Mistletoe and Murder

“The usual one,” he replied with mounting impatience.

“Belinda was pregnant?”

“Never told me she was, but even I can tell blue from pink.”

“Pink.” Romana stared. “The test strip turned pink?”

“Three times, she said. She was holding the third one in her hand when I saw her outside the washroom. Pink.” He blinked again, appeared to lose his train of thought. “Must mean she was going to have a girl.”

Pink and blue strips of thought streaked through Romana’s head. They moved so fast she couldn’t hold on to them. But through the stream, one grisly fact emerged.

If Belinda Critch had, in fact, been pregnant when she died, she’d taken that secret to the grave.

Chapter Fifteen

At the head of the alley, Jacob slowed. He looked left and right, listened for several seconds, then shook his head. “He’s gone.”

Two other officers joined him. The female of the pair gave a thumbs-down. “I’d have done better in my regulation shoes, but with or without them, that guy’s fast and slippery. Did Harris call it in?”

“He was on the phone when we left.” Jacob combed the alley one last time, then motioned to the other two. “Go back to the hall and talk to the caterers. One of them might have seen him skulking around.”

“I can’t believe he’d take a risk like that.” Still bent over, Dylan wiped a bead of sweat from his upper lip. “That was a suicide mission, infiltrating a police party. And for what?”

“Not the canapes, that’s for sure.” Pulling out his cell phone, Jacob punched in the captain’s number. When he ended the call, Dylan stared in disbelief.

“You actually think he’d want to hurt all those people? Those cops?”

“Doesn’t matter what I think. The hall needs to be evacuated and searched.”

“Merry Christmas, everyone.”

“Can you walk?”

Disdain marred Dylan’s features. “Yes, I can walk. But I can’t run ten blocks flat out and not be winded. Neither can Warren.”

“Unless he’s been working out.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be the Warren Critch I knew, but then he backed down from Romana six years ago, and he’s sure as hell done an about-face in that regard.” Dylan swept an arm around the network of snow-encrusted alleys. “We missed him, Knight. He jumped into a Dumpster or scuttled up a fire escape. I still think you’re out in left field, though, thinking he’d blow up a roomful of cops. Assuming he even knows how to construct a bomb.”

“Internet’s full of information, Hoag.”

“And you figure, wherever he’s holed up, that Warren’s online? Man, what is it with you and Romana? He doesn’t want to make a statement to the world-‘Hey, look at me! I’m a raving lunatic who likes to kill people.’ He wants you and Romana to pay for what he seriously believes you did.”

“And then?”

Dylan popped apart his fingers. “Like I said before, poof. So long U.S. of A., hello Amazon hideaway. You won’t catch him once he’s out of the country.”

“Probably true.” Jacob took a final look around. “But he’s a long way from out right now. And I’m a long way from finished searching for him.”

WARREN CRITCH STUMBLED INTO his basement room, slammed the door, locked it and backed across the floor to the window. He snaked a hand under the blinds to make sure he’d locked them, too, then dropped onto a hard chair and fought for calm.

No fists banged on his door. No knuckles tapped on his windows. The panic of flight began to subside. He’d be fine, just had to get through a few more days, then he’d be high above the clouds, soaring off to his new life.

He shouldn’t have gone to the party tonight. Cops were adept at seeing through disguises. Better to have saved this one for his escape.

But the voice in his head had been pushing him hard lately. It pushed him even now.

Still struggling for composure, he stripped away the gray mustache and wig, peeled the sideburns from his cheeks and ordered himself to empty his mind. Keep it blank. Keep control.

Then he looked down at the table and spied the sprig of mistletoe.

“ROMANA, SLOW DOWN.” JACOB SET his hands on her shoulders to keep her in place. “Start again, and go through it slowly. Pretend I’m just learning to speak English.”

She made a frustrated sound but stopped talking and sucked in a deep breath.

It was Sunday afternoon, and they were in Jacob’s apartment above the theater. Snow had been falling since dawn from clouds more forbidding than his captain’s face when they’d discovered two pipe bombs buried inside a pair of trash cans at Rushton Hall.

He and Harris had been on the streets ever since.

Finding Romana waiting for him when he’d arrived home had been a welcome sight at first. Then he’d looked closer and realized she’d been ready to deck him.

“Fifteen hours,” she repeated now. “You’ve been on the hunt and virtually incommunicado, for more than half a day.”

“Romana, I’m here. I’m listening.”

She glared at him, then gave in and sighed. “You look too damn good. I can’t think when I’m this tired.”

He tipped up her chin. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

“No, but I ate, which is probably more than you did. Did O’Keefe ever catch up with you?”

“No, why?”

“Because I told him what I discovered, and if you’d seen him, he would have told you, and I wouldn’t have to go through it all again. Which I will.” She held up a forestalling hand. “I just need one more minute, okay? You can’t spend fifteen hours being annoyed and not feel like kicking something when you’re done.”

He covered a flicker of amusement. “Are you done, then?”

“Yes.” She whooshed out one last breath. “Yes. Okay, I’ll keep it simple. Point number one, Belinda and James Barret did in fact have an affair. It was one of the secrets he referred to in the inscription on the watch he gave her. Point number two, he gave her the watch because she rushed his partner’s autopsy through to its conclusion.” At his doubtful stare, she smiled. “I know. Thought of it myself. We can verify the legitimacy of the results later and should, because, point number three, Dr. Gorman claims that Connor, and possibly Belinda as well, faked his signature on some of the medical shipment and autopsy reports.”

Jacob rubbed his thumbs in circles on her shoulders. “You realize if that last thing gets out, your ex’s crimes are going to hit the gossip fan all over again.”

“Doesn’t matter. I want Fitz back. A bit of emotional discomfort will be nothing if we can make that happen. Which brings me to point number four. The pink strip.”

It took Jacob a moment to clue in. When he did, his insides turned to liquid. “Pink-as in pregnant?”

“Yes, pregnant, but no, not me, so you can wipe that shocked look off your face and let me finish. Except that now I just want to laugh, and that’s totally inappropriate, so I must be even more tired than I realized.”

“Second that.” Jacob dropped his forehead onto hers. “Okay, whose strip turned…” His head came up. “Belinda’s?”

“So says Dr. Gorman. Now I’ll admit, he has lapses, and he’s the only person I know who can nod off in the middle of a party hall evacuation, but he was very definite about it, Jacob. He said he found Belinda outside the women’s washroom holding a pink strip and staring at it as if she’d never seen the color before.”

Something clicked in Jacob’s head. He glanced around the apartment. “I have the police report.”

“Here?” She bunched the front of his T-shirt in excited fists. “You have it here?”

“Somewhere.”

“Figures.”

It took twenty minutes to unearth the folder, and in the end it was Romana who thought to look in the fridge.