The Christmas Rescue

Kayla tried to smile, but deep down, a cold fear settled in her stomach. Each of the guest rooms had access through a patio door to the deck outside. And she couldn’t help remembering how the security system had been turned off. “I’m calling the police. If Mrs. Hanover saw a man, then we need the authorities to investigate.”

Leaving her guests to talk among themselves, she went back toward the kitchen to find Brianna standing there with the dog at her feet. She rushed over to give her daughter a hug.

“What happened, Mommy?” Brianna asked sleepily.

She didn’t want to scare her daughter, especially after all the strange events over the past two days, but she couldn’t lie to her, either. “One of the guests heard a scary noise so I need to call the police.”

Luckily, Brianna didn’t ask too many more questions. Kayla set her down and made the call. The sheriff’s department promised to send a deputy right away. Since everyone was up, Kayla brought coffee, tea and the pastries she’d planned for breakfast that morning to the great room. Playing hostess helped soothe her frayed nerves.

Had her guest really seen a man? If so, who?

The deputy’s investigation didn’t take long. He took her upstairs to the wraparound deck. Jeremy had designed the house so that every guest room had access to the balcony outside. The deputy pointed with a grim look. “See these gouges? Looks like someone did try to get in.”

She swallowed hard, unable to tear her gaze from the evidence. Apparently Mrs. Hanover hadn’t been imagining things at all. Someone had actually tried to break in.

“I’ll file a report,” the deputy continued. “Could be just a random burglary unless you have reason to believe someone has targeted you, specifically.”

“Not that I know of,” she said faintly. As much as she wanted to believe in the random burglary theory, the sick dread in her stomach wouldn’t let up. What if someone had targeted her? She couldn’t imagine why, but the thought wouldn’t leave her alone. She forced herself to go back downstairs to where her guests were waiting.

“Edward, I want to leave right now,” Gloria Hanover was saying. “I’m not staying here another night.”

“Great, just great,” Allen Russell muttered.

Kayla’s heart sank, but she didn’t protest. How could she blame them for wanting to leave? They’d been woken up from a sound sleep by a burglar.

“I won’t charge you for last night’s stay,” she informed the couples graciously. She’d been depending on their fees to help her sagging bank account, but there was no way she could see taking their money. Not after this.

Dawn was beginning to peek over the horizon as the two couples packed their bags and trooped out the door. After they left, she set her security system and then sank down at the kitchen table, propping her aching head in her hands.

What should she do? Why had someone tried to break in? None of this made any sense.

She desperately wanted to call Rafe. Maybe she was overreacting, but as a single mother alone with a young daughter couldn’t help being worried. She had an awful feeling there was something significant behind this recent break-in. There had been too many odd things happening lately.

And she wouldn’t be able to relax until she understood exactly what was going on.

On Saturday morning, Rafe returned home to review the plans he and his partner, Evan Marshall, and his commanding officer, Luke Sanders, had made the day before.

They only had a couple of thin leads to follow up on. They needed a break in the case, big-time. There was no point in continuing their surveillance on Schroeder’s business, considering the local police had Schroeder’s boats taped off as a precaution in case it was a potential crime scene.

He and Evan had agreed to split up the duties in their attempts to jump-start the investigation. Evan’s job was to begin a preliminary surveillance on Karl Yancy, the recluse who’d taken up residence near Pelican Point, renting a boat slip conveniently located right next to Schroeder’s charter fishing business. Yancy had showed up on their radar because of his timely appearance in Pelican Point, the same week as Bruce Pappas’s sighting on Schroeder’s boat. The coincidence of his showing up when a well-known criminal had escaped was too much to ignore.

Evan’s theory was that Yancy was involved too, working with Shroeder. No one seemed to know much about the stranger since he didn’t socialize with anyone around the lakefront. And his background information was sketchy, in that it was almost too clean. Which was suspicious enough in itself. So Evan also agreed to do more digging to see what they could find out about the guy.

Rafe’s job was to work on getting information out of Charlie Turkow, the grizzled, older man who had a charter business that was in direct competition with Schroeder’s. They’d spent some time watching Charlie’s charter, too, and had seen some of the same sort of suspicious activity, his boats coming and going at odd times of the day and night.

But when they’d dug deeper, they’d discovered Charlie had a daughter who lived in Michigan. Sure enough, the next two times they were able to follow him, that’s where he’d gone. Still, his commanding officer believed Charlie Turkow knew more about what might be going on in Pelican Point than he was letting on and wanted Rafe to uncover whatever the older man knew.

Rafe had swung by Charlie’s charter after leaving the gym earlier that morning, but the older man wasn’t anywhere around and one of this boats was gone. Since finding him in the open water of Lake Michigan wasn’t likely, he returned home. And stewed over what little he knew about Bill Schroeder’s activities before he’d died. It bothered him that the guy had gone to visit Kayla. That he’d recently mounted a memorial in honor of her husband’s memory.

He raked a hand through his hair.

He didn’t like the idea of Bill Schroeder being anywhere near Kayla. Leaving her alone Thursday night had been difficult. At least he could rest a little easier, knowing she had guests staying with her this weekend.

But what about once her guests were gone? She and Brianna were all alone in the middle of the woods.

His cell phone rang, and his chest tightened when he Kayla’s name on the display. He couldn’t imagine she’d call unless it was important. “Kayla? Is everything all right?”

“We’re both fine,” she said quickly, as if knowing he might be imagining the worst. He tried to calm his racing pulse. “But Rafe, someone tried to break in last night.”

“Break in?” he echoed, jumping to his feet. “Why? What happened?”

“I don’t know,” she said, sounding truly bewildered. “I had guests, so I didn’t have the security system on. But now I’m worried. My guests left early and I changed my access code, but what if the burglar tries to break in again? I’m scared, Rafe.”

The underlying fear in her voice gripped him by the throat. “I’m on my way,” he said, heading out to his jeep. “Make sure the alarm is set, and I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

THREE

The fact that Kayla didn’t argue worried him even more. Rafe shut his phone and started the jeep, more shaken than he cared to admit. He headed for her house, pushing the speed limit as much as he dared.

Someone had tried to break into Kayla’s home. What had the intruder been looking for? Had he missed something the night they’d found the security system turned off? Somehow it didn’t make sense that simple burglars would target a home so far away from town.

He’d been a fool to leave her alone.

His cell phone rang again. “DeSilva,” he answered, when he saw Luke Sanders’ name light up the screen.

“The medical examiner has finished the autopsy on your dead body. The base of his skull was cracked, and the ME confirmed he was dead before he hit the water. Because of the location of his skull fracture, the medical examiner is leaning toward a homicide. The pathology results won’t be back for thirty days.”

“Did they confirm his ID with dental records?”

“Yes. With the tattoo they were pretty certain he was Bill Schroeder and finding his dentist wasn’t hard. He doesn’t have a lot of family, so the police are heading out to inform Jeannie, his ex-wife, now.”

Rafe grimaced. “I’m sure that will be difficult.”

“Did you talk to Charlie Turkow yet? He must know something about the criminals being smuggled out through Canada.”

“Not yet. He wasn’t around when I stopped in. I’ll talk to him as soon as I can.”

“All right. Call me if you get something significant.”

“Will do.” Rafe hung up the phone and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel thoughtfully. Should he let Kayla know about Bill Schroeder? The news was better coming from him than through the media. And he was fairly certain Schroeder’s death would make headlines, especially since the medical examiner would likely deem his death a murder.

Rafe pressed a little harder on the accelerator. He couldn’t explain this desperate need to get to Kayla. He hadn’t felt this protective toward a woman in a long time. Since Angela.

He tried to tell himself to relax, but his lead foot was ignoring the message. When he pulled into Kayla’s driveway, he was amazed to note he’d made the trip in a record thirty-three minutes.

The instant he stopped, the front door popped open and Kayla stepped out. His first instinct was to yell at her for not waiting with the alarm set.

But when she hurried down to meet him, he couldn’t speak. Instead, he leaped from his jeep and threw caution to the wind, pulling her close in a warm, reassuring hug. “Are you all right?” he murmured, filling his head with her light, strawberry scent.