“Please,” he said, voice thick. “Take it away, with the other boxes. Just for a while. It’ll stop me from looking, kitten.” Angie’s heart beat a little faster at his use of her old nickname. Her father hadn’t used it since she was maybe ten. She came around, sat on the ottoman at his side, took the leather-bound book of memories from his big hands. She opened it at the beginning. Her mother pregnant. Her tummy growing. The day Angie was born.
“She made it for you. Your life from the minute she knew you were on the way. It’s ... too ... painful right now, you know, for me to look at these things.”
Angie gazed upon the image of her mom in a hospital bed, wearing a blue gown, cradling her newborn. The haze of dark-red hair already evident on baby Angie’s head.
“You were so tiny,” he whispered, turning his face toward the dying coals. She heard the catch of emotion in his words. She knew there were tears in his eyes. The tightness began to intensify in her chest.
She turned to another page. The day of her baptism—her mom and dad holding her as a baby in a long white, lace-embossed gown. The priest in his ornate robes at their side. Another photo showed them all at the beach. She skipped forward several pages. Emotion whammed through her chest. She caught her breath and gently touched the image. She could almost hear her mother’s voice from that day, feel the warm summer breeze against her cheeks, taste the rich, sweet taste of plump Okanagan cherries. Slowly, Angie turned the page. There were pictures of more family holidays, Angie’s first day of school, her first Holy Communion, learning to sail at camp, her prom, graduation.
A picture of Angie in her brand-new police uniform, her mom standing proudly at her side, long hair billowing in the breeze.
Gently, Angie moved her fingertips over the contours of her mother’s face.
“I’ll miss her.”
“I already do,” said her father.
She closed the book. “I’ll borrow it,” she said. “I’ll bring it back by Christmas, how’s that? What are you doing for Christmas, Dad? You want me to get a turkey?” Shit. She’d said it. Committing. At one of the busiest times of the year at the station. Perverts—bad guys didn’t take holidays. In fact, things got worse at this time of year.
He rubbed his brow. “I’ll figure it out.”
An errant log caught flame, and the fire crackled. Wind moaned.
She nodded. “I’ll see myself out.” She got up, hesitated. “Go easy on that whiskey, okay? Get an early night.”
He nodded, his face still averted from her gaze.
“Night, Dad.”
Angie loaded the boxes and album into her car. Outside, wind tore at her hair, and fog came in thick off the sea. She could hear the crash of waves on rocks down below.
The snow was coming down heavily and sideways.
CHAPTER 2
Angie rounded the corner and hit the unprotected strip of Dallas Road that ran along Ross Bay. Wind and driving snow slammed into her. Waves crashed and boomed along the concrete road barrier, and fog billowed in over the bay. Leaning forward for better visibility, she slowed her unmarked Crown Vic, her wipers struggling to clear arcs in the snow smearing over her windshield.
As she neared the lowest dip in the road, her tires entered a stream of seawater spilling over the wall. Debris and foam hurtled across her windshield. The beams of her headlights bounced back at her in the fog and silvery snowflakes. She rounded the curve, and something dashed suddenly out into the road in a swirl of mist and foam. A blur of pink entered the glow of her beams. Angie slammed on the brakes, her Crown Vic skidding sideways as it planed on the seawater that had puddled in the dip.
A small girl in a pink dress stopped right in front of her car, then spun around and disappeared up into the dense, leafless tangle of roots and branches that grew tightly up against the side of the road.
She stared, heart hammering, skin hot. Clouds cleared for a moment, but the child was gone. No other vehicles—not one other soul in sight.What the ...
She pulled over to the side, flicked on her police lights, grabbed her flashlight, and removed her Smith and Wesson 5906 service pistol from the lockbox mounted in her console. She loaded her weapon. Blue and red light pulsed in the fog as she opened her door, got out. She drew the hood of her jacket up against the driving wind and snow pellets.
“Hello!” she yelled into soup of fog. “Anyone there?” Wind snatched her words, tossing them up into the hedge of tangled trunks and branches that screened the old cemetery above. A strange, eerie sensation filled her.
She walked a few meters up the road, panning her beam through the twisted branches along the embankment. “Hello!”
A voice, soft and susurrating, whispered ...Come playum dum grove ... Come down dem ...
Angie froze.
She spun around.
Come playum dum ... come ...
The eerie sensation turned to ice in her chest. She swallowed, walked a little farther along the road, ducking as debris blew at her. No sign of the kid on either side.
