Last Chance Christmas (Last Chance #5)(28)
Author: Hope Ramsay

“It’s the ice. It’s everywhere,” Lizzy said.

Haley crawled out of bed, aware that the angel was standing in the corner studying Lizzy very carefully. The angel looked more worried than sorrowful.

Haley hurried to the window and looked out. Ice covered every branch and twig of the peach tree that grew in the backyard. The morning sun sparkled like diamonds in the branches.

“Oh, it’s pretty.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty, but it’s a pain,” Lizzy said. She turned away from the window. “I’m going to have to walk up to the stables. I was going to ride my bike.”

“Why were you going to ride your bike? Granny will drive you.”

“I didn’t want to bother Granny.” Lizzy pulled the knitted hat that matched her sweater down over her hair. “Tell everyone where I am, okay? I promised Mr. Randall I would help him clean the stables over Christmas break.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, I did. And don’t forget to tell Daddy or he’ll burst a blood vessel or something.”

“If you’re working for Mr. Randall, why would Daddy be mad?”

“Because he’s mad all the time.” Lizzy pulled her gloves out of the dresser.

“You aren’t really going to Mr. Randall’s stables, are you?”

Lizzy gave her the stink eye, and Haley knew for a fact that Lizzy was lying. Also, it helped that the angel was shaking her head.

“Look, you tell Daddy I’m at the stables, or I’m going to let Granny know that you are the one who broke that teacup she loves so much. I know you buried it out in the backyard.”

Fear prickled Haley’s backbone. “You know about that?”

“Yeah, I do. So just mind your own business,” Lizzy said. “Tell Daddy and Granny that I’m at the stables, and I’ll be back for dinner.”

Haley hated lying for Lizzy. But if Granny ever found out about that teacup, Haley’s backside was going to get paddled. Not that Haley had ever in her life been spanked, but breaking the teacup and then lying about it was probably enough to get a real spanking. That teacup had belonged to Haley’s great-great-grandmother.

Haley turned back to look at the ice outside her window. It was real pretty, but it left her feeling bad in some strange way. Ice wasn’t exactly snow.

She sighed.

“Your father needs to forgive,” the angel said.

Haley turned. She was tired of hearing stuff like this. The things the angel wanted Haley to do were too hard. Haley couldn’t make Daddy’s heart bigger. And Daddy wasn’t ever going to laugh again, ’specially not at the dumb old jokes in that book she’d taken out of the library.

She made a face at the angel. “Is this like the time I had to forgive Maryanne when she messed up the hair of my Ghoulia Yelps Monster High doll?”

The angel didn’t answer.

“Well, because if that’s what Daddy has to do, then you’re asking for a lot. I mean, Maryanne ruined my doll, and I had to tell her not to feel bad about it ’cause it was an accident, but I know it wasn’t any such thing.”

Haley pressed her head against the cold window and let her resentment of Maryanne fill her up with misery. Maryanne was such a pest and a pain. Why did she have to forgive Maryanne for messing up Ghoulia? And why did Maryanne get to be the angel in the Christmas play?

Her breath fogged the window while she thought about her problems.

“Who does Daddy have to forgive?” she asked after a long moment.

The angel didn’t answer.

“You think he needs to forgive me and Lizzy?” she asked, thinking about the broken teacup. She probably needed to apologize to Granny for that and pray that Granny would forgive her. But she didn’t think Daddy would care all that much about a broken teacup.

She thought on this for a long time, and then she realized that Daddy didn’t need to forgive her for breaking that teacup, because the cup didn’t belong to Daddy. It belonged to Granny. So really, the angel was saying that Haley had to apologize for something even bigger than that.

She turned and looked at the angel and thought about all the problems the angel had caused since last Christmas. Maybe Daddy had to forgive Haley about the things her angel had done.

The angel stared right back at Haley but didn’t give her any sign. And wasn’t that sort of like a sign in itself?

So that meant that Haley had to be like Maryanne and apologize for the angel. Which didn’t seem very fair, since Haley hadn’t exactly asked to be burdened with a Sorrowful Angel.

But it was clear that she would have to do it anyway.

She made up her mind. She would be brave. Because she needed to find a way to get that angel back to Heaven if it was the last thing she did.

By the time David met Lizzy out on Bluff Road, it was almost ten o’clock, and the ice had pretty much melted away in the bright sun. Riding his bike on the icy road had been a challenge.

Lying to his mother about having a sore throat so he could get out of going to schul had been insane. He was going to get into trouble.

But it didn’t matter. If Mom didn’t want him to be friends with Lizzy, then she gave him no choice but to turn into a sneak. And besides, the chance to have an adventure with Lizzy was something that didn’t come along every day.

She was wearing a floppy red sweater and a matching wool hat. Her jeans were tucked into a pair of big rubber boots with yellow duckies on them. She was beautiful.

They pulled their bikes into the underbrush beside the road and found a trail leading into the woods. The trail skirted the edge of a cypress swamp that was still frosty from last night’s storm.

David followed Lizzy, her red sweater a startling flash of color against the browns and greens of the trees and the swampy water. The place smelled of decay, and David kept an eye trained to the path, making sure they weren’t blundering into snake nests or worse. He kept telling himself that it was a cool day, and reptiles were cold-blooded.

Also, he wasn’t about to tell Lizzy he was scared of snakes. She seemed to be afraid of nothing.

They reached an area of muddy ground that had been pretty badly trampled. “This must be the place,” Lizzy said as she boldly strode into the mud, her boots squishing with each step.

“Okay, you should take some photos, and I’m going to search for the gun.”

“What?”

“You know, the gun. It’s missing. If we find it, it will be a scoop.”

David refrained from pointing out that they were unlikely to find the gun here, since the police had obviously been all over the area pretty thoroughly. Instead he took the lens cap off his Canon and started shooting photos. He took a few boring shots of the swamp and trampled earth, and then he focused on Lizzy as she wandered around, poking under logs and peering into the shallow water.

She was magnificent. The cold touched her cheeks with red, and the sun glinted in her green eyes. He watched with admiration and amusement as she picked up a stick and started poking it into the dark water right at the edge of the swamp. She was leaning over a fallen log, frowning in concentration.

“Hey, I found something,” she called.

He was astonished. He picked his way over the sodden ground. “Is it the gun?”

She levered the stick up and out of the water. Snagged on its end was…

He stared at the muddy, sodden thing a long moment, trying to decide what it was.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Lizzy said, pulling a plastic bag out of her jean pocket and dumping the dripping thing into it.

“What the hell is that?”

“A porkpie hat, like the one Michael wears.”

“You’re kidding.”

She shook her head. “What do you think it means?”

“I think it means that half the school has beat us out here.”

“Yeah, but Michael wasn’t wearing his hat yesterday. And he dropped his tray when he heard about Jimmy Marshall being dead. You think he lost his hat out here at the same time Jimmy Marshall killed himself? That would explain why his father is dragging his feet on the investigation.”

“Jeez, Lizzy, you have a real active imagination.”

She stood up and brought the bag over to him. She opened it and looked down. “Well, lookie there, it’s even got his name in the band.”

David looked down at the waterlogged hat, and sure enough the name “Michael Bennett” had been scrawled into the inner hatband.

Lizzy snorted. “Like he totally had to put his name in it because there’s more than one guy at school who wears a stupid hat like this.”

“It’s not exactly the smoking gun you were looking for.”

“No, it’s not. But I sure could use it to embarrass the crap out of him.” She chortled evilly.

“How? By turning it in to your father and trying to pin Mr. Marshall’s murder on the Davis High homecoming king?”

She snickered. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Well, there are a couple of problems with that. First of all, you’ll have to explain to your dad why you were out here in the swamp with me. And second, I don’t think you’ve got much of a motive for Michael. And third, while Michael is a jerk and a bigot, I don’t see him being brave enough to actually kill anyone.”

Lizzy cocked her head. “See, that’s the problem with you. You’re always so rational.”

“Lizzy, we aren’t going to find a gun out here, you do know that? And finding Michael’s hat doesn’t mean anything.”

She put her hands on her h*ps and studied the area for a moment. “Yeah, you’re probably right. We’d need to have diving suits and all that to find the gun. But it was fun to come looking.”

“Yeah, it was.” He tried to stop grinning at her—it was such a pain having braces. And she probably thought he was dorky looking because of them.

“Hey, you want to see something?” Lizzy asked.

“Of course.” Anything to prolong the adventure.

She stashed the plastic bag in her backpack and took off in the opposite direction, following an old trail that led away from the swamp toward Bluff Road. “Where are we going?”

“To the Jonquil House,” she said, as if that explained everything.

They walked for about ten minutes and finally came to a clearing where an abandoned house stood. It looked kind of like one of those movie haunted houses where some scary old person lived. The paint had peeled off, leaving the wooden siding a silvery gray. Most of the windows were broken, the porch sagged, and the railing looked like a skeleton with missing teeth. The yard was littered with beer and pop cans.

“Why do they call it the Jonquil House? Did the Jonquils live here once?”

She turned, her emerald eyes dancing with amusement. “No, silly, a jonquil is another name for a daffodil. In the springtime, this field is totally covered with them. When they bloom, they cover up the beer cans.”

“Oh.” A flower, God, who knew? “Uh, so do they do haunted houses out here at Halloween?”

“Not the kind the grown-ups organize. I remember some teenagers taking me out here to go snipe hunting once, when I was like twelve.”