Shirlee McCoy - Her Christmas Guardian

Only she wasn’t going, because this was her house, her daughter, her problem to solve. No matter how sick she felt, no matter how scared she was.

She yanked away. “I need to check Lucy’s room,” she mumbled, more to herself than to either of the people who’d brought her home.

“Not going to happen, sister.” Stella tightened her grip, dragging Scout backward with enough force to nearly throw her off balance. She had a choice. Go or fight. Normally, she’d go, because she was a rule follower, the kind of person who’d never take a stroller on an escalator or park in a no-parking zone. She didn’t try the grapes at the grocery store before she paid for them or take fifteen items into the twelve-items-or-less line.

But she had to find Lucy. Had to.

And if that meant fighting, that was what she was going to do.

She yanked her arm from Stella’s, tried to run through the living room and into the hallway beyond. It should have been easy. She jogged nearly every day, sprinted after Lucy all the time, across the backyard, through the local park.

But her legs didn’t want to move, and she stumbled forward, moving in what seemed like slow motion, the hallway so far away she wasn’t sure she’d ever get to it.

“Not a good choice, Scout,” Boone sighed.

Next thing she knew, she was in his arms, heading back the few feet she’d managed to go. Outside again, the cold November air stung her cheeks, and she wasn’t even sure how she’d got there, where she was going, what she was looking for.

Lucy.

She zeroed in on the thought and held on to it, because she couldn’t seem to hold on to anything else.

“Put me down!” She wiggled in his arms, trying to free herself. He just held on more tightly, striding to the SUV and opening the door. He set her in the backseat, leaned down so they were eye to eye.

“Do us both a favor,” he growled, “and stay there.”

He closed the door and walked away. She would have opened it and followed, but Stella was right there, hips against the door, back to Scout.

Scout slid across the bucket seat, reached for the handle on the other side, heard a soft click and a beep. She tried the handle. The door wouldn’t open. She climbed over the seat and into the front, pushed the button to unlock the doors. Nothing.

Someone tapped on the window, and she looked out, met Stella’s eyes. “Not going to open, sister,” Stella called through the glass. “We’ve got a special lock system for situations like this.”

Like what? Scout wanted to ask, but Stella turned away, her attention focused on the edge of the property and the oversize trees that lined it.

Standing guard?

That was what it seemed as though she was doing—putting herself and her life on the line for Scout.

Why?

It was another question Scout wanted to ask.

Later.

First, she needed to find a way out of the SUV and back in the house. Lucy might not be there . Wasn’t there. She admitted it to herself, because living in a fantasy world wouldn’t help her get Lucy back. She had to be practical, had to be smart, had to trust that her daughter was okay and that they’d be reunited eventually.

If she didn’t, she’d fall apart. That wouldn’t do anyone any good.

She pressed a shaky finger to her temple, the bandage scratchy and thick, the throbbing pain of the wound it covered making her stomach churn.

“Concentrate,” she muttered, looking around for some other method of opening the doors.

Maybe the hatchback?

Hadn’t she seen something in a survival show about unlatching trunks from the inside? Was it possible to do the same with the hatchback opening of an SUV?

She crawled back over the seat, her stomach heaving as pain shot through her temple. Cold sweat beaded her brow, and her entire body seemed to be shaking, but she managed to get to the back section of the vehicle. She felt around for a mechanism that would open the door, found nothing.

Two police cars pulled into the driveway, lights flashing, sirens off. Scout stayed where she was as several police officers ran past. She didn’t think they saw her lying on her side in the back of Boone’s SUV. She doubted it would matter if they did. They weren’t going to let her out of the vehicle, and Stella hadn’t budged from her place near the passenger door.

Lights splashed out from the windows of the little rancher she’d lived in for three years. She knew each window, each light. Named them silently as they flashed on. Dining room at the side of the house. Her room in the front. Lucy’s room. Behind the house, trees butted up against the night sky, the canopy of the forest illuminated by moonlight. She knew exactly how far the kitchen light would spill out from the window above the sink, knew just how much of the backyard would be painted gold by it.

Her heart thudded painfully as shadows moved in front of the window. Somewhere, her daughter was sleeping in a strange bed, in a strange house, with strangers all around.

Best-case scenario, she was.

Worst-case scenario...

Scout refused to put a name to it, refused to allow herself to imagine anything other than her daughter lying in bed crying for her.

She closed her eyes, trying to pray, wanting to pray. Her mind was empty of anything but fear and sorrow and the aching pain of her injury.

A car engine broke the silence of the night, and she managed to crawl back over the seat. She sat there as a small Toyota pulled up behind the police cars. Scout knew the car. It belonged to her landlady, Eleanor Finch. The police must have called to let her know there’d been a break-in at the property.

Eleanor got out of the car, but she didn’t approach the house, just stood and stared at it. Maybe this was old hat for her. She owned a number of properties in River Valley. Most of them were a lot more impressive and lucrative than this one. Scout figured that was why she’d been willing to do a rent-to-own contract on the rancher. It didn’t rent for enough to make it worth Eleanor’s while to keep it.

She hadn’t ever asked, though. Eleanor liked her privacy. She wasn’t warm and fuzzy. Nor was she approachable. She’d insisted on three months’ rent as a deposit and the contract read that she got to keep it if Scout decided to break her lease.

That had been fine with Scout. She hadn’t intended to break the three-year lease, because she’d pictured living there forever with Lucy. A nice little place in a nice little town filled with lots of nice people. Good schools. Pretty little church. Everything clean and tidy.

Only it wasn’t anymore, and maybe the house wasn’t going to be a place for forever. Maybe it was just a stopgap on the way to somewhere else.

Eleanor pulled out her cell phone and made a call, her gaze still on the house. Scout wanted to get out of the SUV and talk to her, but the doors were still locked tight and Stella was still standing guard. There was nothing Scout could do but wait and wonder what was going on in the house and when someone was going to come out and tell her about it.

* * *

Boone had been hoping for a ransom note. There hadn’t been one. No prints on the furniture, doors, pieces of broken frame. He watched as the local police processed the scene, staying out of their way because he didn’t want to get kicked out. He needed information. The more the better. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to be had. Someone had torn the house apart.

Maybe more than someone.

Maybe several people.

Going through a house as thoroughly as this one had been gone through would have taken one person a few hours. A couple of people working together could have accomplished the job much more quickly.

He walked down the hall, bypassing a uniformed officer who was dusting the bathroom door for prints. Even that room had been torn apart, medicine cabinet emptied, a picture pulled off the wall and taken apart, the frame in pieces on the floor.