Кэти Дэйли - The Mystery Before Christmas [calibre]

“Good. I’m starving.” Cass took my hand and pulled me toward the lake. “I want to show you something.”

I let myself be drug along behind him. He’d carved CC and CW intertwined in the ice.

“Remember when we did this when we were kids? Carved our initials in the ice,” he asked.

“I do remember.” My CC was on the top, and the C in Cass’s name hung from the second C in my name and was followed by a very flowery W. “I’d forgotten all about that.”

“We vowed to be best friends forever. We promised to skate on this lake every winter and to carve our initials in the ice.”

“We did,” I acknowledged.

“It seems,” Cass said, turning so we were facing each other, “that we have some time to make up for.”

I lowered my eyes. “I know. I’m sorry. It was my fault we didn’t keep that promise. I left, but you were here waiting.”

He ran a finger along my jaw, pausing at my chin to tilt my head up. “I understand why you left. You’ve always been one to follow your heart, and your heart led you elsewhere. I’m not happy that you lost your career, but I am happy you’re back.”

“I know. Me too.”

He reached into my pocket and took out the mistletoe I thought I’d cleverly hidden. He held it over our heads.

“I don’t think…” I started.

He leaned forward and softly touched his lips to mine before I could complete my protest. I wanted to pull back, but instead, I found my arms around his neck.

“Merry Christmas, Calliope Rose,” he whispered against my lips.

“Merry Christmas to you as well, Deputy Wylander.”

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Preview

At what point does a concerned bystander become a stalker?

I’d been asking myself that a lot lately. I’d first met Star Moonwalker six weeks ago, when I’d stopped by her antique store during my route as a US Postal Service carrier to deliver a certified letter. After a brief discussion, in which the woman revealed to me that she’d first moved to White Eagle to search for her birth parents, I’d discovered that she was most likely my half sister. I’d also discovered that the man she’d hired to track down her biological parents, a private investigator named Sam Denton, very well might have been killed by a man I suspected could be my own father.

Of course, my father being the killer was not the only explanation. It was also possible that Sam Denton had been killed by the same people who were after my father, forcing him to fake his own death fifteen years ago. Either way, I suspected that Star might be in danger because she had continued to dig around in my father’s past even after Denton’s death, so I’d been keeping an eye on her, hence the stalking.

Not that Star had been aware that I’d been watching her or digging into her past. I’d been very covert in my approach. I’d started by having my boyfriend, Tony Marconi, do a very quiet computer search into her history, while I began spending time in the woman’s antique store, trying to get to know her better. I still didn’t know everything I needed to about the events that occurred at the time of Star’s birth, so I’d been unable to conclusively determine that she and I shared the same biological father, but it did appear as if my father had been traveling with Star’s mother at the time immediately preceding her birth.

“Tess Thomas?” the woman on the other end of the phone line asked.

“Yes, this is Tess.” I’d been sitting in my car on hold for a good fifteen minutes, waiting to hear the results of the DNA tests I’d mailed away several weeks before.

“The two samples that you sent do not indicate a familial link.”

I narrowed my eyes. “So the individuals who supplied the two samples are not related?”

“The genetic profiles of the individuals providing the samples demonstrate that it is statistically unlikely a blood relationship exists. A detailed report will be sent to the address you provided within a week. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No. Thank you.” I hung up and then turned and looked at my dog, Tilly, who’d been waiting patiently with me. “Well, what do you know about that?”

Tilly shoved her nose into my lap. I looked back toward the house where I’d discovered Star lived. I’d been so certain that she was my half sister that I’d actually dug through her garbage to retrieve a piece of chewing gum I’d seen her throw away to gain a sample of her DNA that I could have compared to my own. At that time I’d thought the DNA test would simply serve as a confirmation of what I was sure I already knew. How could I have been so wrong?

I focused on the colorful Christmas lights Star had hung along the eaves and around the door and windows as the interior light in a downstairs room went off. A half minute later, a light in one of the upstairs rooms went on. I’d decided the room on the second story at the front of the house must be some sort of workroom or office. Star spent a lot of time in that room when she was home. I slowly stroked Tilly’s head as I watched a shadow move across the room. I supposed I really should go before someone noticed me sitting out here. I’d been so sure that Star was my half sister that I’d never even stopped to consider an alternate explanation as to what had occurred when she’d been abandoned by a man I was sure was my father.

I pulled my seat belt across my chest but hesitated to start the engine. The snow that had been threatening all day had begun to fall. I knew I should head home, yet I hesitated. I certainly didn’t know everything there was to know about Star’s past, but what I did had seemed to support my sister theory. Three years ago, after her adoptive parents passed away, Star had hired Denton to find her birth parents. Through his research, the private investigator found evidence that suggested that Star had been surrendered to a church when she was just hours old. He’d followed up on this evidence and was able to confirm that a man had left the baby with a nun after informing her that the baby’s mother had died and she needed a home. The nun had tried to get additional information about the baby and her parents from the man, but he’d refused to answer any questions. Once the baby was safely in the nun’s arms, he left. Star had been adopted by wonderful parents and hadn’t looked back until after they died.

During his investigation, Denton found out that on the same day Star had been dropped off at the church in Great Falls, Montana, a woman was found shot to death in Buffalo, Wyoming. It was noted in the police report filed after her death that the victim had recently given birth. The detective in charge of the murder case looked for the baby in Wyoming, but the infant was never found. For reasons unknown to me, the investigator did not look for the baby outside that state, so the link to Star was never discovered.

That is, until Denton came along and put two and two together. After Star realized that the woman who was shot was most likely her biological mother, and that her mother had met with a violent end, she’d decided to give up the idea of searching for answers about her past. She’d paid off the PI and asked him not to look for her father.

A couple of years later, the same PI was asked by a totally different client to find proof that a man who had been living under an alias for years and who everyone believed to be dead, was actually still alive. During the course of his backtracking to figure out what had really happened to that guy, Denton came across the report filed by the detective who’d been assigned to investigate the murder of the woman who’d been shot in Buffalo just prior to Star being left at the church in Great Falls. Denton realized immediately that the woman mentioned in the report was the same one he believed was Star’s mother, and that was when it occurred to me that the man Denton had been hired to find was could be my father.