“No!” Hadley yelled.
Clare rammed her shoulder into Kevin’s arms as he squeezed the trigger. His shot went off overhead. He staggered upright and looked at Clare reproachfully. His eyes were dilated black. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Kevin, you can’t aim. You’re stoned. You’re under the influence of illegal drugs.”
“Am not!”
“Are so.”
“You guys.” Hadley shook her head, trying to stop laughing. “The whole damn mountain’s going to go up in a minute.”
The Humvee roared forward. Flames shot out from beneath the hood. It hit the barn. Cracked stone crumbled, battered beams fell, and bale after bale of shrink-wrapped marijuana tumbled out of the broken wall, like the payout from an enormous slot machine.
“Whoa,” Kevin said.
The Humvee blew up.
The pressure wave knocked Clare and the officers to the ground. A fireball shot into the sky, chewing and charring the remains of the barn, and an irregular skirt of fire ripped across the grass from the inferno of twisted metal and glass.
“Holy shit.” Hadley pushed up from the ground. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”
They ran for the Aztek. Kevin scrambled into the driver’s seat, while Clare and Hadley wedged into the passenger side.
“You sure you can drive?” Hadley said.
“ ’Course I can,” Kevin said, throwing his SUV into gear. “I’m a good driver. I’m a very good driver.”
“Nobody’s a good driver when they’re high.”
“I’m not high! I’ve never gotten high in my life.” He hit the gas.
“God, Flynn. I don’t think anyone could be more vanilla unless they were Amish. I’m sorry I debauched you, now.”
“Okay, everybody? Hold on. We have to drive really really fast through this fire here.” He accelerated toward a wall of flame.
Isabel screamed. “No!” Clare shouted. “You idiot!” Hadley yelled. Then they were in it, and then they were through, jouncing and plunging, careening down the narrow road, bouncing like popcorn kernels inside the SUV.
“We’re gonna die,” Isabel said tearfully. “We’re gonna die.” Amado recited something over and over. Clare thought it was the Hail Mary. She dug her hands into the sides of the seat and hung on for dear life.
“That wasn’t debauchery. That was love.” Kevin’s voice softened, although his foot was as heavy as ever. “Love, love, love,” he sang.
“Aw, Flynn. I’m sorry. I was harshin’ you. You’re a good man. You’re too good for me.”
Clare felt tears welling up in her eyes. “You guys are beautiful. You wanna get married? I can do it, you know. Just say the word.”
XXX
Lyle MacAuley rolled his cruiser to a stop between Flynn’s Aztek and the crumpled remains of Clare Fergusson’s car. Beside him, one of the responding EMT crews worked to extricate someone from the upside-down wreck. Christly hell. If he had to tell Russ she was—he wouldn’t do it. He’d go home, get his things together, and leave for Florida.
He got out of his unit. Behind him, the last of the Millers Kill Volunteer Fire Department trucks screamed uphill toward the mountain road. The Corinth and Lake Luzerne departments were on the way.
“Whaddaya got?”
“One guy. Broken collarbone, two broken legs. Concussion, probably.” The EMT leaned back so Lyle could get a glimpse. “Know him?”
Lyle looked at the studs and tattoos. “Not as well as I’m going to.” He straightened. “Was there a woman inside?”
“Nope.”
Thank God for that. So where the hell was she? And where were Kevin and Hadley? He heard a noise. Circled, slowly, trying to pinpoint it. Coming from Kevin’s Aztek. He walked closer. It was . . . what the hell? . . . voices. A bunch of ’em. Singing “All You Need Is Love.”
THE TRANSFIGURATION
OF OUR LORD
August 6
Amy Nguyen was leaving Russ’s hospital room as Clare arrived. “Amy! Hi. Are you here on business?”
“Catching him up on the Christie/Punta Diablos prosecution.” The assistant district attorney pointed to Clare’s BDUs. “You recruiting, or what?”
“Oh, this? I’m in the Guard. I just got back from Latham. I serve off-weekend so I can get in more flying time.”
Nguyen smiled behind her hand. “You’re a very unusual priest.”
“I get that a lot, yeah.”
Inside, Russ was propped up, shuffling through the papers spread across his bed. He smiled. “Hey, darlin’. How was training?”
“They squeezed the truth about my day job out of me.”
“And?”
“And now everyone on the crew calls me Preacher.” She made a face. “Better than my nickname when I was regular army. Charlie Foxtrot.”
“For . . . Clare Fergusson?”
“A different C.F.” She ignored his grin. “What’s all this?”
“A paper trail. Or what we’ve been able to make of one.” He held up a sheet. “Donald Christie did time in Plattsburgh. Along with Alejandro Santiago, a member of the Punta Diablos. Apparently, they struck a deal while behind bars. Donald and his brother would dispose of the PD’s business rivals, underperforming sales representatives, et cetera, for ten grand a pop. The idea being that no one would find the bodies up here in the Adirondacks.”
“Not an incorrect assumption.”
“No.” He picked up another paper. “The agreement held for two years. Then a truckload of pot arrives on the scene. Very valuable. High THC level.”
Clare rubbed the palm of her hand against her forehead. “Don’t remind me.”
He snickered. “We don’t know exactly what went down. Did the PDs want to store it up here because things were getting hot in the city? Did the Christies turn the driver? Whichever, they were suddenly in possession of ten million dollars’ worth of weed. And a load of trouble. The PDs started cruising around, taking potshots, breaking into Bruce’s trailer. I suspect they didn’t move more directly because they didn’t know if their driver had taken off with the goods or if the Christies had stolen the shipment. They sent their accountant up here to check it out. Neil Christie whacked him.”
“That was the first body?”
“Yeah. Isabel was out with some of the family, searching that night, and saw the whole thing. She took the guy’s bag and hid it, thinking to protect her brother. Then, of course, the PDs got desperate. The merchandise was one thing, but they’d lost their distribution list.”
“So what did Amy Nguyen say?”
“Alejandro Santiago and his compadres will be going away for a long, long time.” He grinned, showing his canines.
“And the Christies?”
His grin fell away. “We don’t have anything on Bruce. He claims he had no idea about any of it and was shocked—shocked!—when his brothers revealed their stash in the barn that day.”
“Maybe—”
He shook his head. “Donald and Neil between them only had half a brain. Just look at how they died. No, he was behind it. We just can’t prove it.”
“That’s not right.”
He smiled a little. “We’ve had this talk before.” He held out his hand. She took it. He tugged her closer. “When I get out of here—”
“You’re going to the Rehabilitation Center at the Glens Falls Hospital. Maybe you can have Sister Lucia’s old room. She’s been released.”
“Okay, when I get out of rehab—” He stopped. “You know, you were right.”
“I was?”
“About it taking time. It’s going to take five months of hard work to come back from this.” He rested his free hand on his bandaged chest. “Losing Linda was worse. It hurt me more than this did. I do need to give it time. A year’s not too long.” He tightened his grip on her hand. “So when I get out of the hospital, and when I get out of rehab, and when I make it through the anniversary—”
She smiled. “What?”
“We’ll have a talk.”
ALL SAINTS DAY
November 1
Clare wished Janet and Mike hadn’t lit the fire. She and Father St. Laurent stood with their backs to the foliage-bedecked hearth, and while she was sure they looked picturesque, she was roasting in her cassock. She sighed silently and waited for the priest to finish translating the last part.
“Le requiero y cargo ambos, aquí en la presencia del Dios, que de cualquiera de usted saben cualquier razón por la que usted no puede ser unido en la unión legal, y de acuerdo con la palabra del Dios, usted ahora la confiesa.”
The only response was Mike McGeoch, honking into his handkerchief, and the rumble of the furnace kicking in. Father St. Laurent smiled at her. What a hunk. Such a shame.
She looked at Isabel, who clutched Amado’s hand. “Isabel,” Clare began, “will you have this man to be your husband; to live together in the covenant of marriage?”
ADVENT
December
I
Careful, Chief, careful.” Noble hovered over Russ, making his way up the marble steps with the help of his much-loathed cane. He’d already decided he was going to burn the damn thing for the winter solstice.
“I’m not going to fall, Noble.” He tried to keep his voice even. “If I couldn’t walk, they wouldn’t have let me come back to work.”
“Well, it might be slippery.” Noble bent to study the hallway floor. “Might be some melted snow we didn’t get up.”
He limped into Harlene’s dispatch center, Noble at his back. It was empty. They were in the squad room. He could hear muffled laughter, someone shushing. He sighed. Limped through the door.
“Welcome back!” The shout was deafening. Someone—Harlene, probably—had gotten everyone in, all shifts, the full-timers and the part-time guys, every one of his people. His people. Young, old, men, women. They smiled at him. Waiting for him to give a speech. Not his strong suit.
“So,” he said. “This morning would be a good time to rob a bank in town.” They laughed.
Lyle came up beside him and faced the small crowd. “There oughta be a nice ceremonial way to show I’m beatin’ feet away from the chief’s chair, as fast as I can run, and turning it back over to the guy who actually belongs there. I thought maybe I could take the chief’s insignia off my collar and pin it on him, except I never put it on.” He glanced at Russ. “So I figured I’d put something on myself to indicate I was resuming my life of leisure.” He reached back and pulled the grungiest Day-Glo orange hunting cap Russ had ever seen out of his rear pocket, snapped it open, and squared it on his head. He held out his hand. “Welcome back, Russ.”
Russ pumped his hand, and everybody cheered and the next thing he knew he was hugging Lyle, who was pounding him on the back and saying, “Don’t ever scare me like that again,” in Russ’s ear.
They broke apart, Lyle shifting from foot to foot, Russ banging his cane on the floor. “One hug every eight years,” Russ said. “That’s my limit.”
Then Harlene and Knox hugged him, and Kevin lugged in boxes of pastries from the Kreemie Kakes diner and he thought, I’m the luckiest sonofabitch in the world.
II
Hadley was helping Hudson and Genny decorate the tree when the doorbell rang. Well, maybe “refereeing” was a better word. Hudson had to place every ornament in a particular place, and God help them all if one of the frosted bulbs got too close to a flying reindeer. Genny, on the other hand, was free-form. Right now she was tossing handfuls of tinsel at her side of the tree. Some of it was even landing on the branches.
“Be good,” Hadley told them, as she crossed to the door.
It was Kevin Flynn, taking a break from patrol. He was in uniform, his unit idling curbside. He took off his hat and beat away the snow that had fallen on the shoulders of his coat.
“Flynn?”
“Hi,” he said. “I know you have the rest of the week off, so I wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas.”
“Thanks. Uh, Merry Christmas to you, too.”
“Would you like to join the Flynns for our traditional Christmas dinner?”
“Thanks, but we’ve already made plans.”
He glanced past her to where the kids had fallen silent. Undoubtedly taking in every word. “Sledding?”
She stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind her. “No. Flynn, you have to stop asking me out.”
“I will. If my feelings change. Until then?” He shrugged, his coat rising and falling.
She stared up at him. “What is it with you?”
He took a step toward her. Stop him, she told herself. He slid his hands along her jawline, her cheekbones. Do something, woman. He bent his head. Just say no. Oh. Oh, my God. He held her as if she were a breakable ornament and kissed her as if she were the only warm thing in winter. “Merry Christmas,” he whispered. She was still catching her breath when he bounded down the stairs. She listened to the thump of his cruiser door. Watched his rear lights dwindle in the falling snow.
“Oh, Flynn.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “What am I going to do with you?”
CHRISTMAS
December 25 Through January 5
I
She got the call she had been expecting on Christmas Day, at the Ellis house, after dinner but before the pie and cake had been cut. The kids had fled to the family room, leaving behind a litter of china and adults with elbows propped on the table, finishing off the wine.
Clare’s cell rang, a number she didn’t recognize. Maybe a wrong number. Maybe a parishioner who had bottomed out on the hardest holiday of the year. “I have to take this,” she said, rising. Dr. Anne waved her away.
In the living room, she flipped open her phone. She listened to what the man on the other end of the line had to say. She said, “Yes, sir,” and, “Thank you, sir,” and hung up. She stood there a long time, staring at the Ellises’ tall tree, heavy with children’s homemade ornaments.
“Clare?” Gail Jones stuck her head in the door. “If you need to go somewhere, I can drive you.”
Clare shook her head. She walked past Gail, back into the dining room. The chatter fell silent as they saw her face. “Are you all right?” Karen Burns stood up. “Is everything okay?”
“My Guard unit’s being called up.” Clare didn’t know where to put her hands. She settled for wrapping them around her arms. “We’re going to Iraq.”
II
She refused all offers to drive her home, although she agreed to let Geoff Burns notify the rest of the vestry. She walked through the darkening streets of Millers Kill, past windows framing twinkling trees, past strings of fairy lights and illuminated plastic Santas, past closed-up houses whose inhabitants had fled to Florida or Arizona.
She walked past her own house, around the square, beneath fuzzy candy canes and reindeer hanging from the old-fashioned-looking streetlights. She walked past stores closed for the day and galleries closed for the season and old mills, closed for good. Walking is prayer, someone had told her, and she believed it.
Eventually, exhausted and numb from the cold, she turned around and headed back. Before she reached the rectory, she stopped at St. Alban’s and let herself into the chilly, dim space. On the deep stone sill beneath the nativity window, she had set a retablo she had found with a single votive. She lit the candle, and Our Lady of Refuge sprang to life in hot pinks and blues, a motherly smile on her face, welcoming all into her sheltering arms. Clare thought Octavio Esfuentes might like it. She thought about him, dying terrified and alone in an alien land. Thought about herself doing the same thing. “Holy Mother,” she whispered, “Be with us all when we’re frightened and far from home.”
The rectory was scarcely warmer than the church. She cranked up the thermostat and lit the fire she had laid this morning. Russ had told her a fire sucked heat out of a house, but you couldn’t prove it by her. After she had gotten it going, she felt warm enough to shuck her parka and make some hot cocoa. She had just retrieved the pan and wa
s assembling ingredients when a banging at the kitchen door nearly caused her to drop the milk carton on the floor.
The door opened before she could get to it. Russ came in, stomping his boots, clutching a hideous arrangement of red and green carnations and gold-painted holly. “I thought you were locking up nowadays.” He shut the door behind him.
“What are you doing here?” She accepted the ugly flowers while he took off his parka. “I thought you were working all day.”
“I asked Paul to finish up my shift. He only had his kids until noon. Then his ex got ’em.” He nodded toward the carnations. “These are for you. Sorry. The only place open was the Stewart’s out by 117, and they didn’t have a big selection.” He finished untying his boots and kicked them off. “I thought I ought to bring flowers when I asked you to marry me.”
Clare, who had been mentally inventorying her pantry for things she could offer him, stared. “What did you say?”
He relieved her of the flowers and set them on the pine table. He took her hands. “Marry me. I’m sorry, I don’t have a diamond.” He squeezed her fingers. “It feels like you need a pair of gloves more than jewelry.”
“I was out walking.” She pulled her hands away. “What do you mean, marry you?”
“We can get a license tomorrow at the town hall. Judge Ryswick can waive the waiting period and do the thing right in his office. We can be husband and wife by lunchtime.” Russ ran his hand through his hair. “No, that doesn’t take into account buying rings. We’ll have to go to Glens Falls for that.”
“I don’t want to get married by Judge Ryswick tomorrow. That’s—” The light went on. “Somebody told you I’m being deployed.” She shook her head. “Good God. I knew the town grapevine was fast, but I didn’t know it was that fast. I only found out myself two hours ago.”