each other. He held her pressed tightly against his heart. “Merry Christmas,” he said into her hair. It smelled of beeswax and cinnamon.
She looked up at him. Her eyes were very large.
“Clare,” he said.
She swallowed.
“Clare . . .”
She shook her head. “No.”
He touched her face. She closed her eyes and for a moment, pressed her cheek into his palm. Then she opened her eyes and stepped backwards, breaking his hold. He reached for her. She threw up both hands, a barricade against him. “Leave. Now. Go home to your wife.”
He let his hands drop, heavy and useless. “I wouldn’t—”
“Yes, you would. And God help me, so would I. Go. Please.”
He nodded, turned, walked away, through the dim hall, through the scent of pine and beeswax, through the haunting voice of the soloist, singing. “Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone. Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow. In the bleak midwinter, long ago.”
Around the square, the remaining shops were closing, employees chattering down the sidewalks, last-minute shoppers slipping and sliding under the weight of bags and boxes. The fuzzy candy canes and reindeer, the fat lightbulbs, everything the same as it always was, as it always had been. Everything the same. Everything different. Everything.
He climbed into his truck and headed home.
Read on for an excerpt from
Julia Spencer-Fleming’s next mystery:
A Fountain Filled with Blood
Now available in hardcover from St. Martin’s
Minotaur!
The yahoos came by just after the dinner party let out. A few young punks—three or four—picked out as streaks of white in the cab and bed of an unremarkable-looking pickup. Emil Dvorak was tucking a bottle of wine under his arm and reaching to shake his hosts’ hands when he heard the horn, haloowing down Route 121 like a redneck hunting cry, and the truck flashed into view of the inn’s floodlights.
“Faggots!” Several voices screamed. “Burn in hell!” More obscene slurs were swallowed up in the night as the truck continued past. From their run in the back, the Inn’s dogs began barking in response, high-pitched and excited.
“Goddamnit,” Ron Handler said.
“Did you see the license plate this time?” Stephen Obrowski asked.
His partner shook his head. “Too fast. Too dark.”
“Has this happened before?” Emil shifted the bottle under his other arm. The Inn’s outdoor spotlight left him feeling suddenly exposed, his car brilliantly illuminated, his hosts’ faces clearly visible, as his must have been. His hand, he noticed, was damp. “Have you reported it?”
“It started a little after we opened for the season,” Steve said. “Once a week, maybe less. We’ve told the police. The Inn’s on the random patrol list now.”
“Not that that helps,” Ron said. “The cops have better things to do than to catch gay-bashers out cruising for a good time. The only reason we got a few drive-bys in a patrol car is that the Inn is bringing in the all-mighty tourist dollar.”
“Tourism keeps Millers Kill afloat,” Emil said, “but Chief Van Alstyne’s a good man. He wouldn’t tolerate that trash no matter what business they’re targeting.”
“I better call the station and let them know we’ve been harrassed again. Thank God our guests have already retired.” Ron squeezed Emil’s upper arm. “Thanks for coming. I’m sorry dinner had to end on such a bad note.” He disappeared behind the Inn’s ornate double door.
Steve peered up the road. “Are you going to be okay getting back home? I don’t like the idea of you all alone on the road with those thugs out there.”
Emil spread his arms. “Look at me. I’m a middle-aged guy driving a Chrysler with M.D. plates. What could be more mainstream?” He dropped his hand on Steve’s shoulder and shook him slightly. “I’ll be fine. Anyone comes after me, I’ll break his head open with this fine Chardonnay.”
“Don’t you dare. That bottle’s worth more than you on the open market.”
Emil laughed as they made their good-nights. Tucking the bottle under the passenger seat of his LeBaron convertible, he considered putting the top back up. He sighed. He knew he was getting old when a couple of drunken kids yelling out of the darkness made him this nervous. To hell with them. It wasn’t worth a twenty-minute struggle with the roof or missing fresh air blowing around him on a hot June night.
The high-Victorian architecture of the inn dwindled behind him as he drove toward home. Route 121 was two country lanes bordered on one side by Millers Kill, the river that gave the town its name, and by dairy farms and corn fields on the other. In the dark of the new moon, the maples and sycamores lining the sides of the road were simply shades of gray on black, so the round outline of his headlights, picking out the violent green of the summer leaves, made him think of scuba diving in the Carribean, black blinkers around his peripheral vision, gloom and color ahead.
Twin blurs of red and white darted into view and for a second his mind saw coralfish. He blinked, and they resolved themselves into rear lights. Backing into the road, slewing sidewise. Christ! He slammed on his brakes and instinctively jerked the wheel to the right, knowing a heartbeat too late that was wrong, wrong, wrong as the car sawed around in a swooping, tail-forward circle and crunched to a stop with a jolt that whipsawed Dvorak’s head from the steering wheel to his seat.
The smell of the Chardonnay was everywhere, sickening in excess. Steve would kill him for breaking that bottle. His ears rung. He drew a deep breath and caught it, stopped by the ache in his chest. Contusion from the shoulder restraint. He touched the back of his neck. Probably cervical strain as well. Behind him, some awful modern rap
