A Midnight Clear (8 page)

I
waited for the angel for exactly twenty-three minutes. When it arrived, it scared me. Just like in the Bible verse from Luke.

A white light shone around it that was so bright I couldn't look at it without making my eyes feel funny. I couldn't really see because it was so bright. Looking at the angel was like looking into the sun, but I couldn't close my eyes.

“Be not afraid,” it sang in the key of D, like a hundred voices all together in perfect harmony.

I wanted to sing too. But my head felt funny and I couldn't remember the words to my favorite song. All I could remember were the verses from the Book of Revelation where it says that the angels fought against a dragon and slayed it. An angel this big could probably break a dragon in half. This angel was bigger than the Methodist angel. It was twenty feet tall—as tall as the town Christmas tree.

Real angels were a lot bigger than Raphael.

The angel laughed, and it was as if it were singing a chord in the key of C. “I
am
Raphael, little one,” he sang. Then he bent toward me, reaching out.

I couldn't step back. I wanted to, but my feet didn't work. I don't like being touched, not even by an angel.

I couldn't even move when he put his hand on my head. I waited to feel the weight of it. I waited to feel the creepy, crawly feeling that always happens when someone touches me. But Raphael's touch didn't feel heavy or creepy. It was like his light got all inside my head and made it feel really, really weird. But it wasn't scary or anything like the funny feeling I get sometimes when people touch me.

And then the angel was gone.

I looked up and I looked left and I looked right, and then I looked behind me. I finally looked down.

One of Mom's candle holders was there right in front of me. There was a white candle in it. The candle was burning.

I got ready to run away because I don't like candles. They get inside my head and scare me. Sort of like the angel did.

Only when I looked at the candle, it was different this time.

The candle was pretty. The flame moved around, and somehow the light reminded me of the big angel. The real Raphael.

I picked up the candle. I turned around because there was a sound coming from down the street. People in the Methodist church were singing.

They were singing “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.”

And I sang with them.

T
eri heard Aiden's voice before she found him. His high, clear boy soprano sounded angelic in the cool, clear night. The words of the old Christmas carol were like a beacon leading her in the darkness.

This time, though, Aiden was singing it loud and clear as if he was performing the song, instead of using it to comfort himself. She turned the corner and saw him, standing in front of the town tree holding a candle in his hand.

A candle.

Burning in the brass candle stick that she'd bought the Christmas of her senior year at college. Aiden must have taken the candlestick from the sideboard, where she'd put it out as a Christmas decoration.

This made no sense. Why would Aiden even touch that candle? Every time he passed it, he would remind her that he didn't like candles. And how did the candle end up lighted? Did Aiden even know how to use matches or a lighter?

She wasn't the only one heading toward the town square. At least two dozen people who had just come from midnight services were strolling up Palmetto Avenue, drawn by the beautiful, innocent sound of Aiden's singing. And he just kept it up, in a joyful kind of way. Standing there wearing his school uniform, and his gray coat, and the striped, green-and-white elf hat that Tom had given him. And he just kept singing his favorite carol over and over again—every blessed verse.

He looked like an angel himself. Or maybe a fashion-challenged elf. Either way, he had those people smiling and nodding and thinking about the meaning of the season.

Tears sprang to Teri's eyes. Of course she was relieved to have found him safe and sound. But she'd never doubted where she would find him. She should never have tried to keep him away from the town square.

Her tears went so much deeper. He was here, singing a carol, on Christmas. He was holding a light—a symbol of the holiday. He'd connected with Christmas. Finally.

She covered the last few yards in a jog. Her heart light. The weight on her shoulders suddenly lifted. Now she just needed to find Tom. He probably had something to do with this.

But Tom wasn't there. Miriam, Savannah, Todd, and Dash Randall were there. Jenny and Gabe Raintree were there. Mike and Charlene Taggert were there. So were Ross and Sabina Gardiner, along with Eugene and Thelma Hanks and Nita and Zeph Gibbs. And a half dozen more. They were all watching Aiden and smiling.

A tsunami of disappointment smacked Teri sideways. Tom's absence sucked a lot of the joy out of this moment. Had he been playing with her? Had he lost interest when she didn't call him after he'd given her the flowers? Was he as unreliable as her ex? She tried to push all those negative thoughts back behind a steel door in her mind. They had no business being here on this night.

Of all nights.

The important thing was that Aiden had made miraculous progress tonight. He was celebrating Christmas in a meaningful way. Watching him hold a candle and sing like an angel was nothing short of an answered prayer.

Tom watched the helicopter rise and then noted the time. Midnight.

His night was not yet over. The Sheriff Department's cruiser sat in the parking lot. He still had to brief the next of kin. And that took a lot of time.

When he'd finished, it was almost one o'clock on Christmas morning. He'd missed his romantic rendezvous.

He drove straight home, but sat in his car for a good twenty minutes feeling drained and slightly depressed. It wasn't easy to deal with an accident like Elbert's on Christmas. Talking to the family about the grave nature of Elbert's injuries was a complete downer. For the Rhodes family, and for him too.

That was the thing about being a family practitioner. You got to know the people you cared for. He could have avoided this. He could have become a surgeon. But he'd known that surgery wasn't his calling.

Dr. Massey, his mentor at Boston Medical Center, had been the one who gave him permission to follow a different course. Dr. Massey had told him that his gift lay in making connections with people.

Maybe that was true. He'd felt connected to the people here tonight. And helping Elbert this evening made him feel better about his choices. Savannah Randall was right too. People were coming around. Mr. Bray had even called him to thank him for insisting that Lillian see a specialist.

So maybe this assignment would work out. But he still felt empty and kind of homesick. He wanted to talk to someone.

Well, not just any someone. He wanted to talk to Teri. He also wouldn't have minded making out with her. He was in sore need of some love tonight.

He also wanted to know what had happened at the village green. Had Teri and Aiden shown up? Had the angel put in an appearance?

He hoped so. For a moment he'd felt as if the angels were there with Elbert, looking over him.

He didn't feel like sleeping, so he fired up the engine and headed back into town. He parked a block away from the green and strolled down to the Christmas tree. The little town of Last Chance was deserted at this time of the morning, even on Christmas. The one stop light in town cycled from red to green without a car in sight.

It was practically balmy—much too warm to be Christmas, as far as Tom was concerned. He didn't have to button up his coat as he stood at the base of the tree, basking in the glow of its lights. He hadn't put up a tree in his condo. He stood there regretting that decision.

He'd never outgrown his childhood love of evergreens, tinsel, and twinkling lights. The tree lifted his heart a little bit. He looked up.

Something wasn't right. Something had changed. There should have been a lighted star on the top of the town tree. But where once there had been a star, now there sat a brass angel with a silver halo and a harp of gold.

Had Teri swapped out the tree topper? Had she played Santa for Aiden?

Oh, he hoped so.

His heavy heart lightened. If Teri had played Santa for Aiden, then maybe she'd changed her mind about him. Maybe that angel up there was sending him a message.

He turned away from the tree. The walk to Teri's house wasn't long. In less than five minutes, he stood in her front yard. The lights in one of the upstairs rooms were still on. He thought about throwing a pebble at the window and having a Romeo moment, but decided that ringing the bell was probably a better idea.

He waited for a long time. He'd probably awakened her. He was feeling like a teenager, unsure and kind of confused, but determined nevertheless.

The door finally opened, and Teri stood there on the threshold wearing a red plaid robe over her pajamas. She had sheepskin slippers on her feet.

“I know it's late,” he said.

A tiny frown rumpled her brow. “I missed you at the town square.”

“You came? Really? Are you the one who swapped out the angel for the star?”

“What?”

“The angel. On the top of the tree.”

“What angel?”

“You didn't swap out the star?”

“No.”

“Teri, there's an angel on the top of the town tree. I just saw it. It's made of brass. It has a silver-colored halo and a golden harp.”

“Like in the carol?”

“What carol?”

“‘It Came Upon a Midnight Clear'—there's a lyric about the angels bending toward the earth to touch their harps of gold.”

“Oh, yeah. What happened at midnight?” he asked, a shiver working its way over his shoulders.

“I don't know. I was late. I got there about five minutes after midnight. Aiden was holding my little brass candle stick, with a lighted candle, and singing like—” She broke off for a moment, her voice wobbling. “Well, to be honest, he was singing like an angel, Tom. Honestly, I think there was an angel in our town tonight. It was Aiden. He was
holding
a candle. I just don't understand how or why that happened.”

He moved forward and took her by the shoulders. “I'm sorry I missed it. I was called to the clinic.”

“Oh,” she said on a long breath. “I should have realized.”

“You missed me?” He couldn't help but smile. Maybe the mysterious angel had been put there just for him. Just to make him take a chance.

She nodded and then brushed away a tear. “Who was sick?” she asked.

“Not sick. Hurt. Elbert Rhodes. He was in a bad motorcycle accident. We had to fly him up to the trauma center in Columbia.”

“Oh, my goodness, is he going to be okay?”

“He should live, but he's got a long road to recovery. He's in surgery right now. You know, it was funny. He was conscious for a short time when he got to the clinic. And he was talking about angels. I guess that's not anything remarkable when it comes to Elbert Rhodes.”

They stood there for what seemed like an eternity before Tom screwed up his courage. “Teri, can I come inside?”

A tiny smile tilted her lips. “Yes. And I'll tell you a secret.”

“What's that?”

“Savannah Randall as much as told me today that you and I belong together.”

He chuckled. “Teri, the flowers were
her
idea.”

“And the note?”

“Well, I wrote the note and, no, she didn't tell me what to say. I'm really, really sorry I couldn't meet you for a romantic Christmas rendezvous.”

She threw her arms around his neck. “Now that I know the reason, I'm glad you were there for Elbert and not with me. Tom, I've been an idiot. Tonight I just feel as if somehow God has blessed us in some way. I think the angels did visit the little town of Last Chance tonight.”

“Me too.”

And then he kissed her under the mistletoe that hung in the door's threshold.

And it was a fairy-tale kind of kiss. The kind of kiss that makes a woman believe in angels and happily ever after.

 

 

 

Ever since his wife died, Stone Rhodes has put everything into raising his daughters and dodging the Christ Church Ladies' Auxiliary matchmakers. But the appearance of angels will make this Christmas different.

An excerpt follows.

Jesus looked like he'd been hit by a Mack truck. The statue of the son of God lay on its side, its fiberglass infrastructure torn and ragged. Scattered on the gravel beside the bleaching carcass were the remnants of a sign that read “Golfing for God.”

Lark Chaikin hugged her elbows and tried to keep warm against the December gust that blew her bangs into her eyes. Who knew South Carolina could be so cold. She looked up at the tops of the pine trees, swaying in the wind. She shivered.

She had to be crazy to have driven all the way from New York on this fool's errand. Roadside America was littered with the corpses of mini-golf courses, their windmills suspended in time, their giant Paul Bunyans toppled. And it sure looked like Golfing for God had gone the way of all the fiberglass dinosaurs.

Pop should have checked before he made his last request. But, of course, Pop had been sick for a long time.

Lark turned back toward her late father's SUV, a giant silver thing that drove like an ocean liner and guzzled gas like one, too. She opened the back door and stared down at the cardboard box containing Pop's ashes. The box was eight inches square with the words “Chaikin, Abe” scrawled across its top.

She pressed a couple of fingers against the ache in her forehead that had been growing all day. “Why'd you make a big
mahgilla
about being buried here in the middle of nowhere on a closed-up mini-golf course?” She couldn't go on. Her throat closed up, and tears threatened her eyes. She swallowed back the grief that was too new to be expressed yet.

Lark leaned on the tailgate, her gaze shifting from the box to the canvas camera bag sitting beside it. Her fingers itched to pick up the Nikon, maybe shoot a few photos of the broken statue. She might be able to capture the Picasso-like perspective of its smashed face. Maybe shooting a few photos would help her get back the balance she'd lost during the Libyan civil war. She had experienced a lot of heavy fighting during the battle for Misurata.

But she couldn't find the courage to pick up the camera. She slammed the tailgate and turned toward a gravel path clearly posted with “No Trespassing” signs.

Something violent had damaged the stand of pines growing on the right side of the path. The trees looked as if they had been blasted by napalm or something. A wave of nausea gripped her. Man, she was really losing it. The nightmares were bad. But the waking flashbacks were worse.

She took a few calming breaths and focused on the noise of her feet crunching on the gravel. She looked up. Clouds, heavy with rain, scudded across the sky, and a lone hawk circled, watching and waiting. She felt light-headed. She couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten or slept.

She lowered her gaze. A medium-sized structure resembling Noah's Ark loomed ahead of her. Scaffolding had been set up around it, and it looked as if someone were giving the Ark a fresh coat of paint. Still, for all that, the place seemed sad and abandoned. A few dead leaves, driven by the wind, swirled across the path.

She turned right and made a circuit of the place, hole-to-hole, past Adam and Eve, the Tower of Babel, and David and Goliath, feeling as if she'd slipped through the bounds of reality. She stopped at the tee box labeled “Plague of Frogs.” Something terrible had happened here. She remembered Pop talking about how the frogs used to spit water over the fairway. But there weren't any frogs left. Just random frog legs stuck onto concrete lily pads.

She turned and walked past the undamaged Jonah and the whale, then cut through the Wise Men with their bobbing camels and Jesus walking on water, until she reached the eighteenth hole.

She halfway expected this hole to be the much-laughed-about Tomb of Jesus. It would be just like Pop to want to have his ashes installed in the ersatz tomb of a messiah that wasn't his. She could see him laughing his ass off as people putted golf balls across his grave. After all, Pop had a murderous short game.

But the eighteenth hole wasn't a tomb.

It was a statue of Jesus. The sign beside the tee box displayed a quote from Mark 16: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”

Apparently the eighteenth hole was a celebration of the resurrection.

Stonewall Rhodes, the chief of police for the incorporated city of Last Chance, South Carolina, drove his cruiser south on Palmetto Avenue, taking his second-to-last circuit of the day. It was nearly five o'clock, and the light was fading quickly into dusk. It would be dark by the time he drove out to the edge of town and back.

He got about halfway to the Allenberg County line before he saw the silver Cadillac Escalade parked in the lot at Golfing for God. The New York tags caught his attention.

Cars with New York plates didn't come through this neck of the woods very often—unless the folks in them were lost tourists searching for the road to Hilton Head, or people making a pilgrimage to Golfing for God.

At one time, Golfing for God had attracted a fair number of pilgrims. The place was listed on RoadsideAmerica.com and had made it into a couple of tour guides. But the place had been closed up for more than a year—ever since its propane tank had been struck by lightning.

Of course, Hettie Marshall and the Committee to Resurrect Golfing for God had just hired a contractor to begin fixing up the place. They were aiming for a big reopening in the spring. In the meantime, though, the “No Trespassing” signs were designed to keep the pilgrims and the pranksters away.

Stone pulled his cruiser into the golf course's parking lot, the gravel crunching under its wheels. He eyeballed the Cadillac. It appeared to be unoccupied, but appearances could be deceiving. Before getting out of his car, he keyed the plate information into his cruiser's computer. An instant later the Cadillac's history came back to him. There were no outstanding warrants involving the vehicle, which was registered to one Abe Chaikin of Kings Point, New York.

Stone stared at the name for a long moment as the little hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end.

The past had come back to haunt his town.

He snagged his Stetson from the passenger's seat and dropped it on his head as he left the cruiser. He pulled his heavy-duty flashlight from his utility belt as he cautiously approached the vehicle. He shone the light through the driver's side window and confirmed that the car was unoccupied.

The SUV was a late model, clean and fully loaded, with a GPS system and satellite radio in the dashboard. A well-worn canvas bag in army green occupied the cargo area, loaded with what looked like expensive camera equipment. The SUV was locked.

He turned away from the car and walked up the charred remains of the main walkway. He saw the woman as soon as he turned the corner by the first hole. She sat on the wooden bench at the feet of the resurrected Jesus on hole eighteen, with her head bowed as if deep in prayer. For a brief moment the Savior's hand seemed to move outward toward the praying woman, as if He were trying to comfort her.

A shiver inched down Stone's spine, and he blinked a couple of times. Only then did he realize the deepening dusk had played a trick on him. A little sparrow sat in the hand of Jesus. It turned its head this way and that and gave the appearance of the statue's hand in motion.

The woman was as tiny as the bird, with short-cropped dark hair that spiked around her head. She wore jeans and a peacoat. A stiff wind might blow her away.

She looked up, turning a pair of dark, hollow eyes in his direction. All the breath left his lungs as he found himself caught up in her stare. For an instant, he felt as if he might be looking at a ghost from some forgotten past. Her face was oddly gray in the fading light, the skin beneath her eyes smudged with the purple of exhaustion.

She looked hopelessly lost, like a small waif or street urchin.

A hot, tight feeling slammed into his chest. The unexpected intensity of the emotion was tempered by the immediate clanging of alarm bells in his head. She was trouble.

She had arrived in a car registered to Abe Chaikin—a man who had so upset the balance of things in Last Chance that practically everyone still remembered the incident.

He couldn't shake the feeling that the woman was here for the same purpose. This tiny person was going to rend the daily fabric of life in his town, and he couldn't let that happen.

She looked up at him, and he recognized his doom right there in her hollow eyes, just as he recognized something about her that he couldn't even put words to. He had this odd feeling that he had known her for a long, long time.

Lark gripped the edge of the bench and stared at the fiberglass Jesus. This had to be the Excedrin headache to end all headaches. Was this Pop's idea of a joke?

The sound of boots on gravel drew her attention to the walkway by the Ark. A policeman came into view.

Holy crap, she was in trouble now.

“Ma'am,” the cop said. “What part of ‘No Trespassing' do you not understand? Golfing for God is not in business, and I'd be obliged if you would move on.”

She stood up, feeling dizzy and disconnected as she focused on the cop's face. She recognized the green eyes, dimpled chin, and meandering nose. Crap. She
was
going crazy.

“Carmine?” she asked. Her throat hurt.

“Ma'am?” The cop went on alert. His shoulders stiffened, and his body coiled in that ready-for-action pose she'd seen in the marines patrolling the streets of Baghdad.

She blinked a couple of times, trying to clear her vision. He wasn't Carmine, of course. And she was not losing her mind. She cleared her dry throat. “I was wondering if you could tell me where I might find Zeke Rhodes. I need to speak with him about something.”

“Ma'am, Zeke Rhodes has been dead for more than forty years. I would have expected you to know that.”

“Oh,” Lark said as she fought a wave of disappointment. “More than forty years? Really?”

“Yes, ma'am. He died the day Abe Chaikin left town.”

Her head throbbed, and her face went from hot to cold. “You knew my father?” That seemed unlikely.

“No, ma'am. But I've heard the stories about him. He hightailed it out of town the same day Zeke Rhodes died. They found Zeke's body right where you're standing now.”

She took a reflexive step backward as if to avoid the long-dead body of Zeke Rhodes.

“Of course, not everyone thinks Zeke was murdered. There's a big debate on that topic.”

“But you think he was.”

The cop's shoulders moved a little. “Maybe. It happened before I was born. So you're Abe's daughter?”

“Oh, yeah, I'm his daughter.” The world started tilting sideways.

“Well, ma'am, some folks think
your daddy
murdered Zeke.”

Abe Chaikin's daughter gave Stone one wide-eyed look before her eyes rolled up in her head and she crumpled. He caught her before she planted her face in the Astroturf.

He hoisted her up in his arms and realized that she was burning with fever. No telling what kind of bug she'd brought to town. She could be carrying anthrax or some deadly virus for all Stone knew. But that was nothing compared to the fact that she was Abe Chaikin's daughter.

He lugged her deadweight up the gravel walk. She regained consciousness before he laid her in the backseat of his Crown Vic. She cracked one bloodshot eye.

“I passed out, didn't I?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“To the clinic, you're sick.”

“But my car and cameras and—”

“I'll make sure they're safe. You need medical attention. You just rest there for a minute.” He opened the trunk and pulled out an emergency blanket, which he wrapped around her.

“Thanks,” she said through chattering teeth. “I'm so sorry. I never get sick. Really.” Her eyes closed. Her chest rattled ominously when she took a deep breath.

Just his luck. He needed this like he needed a hole in the head. She was the daughter of the most notorious man to ever set foot in Last Chance. What the hell was she doing here?

He slid into the driver's seat, dropped his Stetson on the seat beside him, and radioed back to main dispatch. He gave them his location and an outline of the situation. Winnie, his night dispatcher, replied that she would give his momma a call to let her know he would be late for supper.

Momma would call Miz Polk, and Miz Polk would call Miz Hanks, and Miz Hanks would call Miz Bray, and pretty soon every member of the Christ Church Ladies' Auxiliary would know that Abe Chaikin's daughter had just arrived from New York.

By this time tomorrow morning, the entire county would be in an uproar. And wouldn't that be fun?

“You think you can stand?” he asked Abe Chaikin's daughter when they arrived at the urgent care center five minutes later.

The woman tried to push herself up, but flopped back onto the cruiser's seat. He hopped out of the driver's seat, opened the back door, and pulled her up into his arms.

She was as delicate as a dragonfly's wing. Not his type of woman at all. But when she looked up at him out of those glassy brown eyes, something pressed hard against his chest, and he had trouble breathing.

“I'm so sorry,” she murmured as her head fell against his shoulder. For some inexplicable reason, the weight of her head against him felt impossibly good.

He needed to run this woman off just as soon as he could. She was big trouble.

Winnie had already alerted Annie Jasper, the night nurse, who directed Stone into one of the half dozen exam rooms. He eased Abe Chaikin's daughter down to the exam table. “You'll be fine, ma'am. Do you have your car keys? If you do, I can see about moving your car to a safer place.”

She dug into the pocket of her jeans and handed him the keys.

“Thank you, ma'am. Now, what's your name?”