Deadly Christmas Secrets Page 16

  “If only. My wife shoved it in the player, and we haven’t been able to get it out. Planned to bring it in to have it looked at, but this came up.”

  “I appreciate you helping us out,” Chance said from his place in the far back of the vehicle.

  “I owe you. More than one. Besides, I have a nine-year-old. If she were missing, I’d do everything in my power to find her. Here’s our exit. We’ll be there in five. If you look to the left, you’ll see the steeple of the church. The white one?”

  Logan could see it, white against gray sky and faded fall colors. The town was small, the roads narrow, but Agent Smith seemed to have the route memorized. He turned onto a side road, then another, and followed a winding road uphill.

  The church was there, the parking lot dotted with cars—two Pennsylvania State patrol cars. Three unmarked sedans. A tired-looking station wagon with wood-panel sides.

  The pastor’s car?

  The building itself wasn’t much to look at—old clapboard siding painted bright white. Simple but well kept. No fancy stained glass. No tall doors or shiny finishes. It reminded Logan of his home church. Not the one he attended in DC, but the one he’d grown up in. The one where everyone knew everyone. Where meals were prepared for families every time a baby was born, a person got sick, a loved one was lost.

  “So this is it,” Harper murmured, her voice faint.

  “This is it,” Gabe said, opening the door and stepping out. He helped Maggie from the middle seat and didn’t bother waiting for anyone else.

  Logan couldn’t say he blamed the guy.

  This was about his daughter, a child he’d thought he’d lost.

  Harper scrambled out after him, ignoring Logan’s command for her to wait.

  He wasn’t surprised by that, either.

  He jumped out of the vehicle, winter air slapping his cheeks. Someone had hung a wreath from the church door, and it swayed listlessly as Gabe yanked the door open and went inside.

  Maggie grabbed the door before it could close and held it open as Harper walked through. She smiled, but Logan didn’t think Harper noticed. Her attention was focused straight ahead. The sleeves of her too-big sweater fell over her hands, but he was pretty sure she’d fisted them and that her short nails were digging crescents into her skin. She stumbled, and he cupped her elbow, worried about her pallor.

  “I’m okay,” she mumbled, but the words were thick and a little slurred. He wanted to stop, take a closer look at her face, into her eyes. She seemed...off. Not quite steady on her feet. She’d barely slept the night before. He knew that. He’d heard her pacing in her room long after he’d bedded down for the night. Still, this was the kind of situation that would send adrenaline zipping through the most exhausted person. She seemed to have none, her feet dragging as they walked through a wide vestibule and into a quiet sanctuary.

  Like the exterior of the church, the interior was simple. Scuffed wood floors that had probably been put down a century ago, dark wood pews padded with faux red velvet cushions. The pulpit stood on a stage that had probably been added long after the building was erected, the simple wood podium and a small altar table the only adornments.

  A small group of people stood just in front of the stage. Three men in dark suits. A woman in the same. Three uniformed police officers were there, too, all of them a little stiff, a little tense.

  And then there was the man and woman dressed in casual clothes, their faces ashen. The woman leaned heavily on the man, her dark hair swept away from a pretty face. Midthirties, maybe, her long skirt and fitted sweater skimming over a trim athletic figure. The man had a heavier build and the kind of muscle that came from working outdoors. He looked a little older—maybe forty. Or maybe life had just been harder on him.

  They both seemed frozen as Gabe walked toward them, the woman visibly shrinking with every step he took.

  The pastor and his wife. There was no doubt about that. Nor was there any doubt about the anguish they were experiencing.

  The man moved forward, extended his hand. “Pastor Camden Stanley. This is my wife, Hannah.”

  “Gabe Wilson. Amelia’s father,” Gabe said, and Maggie grabbed his arm, shot him a warning look.

  He didn’t seem interested in heeding it. He looked angry, his jaw set. “And I’d like her back. Now. Not a few hours from now.”

  “Mr. Wilson.” One of the FBI agents stepped forward. “We understand your feelings, but this is a delicate situation.”

  “Delicate how? My daughter was taken from me. These people have no legal right to her.”

  “Gabe!” Maggie cut in. “We agreed—”

  “I agreed that I’d be reasonable. Reasonable is being reunited with the child who was taken from me.”

  “The child who has been our daughter for four years,” the pastor said, his arm around his wife’s waist. She was leaning so hard against him, Logan thought she might fall over.

  “The child who was never your daughter,” Gabe spat, and tears slipped down Hannah’s face, a quiet keening rising up from somewhere so deep inside that it took a minute for Logan to realize the sound was coming from her.

  Gabe blinked, all the anger seeping out of his face. “I’m sorry. That was about the worst thing I could say to either of you. I’m upset.”

  Hannah nodded, but the tears just kept coming.

  One of the officers put a hand on her shoulder. “Hannah, how about you sit down and I’ll get you some water?”

  “I don’t need water,” she cried. “I just need this nightmare to end.”

  She allowed herself to be led to a pew, and Maggie crouched next to her, murmuring something as she lifted her wrist and checked her pulse. Chance, Malone and Agent Smith stood a few feet away, watching with a mixture of sympathy and frustration. There was nothing anyone could do. No comfort that could be offered. Even the federal agents, dressed in their suits and polished shoes, looked ill at ease. There was no protocol for this, no script that they could go by. Somehow, Camden and Hannah had ended up with Gabe’s daughter. They’d raised her for four years, had obviously loved her and thought of her as their own.

  Gabe moved stiffly, crouching next to Maggie and reaching for Hannah’s hand.

  “We’ll work it out,” he said. Just those words, and the tension broke. The police started talking, agents started talking, Chance and Malone leaned closer to speak with each another.

  And that was when Logan realized something was wrong with Harper. Really wrong. She hadn’t moved, didn’t speak. Just stood beside him, her skin pale and waxy, her eyes glazed.

  “Harper?” he said.

  Her gaze shifted, her lips moved, and then she fell, tumbling so quickly, he barely had time to catch her.

  He lowered her to the floor, touched her cheek. “Harper?”

  She didn’t move, didn’t respond at all.

  He touched the pulse point in her neck, felt her heartbeat. It was thready and light beneath his finger.

  “Call an ambulance!” he shouted as Maggie rushed to his side, the cookies she’d been holding dropping to the floor.

  Chance knelt beside him.

  “We need Stella,” he said quietly, and Logan knew it was as bad as he’d thought.

  He brushed a strand of hair from Harper’s pale cheek, and her eyelids fluttered. He thought she tried to smile, and then she was gone again, and all he could do was pray that help would arrive quickly.

  THIRTEEN

  Voices. Words. A song that Harper knew but couldn’t name.

  They drifted into the darkness, nudged her back to consciousness and pain. Head pounding. Stomach aching. Muscles throbbing.

  Sick?

  She opened her eyes, her stomach twisting in protest as she looked up at a tile ceiling.

  “Finally,” someone murmured, and
memories rushed in, filled the empty places.

  Logan.

  He sat beside her, his jaw dark with the beginnings of a beard, his eyes deeply shadowed. He looked good—better than anyone had the right to when he was sitting...

  Where?

  She eyed the small table to his right, the plastic pitcher of water sitting on it, a cup beside it. Behind him, a window looked out onto the cloudy day.

  Not the safe house.

  They’d left that, but she couldn’t seem to catch hold of her thoughts, couldn’t quite seem to put memories together.

  “What happened?” she tried to ask, but the words stuck in her throat, the aching pain there making her lift her hand, touch her neck.

  She had an IV in the back of her hand, tape pressed firmly over the flesh.

  A hospital?

  Was she sick?

  She sure didn’t feel well.

  “It’s okay,” Logan said. “You’re okay.”

  “What happened?” This time the words escaped, raspy and rough, but there.

  “Poison,” he responded, his expression grim, his hand gentle as he brushed strands of hair from her cheek. “The cookie.”

  She reached for the memory—the trip to DC. Gabe. Maggie. Sandra. The safe house.

  Amelia.

  And...yes...the cookie. Red frosting on sugary dough because everyone had said she was pale and looked as if she needed to eat. Maggie had said it more loudly than anyone, opening the plastic container and handing Harper the cookie, which had tasted like sugar and sawdust.

  Her stomach heaved, and she sat up, her heart pounding frantically in her chest.

  “It’s okay. Just take a deep breath.” Logan touched her nape, his fingers warm, his skin callused, his eyes filled with concern and compassion and a dozen other things she’d never expected to see in a man’s gaze.

  “Maggie?” she asked.

  “She’s in custody, insisting she didn’t do it, but she had an open bottle of antifreeze in her car. That’s what you were poisoned with.”

  “Cars and antifreeze go together,” she said, still fuzzy headed, still not quite sure how she’d ended up where she was.

  The cookie.

  The church.

  The woman’s keening sob...

  What had her name been?

  Hannah?

  “Harper? Don’t drift away again,” Logan said, his words ruffling the hair near her ear, his hand still resting on her neck.

  “I’m not,” she said. “I’m just trying to figure it out.”

  “We all are.”

  “Maggie... She put antifreeze in the cookies?”

  “That’s what the police are saying,” he responded, but there was something in his face, in his eyes, that made her question it.

  “What are you saying?”

  “We’re saying that the doctor being thrown in jail is really convenient,” someone cut in, the voice sharp and gruff. Malone? She glanced past Logan and saw his coworker sitting in a chair near the door, legs stretched out, ankles crossed, his gun holster strapped across his chest.

  “To who?” Harper asked.

  “I’m thinking two people—that brother-in-law of yours and his assistant.”

  “Gabe wouldn’t hurt his own daughter,” she responded, thinking about those cookies—the bright colors, the sprinkles, all of it so perfectly child friendly.

  “Who says he was trying to? You’re the only one who ate a cookie. The rest ended up on the floor of the church,” Malone said, standing and stretching. “Tell you what. I’m going to grab some coffee. You want anything?”

  She wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or to Logan, but she shook her head. Her stomach burned and ached. Her head was pounding. The last thing she wanted was food.

  The first thing she wanted was the truth.

  “Where is Gabe?” she asked as Malone walked out of the room.

  “Despite what Malone thinks, he didn’t poison anything or anyone. The police questioned him. He submitted to a lie detector test. He passed with flying colors. He’s over at the Stanleys’,” Logan responded. “With Amelia.”

  That was it. All she needed to hear. She shoved at the blankets piled on top of her, swung her legs over the side of the bed.

  “Whoa! Where do you think you’re going?” Logan asked, putting his hand on her shoulder and holding her in place.

  If she hadn’t felt dizzy and a little too weak, she’d have shoved it away.

  “I want to see her.”

  “You will.”

  “When?”

  “Once the doctor releases you.”

  “I would like that to be now,” she ground out, the quick staccato beat of the words pounding through her already throbbing head.

  “There are a lot of things that I’d like, Harper,” he responded. “I’m not getting any of them anytime soon, so how about you just relax and accept things the way they are?”

  “Because I’ve never been good at relaxing, and I don’t like things this way,” she replied, and he chuckled, pressing the call button on the bed railing and settling back into the chair.

  “Grumpy when you don’t feel good, huh? I’ll keep that in mind for the future.”

  “What future?” she muttered, setting her feet on cold tile and trying to decide if she had the energy to stand.

  She was afraid she didn’t, and she was afraid if she went down, Logan would pick her up and set her on the bed, his warm arms and dark, masculine scent wrapping around her for just long enough to give her ideas that she probably shouldn’t have—ideas about long walks and longer conversations, about time spent getting to know someone who wanted to get to know her. About all the things she’d thought she’d have with Daniel and had given up on.

  “Whatever future we’re heading toward,” he said, as if it were a given that they would walk out of the hospital together, walk into the next day and the next week and the next month together.

  “Logan—”

  He cut her off. “It’s just a thought I’ve been having, a thought that I’m really glad you’re going to recover, because I’d like to get to know you better. It’s not an offer for a lifetime commitment. Just a... Let’s take a little time once this is all worked out, see what we think about each another when we aren’t dodging bullets or having our stomachs pumped.” His eyes were dark and intense, his expression as soft as a winter sunset. “That’s it. Nothing you need to get your bloomers in a bunch about.”

  That made her laugh, which made her head pound harder, which made her groan. “Bloomers in a bunch?” she managed, and he smiled.

  “My grandmother’s favorite expression. I can still remember her saying it. I also remember how I felt when you collapsed at the church—as if I might be losing something wonderful before I’d ever had it. I’m not coward enough to turn away from that, Harper. I want to know what it meant, what it means.”

  “Shelby women have never been good at relationships, Logan. My mother had a new boyfriend every other day. Lydia was the same way until she met Gabe, and even that relationship wasn’t what it should have been.”

  “And you?” he asked, pulling a chair closer to the bed, sitting so that they were knee to knee, eye to eye. She wanted to believe that there was something there, something they could build on, something they could walk through life with.

  She wanted it so badly her eyes burned and her chest ached.

  “Just one serious boyfriend through high school and most of college. We had our wedding planned, our future planned.”

  “But?”

  “He decided to have a future with someone else.” That was all she was going to say, because there was nothing else to add. It was enough to prove her point. She and her sister and mother? They had no idea how to choos
e a guy who would always choose them, and that was what Harper wanted—someone who would walk into a room filled with women and have eyes only for her, thoughts only for her.

  “I’d like to say that I’m sorry,” Logan murmured. “But I’m not. You deserved better, and if you’d ended up with him, you would never have gotten that.”

  “You’re right, but that isn’t the point of the story.”

  “What is?”

  “That Shelby women and men don’t mix. We always end up worse off for the experience.”

  “Seems to me,” he said, “that you’re putting a whole lot of stock in the past and not a whole lot of faith in what God can do. He changes things, makes the impossible possible.”

  “I know.”

  “You just don’t think he’ll do it for you?”

  “I—”

  A nurse bustled into the room, ending the conversation before it had really begun. Harper should have been relieved. She should have been happy. Somehow, though, she felt sad, disappointed, sure that she’d missed an opportunity she wouldn’t have again.

  She couldn’t meet Logan’s eyes, didn’t want to see the disappointment she thought would be there.

  She was too afraid to admit that she wanted exactly what Logan did because she was terrified of being hurt again.

  She frowned as the nurse checked her vitals, talked about the long-term impacts of ethylene glycol poisoning. Apparently there were a lot, but Harper’s blood work looked good. She hadn’t needed dialysis. A dozen things could have gone wrong but hadn’t.

  She was lucky. That was what the nurse said.

  Harper thought it was something a lot more beautiful—grace, divine intervention. She’d almost eaten the second cookie Maggie offered because she’d been feeling a little light-headed, a little sick. She’d refused because that sickness had come on pretty quickly after the first cookie, and she’d thought maybe she was having a reaction to the frosting or the sugar.

  Maggie...

  Had she mixed antifreeze into the cookie frosting?

  An image of the doctor crouching next to Hannah filled her mind. That had been the face of compassion and of sympathy. Not the face of a killer.