail is fat, swishing from side to side as she gazes outside.

  “What do you see out there?” Bella crosses over and leans in to look out.

  Nothing but falling snow and Luther with the shovel. Yet Chance seems riveted on something else.

  Do you see what I see . . . ?

  The lyrics echo in Bella’s head. The carol is the perfect theme song for this place, where people are always seeing and hearing things that Bella cannot.

  A star, a star . . .

  Oh, if only there were a mystical star in Lily Dale as in Bethlehem to shine through the snow-blackened sky and guide Jiffy safely home.

  That, she thinks, would be the kind of evidence she wouldn’t be able to ignore. Maybe then she’d be able to believe in what goes on around here . . . or so her new friends claim.

  Unsettled, she checks the locked door again, then heads upstairs to knock on Max’s door. Calla unlocks it to reveal a happy but weary-looking Max sitting on his bed putting the game pieces back into the box.

  “Mom, I won four times!”

  “This kid is a Candy Land wiz,” Calla says. “Our tournament wore me out! I just told Blue to head over to my place to feed Li’l Chap, so unless you need me here . . .”

  “I don’t,” Bella says, “but Blue should walk you back home.”

  Seeing the look on her face, Calla nods and quickly texts him. “Okay, he’ll be here in a minute. It was fun hanging out with you, Max.”

  “You, too,” he says around a yawn, settling back into his pillows.

  Bella walks Calla downstairs, briefing her on the scene at Virgil’s and her suspicion that Moroskov’s killer is still prowling the Dale. “I’m worried about your grandmother now, too.”

  “Blue and I will stop over there and tell her to be careful. But what about you, Bella?”

  “I’m fine. Luther will be back soon, and Lauri and Dawn, too.”

  “We will, too, after we take care of the kitten. In the meantime, just let me know if you hear anything.”

  “I will.”

  “You should eat something. Gammy’s soup is in the fridge. Max didn’t want it, but it really is pretty good.”

  Bella promises she’ll try it, locks the door after her, and watches her retreat along the freshly shoveled path toward Blue’s waiting car.

  She stands still, listening to herself breathe, the wind outside, and the scrape of Luther’s shovel on concrete, a hint that she’s not alone here.

  Yet how secure is Valley View, really, with its network of secret tunnels? For all she knows, there might be an undiscovered passageway an armed killer could use to slip right past the dead bolts.

  Or he might already be in, lurking.

  She’d prefer to believe that Jiffy’s ghostly pal, Albie, is hanging around the house whistling and that his cat, Sanchez, is responsible for the meows Dawn had heard behind her bedroom door.

  Upstairs, she checks on Max again. He’s already asleep.

  In her own room, she sits on the bed, feeling shaky and a little nauseated. She should have eaten something. Depleted, she can’t seem to sort through the barrage of information in her head. Facts keep flitting about like important papers scattered by a cold wind. Every time she grabs hold of one, another slips from her grasp.

  She opens the text message from Drew.

  All okay? Where are you?

  Home, she types.

  That answers the second question.

  The first begs a difficult conversation. She dials his number quickly, longing to hear his voice.

  And there it is.

  “Drew Bailey.”

  He has caller ID. He always knows who’s on the other end of the line. Yet he always answers efficiently and professionally, not just for her but for anyone who calls.

  Once, she’d asked him why, and he’d seemed surprised.

  “It’s just what I do. Most of my calls are business.”

  She hadn’t known whether to be dismayed for his sake or pleased that she has so little competition for his attention. He lives and breathes his veterinary work. He doesn’t let many people in, but she and Max have managed to work their way into his life just as he has theirs.

  “Hey,” she says.

  “Hi. What’s going on over there?”

  Where to begin? She looks at the ceiling and then the window. “Well, it’s snowing.”

  “No way, really? Are you sure?”

  Despite everything, she smiles. Stalls. Asks him how the new mama is faring.

  “Carol? She’s stable and nursing her puppies.”

  “Carol?”

  She smiles. He always names the strays who find their way to him.

  “As in Christmas.”

  “Christmas Carol. That’s sweet.”

  “So is she.”

  “How about the babies?”

  “They’re perfect. Precious. Very . . . puppy-ish.”

  “Have you named them?”

  “I’m going to let Max do that. Did he like the picture?”

  “I haven’t shown it to him yet.” She sighs heavily. “Drew—”

  “I know.”

  “You know?”

  “You’re worried that if he names them, he’ll want to keep them. But I figured it would give him something fun to think about on a sick day. How’s he feeling?”

  “Better, but that’s not what I was worried about. It’s . . .” She pauses to gather her composure.

  “If Max is better, I know he’s okay. But obviously something isn’t.”

  In this momen
t, she can’t think of anything that is okay.

  She tells him—about Misty, Jiffy, Virgil, the whole story.

  He absorbs it quietly, then asks, “How can I help?”

  “Those four words are a great start.”

  “I’m going to come over there.”

  “You can’t! This is a full-blown blizzard and—”

  “I’ve driven through worse than this for reasons that don’t come close to comparing. My pickup truck has four-wheel drive, and I just grabbed my coat and keys. It might take me a while, but I’m on my way.”

  She should protest, insist that he not come. Somehow, though, she can’t make herself do that. She needs him here, the way she needs Luther—another voice of reason, another pair of eyes, hands, legs.

  And yet, not just the way she needs Luther—and has needed them all, the friends she’s met here in Lily Dale.

  Sam had believed that she was strong enough to do this alone, and for the most part, she has—with a little help from her friends. But needing and accepting help aren’t quite the same thing as leaning on someone. Twelve months of balancing the weight of tremendous grief with the burden of single-handedly raising Max, working to keep a roof overhead, have left her wobbly.

  Like the overladen Circassian walnut coat tree downstairs, she’s fragile and desperately needs to lean against something—someone—sturdy, or she’s going to collapse.

  “Hang in there,” Drew tells her, and she hears a car door slam and an engine start. “I’m coming.”

  She opens her mouth to reply, to say, Don’t—or at least, Drive safely or See you soon.

  All that comes out is a heartfelt, “Thanks.”

  She disconnects the call and goes back to her phantom text messages.

  Now there are three more.

  She turns the screen to enlarge them. The first is a church, the second a bridge, and it’s followed by the church again.

  Is it really coming from someone who misdialed? Or is it a message from . . . Spirit?

  “Who is this?” she types and hits send, then heads down to the kitchen to heat up the soup.

  Beyond the window, the white-frosted ginkgo tree sways in a wintry flurry. She half expects to see a great horned owl perched there staring back at her, but the branches are bare.

  No bad omen. Nothing to explain the strange things going on in the house lately or the phantom texts. Yet no reassuring star either.