Manic in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Christmas River Cozy Book 6) (2 page)

“Whatchya thinking about over there, so sullen like?” Daniel said, interrupting my train of thought.

“Aw, nothing,” I said.

There wasn’t much use bemoaning anything at this hour. Being up so early was plenty difficult on its own without other troubles weighing a person down.

“Okay, don’t share. I know what you were thinking about, anyway,” Daniel retorted.

“Do you now?”

He nodded confidently.

“You were thinking to yourself, ‘Hot damn! Ain’t I just the luckiest gal in the world to have landed myself a husband who looks
this
good
this
early in the morning?’”

I snorted before taking another sip of coffee.

“Now, how
did
you know?” I said.

He shrugged.

“I can’t rightly say, exactly,” he said. “The words just sort of drifted into my head while I was sitting here. Sometimes I can read minds. Or didn’t you know that about me?”

A devilish smile spread across his face that was worthy of Vincent Price.  

“Well if that’s true, then what am I thinking now?”

“That’s an easy one,” he said. “You’re thinking I’m full of something that a bull might, uh, might leave behind after a big meal.”

I laughed.

“Well, Daniel Brightman, I stand corrected,” I said. “You
are
a mind reader.”

“Damn straight I am,” he said, smiling.

He reached over, grabbing my hand.

“Sorry for all of this, Cin,” he said. “I know this is probably the last thing you want to be doing at this hour. Especially with how busy you’ve been at the pie shop lately. I’m sure you could use your sleep.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I said. “This is the most camping I’ll probably see all summer. And now that I’m awake, it’s kind of fun to be out here. I kind of feel like a deputy or something.”

“Well, you’d make one hell of a law woman,” he said. “Though I have a feeling that once you see George Drutman, you’ll reconsider wanting to be one. Have you ever seen the man drunk?”

“No, but I’ve heard the stories.”

“Well, it ain’t pretty,” he said, shaking his head. “Ain’t too pretty at all.”

George Drutman was a wealthy business investor who was the heir to the Drutman Mills fortune. Along with his wench of a wife, Meredith, and their two children, Haley and Hunter, the Drutmans were the closest thing Christmas River had to royalty. The family hobnobbed with state representatives and city councilors and wealthy vacationers, and their annual Christmas parties were legendary. Not that I or anyone else I was friends with really knew on a first hand basis – none of us were ever invited to the parties. But from town gossip, those gatherings would last deep into the night, and it was rumored that George Drutman would get so drunk sometimes, he’d shoot off his array of firearms into the air and scare all his wealthy neighbors. There were more sinister rumors, too, about George driving off from last year’s Christmas party with a couple of women who were widely believed to be ladies of the night in tow. The story went that Meredith chased the car all the way down their long, snowy driveway, screaming and eventually throwing her martini glass at the back windshield.

Though to me, the last rumor sounded almost too juicy to be true. Like something straight out of the warped mind of Moira Steward, the town’s worst gossip. No doubt she had fabricated the entire event and shopped it around town as the God’s honest truth.

“Just promise me you’ll stay in the truck when we get there, okay Cin?” Daniel said, his voice having taken on a serious tone.

“George isn’t really dangerous, is he?”

“Not intentionally,” Daniel said. “He’s just stupid. And that right there makes him more dangerous than most folks. Sober or drunk.”  

I picked up the thermos and offered Daniel some more coffee before taking another sip myself.

“So Billy said George is driving his RV around the campground right now?” I said.

He nodded.

“Apparently George came out here for some sort of business investors retreat,” Daniel said. “Seems things got a little out of hand with the good old boys. By Billy’s account, George demolished a fourth of Grey Goose before getting behind the wheel of his RV. The fool’s somewhere out here now, honking the horn and singing Billy Joel at the top of his lungs. Now normally, I’d say just let the fool drive himself into Waldo Lake and not interfere. But there are civilians to think of, namely a troop of boy scouts only a few campsites over.”

I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth.

What a selfish fool George Drutman was.

“So you’re going to be a hero this morning, is that what you’re saying?” I said.

He smiled wryly. The way he always did when I complimented him.

“I reckon Meredith’s not going to be too happy with any of this,” I mused, somewhat pleased with the prospect.

Saying Meredith Drutman wasn’t my favorite person in Christmas River was putting it politely. After this past November’s run-in with her, in which I was compelled to expel her from my pie shop for the nasty and terrible things she’d said about Tobias and an innocent kid named Frankie, she had gotten her friends to litter my pie shop’s Yelp page with nasty reviews. 

“Nope, I reckon she won’t be too happy at all,” Daniel said in agreement.

Then he smirked.

“Would you put up my bail, Mrs. Brightman, if I got drunk one night and drove this here Sheriff’s truck around town honking the horn like a maniac?”

“I thought you were supposed to be able to read minds,” I said.

“I guess I must be tired because I can’t get a read on you with this particular one.”

“Well, first of all, I’m certain I’d never have to post bail for you for such irresponsible behavior,” I said. “But if it came down to it, you know that I’d bust you out of jail with my bare hands, hon.”

He looked over, those green eyes of his that I loved so much catching mine.

“Now
that’s
an answer,” he said. “Almost makes me want to go rob a bank now knowing that. What do you say, Mrs. Brightman? Care to be Bonnie and Clyde for a day?”

I smiled.

“I think the
Bank of the Cascade Mountains
is the place to start. Then after, I say let’s hit up the
High Desert Union
over in Redmond. They’re always understaffed.”

He shot me one of his million dollar smiles.

“You’ve got yourself a partner, little lady.”

Chapter 3

Once we got to the campground, it wasn’t all that difficult to locate the man of the hour.

Hell, anybody within a ten-mile radius could have easily found George Drutman, what with the RV’s horn blaring and him screaming a vodka-soaked rendition of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” for all to hear.

Daniel spotted Billy standing by his patrol car and pulled the truck off to the side of a bumpy dirt road. He put the truck in park and killed the engine, but kept the lights on.

He silently shook his head as George let out several long honks that echoed through the still forest, following it up with an obnoxious “Woohoo!”

“Remember,” Daniel said. “Stay here.”

He unbuckled his seatbelt and put his hat on.

“Be careful,” I said.

I watched as he got out of the truck, closing the door quietly behind him. As he approached Billy, a look of relief swept over the young deputy’s scrunched-up face. Billy started waving his hands wildly, gesturing toward where the noise was coming from, obviously implying that George Drutman III was clear out of his mind. Daniel nodded, and a moment later, they were walking down the road. Daniel’s hand rested calmly over his holster.

I finished the rest of the coffee, tried to block out the intermittent horn blasts and bad singing, and focused on the serenity and calm of the woods.

The pines were swaying peacefully in the cool early morning breeze. Fresh forest air filled the cab, and I took in a deep greedy breath of it, closing my eyes for a moment, savoring it like an inmate who’d been behind bars for decades.

If I had any chance at getting at least one weekend of camping under my belt this summer, then I would really need to hire another employee at the pie shop. I had lost Chrissy, one of my best workers, earlier in the spring after she decided to go back to school fulltime to pursue a career in nursing. Tobias and Tiana were both hard workers, but I could tell they were feeling the pressure. The other day, I had caught Tiana on her break. She was sitting on a bench in Meadow Plaza, the park area that served as a community hub a couple blocks down from the pie shop. She looked like she’d been crying, and when I asked her what was wrong, she said she was fine, but that she’d just been feeling a little stressed out lately.

I needed to hire somebody. And quick.

But taking time to find another employee – a good, honest, hardworking employee at that – was easier said than done. Overall, I’d been lucky with the folks I’d hired. But I’d been burned in the past. Nick Calder, the arsonist who had set fire to several local businesses a few years ago, had worked for me. He’d been right under my nose without me knowing who he really was. I couldn’t afford to have somebody like that in my employment again.

George’s shouting, which had continued to echo throughout the forest, stopped abruptly. A peaceful silence took its place. The honking stopped too.

I leaned my head back on the seat and let out a short sigh of relief.

Daniel must have used his mediating skills to talk George Drutman down.

My husband was always good at getting folks to see the logical side of things. He had a way of talking to people that made them feel like he was their friend, and that he just wanted what was best for them. That skill was one of the many reasons why Daniel had been elected sheriff, and why he was regarded so highly in the community. Because the truth was that when Daniel mediated, he wasn’t putting on an act. He really did want the best for folks. Even for drunk idiots like George Drutman. Daniel had more compassion for his fellow human being than just about any man I had ever m—

My thoughts came to a screeching halt as something in the distance caught my eye.

It was something down the road, just beyond the high beams. Just a flash. A glint. Followed by a distant roar. Something moving swiftly through the trees, something moving toward m…

“Oh my G—” I said, my voice giving out before I could finish the phrase.

My body froze and I felt my eyes grow bigger than a couple of monster truck wheels as I watched the shiny, newest-model RV barrel down the road in the darkness like a train bound for hell.

Heading right for
me
.

I grabbed the door handle and screamed.

Chapter 4

I exited the truck the way a pilot might jump out of a 747 with four dead engines. I landed hard in the ditch, face first. By the time I got to my feet and started running, the RV was just upon me.

Then, came the moment of impact: The gut-wrenching sound of metal ripping into metal.

I screamed again, my legs pumping hard while my heart hammered like a paint mixer in my chest. The screech of metal filled the forest with its deafening sound. A burst of wind licked at my heels, and I felt another scream rise up in my chest.

I shut my eyes tight and ran blindly through the forest, expecting to be flattened like a bug on a windshield at any moment.

Somewhere behind me there was the roar of an engine and the sound of cracking and splintered wood. The sound of metal twisting. Then the sound of something heavy coming to an abrupt and unnatural halt.

I kept running. I didn’t stop until I found myself deep in the woods. Then, and only then, did I finally turn around to see the wreckage.

My mouth fell open in shock.

Daniel’s truck lay on its side in the ditch, the ditch that I had just been in, looking like a capsized ship on its way down to the ocean floor. The truck’s lights were still on, facing into dirt, and smoke rose up from the demolished vehicle.

On the opposite side of the road, some ways down, sat the RV.

After hitting Daniel’s truck, it had ricocheted to the other side and smashed into a stand of pines. Its engine was sputtering and wheezing, and the singed aroma of burnt oil smelled strong on the wind.

I stared at the destruction, stunned beyond belief.

Because aside from the smoke, the twisted metal, and the thought of how close I’d come to being a part of the wreck, there was something else terrifying.

Laughter
.

The ghostly, sadistic, twisted-as-the-truck’s-fender laughter that was coming from the RV across the road.

George Drutman laughed like taking out Daniel’s truck and almost killing me was the funniest thing in the world.

My knees grew weak and I felt something crawl up the back of my throat as his merriment grew louder. I leaned against a tree, trying to steady my insides before I lost all that coffee, when I suddenly heard a loud voice sound through the woods.

“Cin?!Oh my God, Cin!?”

My heart stopped in my chest as I listened to his cries. I almost didn’t recognize the voice – panic and fright had changed it so.

“Cin?!”

The figure ran down the forest road, his flashlight dancing wildly as he approached the truck. In the vehicle’s muted light, I saw a defeated, broken expression spread across his face as he surveyed the carnage.

He looked like a man who had just been struck in the knees with a two by four.

“Cin?!” he said again, looking around.

I willed my legs to move and finally found my voice.

“Daniel!”

He looked in my direction, searching the woods until he zeroed in on me.

Then he dropped his flashlight and ran across the ditch. He pulled me toward him, squeezing me so hard, I lost my breath for a moment.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded into his chest as he hugged me tighter.

I could hear his blood pumping hard.

“If something had happened, I would never have—”

But he stopped talking as the laughter across the way thundered through the trees. Nails on a chalkboard would have been music in comparison to that terrible, terrible laughter.