Jenna Ryan - Mistletoe and Murder

Barret wasn’t where he’d left him. Had he taken Shera and left? Jacob glanced back. Could he have missed Romana along the way?

Not a chance. She was far too striking to be missed, especially tonight in her long red coat, black boots and scarf.

Outside the washroom, he looked around. No one paid any attention to him. Drawing his gun, he knocked, glanced around again, then pushed it open. “Romana?”

A groan emerged, followed by a weak, “James?”

Jacob swore as a pale hand came into the light. Holding the door back, he crouched and helped Shera sit up. “Where’s Romana?”

She swallowed, pushed at her hair. “Left with Santa Claus… Really strange.”

His light shake of her shoulders belied the knot of fear building inside. “Where is she, Shera?”

“Told you,” she mumbled. “Went with Santa Claus.” She rubbed her forehead. “Carried her away… I think.”

“Santa carried her out?”

“Think. Pretty sure. Might have hit her.”

Terror spiked through him. He propped Shera against the door frame. “Orderly.”

A young man rushed past. “I’m kinda busy.”

Jacob set his sights on the exit. Where the hell was Barret?

He tried O’Keefe’s number again on the stairs. Still away from the phone.

Santa Claus. The image took root in his head. Not a jolly version, but a vengeful one. If he hadn’t known better, one with Critch’s face.

But it wasn’t Critch, and he wasn’t sure who that left. Except…

Four cards. That’s what Romana had told him, what Critch had said to her. He’d sent only four cards.

As he shoved through the fire door and into the lobby, the question that had been nagging Romana now became Jacob’s.

If not Critch, who had sent the other two?

ROMANA AWOKE IN A CAR, with her wrists bound and her mouth covered. The tip of a Santa hat bobbed above her. She didn’t make a sound, hardly moved, and yet he knew. At a stoplight, he turned and set a finger on his whisker-covered lips.

It was a taunt. With her mouth gagged, she couldn’t scream, and even if she could and did, her head would probably explode.

Slashes of pain attacked her every time the tires hit a rut. She knew she had to get past it, had to beat down her terror and think.

Whoever he was, he hadn’t killed her in the hospital. Why? Where was he taking her, and again, why? He wasn’t Critch, but he was wearing a disguise. He had a plan. Whatever it was, it couldn’t involve fleeing to South America or any other country. He wanted to stay right here.

Did he want her to think he was Critch? Possibly. No, probably.

But Critch was in custody in the hospital, under police guard.

Pain shoved gleeful knives into her brain. The car began to move. More ice ruts, more knives.

What had Shera said? No one knew about Critch and North. Well, yes, some did, but mostly the news of Critch’s capture and Patrick’s arrest had been contained.

Different approach, then-who did know about it? James and Shera Barret, certainly, the doctors who treated both men, O’Keefe, Jacob and her.

Romana breathed carefully, ordered herself to hover above the pain. If monks could do it, so could she.

Okay, straying now. Focus. Critch. Who besides Warren, who didn’t know about tonight’s arrests, would have enough anger inside over Belinda’s death to want revenge on her and Jacob?

Names glimmered to life, then fizzled out. Only one lit up and held.

Turning her head was agony, but she did it. With the movement, her scarf, which she’d thought was a gag, fell away from her mouth.

The Santa hat bobbed. White gloved fingers gripped the steering wheel. She saw his face in her mind, had to swallow the fear in her throat before she could utter his name.

When her vocal cords finally cooperated, the best she could do was whisper a soft, “Dylan?”

“I’M TELLING YOU, JACOB, the word’s not out yet,” O’Keefe shouted at him on his static-filled cell phone. “Harris is keeping a lid on it for now. Mayor’s orders.”

“Someone’s got her, Mick.” Jacob shoved through the door to the underground lot where he’d parked. He dug for keys as he ran. “Shera Barret said he was wearing a Santa suit.”

“Shera? Dammit, Jacob, her husband knows the mayor…”

But Jacob stopped him. “I ran into Barret in the lobby. It’s not him. It has to be Hoag. Motive, means, opportunity-he’s got it all. He’s had it all from the start. And there’s no reason to think he’d know what went down between Critch and North tonight.”

O’Keefe went silent. Jacob yanked open his door, started the engine and peeled out. He didn’t notice the red envelope on the passenger seat until it fell over. Swearing, he put his phone on speaker and hit the brakes.

“What?” O’Keefe demanded.

Jacob tore into the envelope and drew out the card. It was a drawing of a woman with a rough-cut photograph of Romana’s face pasted to it. She was lying in the snow surrounded by mistletoe leaves. The bullet hole in her chest spurted blood. A red arrow indicated that he should open the card.

“What is it, Jacob?” O’Keefe shouted. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you.” Eyes glued to the bloody scrawl, Jacob read the words. Then he tossed the card aside and hit the siren. He responded to O’Keefe’s repeated demands with a grim, “I know where he took her.”

“AND SO WE WAIT, ROMANA, at the scene of the crime.”

The tip of Dylan’s Santa hat stood straight up thanks to a wind that managed to blow in all directions at once.

Romana’s teeth chattered so hard she could scarcely form words, let alone sentences.

“Scene of the crime,” Dylan spat again. “Not where Belinda died, although that was one hell of a crime scene, but where Warren should have killed Knight. Where you stopped him from doing it. Where you aided and abetted Belinda’s murderer, Officer Grey. The crime that predicated the crime that took my sister’s life.”

“Jacob didn’t shoot her.”

He’d tossed her down on a snow-covered trash can. For five long minutes, he’d been storming back and forth in front of her. Now his contempt spewed out in a bark of laughter. “Jacob didn’t do it,” he mimicked. “Jacob didn’t do it. Say It Until You Believe-is that your motto? Man, you’re going to wind up so dead.”

Was there any point telling him about his brother-in-law?

Romana’s lips felt numb. So did her wrists where the ropes dug in.

“Phone the hospital. Better yet, phone Jacob’s captain. He’ll tell you that both Warren Critch and Patrick North have been arrested and are under police guard.”

“Lies. Total bull. You’re trying to save yourself and that murdering lover of yours.”

She willed her teeth not to clack together. “Critch told me he sent only four cards. He told me that, Dylan, while he was lying shot on the floor in Patrick North’s house.”

“He wrote four cards,” Dylan corrected, “and sent them to me. I rewrote them, drove to Kentucky and mailed them to you. The last two were entirely my own.”

“But don’t you see, Critch stopped writing them because he suspected…”

“He didn’t suspect anything. He wimped out. Prison broke him. Okay, fine, that happens, but it wasn’t going to end because his balls up and deserted him.” Whipping out a hand, Dylan grabbed the front of her coat and yanked her face up into his. “Tune in, Romana. You’re going to die here. Don’t let the last thought that ever runs through that pretty head of yours be one of stupid, blind denial.”

Behind him, in the region of an ancient market wall, Romana sensed a movement. Didn’t see it-even the best eyes couldn’t hope to penetrate the curtain of swirling white flakes-but felt certain something within the white shifted position.