Christmas Confidential (6 page)

She sat on the bed farthest from the door, Boo tucked beside her. The sound of Elvis singing “Blue Christmas” filtered faintly from somewhere. Never one of her favorite songs, especially not right now. She switched on the television to drown out the tune, channeling through holiday movies to commercials blaring gift-giving ideas to twenty-four-hour news. She muted it and turned to the program guide to find something definitively non-holiday.

When three sharp raps sounded at the door, she stiffened, then gave herself a mental shake and went to undo the chain lock. Dean came in, shivering and carrying a couple of bags of pure sensory heaven. Hamburgers, French fries, onion rings and, nearly overpowered by the other aromas, hot cocoa.

She loved hot cocoa.

“Damn, it’s cold out there. I think my ears have frozen solid.” He set the bags on the dresser while she locked up again behind him. His hands were red and so were his cheeks, chapped by the sharp wind that had sent her scurrying from car to room when they’d arrived.

“I can’t promise how hot anything is after the run across the parking lot, but it smells good.” In the process of unloading the bags, he noticed she was still standing by the door. “What?”

She shook her head and crossed to claim her food, taking it to her bed. She’d been thinking of all he’d done today—meeting her at, or at least near, the prison, giving her a ride, buying her first McDonald’s hamburger in more than a year. Saving her from those men at the bus stop, taking her to Atlanta. Remembering that she liked onion rings and loved cocoa. It was more than anyone had done for her, or remembered about her, in twelve years, maybe twenty. It was enough to make her feel.

And she wasn’t going to feel. He had his reasons. She couldn’t let herself forget that. The fact that he’d remembered her preference for rings and cocoa was meaningless. It was probably detailed, along with all her other likes and dislikes, in a case file somewhere. No doubt, he’d reviewed it before heading for the prison today.

She sank on the bed, slowly unwrapping foil from the burger, a sense of wonder building inside her. Twelve hours ago, she’d been in prison, wearing her tacky uniform, sticking to the schedule they’d set for her, making a point of minding her own business. Now here she sat, long after lights-out, on a comfortable bed in a motel in east Texas, eating restaurant food way past dinnertime. Tonight there would be no talk to disturb her sleep, no snoring unless it was Dean’s, no crying unless it was her own. She was a free woman.

Then her gaze shifted to Dean.
Free
being relative. Still, for sheer good looks and disposition, he beat her old cellmate by a mile. On a good day, LaRinda was about as charming as a snake and trustworthy as a troll, and she hadn’t had many good days.

He took the other bed, food spread across sheets and drink on the night table. As he broke open a packet of salt to sprinkle on his fries, he asked, “How come you didn’t learn to drive until you were twenty?”

She’d told him that, hadn’t she? No matter. Surely his friends at the police department—all private investigators had them, didn’t they?—could tell him that she’d been a late bloomer when it came to cars. “No car until then, no point in learning to drive.”

“What about when you were sixteen? Didn’t your parents have a car?”

Her father, she’d learned, had had a garage full of them. At fifteen, Miri had sold her mother’s aged car with a forged signature to buy food and medication. The car was worthless to them. It didn’t run half the time, and by then, Mom’s mental condition had deteriorated to the point that she rarely left her bed.

“We took the bus when it was convenient and walked when it wasn’t.”

“This ‘walking’ you speak of...it’s an alien concept.” He scooped up some fries. “I got that car for my sixteenth birthday. Keep in mind, it didn’t run, was missing all its glass and had only two tires and no doors, but it was the best gift I ever got. My dad and I worked on it every evening until it was like brand-new. Good times.” Popping the fries into his mouth, he chewed and swallowed before asking, “Did you ever do anything like that with your dad or mom? You know, a mother-daughter project.”

“Not unless forcing a pill she didn’t want to take into her mouth, then holding her jaws shut until she swallowed counts,” Miri murmured, then went utterly still. Oh, God, had she said that out loud?

She must have, because Dean was staring at her with—surprise? Shock? Pity? Her shoulders straightened. She didn’t want pity, not from him or anyone else. She’d
loved
her mother. She’d committed seven years of her life to taking care of her, and she didn’t regret or resent one minute of it.

Aggression built inside her, her muscles tightening, her gaze narrowing as she waited for him to pursue the subject or, worse, say something totally inane like
I’m sorry.
But all he did was look at her a moment, then, casually, easily, he changed the subject as if he’d lost interest in the previous one.

“So what do you think of your first day without prison guards?”

Tension drained from her neck, her jaw, even her teeth. She breathed once, twice, something that felt like gratitude pumping through her veins. “Considering the company, it’s not that different.”

“Aw, come on, you gotta admit, I’m better looking than most of the guards, and I’m as strong as at least one or two.”

An image comparing him to the female guards in her cellblock almost made her smile. “Maybe one or two. But most of them could take you in a fair fight, and there are a few who could probably bench-press you.”

“Hey, it’s hard to fight a woman. My dad taught me not to hit girls. My mom taught me not to hit anyone unless they hit me first.”

Her mother had had the same rule: no nonsense about gender, just don’t start a fight, but defend yourself if someone else did.

“From where I stood at the bus station, it was kind of hard to fight a man, too.”

Dean feigned a wounded look as he gingerly touched his jaw. “The guy sucker punched me. I didn’t even know he was there. How can you protect yourself against someone you don’t even know is there? And you with the warnings...”

This time she did smile. It was rusty and unnatural but vaguely familiar. If she tried hard, she could remember a time when smiles came as easily to her as they did to Dean. If she got sentimental enough to make a Christmas wish, maybe it would be for the smiles to come back.

“All right, all right. Enough with the whining. The next time I’ll yell, ‘Dean, watch out!’”

Again he stared at her. For a moment she couldn’t think why, then she realized: she’d said his name. A meaningless thing, but somehow, in a musty motel room with the television on Mute and the wind howling outside, it seemed intimate.

Awkwardly she shifted on the bed, tossing aside the burger she was finished with, fingering a lukewarm onion ring, gathering her defenses close again. “Besides,” she muttered, “it isn’t going to happen again.”

“From your lips to God’s and Santa’s ears.” He stood, held out his hand for her trash, then headed toward the wastebasket in the corner. Glancing back with a devilish grin, he added, “I’m too handsome to get a black eye for Christmas.”

“Aw, doesn’t it get you sympathy from the girls?”

“You wouldn’t be sympathetic if my whole face was pounded into ground beef, and you’re the only girl around right now.” He yawned, stretching his arms high above his head, then picked up his duffel. “I’m gonna take a shower, then go to bed. I suppose you’ve already got the alarm set for presunrise.”

“I don’t need an alarm. The call to wake up in prison is not subtle. I’ll never be able to sleep in again in my life.”

He closed the door behind him, then the water came on. Swinging her feet to the floor, she sat on the bed and savored the last drops of the cocoa, which stirred way too many memories that she couldn’t handle right now. After tossing the cup into the trash, she turned off the TV and the lights on her side of the room and slid into bed, facing the wall, covers heaped over until she was sure only a spot of her hair showed. Arms around Boo, she closed her eyes, slowed her breathing and slowly drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Dean knew the instant he reentered the room that Miri was asleep. That was how strong her personality, or their connection or whatever it was, was. Her breathing was steady where she curled around the bear, one hand holding tightly to him, the other cupped to her cheek. Hell, she looked about ten years old. When she really was ten, had she ever been allowed the freedom of childhood? How long had she been nursing a mother who didn’t want to be nursed?

So far he’d learned that her mother had been ailing, she had at least two siblings, they’d had no car and had lived where snow and buses were common, and she’d made zero mention of a father. Had he never been around, or were there different dads for the kids? Or had her father been a rat-bastard who abandoned them because the responsibility was more than he’d wanted?

Dean had worked his share of deadbeat dad cases. He despised men who could live in new houses, buy new vehicles, take vacations and help support their current girlfriend’s kids but couldn’t spare a dime for their own children. If Miri’s father was like that, no wonder she’d never mentioned him. And had trust issues. And a less-than-happy childhood.

He watched her a moment longer before the idea that he was violating her privacy made him turn away, stuffing clothes into a laundry bag, turning off lights and crawling into the other bed.

He was out cold in seconds, sleeping through the night and awakening to the country tune of a reindeer hit-and-run coming through the window, audible even over the sound of the big diesel engine warming up. Sliding out of bed, he walked to the window, lifting one corner of the blackout curtains to find a big white truck, not just a pickup but a monster-size dually, lights on, doors open, two men carrying bags from room to truck. They were dressed in camo-patterned jackets and hats with earflaps, and black scarves hid everything exposed but their eyes. Even through the scarves, puffs of air formed when they spoke, and the truck’s exhaust was billowing out clouds of white.

“Damn, it looks cold,” he muttered.

“Twenty-eight degrees with wind out of the west gusting to twenty-five miles per hour.”

He let the flap fall and returned to his bed. “How do you know that?”

“I called the desk and asked after my shower.” Miri sat up, and in the dim light he could see she was already dressed.

“You really did intend to get out before sunrise, didn’t you?” He groaned for effect as he flopped back down on his bed.

“Check the clock. It’s 8:15.”

This time his groan was real. “Where’s the snow?”

“Coming.”

“Then we’d better get going.”

By the time he’d changed clothes and brushed his teeth, she was standing near the door, wearing the blue coat over her black sweatshirt and the ball cap on her head. Her left arm was wrapped tightly around the bear. “You can wait here while I get the car warmed up,” he said as he shoved the rest of his stuff into the duffel.

“I’d rather not.”

One of his off-and-on rules for the business: pick his arguments. This wasn’t important enough to count. Shrugging into his drastically insufficient leather jacket, even with a sweater under it, he shouldered the strap of his duffel, took her pack and led the way to the car. The white pickup was gone.

The air was so cold, it had substance, sliding over his bare hands and cheeks with edges sharp enough to cut. Every breath out froze and hovered, as if it might fall to the ground in shards, before finally drifting away. The sun might as well not exist, its thin rays unable to pierce even the tiniest of holes in the thick veil of gray cold, and the wind was adding its own torment.

He thought of his parents on that cruise ship in the Caribbean and would have wept if he weren’t too macho for tears.

The metal of the car shrieked as they opened the doors, the leather seats creaking as they slid inside. The engine turned over on the first try, but it took a while to get warm air from the heater vents. “Breakfast inside or to go?” he asked as he drove around the motel corner and into view of the restaurant.

“To go.” Miri snuggled closer to the bear. She was pale, her cheeks pink, her lips tinged with blue, probably colder than she’d ever been since those Christmases in the snow with her mom and siblings.

“I’ve gotta get gas.” He pulled up to an empty pump, drew a breath and launched out into the cold. He’d known a front was blowing in when he’d packed yesterday, so why hadn’t he grabbed gloves, scarves and hats? Why hadn’t he taken the down-filled jacket that, true, had no style compared to the leather one but made subfreezing temperatures actually bearable?

His fingers were numb by the time he finished pumping gas. With a sigh of relief, he went inside the moist heat of the store and cruised the aisles before going to pay. He returned to the car balancing two large cups of coffee with three plastic bags, giving them to Miri to put away. “Breakfast is in one of the bags. But first grab those gloves and hats. There’s a knife in the glove box to cut off the tags.”

She opened one bag, filled with sweets, chips and bottles of water. From the second, she pulled out two pairs of black gloves, one large, one small, and two knitted caps, his black, hers pink. She cut the tags and, he would bet, didn’t think he noticed that she slid the four-inch lockback into her pocket instead of returning it to the glove box.

He didn’t mind if she was armed. He was reasonably confident she wouldn’t use the knife on him. If he’d slept soundly enough for her to shower and dress without disturbing him, she likely could have found the pistol he’d tucked under the extra pillow. Though he’d prefer to think he wouldn’t be oblivious to a beautiful woman rummaging in his bed....

She handed him gloves and the black hat, and he tugged the hat on as he pulled away from the pump. She pulled on her own hat, then flipped down the visor to get a look in the mirror. “Pink? Really?”

“It was that, lime-green or a Santa hat with flashing lights around the fur.”