he let her go. She was either a crackpot, or a con artist. Her name probably wasn’t even Holly Barrows.
He listened as her boot heels tapped down the stairs, and he waited for the sound of the door closing on the street below, before he picked up his beer bottle and went to the window again.
It had stopped snowing, the sky dark, the air cold against the glass. He watched her hurry to a newer SUV parked at the curb. Out of habit, he jotted down her license-plate number when her brake lights flashed on.
Why had she come to him with this latest ludicrous story? Hadn’t she gotten what she’d come for the last time?
She pulled out into the street, and he had to fight the urge to run after her.
As he started to turn from the window, he caught a movement on the sidewalk below and looked down. The Santa bell-ringer no longer had his pot. Or his bell. He was looking after the retreating Holly Barrows and talking hurriedly into a cell phone.
Slade felt a jolt as the Santa glanced up toward his office window. The look was brief, but enough. Slade swore and scrambled around his desk and out of the office. He launched himself down the stairs, nearly falling on the wet steps, his mind racing faster than his feet, and burst through the door to the sidewalk.
The Santa was gone—except for his red hat and white fake beard lying on the pavement.
The quiet snowy darkness settled over Slade as he stared down the now-empty street. He’d seen the Santa’s alarmed expression when he’d looked up and spotted Slade at the window, recalled the agitated way the man had been talking into the cell phone.
Worry clutched at him the way Holly Barrows had clutched at her purse. Sweet heaven, could she have been telling the truth this time? More important, had she been telling the truth a year ago when she’d thought someone was trying to kill her?
Suddenly a thought lodged like a stake in his heart. If she wasn’t crazy, if Holly Barrows really had been pregnant and had delivered a baby five weeks ago, then— If nothing else, he’d always been good at math.
He stumbled back against the side of the building as he stared down the street in the direction her car had disappeared. If there really had been a baby, there was a damned good chance it was his.
Chapter Two
“Are you all right?” Shelley asked him as she sliced a loaf of homemade cranberry bread. Her kitchen smelled the way their mother’s used to. Something was always cooking.
“Fine, why?” He leaned against the counter to watch her, trying to put on his best holiday face.
It was obvious to anyone who saw them together, that Slade and Shelley were siblings. Shelley’s hair was the same thick, dark blond as his, her eyes a little paler hazel. They’d both taken after their father’s side of the family. Like him, she had the Rawlins’ deep dimples. They were, in fact, fraternal twins.
“You think I can’t tell when something is bothering you?” she asked. “Something more than Christmas.”
Christmases were always hard on him. This one was especially tough after what he’d found in his mother’s letter, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.
“Remember that woman? The one I met last year about this time?”
She kept cutting the bread. “The one who couldn’t remember who she was. You called her Janie Doe.” She frowned. “I remember how worried you were about her when she disappeared.”
“Yeah, well, she waltzed into my office late this afternoon.”
Shelley stopped slicing to look over at him, and he wondered if she realized just how involved he’d gotten with Janie Doe. “Then she’s all right?”
He shrugged. He wouldn’t exactly say that. “The case is complicated.” That was putting it mildly. “But I can’t get it off my mind.”
“It? Or her?”
“Both,” he admitted with a sheepish grin. That seemed to satisfy her.
“Would you carry this into the living room? Norma called to say they were running a little late.”
“I hope they come,” Slade said, wondering how badly the chief didn’t want to read the letter he’d found.
“Of course they’ll come,” Shelley said in surprise. “It wouldn’t be Christmas without them. Well, Norma, anyway,” she added with a laugh. Chief Curtis seemed as fond of Christmas as Slade was.
Shelley put out a tray of snack food while Slade poured them each a glass of wine. With Christmas music playing on the stereo, he helped her decorate the tree. It had become their tradition, since being on their own, to decorate the tree on Christmas Eve, then take it down right after the new year, and always at Shelley’s.
The first Christmas after their mother’s murder had been the worst, with both parents gone. But the chief and Norma Curtis had helped them start new traditions and Slade had gone along with it for his sister. As far as he was concerned, he could skip the holiday all together and never miss it.
“This is one of my favorites,” she said, stopping to admire a small porcelain Santa. “I remember it from pictures of when we were just babies.”
Their mother had loved collecting Christmas ornaments. She could recount where she’d gotten each, many from friends or family, and what year. Each one had special meaning for her.
He watched his sister cradle the Santa in her palm and couldn’t help but think about the Santa bell-ringer below his office window earlier. It kept him from thinking about other Christmases—and his mother.
After he’d missed catching the Santa bell-ringer, he’d returned to his office and tried to call Holly Barrows in Pinedale. Of course there was no listing. Why wasn’t he surprised? She’d probably made up the name.
Not that he knew what he’d have said even if he’d found a number for her. I think Santa Claus had my building staked out and I think he was looking for you? He would sound as crazy as she had.
But he couldn’t quit worrying about her. Or worse, worrying that she might be in real trouble—and he hadn’t taken her seriously. Between that, and worrying about his mother’s letter—and the possible implications of her words, the last thing he wanted to be doing tonight was decorating a Christmas tree. He felt antsy and anxious. Both incidents had shaken him—and during a season when he didn’t feel all that grounded anyway.
He and Shelley had just finished decorating the tree when the chief and his wife arrived.
“Slade, get them some wine,” Shelley said as she took their coats and shook off the snow. “You must be freezing.”
“Nothing like a white Christmas!” Norma exclaimed and moved to the fireplace. “Oh, your tree is just lovely!”
“Want to help me with the wine?” Slade asked the police chief pointedly.
Curtis sighed but followed him into the kitchen. Chief Curtis was built like a battering ram, neckless and balding, with a florid complexion, a reputation for being outspoken to the point of being
