“There’s a reason we’re BFFs. That’s exactly what I was thinking. What we’re all thinking at the station, too. Mr. Feeney said because almost nothing happens around Marshmallow Hollow, he doesn’t feel like it’s necessary to check the tapes that often.”
My stomach twisted into a knot. “Any more information from Kerry’s parents?”
He sucked his teeth. “Godfrey went to see them today to question them, but they didn’t give us much. As far as they’re concerned, she’s a good girl who would never worry them like this if she could help it. And if we take into account her work ethic from the people she babysat for, and her school records, they’re right.”
I told him about our meeting with Westcott Morgan and the article he’d written on the disappearance of two more girls before Kerry, but he appeared to know about the others who were missing…he just wasn’t admitting he knew.
“So you know about the other girls?”
He kept his answer very vague and PC. “We’re definitely aware of them and there’s a definite pattern, but it’s not like anyone’s shown up dead. We have no bodies. No leads, according to the police departments in the towns they live in. It’s the same story as Kerry Carver’s disappearance.”
I didn’t want to get into Westcott Morgan’s accusation against the police. It still made me angry he’d written the article for controversy rather than finding out who’d taken these young women.
Again, my stomach jumped and churned, reminding me I’d had smoked sausage for dinner. “So, what then? They just fell off the face of the Earth?”
“It feels like that sometimes, doesn’t it?” Stiles asked, his face grim under the Christmas lights of the gazebo. “Okay, look, that’s all I have for now, and you need to go enjoy the Christmas tree lighting with your new love.”
“He’s not my new love. We’re…”
Stiles smiled at me, tucking my hair back under my hat. “Your heart is open but with heavy caution signs flashing because of that slug, Hugo. I get it. I’m just saying, seeing you guys together this last week or so has been nice. You work. I love that for you.”
My cheeks flushed and suddenly, even in the bitter cold of twenty degrees, I was warm. “But I have things I have to confess before I can explore this, Stiles. That takes trust.”
“I know, and I understand, especially after that dink Hugo. I’ve got your back, no matter what, Kitten. If you need me to back up you and your visions, I’m there.”
I grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Same goes for me. Now, are we going to watch a Christmas tree lighting or what?”
He laughed at my enthusiasm, knowing full well I loved this part of the Marshmallow Hollow annual festivities. “Go find Hobbs. You should experience his first time seeing it with him, not your boring best friend.”
The mayor had just taken her place on the gazebo by the big switch to light the tree. “Come with me,” I encouraged with a smile. “We’ll all watch together.”
I pulled him along behind me, back to where I’d left Hobbs, who had his phone camera ready to take video of the event for Uncle Monty and Darling.
I scoped out the crowd, looking for familiar faces, and happened to see Westcott Morgan and Abraham Weller. Not together, though those two birds should definitely flock together.
No, they were each in different areas. One forced to write about the mundane local Christmas tree lighting, the other probably praying someone was bonked on the head by one of the Christmas ornaments and got a concussion he could turn into a lawsuit.
Mayor Bader grabbed the mic, a screeching sound emitting from it before she spoke, taking my mind completely off those two slugs. “All right, Marshmallow Hollow, are you ready for the fifty-second annual Christmas tree lighting?” she asked, her voice tight with excitement.
We all cheered and whistled our encouragement as the crowd began the countdown. Happy faces shone under the gazebo lights, children danced in excitement, the air was filled with the scent of the ocean, freshly baked cookies and hot pretzels.
I guess I hadn’t forgotten how much I’d missed this, so much as I’d set it aside in favor of trying to begin a life in a big city. Maybe I’d only tucked it away when I lived in New York. Seeing my friends and employees so joyful, smiles wreathing their faces, I was glad I’d come back. And I was also glad to be sharing this moment with Hobbs.
“Three, two, one!” everyone yelled.
Mayor Bader flipped the switch, illuminating the tree—and it was glorious. Fifty feet of green fir, covered in lights and ornaments the size of soccer balls.
“Now, that’s nothing like back home,” Hobbs murmured with vivid wonder in his tone and on his handsome face as he smiled at everyone around him, cheering and laughing. “It’s like out of a movie.”
“It’s really something, isn’t it?” I said with a happy sigh, enjoying a brief moment of relief from everything—my uncle’s surgery, the worry he’d be hunted down for what he might know, and the tragic death of Gable Norton.
Hobbs gazed down at me, and while a melancholy “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” played, the dulcet tones of Karen Carpenter in my ears and the lights from the tree shone down on us, he cupped my cheek and bent down to kiss me…and I rose up on my tiptoes to meet his lips.
It was the briefest of kisses, certainly appropriate for a PDA, but it did things to my toes and my stomach I can’t quite put into words. Things I’d never experienced in this way before.
When he pulled away, he smiled down at me, and I got lost in the moment and the warmth of his eyes.
So lost, I almost didn’t hear someone scream. Like, really let one rip—loud and long—making us all turn to see what the commotion was about.
Right there, in the middle of the crowd of people at the square, a woman collapsed, half-dressed, her remaining clothing torn.
Just crumpled into a heap of tattered limbs and snow.
Both Hobbs and I went running toward her as the crowd backed away. I was the first to get to her, falling to my knees and pulling off my jacket to cover her half-naked body.
Dear Goddess, she was a mess. Her hair was glued to her face, covering her eyes, her body bruised and battered and so very fragile, it hurt to look at her. And her feet were bare and torn to shreds.
“I’ll call nine-one-one!” Hobbs yelled over the shrieks of the crowd.
In mere seconds, my fellow townsfolk were taking their coats off to cover her; one mother offered her baby’s blanket.
I hauled her up next to me, shivering from the wind that picked up and the falling snowflakes, until Hobbs pulled off his jacket and threw it around my shoulders.
And as I looked down at this battered, bedraggled young woman who hung lifelessly in my arms, her skin like ice, her clothes ripped, I pushed her dark hair from her scratched-up cheek and gasped.
The girl I held in my arms was none other than Kerry Carver.
Chapter 13
O Christmas Tree (O Tannenbaum)
Written in 1824 by Ernst Anschutz
Hobbs handed me some hospital coffee from a dispenser he’d gone and found. It was indeed hot, but it was awful. I fought the taste of the bitter liquid as it slipped down my throat.