The Last Noel (7 page)

But not this time. The basement offered nothing but the Ping-Pong table, paddles and balls. It was swept clean. There wasn't even a broom.

But, if she'd found something, what good would it have done? There were two of them. Or three, if Craig regained a semblance of strength.

No! her mind raged. Craig knew this was her family. He would never hurt her, and he would never hurt them. Or would he? What the hell did she know about him anymore? She hadn't seen him since he had coldly broken things off and walked away.

Had he become a dope addict? Was that what had changed his life? He hadn't looked like he was on anything out there in the car. He had just looked injured. Had one of the others hurt him? Or had he been injured while attacking an earlier victim?

She crept up the stone stairs that led to the pantry and the servants' stairway in the back of the house.

They didn't have any servants, of course, but the house had been built back when there was huge money in Western Massachusetts. The size and isolation of the place—and the cost of heating it—had been the reasons her family had gotten such a good deal on the house years ago.

She had hoped to escape to the neighbors' house for help, but her nearest neighbors were at least half a mile away. In the storm, she wasn't sure that she could find her way through the forest between the properties, but if she went by the road it would be more like two miles, and she knew she couldn't last that long in this weather.

And she wasn't even sure the Morrisons would be there or that she could get in. Artie Morrison had told her father that he was buying a condo in Boca where he could head for winter, now that he and his wife were retired and the kids had moved away.

After that, the next closest place was the jewelry and antique shop, and that was certainly closed for the holiday. Mr. Hudson was sick. He had cancer. Her mother had told her sadly that he was going to L.A. for the holidays, and that sometime during January, he and Ethan, his son, would come back together and close up for good, transferring what remained of the stock out to California, where Ethan and his wife now lived. After that…

Another human being was at least five miles away.

There was no hope of driving the cars; they were in the garage and the snow had already blocked the door. She'd had high hopes for the invaders' car, which was how she'd come to discover Craig in the first place. But even if he hadn't been in it, even if she hadn't been stunned into shock, she couldn't have driven it anywhere. Its nosedive into a snowbank had left the hood accordioned. That car was going nowhere.

Obviously they intended to steal a car when the snow cleared. A car no one would need—because they wouldn't leave anyone alive….

Stop, she commanded herself. She didn't know who these men were. Maybe they were so confident of their ability to get away that they didn't care if anyone knew their names. Yes, they carried guns, but that didn't mean they would use them.

But they might. There was one dead lamp upstairs to prove it.

At least it was just a lamp. At least the scrawny bastard who called himself Scooter hadn't shot a member of her family. Yet.

Breathe,
she told herself.
Breathe. Think.

All right, so she couldn't get help because she couldn't get anywhere alive. And dead, she would do them no good at all. But she wasn't doing anyone any good hovering in the basement, either.

If only her father kept a gun.

But he didn't.

He'd never even kept a gun at the pub, joking that he and her mother might shoot each other. But the truth was, he didn't believe in guns. He didn't like them. He had always been afraid that if you drew a gun and didn't kill your enemy immediately, that gun might be taken away and turned on you or another innocent. Besides, the pub was a stone's throw from a police station.

So there was no prayer of finding a gun in the house, but how did you combat a gun without a gun of your own?

There had to be a way.

She moved carefully up to the pantry, then stood dead still, listening. Voices didn't filter back this far with any clarity, but she could tell they were all in the living room, and she could hear the man named Scooter speaking, followed by her mother. After a minute her ears became attuned to the acoustics, and she began to make out parts of their sentences.

“You took a nasty blow…head,” her mother said. “I cleaned…have quite a cut there…your hairline. You…careful not to sleep for a while.”

“He's all right. Dinner…getting cold,” Scooter complained.

“You're the one…had…out for him,” Quintin snapped.

“I could…frozen…death!”

That was Craig's voice. And he had snapped back at Quintin, apparently comfortable enough with the other man to show his anger. Her heart sank. He
was
with them.

“Let's…back to the kitchen,” Quintin said.

“I need…first aid kit away,” Jamie said.

“Leave it,” Quintin told him.

“What should…do with him?” Scooter asked.

Him? Kat frowned, then realized with relief that he had to be talking about Craig.

“He…stay…stare…tree for a while,” Quintin said.

Kat heard shuffling and people talking over each other, presumably getting Craig settled in the living room, followed by the sounds of everyone else returning to the kitchen. Without a plan—or a weapon—she knew it was time to retreat. She used the sound of their approach to cover her own escape back up the servants' stairs to the second floor.

 

David O'Boyle sat at his own table, completely powerless, in a fury, feeling beyond humiliation or help. He was trying with everything in him to keep his mouth shut. He was praying with the same words over and over again: God, help. Oh, God, help. God, help. Help….

He had met his wife's eyes so many times, had seen the plea in them. There was nothing they could do that wouldn't get them killed except play this game.

Great game.

Scuzzy criminals who were probably cold-blooded murderers were sitting at the dinner table.
His
dinner table. They were complimenting the food, drinking his liquor, making conversation as if they belonged there.

How the hell was he supposed to keep from throwing himself at one of them, even if it meant taking a bullet? But he couldn't take the risk that the other one would shoot Skyler or one of the kids. God help him, if there was just one of them…But there were two.

No, now there were three.

Of course, one was prone and possibly passed out in the living room, so at the moment, he didn't count. And he was younger, maybe not as bloodthirsty. Or maybe more so.

Hell.

He looked over at Paddy.

Fuck the old bird. He was chatting away with their vicious guests as if they were long-lost comrades from Dublin, filling their glasses again and again with whiskey, and saying the same things over and over, as if he had Alzheimer's.

Filling their glasses…

Was he hoping to get them drunk?

Maybe so, and it wasn't such a bad idea, now that he thought about it. Hell, it was better than anything he'd come up with.

No heroics. Quintin had sworn that he would kill Skyler, and David had the feeling that he'd do it.

“So when did you leave Ireland, old man?” Quintin asked, accepting another shot of Skyler's best single malt.

“The summer of sixty-four,” Paddy said. “I'd had it with the violence.” He winked at the table. “The minute I got to the States, I decided to be a Buddhist.”

“Uncle Paddy, you're not a Buddhist,” Jamie said.

“He's an alcoholic. That's his religion,” Frazier told Quintin and Scooter. But there was no malice in his words. He was almost smiling as he looked at his uncle.

“'Tis true. I do worship a fine single malt,” Paddy admitted.

“So then you opened a pub?” Scooter asked

“No, sir, I did not. My sainted and now dearly departed sister and her husband opened the pub. I merely worked in it.”

“He thought he was the social liaison,” David heard himself say. But there was no malice in his voice, either.

I'm sorry I ridiculed you and wanted you out of my house,
David thought. He was sorry that he'd argued with Frazier about the tree, too. He was sorry that he had so often been quick to find fault with all his children.

He stared across the table at Frazier. They might all end up dying in the hours to come. But not all of them, because he wouldn't let that happen. When the time came…

When would that time be?

He didn't know, but when it did, he would throw himself on one of the men and hope the others would overpower the second man left behind. And that someone would live.

But it wouldn't come to that for a while. Not while the wind and snow continued to rage. Not while the invaders were still being fed. Not while his family continued to entertain them.

David wanted to tell Brenda that she was welcome in his house, that he was glad she and Frazier made each other happy.

But he didn't want to draw attention to the women in his house. For all he knew, Quintin and Scooter could be rapists as well as killers. In fact, he was afraid that the only reason nothing like that had happened was because Quintin wanted two guns available at a moment's notice.

He went back to trying futilely to think of a way.

 

She came down the stairs in silence, a vengeful fire goddess with the red of her hair blazing against the white parka she'd found in her parents' closet.

Craig felt an instant rush of panic and looked toward the kitchen. There was no sign of anyone returning to the living room, but Quintin and Scooter knew nothing about Kat, and he was desperate for it to stay that way.

“What the hell are you doing?” he mouthed as she walked toward him.

“What the hell are
you
doing?” she mouthed in return.

“Listen—” he whispered when she was close enough to hear him.

“No, you listen. If you let them harm a single hair on the head of any one of my family, you are a dead man, do you understand?”

“I told you to get the hell out of here,” he said.

He tried to sit up, but though the room swam, he resisted the temptation to go under again. She touched his face, and her fingers were soft and cool.

“You're burning up,” she said, stepping back.

“Get out of here,” he told her.

“I need to know—from your lips—that you're with them.”

“You don't understand.” He broke off when he heard a chair scrape against the kitchen floor. They could be heading back. “Get out of here, Kat, now.”

She had heard it, too, but she paused, staring at him in a way that made his insides curl. “Do you have a gun, too? Are you going to shoot someone?”

“I had a gun…. Quintin took the bullets.”

“So you
are
with them,” she said in disgust.

“No.”

Another chair scraped back.

“Get out of here,” he told her again.

That time she listened and silently disappeared back up the stairs just as Quintin came into the room.

“You're sitting up. Feeling better?” Quintin asked.

“Yeah. No thanks to you, you asshole.”

“Careful. You're the asshole, and I can make you a dead asshole real easy. In fact, I
should
shoot you. That would guarantee good behavior out of this family.”

“Great. Why?” Craig demanded, making sure to keep his eyes on Quintin. Not to let them wander. Kat was on the landing, he was certain. Listening. Watching, perhaps.

“Why?” Quintin demanded, as if surprised.

“Yeah. Why bother with them?” Craig asked.

“I like the food. The comfort. The warmth of the house. Hell, I even like the feeling of having a family for Christmas.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“What else is there to do? There's no way to go anywhere in this storm, so tonight, we're all just one big happy family,” Quintin said.

“The storm will stop eventually. What then?”

“And then we leave. I may let you live then, and I may not,” Quintin said.

“What about them?” Craig demanded, lowering his voice.

Quintin smiled. “What about them?”

“What happens to them?”

Quintin shrugged. “Well, tomorrow is Christmas. Not a good day for anyone to die.”

“And then?” Craig persisted.

“Then,” Quintin said very softly, “it won't be Christmas anymore.”