Red Hot Santa Read online

  “Nobody who hasn’t felt his knife at their throat really knows about Dwight Gus Treadwell,” Kendall told them bitterly. “My God, if you guys made it to the ranch, so can he!”

  “I guess a couple of us could go take a look-see. . . .”

  They decided which of them should go, and two of the men left—reluctantly, Kendall could tell. It was cold and dark out there, and they didn’t think Treadwell was anywhere around yet. But they went, and for that she was grateful.

  Coats were removed and guns exposed while Kendall fixed a pot of coffee on the camp stove. “How did Joe know where this was?” she asked out loud as she took down mugs. In fact, now that she came to think about it, Joe had appeared to be quite familiar with the house. He’d known which rooms were where. He’d been familiar with the door and window locks. He also appeared to know these men.

  “Oh, this here was Joe and Miss Denise’s house before they went and got that divorce.”

  A mug slipped out of her hand and crashed noisily onto the tiled floor as Kendall spun around. “What?”

  The man flushed uncomfortably. “You didn’t know Joe was married to Denise before she married Adam Cameron?” He glanced nervously to the other two men. “Oh, shit. Was it a secret?”

  Kendall bent to pick up the shards scattered around her feet. “I’m sure it wasn’t a secret.” She tossed the broken crockery into the trash can under the sink. “It’s not as though we know each other. He’s not obligated to tell me about his past.” Especially not when he didn’t expect to ever see her again, she thought. There was realistic and there was realistic. Her chest felt as though she’d just taken a body blow. That was pretty frigging realistic.

  The radio came on in the other room. “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” belted out, filling the quiet, dimly lit kitchen.

  “Power’s back on,” one of the younger officers said.

  The older man smacked the back of his head. “Does it look like the power’s back on, McKenna?”

  “It’s the emergency radio,” Kendall told them absently. Music. Great. Just what she needed, she thought, pouring coffee into four bright red mugs and leaving the fifth empty until the other cop came back from his fire-lighting expedition.

  The men had already polished off most of the stale cookies. She was so not in the Christmas spirit. The house smelled of Christmas. It looked like Christmas. But, oh God, it didn’t feel like a joyous time of year at all. She was scared.

  Scared for herself because she knew a killer was close.

  Scared out of her mind for Joe who was out there alone.

  Scared for the four innocent people whose only thoughts had been to attend a fun, pre-Christmas weekend house party. Was Joe okay? Of course he was, Kendall told herself firmly, drinking the too-strong coffee just to feel the heat of it going down. He knew what he was doing. Apparently he also knew the area very well. Another point he might’ve brought up at some time in the past twenty-four hours. She gulped down half her coffee before she realized she’d added neither creamer nor Sweet ’n Low.

  The annoying song “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” blasted from the other room, jangling her nerves even more. She set her mug down with a little more force than necessary.

  “Getting on your last nerve, is it, ma’am?” the younger, blond officer asked, his eyes twinkling with amusement, or sympathy, or blast it—probably no feelings one way or the other at all. “Want for me to go tell Sonny to turn it off?”

  Kendall gave him a smile. “Just down would help, thanks.” She glanced at her watch. Joe had been gone for less than seven minutes. It felt like an eternity. No, it didn’t. She knew what an eternity felt like.

  She’d experienced an eternity in that single-wide trailer in the woods fifteen months ago. That was eternity.

  The officer took a cookie to go and ambled off in the direction of the great room. There was really nothing to say to the two men in the kitchen with her, and the silence stretched, helped only marginally by a rousing rendition of “Jingle Bell Rock.”

  She had just refilled her mug when a sound reverberated through the house. The retort was as loud as a gunshot. With a scream, she jumped, spilling scalding coffee down her front.

  Both men drew their guns in the blink of an eye.

  The older man relaxed. “Stand down. Door slammin’.”

  As the men reholstered their weapons Kendall felt light-headed and sick to her stomach. God, she wanted this to be over.

  “You okay, ma’am?”

  She nodded jerkily. Her midriff stung from contact with the hot coffee, which had soaked into her sweater. “I’ll just go and wash this off me.”

  “I’ll go with you,” the blond officer told her. He looked spooked, which didn’t fill her with confidence.

  She needed just a few minutes to compose herself, give herself a pep talk. Hell. Talk herself off the ceiling. Her heart was still racing. “The bathroom door is right there.” She pointed down a short hallway to show the door was visible from where they stood. “There’s no window; I’ll be safe in there for a few minutes.”

  She took the oil lamp, went in, and shut the door behind her. The room was decadently large. It had looked charming a couple of days ago when she’d placed red votive candles amid clusters of holly berries and glossy green leaves between the rocks of a small fountain on the counter. Right now it just looked—dark.

  She shrugged off her coat, which fortunately hadn’t been too splashed, and pulled her sweater over her head. The sting of the faint red mark across her middle was fading. She let herself look at the scars Treadwell had made on her body. Those too were fading. Much faster than those he’d made to her psyche.

  She glanced in the mirror over the vanity and gave a choked, semi-hysterical laugh. The way her hair was drying every which way made her look like a wild woman. And even in the flickering light her skin appeared pale. Fear did that to a girl.

  She took a deep, shuddering breath, held it, and exhaled slowly. And again.

  Better.

  She rinsed the coffee out of her sweater, then blotted it with a towel before turning on the wall hairdryer and holding it over the wet spot. After a while she hung the dryer over the towel rack and placed the sweater beneath it.

  She closed the lid on the toilet and sat down to wait, rubbing the goosebumps on her arms. The lamp flickered before settling into a steady flame. She felt her sweater, still damp. She glanced at her watch. Joe had been gone for fourteen minutes.

  Time stretched. She got up and pulled on her coat. The lining felt icy against her already chilled skin. Tugging the long zipper up to her throat, she paced. From the toilet to the vanity and back. Eleven steps. And back again. He said he’d be back in an hour. She could wait an hour.

  How could she possibly feel this deep connection with a man she’d just met? She didn’t know the how or the why. She knew only that when this was all over she wanted to explore what they’d started here.

  Joe and Denise had been married.

  Joe had lived in this house. Loved Denise in the house.

  Why hadn’t he told her?

  How long had they been married for goodness’ sake? Lord. Were any of the children his?

  The wick flickered and jumped in the air current every time she passed. Very creepy and atmospheric, she thought, watching the shadows form on the cream-and-gold wallpaper beside her as she paced back and forth.

  And now that she came to think of it—why would a door slam? There were no doors or windows open— Oh, God, she really was creeping herself out.

  Inhale.

  Exhale.

  The flame in the lamp leaped, then without warning, died, plunging the bathroom into stygian darkness. “Well, hell!” Kendall stood in the middle of the bathroom for a couple of seconds, waiting for her heart to leave her throat and race back into her chest.

  She opened the door. “Hey guys, anyone got a ma—”

  Dwight Gus Treadwell was leaning against the wall opposite the bathro
om. He smiled. “Hi, honey. I’m home.”

  Chapter Eight

  IT COULD BE ANY ONE OF THE MEN IN THE HOUSE STANDING there in the dark. He was little more than a shadowy figure, but recognition was instantaneous. Kendall knew who he was almost before she heard the voice. His voice.

  Heart pounding, throat dry, she jumped back and tried to slam the bathroom door closed with both hands. It was snatched out of her grasp. OhGodohGodohGod.

  They were close to the same height; in fact, now that she saw him again Kendall was stunned at how weedy he looked. In her nightmares he was always huge and brutish. But the reality was Dwight Gus Treadwell was medium. Medium height. Medium coloring. Medium features.

  But his strength was almost superhuman as he grabbed her by the front of her thick coat and yanked her out into the hallway. She fought him wildly, kicking and scratching, screaming at the top of her lungs.

  He struck her across the face, a punishing blow that had her sagging in his hold. “Tsk. Tsk. Now is that any way to welcome an old friend?” He jerked her upright, pulling her into the kitchen by her hair. His fine, light brown hair was wet, as were the shoulders of a too-large tan ski jacket. “Know how many shit cars I had to drive to get to you?” he demanded, shoving her in front of him. “Know how many dumbasses contributed to the cause and gave their lives so I could be here with you? Do you, huh? Do you have any idea how fucking cold it was hiding out in the trees waiting for just the right moment for us to be reacquainted?”

  He shoved her hard, and she staggered because he was still holding her hair. “Selfish.” Shove. “Selfish.” Shove. “Bitch.”

  “Go to hell where you belong.” Kendall stumbled before getting her feet under her. Her face throbbed. Her heart skittered, missed several beats, then raced, making her light-headed. Her brain was completely blank with terror. “You won’t get away with this. The place is crawling with cops,” she whispered through dry lips. Where were they?

  “Not really.” Treadwell smiled, using the blade of the knife in his other hand to indicate something across the room.

  She did not want to look. Bile rose in the back of her throat. It took several eternities for Kendall to force her eyes to shift from the faint glimmer of steel to the dark shapes almost lost in the darkness on the floor. “You killed them.”

  “Ooops. My bad.” He shoved her away from him. “Go on. Go. Run. Don’t make this easy for me, baby.” He slammed his fist into her shoulder. She staggered back a step. His closed fist wasn’t meaty or large. She’d been mesmerized, in a horrific way, by his hands before. They were narrow and pale, with fingers like a piano player’s—or a knife-wielding lunatic’s.

  “Go on. Run like the wind, pretty girl. Let old Dwight have a little fun to make up for all the aggravation you caused him.”

  She was already walking carefully backward, and his next shoulder slam made her totter. Her hip hit the center island with a dull thud. She fumbled to insert her hand into her coat pocket as she righted herself. It crossed her numb mind for all of a nanosecond that she should keep him talking until she could get her gun from her pocket. Think! Think! Talk! Treadwell likes to talk, to taunt. If he’s talking, he isn’t killing me.

  Now “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” was playing. The situation was surreal. God. If he’d killed the cops, what about Joe? The image of Joe’s body out there in the snow made her physically ill. Her fingers closed around the handle of the LadySmith. She whipped out the .22. The air smelled sweet, unpleasantly so. Nausea rose in her throat at the sickening reek of death.

  “There’ll be more cops,” she told him, keeping her voice steady as she clicked off the safety. “They won’t stop until they catch you and put you back in your cage.”

  He smiled, not acknowledging the small gun in her hand. “Maybe. But I’ll kill you first, pretty girl. I’ll just kill you dead fir—”

  Kendall pulled the trigger.

  Pop.

  The shot made no impact. He didn’t fall back or even flinch, making her doubt she’d hit him. Then slowly dark red bloomed on his upper arm through his coat.

  Everything moved in slow motion as though she were underwater, yet images bombarded her. The two dead men at her feet. The flickering lantern on the center island, casting dancing demonic shadows on Treadwell’s face as he kept coming, his expression feral, not slowed in the least by the shot. The knife, huge, slick, and already stained with blood—

  Pop.

  He staggered back with a howl of pain, clutching his ear with his free hand. Blood trickled between his fingers, and his eyes went black with rage. But he kept coming.

  “I’m gonna peel your skin off your body real slow, bitch. Run if you can.”

  Damn it. She hadn’t hit him where it would stop him. God, it barely slowed him down, and he kept coming like a psychotic Frankenstein. She didn’t waste another shot; she was in motion. Backing away, she felt a total sense of unreality as she fired again. This time she got him in the leg. Not bad. Except that she’d been aiming for his groin. He yelped in outrage, but other than putting a pause in his step, the wound didn’t stop him.

  Kendall twisted around, running flat-out toward the front door. She noticed a man’s body only seconds before she stumbled over him in the entry hall. She jumped at the last fraction of a second, then almost tripped over an askew area rug. Blood made the floor slick, but she skated until she got her balance.

  She screamed as Treadwell’s fingers tangled in her hair, yanking her toward him. She kicked backward, sending him into the slippery pool of blood. Losing his footing, he almost took her with him, but Kendall risked a few bald spots by jerking her hair out of his grip. He went careening into the opposite wall with an inhuman scream of rage.

  She darted out of the front door without looking back. The frigid air stole her breath. The sky had lightened to pewter. The landscape before her looked like a Currier and Ives rendered in black and white. The enormous snowplow loomed in the front yard. Were the keys in it? Did she have time to look? How fast did the damn thing go? Fast enough to outrun Treadwell? She couldn’t chance taking the time to find out.

  Sticking her gun into her pocket for now, she looked around frantically. Where to hide? Where the hell to hide? The son of a bitch was like the Energizer bunny. He wouldn’t stop. Not while he still had a breath in his body.

  Chest heaving, she gulped icy, painful air, hard and fast. The guest cottages were to the left. There were empty cottages and trees behind which she could hide. She hauled ass across the wide porch, knowing he was right behind her.

  A flash of silver arced down to her left. She tried to dodge. But his knife ripped through her left sleeve. No pain. Just an ice cold jolt as the blade sliced through fabric and down to skin. But it would hurt later. God, would it hurt later when adrenaline and fear weren’t anesthetizing her.

  Run. Run. Run.

  He tackled her from behind, taking her down. Her head slammed on the wood floor of the porch, hitting hard, but she tucked and rolled as she’d been taught, managing to stagger back to her feet before he could grab hold of her again. She turned to race down the five steps leading away from the house—

  He grabbed her arm, swinging her into a support column with teeth-jarring impact. Several of the little fir trees she’d decorated yesterday toppled over. Lights, garland, and faux candied fruit bounced down the steps. He pulled her up by her collar, then clamped her throat in a one-handed vise. “Stupid. Stupid bitch.” His voice, as always, was chillingly calm. Which made it more frightening and ominous than if he’d been yelling at the top of his lungs. “You ruined it. You ruined it all.” He smashed the hilt of the knife into her cheekbone. She screamed with the blinding, white-hot pain. Brilliant dots danced in her vision as she struggled to stay conscious. It was a losing battle. There was a fuzzy buzz in her ears, then she slipped into silence.

  Minutes, hours, days later, Kendall came to in a rush of cold and bone deep terror. Oh, God. Oh, God. Treadwell had her slung over
his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

  Déjà vu.

  They weren’t in the front yard. Her hair hung over her face, and she surreptitiously parted the strands. She couldn’t see the house. Or the snowplow. Or Joe.

  Joe.

  Her arm was on fire. The pain intense. Nausea choked her. She heard nothing over the blood pounding in her ears, although the trees must be rustling in the wind, and his boots surely must be making a rhythmic sound as he trudged through the virgin snow.

  The wind whipped her hair silently about her head as she hung there like a bat, upside down, almost blinded by the dancing, swirling red strands and the blood rushing to her brain. She forced herself to remain limp. But it wasn’t easy. Every fight and flight instinct screamed at her to do something. She wanted to ask him about Joe but didn’t dare. She focused on that for a second, reasoning that if Treadwell had killed Joe, he’d have told her as much. She’d learned that about him during her captivity. Treadwell liked to regale her with the gory details of past trophies.

  She knew she just had to hang on long enough for Joe to realize that Treadwell had her. Just long enough for him to find her. Please God make it soon. Oh, God. Please . . . Her arm wasn’t totally useless. She might not be able to move it, but hot red blood dripped freely from her fingertips onto the pure white snow. She was leaving a trail of blood in Treadwell’s footprints. She could only pray that he didn’t look back.

  She swallowed convulsively, a blend of bile and terror. She didn’t want him to realize she was conscious. She could . . . would . . . as soon as . . . Unfortunately she ruined the element of surprise by puking down his back.

  “Jesus! You fucking bitch!” Treadwell growled, flinging her off his shoulder so she landed face first in the snow.

  He hauled her to her feet, but somehow she managed to break away. Run. Run. Run. She felt as if she was looking through the bottom of a thick glass. Tree branches slapped at her, though she’d stopped feeling pain long ago. Clutching her arm, she ran. Her life depended on it.