Chapter 17
Nick pulled up in front of the police station, disheartened and hovering on desperation.
After driving every little street, he hadn’t come any closer to finding Mary or her father.
The longer she remained missing, the stronger the possibility he wouldn’t find her.
Or wouldn’t find her alive. Not with a trigger-happy Cobra on the loose.
“Damn it!” He slammed his palm against the steering wheel and then jumped when someone pounded against the driver’s side window.
With his hand already on his SIG Sauer, he stopped short of pulling it from the holster. Beating on the window of his rental car was Chris Moss.
Nick slung the door open and jumped out.
“Mr. St. Claire, I’ve been looking all over for you. I was just about to go to the police when you drove up.”
Nick grabbed the boy’s shoulders. “Where’s Mary?”
“That’s just it. She sent me to get you. She has the package and is trading it for her father as we speak.”
A cold wash of fear pierced Nick straight through the heart. The fool woman didn’t know who she was up against. Cobra didn’t negotiate. He killed. “Where?”
“At Santa’s house.”
As Nick dove into the driver’s seat, he shouted through the open door, “Get the police over there. Now!” Before he even shut his door, he shifted in reverse, spinning out of the icy parking lot onto Santa Claus Lane.
Please, God, let him be in time to save Mary.
She’d managed to crawl under his skin, and he wanted more than anything to get to know her better.
He had only begun to scratch the surface of Mary’s magic and that of year-round Christmas Towne.
If something happened to Mary, he’d lose all chances of capturing the magic for himself.
And for once in his life, he wanted to experience the enchantment of Christmas, a time of year up until now, he’d avoided.
For the first time in his life, Nick prayed.
When Nick reached the cottage, he slammed on his brakes and the car skidded to a halt against a mound of icy snow left by the snowplows.
He leaped from the car and ran for the front door. It was locked. If he picked the lock, he’d waste valuable time and risk alerting the assassin to his presence. Nick abandoned the front door and dove around the side of the cottage.
Adrenaline pumped through Nick’s veins, powering his limbs into action. Every second counted. He raced for the back door and found it locked, the dead bolt as strong as on the front of the house. Windows were positioned high on the sides of the house, too high to make climbing in easy.
The tunnel.
Nick ran for the back of Christmas Towne and dug into the snow once again piled against the back door. When he found the elf statue, he reached inside the cavity for the key. His heart skipped several beats when he didn’t find it.
Dropping to his knees, he shucked his gloves and sifted through snow bare-handed, his search nearing frantic.
Cobra wasn’t known for dragging out an execution.
He wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger, an equal-opportunity assassin, he didn’t spare a second thought if his target happened to be a woman.
Nick’s freezing fingers touched on icy metal, and he pulled the key from the snow, a wash of relief quickly shoved aside. He inserted the key in the door handle and flung the door open. Without the alarm combination, he had only seconds to get to Mary.
He raced through the aisles of boxes and bins.
When he reached the basement door, alarm signals blared to life, blasting his eardrums, red and white lights strobed at the inside corners of the building.
Nick only hoped whoever was inside Mary’s house couldn’t hear the cacophony emanating from the Christmas Towne store.
Nick scrambled down the steps, closing the door behind him to douse the noise from above. In the basement, the alarm wasn’t quite as loud. He hurried across the floor to the closet in the far corner and flung the mop and bucket out of the way.
Something didn’t smell right. An acrid scent overpowered the musky, moldy smell of damp basement. Nick slid behind the water heater and pushed open the wooden door. Smoke filtered through the tunnel into the closet, burning his eyes.
“Mary!” Nick pulled his turtleneck collar up over his mouth and nose, ducked low and raced to the end of the tunnel. He still had to get through Mary’s cubby into the basement. If smoke already stung his eyes and throat, what would the basement be like on the other side of that hidden doorway?
His pace quickened. Mary needed him, he couldn’t just give up and go back.
When he reached the cubby, he curled his shoulder in and threw himself through the secret door. Unsure what or who he’d find, he hit the floor on his side and rolled.
Smoke hit him, burning his eyes and lungs.
Crouching low, he shined his flashlight into the haze, unable to make out much.
If he could get to the door leading up into the house, he might have a chance to get to Mary.
Flames licked up a timber beam, racing for the floor joists that held the upper story aloft.
He didn’t have much time before fire consumed the house and even less time before he succumbed to smoke inhalation.
Nick blinked smoke-induced tears from his eyes and set off across the floor. Halfway to the staircase, he ran into something. He shone his light down at a body, sitting in a chair. A white-haired, bearded man.
Santa!
Nick pulled a knife from his boot, cut the bonds holding the man to the chair and eased him to the floor. Could Mary be down here as well?
Now crawling on his hands and knees, Nick felt around the floor, until he came upon a woman’s body. Blood soaked her clothing and Nick held his breath as he shone the light into her face.
Jasmine Claus’s blank eyes stared up into the light, the pupils unresponsive. Nick didn’t have to check for a pulse. The woman was dead.
Smoke filtered through his turtleneck collar, but he pulled it aside and yelled, “Mary!”
Coughing sounded from a few feet away. “I’m here.”
Nick scurried across to her and pulled her into his arms. “We have to get you out of here.” He tugged her collar up over her mouth and nose and, hooking an arm beneath hers, dragged her back the way he’d come.
When they passed Santa’s inert form, Mary dug in her heels. “I’m not leaving without my father.”
“I can’t help you both out at the same time. Let me get you out, and then I’ll come back.”
Mary pushed away from Nick, tears trickling down her soot-covered face. She reached down and grabbed one of her father’s arms and dragged him a few inches across the floor.
Nick handed the flashlight to Mary. “Hold this.” He lifted her father from the floor and slung him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and ran for the cubby, the smoke so thick that he hit the wall first and then had to feel his way along it to the portrait of George Washington.
Mary pulled the secret door open.
“You first,” Nick commanded.
Mary dove through and reached back as Nick dumped her father through the opening.
He fell like deadweight onto Mary knocking her to the floor.
Nick clambered over the two, closing the door behind them, effectively blocking some of the smoke from entering the room.
“We don’t have much time. The tunnel is too narrow for me to carry your father out.” Nick said. “Go and find help.”
Mary burst into a coughing fit, her eyes tearing. “I can’t leave you two here.”
Nick grasped her face between his hands and made her look at him. “You have to. We don’t stand a chance if you don’t. I promise I’ll be working my hardest to get your father out of here, but I’ll need help getting him up from the basement.”
“But I can’t lose you both.” She grabbed his hand and leaned her face into it, pressing a kiss to his palm.
“Don’t worry. I plan on sticking around.
I want to get to know a certain woman named Mary Christmas a little better.
I might even ask her out on a real date when this all settles down.
” He smiled, pulling her close so that he could press his lips to hers.
“Now take the flashlight and run as fast as you can.”
Mary staggered backward, then turned and raced down the tunnel.
Nick’s gaze followed her until the light disappeared around the water heater. Left in the dark, he coughed and struggled to his feet.
That Santa Claus hadn’t woken up through all of this had him concerned, but he couldn’t waste valuable time worrying at this point. He had to get the man out of danger.
Nick hooked his arms under the man’s shoulders and dragged him toward the tunnel.
The door to the cubby wouldn’t last long once the fire found its way across the basement.
Already the smoke thickened in the tunnel, making Nick’s lungs struggle to provide oxygen to the rest of his body.
If he didn’t get out quickly, it wouldn’t matter.
The back of Mary’s head throbbed and her lungs burned, but she didn’t dare stop to catch her breath or she’d fall into another coughing fit and never make it out.
Her feet stumbled twice on the basement steps leading into the storage room of the Christmas Towne store.
Alarms blasted her ears and lights blinked off and on.
Mary ran out into the front of the store.
Through the double set of glass doors, she could see police cars, fire engines and emergency vehicles skidding to a stop in the street out front.
Too exhausted to think, she ran to open the store doors, making it through the first set, but she bounced off the outer doors kept locked when the store was closed.
The doors could only be unlocked using a key.
Mary sobbed and ran back into the store.
Nick and her father didn’t have time for her to find a key.
Mary grabbed a wooden reindeer modeled into a rocking horse, ran back to the outer doors and slammed the toy into the double-paned glass.
One pane cracked and splintered. On the second swing, the second pane shattered and Mary almost fell through.
A fireman must have heard the glass break because he turned toward the truck and grabbed an ax. Then he skidded across the snow and ice toward her.
Mary leaned toward the jagged hole. “I need help. There are people trapped in the basement!” Her voice came out in a croak, barely loud enough to carry over the store’s alarm. “Help!”
With his ax, the fireman hooked the door and pulled hard. The door jerked loose of the locks and flung wide. The fireman rushed inside. “Where are they?”
“In the basement. You have to hurry.” Mary fought free of the fireman’s grip and ran back the way she’d come, weaving through the aisles and Christmas decorations to the rear of the store. When she reached the stairs to the basement, smoke filtered up.
“I’ll take it from here.” The man pushed past her, intent on going it alone.
“You can’t. You won’t know where to go.” Before he could stop her, Mary slipped around him and leaped down the steps two at a time, the fireman clumping down behind her, hurrying to keep up.
More smoke billowed from the back of the basement where the tunnel connected the two buildings.
“Oh God, please don’t let me be too late,” Mary sobbed. She ducked low and ran for the closet at the back of the basement. “They’re through here!” Mary pressed against the wall and slipped through the opening.
The fireman yelled, “Mary!” Decked out in all his gear, he couldn’t squeeze past the water heater.
The smoke was worse than when she’d left the tunnel and she couldn’t see anything, even with the flashlight.
“Nick! Where are you, damn it! Don’t you die on me!
It’s a lousy way to get out of a real date.
” Tears streamed down her face as she waited for the fireman to slip out of his gear and squeeze through the opening.
As soon as he was through, Mary inched down the tunnel, coughing and gagging, the smoke so thick she couldn’t see two feet in front of her.
“Get out, Mary! I’ll find them.” The fireman grabbed her arm and yanked her back.
“I want to help.”
He pushed her back toward the closet. “You’ll help more by bringing the others down here.”
“Mary?” Nick’s voice called out from the haze, scratchy and choking. A coughing fit burst from the darkness and Nick’s back came into view, as he dragged her father by the arms through the tunnel. “Do as the fireman says.”
“Nick!” Mary stepped forward, ignoring the smoke, the burning in her eyes and lungs. Nick was alive and he had her father.
Nick turned toward her, his sooty forehead creased in a frown. “Go, damn it!”
Mary backed out of the tunnel, slipping around the water heater to stand in the basement of the store. The fireman came out first and between him and Nick, they wrestled her father through and laid him out on the floor.
Mary ran up the steps to the storage room and was met by Chris leading several medical technicians carrying a backboard. “Oh, thank God.”
They pushed her aside and descended into the basement. Mary leaned against a wall. Her strength gone and no adrenaline left to stiffen her legs, she sank to the floor and let her face fall into her hands. Sobs racked her body and she burst into a coughing fit. The coughing turned to wheezing.
“Mary?” Chris squatted next to her, his young face creased in a frown. “Are you all right?”
Unable to speak, she shook her head. Gray clouds crept into the sides of her vision. Gray clouds that had nothing to do with smoke.
“We need a medic here!” Chris’s voice came to her from a long way away. The alarms were mere beeps of noise as if muffled by giant pillows.
Pillows sounded good. She needed to rest her eyes. They stung from the smoke. Her eyelids drifted closed.