The Best American Mystery Stories 2016

Not that Rachel would have done any of that. She had no real friends, not ones she had contacted since her marriage, and she wasn’t about to contact her husband. Her cell was gone, left in the Lexus with her purse and her old identification.

  Since she got on the road, she was a different woman, although she still felt the same inside.

  A knock on the door made her jump out of her skin. She glanced at Anne-Marie, to see if her daughter had heard it.

  She hadn’t.

  Rachel got up and almost went to the door, thinking it was probably Luke from the desk. Then she wondered if he would just come up with the Santa bag. Wouldn’t he wait for her call?

  She swallowed hard, heart pounding.

  If something feels wrong, Helen had told her, then it probably is wrong. Your subconscious sees something you don’t. Get out of that situation.

  Only there was no way out of here. Except the window, which was probably blocked against opening, not to mention the jump from the third floor into the damn polar express or whatever the hell that cold was called.

  Rachel got up and moved silently away from the kitchen area, finding the house phone. She hit 0 and Luke answered.

  “You ready for the presents now?” he asked cheerfully.

  “You didn’t just knock on my door?” she asked very quietly, and even though she tried to control it, she could hear the fear in her voice.

  “No, ma’am—damn. I didn’t see him go up there. There’s a Santa on security camera. He’s outside your door. You expecting someone?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Didn’t hire a Santa?”

  “No.” And now she was chilled. She glanced at her daughter. What had Anne-Marie been trying to tell her?

  “Okay.” Luke no longer sounded cheerful. He sounded businesslike. “He doesn’t belong here. I’ll kick him out.”

  “No,” Rachel said. “He might be dangerous.”

  “A Santa?”

  “How did he get past you?” she asked. “And how did he know we were here, in this room?”

  Luke cursed. “Good point. We don’t have security tonight either. I’m going to have to call the cops. You hang tight and don’t open that door.”

  And he hung up before she could tell him no cops. The last thing she wanted was cops.

  She reached into the purse she was carrying tonight and took out the stun gun that SYT had left in the van with mace and a few other protective things. Her hand was shaking terribly.

  “Open the door, Rachel,” said a male voice she didn’t recognize. “I’m sure we can find a way to convince your husband that this was all a misunderstanding.”

  Tears threatened. They’d found her. Gil’s army, just like she knew they would.

  She didn’t go near the door. She turned up the television a little more, so that Anne-Marie wouldn’t hear, then crept toward the bathroom, keeping the bathroom wall between her and the little corridor that led to the door.

  “I’m thinking we fly back to somewhere near Winnemucca and I bring you and the little one out of the wilderness, saving your lives. It might mean you need to lick your fingers and stand outside in this cold for fifteen minutes, because frostbite would really help the story, but if we do that, Gil won’t know a damn thing.”

  Rachel wanted to ask why he would do that, this mystery Santa, but she didn’t. She knew better than to engage. If she engaged, she had already lost.

  She held the stun gun like it was a real gun. Helen had told her not to get a real gun, not with Anne-Marie in the van. Because Rachel didn’t know how to use it and, Helen said, too many bad things happened around children and guns.

  “You’re not saying anything,” the man continued. “I know you want to.”

  She peered around the wall. The safety chain was on, and she’d deadbolted the door, plus pushed in that so-called security lock. The only way in was for him to knock the door down, right? Or she had to let him in.

  That’s why he was talking. He wanted her to let him in.

  “Mommy?” Anne-Marie asked.

  Rachel put a finger to her lips, and then she covered her ears so that Anne-Marie would too. They used to do that when Gil got home from a long day, angry and wanting someone to take it out on. Rachel would mime instructions to her daughter: remain quiet and don’t listen.

  “Is Daddy here?” Anne-Marie whispered, and Rachel heard the fear in her voice.

  Rachel shook her head. She then indicated that Anne-Marie should join her, because there was protection against this wall, particularly if the man outside wanted to shoot them.

  She didn’t know if he did. She wasn’t sure what the point of that was. But she knew that sometimes Gil could be irrational, and she had no idea who worked for him, or why they felt it necessary to carry so many weapons.

  “We can make this work,” the man outside the room said.

  Anne-Marie grabbed her dog and her slippers, then tucked in behind her mother. Her daughter’s warmth made Rachel feel stronger.

  “I bet you’re wondering why I’m willing to help you,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about it for the last three days as I watched you drive. It’s pretty simple, really: you have a big allowance from that husband of yours. You just give me part of it, under the table, and you’ll be free and clear. Back in the arms of your family, safe and sound. You don’t want to be on the road like this forever, do you?”

  She closed her eyes. Maybe a few years ago she would have done that. Maybe. But she’d seen Gil get mad at Anne-Marie too many times. She’d seen him clench his fists and unclench them like he meant to hit her.

  And Anne-Marie cringed a lot, even now.

  “Open the door, Rachel,” the man outside the door said.

  God, what would he tell the police? That she had faked her death in Nevada? There were no restraining orders against her husband, no calls to 911, nothing to prove her claims of abuse. There was nothing that would prevent him from flying out here and getting her and Anne-Marie.

  Rachel was back where she started, no matter what.

  She stood slowly, putting her finger to her lips. She wasn’t sure she could shut him up, but she had to try. The stun gun, as Helen had told her, could knock down a man five times her size. And then she could—what? Stab him with a butter knife? Use his gun if he carried one?

  This hotel clearly had security video, and if she killed him, it would be recorded.

  She shouldn’t have listened to Helen. Rachel should have known that this plan would all go to hell.

  She was never going to escape Gil, never, no matter who made the promises or how big the network was or how much money they threw at the problem.

  It had been a dream all along, and she had let herself believe it.

  “Honey,” Rachel said to Anne-Marie, knowing that she would be damning her daughter too. “I’m going to—”

  Sirens. They got louder and then they cut off. But red and blue lights reflected in the windows.

  At least the police had arrived before she could do something stupid. Before she even tried to hurt this unknown man. Not that it would have helped.

  Now he was going to the police station, and he’d give them her identity, and—

  “I thought you said someone was in the hall,” a new male voice said outside her room.

  “I did.” That voice belonged to Luke. “I’ll show you on the security feed. Send your guys out looking. He couldn’t have gone far. Some weirdo in a Santa suit. He was menacing my guests.”

  And then they walked off, still talking.

  Rachel’s heart kept pounding. Slowly she sank back down, keeping a death grip on the stun gun. After a few more minutes of silence, she put her fingers to her lips again, then quietly, in a crouch, made her way to her purse.

  She took out Nebraska’s phone and hit the preprogrammed number.

  “Hi,” she said breathlessly. “I’m Rachel—”

  “I know who you are,” said an unfamiliar female voice on the other end of the line. “What’
s happened?”

  Rachel told her, in a low voice, then turned away, adding, “He’s seen the van. He knows who we are. He knows where we are. I just wanted to say thanks, but I’m going to have to go home now. Because there’s nothing anyone can do—”

  “You stay put,” the woman said. “I’ll have someone meet you in fifteen minutes. We’ll have a new vehicle for you and a safe place to stay.”

  “But how can you get here so fast?”

  “Omaha, right?” the woman asked. “Thank God you listened and didn’t stop in a small town. Then it might’ve taken hours for us to reach you. But you’re okay there. It might take twenty minutes, seeing it’s Christmas Eve, but no more than that. You stay on the line with me while you wait, okay?”

  “Okay,” Rachel said.

  She heard the tapping of a keyboard, some voices, and someone say, “We got it.”

  Then she glanced at Anne-Marie.

  “It was Santa,” Anne-Marie said like an accusation.

  Not like an accusation. It was an accusation.

  Rachel nodded.

  “He was everywhere,” Anne-Marie said.

  Rachel closed her eyes for just a minute. Like that stupid song. He sees you . . .

  And she had seen him. In truck stops and cafés, smoking outside a gas station in Rawlins. She’d thought him a different Santa every time.

  Santa was everywhere this season.

  It was the perfect disguise.

  The house phone rang and she almost tossed the stun gun into the air. She made herself set it down.

  “What’s that?” the woman on the other end of the burner cell asked.

  “The hotel phone,” Rachel said.

  It stopped ringing.

  “Have you talked to anyone?” the woman asked.

  “I called the guy at the desk,” Rachel said. “When someone knocked on my door. I wanted to see if it was housekeeping or something.”

  “Then call the desk,” the woman said. “Tell him you’re all right. You are all right, aren’t you?”

  If she didn’t think about her elevated blood pressure, then maybe she was. “Yes,” Rachel said.

  She picked up the hotel phone and hit 0 again. “Sorry, I—”

  “It’s all right,” Luke said. “The police scared him off. I’m the one who should apologize. They couldn’t find him, but at least he’s not outside the door. They’ll talk to you if you want.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s okay.”

  He hadn’t been caught. She didn’t know if that was good news or bad.

  “Tell him that Candy Mills is coming for you,” the woman’s voice said on the burner cell. “Tell him it’s okay to let Candy come see you.”

  Rachel told Luke that, even though it felt odd.

  “I think I see her pulling in,” he said. “I’ll send her right up.”

  Then he hung up.

  “I don’t know anyone named Candy Mills,” Rachel said, and she would remember. The name was weird.

  “I’m texting a photo and the pass phrase now,” the woman said. “She’ll give you the pass phrase. You’ll recognize her from the photo.”

  “Okay,” Rachel said.

  “And I’ll be on the phone to hear everything.”

  The cell vibrated in her hand. Rachel looked at it. A middle-aged woman with a weathered face smiled tentatively at the camera.

  There was a knock on the door. “Rachel?”

  This time it was a woman’s voice.

  She said, “There’s an awful lot of Sweet Young Things on the road.”

  The pass phrase.

  And the moment of truth.

  Rachel walked to the door, then peered through the peephole. A woman wearing a heavy jacket let down the hood, revealing a version of that weathered face from the photo.

  Rachel crossed her fingers, regretting the fact that she’d left the stun gun behind. She opened the door slowly, keeping the security chain on.

  “Candy Mills,” the woman said.

  “Rachel,” Rachel said, because for the life of her she couldn’t remember her fake name. “And this is Anne-Marie.”

  She turned to point out her daughter, and her breath caught.

  Anne-Marie was standing behind them, pointing the stun gun at the woman. She looked fierce. Her hands didn’t tremble at all.

  But Rachel’s did. She nearly dropped the cell. The woman on the line was asking what was going on.

  “Give me the gun, Anne-Marie,” Rachel said quietly.

  “We don’t know her,” Anne-Marie said.

  “I know, honey, but it’s okay,” Rachel said.

  “Do you know Santa?” Anne-Marie asked the woman.

  The woman looked confused. She glanced at Rachel, who drew in her breath slowly. She couldn’t help. She didn’t dare help. But she tried to convey that the usual answer was the wrong answer.

  “I’ve never met him,” the woman said after a moment.

  Anne-Marie considered that. Then she set the gun down. Rachel hurried toward it.

  The woman closed the door. Rachel picked up the stun gun and put it in her purse. Then she wrapped her arms around Anne-Marie. Anne-Marie clung to her.

  “We’re going to get you out of here,” the woman said. “You’ll spend the holiday at my house. It’s not much, but it’ll do. Christmas put a kink in our plans. But by the twenty-sixth we should have a new van for you, and new stuff. You’ll have to leave everything behind.”

  “Except Anne-Marie’s toys,” Rachel said. “I checked them. They don’t have a tracker.”

  She thought about the Santa bag at the front desk. Maybe they could pick those up on the way out, and she could thank Luke.

  The woman—Candy Mills, if that was her real name—frowned. “I’ll double-check. I have some equipment.”

  She didn’t seem too concerned.

  “Will he find us again?” Rachel figured it was okay to ask. Anne-Marie had been asking for the entire trip.

  “No,” Candy Mills said. “We think if there was a tracker, it was on the van. We’ll know for sure tomorrow. You said he followed from Winnemucca, right?”

  “He had a whole plan,” Rachel said.

  “Well, we’ll take care of that now. He shouldn’t be hard to find.” She glanced at the tree, gave it a once-over that looked a bit sad.

  “You sure you can protect us?” Rachel asked.

  Candy Mills smiled, which made her seem younger and friendlier. “Yes,” she said. “We’ve helped a lot of women escape situations worse than yours.”

  “What if he called Gil and told him where we were?”

  “That’s why we’re going somewhere else. He had no idea where you were headed, right? You never told anyone, right?” Candy Mills sounded a bit intent, as if she wanted to make sure.

  “I never said a word,” Rachel said. Not even to Anne-Marie.

  “I’m signing off now,” said the voice on the cell. “You’re in good hands.”

  And before Rachel could say thank you, the woman on the other end of the line hung up.

  Rachel swallowed. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was happy to have help, even for a day or two.

  She felt less alone.

  Candy Mills looked at Anne-Marie. “Get your stuff. We’re going to go.”

  Anne-Marie hugged her dog to her chest. She didn’t move. “Will Santa know how to find us?”

  Candy Mills looked at Rachel, smart enough to realize these questions weren’t what they seemed.

  “No, honey,” Rachel said. “Santa will never find us again.”

  The sentence made her heart hurt. Somehow she was going to have to give her daughter Christmas magic again. But not this year.

  This year she was giving her daughter freedom. A real life. A life away from Gil.

  “Good,” Anne-Marie said, and reached for her clothes. “I hope I never see him again.”

  “Oh, honey,” Rachel said, knowing that wish was impossible. “I hope so too.”

  GE
ORGIA RUTH

  The Mountain Top

  FROM Fish or Cut Bait

  BRUNCH WAS OVER. Jeff settled into his leather recliner close to the hearth and watched Sally maneuver an iron pot of hot water. She wrapped a towel around the slim handle and removed it from its fireplace hook. She didn’t need his help for now.

  “Honey, did I tell you that I saw Walter Bailey at the barbershop last week?”

  Sally carefully stepped across the cherry hardwood with her load. “The state senator?” She poured the water into the sink in the kitchen corner of the great room.

  “Yeah,” Jeff said. “Instead of suit and tie and Italian loafers, he was wearing some kind of uniform under the barber’s cape. And work boots. Still trading jokes with the old-timers. It’s hard to tell the difference now between him and the farmers who voted for him.”

  “A shame he lost his house.” She added a spot of detergent to the hot water.

  Jeff struggled out of his chair to put another log on the fire. And to replace the screen that Sally had shoved aside. “Let’s get into the co-op again this year. Trading eggs for produce worked well for us.”

  “I’m glad my grandmother taught me how to can vegetables.” Sally set rinsed dishes in a rack, dried the plates with a towel, and put them into her treasured china hutch.

  “I’d like to barter for a few goats,” said Jeff. “What do you think?”

  “I’d rather have sheep. But there’ll be plenty of possibilities now that more people have booths at the marketplace.”

  “Neighbors helping neighbors.” Yes, this is one of her good days.

  A familiar squabble outdoors captured Jeff’s attention. He smiled in anticipation and stepped over to the window. Seventy feet down the hill, a gang of turkeys raced across the clearing, necks outstretched, wattles jiggling, competing for position.

  “Wildlife onstage,” he announced, putting his magnifiers to rest on Robert Burns’s poetry. Jeff climbed to the loft for a better view.

  Sally removed her homemade apron and laid it next to the cast iron pot that dried on the useless electric stove. She joined him upstairs, and through the chalet windows they watched the huge birds stuff themselves on the corn Jeff had scattered earlier that morning. The bright face of the sun briefly overcame gray clouds, peeking into the woods, warm fingers touching pockets of crusty snowdrifts and hundreds of animal tracks.