The Best American Mystery Stories 2016 (36 page)

She had hidden whiskey all over her house before she left, disguised to look like tea or juice or a whole variety of things, as if she had been a secret drunk all along.

Helen had promised her that someone would take the SUV and leave it in the snow on a spur road between Winnemucca and Boise. Tracks would lead away from the SUV, and rescuers would believe that she and Anne-Marie had walked away from the car. There would be a high-profile search, and then nothing until spring, when someone might find a bit of their clothing and Rachel's purse out in the wilderness.

Rachel thought it all a long shot, but she'd lived in the West long enough to know that families went missing there all the time. They took the wrong road, got stranded, and had no cell service. Rather than wait for rescue, like they were supposed to, they'd try to hike out, and generally die of exposure.

Everyone would believe the story, particularly after all that alcohol got found in the house.

Everyone, she suspected, except Gil.

But Rachel had to trust Helen. It was her only shot. Anne-Marie's only shot. Because Gil terrorized his daughter. Mostly he wasn't home, but when he was, just a twitch of his lips could make her turn that horrid shade of white that Rachel had seen in the restaurant.

Anne-Marie was terrified of him. As far as Rachel could tell, only because Rachel was frightened of him. To Rachel's knowledge, he hadn't physically hurt their daughter . . . yet.

But Rachel had known it was only a matter of time.

She sat near the television, turned so low she could barely hear it, and wished she smoked. Or actually did drink. Just to give herself something to do, something that would relax her.

She was on her own until she got to Detroit. Well, sort of on her own. The woman who had cut her hair in Cheyenne told her it got better. When Rachel asked if she was trading services, the woman had gotten very serious and nodded, finger to her lips.

There are women like us everywhere,
she'd said.
We're setting up a network. I know it's hard to trust, but you'll be okay, if you just do what they told you.

And she had. Everything except the toys. And those she had searched over and over. She'd even stopped in a spy shop in Laramie and asked if they had one of those electronic bug-finders.

They did, and she asked if she could see how it worked. She brought in the bag of toys and the man demonstrated, finding nothing. He showed her that it did work with some demo they had, and told her that the toys were tracking-free.

She believed him. And she had seen him before Cheyenne, before her hair and appearance changed, before she dumped yet another coat, before she had done anything to make herself look like someone new.

Helen hadn't said she had to avoid stores and things. Just warned her to be careful, and to leave her old life behind. No friends, no phone calls, no gloating e-mails to Gil.

Not that Rachel would have done any of that. She had no real friends, not ones she had contacted since her marriage, and she wasn't about to contact her husband. Her cell was gone, left in the Lexus with her purse and her old identification.

Since she got on the road, she was a different woman, although she still felt the same inside.

A knock on the door made her jump out of her skin. She glanced at Anne-Marie, to see if her daughter had heard it.

She hadn't.

Rachel got up and almost went to the door, thinking it was probably Luke from the desk. Then she wondered if he would just come up with the Santa bag. Wouldn't he wait for her call?

She swallowed hard, heart pounding.

If something feels wrong,
Helen had told her,
then it probably is wrong. Your subconscious sees something you don't. Get out of that situation.

Only there was no way out of here. Except the window, which was probably blocked against opening, not to mention the jump from the third floor into the damn polar express or whatever the hell that cold was called.

Rachel got up and moved silently away from the kitchen area, finding the house phone. She hit 0 and Luke answered.

“You ready for the presents now?” he asked cheerfully.

“You didn't just knock on my door?” she asked very quietly, and even though she tried to control it, she could hear the fear in her voice.

“No, ma'am—damn. I didn't see him go up there. There's a Santa on security camera. He's outside your door. You expecting someone?”

“No,” she said.

“Didn't hire a Santa?”

“No.” And now she was chilled. She glanced at her daughter. What had Anne-Marie been trying to tell her?

“Okay.” Luke no longer sounded cheerful. He sounded businesslike. “He doesn't belong here. I'll kick him out.”

“No,” Rachel said. “He might be dangerous.”

“A
Santa?
”

“How did he get past you?” she asked. “And how did he know we were here, in this room?”

Luke cursed. “Good point. We don't have security tonight either. I'm going to have to call the cops. You hang tight and don't open that door.”

And he hung up before she could tell him no cops. The last thing she wanted was cops.

She reached into the purse she was carrying tonight and took out the stun gun that SYT had left in the van with mace and a few other protective things. Her hand was shaking terribly.

“Open the door, Rachel,” said a male voice she didn't recognize. “I'm sure we can find a way to convince your husband that this was all a misunderstanding.”

Tears threatened. They'd found her. Gil's army, just like she knew they would.

She didn't go near the door. She turned up the television a little more, so that Anne-Marie wouldn't hear, then crept toward the bathroom, keeping the bathroom wall between her and the little corridor that led to the door.

“I'm thinking we fly back to somewhere near Winnemucca and I bring you and the little one out of the wilderness, saving your lives. It might mean you need to lick your fingers and stand outside in this cold for fifteen minutes, because frostbite would really help the story, but if we do that, Gil won't know a damn thing.”

Rachel wanted to ask why he would do that, this mystery Santa, but she didn't. She knew better than to engage. If she engaged, she had already lost.

She held the stun gun like it was a real gun. Helen had told her not to get a real gun, not with Anne-Marie in the van. Because Rachel didn't know how to use it and, Helen said, too many bad things happened around children and guns.

“You're not saying anything,” the man continued. “I know you want to.”

She peered around the wall. The safety chain was on, and she'd deadbolted the door, plus pushed in that so-called security lock. The only way in was for him to knock the door down, right? Or she had to let him in.

That's why he was talking. He wanted her to let him in.

“Mommy?” Anne-Marie asked.

Rachel put a finger to her lips, and then she covered her ears so that Anne-Marie would too. They used to do that when Gil got home from a long day, angry and wanting someone to take it out on. Rachel would mime instructions to her daughter: remain quiet and don't listen.

“Is Daddy here?” Anne-Marie whispered, and Rachel heard the fear in her voice.

Rachel shook her head. She then indicated that Anne-Marie should join her, because there was protection against this wall, particularly if the man outside wanted to shoot them.

She didn't know if he did. She wasn't sure what the point of that was. But she knew that sometimes Gil could be irrational, and she had no idea who worked for him, or why they felt it necessary to carry so many weapons.

“We can make this work,” the man outside the room said.

Anne-Marie grabbed her dog and her slippers, then tucked in behind her mother. Her daughter's warmth made Rachel feel stronger.

“I bet you're wondering why I'm willing to help you,” he said. “I've been thinking about it for the last three days as I watched you drive. It's pretty simple, really: you have a big allowance from that husband of yours. You just give me part of it, under the table, and you'll be free and clear. Back in the arms of your family, safe and sound. You don't want to be on the road like this forever, do you?”

She closed her eyes. Maybe a few years ago she would have done that. Maybe. But she'd seen Gil get mad at Anne-Marie too many times. She'd seen him clench his fists and unclench them like he meant to hit her.

And Anne-Marie cringed a lot, even now.

“Open the door, Rachel,” the man outside the door said.

God, what would he tell the police? That she had faked her death in Nevada? There were no restraining orders against her husband, no calls to 911, nothing to prove her claims of abuse. There was nothing that would prevent him from flying out here and getting her and Anne-Marie.

Rachel was back where she started, no matter what.

She stood slowly, putting her finger to her lips. She wasn't sure she could shut him up, but she had to try. The stun gun, as Helen had told her, could knock down a man five times her size. And then she could—what? Stab him with a butter knife? Use his gun if he carried one?

This hotel clearly had security video, and if she killed him, it would be recorded.

She shouldn't have listened to Helen. Rachel should have known that this plan would all go to hell.

She was never going to escape Gil, never, no matter who made the promises or how big the network was or how much money they threw at the problem.

It had been a dream all along, and she had let herself believe it.

“Honey,” Rachel said to Anne-Marie, knowing that she would be damning her daughter too. “I'm going to—”

Sirens. They got louder and then they cut off. But red and blue lights reflected in the windows.

At least the police had arrived before she could do something stupid. Before she even tried to hurt this unknown man. Not that it would have helped.

Now he was going to the police station, and he'd give them her identity, and—

“I thought you said someone was in the hall,” a new male voice said outside her room.

“I did.” That voice belonged to Luke. “I'll show you on the security feed. Send your guys out looking. He couldn't have gone far. Some weirdo in a Santa suit. He was menacing my guests.”

And then they walked off, still talking.

Rachel's heart kept pounding. Slowly she sank back down, keeping a death grip on the stun gun. After a few more minutes of silence, she put her fingers to her lips again, then quietly, in a crouch, made her way to her purse.

She took out Nebraska's phone and hit the preprogrammed number.

“Hi,” she said breathlessly. “I'm Rachel—”

“I know who you are,” said an unfamiliar female voice on the other end of the line. “What's happened?”

Rachel told her, in a low voice, then turned away, adding, “He's seen the van. He knows who we are. He knows where we are. I just wanted to say thanks, but I'm going to have to go home now. Because there's nothing anyone can do—”

“You stay put,” the woman said. “I'll have someone meet you in fifteen minutes. We'll have a new vehicle for you and a safe place to stay.”

“But how can you get here so fast?”

“Omaha, right?” the woman asked. “Thank God you listened and didn't stop in a small town. Then it might've taken hours for us to reach you. But you're okay there. It might take twenty minutes, seeing it's Christmas Eve, but no more than that. You stay on the line with me while you wait, okay?”

“Okay,” Rachel said.

She heard the tapping of a keyboard, some voices, and someone say, “We got it.”

Then she glanced at Anne-Marie.

“It was Santa,” Anne-Marie said like an accusation.

Not
like
an accusation. It
was
an accusation.

Rachel nodded.

“He was
everywhere,
” Anne-Marie said.

Rachel closed her eyes for just a minute. Like that stupid song.
He sees you
. . .

And she had seen him. In truck stops and cafés, smoking outside a gas station in Rawlins. She'd thought him a different Santa every time.

Santa was everywhere this season.

It was the perfect disguise.

The house phone rang and she almost tossed the stun gun into the air. She made herself set it down.

“What's that?” the woman on the other end of the burner cell asked.

“The hotel phone,” Rachel said.

It stopped ringing.

“Have you talked to anyone?” the woman asked.

“I called the guy at the desk,” Rachel said. “When someone knocked on my door. I wanted to see if it was housekeeping or something.”

“Then call the desk,” the woman said. “Tell him you're all right. You are all right, aren't you?”

If she didn't think about her elevated blood pressure, then maybe she was. “Yes,” Rachel said.

She picked up the hotel phone and hit 0 again. “Sorry, I—”

“It's all right,” Luke said. “The police scared him off. I'm the one who should apologize. They couldn't find him, but at least he's not outside the door. They'll talk to you if you want.”

“No,” she said. “It's okay.”

He hadn't been caught. She didn't know if that was good news or bad.

“Tell him that Candy Mills is coming for you,” the woman's voice said on the burner cell. “Tell him it's okay to let Candy come see you.”

Rachel told Luke that, even though it felt odd.

“I think I see her pulling in,” he said. “I'll send her right up.”

Then he hung up.

“I don't know anyone named Candy Mills,” Rachel said, and she would remember. The name was weird.

“I'm texting a photo and the pass phrase now,” the woman said. “She'll give you the pass phrase. You'll recognize her from the photo.”