Kathleen Long - Christmas Confessions

Each Saturday the site’s blog featured a sampling of handmade postcards received during the previous week.

Today was Thursday. That meant the posted blog had gone up five days ago, and apparently the selected “confession” had been strong enough to carry the site alone.

The faded black-and-white modeling shot of Melanie Simmons filled the majority of the visible page, and included only a one-line caption.

I didn’t mean to kill her.

Jack raked a hand through his close-cropped hair and winced. “Sonofa—”

“I thought you’d want to know.”

“You thought right.”

“Don’t let him get away this time.” Simmons’s tone dropped soft, yet suddenly clear.

“I didn’t let him—”

But the line had gone dead in Jack’s ear.

“—get away the first time,” Jack said for the benefit of no one but himself.

He’d always thought that if he uttered the statement often enough, one day he’d believe the Shaw acquittal to be no fault of his own.

That theory hadn’t paid off yet.

Jack might have been a rookie detective at the time, and the powers that be might have kept him as far away from the actual casework as they could, but still, the thought that he might have done something—anything—differently haunted his every moment.

He’d failed to keep his baby sister safe, and he’d failed ever since to find a way to bring her killer to justice.

Jack woke each morning, wondering how he might have saved Emma from the monster that had taken her life. He went to bed each night determined to find a way to make Boone Shaw pay for what Jack knew he did.

He’d never doubted the man’s guilt. He never would. And he’d never stop trying to bring the brutal killer to justice, not while there was a breath of life left inside him.

Jack dropped the now silent phone to his lap and pulled his chair close to his desk, studying the blog entry—the reproduced photo postcard, the card’s typewritten message, and the weekly editorial.

Apparently the site owner responsible for writing the weekly comments had deemed the postcard a crank.

Jack scrubbed a hand across his tired face and laughed.

What an idiot.

Had the woman even thought to touch base with the local police or the FBI?

No matter. Abby Conroy had just given Jack the first new lead he’d had in years. Maybe he’d have to say thanks…in person.

Jack’s gaze shifted from the monitor screen to the calendar tacked haphazardly to the wall. Nine days until Christmas.

The calendar illustration consisted of a holiday wreath draped over a cactus, no doubt someone in the Southwest’s idea of holiday cheer.

But the timing of the Don’t Say a Word posting gnawed at Jack.

Melinda, Emma and the other coeds had vanished during a ten-day period leading up to Christmas.

Had Boone Shaw decided to resurrect his own special brand of holiday cheer? And if so, why now? Why wait eleven years?

Granted, the man’s trial had dragged out over the course of two years, but after Shaw had gone free, he’d never so much as been pulled over for a speeding ticket again.

And Jack would know. He’d kept tabs on the man’s every move.

As crazy as the thought of Shaw sending a postcard to a secret confession site seemed, Jack had seen far stranger things during his years on the force.

He’d seen killers tire with getting away with their own crimes. He’d seen men who might never have been caught, commit purposeful acts to gain notoriety.

Who was to say something—or someone—hadn’t motivated Shaw to come forward now?

Jack rocked back in his chair, lifting the hand-carved front legs from the floor as the possibilities wound through his brain.

Truth was he wouldn’t sleep again until he’d held that postcard in his own hand.

He blew out a slow breath.

Christmas .

On the East Coast.

In the cold.

He supposed there were worse things in life. Hell, he knew there were.

He pulled up the Weather Channel Web site and keyed in the zip code for the Don’t Say a Word post office box. Then Jack leaned even closer to the monitor and studied the forecast.

Cold, cold and more cold.

Jack hated the cold.

Almost as much as he hated Christmas.

“Ho, ho, ho,” he muttered as he dialed his chief’s home number.

The senior officer answered on the second ring, and Jack didn’t waste a moment on niceties, clicking back to the image of Melinda Simmons’s smiling, alive face as he spoke.

“I’m going to need some time off.”

ABBY CONROY COVERED the ground between her post office box and the Don’t Say a Word office in record time. The morning air was cold and raw, teasing at the possibility of a white Christmas the region hadn’t seen in years.

“Good morning, Mrs. Hanover,” she called out to an elderly woman walking a pair of toy poodles, each dressed in full holiday outerwear complete with tiny Santa hats and jingle bell collars.

Now there was something worthy of confession.

Abby stifled a laugh and pulled the collar of her wool pea coat tighter around her neck.

The local retail merchants’ association had gone all-out this year in an effort to draw tourists into the Trolley Square section of town from the nearby attractions such as Winterthur, Brandywine Art Museum and Montchanin.

Thanks to their hard work, the Christmas holiday proclaimed its approach from every available storefront, lamppost and street sign.

Good thing Abby loved the holidays—or should she say, had loved the holidays.

This Christmas marked an anniversary she’d just as soon forget, but knew she never would.

Abby shoved the depressing thought far into the recesses of her mind and glanced at the stack of postcards in her hands.

She’d started the Don’t Say a Word online secret confession site just shy of a year earlier, and as the site’s anniversary approached, so had the number of “secrets” shared anonymously by the public each week.

Sure, the profile in People magazine hadn’t hurt. Sadly, it had also drawn the phonies and the cranks out of the woodwork.

Whereas Don’t Say a Word had started small and had grown via word of mouth, helping those who truly needed to share something from their past in order to ease their souls, the recent media attention had drawn confessions above and beyond anything Abby had ever imagined, including last week’s.

She tightened her grip on the mail as she pictured the card featured in this week’s blog. Typically she chose three or four for the blog, but last week she’d chosen only one.

I didn’t mean to kill her.

Anger raised the small hairs at the back of her neck. She’d shown the card to a local police detective before she’d published the photograph—an older black-and-white shot of a young woman sporting a ponytail and huge grin.

Even the officer had shared her first reaction. Someone wanted his or her fifteen minutes of fame and had decided to take the sensational route to get there.

Well, perhaps Abby had made a mistake by giving the so-called confession space on the very public blog, but she’d wanted to call attention to the sender’s callousness.

The site and service were for people who spoke from the heart, not for someone who found sending a card like last week’s feature amusing.

She’d been a bit harsh in her blog, but so what? There were thousands of people out there with secrets, secrets that needed to be told in order to ease the keeper’s heart and mind. Abby wasn’t about to tolerate anyone’s sick humor at the expense of her site or her readers.

Her business partner, Robert Walker, had wanted her to toss the card in the trash, but she hadn’t been able to. Matter of fact, instead of archiving the card in the office files after she’d written her blog, she’d tucked it into her briefcase, where it still sat as a reminder of her commitment to preserve her site’s integrity.