Last Chance Christmas (Last Chance #5)(38)
Author: Hope Ramsay

The doors were open. She could just see a body lying in the opening. A pool of blood was spreading out from it.

A dark vortex of fear gripped her. She couldn’t move. Her heart hammered in her chest. She slumped against the fiberglass of the statue and mumbled, “God help me.”

Lizzy lost it the minute the gun went off. David cursed under his breath. Until she’d started screaming, there had been at least a tiny chance that neither Mr. Marshall nor Sheriff Bennett would realize they were witnesses.

But it was too late now. Lizzy was staring at Mr. Marshall, who was lying on the floor with a bullet hole in his chest. He wasn’t dead, but he was in pretty bad shape, judging by the blood that was coming out of his mouth.

Everything seemed to slow down in that moment. The sheriff’s gun was still on the ground, but instead of going for it, he turned in their direction, his bright, blue eyes going wide with surprise and then hard and dark with anger.

There was murder in his eyes. David couldn’t beat this man. He was bigger and meaner and about a thousand times more frightening than his bully of a son.

There was no Justin Polk around this time to save him. David had to do something or he and Lizzy would die. The sheriff was about to turn back to get his gun. David had to act.

Now.

David pulled his camera up to his face and squeezed off a shot. The flash fired, lighting up the suddenly dark evening. The surprising burst of light blinded the sheriff.

David grabbed Lizzy’s hand and dragged her screaming from the barn, and he did what any smart person did when facing a bigger and stronger antagonist.

He ran like hell.

Thank God Lizzy was able to keep up with him, because they were running for their lives. He’d seen a lot of action movies, and he knew on some level that running in a straight line was a dumb idea. So he started zigzagging across the golf course. He bolted past the statue of Jesus, then turned a little to the right and pounded past Jonah’s whale, then changed directions and raced through a flock of fiberglass sheep.

That’s when the shooting started.

Lizzy shrieked again but she didn’t stop running. David changed course again, heading toward a phony mountain with the Ten Commandment tablets at its top.

Another shot was fired. It felt like someone had just given him a sharp push in the shoulder. He stumbled but managed to keep running. His right arm went numb, and he dropped his camera. It swayed around his neck, bumping into his chest, chafing his neck. His side was burning.

But he kept going, turning again, heading toward a life-sized Christmas display of Jesus, Joseph, and Mary surrounded by a herd of fiberglass barn animals. There were camels there, too, with bobbing heads.

But everything was getting kind of dark. His vision was blurring. And he couldn’t breathe. Then, without warning, his legs buckled under him.

He hit a patch of Astroturf and rolled. He came to rest against the statue of Mary. She was staring down at him with such a pretty look on her face.

Lizzy’s face came into his vision. “Oh shit, oh shit, you’re bleeding all over the place.”

There were tears in Lizzy’s eyes, and she was prettier by far than Mary. And way more alive.

He wanted to kiss her again, but his attention was pulled away by the sight over her shoulder. The sky had gone strange with clouds and a light—amazing and utterly beautiful. There was music playing somewhere. Big music, sweet music, gentle music.

He wanted to be a part of it.

There was so much blood. Dark and sticky and it was everywhere. On the rubble of the wall. All over Jeb’s vest. His head was broken open.

Oh, God, it was worse than that. His head wasn’t really there.

Lark couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. She needed to run before the next rocket came. She needed…

Someone came running past her.

More gunfire startled Lark back to reality. She saw David as he was hit and went down.

And something inside her snapped.

She was on the eighteenth hole at Golfing for God. Misurata had happened months ago. She didn’t have a weapon, but she had a camera. She turned back toward the Ark, looking for the shooter. Looking for an angle for her own shot.

Her blood ran cold.

The sheriff of Allenberg County was standing not more than five feet from where she was hiding with his service weapon in both hands. He was taking aim at Lizzy.

Lark reached into her camera bag groping for something to throw at him, and her hand found the small cardboard box. She pulled it from the bag and hurled it at the sheriff.

Her aim was deadly. The box arced through the air just as Sheriff Bennett squeezed off another round. The bullet must have pierced the box because it exploded in midair, and Pop’s ashes swirled up into a sudden gust of wind in a crazy dance.

What the hell? The ashes seemed alive as they swirled around the sheriff like a swarm of killer bees.

He started cursing, and Lark decided it was time to run. She got to her feet and hauled ass across the golf course in a jagged line, heading toward the big crèche where she’d seen David go down.

“Uh-oh,” Stone said aloud as he pulled his car into the parking lot at Golfing for God.

“What’s the matter, Daddy?” Haley said. Her headdress had kind of fallen over one of her eyes, and it made her look adorable. She had to be the cutest shepherdess in Allenberg County.

“Nothing, sugar beet. It just looks like Sheriff Bennett found David before I did.” Which meant the a-hole had found Lizzy, too. Knowing Billy, he’d go tell the world that he’d caught Lizzy in the hayloft with David. Billy was like that.

He didn’t investigate real crimes. He just swaggered around and made Stone’s life miserable. It was a wonder the people of Allenberg kept reelecting him.

Of course, there wasn’t exactly anyone brave enough to run against him. And the Bennetts had been running the Sheriff’s Department for decades. People in these parts weren’t all that wild about change. South Carolina was pretty conservative.

“What’s that?” Haley said, cocking her ear. “Somebody’s screaming.”

Dread precipitated into Stone’s gut. He turned off the engine just as another scream pierced the air. It sounded like Lizzy.

“Crawl in the back and get down. Don’t move,” he ordered. He was out of the cruiser and had his weapon drawn. He sprinted down the path when a gunshot shattered the twilight.

He increased his speed, pelting past Adam and Eve and into the paved plaza by the point-of-sale area. The eighteenth hole stood just beyond. The resurrected Jesus looked beatifically at Sheriff Bennett, who stood in target-practice stance with two hands on his weapon. Bennett was sighting something across the golf course in the general direction of Mount Sinai and the birth of Jesus.

Just as he squeezed off a round, Lark Chaikin popped up from behind the statue and hurled something. A cloud erupted around the sheriff that looked like his own personal dust devil.

Lark lit out across the golf course in the direction of the tenth hole.

Stone wasn’t entirely sure what to make of this situation. And he hesitated for just one moment.

And that moment of indecision proved to be disastrous.

“Daddy!” Lizzy’s anguished cry came from the direction of the tenth hole. He saw her pop up by the big crèche at the turn. There was blood all over her.

“Stop right there, Stone,” Billy yelled.

Stone turned his gaze back toward the sheriff. Billy was aiming his weapon right at him.

“Billy, what’s going on?”

“Shut up. I need to think.”

“Why don’t you put the weapon away?” Stone aimed his own weapon at Billy, but he was a day late and a dollar short. Billy fired off a round.

Stone’s last thought, just as the bullet struck his chest and carried him off his feet, was that he’d left Haley alone in his cruiser. She would be late for her Christmas play.

Chapter 20

Come now, little shepherd, it’s time,” the angel said.

Haley looked up into the eyes of the glowing person above her. This was not the Sorrowful Angel. This angel had wings and a halo. He burned so brightly that it was almost hard to look at him. He was kind of scary. And that wasn’t good, because she was already scared.

Daddy had run off. And people were screaming. And there were loud noises that reminded her of that time when she’d been with Aunt Jane. The angels smited the bad guys that time. She was glad the angels had done that, but she really didn’t want to repeat the experience.

“Be not afraid, for I bring you good tidings,” the angel said, and unlike Maryanne, this angel got the words right. “Come, we need your help.”

Oh, boy. She was no good at helping angels, didn’t they know that?

The angel waited, and Haley knew that she didn’t have much of a choice. Kids never did.

So she got up from the floor of the backseat and climbed out of Daddy’s cruiser. It was practically nighttime outside, which seemed kind of strange because it had just been daylight a minute ago. It had also gotten really, really cold and windy. The angel put his arm around Haley, warming her.

That was different. The Sorrowful Angel was always cold, but this angel was as warm as a fire. Haley followed the angel down the path and around the bend.

“Be not afraid,” the angel repeated, “for I am with you.”

It was a good thing the angel said that, because just as soon as Haley could see the Ark, there was another loud sound, like a balloon popping only louder. And that’s when she saw Daddy get shot.

“Go to him.” The angel pushed Haley forward. “Be not afraid.”

Haley hesitated for a minute. Sheriff Bennett was standing by the statue of Jesus on the eighteenth hole. And standing right next to him was the Sorrowful Angel.

She didn’t look very sorrowful right at the moment. She looked very, very, very angry. Angrier than even Granny got, and that was saying something.

The wind was starting to blow, and it whipped the dumb old shepherd headdress off Haley’s head and tossed it high into the air. “Go to him,” the angel repeated and gave her another little push.

She ran toward Daddy. Halfway there, she heard Lizzy screaming from somewhere telling her to stay away. But the angel kept saying that she should go to Daddy.

Sheriff Bennett turned toward her. He had a gun in his hand. And he started to raise it in her direction.

Lizzy started screaming. Someone else was yelling, but she didn’t know who. And the angel was standing right next to the sheriff.

Haley was really, really scared, but the angel behind her kept telling her not to be afraid. And in front of her, she could see Daddy lying on the ground. He was hurt bad. And she was scared that Daddy might be going away to be with Jesus just like Momma had.

And then the strangest thing happened. Her headdress fell right out of the sky and right into the Sorrowful Angel’s hands. She twisted it up and then used it like a whip, the same way Lizzy sometimes did with a wet towel.

She smacked the sheriff with it, and he kind of stumbled back. And then she cracked it against the sheriff’s hand, and he dropped the gun. The sheriff was beginning to look as scared as Haley felt.

Haley took her eyes off the sheriff and ran the rest of the way to where Daddy was lying. She fell down on her knees beside him and started kissing Daddy’s face and pleading with him to wake up.