Loe raamatut: «Lost Christmas Memories»

ONE

Tracy Wilson jerked to a stop in the decorated lobby of the deserted Mother Lode Equestrian Center as a scream died away. At first, she’d doubted her senses. Perhaps it had been the whinny of a horse she’d mistaken for a cry. Then came the thud.

Had someone fallen? A worker unloading boxes after hours? She ran down the hallway to the one open door. Pushing into the dark space, she stopped dead. A figure, tall and wearing black, leaned over a dark-haired woman, hands on her throat, squeezing. Tousled hair screened the woman’s face and her hands gripped convulsively, clawing at the fingers throttling her. The attacker was in shadows. Was it a man? Woman? She couldn’t tell, but the person looked up at Tracy just as the choked woman went limp, her hands falling away, the life draining out of her. Irises black with hatred locked on Tracy.

The scream of horror died in Tracy’s throat as the attacker let go of the victim and dived for her instead. Panic fueled her. She raced back into the hallway, intending to make for the exit, but her pursuer was right behind. In her frantic flight, she knocked over a Christmas tree, sending it to the floor, where it smashed into a mess of silver fragments and gold beads. It did not slow her pursuer.

Tracy knew at that moment she would never make it back to the parking lot. Who could help her? The center was deserted, the Christmas decor gleaming oddly in the dim light. Surely even after hours someone would be around, tending to the horses, the steers? Was there not a single soul to hear her if she screamed for help?

She threw herself at the first door she came to, an office, which was locked. The second door, a storage room, was her only hope. Pulse thundering, she shoved her way inside. There was only a flimsy lock, but she managed to ram a dusty chair under the doorknob.

What she had just witnessed...brutal, incomprehensible, murderous...rocked her to the core.

A fist slammed at the door and booted feet began to kick at the flimsy wood.

Panic bucked like a rodeo bronc inside her. She reached for the phone in her pocket, realizing with a flood of despair that she’d dropped it somewhere. On her way in? In her flight down the hall?

Her clumsiness had always made her father laugh. Now it might just get her killed.

Nerves firing, she searched for a way out. There was no rear exit inside the room, which was cluttered with new supplies for the first ever Yuletide Silver Spurs Horse Show. She yelped as another kick rattled the door. “Help! Somebody help me!” she screamed, hoping the noise would frighten the attacker off.

There was no response except a renewed onslaught of kicks. A chip of wood detached and fell to the scuffed linoleum as the chair shuddered under the knob.

What could she use as a weapon? There was nothing but an old broom, boxes of file folders, rolls of tinsel, cleaning supplies, a folded stepladder. Another vicious kick to the door sent vibrations through the floor.

This can’t be happening, she thought. She’d arrived in town only hours before, before making the seventy-mile drive to her newly purchased property in the foothills. She’d never even set eyes on the Mother Lode Equestrian Center until now. After making better time than she’d expected, she’d decided to pop in on the off chance Bryce Larraby, the event’s main sponsor, would be there to let her take a peek at the horses she was eyeing for her clients. She’d messaged him that afternoon but he hadn’t replied.

Violent memories of what she’d witnessed made her head spin. The killer’s fingers throttling, eyes gleaming from the shadows, riveted on her.

A pale glimmer made her look upward. Set high in the wall was a small window that looked out onto the newly erected corrals. It would be a tight squeeze, but she could do it—had to do it.

She dragged the stepladder over and hoisted herself up just as the door lock failed and her flimsy chair barricade with it. She didn’t stop to look or scream, legs scrambling up the ladder until a hand reached out and grabbed her ankle. Kicking for all she was worth, she made contact, heard a high-pitched gasp of pain. The effort made Tracy wobble, her cheek hitting the edge of the window frame. Pain seared through her. Flinging the window open, she sucked in a lungful of freezing air and charged through, dropping to the ground, the breath forced out of her.

In a moment she was on her feet again, racing for her Jeep. As she ran she looked for someone, anyone, but there was only the pattering of winter rain and the sound of a horse whinnying. She sprinted, heedless of the crack of thunder and the sizzle of lightning, and finally reached her vehicle. Jamming her key in the lock, she half fell into the front seat. With icy fingers, she shoved her pile of messy blond hair behind her ears and gunned the engine, flooring the Jeep along the road away from the Mother Lode Equestrian Center.

She caught the center’s side door fly open in the rearview mirror. Her stomach screwed into a knot as the dark-clad killer barreled out. He or she would head to their car, chase her down and murder her before she could report what she’d seen.

You’ve got a head start, Tracy told herself. Get on the road, lose yourself, call the police. Just stay alive.

The faint sound of an engine floated above the storm. The killer was not giving up.

Well, neither am I.

She glanced at the glove box, where she’d locked her father’s Smith & Wesson pistol. What prickle of unease had made her decide to take it along on her business trip to the center? Whatever instinct had kicked in, she was grateful beyond measure. All she needed was a moment to unlock her weapon and load it, and she’d be able to even the playing field. It calmed her, if only a fraction.

She took the twists and turns as fast as she dared. The road became narrower, winding past dark hills. Unease ratcheted closer to panic. Where was the freeway entrance? Had she made a wrong turn?

She took the road indicating she was nearing the town of Gold Bar, but it was still some fifteen miles away. There had to be an on-ramp, a main thoroughfare that would get her to the safety of other people. Evening shadows closed in, swallowing up the road in darkness, and she battled back the taste of terror.

The road was hemmed in on both sides by pines. Another time she might have stopped, enjoyed the topography of rippled hills and the distant Sierras still visible in the darkening sky, the scent of wood smoke in her nose. Making friends with some local ranchers always served her well in her career as a bloodstock agent. She evaluated horses and bid on them at auction for her clients, sizing up horseflesh while evaluating the skeletal secrets hidden by the glossy coats.

A cold shiver rippled her spine. Bodies carried all kinds of secrets, she knew, especially human ones.

The sky surrendered to darkness, shrouded by clouds that spit rain on her windshield, but Tracy’s pulse thundered with every passing mile. She’d just decided to drive another few minutes in the hope of finding a gas station with a working phone, when the steering wheel shuddered in her grip. Fear choked her. Had the killer caught up? Shot out the tire? But there was no sign of anyone in the rearview mirror, only the irregular flapping that told her she’d run over something and given herself a flat. Not surprising, since she’d been putting off replacing the tires. Why now, though? She slammed a hand against the wheel, poring over her options in her mind.

The rising moon caught the silhouette of a rabbit on the shoulder of the road, wide-eyed, body tense with fear. She knew that fear, too, the sense that she was prey. In a hollow below was an old building, an abandoned train station that had to be some kind of historic relic. With an effort, she sat straighter and squeezed the steering wheel in a death grip.

The killer might catch up with her if she had not managed to shake him off her trail. She desperately did not want to stop, not here in this isolated place, but she could not continue with a shredded tire.

Pull the car into the cover of the shrubs and hide, she told herself. Wait until you’re sure you’re not being followed and hike to the main road. The old train station huddled like some sort of squatting monster waiting for a victim. Every nerve in her body screamed at her to stay away from the festering ruin.

But the heavily overgrown lot offered a hiding place and surely her pursuer would never imagine her stopping in such an out-of-the-way spot. It was either a savvy move or sheer lunacy. Squaring her shoulders, she edged the Jeep off the road, deep into the blackest shadows.

What exactly is a pomander anyway? Keegan Thorn fought against his natural tendencies and kept his motorcycle to the speed limit as he navigated the wet turns that hugged the tree-lined hills. He’d been dispatched by his mother on an errand to Copper Creek and his saddlebag was stuffed full of ribbon he’d secured for the mysterious pomanders, one of many wedding subjects discussed daily in the Thorn family kitchen of late. The Gold Bar Ranch covered one thousand acres, housed some sixty horses and, at the moment, was filled to the rafters with paraphernalia for a Christmastime double wedding.

His brothers, twins Owen and Jack, were marrying the women of their dreams: Ella, a farrier, and Shannon, an emergency room doctor. Although Jack and Shannon were already officially married, this would be the ceremony they’d both longed for, for years. And then there was his eldest brother, Barrett, and his wife, Shelby, who were expecting their first baby in another few weeks, which required additional piles of infant supplies scattered amid the wedding stuff. He grinned. He enjoyed the hubbub and he liked his future sisters-in-law, strong and spirited women both. Shannon, with Jack’s help, had recently outsmarted a motorcycle gang bent on murder, so the upcoming wedding festivities were doubly welcome.

Three cowboy brothers married and one with a baby on the way. He chuckled to himself. “Better you guys than me,” he said out loud. He approached the turnoff that led to the abandoned train station, grateful that he’d brought his rain gear. He was running late, of course, and his nose was still bleeding a bit after the altercation at the gas station when he’d stopped to refuel.

A shadow from his troubled past had returned. But Keegan wasn’t overly bothered by it. He could deal with trouble. He’d been doing that since he was a toddler.

Something flickered in the gathering darkness. He slowed and flipped up the wet visor of his helmet. There it was again—a weak yellow light, like a flashlight beam, bobbing along the gravel path.

Kids probably, teens sniffing out trouble. He knew. He’d done it himself, looked to unleash some of the wild energy that never seemed to dissipate, even after he’d been formally adopted by Tom and Evie Thorn when he was sixteen. He’d spent many hours combing through that abandoned train station, meeting up with people just as wild as himself, doing things he knew full well he shouldn’t have done. Drinking, smoking, vandalizing.

Fingers gripping the handlebars, he was about to press on toward home when the flashlight beam was turned upward to reveal a woman’s small face, skin luminous in the darkness.

There were two things about the face that kept him there, immobilized. First, her cheekbone was darkened. Though he could not see perfectly, he’d participated in enough brawls to know a shiner when he saw one. Second, her expression, caught in that one spurt of illumination before she vanished into the shadows.

Scared.

Not “I just walked into a spiderweb,” but a full-on look of unadulterated terror.

And that was enough to make him pull his motorcycle off the road and ease it down the gravel path in search of the frightened woman vanishing into the shadows of the abandoned station.

He figured a helmeted guy on a motorcycle would only add to the woman’s unease, so he rolled down the slope and parked the bike in the shelter of the empty water tower that glowed eerily in the gloom. After dismounting, he left his helmet on the seat, finger-combed his overgrown black hair away from his face and took the path in the direction he’d seen the woman headed, down to the busted-up platform. He decided she would probably have scooted into the depot, where at least she’d be sheltered from the storm. Where had she come from? He saw no sign of a vehicle, but the station was miles from the nearest building.

He eased through the open door. “Hello?”

Inside, a blast of chilly air hit his face, carrying the sharp scent of rust. The clouds parted to allow just enough moonlight to probe the broken windows, lending weak illumination. The old benches were still intact in some places, as well as the ticketing counter. Branches collected in moldering piles and the tapping of tiny claws indicated rats had also found the spot to be a suitable sanctuary.

“Hello?” he said again. No reply except for the rattle of pine needles dropping onto the sagging roof. “I saw you come in.”

Still no answer, but his eyes were adjusted now and he saw that the most likely hiding spot was behind the ticketing counter. He had to edge around a place where the floor had fallen out, giving way to a sort of storage cellar some fifteen feet below. One wrong step would lead to a fall that would undoubtedly result in two broken ankles or worse.

This was no place for a lady.

He picked his way carefully around the gaping hole, his cowboy boots protecting him from the protruding nails and bits of broken wood.

He heard the floor creak as the woman moved behind the counter.

He was about to try the friendly conversation approach for the second time when the woman bolted up over the top of the counter and fired a pistol at him.