Last Chance Christmas (Last Chance #5)(37)
Author: Hope Ramsay

Earlier today, when he’d jimmied the window in his bedroom and escaped from his parents, his plan to make them stop and see reason seemed so clear-cut. He hadn’t intended to stay away for long—just long enough to put the fear of God into them.

But it was cold out here. And his emotions were calmer now. If his parents were going to split up, nothing he could do would stop it. And, in the end, he’d wind up back in Michigan because that’s where Mom’s family was.

He was going to lose Lizzy. No matter what. And it made him ache, especially since she had come to him the minute her church services were over. And she’d stayed and talked with him all afternoon. He’d poured his heart out to her, and she’d listened without judgment.

“You know I don’t want to run away permanently. I just want Mom and Dad to think about what they’re about to do.”

“It’s going to be okay. You stay away tonight and maybe your folks will realize how stupid they’re being. I know how hard it is to fit into a new place, but you’re doing okay. People like you on the school paper, and you’re good with your camera.”

He touched the camera that hung around his neck. It was pretty funny how a week ago he would have been okay about moving back to Ann Arbor. But not now. Now he wanted to stay. He wanted more adventures with Lizzy.

He wanted to kiss her again. He’d been thinking about that all afternoon. This might be his one and only chance. So he leaned in and touched his lips to hers. A hot reaction hit his body, and then, to his surprise, Lizzy opened her mouth.

Wow. That was nice. It was a real kiss. He wasn’t sure what to do with it, but he improvised. Lizzy did, too. It was kind of wet and sloppy and interesting as hell.

He forgot about how miserable and scared he was feeling.

After a time, Lizzy turned her head. He backed off. They stared at each other, and a deep red blush crawled up her face. He had a feeling his face was red, too.

Lizzy pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and checked the time. “Oh, crap, it’s almost four o’clock. My grandmother is going to bust a gut. The brat has her Christmas play tonight, and I have to be there. Are you going to be okay out here?”

“I’ve got a blanket, a flashlight, and some granola bars. What more could a guy ask for?” Her warm body next to his?

He stomped on that thought. Lizzy wasn’t that kind of girl, and he wasn’t that kind of boy. They’d already gone as far as they were ever going to go. And tomorrow he would probably be in the minivan heading back to Ann Arbor.

Lizzy headed for the loft’s ladder. “It’s going to be quiet out here tomorrow and the next day because of Christmas, but I expect the workmen will be back out here on Wednesday. I’ll try to get out here tomorrow afternoon with some food. It might be hard. Christmas Eve gets real busy.”

“I’m not going to hold out that long. I only intended to spend one night away from home,” he said, following her down the ladder.

They got to the barn door, and he was just about to move in for another kiss when they heard a noise outside.

She frowned and put her finger to her lips, then turned and peeked through the crack in the barn door. Her sharp gasp told David that Lizzy was surprised by the identity of the unexpected intruder.

She moved away from the crack in the door and motioned for him to get his camera. He stepped to the small opening.

Two men were standing on the artificial turf of the eighteenth hole. One of them was Sheriff Bennett. David didn’t recognize the other man, but he was old and walked with a cane. Lizzy made a motion for him to take photos, but he opted against it. His digital SLR might not have a mechanical shutter, but it still made a noise every time he took a shot.

David took Lizzy by the hand and pulled her deeper into the shadows of one of the empty stalls. “I don’t want to make any noise with the camera,” he whispered against her ear. Her hair feathered against his cheek. He was completely aware of her hand in his.

“Listen,” she whispered. “That’s Lee Marshall, the father of the guy who died in the swamp.”

David turned his attention to the voices outside the barn. It was hard to hear what they were saying until one of them shouted, “Goddamn it, Billy, you killed my boy.”

Lizzy tensed against David’s side. They looked at each other in the dim light. What the hell? The sheriff had killed Jimmy Marshall?

David pressed his finger across Lizzy’s lips. “Listen,” he mouthed.

The sheriff spoke. “The coroner is going to rule Jimmy’s death a suicide, Lee. I don’t know what gave you the idea that I committed murder.”

“Because Jimmy was found out on that old hunting trail that leads to the Jonquil House.”

“So?”

“Jimmy hated the swamp. And I doubt that he’d ever been on that trail in his life. But your daddy used that trail all the time. That’s where we took Zeke Rhodes, all those years ago.”

“Are you admitting something, Lee?”

“Don’t you play dumb with me, boy. I already talked with your daddy, and he told me that you know all about what happened forty years ago.”

Sheriff Bennett let go of a high-pitched, crazy-sounding laugh. “Yeah, well, you and the old man should have kept your traps closed. You know, Lee, this is a mess of your making, not mine. I’m just like my father, cleaning up your messes.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean Jimmy came to me a week ago and wanted me to arrest you for what y’all did forty years ago. Now, you can see why I didn’t want to do that. I mean, there’s an election coming up next year. How do you think it would look if I had to explain how my daddy covered up a brutal beating, and all because the high-and-mighty Lee Marshall was involved. I don’t think it would go over too good. I’m sure the folks who want Stone Rhodes to run against me would have a field day.”

“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, you killed my boy because of an election? You bastard.”

“Lee, he was going to tell everyone about what happened. I was going to be forced to arrest you. Don’t you get it?”

“What? Jimmy was my son. My heir.”

Sheriff Bennett chuckled darkly. “I don’t think that mattered much to him. Jimmy told me that he was committed to winning back Hettie’s love any way he could. He said Hettie wanted him to take charge of this town and clean the skeletons out of the closet. I’m telling you, Lee, I did you a favor.”

Lee Marshall let go of a sound that could only be called a wail of anguish. And then all hell broke loose.

The sounds of a scuffle ensued. Then before David could figure out what to do next, the two men crashed into the barn door with such force that they broke through and tumbled onto the beaten earth of the Ark’s floor, just a few feet from where Lizzy and David were hiding.

Sheriff Bennett’s gun was out of its holster and each of the men had a death grip on it. They were rolling around grunting and struggling, wrestling over the gun.

David was so scared he thought he might pee his pants. He prayed to God to let him live while he simultaneously clutched Lizzy’s warm, warm hand. It didn’t matter who won the wrestling match. He knew with a dead certainty that he and Lizzy had heard too much. Both of these men were murderers.

Beside him, he heard Lizzy whisper her own prayer. Only instead of calling on God, Lizzy was mumbling something about angels.

Lark pulled the SUV over to the side of a red clay road that bisected Route 70 just north of Golfing for God. She was going to walk the rest of the way, since she was planning to trespass and engage in what was probably a felony. Pop wanted to be laid to rest on the eighteenth hole, and there was no good reason not to comply with that request. Once his ashes were scattered, no one would know the difference.

Except for Lark.

She could take some small comfort in the fact that she’d done Pop’s bidding one last time. Now was the perfect time for a drive-by funeral, too, while Stone was occupied with Haley’s play.

A knot lodged in her throat as she headed down the side road and tried without much success to push thoughts of Stone to the background. She was getting out of Dodge. Now. Tonight. Before any more grass grew under her feet. She would commit her crime and run like a thief in the night.

She didn’t want a long-winded good-bye. For all intents and purposes they’d said their good-byes this afternoon. Hell, they’d said their good-byes before they even started. Her words had been clear. She’d told him the score going in. And he’d listened.

Unfortunately, her heart hadn’t listened at all.

But she would get over this. She’d be like Carmine. Carmine never committed. If a female love interest got too close, he hit the road. In that respect, she and Carmine were a whole lot alike.

Lark turned onto the main highway. It was almost dusk. She needed to hurry if she wanted to catch the light at the golf course; she’d have to use her flashlight on the way back. She wanted to click a snapshot of the eighteenth hole before she left. Maybe she would start a family album with it.

She was about forty yards from the parking lot when she realized that the county sheriff’s car was parked there. A gray Lincoln Town Car was parked there, too.

Just her luck. She’d come to commit a crime, and a convention was under way at the intended scene. She halted in her tracks and was trying to decide whether to go or stay when gunfire erupted in the distance.

Many years of training took over. She hit the deck hard and covered her head. This time she didn’t flash back to Misurata, but her pulse and respiration redlined. She felt vulnerable there in the drainage ditch by the side of the highway. She needed to find cover. She needed to call for backup.

She reached for her cell phone only to realize that she’d left it in the console of the SUV, connected to the car’s USB dock. Damn.

She pushed herself up off the ground and scooted into the woods that edged the highway. The screaming started just as she reached the cover of some tall pine trees. The noise came from off to her right, in the general direction of the golf course.

She crouched there for a long moment, gulping down breaths as her heart raced. She needed to get back to the car.

But someone was in really bad trouble.

Her hands shook as she tucked Pop’s ashes into her camera bag. She ignored the tremors, took out her Nikon, and affixed the telephoto lens. Then she slung the bag diagonally across her shoulders so she could rest it against her back. The bag was bulky, but she had years of practice lugging it through war zones.

She moved through the pine needles in a crouching run, careful to muffle any noise her bag might make and to keep at least one tree trunk between her and the frantic screams that seemed to be coming from Noah’s Ark. She had her camera in her hands, ready to go. But her stomach was churning with fear.

She emerged from the pines near hole number three, Moses in the bulrushes. Something very odd was happening to the light. She glanced up at the sky. It seemed to be boiling. A cloud was literally forming right out of the blue, and the temperature was dropping. The light was very bad. Any photos she shot would be crap.

Nevertheless, she hurried through the plague of frogs, sprinted past the Tower of Babel, then Jonah and the whale, and finally made it to the eighteenth hole. She crouched behind the statue of Jesus. Not that the fiberglass would give her that much protection against anyone with a gun. But it hid her from view, and allowed her to peer into the darkened maw of the Ark.