5 Mischief in Christmas River (12 page)

I bit my lip hard.

That had been uncalled for. Tiana had only been trying to help, and I had just bitten her head clean off, for no good reason.

“Aw, hell, Tiana. I’m sorry,” I said, sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“No, I know,” she said.

But she kept her head down and wouldn’t look up at me.  

“I’m crazy right now,” I said. “I’m just… I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

She nodded, but didn’t say anything. Guilt wormed its way through my insides as I looked at her fallen expression.  

She was right. I really should have been at home. Clearly, I wasn’t in any shape to be around anybody else.

I let out a deep sigh, and put the rolling pin down. I went over to the window, staring out at the woods behind the shop. The ground was coated in a thick layer of powder, and the trees swayed in the stiff breeze.

It was cold out there. Tonight, it would dip into the single digits for sure. The wind chill would put it into the negatives, easy.

All I could think of were those poor little dogs, somewhere out there in that cold. Shivering and scared and alone.   

The silence that hung over the kitchen was thick enough to cut with a knife.

Chapter 32

“It’s my fault this happened,” I said, burying my head in the sleeve of his leather Sheriff’s coat. “I should have checked on them. I should have…”

We were in Daniel’s office. Aside from Billy, who was sitting out in his cubicle, Daniel was the only one working this Sunday.

“You’re saying that it’s your fault somebody broke into our backyard and kidnapped the dogs?” he said. “Cin, that’s crazy, and you know it.”

“But I knew that something strange was going on, all those dogs disappearing,” I said. “I should have been paying better attention to them. I shouldn’t have just left them out there.”

He shook his head.

“Cin, you couldn’t have known this would have happened.”  

I bit my lower lip.

“This is just a stupid day,” I said. “A useless, stupid day.” 

I thought back to how rude I’d been to Tiana, and I cringed.

I’d been at the pie shop all afternoon, unable to think of what else to do other than make the Banana Mocha Pudding pies and worry. Finally, I decided to give it up, leaving Tiana alone to close up the shop.

I was sure she was glad to have me out of there.  

I’d driven over to the Sheriff’s Office, hoping against hope that Daniel had some good news.

But he hadn’t any. In fact, there was worse news.

A beagle named Dog Holliday that belonged to Anna Stevens, a librarian at the Christmas River Public Library, had also disappeared a day earlier. The dog had disappeared from Anna’s van while she was shopping for groceries at
Ray’s
. Anna couldn’t remember if she’d locked the van or not. But when she got back, her arms full of groceries, the dog, who had cataracts in one eye and arthritis in his hips, was gone. The van door was wide open. 

Daniel said he was almost certain Dog Holliday’s disappearance was related to the others, bringing the total count up to six missing dogs, including Chadwick and Huckleberry.

Six dogs gone, and not a trace of evidence as to where they went. 

A useless, stupid day indeed.

I tried to fight back the tears. 

“Shh,” Daniel whispered, pulling me up and wrapping his arms around me. “It’s okay. Okay? I’m going to find them.”

“But it’s like they all just vanished into thin air,” I said. “Where do you even start looking for them?”

“You gotta trust me.” he said. “This is what I do. I’ll find them. You have my word.”

He held me tighter. I breathed in deeply.

“Listen, I’m sorry I wasn’t there yesterday,” he said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t home last night, Cin. I should have been. I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

I looked up into his eyes. They were full of sincerity.

“I’ll find them,” he said. “Don’t worry, Cin. I’ll find them.”

I believed him.

I hugged Daniel hard, digging into his lean frame. He stroked my hair and hugged me back even harder.

“It’s all going to be okay,” he said. “But you can’t fall apart on me here. I need you to be strong now, all right?” 

I smiled up at him, wiping away my tears.

I nodded.

“I can do that,” I said, pulling away. 

Something suddenly fell out of Daniel’s jacket pocket, floating down to the carpet floor.  

And that’s when I found the receipt.

Chapter 33

I wandered the cracked and snowy streets of Christmas River in the dimming dusk, clutching onto a stack of flyers.

Feeling hopeless.  

It had been more than 72 hours since Huckleberry and Chadwick went missing. I knew if the dogs were people instead of pooches, investigators would be looking for bodies by now. Finding anyone alive was almost an impossibility this far into their disappearance.

The sick, nauseous feeling of fear that had settled in the base of my stomach had evolved into a deep ache now, as the thought that I might not see my little Hucks or that moody little Chadwick ever again became more and more a reality.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Hucks.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Chadwick.

I couldn’t stop thinking about…

That receipt
.

I closed my eyes, the sequence of events playing over and over in my head, the way it had been for the past two days.

Me, leaning down, picking up the crumpled-up receipt that had dropped from his pocket. About to hand it back to him when the font at the top of the paper caught my eye.

Staring down at it, unable to quite believe what it said. 

“Cin,” Daniel had started saying, seeing the train wreck that was ahead and trying to put the brakes on. “It’s not what…”

But it was too late.

I had seen it. And immediately, the hurt hit me with all the force of an avalanche barreling down the side of a mountain peak.  

I struggled to find the words but they had all dried up on me.

“You don’t understand. Yesterday evening I—”

But I couldn’t hear his explanation. All I could focus on were the words at the top of the receipt.

“
Pepper’s Pies, Pastries and Other Pick-Me-Ups
.”

Daniel had been there. Just before getting home from his trip. Right around the time the two pooches disappeared from our backyard.  

“It’s… uh… well…” he stammered. “Cin, I wouldn’t have gone there unless I absolutely had to. You see, that place was the only coffee place open down here last night, and it was offici…”

He looked as guilty as I’d ever seen him look.

“I…”

If I couldn’t depend on my own husband not to go to Pepper’s pie shop, then I couldn’t depend on anyone.

He had tried to say more, to offer up a better explanation.

But we both knew there wasn’t anything more he could say.

He hadn’t cheated on me. He hadn’t lied to me.

But it was a betrayal nonetheless.

Recalling it now, I felt a sharp chill run up and down my spine.

The thought of him going in there, to that shop, drinking a cup of her coffee, eating one of her pastries, sitting at one of those wrought iron tables… it all made my stomach ache even more.

Maybe I was overreacting. Hell, it wasn’t just a
maybe
. I knew I was. All Daniel had done was get a cup of coffee and a turnover at
Pepper’s Pies and Pastries
, for goodness sakes, after a long, cold day of working and driving. How could I blame him for that?

But I did.

I couldn’t help how I felt: cold, betrayed, and alone.

Maybe that’s why I had decided to wander these snowy streets tonight by myself, putting up missing posters for Huckleberry and Chadwick.

Daniel was working late tonight, and I had found that there was nothing I could do to get my mind off of the two missing pooches. Or off of that receipt that had been stuffed in Daniel’s coat pocket. Or off of the fact that sales at the pie shop had taken a plunge since
Pepper’s Pies
opened for business. Or off that hurt look in Tiana’s eyes from the other day when I snapped at her.

My mind was racing, out of control with pain and guilt and sadness. So I did what I always did whenever I felt overwhelmed by things.

I took a long, long walk. Through the BrightStar area, where the other dogs had disappeared. Through the Jingle Bell and Ridgeview subdivisions that bordered the woods and meadows. Then through downtown. Killing two birds with one stone by papering areas with missing posters of Huckleberry and Chadwick.

And then, when the sun had gone down, I went to the Pine Needle Tavern.

Chapter 34

The bar was hot and crowded when I walked in, a large fire crackling in the room’s woodstove.

That pervading sense of jolliness, typical of the Pine Needle Tavern in December, hung thick in the air like smoke. There was laughing and shouting and every once and a while, the sound of something crashing on the rough pine floors. Bruce Springsteen sang about Santa Claus coming to town over the speakers, and everywhere I looked, people were smiling, inebriation making their cheeks glow as bright as the fire in the stove.

I pushed my way through the masses and found an empty corner seat at the bar. It took me a few moments to get Harold’s attention, what with so many people he had to wait on.

“Bourbon,” I shouted above the noise. “Two fingers please. Two generous ones, if you would.”

He chuckled.

“You look like a gal on a mission.”

A lopsided grin crossed his face. Probably because he knew that my tab tonight was going to be a big one.

Harold probably missed the old Cinnamon Peters. The recently-divorced Cinnamon Peters who used to sometimes come here after work to drink and leave good tips. The Cinnamon Peters who used to be sad.

That Cinnamon Peters hadn’t been around for a while. But tonight, she was making a comeback.  

He went behind the bar, grabbing a mid-level brand of bourbon. He did as I asked, pouring me a generous amount into an old-fashioned glass. He pushed it toward me on a coaster.

Despite the fact that there were others who were trying to get his attention, he paused for a moment, leaning forward toward me.

“Trouble at home?” he said. “I couldn’t help notice that that fella of yours isn’t here tonight with you again.”

I knew Harold was only trying to help. But I didn’t feel much like discussing my problems with one of Warren’s old buddies at the moment.

There were two types of people who sat at the bar. Folks who liked to spill about their problems. And folks who just wanted a place to drink said problems away.

I was of the latter variety tonight.

“No, everything at home’s just fine,” I said, taking a sip of the whiskey, feeling it burn down my throat.

“Well, seems to me
something’s
got your giblet,
dahlin
,’” he said. “You sure there’s nothing you want to talk about? I did tell Warren that I’d see after you while he was gone.”

I looked down the length of the bar, noticing that there were at least three people on the other side trying to signal him for a drink.

“Thanks, but I’m okay, Harold,” I said. “Nothing that this here whiskey can’t cure.”

“God help us if there
ever
is anything that whiskey can’t cure,” he said, winking at me. “But suit yourself, girly. Suit yourself.”

He waddled away on his bum knee to the other side of the bar. I sat there, nursing the glass. Staring at my reflection in the mirror behind the shelves of liquor. At all the happy people behind me.

Maybe if I drank enough, I would be like them. Able to forget about all my troubles.

I thought about what Daniel had said. That he needed me to be strong now.

I guess this was my way of doing that.

I took another sip of the whiskey, my eyes scanning the crowd behind me, finding a familiar face.

My throat tightened, seeing her there at one of the tables.

I had seen a blue VW Bug parked outside the tavern when I’d walked in, but I hadn’t put it together that it was hers.

She had her bright red curly hair pinned off to one side. She was wearing red lipstick that matched her holiday red sweater. Her smile seemed to brighten the entire bar.

She was surrounded by a large group, some of which I recognized as being part of Meredith Drutman’s crowd of socialites, if there was such a thing in a small town. There were also a few young guys in the group, guys who had a certain sparkle in their eyes as they listened to the red haired lady speak. A moment later, they all broke out in a fit of laughter.

“And that’s when I told Marcel: Hey, there’s no ‘we’ in ‘qui,’ buddy boy.”

Another outbreak of laughter erupted from the group. Pepper grinned, pleased at the response.

I downed the rest of my whiskey in one shot, averting my eyes, hoping she hadn’t seen me. 

Was there no place I could get away to?

“So Pepper, how’s your gingerbread house coming along?” one of the ladies in the crowd asked.

Pepper shrugged modestly.

“I think it’ll probably be okay for a first-timer,” she said. “I’m not expecting anything from it. Just a little bit of fun. Hopefully to meet some other folks in this town.”

“Oh, don’t be so modest,” Belinda Cooper, Meredith Drutman’s right hand girlfriend, said. “I’ve seen your gingerbread house, and you’re going to win that competition
hands down
.”

“In my dreams maybe,” Pepper said, as if she was in a 1960s family sitcom.

The rest of the group laughed.

I signaled Harold for another drink, but he was busy with a customer.

I let out a sigh, playing with the cardboard coaster in front of me, rolling it up between my hands.

Then I suddenly felt eyes drilling into the side of my face.

I glanced over.

“I’ll get you another drink,” the man said.