Her breath caught in her throat as she passed Jim’s reclining rocking chair, with his reading glasses and newspaper resting untouched since the day he died, and went to search her closet. What to wear to dinner with an old friend or boyfriend? DidSamesh think this was a date, or did he want to catch up and reconnect?
Darby’s style was mountain casual. Her closet was filled with simple knee-length skirts, which she wore with fleece leggings and snow boots. She owned a couple of nice dresses but wasn’t about to wear one tonight. She didn’t want to send the wrong message.
She decided on a black skirt, thick tights, and a cream cable-knit sweater. Darby studied her appearance in the mirror, reflecting on the lines etched around her eyes and her lips that had developed in the years since she and Samesh had lost touch. Some of her friends dreaded aging. Not Darby. She welcomed wrinkles. They were marks of wisdom—imprints in her skin from years of happy smiles and laughter. Aging was a gift.
She massaged her wedding ring. Jim’s was strung on a gold chain she wore around her neck. It was like having him as her personal compass. When sadness crept up on her, she would place her hand over it as a reminder of their time together. That was the thing about grief. Darby would never exchange hurt and sorrow for a life without him. Her grief was the ultimate expression of how deeply they had loved.
She brushed a tear from her eye and pulled her hair into a loose bun.
“Jim, what should I do?” Darby asked the empty room.
Her husband might not be in the same physical space, but Darby heard his gentle voice in her head nearly every day.
Move on, my love. Move on.
“I don’t want to.”
She was talking to a ghost.
Ah, but, my love, you must.
More tears spilled down her cheeks; so much for looking nice to meet Samesh. She was going to show up with tear-streaked makeup and smudged mascara.
Darby dabbed her eyes with a warm washcloth. “I don’t know if I can.”
You will. I sent you Samesh.
Darby choked on her tears and grabbed Jim’s ring. She knew hearing his voice was a coping mechanism. But his words sounded so clear.
“He sent me Samesh.”
“He sent me Samesh.”
Darby repeated it again and again.
If Jim was watching over her somewhere in the vast Universe, sending her Samesh was precisely what she would expect from him. The question now was, what should she do about it?
TWENTY-TWO
HILARY
Hilary felt like she’d been tased. Not that she’d ever been tased, but this was how she imagined it would feel. Every cell in her body was fried. Her eyes stung. She had slept (if you could call it that) in her contacts, now like shards of glass in her already dry eyes. Her mouth was gummy, even though she brushed her teeth in the office sink—twice. The twitching she’d experienced in the mayor’s office had stayed with her all day.
The copious amounts of coffee she had consumed could be the culprit. It was almost six. Teams were likely spread throughout the city by now. There were only two hours left to clock in on the first clue. Samesh had been giving her updates all afternoon. At the last check, only four teams hadn’t figured out the ice sculpture yet. Hilary took that as more confirmation that the early leaders had jumped out to a head start last night because they were clever and quick, not because they were secretly being fed clues from a mole on her staff.
She had polled the Chamber members. The vote was unanimous to keep the teams racing. No one shared the mayor’s perspective. That had brought Hilary some relief, but not enough. She knew the mayor and his staff would watch her every move for the next few days. Nothing else could go wrong.
Tomorrow was breakfast with Santa. Hilary had rented a ballroom at the grand downtown hotel. Breakfast would be served buffet style. Kids would have photo ops with Santa, Mrs. Claus, and a trio of elves. There would be holiday crafts at the tables, including cookie decorating with Mrs. Claus, ornament making, and a performance by the high school choir.
Guests had been asked to bring canned food and nonperishables for the food bank, so Hilary arranged large donation boxes throughout the ballroom. She hoped to have at least a hundred pounds of food to share with the nonprofit. Yet another check in the box for why the hunt should continue.
As soon as the breakfast was wrapped up, Hilary would need to shift her attention to the Starlight Parade and then the Snowball Dance. It would be a whirlwind even without the mayor breathing down her neck.
Her staff and the Chamber businesses would back her up, but Hilary couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was going on. Did the mayor have another reason to want to sabotage Passport to the Holidays?
It sounded ridiculous.
Hilary shook her head.
