Margaret Daley - The Yuletide Rescue

“Can I help you with any of this?”

She swept around and took his load from his arms. “You need to go home. The roads are getting worse by the minute.”

“Yes, ma’am. I can tell you’re used to giving orders.” He winked and strolled to the front door. “I’ll call you tomorrow, but feel free to call me if you need something.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said with more bravado than she felt. “Thanks for all you did for me. I could have died today.”

A smile spread across his face. “Anytime. Today is the good part of my job.”

After he left, Bree turned the lock. Its clicking sound shouted to her that she was alone with a deaf cat as a companion, and there was a burglar out there who had ransacked her neighbor’s home.

* * *

David arrived home thirty minutes later after creeping through the streets. The only good thing was that he hadn’t encountered a lot of traffic because of the storm and late hour. He parked in his garage, hooked up his battery to keep it charged and then made his way into his kitchen.

His dad came into the room from the hallway. “I heard the garage door. How did it go? Any problems taking the doctor home?”

“Other than a nasty night out there, no. But there was a problem when we arrived at her house. Jeremiah Elliot’s house was broken into. He lived next door to her. She saw a light on and insisted on investigating it. The place was completely trashed but nothing obvious was taken.” David went on to mention some of the more valuable items of Jeremiah’s that were still there.

His father’s eyes sparked with interest. “How did they get in?”

“They?”

“That much damage often implies more than one person.”

Since his dad had recently retired as a police chief of a medium-size town in Colorado, he would know. “Through the back door. Jeremiah’s house was not a fortress. The lock wasn’t a good one.”

“Most burglars want to hit a place fast and get out quick. It sounds like they were looking for something in particular, or it may have been mischief-making teens.”

“Jeremiah’s death wasn’t common knowledge. I reported it to the authorities, but until they checked for next of kin, they were going to keep his death quiet.” Although Bree had said Jeremiah didn’t have any next of kin, there was a possibility she wasn’t aware of a long-lost relative.

“Then something else might be going on here.” His dad ambled to the sink, filled a glass with water and took his nightly pills. “Growing old isn’t for the faint of heart.”

“You miss your job?”

“Yes. It’s been six months, and I don’t know what to do with myself. If I’d had my way, I would still be police chief.”

David knew the PD had a ceiling on how old a person could be to serve.

“Just because you retired from one job doesn’t mean you can’t do something else,” he told his father.

“Nothing else appeals to me.”

“A security consultant?”

“I’d rather do something different. That way I won’t yearn for a job I can’t have anymore. There’s nothing in Colorado for me.”

David had been ready to leave the service after twenty years. Now, at forty-one, he was enjoying what he was doing, and he wasn’t financially dependent on a paycheck because of his pension and some wise investments over the years. He could do what he really wanted. “Is that why you decided to come for the whole month of December?”

“There’s no one in Colorado, not even your daughter since she started college. I saw Melissa at Thanksgiving when she and some friends came to ski, otherwise she has been a stranger. I miss her. When is she coming for Christmas?”

“A few days before.” She was only coming because her grandfather would be there. Otherwise David wouldn’t have seen her at all. Ever since his wife had died three years ago, and David had had to go overseas for his last tour of duty, Melissa had lived with his father.

His father’s dark bushy eyebrows crunched into a single line. “Why not sooner?”

“You know Melissa and I haven’t been on the best of terms since Trish died. She blames me for her mother’s death.”

“You weren’t responsible for that, and I’ve made that clear to Melissa.”

“Dad, I wasn’t there when Trish needed me.”

“Because you were serving your country.”

Tension gripped David as he thought back to three years ago when Trish had taken a lethal combination of alcohol and painkillers. He’d been halfway around the world, supporting ground troops as a B-52 pilot. Earlier, when he’d left Trish after her operation to repair her damaged knee and returned to the war zone, she’d been improving—or so she said—and had urged him to leave. If only he’d known then that she’d become dependent on painkillers, maybe she would be alive today.

“Son, stop blaming yourself. You can’t change the past. Focus on the here and now.”

“I’m trying.”

“Is that why you’re working so hard when you’re supposed to be retired? You’ve made some good investments. You don’t even have to work, but then your job at the search and rescue organization is strictly volunteer.”

“I’m only forty-one. Just because I retired from the service doesn’t mean I’m going to lie around on some beach doing nothing.”

His father chuckled. “Well, certainly not here in Alaska. But Hawaii is only a plane ride away.”

Too wired, David prowled around his kitchen, needing to sleep but not sure he could, even after his previous night sleeping restlessly on the couch in his office. “This volunteer job is perfect for me. I’d go crazy without it. You of all people should know what that feels like.”

His dad held up his hands as if in surrender. “Okay. You’ve made your point. The Stone men aren’t good at relaxation.”

David started to reply when his cell phone rang, jolting him. As he answered it, he glimpsed Chance’s name on the screen.

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” his friend said.

“No, Dad and I were talking. What’s up?”

“I did some checking after we talked earlier, and I thought you might like to know Jeremiah’s emergency locator transmitter hasn’t sent a signal since the last pass of the satellite. I know you didn’t turn it off, since you were back in Anchorage by then, so who did?”

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