The Last Noel (13 page)

Oh God, this was it, Craig thought. The bullets and the blood would start now.

“Wait!” he cried, stepping forward.

But David was just as set against a bloodbath. “Stop, everyone…everyone just calm down. Please!”

“You knew she was out there!” Quintin raged, looking at David first, then swinging around to stare accusingly at the rest of the family. “You all did.”

Frazier replied, his tone like ice, “We thought she was dead already. In the storm,” he said flatly.

Quintin, waving his gun wildly, paced the foyer. “You know, I tried. I really tried. But you people don't learn. I'm going to have to kill one of you.”

“No!” Skyler screamed.

“Come on, Quintin, if you kill anyone, we can't have Christmas,” Craig said.

“Quintin,” Scooter seconded quickly. “Calm down. We've got the girl. And even if we hadn't gotten her, where the hell could she have gone in this? Come on, no real harm done.”

He actually smiled at Kat, as if she might be grateful. As if she might actually like him for buying time. Craig forced himself to keep still.

“You're all a pack of liars!” Quintin accused, and aimed the gun at David. “Liars.”

Craig looked around, afraid someone would make a move and bring down hell. The tension in the room was palpable. “Please, Quintin,” he said. “We caught the girl.”

“Craig got her,” Scooter said.

Quintin glanced at Craig, who stared back expressionlessly.

“Please,” Skyler murmured, and walked toward Quintin. “I swear to you, Kat is our only other child. No one knows you're here. And you're an intelligent man. You can't blame us for wanting to hide her.”

“And she didn't try to attack us or anything,” Craig said. “She was just trying to run away.”

There was silence.

Still explosive.

Tension still so thick in the air it could be cut by a knife.

If Quintin started shooting, what should he do? Craig wondered. Throw himself on the man and pray he could disarm him before getting killed, and that someone else could overpower Scooter before too many of the others died, as well?

“I need a drink,” Paddy announced firmly into the silence.

“Yes,” Skyler said, white as the snow, her features stretched more tightly than the wires of her piano. “Please, let's all calm down. It's late. But we…we've actually had a good day. We had a nice meal, music, a fun game. We…we have Christmas tomorrow. The snow will stop, the roads will clear, and you can escape. For now…let's have a drink.”

Paddy turned and started for the kitchen.

“Hey, Mick!” Quintin thundered.

Paddy turned to him, arching a brow.

“No one goes anywhere alone.”

Ignoring Quintin, the old man turned away and started walking again.

Craig caught Paddy's eyes. It was an act, he realized. The old man was terrified and playing for time.

“A drink sounds good to me, Quintin,” Craig said. “I think I've still got a fever, and it was freezing out there. I need something to warm me up.”

“All right. A drink,” Quintin said after a long moment. “But we tie up the father first.”

David's jaw tightened, but he didn't move.

“Where's there some rope in this place?” Quintin said, turning to Frazier.

“Dad, have we got any rope anywhere?”

“What kind of criminals forget rope?” Jamie muttered, sounding every inch the quintessential sulky teen.

Scooter actually laughed. Quintin cast him a venomous glare.

“You have my wife, my daughter, my sons, an innocent girl who's here as a guest and my wife's uncle. What do you think I'm going to do?” David demanded, sounding not just exhausted, but beaten.

Craig caught David O'Boyle looking at him with what seemed to be mistrust.

Well, as Scooter had said, he'd been the one to bring Kat down. That was important. Quintin had to believe in him, even if it meant that David might not.

“Everybody into the kitchen,” Quintin said. “Even you, Dad. Fuck!” He swore with no apology. “There's got to be rope around here somewhere. We're not settling down for a warm winter's night until we find some rope.”

Skyler didn't appear to be ready to let her daughter go, Craig noticed. She was still arm in arm with Kat as they went through the swinging door to the kitchen. “Give me this parka—it's soaked,” she told her daughter.

As if a soaked parka mattered when there were men with guns in the house, he thought dryly.

But Kat slipped off the parka. “Mom, can you make me a hot toddy?”

“Yes, certainly. We don't want you catching your death of cold.”

Her words hung strangely in the air.

Skyler, still white and stricken, turned to the stove. Craig watched her face as she picked up the kettle, moved the few feet to the sink and started to fill it. He could actually see her thought process. He knew she was longing to bring the water to a full boil and throw it in his face.

He decided to keep his distance.

“There was no chair for you when we got here, so I guess you weren't invited to the family dinner, huh?” Scooter asked Kat. “Why not? Were you bad?” His tone had an awkward flirty note to it that Craig found alarming.

“We miscounted,” Jamie said.

“See? You miscounted, and we don't have rope. Everyone screws up,” Scooter said.

“We didn't screw up,” Quintin said. “We just didn't expect to be part of a group for so long.”

It was a warning. They all knew it.

Quintin's mood was teetering at the edge of madness, Craig thought. The arrival of Kat O'Boyle had shaken him.

“It was cold out there. I would love a hot toddy, too, please,” Craig said, to cut the tension.

The glance Skyler shot him was not forgiving.

Good God, couldn't anyone see? If he hadn't tackled her, Scooter would have killed her.

Or maybe they did see. Maybe they couldn't help but put up a wall against anyone who wasn't one of them.

“Hey, it's eleven forty-five,” Scooter said. “Christmas in fifteen minutes.”

“Kat…are you hurt?” Brenda asked softly.

“No, I'm fine, thanks, Brenda. Just cold.”

“Brenda is great at Trivial Pursuit,” Jamie said out of nowhere.

No, not out of nowhere, Craig realized. The kid was trying to diffuse the tension and get back to where they had been before Kat was discovered, when things had been calmer, easier.

“I'm not surprised. She's a straight-A student, right?” Kat said, smiling at Brenda and glancing toward her brother.

“I can't even hum ‘Yankee Doodle,' though,” Brenda said.

The petite little blonde was gaining in the strength department. She had looked shell-shocked for so long. Now…

She might actually be one of the calmest members of the group.

“Mrs. O'Boyle, would you mind bringing out some of those cookies you made earlier?” Brenda asked.

Quintin stepped forward. “Everyone sit.”

“It's difficult to make drinks and get cookies if I'm sitting down,” Skyler said.

“Don't be a wiseass,” Quintin said, but the tension in him seemed to have eased down a notch. “You do the drinks.”

“How about I get the cookies?” Kat suggested.

Quintin scowled at her. “You shouldn't be allowed to have any.”

“But…you wouldn't expect me to be stupid, would you?” Kat asked him. “I'm sure if it had been you, you would have hidden, too.”

He stared at her, then nodded. “Yeah, and I'd have gotten away, too. Now forget the cookies and everybody sit.”

They sat at the table, as ordered, and Skyler started handing out the toddies.

“Don't forget me,” Jamie said.

His mother paused.

“Go ahead and give him one. Maybe he can get some sleep before…before Santa comes,” David said dryly.

“Presents!” Scooter said excitedly, then looked oddly at Quintin. “Except we don't really live here.”

“We always have extra presents,” Skyler said.

Scooter grinned, and everyone started to drink, the tension easing into the background under an onslaught of hot whiskey.

And then the doorbell rang, and as quickly as that, the tension was back.

S
kyler barely held back a scream.

Kat could see her mother's struggle and pleaded silently, No, Mom, no! Don't scream. It will be a bloodbath.

Quintin jumped up as if he were on springs, his gun at the ready and aimed at each of them in turn. He stared at David. “Who the hell is that?”

“I don't know,” David said.

“Like you didn't know your daughter was running around outside, right?”

“I swear to God,” David said quietly. “I don't know who it is. No one else was invited over, and it's ridiculously late. We should just ignore it.”

“Right. Ignore it,” Craig agreed.

Quintin shook his head. “It's the cops.”

“Yeah, the cops,” Scooter echoed, frowning.

Quintin turned to glare accusingly at Kat. “What did you do?” he demanded.

“Nothing.”

“What did you do?” he repeated.

“What could I have done?” she asked. She desperately tried to keep her eyes level with his, to keep her voice low and soothing. “Quintin, haven't you noticed? The phones are all down.”

“What do you think we are?” David asked. “Magicians? This is a small town. Everyone knows we come up here for Christmas. It's probably just someone wanting to make sure we weathered the storm all right.”

“I'm telling you, it's the cops,” Quintin said, still looking at Kat.

“If it is, they're probably just checking on all the houses they can reach,” Kat said, staring back at Quintin with complete innocence. “The office is just a few miles down the road. They'll have seen our lights.” Her heart was racing. What if the officers barged in, saying they'd gotten her message? What if they walked in with their guns cocked?

The bell rang again, ratcheting up the tension. She swallowed, turning slightly and praying she wouldn't give herself away. Because they were right. It had to be the cops at the door. And when they came in…

She looked over at her mother, knowing that any call from this address was already suspect, thanks to Jamie and that prank he'd pulled.

Which was going to be worse? Cops thinking they were pulling another prank and coming in unprepared, or taking it seriously and walking in ready to shoot?

Maybe neither. Maybe there was a God.

There had to be a way to tell them they were under siege.

Quintin pointed at Skyler. “You. Over here by me. Scooter, you and Craig take the family and answer the door. Except for you, kid.” He pointed at Jamie. “You stay in here, too. The rest of you, greet them and get rid of them. If you don't, I'll kill your mom and your brother. And if you cause any trouble out there, the cops will die, too.”

“It might not be the cops,” Frazier said.

“Yeah? Well, whoever it is, get rid of them.”

The bell rang for a third time, and Quintin looked even edgier than before.

“Scooter…you and Craig can be brothers. Craig…you're the daughter's boyfriend. I'm warning you all, my finger's twitching. I'm going to be sorry if Mom here doesn't make it to Christmas, but I swear, I
will
kill her
and
the boy if anyone makes a wrong move out there. Do you all understand?” Quintin demanded.

“They'll break the door down if they have to ring that bell any longer,” Craig pointed out quietly.

“Go!” Quintin ordered.

David led the family out to the foyer to answer the door. Kat followed, aware that Craig was right behind her, painfully aware that Quintin was holding Jamie and her mother at gunpoint in the kitchen.

As Kat watched, her father looked out the peephole. Her entire throat felt constricted. She prayed that the police wouldn't come barging in, demanding to know who had sent out a plea for help.

Maybe it hadn't gotten through and this really was just a courtesy call because of the storm.

“Well?” Scooter demanded from behind Brenda, who was gripping Frazier's hand tightly.

“It
is
the cops,” David said.

“Open the door. And no tricks. If you betray me, your wife dies, your kid dies, and I'll take down your daughter first, you got it?” Scooter said.

David reached for the door.

“And quit looking like scared rabbits, all of you!” Scooter demanded. “Act naturally.”

David nodded and opened the door.

There were two of them outside. They were in their county uniforms, under deep blue, heavy, hooded coats, and they were wearing clunky boots because of the snow. Kat knew the woman, Sergeant Sheila Polanski. She'd first met her when she'd been a very young child. The young man—tall, fit, friendly looking, not really handsome but with a nice smile—was a stranger.

Don't say anything about a text message, she begged in silence. Don't even look at us curiously, please.

To her amazement, they were both smiling. Shivering, but smiling.

Maybe her text really hadn't gotten through.

“Sheila, my God, how are you?” David said. “What are you doing out here on Christmas Eve?”

“Just checking that everyone's okay. Mind if we come in?” Sheila asked, stepping forward without waiting for an answer or an invitation.

With no other option, David led their two visitors into the living room. “David, this is Tim Graystone. He just started working with us a few months back.”

“How do you do,” Tim said, shaking David's hand.

“Tim,” Sheila said, casually sweeping out a hand, “this is Frazier O'Boyle, his twin, Kat, their great-uncle, Patrick—and how are you, Paddy, you old coot?” she demanded.

“Fine, me darlin', fine,” Paddy said, giving Sheila a hug.

“How's the hip?”

“Healin' fine, lass, healin' just fine,” Paddy replied.

“And let's see,” Sheila continued. “I'm sorry, David. I can't introduce your guests, because I can't say that I know them.”

“Sheila, Tim, I'd like you to meet my son's girlfriend, Brenda, and this is…Craig,” David said.

Craig slipped an arm around Kat, and it was all she could do not to jump clear out of her skin. She managed to keep her smile in place.

“I'm with Kat,” Craig said, then nodded in Scooter's direction. “This is my brother. We call him Scooter.”

“A big Christmas welcome to you all,” Sheila said.

“So, Sheila, what's it like out there? Storm letting up? Everyone okay?”

Kat was amazed that her father managed to speak so casually, but then, she was equally amazed she could stand there herself, smiling as if nothing were wrong, while all the time pure panic was racing helter-skelter through her veins.

“Power's down everywhere,” Sheila told him.

“So we decided we'd just check in on people, make sure no one is freezing or sick and can't get to a hospital,” Tim said.

He seemed like a nice guy, Kat thought, and prayed that he wouldn't die tonight. He'd sounded so convincing, too. Could it be true that they really had just happened by?

“Where's the missus?” Sheila asked David.

“Skyler? Oh, she tired out a while ago. She's in bed,” David said.

“Well, since I doubt I'll see her tomorrow, you give her my Christmas regards,” Sheila said.

“Sure thing.”

“What about your youngest?” Sheila asked.

“Jamie? He went to bed a while ago, too.”

“A teenager in bed?” Sheila said skeptically, but she was grinning.

“He believes in Santa,” Kat joked quickly, just in case Sheila was going to push the issue.

“A teenager who still believes in Santa?” Tim asked politely.

Craig squeezed Kat a little too tightly to him and said, “No, what Jamie actually believes in is the prospect of presents.”

“Yeah,” David said. “He knows there's a new computer under the tree for him. He was ready as hell to go to bed so he can get up and claim it at the crack of dawn.”

“Waking us all up with him,” Frazier groaned.

“We can't sleep late?” Craig asked Kat.

She forced herself to look up with a lover's smile—something she found it all too easy to do. “No, darling, I'm afraid we can't. It's Christmas.”

“Ah, young love,” Paddy murmured. “Much like what we share, Sheila, me love.”

Sheila just laughed, shaking her head.

“I've half a mind to move up here full-time and make an honest woman of ye,” Paddy said to her.

Sheila looked from Scooter to Craig, shaking her head. “He's quite the character, isn't he?” She smiled.

“You two don't look much alike,” Tim said thoughtfully, inclining his head from Craig to Scooter.

“We're half brothers,” Craig said.

Everything seemed to be going okay, Kat thought, wondering what she could possibly have expected when she sent that text. Quintin had Jamie and her mother hostage, and with Scooter and Craig hovering, there was no way to get information to Sheila and Tim. Now all she wanted was for them to say goodbye and get out, to save themselves.

“I hate to intrude, but…have you got some coffee going by any chance?” Tim asked. “It's freezing out there, and we could really stand to warm up.”

Kat prayed that the silence that seemed to last an eon was really only a few seconds. “Coffee?” she breathed.

“Have a seat. I'll throw on a pot,” David said.

“Tim,” Sheila chastised. “We can't inconvenience the O'Boyles like that.”

“It's no problem,” Kat said. “I'll put the coffee on, Dad.” She extricated herself from Craig's arm. “Be right back.”

“Please,” Craig said softly.

Please…what?
she wondered, and knew, as she headed toward the kitchen, that he was watching her go.

In her mind, she could see the look in his eyes, see him looking at her as he had once done. What was it? Why was he here? Had he really saved her from being shot? Was he the world's best actor? And if he was, who was he playing, her family—or his supposed cohorts?

She pushed open the door to the kitchen, terrified of what she might find. Jamie and her mother were sitting side by side at the table, Quintin standing behind her mother with the nose of his gun pressed against her temple.

Kat's heart lurched. His finger did indeed look to be twitching, just as he'd said.

“It's going fine,” she said softly to him. “The young cop just wants a cup of coffee.”

Quintin frowned fiercely. Kat watched his trigger finger, almost afraid to swallow.

“Look, they think Mom and Jamie are in bed. They'll be gone as soon as they get their coffee. It will be fine,” she whispered quickly.

The gun moved away from her mother's head for a moment as he indicated the counter. “Do it.”

Skyler stared at her daughter, her hazel eyes wide but steady.

Kat turned and quickly prepared the coffee, then reached under the counter.

“What the hell are you doing?” Quintin demanded in a heated growl.

“Getting a tray. For cups, and cream and sugar,” Kat said, noticing that her mother and Jamie had both hands on the table. As she watched, Skyler took her son's hand and gently squeezed it.

The swinging door opened slightly. “Sweetheart,” Craig said, “how's that coffee coming?”

“Almost ready,” she said, thanking God that her mother had one of the new pots that made a full pot in sixty seconds.

“I'll take a cup, too, babe,” he said.

“Anyone else?” she asked.

“Yeah, your dad.”

The exchange sounded so casual, so easy, she thought. “Okay. It's coming.”

“Do you need help?”

“No, thanks. I'll be right out.”

She tried not to shake as she got the creamer and the sugar bowl and set them on the tray. She could feel Quintin's eyes on her as she poured four cups of coffee. Done, she turned to look at him again.

The gun was once again pressed against her mother's temple.

Skyler managed to smile at her, then Kat hurried out, her back pushing against the swinging door to open it. She had barely reached the living room before Craig was there to take the tray from her. His eyes met hers, and for a moment, she dared to believe.

But…

Even if he was on their side, what could he do? He didn't have a gun, which meant Quintin would shoot at least one of them before he could be stopped.

Craig set the tray on the coffee table. Brenda was cuddled up on Frazier's lap in one of the big armchairs. Her father was seated in the other, while Uncle Paddy had chosen the love seat. He was rolling his cane between his hands, and when his eyes touched hers, they were grave. Then Sheila spoke to him, and he quickly laughed. The show was on, she thought.