Twin Threat Christmas (14 page)

Scooping him up, she balanced him against her shoulder and patted his back.

He screamed in her ear.

She tried Chris’s slow-bouncing maneuver.

The baby’s sniffles subsided. But when Alyssa tried to place him back in his carrier, he started crying again. It quickly became clear that he didn’t want to be put down. He was only happy when she did the slow bounce.

So Alyssa held the baby in one arm and a statue in the other, hoping the slow bouncing would be enough to burp the statues, too.

One by one, she bounced the statues and the baby, until her arms and legs ached from the effort. She’d already been emotionally exhausted by the long day and was now physically spent, as well. But even now, when she tried to place the baby back in his car seat, he started to cry.

She bounced again. His cries subsided, and she looked around the room, her legs nearly wobbly with exhaustion. Her overstuffed chair beckoned to her from near the woodstove, and she pulled the chain to turn off the light before crossing the room to the chair.

Carefully, she eased herself down. The baby sniffled a little, but didn’t cry.

Alyssa closed her eyes....

She didn’t know how long she’d been dozing with the baby on her shoulder, when a noise awakened her. She froze, disoriented at awakening in the dark with her nephew drooling on her chest.

Had she really heard a noise?

Yes, and now there were more noises. Murmuring men’s voices echoed from the other side of the shelving units. Alyssa couldn’t see much beyond the physical obstructions, but she could tell whoever had entered—two men, if she heard the voices correctly—were carrying small flashlights. They kept the beams down, mostly pointed at the table where she’d placed her little lamb statues as she’d finished them.

For an instant, she wondered if perhaps Chris had returned with another officer, but the voices didn’t sound like his, and from what little she could see of their potbellied silhouettes, they lacked his strong physique. Definitely not Chris, then. But who? The men were doing something with her statues. But what?

One stepped a bit to the side. Alyssa could see his profile against the backdrop of the moonlit window. He pulled back his jacket and fished for something in his inside pocket, but even as he did so, his flashlight illuminated everything that had been hidden by his jacket. His belt. A holster.

A gun.

FIVE

A
lyssa froze, praying hard for her safety and that of the child who slept on her shoulder. So far, the men seemed oblivious to her presence, assuming themselves to be alone in the workshop. But if the baby awoke or made any noise, he could easily give them away.

Then what might happen?

Carefully, cautiously, she slipped her free hand into her pocket and wrapped her fingers around her phone. Should she call the police for the second time that day? She regretted the first call already. And she was in no position to answer the dispatcher’s questions or even to talk at all. It was all she could do to hold tight to the phone, prepared to use it at her earliest opportunity.

Were these guys related to her sister’s disappearance? They didn’t seem to be looking for the baby—in fact, they seemed pretty focused on her statues. With their backs between her and the countertop, the men almost completely blocked her view of what they were doing, even if the shelving units hadn’t been in the way.

The man had fished something from his pocket—a big bulging handful of something pale, almost shiny. It was simply too dark to see, especially with the full shelving units blocking most of her view. But she was grateful for the shelves because they kept her mostly hidden. As long as the men didn’t shine their flashlights directly her way, and as long as the baby didn’t make any noise, her presence might go undetected.

It wasn’t until one of the men stepped to the side and bent over the countertop, a lamb form on the table in front of him, that Alyssa got a decent look at what they were up to. One of the guys used a slender object to do something in the air-hole opening at the top of the mold. Was he writing in the surface of the cement, much as she had placed her artist’s mark there just before setting each mold aside?

But what was he writing? And why?

The men left as mysteriously as they’d arrived, sneaking out quietly and closing the door behind them. Alyssa waited several long seconds, listening carefully, trying to determine where they’d gone. Were they still around? She didn’t hear a vehicle or anything beyond the first few quiet footsteps that faded quickly into the distance.

She didn’t want to give away her presence by placing a phone call, but at the same time, if these guys were related to Vanessa’s disappearance, or even if they were just the hooligans who’d been taking her baby-lamb figures, she wanted them caught. In order for that to happen, she couldn’t let them get away.

Seeing and hearing no sign of them, she held her phone just high enough to see the screen and unlocked it deftly with her finger, making up her mind quickly to call Chris.

He answered on the second ring.

“Some guys were in my workshop. They had a gun,” Alyssa explained in a hushed whisper.

“What? Where are you and the baby?”

“We’re in the workshop. I think they’re gone.”

“I’ll be right there. Stay on the phone with me, okay?”

“Okay.”

* * *

Chris shoved his feet into shoes and threw on a jacket, then strapped his gun onto his ankle. If he was going to face somebody who had a gun, he needed to be similarly armed. His bedside clock told him it was just after midnight. What was Alyssa doing in the workshop—with the baby, no less—in the middle of the night?

Sneaking drugs?

Much as he might have thought so if he’d caught her at it the night before, after spending the evening with her, he was less sure. But one thing he knew with full confidence—the thought of her and that baby confronting armed men terrified him.

He raced to his garage, hopped into his Jeep and pulled onto the highway before lifting the phone to speak again. “I’m on my way. I’ll be there in two minutes. You still okay?”

“Yes. I think those guys are long gone, but I never heard a car drive away.”

“Maybe they parked at a distance, and I can still catch them.”

He turned onto the long road, heavily shadowed by trees, and watched for any sign of movement or the glint of his headlights against the red glass of a vehicle’s rear lights. But there was nothing, no sign of anyone.

Much as he’d have liked to pounce on anybody who’d dared trespass on Alyssa’s property wearing a gun, he had no clue where to look. They could have gone in any direction.

No, far more urgently, he needed to get to Alyssa, to make sure she and the baby were safe. He slammed to a stop near the workshop, raising dust, bursting from his car and running at a dead sprint through the workshop door.

Alyssa stood from the overstuffed chair as he entered. She raised a silent finger to her lips, with a meaningful glance at the baby sleeping snugly against her chest.

For an instant, relief filled him, full and powerful, swelling inside him with foreign emotions. Alyssa and the baby were okay. More than that, they looked so peaceful and adorable together, the infant’s head turned to the side, his chubby cheeks pink with sleep, his mouth slightly open.

Chris could have hugged them both.

Except, of course, he couldn’t. He didn’t even know them that well. It was just a huge relief that they were okay.

He stepped forward quietly, tugging on the light as he passed the glowing ball that dangled from the string. Alyssa met him near the workstation where her molds now sat in a cluster, filled and clamped, the smooth tops near their openings marked with a distinctive symbol etched in the exposed cement.

“That’s my artist’s mark,” Alyssa explained. “It stands for Vanessa and Alyssa Jackson.”

She traced the lines through the air with her finger, two overlapping
V
s turned at angles, forming something like an
A
with a
J
coming out the side.

Instantly, he recognized the symbol. It was identical to the marking on the fragments in the police report—the ones tainted with drug residue. They
were
the same lambs, then.

Chris felt the hairs on the back of his neck rising—his internal signal that someone was lying. Something didn’t add up. He needed to find out exactly what was going on—and quickly, before the unfamiliar emotions Alyssa provoked in him clouded his judgment any more.

Alyssa whispered, explaining quickly, “After you left, the baby fell asleep, so I brought him out here while I finished the project I’d started earlier. But then he woke up and was fussing. I finally got him to calm back down, and then we both fell asleep in the chair. I woke up when I heard a noise. Two guys were standing over here, doing something with my statues.”

Chris glanced over at the chair. It was mostly hidden behind the shelving units, but still, it couldn’t be more than twenty feet away from where they were standing—where the intruders had been standing. He felt a jolt like fear at the thought. Fear and something worse.

Doubt.

Had Alyssa and the baby really been so close to mysterious intruders—who’d then disappeared completely by the time Chris rushed over? Or was she inventing a story to throw him off? Did she know he was onto her smuggling activities? Perhaps he shouldn’t have pressed so insistently when asking to see what was behind the workshop door. But now he wanted to look inside more than ever.

The first step was to try to find a hole in her story. He’d gotten pretty good at questioning criminals over the years and could spot inconsistencies quickly. “What were they doing with your statues?”

“It was difficult to see. They had flashlights. One of them stood here.” Alyssa planted her feet a step away from the countertop. “He took half a step back, pulled his jacket back and dug in his pocket.” She demonstrated with her free hand, still holding the baby securely with the other. “That’s when I saw the gun. It scared me. I was looking at the gun, and I didn’t see what he pulled from his pocket, just that he had a bulge of something in his hand, and then he turned to face the table again and his back blocked my view.”

“That’s all you saw?”

“They were wearing gloves. I saw that much.”

Chris ticked the point off on his mental checklist. Of course, gloves meant no fingerprints—a convenient detail if she was making up the story and needed to corroborate evidence. “Is that all you saw?”

“Right before they left, he stepped back again and bent close over the forms while the other guy held his flashlight pointed at the top. He was doing something—” She leaned over the forms and squinted.

“Anything look unusual?” As far as Chris could see, all six forms had identical slashes on top. “Do they look any different?” He scooted one closer so she could see.

Alyssa peered at the top, then looked startled. She scrunched her brows at him. “That’s not how I draw it. I mean, it’s close, but—they must have messed with it. But why break into my workshop in the middle of the night—” As her voice rose in pitch, the baby in her arms roused slightly, shifting his position.

“Shh,” Chris whispered. The baby stilled while Chris said, “I have a theory. Do you mind if I check something?”

“Go ahead.”

Chris grabbed a long, slender tool from the storage crock to his right and prodded the wet cement, stirring it in ever-deepening circles. The stick extended about a third of the way into the sculpture when he felt a solid mass. “Something’s in there. A lump of some sort.”

Alyssa shook her head. “The concrete was still smooth when I filled the molds. It dries from the periphery inward, not the other way around.”

But Chris dug around silently while Alyssa protested. Finally, he fished out a plastic-wrapped packet coated in thick wet cement.

“What is that?” Alyssa looked sincerely surprised to see what he pulled from the form.

Chris studied her face an extra-long second, noting her response. Not too surprised, not enough to indicate she was faking a reaction. Just confused, quizzical. Honest? Maybe.

“Heroin,” he stated with certainty.

She looked from the packet, its contents almost completely obscured by gray cement, to Chris, her expression disbelieving. “How do you know that? How can you tell? What would—”

“Shh,” Chris quieted her again as the baby wriggled against her shoulder. He decided it was time to share what he knew—to watch her reaction in hopes of learning her degree of involvement. “I’ve seen reports of the drug being smuggled inside small concrete statues like your lambs. Law enforcement in Pennsylvania did a bust, but the criminals had already cleared out. They’d left in a hurry, though. There was heroin residue on concrete statuary fragments in the trash.”

Alyssa looked confused, maybe even a little sickened. “They broke the statues?”

“Drug smugglers at one end placed drugs in the statues before the cement dried. Then they shipped them to Pennsylvania, where the other end of the operation broke them open and took out the drugs. The statues provide a cover for the drugs, so they can ship them wherever they want without anyone realizing what they’re really transporting.”

“That is so wrong. But why break into my studio to do it? Why not just make their own statues?”

Chris watched Alyssa’s face carefully, trying to remain objective in spite of how innocent and cuddly she looked with the sleeping baby snuggled against her shoulder. Her reaction seemed sincere, as if she didn’t know anything about the drugs. Or did he just want to believe she was innocent?

Still, her question bothered him. Why would the smugglers go to all the work of breaking into someone else’s place? It didn’t make sense. That was why he’d assumed Alyssa was the real smuggler. But if she was really innocent, was someone trying to set her up? The question sent a shock of fear down his spine, far more than the usual prickles of suspicion.

Were drug smugglers targeting Alyssa?

He could see sincere fear in her eyes, so he played down the terror that had seized him. As casually as possible, he answered her question, “Maybe to point the finger of guilt away from themselves.”

But Alyssa’s face lit up with realization before he finished speaking. “That would explain my stolen lamb statues.”

“What?” Chris latched on to the news. “When? How many?”

“I’ve had dozens stolen over the last few years. I always just assumed it was local hooligans playing around.”

The explanation matched with what the dispatcher had told Chris when he’d been called out that evening. She’d even used the word
hooligans.
“Did you file a police report?”

“No.”

Suddenly suspicious about her convenient explanation, which lacked support, Chris asked, “Why not?”

“It didn’t seem like that big of a deal. The lambs aren’t very expensive. The first time, I wasn’t even sure I’d counted correctly. Then, when it happened again, I figured since I hadn’t reported it the first time—”

Her excuse sounded flimsy. Now, more than ever, he needed to know whether she was innocent or guilty. He didn’t want her to be guilty, but it was almost preferable to the idea that drug smugglers were trying to frame her. “Can I see what’s behind that door?”

“You think the drug smugglers might have something back there?”

“I think somebody might,” he answered truthfully.

Alyssa nodded, her eyes wide and trusting, though her cheeks looked noticeably flushed. Was she embarrassed? Was it a sign of guilt? She fumbled with one hand in her pocket, pulled out a ring of keys and sidestepped the chair on her way to the door.

Chris joined her in the small space, unwilling to allow her into the room first in case she might try to hide something before he saw it.

The door swung open, and Alyssa switched on the light. Chris stood in the doorway taking everything in, amazed and humbled by what he saw. When he looked down at Alyssa, he saw that she had her face buried amid her nephew’s peach-fuzz hair, her eyes closed.

With a guilty, sinking feeling, Chris realized why Alyssa hadn’t wanted him to see the room.