Gail Martin - Finding Christmas

“Not anymore maybe.”

The child giggled. “I loved the balloons and the clowns best.”

“Really?”

Then she wrinkled her nose. “Best after Santa.”

“I thought so,” Donna said, holding out her arm for the child to cuddle against her.

Connie shifted and rested her head against Donna’s frame. Love filled Donna’s heart, and a deep ache pulsed in the pit of her stomach. She’d already taken too many chances. From now on, she had to be careful. She’d let her plan mull in her head. She’d never done anything illegal before, but now it was different. Donna needed to assure her own safety and most of all, that of Connie.

Carl seemed to be losing it. Donna envisioned one of his recent violent outbursts, and her stomach lurched at the memory. He’d called her names, threatened her and hinted that he’d rather see her dead.

She couldn’t blame his reaction on her questions about the past. Her interest had been motivated by his daily tirades. Donna needed to understand. More and more she gathered pieces of information from his late-night phone calls. He’d been involved in a car ring of some kind. His trucking company, apparently, was a cover for a car-theft business. She had no details, but she’d put two and two together.

Carl-Peter-whatever-his-name-was thought she was stupid, but Donna had more brains than he did. She’d cooked up a plan that would help her escape and take Connie with her, but first she had to make sure she had things right. She had to prove for certain that Connie and Mandy were the same child. If so, Donna knew a mother’s love would prompt the Fuller woman to take chances, and follow Donna’s instructions. She had to.

Donna had never imagined extorting anyone or hurting anyone, but to get away and to keep Connie in her life, she had no choice.

She felt a twinge of regret. Her friend’s message about Jesus had affected her. With Jesus in her life things could be different, but the Lord would have to be in Carl’s life, too, and she couldn’t imagine that.

No one was in Carl’s life—not Connie, not her. Carl’s focus was on Carl.

Joanne pulled a round steak from the refrigerator. After church that morning, when Benjamin had invited her out to dinner, she’d said, “Sounds good, but tonight, the treat’s on me.”

She knew he thought she would take him out to dinner, but she had decided that Benjamin would probably enjoy a home-cooked meal better than fine dining. She hadn’t made beef stroganoff since Greg died and today she would see if she still had the talent to make the tender morsels of steak swimming in a sour cream sauce so full of calories she should feel ashamed.

Ashamed. The word triggered thoughts. Joanne regretted her over-the-top behavior during the past week. Not only had she jumped too quickly to make something sinister out of the telephone calls, but now she’d reacted like a madwoman at the parade, chasing after a mother and child. What had gotten into her? With her jangled nerves and sense of foreboding, she needed help.

Pushing her worries aside, Joanne tackled the dinner. She pulled a knife from the cabinet drawer and began the ritual of cutting the steak into long thin slices. That was part of her secret. She liked beef so tender she could cut it with a fork.

As she wielded the knife, making the final slice, the telephone rang—and when she jumped, the knife slashed her index finger. She jerked her hand away from the cutting board. Blood oozed from the wound, and she held her hand over the sink while she grabbed paper towel.

After wrapping her finger, she picked up the receiver and said hello. That ominous silence ran through the wire. Bitterness, yet victory filled her as she eyed the blood seeping through the toweling. She needed this third call for the police.

“Hello,” she said again. It was the same pattern. She talked. The caller didn’t.

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