Christmas Comeback (Coleman Creek Christmas #2)

1. Will

Chapter one

ELEVEN YEARS AGO

Will

I cupped my hands and brought them to my face, blowing over the numb skin of my palms. The gloves I’d discarded on the ground taunted me, but I couldn’t work as well with them on. Frozen fingertips were a small sacrifice for the greater good of my art.

Ignoring the ice crystals attaching themselves to my eyebrows, I focused on my task, pressing my finger down on the hard plastic valve, feeling the rush of power from the aerosol can as the paint sprayed evenly across the concrete wall. Good. I’d been working on that, practicing in the gardener’s shed out back where my parents never bothered me. This was the third time I’d done this. The first two times, I’d been shitty at it, leaving drips and drags. But I had my technique down now.

I worked faster to finish my piece, the cutting wind harder to ignore. It bit at me and broke my concentration—unsurprising since it was two in the morning in the middle of December. Not to mention, this part of Seattle mainly consisted of warehouses and office buildings. The little patch of brown grass where I’d dropped my gloves was lonely next to all the concrete and asphalt.

The wind blew overspray onto my black coat. I’d have to check it when I got home. If I couldn’t wash it myself, I’d need to toss it and say it got lost. Josefina came in twice a week to keep house and do laundry, and she’d report it to my parents if she found my clothes covered in paint.

Riley stood ten feet away. He shook his can hard, the ball rattling around inside, sounding like a goddamn bullhorn in the quiet night. He laughed like a lunatic at whatever he’d done.

“Shhhhh!” I hissed. “Keep it down.”

“Dude. Nobody’s around. You need to relax.” He shook his head at me but stopped shaking the can.

He was probably right. We hadn’t seen anyone since we rolled up half an hour ago. A few cars had passed by, but none came close enough to spot us. Some buildings had Christmas lights shining along their rooflines—I assumed those businesses just left them on all night—but they weren’t exactly spotlights.

I stepped back from the wall to survey my work.

“Billy…you corny motherfucker.”

Riley came over to stand behind me. He grinned and pointed at my mini mural of a row of three Grinches. Each one was alike, except they were making different hand gestures. The first Grinch had his fingers pinched in devil horns, the second Grinch threw up the middle finger, and the third made the ASL sign for I love you .

“What?” I smirked. “I think it looks good.”

“You know it does, asshole.” His grin turned into a laugh. “But here I was thinking we were trying to be badass vandals, and instead, you’re some kind of ar-teeste .” He raised his pinky finger in salute.

Smacking his arm down, I glanced over at his tag. He’d been working on it, but it still didn’t look like much to me. A bunch of triangles, basically. He’d been trying to get me to make up my own tag, but I’d drawn the line at that. I wasn’t trying to be some poseur. I could convince myself doing this was okay if I called it art.

Riley had been tagging for a while. I guessed he wanted to be part of something, and I could relate. We’d both graduated from high school six months ago. He didn’t have the grades for college and wasn’t interested in trade school. I’d had a rough go of it the past few years and decided I needed a gap year. My parents agreed, on the condition I spend at least part of my time working. They’d tried to get me to intern at my dad’s fancy financial services firm, but I was not doing that. I got a job busing tables at a steakhouse downtown. I’d met Riley there.

We’d become fast friends, united by our lack of direction, even coming from very different backgrounds. I’d grown up with money and gone to private schools my whole life, mostly a loner, with a few exceptions. He’d gotten a diploma from an online alternative high school and seemed desperate for a social life, instigating most of our hangouts. He’d been tagging on and off for years and had convinced me to come out with him a few times over the past month.

“I’m just giving you shit, man. It’s good,” Riley said. “But why is he doing something savage in the first two and then something schmoopy in the last one?”

“Schmoopy?” I chuckled low, still conscious of the silent street. “It’s my way of saying the Grinch is very misunderstood.”

He punched me in the shoulder playfully and made a gagging noise. “What’d I say? Corny as fuck.”

I slugged him back, but didn’t reply. I didn’t care if he understood. Or if anyone did. My art was about the only thing that made sense to me. Inspiration struck how it struck, and that was the end of it. Christmas was my favorite time of year and always had been. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t going to wear some stupid reindeer sweater or join a caroling group. I just loved that it was the one time of year I knew what to expect. My parents were busy, but they always made a point of having a big family Christmas, even with just the three of us. I had held on to it year after year as a reminder that my family, while at least moderately fucked up, wasn’t completely hopeless. Maybe I was a corny motherfucker.

“What do you think of mine?” Riley asked.

“It’s…your tag,” I said, trying not to smile.

“Asshole.”

He was shoving our supplies into his backpack when a loud, unmistakable sound split the frigid air.

WOOP… WOOP… WOOP…

The red and blue lights of a police cruiser flicked in the distance, three or four blocks away. Fuck! Had someone seen us and called the cops?

“Get the shit, man!” All traces of the laughter in Riley’s voice from a moment ago had vanished. I looked over to see him wide-eyed and frantic.

He grabbed the backpack, not even bothering with the zipper, as I picked up three loose paint cans. We ran around the corner toward Riley’s car, which he’d parked two blocks away. No streetlamps shined on this area. Just one building had a few sad strings of Christmas lights above its entrance. I doubted a cop would be able to spot us if we crouched along the wall for a minute, but Riley seemed determined to get away. Tugging me toward the car, he whipped his head back and forth as though assessing the walls for threats. He practically threw me in the passenger side before rushing around the hood to drive.

Behind us, the police cruiser whizzed by.

“Dang, Riley, slow down. It’s cool,” I assured him as I caught my breath. “Cop drove by. Probably not looking for us.”

But Riley stared through the windshield, gripping the steering wheel.

“Nah, nah,” he said, gulping the air. “I don’t trust it. He’s trying to trick us. They always do that. I bet he’s just working his way back around.”

I could see the erratic beating of his pulse in his neck as he started the ignition with shaky hands. His left leg bounced against the car mat in a hurried rhythm. He scrubbed a hand over his face and squeezed his eyes shut before opening them, looking dazed.

He pulled into the deserted road, headlights off.

“Dude, you’ve been watching too many cop shows.” With effort, I stayed calm. Reaching across the dash, I flipped the switch to turn the headlights on, grateful Riley didn’t try to stop me. Ice had gathered on the windshield, so I also started the defrost, realizing with a groan that I’d left my gloves back on the little grassy area.

The car lurched as Riley took a corner too fast. I used an elbow to brace myself. He kept switching lanes unnecessarily. We hadn’t been drinking, so I imagined the adrenaline pumping through his veins was making him frantic. Why couldn’t he chill out and see that the threat had passed? He made several turns until we were in one of Seattle’s residential neighborhoods.

In the complete opposite direction of the way back to my house.

“Where are you going, man?”

“I want to make sure that cop’s not following.”

“Riley, you need to come down from whatever high you’re on. We’re fine. No one’s after us.” I blew into my hands again. I was going to miss those gloves. “Maybe you should pull over and take a break. Calm the fuck down.”

He still appeared to be on the verge of bursting an aneurysm. If anything proved we were not destined for the criminal life, this was it. Riley was shitting his pants at a cop car simply driving by while we’d admittedly been committing a crime, but not exactly a felony.

His breathing grew even more labored and uneven. It wasn’t right, the way he couldn’t get himself under control. Sweat dripped down his forehead.

I’d heard of this happening to people but never seen it up close. I vaguely recalled the mental health unit from sophomore year.

“Hey, Riley. You need to pull over. I’m pretty sure you’re having a panic attack.”

“Nah, dude. I’m good,” he said, blinking repeatedly.

He turned again, and we were in the neighborhood’s small business district. We passed a grocery store, a few restaurants, a drugstore, a dry cleaner, a coffee shop. Everything was dark except at the end of the street, where they’d converted one of the parking areas into a temporary Christmas tree lot. It still had all its lights on, offering a quick flash of illumination as we drove by.

Even though it was brief, the stab of light into the car’s interior seemed to stun Riley, who threw up both arms against the momentary brightness.

Letting go of the wheel.

“Jesus Christ!” I leaned over and attempted to steer, screaming at Riley to hit the brakes.

But he pressed his foot on the gas pedal, and the car swerved violently. Thank god it was stupid o’clock in the morning because we were beyond conspicuous now. I shoved the wheel left to keep us from hitting a parked car. Then I pulled it back the other way to stop us from going onto the sidewalk.

Both our bodies slammed into the center console.

“Dammit, Riley! You need to stop! Stop!”

He nodded, finally seeming to hear me. Bringing his hands back to the wheel, he slowed the car.

We were going about ten miles an hour when a bicycle appeared out of nowhere. A fucking bike! At this time in the morning. It was crossing the intersection ahead of us, and I prayed Riley would see or that he’d actually stop for the stop sign.

But he didn’t. I yanked the wheel as the cyclist was about to cross in front of us, maneuvering the car sideways to skirt around the back wheels. The whole thing only lasted a second, but it happened as though in slow motion. I thought we avoided hitting the bicycle, if by inches, but then I looked in the mirror and saw the cyclist go down. Hard.

“We hit that bike!”

I looked back, and it didn’t appear as though the bicycle had gone far. It hadn’t flown across the road or anything. More like tipped over. Still, the person on the ground didn’t seem to be moving.

“Stop the fucking car!” I shouted directly in Riley’s ear. “We have to go back. Have to call 911!”

Riley’s eyes glazed over. He beat his fist against the steering wheel. “Shit!”

“Dammit, stop!” I screamed.

But he didn’t stop. He kept rolling down the street—barely a crawl, but still moving. “Shit. Shit. Shit,” he kept repeating.

I wasn’t sure what came over me. I only knew I had to help that cyclist, and Riley was just…gone. There was no time for a well-thought-out plan. One moment, I decided I needed to help, and the next, I opened the car door and pitched myself onto the asphalt.

The hem of my pants caught in the doorframe for a second, causing me to exit the vehicle shoulder-first. Even going as slow as we were, the jolt of pain that ricocheted through me as I collided with the ground was like nothing I’d ever experienced.

I was scrawny, short, and hardly made of muscle, so hitting the street felt like landing on a bed of nails, even with my heavy coat. I rolled—maybe five times, maybe a million—and my head hit the asphalt repeatedly with sickening smacks.

The impact shredded half my coat right off my body, along with some of the skin on my torso. I cried out as pain sliced across my hand.

Finally, I stopped rolling, but when I tried to stand, I crumpled to the ground. One of my legs wouldn’t hold me, almost like it wasn’t there at all.

My breathing came in short pants as the pain took hold. I needed to move.

I stumbled into a bear crawl. Focusing on my purpose kept the agony at bay. I had to get to that bike. Had to call for help.

Relying mainly on my left hand and right leg, I dragged my useless left ankle behind me. I collapsed onto my right elbow, my right hand bloodied beyond recognition.

I struggled, inch by torturous inch, from half a block away—numb, shocked, and dizzy.

By providence, I made it to the bike, only to pull my phone out of my pocket and find it completely trashed. Crushed by my fall.

I huddled next to the cyclist. I could see now she was an older woman, probably in her sixties. She breathed evenly but remained unconscious. There didn’t seem to be anything bloody other than some scratches on her face. But she didn’t wake up. My mind began to cloud as the pain settled deeper into my body.

I needed to do something for this woman.

My hand hurt so much. Blood poured from my palm, dripping over my wrist.

Had Riley turned back around?

I needed to do something.

With my last breaths, I yelled for help like a wounded animal. Wailed my frustration that this night had gone so horribly wrong. Finally, I surrendered to the anguish, huddling next to the biker and whispering, “I’m sorry,” before the blackness pulled me under completely.