The Christmas Target
Autor
Shirlee McCoy
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HarlequinOne
Stella Silverstone woke like she often did—bathed in sweat, heart beating frantically, her body screaming for her to run or fight.
She did neither.
She wasn’t on a hostage rescue mission in the middle of Vietnam. She wasn’t in Egypt, walking through the slums, searching for a missing child. She was just outside of Boonsboro, Maryland, caring for her grandmother because her grandfather was gone.
He’d been eighty-three when he’d taken his last breath. Stella couldn’t say that his life had ended too soon, but she would have happily traded a few years of hers to have him back. Henry Radcliff had been a keeper. That’s what Stella’s grandmother had said at the funeral. She was right. Henry had been a great guy. A wonderful husband, a loving father, a protective and caring grandfather.
Now he was gone, and Stella had to take his place in Beatrice’s rambling old Victorian, helping her grandmother do everyday chores that suddenly seemed to be too much for her—laundry, cooking, dry mopping the hardwood floor, paying bills and sending thank-you cards. A year ago, Beatrice could have handled all of that and more. Now she seemed confused, frustrated and a little scared.
That scared Stella.
Which was probably why she’d woken in a panic.
That and the fact that Christmas was only three weeks away.
Her least favorite day of the year.
She shivered, glancing at the glowing numbers on the bedside alarm clock. Nearly 5:00 a.m. Her boss, Chance Miller, and a few members of HEART would be converging on the house in a couple of hours. The hostage extraction and rescue team had bimonthly meetings at headquarters. Meeting outside of that secure environment went against protocol. The team coming to Boonsboro should have been out of the question. Stella had tried to argue with the plan. She could have easily found someone to watch Beatrice for the day while she made the three-hour trip to DC.
Chance had insisted that they do things his way. He knew what he wanted, and he always went after it. When Stella had protested, he’d told her that he wasn’t interested in her opinion. Then he’d said goodbye and hung up. If he’d been anyone else, Stella would have seen that as rude, but Chance was never rude. He was almost never wrong, and Stella had been just tired and distraught enough to let things go his way without a fight.
He hadn’t gloated, hadn’t pointed out that he’d finally won one of their many arguments. He’d just emailed notes for the meeting, told her that he’d update her on a few potential clients and asked if there was anything she needed him to bring when he came.
She’d wanted to be angry with him for insisting on doing things his way. Mostly because she’d spent the past year trying really hard to convince herself she and Chance were past tense. Their brief relationship had burned out faster than a candle in a rainstorm, and she didn’t want to relight it.
At least, that’s what she kept telling herself.
For a while, that had been really easy to believe. The two had been butting heads for nearly as long as they’d known each other, but there was something very real beneath the constant bickering, some indefinable thing that always made her want to jump to Chance’s defense, make certain he was okay, watch his back. She knew he felt the same about her. He proved it every time he did something like this—planning a meeting around her schedule and her life.
Truth? Chance wanted to bring the meeting to Boonsboro because he was worried about her. He’d never say it. He didn’t have to. Stella knew it.
Just like she knew that she wanted him there, because she needed someone she could lean on. For just a minute.
She was tired.
Beyond tired.
Her grandfather’s death from a sudden heart attack had been shocking, but finding out that her grandmother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s had pulled the rug out from under every plan Stella had ever made.
Three years. That’s how long her grandparents had known about the diagnosis. Three years that they’d kept it secret because they hadn’t wanted Stella to give up the job she loved. That’s what Beatrice’s best friend, Maggie, had said. Stella had wanted to know about the medicine she’d found in the bathroom cabinets, the post-it note reminders plastered all over the house, the forgetfulness and confusion that Beatrice seemed to be suffering from.
Of course, the nurse in Stella had already known what all those things meant. She just hadn’t wanted to believe it. Maggie and Beatrice had been friends since elementary school, and Stella had known that her grandmother’s friend would have the answers she needed.
She just hadn’t expected those answers to hurt so much.
And they did.
It hurt to know that Nana was losing her memories. It hurt to know that the vibrant, cheerful woman who’d raised Stella was going to become a shell of the person she’d once been.
It also hurt to hear that her grandparents had thought she loved and valued her job more than she loved and valued them. But then, why wouldn’t they think that? She’d spent so much time away that she hadn’t seen the signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s until her grandfather was gone.
It was a regret she’d live with for the rest of her life. If she’d spoken to them on the phone more than once a week, asked the right questions, delved a little deeper into their lives, maybe she would have realized the truth long before Granddad’s death. Then she could have told Henry that she’d give up her work at HEART for Beatrice.
So far, it hadn’t come to that.
She had given up her apartment in DC, moved back to the huge old Victorian that Beatrice had inherited from her parents decades ago. Stella had even tried to resign from HEART. Working as a member of one of the most well-respected hostage rescue teams in the world took time and energy that she needed to devote to her grandmother.
Chance had refused to accept her resignation. She’d been working for the company since he and his brother Jackson founded it, and he had told her that the team couldn’t run without her. That was an exaggeration. They both knew it, but Stella loved her work. She didn’t want to give it up. She wasn’t even sure who she would be without it. She’d built her entire life around HEART.
Now she was trying to rebuild it around her grandmother.
Chance had made it very clear that he’d support her in any way he could. He’d assigned her paperwork and research, report writing and about six other things that were menial compared to the high-risk jobs she’d been taking before Granddad’s death.
Just until you and your grandmother get back on your feet, and you will, Stella. It’s just going to take some time.
She could still hear his voice, see the compassion in his dark blue eyes. He’d come to the funeral. Of course he had. Chance always did the right thing. Always.
Stella wasn’t sure why that made her feel resentful. Maybe because she often found herself doing the wrong thing. Or maybe because he’d done so many right things the few times they’d dated, and she’d still managed to chase him away.
She stood, her toes curling as her feet hit cold wood.
No sense lying in bed fretting about things she couldn’t change. She’d be better off making a pot of coffee and finishing up the last of the three hundred thank-you notes she’d been writing out since Granddad’s funeral. Keep busy. It had been her motto for as long as she could remember. Especially this time of year.
Wind rattled the old wooden panes and whistled beneath the eaves, the sounds nearly covering another more subtle one. Floorboards creaking? A door opening?
Beatrice?
Had she woken already?
Stella stepped into the dark hall, not bothering with the light. She’d walked through the drafty house thousands of times during the years she’d lived there. She’d memorized the wide hallway, the landing, the stairs and the banister. She knew how many doors were on each side of the hallway and which ones creaked when they opened.
Beatrice slept in the room at the far end of the hall, and Stella went there, knocking on the thick wood door. When Beatrice didn’t answer, she turned the old crystal knob and stepped into the room.
“Nana?” she whispered into the darkness, shivering as cold air seeped through her flannel pajamas.
Cold air?
She flicked on the light, her heart stopping when she saw the empty bed, the billowing curtains.
She yanked back gauzy white fabric, nearly sagging with relief when she saw the window screen still in place, the mesh flecked with fat snowflakes.
“Nana!” Stella called, throwing open the closet door. Just in case. Her grandmother had gotten lost walking through the house recently. One day she hadn’t been able to find the kitchen. Another day, she’d stood in the hallway, confused about which room she slept in.
“Nana!” Stella yelled it this time, the name echoing through the house as she ran out of the room. She could hear the panic in her voice, could feel it thrumming through her blood. She never panicked. Ever. But she felt frantic, terrified.
“Beatrice!” She yanked open the linen closet, the door to the spare room, the bathroom door.
She thought she heard a faint response. Maybe from the kitchen at the back of the house.
She barreled down the stairs and into the large foyer.
The front door was closed, the bolt locked. Just the way she’d left it. She could feel cold air wafting through the hallway, though, and she spun on her heel, sprinting into the kitchen.
The back door yawned open, the porch beyond it covered with a thin layer of snow. She thought she could see footprints pressed into the vivid white, and she shoved her feet into old galoshes, ran outside.
There! Just like she’d thought. Footprints tracking across the porch and down into the yard. She should have called for help. The practical part of her—the part that was trained as a trauma nurse, who knew protocol and statistics and the necessity of using the brain instead of the heart during stressful times—understood that. The other part, the part that only cared about finding Beatrice as quickly as possible, was calculating just how far an eighty-one-year-old with Alzheimer’s could go in the time it took to make a phone call and get the police involved.
Pretty far.
Especially when going just a couple of hundred yards would mean entering thousands of acres of forest.
“Nana!” Stella screamed, sure that she saw a shadow moving at the back edge of the yard. The woods began there—deep and thick, butting up against the state forest, crisscrossed with tributaries of the Patuxent. An easy place to get lost and hurt. Especially if a person was elderly and frail, and probably not dressed for the weather.
Stella ran toward the trees, hoping the shadow she’d seen had been her grandmother. Praying, because that’s what Beatrice would have wanted her to do. It’s what Henry would have expected her to do. Granddad had been a retired preacher. After watching his son take over the pulpit, he’d planned to spend time going on mission trips, traveling with his wife, enjoying the fruit of a life well lived. He’d ended up raising Stella instead.
He’d never complained about that.
He’d never accused God of unfairness, never said he’d been given a rough shake.
He’d believed that everything happened for a reason, and that good could be found in the most trying circumstance if a person took the time to look for it. He’d been an eternal optimist, because he’d believed that God’s will trumped all else.
Stella was a pessimist. Mostly because she believed the same thing.
She reached the edge of the yard and found footprints in the snow there, nearly covered by a fresh dusting of white. She should have grabbed her cell phone on the way out. She should have grabbed a coat. A flashlight. Warmer clothes.
Rookie mistakes, but she was committed now. She couldn’t let Beatrice get any farther ahead. She plunged into the thick foliage, branches catching on her hair and tugging at her skin. She thought she heard a car engine, was sure she heard voices coming from the front yard.
No one should be anywhere near the house. They were too far from town for random strangers to show up and none of Beatrice’s friends would be out at this time of morning.
Stella would have checked things out, but she had one goal—finding her grandmother.
“Nana!” she shouted.
To her left, branches snapped, and she turned, certain Beatrice would be there.
“What are you doing out—”
Someone lunged from the darkness. Not an eighty-one-year-old; this person moved fast, flying toward Stella, swinging something at her head.
She had a second to react, one heartbeat to duck. The blow glanced off her temple, sent her reeling. She fell into a tree, slid to the ground, but all she could think about was Beatrice. Out in the woods. Near the creek.
She scrambled up, blocked another blow. Dizzy from the first, disoriented, fighting because she’d been trained to do it. Blood in her eyes, sliding down her cheeks, blinding her in the swirling snow. Nana, Nana, Nana, chanting through her head.
She landed one blow, then another. She felt something behind her—someone. No time to duck, just searing pain, and she was falling into darkness.
* * *
Something was wrong. Chance Miller felt it the way he felt the frigid air and the falling snow. He rounded the side of the huge old house, Simon Welsh at his side, Boone Anderson still at the front door, ringing the bell. For the tenth time.
There was no way Stella had slept through the noise.
She didn’t sleep. Not much. When she did, she slept lightly, every noise waking her. He’d learned that during long flights across the Pacific Ocean and long journeys in foreign countries. She also didn’t like being surprised. Ever.
And his early morning visit?
It was a surprise.
Stella was expecting him later in the day, but he’d been worried about the coming snowstorm. If it hit the way the meteorologists were predicting, driving later in the morning might have been a problem. He’d decided to leave DC before the snow began to fall. If he got stuck in Boonsboro, no problem. But he’d been worried enough about Stella that he didn’t want to postpone seeing her.
She’d been too quiet lately, and quiet wasn’t her style. Usually she was loud and decisive, more than willing to explain exactly how she thought things should go.
As a matter of fact, he’d expected her to yank open the door as soon as the bell rang and ream him out for arriving before he was scheduled.
She hadn’t, and he figured that could only mean one thing.
Trouble.
It whispered on the cold wind, splashing down in the heavy flakes that fell on his cheeks and neck. Light streamed out from a door that yawned open, the yellowy glow splashing across the back porch. He could see the interior of the house, the bright kitchen, the white cupboards and old wood floor.
He didn’t bother walking inside.
No way had Stella left the door open. Not intentionally. Not unless there’d been an emergency that had sent her running from the house.
He eyed the snow-coated ground, crouching to study what looked like boot prints. Not large, and he’d guess a woman had been wearing them. There was another print a few inches away, a different type of shoe. Something without tread and nearly covered by a fresh layer of snow.
“What’d you find?” Simon asked.
“Footprints. Two sets. Heading toward the woods.”
“Stella’s?”
“I think so, and maybe her grandmother’s.”
“Looks like she might have left this way,” Simon said, moving up the porch stairs and peering inside. “You want me to check things out, or do you want to split up and search the yard and woods?”
The newest member of the team, Simon had worked for SWAT in Houston before joining HEART. He had keen instincts and the kind of work ethic Chance appreciated. He also had the same driving need to reunite families that everyone on the team possessed.
He didn’t know Stella, though.
Not well, and he couldn’t know just how serious this situation was becoming. Stella didn’t leave doors open. She didn’t take chances. She played by the rules, and she expected other people to do the same. Something had sent her running, and he was pretty sure he knew what it was.
Who it was.
Her grandmother.
“If Stella were inside, she’d be out on the porch giving us a piece of her mind. She’s left for some reason, and I’m worried that reason might be her grandmother.”
“She’s prone to wandering?”
“She has Alzheimer’s, so it’s a good possibility.” Chance took a penlight from his pocket, flashing it into the yard. Snow fell in sheets now, layering the ground in a thick blanket of white. Soon it would cover whatever tracks the women had left. Once that happened, finding them would be nearly impossible.
Please, God, help us find them before then, he prayed silently as he moved across the yard, his light bouncing over white snow and sprigs of winter-dry grass.
A few yards out, it glanced off what looked like another footprint. Chance moved toward it, studying the ground more carefully, finding another footprint and another one.
“This way,” he said, not bothering to see if Simon was following. He would be. They knew how to run a mission. No reason to go over all the variables, discuss a plan. With the temperature below freezing, there was no time to waste.
Frantic people made errors in judgment. Like leaving a house in a snowstorm without letting anyone know they were going. Not that Chance would ever use the word frantic to describe Stella. She was one of the most clearheaded people he knew.
If she’d panicked, there had to be a good reason. Her grandmother wandering around in the snow fit the bill. He’d met Beatrice twice. She’d seemed sweet, kind and very fragile.
If she was out in the cold, she’d need medical attention. If the snow continued to fall and her footprints were covered, he and his team would need help searching the woods that surrounded the property.
So, maybe, Stella wasn’t the only one who’d panicked.
Maybe he’d been panicking, too. Acting on emotion rather than clear thinking. Not a good way to proceed.
“Change in plans,” he said, stopping short and motioning for Simon to do the same. “Call 911. Let’s get the local authorities in on this.”
“You want me to call it in as a missing person?”
“Yes. I’m going to see how far I can follow the tracks. Get Boone and follow after you’ve made the call.” He jogged across the yard.
The boot prints were faint but obvious. Stella had left the house recently. He wasn’t sure about Beatrice. He’d only seen one print that he thought was hers, and it had been left earlier. He hoped not too much earlier. He and Stella had their differences, but he only ever wanted the best for her. The best thing for her right now would be for her grandmother to be okay.
She’d be devastated if something happened to Beatrice, and Chance would be devastated for her. Stella was special. She had depth and character and just enough stubborn determination to keep Chance on his toes. Of all the women he’d dated, she was the only one he hadn’t wanted to walk away from.
He’d done it because it was what she had wanted.
Or, at least, what she’d said she’d wanted.
There were plenty of days when he regretted letting her go. He never mentioned it, and she never asked, but he’d have rekindled their relationship if she’d given any indication that she wanted to.
Pride goeth before the fall.
How many times had his father said that?
Too many to count, but Chance was still too proud to crawl back to a woman who’d sent him away. That was the truth. Ugly as it was. So, they were stuck in a pattern of butting heads and arguing and caring about each other a little more than coworkers probably should.
A little more?
A lot more.
“Stella!” he called, pushing through thick foliage. Someone had been there ahead of him. Branches were broken, the pine boughs cleared of snow. The thick tree canopy prevented snow from reaching the ground, but he could see depressions in the needles that covered the forest floor.
He followed them, stepping through a thicket and walking onto what looked like a deer trail. Narrow, but clear of brambles and bushes, it would be the path of least resistance for anything or anyone wandering through the woods.
“Stella!” he called again. “Beatrice!” he added. He could imagine the elderly woman wandering through here, finding the open path and heading in whatever direction she thought would lead her home.
A soft whistle echoed through the darkness.
Boone and Simon, moving into the trees behind him.
He didn’t slow down. They’d find their own way.
Cold wind bit through his heavy coat, and he wondered if Stella had dressed for the weather. If she’d left in a panic, would she have bothered?
He jogged along the path, the dark morning beginning to lighten around him. The sun would rise soon, warming the chilled air. But soon might be too late, and he felt the pressure of that, the knowledge of it, thrumming through his blood.
Somewhere ahead, water burbled across rocks and earth.
A deep creek or river?
He thought he heard movement and ducked under a pine bough, nearly sliding down an embankment that led to the creek he’d been hearing.
He stopped at the edge of the precipice, flashing his light down to the dark water below. A shallow tributary littered with large rocks and fallen branches, it looked easy enough to cross once a person got down to it.
He aimed the beam of light toward the bank, searching for footprints or some other sign that Beatrice or Stella had been there.
Just at the edge of the water, a pink shoe sat abandoned on a rock.
Not Stella’s. She never wore pink.
“Beatrice!” he called. He needed to phone Simon and give him the coordinates. They could begin their search from there, spread out along the banks of the creek and work a grid pattern until they found the missing women.
“Beatrice!” he yelled again.
Someone dove from the trees, slamming into him with enough force to send them both flying. He twisted, his arms locked around his assailant as he fell over the edge of the precipice and tumbled to the creek below.
