Mistletoe and Murder

Chapter Eighteen

“I won’t be sick. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.”

The bathroom lights flickered several times, prompting Romana to push off from the sink.

“Okay, that’s it, Shera. We’re leaving, or I am.”

Shera angled her jaw in defiance. “I’m not going to see your cousin.”

“Leaving, Shera, now.”

She took the woman’s hand, pulled. But the lights snapped off completely, and this time they didn’t pop back on.

“Wonderful.” Romana kept them both moving. “Night’s just getting better and better.”

“You said there were emergency generators.”

“For the vital areas, not out-of-the-way bathrooms. Ouch.” Shera kicked her heel. “You don’t have to drape yourself all over me, okay? I won’t abandon you.”

“He always does.”

“I’m not your husband.” Romana located the wall, but not the door.

“I-oh!” Shera slipped, clutched at Romana’s coat, then gave a yelp and went down.

“Shera?’ Romana crouched, slashed a hand across the low shadows. “Where are you?”

A moan was her only answer.

The door opened behind her and a weak shaft of light filtered in. She saw Shera’s face, saw her lips move, her eyelids flutter.

“Sher-ah-h-h…”

Romana emitted a painful gasp as someone’s hand tangled in her hair and gave it a vicious yank. The hand-it had to be a man’s-hauled her roughly to her feet, snapped her head back and her body up against his.

Yes, definitely a man…

She glimpsed a red suit and whiskers and saw a quick flash of teeth. Then his other hand came up, and an even greater pain sliced through her skull.

She heard a soft, icy chuckle as the washroom faded to black.

JACOB LEFT PATRICK’S ROOM at a jog. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew he had to get to Romana.

He punched O’Keefe’s number into his cell as he went. The service said O’Keefe was away from his phone.

The emergency lights came on, making the corridors navigable, but many of the patients were nervous and plucked at Jacob’s jacket and jeans.

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.

Jacob?

“You’re right,” she agreed before he could release her and turn. “I should have handled the situation differently. But it was my job to help him. That’s what we were taught at the Academy, right? Always help an officer in trouble.”

“You helped him, all right,” he snarled into her face. “You got Warren to back down and made it possible for Knight to kill Belinda two days later. She phoned me after they had lunch. She told me Knight wanted her dead.”

“She didn’t mean that literally, Dylan. Jacob wouldn’t get her a restraining order, so she got angry and…”

“We were a team, Belinda and me.” He spoke through his teeth now. Fury and sorrow mingled. Fury won as he gave her a head-snapping shake. “She was all the family I had. I protected her, my beautiful baby sister.”

Step-sister, Romana almost said, but held her tongue. Truthfully, it was the only part of this tragedy that had a touching aspect. Belinda had been family. And she’d been taken from him.

The shadow within the snow curtain moved again. Obviously Dylan expected Jacob to show up here. Just as obviously he hadn’t expected him to do it so soon.

He shoved her away in disgust, but only executed a half turn.

Romana wriggled forward on the trash can lid. Dylan hadn’t bound her ankles, only her wrists behind her back. If she could draw him close again…

Wind slapped at her cheeks and blew her hair around like wild streamers. Dylan paced, a caged animal once more. The movement behind the snow stopped.

“You did all of it, didn’t you?” she said. “Critch hid out while you threatened us. Did he even know?”

Dylan cast her a scathing look as he passed. “Warren is a damned ostrich. He saw what he chose to see and did what I, his concerned brother-in-law, encouraged him to do. South America was his best option, better than endless years of parole. Trade a ball and chain for the freedom of his youth. Make a fresh start. Leave the past behind.”

“You talked him into jumping parole?”

“And waiting for the false documents I would happily provide.”

“He was suspicious of you.”

“Oh, more than suspicious. I think he followed me the day I slipped the sixth card into your purse. He never said anything, but then why would he? It wasn’t like he could turn me in. Okay, I impersonated him. I was only building on what he’d started. When that prison door clanged shut behind him six years ago, he wanted you and Jacob dead.”

“But he mellowed.”

“No, he melted. He went all soft and gooey. Didn’t matter, I was there to take up the slack. It’ll all come out as it should when Knight gets here. You die, he dies, Warren escapes to South America and I go on-the grieving brother who wasn’t stupid enough, despite what his Academy instructors believed, to let himself be followed or his tapped phone rat him out.”

Romana caught a glimpse of Jacob then, in her peripheral vision. It had to be Jacob. She knew how he moved. She also knew that Dylan was pumped on adrenaline and not about to be taken down easily.

She wriggled forward a little more, knew she was close to the edge of the frozen can.

Keep talking, she told herself. Forget fear and pain. Think of Jacob. Think of something.

She pitched her voice low while still pretending to shout. “Aren’t you worried that someone will see you here, Dylan?”

“What?”

“What?” she called back.

Pent-up frustration made his movements jerky. He swung toward her at the exact moment she gave her butt one last twist on the lid.

“What are you…?” he began, then growled as the can toppled sideways and sent her tumbling onto a snowy mound.

When he reached down to snatch her upright, she rolled onto her back and planted her foot squarely in his groin.

The world clicked into surreal mode after that. She knew Jacob flew through the white curtain-she saw the blur of black leather and denim, spied the gun in his hand.

“He’s got three guns,” she managed to shout. “And a knife.”

Dylan’s foot narrowly missed her head as he flailed. Using the heel of her boot, she spiked his calf.

In spite of everything, he got a hand inside his Santa suit and drew a gun. The same gun Critch had held on Jacob seven years ago?

Jacob tackled him before he could take aim. The gun discharged. Dylan grunted like an animal. With one hand clutching his crotch, he grabbed a second gun from his waistband.

“Jacob!”

The only target Romana had was Dylan’s butt. She used the toe of her boot to spear him, then ducked as the weapon flew out of his hand.

“It’s over, Hoag.” In an anchored crouch, Jacob held him at gunpoint. “Don’t be stupid.”

Desperate, Dylan scrambled back and grabbed Romana’s ankle. Although she tried to kick free, he held fast.

“You won’t do it, Knight.” A third gun appeared and pointed at Romana’s head. “But I will.”

Romana squirmed and fought. Driving snow blinded her. She heard a shot. Then another. Dylan emitted one of his barking laughs. Her heart stuttered, almost stopped.

But she wasn’t dead. So…

“Jacob!’”

Dylan’s laugh became a gurgle. The hand on her ankle relaxed its grip. She kicked free and bumped herself upright. “Jacob?”

“Right here.” He sounded winded as he dropped to his knees beside her.

“Are you…?” Without her hands, she couldn’t check him for bullet holes. “Did he shoot you?”

“Shot at me. Missed.” Still breathing hard, he pulled a knife from his pocket and sliced the ropes on her wrists.

She started to throw her arms around his neck, but dug her fingers into his shoulders instead. “Where is he?”

Jacob moved his head. Romana moved her eyes. The crumpled heap that was Dylan didn’t move at all.

There was no need to ask. She saw the blood and knew. “Oh, God.” Dropping her head onto his shoulder, she let reaction set in. While Dylan’s blood turned the snow and two protruding sprigs of mistletoe beneath him red.