He inhaled and eased the air from his lungs. “And now Mary’s missing.”
“I thought you two had become Siamese twins joined at the hip.”
Nick ran a hand through his hair and paced across the hall to her door and back. “I told her I was going to lock her up at the police station until this was all over.”
“And she took off.” Kat chuckled. “She’s got spunk. I know I wouldn’t put up with a threat like that if it were my father. That was reckless on your part.”
“Tell me about it.” Nick still wanted her locked in the jail to keep her safe. Nothing had changed on that front. His main regret was telling Mary his plans. He shouldn’t have told her. He should have just done it. The thought of Mary at the mercy of Cobra and the image of what the murderer had done to his victims chilled the back of Nick’s neck.
“You better find her before he does.” The sound of an engine revving filled Nick’s headset. “I’ll be there in less than twenty minutes. We’ll search together.”
Nick ended the call. He couldn’t wait until Kat got there. He had to find Mary.
He slipped into his snowsuit, gloves and boots, grabbed his keys and headed out into the darkness. If he had to, he’d comb the entire town and outlying homes. The petite blonde had slipped well under his skin and then slipped through his fingers. He didn’t feel right stepping out into the cold Alaska night without her by his side, with her running commentary on North Pole, Santa and the people who meant so much to her. She’d immersed him in her life and the town, making him feel a part of their extended family.
As soon as Nick stepped out the door of the B and B, the wind hit him full in the face, turning the moisture in his breath to fine crystals. The weather reporter had warned of another winter storm blowing in from the west. He hoped he found Mary in time. If the killer didn’t get to her first, the weather could.
Chapter 16
As midnight approached, the wind picked up, slinging fine grains of snow like grains of sand from a sandblaster. Mary huddled on the leeward side of a tall spruce, facing the back of the little gingerbread house—the place she’d called home until two years ago. A single light shone from the kitchen. Every other room lay in darkness. Cold penetrated through the thick layers of her snowsuit, through Mary’s sweater and skin and right down to her bones. Her body shook. Her mind was as numb as her fingers and toes.
This was it. She’d left Chris with strict instructions to contact Nick at exactly midnight. If Nick found out what she was going to do any sooner, he’d try to interfere with her plans to trade the manuscript for her father’s life.
After spending the past hour and a half reading by flashlight, Mary had guessed this “trade” might be a one-way trip for her and her father. But she had to try.
Frank Richards’ manuscript was nothing more than a confession. Richards had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and he had a lot to get off his chest before he passed. He’d poured his heart onto the pages, pulling from his memory and the journal he’d kept hidden since his tour to Bosnia.
As a young, aimless twenty-year-old, with no idea of which direction he wanted to go in life, he’d been on a downward spiral, hanging out with the wrong people. Caught with a pound of marijuana in his pockets on the streets of Brooklyn, he’d been hauled before a judge who gave him the choice of going to jail or going into the Army.
He chose the Army.
His first deployment was with the 1st Armored Division to Bosnia as part of NATOs peacekeeping forces. With the hostility still in the country, multi-national forces all around and himself angry at the world, Richards didn’t have to look far to find a source for drugs. He also didn’t have to look far to find ways to make fast cash to buy the drugs. One night on guard duty, he’d stumbled across a little illegal trading going on between his squad leader and a young Bosnian woman, Jasminka who did laundry for the GIs in camp.
The outwardly meek laundress led the negotiations, her understanding of the English language excellent, her knowledge of weapons even more impressive.
Desperate for drugs, Richards promised to help with the arms deals for a cut.
Mary’s heart had thudded against her ribs the more she read. “My God, Richards was a traitor.”
“Yeah.” Chris had read the pages, his ever-cheerful face growing graver by the minute. “Americans selling weapons to the enemy.” Mary grimaced. “Seems like we never learn, do we?”
The weapons trading went according to plan for several weeks, until American soldiers uncovered a Bosnian Serbs camp with a cache of American weapons. Military investigators swarmed into the area.
Richards and his squad leader got scared. They decided to cut their losses.
The squad leader sent more than half of the squad out on a bogus mission to check out a potential enemy camp a couple of miles away. Richards led them to ensure that they were well out of the way for what his leader had in mind.
After the recon mission left, the squad leader gathered the remainder of his men, informed them that the Bosnian Serbs had infiltrated the village, pushing the villagers out into the forests. They were to go in and shoot anything that moved and burn the village to keep the Serbs from coming back. He had the soldiers so pumped up and scared that by the time they entered the village, they were fully engaged and ready to kill any and all of the enemy.
Not until they’d torched half the huts did the soldiers realize the villagers hadn’t left at all. Women and children screamed in fear, as fire consumed them in their homes.
Mary had pressed a hand to her mouth, tears welling in her eyes. “They killed children.”
Men of the village came out fighting with the only weapons they owned, spears and knives. The squad leader mowed them down, using an AK-47 he’d staged near the village. Then he personally targeted the hut of his contact, Jasminka.
Mary stared at her home, reliving the horror of what she’d read. Had her father been one of the soldiers in the village or on the recon mission? Had he headed for Alaska like everyone else, to leave the world and his past sins behind?
Sorrow swelled like a tumor in Mary’s throat, choking off her air. Bosnia had been a terrible war where unspeakable atrocities occurred. Had the man who spent the last thirty years playing Santa committed some of those atrocities? Was his role as Santa atonement for his sins?
