Menace in Christmas River (Christmas River 8) (11 page)

“Did somebody send you to find me?”

The deep voice echoed down the hallway, and I spun around quickly.

He was leaning against one of the windows, his face partially hidden in the shadows of the hallway.

I glanced around to see if anybody else was near, but it appeared to be just the two of us.

I walked quickly up to him, my snow boots slapping hard against the linoleum floor.

“No, I came to find you on my own,” I said. “We should get back and wrap things up.”

I figured that was rather polite considering what I really wanted to say to him.

Cliff Copperstone closed his eyes, and let out a ragged sigh.

“I suppose,” he said. “Though I don’t know why we have to go through the formalities. I think we already have our winner.”

I bit my lip hard.

I knew he was talking about Ryan Cooley’s entry.

“Did you get a good look at that last contestant’s work?” I asked. “Samantha Garner’s sculpture?”

He opened his eyes, and I noticed something strange about them.

They looked funny somehow. Red and raw and bloodshot.

Almost like… almost like he’d been
crying
.

But then I caught a whiff of something else, and I realized that it wasn’t that.

A sharp gin aroma emanated from his mouth as he spoke.  

“Yeah, I saw it.”

“What score did you give her?”

He scratched the tattoo on his neck, then shrugged.

“A 3.5.”

I knew it.

“You’re serious?” I said. “You only gave it a 3.5?”

He looked dead at me, then nodded.  

“It was far too sentimental and foolish,” he mumbled. 

I couldn’t help but shake my head in disgust.

Something in his expression changed suddenly. As if I had done something completely out of line.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” he said. “Who are you anyway? A pie baker in a small town. That’s what you are.”

I met his hard stare, not willing to back down.

“You’re right – you don’t owe anything to me,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “But you owe something to the contestants, Mr. Copperstone. You owe them a fair shake.”

“Do you actually think the world’s a fair place?” he sneered. “You actually believe that people get a fair shake?”

He shook his head and looked past my shoulder.

“I guess you might think they do, living in a place like this your whole life,” he said. “But it’s not like that in the real world.”

“Why are you even here?” I said. “You didn’t have to judge this competition. Why do it?”

He looked away, back out the window.

“I don’t know.”

The words sounded as empty and cold and hollow as any words could sound.

And I realized then that Cliff Copperstone was as empty, cold, and hollow as the words he had just said.

And something about that… something about it sort of filled me with a staggering sadness that I couldn’t quite understand.

I realized I had nothing more to say to him.

Cliff was a brick wall. And nothing I said was going to change that.

“I’m going to find Julie,” I said. “The Sheriff’s going to shut down the event because of the storm. It should have never taken place to begin with.”

I turned sharply and walked away from him, back toward the auditorium.

But before I got far, a soft voice stopped me in my tracks.

“
Cinnamon
.”

He had finally gotten my name right.

I turned around.

He backed away from the window.

“You don’t know what’s going on here,” he said. “You think you do, but you don’t understand a thing.”

I furrowed my brow and was about to ask what he meant. But as I opened my mouth, he was already walking away from me toward the doors that led out to the parking lot.

Leaving me confused and angry and wishing that this hellish day would just come to an end.

Chapter 21

I stood at the top of the auditoritum steps, frantically searching the crowd for the lean figure in the cowboy hat and Sheriff’s jacket.

Daniel knew things were bad outside. But they’d taken a severe turn for the worse in the last half-hour or so, and he needed to know immediately. I was sure that if he saw that layer of shine atop the snow, he’d come to the same conclusion that I just had.

That while it would disappoint a heck of a lot of people, to continue on with the Chocolate Championship Showdown with the way the storm was blowing outside was just downright irresponsible.

It no longer mattered who placed first… all that mattered was that folks made it home safely.

People milled around the auditorium, looking overheated and tired and antsy. But amongst the bored expressions and crossed arms of impatience, Daniel was nowhere to be found.

I pulled out my phone and called.

He answered on the second ring.

“Cin?”

“Are you still here, Daniel?”

“I’m in the back,” he said. “Near the stage, looking to have a word with Julie Van Dorn.”  

I scanned the auditorium again, narrowing my search range.

“Cin – I was just on the phone with Brett Arnold at the weather station over in Pendleton,” he said. “They’ve issued an emergency weather warning. We’ve got a serious ice system headed our way.”

“That’s why I called,” I said.

I swallowed hard.

“Daniel – it’s already here.”

There was a long pause on the other side of the line.

Then some regretful muttering.

“Aw,
dammit
,” he said. “This is all my fault. I should have stepped in earlier. I should have—”

“This
isn’t
your fault,” I said, cutting him off before he went down that road. “You couldn’t have known it was going to turn out like this.”

“Yeah, but I had a feeling, Cin,” he said. “I just didn’t listen to it. Someone had to be the adult here, and it should have been me. But I just didn’t want to ruffle any feathers. And now…”

He trailed off.

“I’ve been trying to find Julie so we can make an announcement about cancelling the event, but I can’t find her,” he said. “You have any idea where she is?”

My eyes suddenly picked him out of the crowd. I made my way down the steps, weaving through the masses to get to him.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve been busy looking for Cliff.”

“Did you find him?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Though I guess it doesn’t matter much now.”

I thought back to the cold, emptiness in Cliff’s voice and I felt my skin break out in a wave of goosebumps.

“Well, I figure if I don’t find Julie in the next minute, I’m just going to have to take over things here—” Daniel started saying.

My voice suddenly caught in my throat as the walls of the auditorium groaned like a capsized ship on its way down to the floor bed of the Pacific.

A moment later, the room was filled with a collective, ear drum-bursting scream.

Chapter 22

There was nothing but shrieks and darkness.

A darkness so black, it was inkier than the winter woods of the Cascade mountain range on a moonless night.

The frightened screams echoed through the large room, and like an infection, it spread and soon the people around me were screaming too.

My blood turned to ice.

Then, came the sound of rustling.

Of mad, scared, panic-stricken movement in the dark.

Something bumped into me hard, and I stumbled forward. My feet struggled to find the ground, but it eluded them. A moment later, I was careening out of control. Down, down, down, sure that there was no way to stop what was going to be a long, hard fall down the steps of the auditorium.

I closed my eyes in the darkness and let out a scream of my own as I braced for the pain and catastrophic injury that awaited me at the end of the fall.

But just as I lost all control, I crashed into something large and soft.

I heard a deep-throated cry of surprise. Followed by a voice.

“Who’s that?” it rasped.

A pair of big hands suddenly grabbed a hold of my shoulders, steadying me, preventing me from continuing the bone-breaking journey that I had started. 

I let out a sharp sigh of relief as my feet gripped the carpeted step.

I’d never been so happy to be on my own two feet in all my life.

“It’s Cinnamon—” I started saying, but was interrupted when the mass hysteria around me died down suddenly, giving way to a loud voice.

“Everybody stay exactly where you are!”  

I looked over in the direction of the calm, familiar voice, and saw the faint electric blue light of a cell phone glowing in the air on the opposite side of the auditorium.

“This is Sheriff Daniel Brightman speaking to you,” he said as the frightened rumblings in the room died down even more. “Now, there’s no need to panic, folks. It’s clear that the power has just gone out, most likely on account of the storm.”

He cleared his throat, and started up again in an even louder tone.

“It’s not ideal, but we’re all still safe right now. Just so long as we’re careful not to hurt one another.”

By the silence, it was clear that Daniel had the crowd’s full attention.

“Now, we’re all going to get out of here. But it’s going to be in a calm and composed fashion. We’re going to evacuate starting with those closest to the auditorium doors. Those of you with cell phones or tablets on hand, use those as light sources to help you get to the exits. We all want to get out of here, but please take it slow and steady. Do not push anyone, and use common courtesy when moving through the aisles, folks.”

Daniel’s calm, yet firm voice, seemed to ease the mad hysteria that had taken hold.

I felt the man whose hands were on my shoulders loosen his grip. A moment later, the bright blue light of a cell phone brightened the air in front of me.  

Within a second of seeing the big nose and deep set eyes, I knew who it was.

“
Marty
,” I said, letting out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness they let just anybody into this event. If they hadn’t, I’d have a broken neck right now.”

Marty Higgins smiled a big toothy grin back at me.

In the faint glow of the light, I could see something dark running down the side of his face.

“Oh, Marty, you’re bleeding,” I said, my voice cracking. “Did I do that to you?”

“No,” he said. “Somebody else pushed me right before I stopped your fall. But it’s nothing.”

He reached for my hand.

“C’mon, cupcake,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

He held his phone out in front of us and led the way out of the darkness.

Chapter 23

“Are you sure you’re okay, Marty?”

A thin stream of blood ran from a nasty-looking gash on his forehead. In the fading afternoon light spilling from the hallway’s windows, the blood was the color of fresh cranberries.

“Oh, this little bump? I hardly feel it,” he said.

He reached up and touched the wound, wincing as he did.

It didn’t seem like he hardly felt it.

“Somebody just must have nicked me. You know, some folks just lose it in a crisis. Without your husband diffusing the situation in there, I think I might have been trampled to death.”

The hallway, which a few moments ago had been mostly empty with only those nearest to the doors coming out, was now getting crowded as more and more people escaped the auditorium. And while most of them looked relived once they had made it out of the darkness unscathed, that look didn’t last long once they caught a glimpse outside.

That glistening layer on the snow drifts, as shiny as a finishing coat of clear nail polish, had only become thicker and more deadly.

And I knew I wasn’t the only one feeling a pit in my stomach at the looks of it.

It was damn near impassable.  

I focused my attention back on Marty, choosing to concentrate on what I could control.

“We should get that wound cleaned up,” I said, holding out a hand. “C’mon, the restrooms are this way.”

“No, I’m okay, sweetheart,” he said. “I’ll be just fine.”

I stopped, and gave him a hard look.

“Don’t be difficult now,” I said. “You helped me out a few moments ago. Now it’s my turn to return the favor.”

I could tell he was still hesitant about it, but after a long pause, he seemed to realize that I wasn’t going to let him stand in the hallway bleeding from his forehead.

We weaved in and out of the mass of people, many of whom were so disoriented by the power outage and the way it looked outside that they had to be gently nudged to get out of our way.

Marty’s eyes drifted past me, out one of the windows.

“Things got real bad real fast out there, didn’t they?” he said.

I nodded in agreement.

“This event shouldn’t have even been allowed to take place,” I said. “It should have been cancelled this morning. Because now…” 

I trailed off.

I felt frustrated and angry, suddenly. At Julie Van Dorn. At the Christmas River Police Department. At the City of Christmas River. At the Chocolate Championship Committee.

All of them had become blinded by greed. In their zeal to host the city’s biggest-ever tourism event, and to get all the money that came with that, they had put a heck of a lot of people in danger.

Getting out of here was going to be—

I stopped dead in my tracks and felt the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up on end.

A muffled, bloodcurdling howl sounded down the hallway.

And it wasn’t on account of the power outage – that much I could tell immediately.

Because I’d heard a scream like that before.

And I knew exactly what it meant.

Chapter 24

I ran down the hallway, leaving Marty and the rest of the stunned crowd behind me.

A moment later, I busted through the metal front doors and out beneath the covered veranda of the building. An icy burst of air cut right through my clothes and bit at my cheeks, but I couldn’t afford to think about how much it hurt. My legs pumped hard through the snow that had gathered on the concrete despite the covering, pure adrenaline fueling my run. I hit ice, and almost lost my footing at one point, but somehow, miraculously rebounded and continued on.