19. West
WEST
W est pulled on his coat and boots and left the house, dialing the local sheriff as he walked.
It was snowing now, like the heavens were as distraught as West. The icy wind blew against him as he walked into it, crystalline flakes melting to ice water as they met with his heated skin.
“Sheriff’s office,” Sheriff Landon Cole’s familiar voice said as he picked up.
“Landon,” West said. “It’s West Lawrence. I need a favor.”
“What’s up?” Landon asked.
“My daughter’s new babysitter,” West said, suddenly unwilling to bring up the car thing. “I wanted to know if you could run a background check—just to make sure she’s okay.”
“Okay,” Landon said slowly. “I owe you one, so sure. I just need a name and some details.”
West gave Dulcie’s info to Landon, realizing as he spoke that for all he knew, not a single detail she had shared with him was real.
“I’ll give you a call right back,” Landon said, and ended the call.
West reached his parents’ place and slid his phone back into his pocket. Warm light glowed from the windows, beckoning him to come in and be comfortable.
What if I just forgot all about this? What if I just let her take whatever she wanted from me? Would it be worth it just to play house with her for a little longer?
But West could never do that, not when he had his daughter to answer to. He jogged up the front steps and let himself in. The house smelled incredible, with the buttery, vanilla scent of his mom’s famous sugar cookies filling the air.
“Shoes,” everyone yelled out from the kitchen, Dulcie’s sweet voice adding a special note to that harmony of beloved voices.
Shaking his head, he slipped his boots off and marched back toward the kitchen.
The scene there could have been a drawing in a children’s book.
His parents and Dulcie sat with Elizabeth at the big wooden table.
Rows of sugar cookies had been laid out on trays, and though Mom and Dad were clearly frosting cookies too, everyone’s focus was on Elizabeth as Dulcie talked her through smoothing on the pretty white icing.
“Hey, son,” Dad said, giving him a smile.
“I’m frosting a cookie,” Elizabeth told him excitedly.
“Great job,” he told her.
Dulcie glanced up at him, then her cheeks went pink and her eyes went back down to what Elizabeth was doing. Whatever she saw in his eyes must have troubled her.
“Sit, sit,” Mom said. “Can I fix you a cup of tea?”
“I’m fine,” West said distractedly, his eyes on Dulcie’s hands as she held the cookie still for Elizabeth.
“Did your phone calls go okay?” Mom asked, sounding concerned.
“Uh, yeah,” he said. “I’m waiting for one more though. Just needed some information on something.”
There was a strange silence, and it hit him again that he was being weird and awkward. But he couldn’t seem to shake out of it.
“I think I’ll take that tea after all,” he said, getting up from the table too quickly. “Who else wants a cup?”
“I can get it,” Mom said worriedly.
“No, no,” he said. “Relax.”
He filled the kettle, his mind racing. It was so strange to be here in his parents’ kitchen, with the Christmas towels out, the scent of cookies in the air, and the Vermont Symphony Orchestra playing “Good King Wenceslas” on the radio, knowing that the beautiful young woman helping his daughter frost a cookie might be a small-time con artist.
Or worse.
As he waited for the water to heat, his phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw that it was Landon calling back.
“I’m just going to take this,” he said to no one in particular before practically running down the hall to the darkened front parlor.
“What have you got?” he asked when he was out of earshot.
“West… I’m not sure how to tell you this,” Landon said.
“Go on,” West said, his jaw tight with tension.
“Dulcinea Bloom has an arrest on her record,” Landon said. “For kidnapping.”
“ Kidnapping,” West echoed softly, his mind racing to understand.
“There was no conviction,” Landon was saying, but his voice sounded far away now. “And nothing before or after, but I’d be real careful with her around your daughter, buddy…”
The front door closed quietly, and West looked up, but must have missed whoever came in. It didn’t matter.
“I’ve got to go,” he said, cutting off the sheriff and putting his phone back in his pocket as he hurried back down the hall to the kitchen.
But when he got there, Dulcie’s chair was empty.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
“She just went to the powder room,” Mom said.
“Who came in?” West asked.
“Nobody,” his dad replied. “Is everything okay?”
West opened his mouth and closed it again. He couldn’t say anything about this in front of Elizabeth.
“Fine,” he said tightly. “I’m just going to wait for Dulcie.”
His parents exchanged a look, but he headed back down the hall anyway. When he reached the door to the powder room, it was wide open and no one was inside.
She left. I heard her leaving, not someone else coming in .
He took a deep breath to calm himself. That was fine. Dulcie didn’t have many places to go. It was snowing hard and she didn’t have a car.
She had probably just gone back to his place.
Does she realize I know?
“I’m going to run home really quick,” he yelled down the hall to his parents as he pulled his boots back on and shoved his arms into his coat. “I’ll be right back.”
The wind was at his back on the way home, but he still felt like he couldn’t move fast enough. And somehow, he was worried about Dulcie, even though he knew that she wasn’t the person he thought she was.
He broke into a jog and made it back to the house, where he burst in the front door and called out her name.
But the sound of his voice only echoed in the empty house.
He strode back to her bedroom, deliberately this time. She couldn’t hide from him in there. He needed to talk to her now .
But she wasn’t in the room at all—the door was open and it was dark inside. When he flicked on the light, he saw that things in the room had changed.
The bed was neatly made, with all the clothing he had bought for Dulcie folded and stacked up on it. On top of the stack of clothing was the envelope with the pay he had given her this morning. And beside it was a paper bag with the toy store logo and West’s name handwritten on it.
He opened the envelope first. Not a single dollar he’d paid her was missing.
Heart pounding, he grabbed the paper bag and checked inside.
He found the little princess figure that went with the castle he’d bought for Elizabeth’s Christmas present. The princess was the only item that hadn’t been available when he’d stopped in to make his purchase last week.
For Elizabeth was written on the inside of the bag.
West stood there for a moment holding the little doll in the palm of his hand.
Dulcie is gone…
He came back to himself and ran for the front door.
But when he got out to the front porch, his heart dropped to his stomach.
Something was different outside too.
He hadn’t noticed it on his way in, because he’d been so eager to track Dulcie down and question her.
His truck was gone.