The paramedics rolled a stretcher through the door. Romana backed up to make room. But Critch’s body gave a violent jerk, and once again, he snared her wrist.
“Critch, I have to move.”
“You don’t know,” he whispered. “The cards. I wasn’t sure at first, but every year, cards, threats.”
“Yes, I know. We got the Christmas cards, all six of them.”
“I didn’t want to see, or care. Really didn’t.”
“You need to give us space,” the paramedic growled. He looked big, mean and menacing.
“Trying to.” She twisted on her wrist. “It’s like he’s got hooks on his fingers.”
Mean and Menacing offered an unexpected grin as he hunkered down beside her. “They get strong sometimes when they think they might be heading for the tunnel. Maybe they figure holding on to someone will keep them from being sucked in.”
“Either that or they want company on the journey. Critch.” She tugged harder. “Critch, these people can’t help you unless I’m out of the way.”
The eyes that rolled back in his skull popped open to stare into hers. His breath rattled out. With his other hand, he made a grab for her coat. “Listen to me, Romana. The cards… I only sent four.”
Chapter Seventeen
If there was a blood trail, Jacob couldn’t find it in the snow and the dark, but he heard the occasional bang as Patrick clambered over a fence or careened into an unlit Christmas display.
North knew the area. Jacob had to rely on instinct.
He heard the ambulance a short distance away, police cruisers perhaps a mile behind. Their wails rose and fell at the whim of a frigid northerly wind.
He suspected North was circling. Where to? Back to his car? To Romana?
Using the boulevard trees as cover, Jacob squinted through the snow. His hands were numb from the cold, but otherwise he was dressed for this. North wasn’t. Combine that with blood loss, and he should be tripping over the guy’s frozen body any time now.
He picked up movement ahead and worked himself around the trunk of the tree. No doubt about it, they’d wound a path back to ground zero.
Another movement caught his eye. Checking left and right, he ran for the next tree. And the next.
An outline took shape. Something thudded at the rear of North’s garage, but Jacob remained focused on his quarry.
The outline darted sideways at the noise. Jacob followed. When the man slipped, he had him. He brought his gun down and shouted. “Toss the gun, North. Hands in my sight.”
The hands went up as ordered. Slowly, the outline turned.
Jacob’s arms dropped and, with a curse, he closed the gap. “Well, goddammit, O’Keefe. Where did you come from?” O’Keefe lowered his arms. “Man, I thought you were going to shoot. I was right behind the paramedics.” Jacob scoped the area. “Where’s Romana?” “I didn’t see her. I heard someone breathing hard before I went inside, so I followed the sound. Lost it after a few minutes. Have you been tailing me?” “Did you flatten a wooden Frosty six or seven houses ago?” “I flattened something fat and hard.” “Then I’ve been tailing you.” “Any idea where he went?” Jacob started across the street. “Not to his car. It’s boxed in by yours.” “Score one for me.” O’Keefe blew into his free hand. “If North’s out in this, he’ll be a Popsicle in ten minutes.” “He’s probably holed up in a neighbor’s garage.” Or his own, Jacob reflected. However, a quick inspection of the structure revealed no sign of Patrick and no place he could conceal himself inside.
O’Keefe returned to his car to contact the captain. Jacob set his sights on the house. His biggest priority at the moment was to find Romana.
Wind buffeted him as he jogged toward the front porch. When he reached it, he saw a stout, wooly bear gesturing at a taller, calmer silhouette who was endeavoring to quiet it.
Sentence fragments reached him. Jacob took the stairs two at a time.
“I know what I heard,” the female bear insisted. “And where the shots came from. I called the police straight away.”
Shoving his gun into the top of his jeans, Jacob opened his jacket and showed her the badge clipped to his belt loop.
The relief on Romana’s face was a palpable thing, but whether it was the result of seeing him safe or at being interrupted, he wasn’t sure.
Go with the heart, he decided.
“Are you a neighbor?” he asked the woman.
A round, lined face peered up at him. She pointed with a mittened hand. “I live over there. Heard gunshots, thought Patrick might have been hurt by a burglar. Unless he’s working, he’s not usually out and about at night.”
“Keeps to himself, does he?” Jacob asked while Romana leaned on the railing and took what was probably a well-deserved rest.
“I’ve tried to be neighborly.” The woman sniffed. “Offered to bring him a homemade fruitcake. He said he’d take it. No ‘thank you,’ just a flat, he’d take it. I told my husband I thought he was a strange one. Spends half the nights he’s home up on the third floor doing heaven knows what. Attic light shines right in our bedroom window. We had to buy blackout blinds so we could sleep. My husband figures Patrick being a doctor and all, he might be going over patient files. I have to remind him that the man’s a doctor for dead people, and you can’t bring that kind of work home with you. Not unless you’re a ghoul.”
Romana arched meaningful eyebrows at Jacob and glanced upward. He nodded, took the woman by her wooly upper arms and shuffled her gently toward the stairs.
“Do me a favor, Mrs…”
“Brenner. Kate Brenner. My husband’s Peter Brenner, of Brenner’s Plumbing and Electric.”
“Mrs. Brenner,” Jacob interrupted before she could rev up. “I need you to go back to your house and watch for anyone or anything suspicious. If you see Patrick North, call my cell phone.” He dug a card from his back pocket.
“Where’ll you be?” she demanded.
“Locking up Mr. North’s place.”
“So that wasn’t him went out of here on a stretcher?”
Jacob looked at Romana.
She smiled and shrugged. “Hey, I’m just an unpaid bystander with no information to impart. Except that the guy on the stretcher was alive when he left here.”
“Go home, Mrs. Brenner,” Jacob repeated. “This is a police matter. We’ll deal with it.”
She wanted to object but the expression on his face stopped her. With his card crumpled in her fist, she toddled down the stairs, across the snowy yard and out of sight.
“Thanks for the help, Professor.” Jacob started toward her, his eyes dark and focused. “What cat stole your tongue all of a sudden?”
The last word pretty much died when, with a lightning-quick move, she reached out, snatched up the sides of his jacket and yanked his mouth onto hers.
THE KISS WAS GREAT, exactly what Romana needed to blow the negative energy out of her system. Jacob was safe. Finally, she could function without the oppressive weight of fear crushing her thoughts.
It hardly surprised her that Patrick had escaped-if you could call being on the run wearing nothing but a bathrobe, T-shirt and jeans an escape. The temperature had to be below twenty degrees by now, so unless he knew of a refuge nearby, he wouldn’t be running for long.
With O’Keefe still making calls in his car, she and Jacob mounted the stairs to the attic.
Romana didn’t know what she expected to find there, but it wasn’t the sight that greeted her when they opened the door.
“Oh…wow!” She held the snow-dampened hair from her eyes, pivoted slowly in the center of Patrick’s attic.
