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Hope awoke Monday morning with a start. All night long she’d dreamed of Steve. She remained snuggled in her sack as flashes of their brief connection cycled through her mind. She thought of the silly joke he’d told Todd about the bike. She recalled his comforting words about her parents. And the way he’d looked at her after the star had streaked the sky? Oh, wow. She was sure he’d wanted to kiss her. If he’d made a move, she would have let him.
Get the lead out, she told herself. She wriggled out of the sack and shivered. There was a bite in the temperature. The camper’s front window was frosty with rime. She shrugged into a cardigan, and after waking the children, cleaned the VW’s window. Her teeth were chattering by the time she climbed back into the driver’s seat. “Dress in warm clothes,” she called to the children as she made their breakfast. “And then come and eat.”
Once they were on the road, Hope said, “Today will be a fun day with Khloe.”
“Yeah!” Todd chirped.
“Don’t you think so, Melody?” Hope asked.
Melody grunted while staring out the window, fingertips tapping the glass. She’d only eaten half of her breakfast even though it was her favorite—cream cheese and sugar-free jam on sourdough bread.
“Khloe has fun things planned.” Hope turned in the direction of the community center. “I heard you’re going to make papier-mâché ornaments.”
“Big whoop,” Melody groused.
Sunshine spilled into the camper as Hope drove, her thoughts still swirling of Steve. The way his hair swooped across his forehead. The desirable glint in his gaze. The compliment about her mothering skills. Given Melody’s attitude, Hope was questioning his assessment.
“Here we are,” she said, pulling into the lot by the community center.
Khloe, her orange hair in a knot and her burgundy parka zipped to the neck, greeted the children as Hope was sliding the VW’s door closed. “Good morning! We’re rocking and rolling today, kids. Twenty of you. Melody, your friend Josie is here. And Todd, I think you like Nathan, right?”
“No,” Todd said, trying to close the zipper on his backpack.
Khloe knuckled his arm. “C’mon. It’s the holidays. No grudges, okay?”
“He said Santa isn’t real.” Todd’s mouth pulled down in a frown.
“Oho,” Khloe said. “Well, we’ll fix that right away. Do I have a whopper of a story to tell you about Santa. Why, just last year . . .” She slung an arm around him and steered him toward the front entrance.
“Kiss, Melody?” Hope asked.
Melody glowered at her mother and, with her backpack slung over one shoulder and basketball under one arm, raced into the center and didn’t look back.
Battling the pain of rejection, Hope clambered into the driver’s seat, jammed the VW into gear, and did her best not to stew. Melody’s peeve would pass. Hope only wished it would pass sooner rather than later.
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At the end of Hope’s shift, an exhausting one in which she’d baked a dozen pies and served numerous pre-Christmas shoppers, she drove back to the community center. The temperature had dropped ten degrees, and snow had begun to fall in a steady drift. The windshield wipers were doing their best to flick off snow but failing. She hadn’t replaced the blades in over a year, but now, having depleted her savings, she wouldn’t be able to. After parking, she clapped her hands together to un-numb her fingers, exited the camper, and strode inside the building. The aroma of cinnamon wafted to her.
“I love Christmastime,” a petite redheaded girl said to her mother as they were exiting.
“Me, too,” her mother said, giving her daughter a warm hug.
Moving deeper inside, Hope searched for Melody but didn’t see her. She spotted Todd standing at a table putting finishing touches on a papier-mâché ornament, a royal blue oval something. It looked like Todd had covered it with three times too many gooey strips.
Todd held it out to her. “It’s sort of wet.”
Hope grinned. “It’ll dry.” Maybe in a week. She turned in a circle, scanning the practically empty center but still didn’t see Melody. Khloe was helping a boy about Todd’s age into a jacket. A parent was kneeling in front of a young girl, straightening her snow hat. “Where’s your sister, Todd?”
“She went outside to shoot hoops.”
“In this weather?”
“She said she needed fresh air.”
“How long’s she been out there?”
“I dunno.”
“Stay here,” Hope said, and hurried to the playground. Melody wasn’t there. No one was. Snow-filled footsteps marred the snow, but there were no ball marks. “Melody!” she yelled. Silence. Wind whistled through the trees.
Fear scudded through Hope. She raced into the center and cried, “Khloe, where’s Melody?”
Khloe’s face went white. “She’s not outside?”
“No.”
“But she said—” Khloe darted down the hall, opening one door after another.
Hope followed, adrenaline spiking. “Melody!”
Over her shoulder, Khloe said, “She went out about twenty minutes ago.”
Hope breathed easier. Twenty minutes. She wouldn’t freeze inside of twenty minutes.
“Maybe she came in to warm up,” Khloe said, peering into each room.
Hope double-checked each after Khloe. “Melody!” she called. The word reverberated off the ceiling and walls.
Khloe opened the door to the girls’ bathroom. “Melody?”
Crickets.
Suddenly, Hope couldn’t breathe. Her lungs felt as if they’d been cinched with saran wrap.
“Mom, what’s wrong?” Todd caught up to her, his young face pinched with concern. “Where’s Melody?”
Hope grabbed his shoulders. “What was the last thing your sister said to you?”
“Nice ornament, dork.” Todd’s mouth drew thin. “I told her to—”
“About going outside,” Hope said, trying to keep him on point.
“She didn’t tell me. She told Khloe. Isn’t she h-here?” His voice cracked with worry.
Hope clasped Todd’s left hand and drew him into the main room to make one more sweep.
“Hey, there’s her basketball.” Todd pointed toward the Christmas tree decorated with paper ornaments and a paper chain. The ball was tucked beneath a low bough.
On tenterhooks, Hope rushed to inspect it, wondering whether Melody might have crawled beneath the tree and in her peevish state fallen asleep, but no such luck.
“Where’s her stuffed elephant?” Hope asked. “And her backpack?”
“Follow me.” Khloe ran to the front of the building. Hope and Todd hurried after her. “I asked her to leave the elephant with her coat. I didn’t want it getting papier-mâché goop all over it.” Khloe slipped into the coat room and turned in a circle. “Her jacket isn’t here. Neither is the elephant or backpack.”
“Mom, maybe she got bored and went to the Curious Reader,” Todd suggested. “You know how much she likes to read.”
Hope flashed on Melody shouting I don’t like books the day before, but she adored books.
“Yes, my sweet son. For seven, you are wise beyond your years.” Hope clung to the possibility that Melody had taken her elephant and backpack with her but had forgotten her basketball. “Let’s go.”
Khloe said, “Hope, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say. I’ll . . . I’ll stay here”—she gulped in air—“and I won’t leave. Promise. Just in case she comes back. I . . . ” She raised a hand to her mouth. “I can’t believe this.”
Hope said, “It’s not your fault. She’s mad at me.”
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Over two dozen people were browsing the aisles at the Curious Reader when Hope and Todd arrived, many toting shopping bags from other stores.
They approached Isabel, who was busy tending to a wisp of a woman dressed in red and wearing bulky jewelry.
“Sorry to interrupt, Isabel,” Hope said, “but have you seen Melody?”
“No. She’s missing?” Isabel nudged her glasses higher on her nose. “Oh, my.”
Todd said, “Mom, maybe she sneaked in when other people walked in. Let’s search.” He tugged on Hope’s hand.
“Do you mind, Isabel?” Hope asked.
“Please do. You know how your daughter loves sports stories. I’d start there. I’ll be over to help as soon as—”
Todd yanked hard. Hope gave Isabel a helpless look and went with her son. Together they peeked beneath the reading tables and behind reading chairs. No Melody. Hope checked the bathroom past the register. Empty.
Isabel caught up to them. “You haven’t found her?”
Hope huffed. Did it look like she’d found her? She didn’t lash out. Isabel wasn’t the enemy. “Not yet,” she said. “We’re going to search all her favorite haunts.”
“If she comes in, I’ll call you.” Isabel put a reassuring hand on Hope’s shoulder.
“Thank you.”
Hope left the shop with Todd in tow and headed down the street to the Christmas Attic. Whenever Melody visited the attic, she liked touching the vintage Shiny Brite glass ornaments.
As she entered, Ellery stepped from behind the register, brushing her hands on her sparkly red apron. “Hope, is everything all right? You look panicked.”
Hope gasped, fear stifling her breath. “Melody is missing.”
“Oh, heavens,” Ellery said. “Should we call the police?”
“Not yet. She’s upset with me. She’s probably hiding.”
The place was jammed with shoppers who were weaving through the myriad themed Christmas trees that included an all-red ornaments tree, a Santa and his reindeers tree, and a Nutcracker Suite tree. In addition to ornaments, the shop sold jewelry boxes, puzzle boxes, vintage dolls, trains, and stuffed animals.
Hope nudged Todd. They scooted around customers and, as they had at the bookshop, peered behind and beneath the displays. Todd tugged free and moved to a tree featuring comic book-style ornaments.
“Sweetheart,” Hope said, “we can’t shop. Let’s finish searching.”
Minutes later, without finding a hint of Melody, Hope said good-bye to Ellery.
“I’ll keep an eye out,” Ellery said.
“Thank you.”
Hope and Todd continued on. To Good Sports. To Dreamery Creamery. To Sweet Place. No one had seen Melody.
Defeated, Hope went to Aroma Café. She didn’t believe for a minute that her daughter would show up there and risk Gabe calling her mother, but she needed a shoulder to cry on. And she craved sober advice.
When she entered, Denny Benton saw her first. He was sitting at the counter nursing a cup of coffee, the remnants of pie crust on his plate. “Hope, are you okay? You look like—”
“My daughter. Melody. She’s missing.” She started to cry.
“Gabe!” Denny yelled.
Gabe bounded from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. He tossed it in a bin. “What’s wrong?”
“Melody is missing,” Denny said.
“Either she ran away or—” Hope bit off the word. No, no, no. No one has kidnapped my daughter. “She ran away,” she said matter-of-factly to convince herself. “From the community center. She’s ticked off at me because . . .” She pressed a hand to her chest. “Because I turned down the KPRL prize.” She almost started to explain why, but it didn’t matter. What was done was done.
“Ah, honey.” Gabe wrapped a comforting arm around her.
Hope wrested free.
“We should call the police,” Denny said.
“Now, let’s not go off half-cocked,” Gabe said. “Where have you searched?”
Hope listed the shops.
“Mommy.” Todd tugged on the hem of Hope’s jacket.
“It’s okay.” She petted his head.
“Mommy,” he said more insistently. “Maybe we should go to Steve Waldren’s house.”
Hope blinked. “Why?”
“Because . . .” Todd chewed his lower lip. “Because of the prize.”
“Sweetheart, Steve doesn’t have the prize, and now isn’t the time to be thinking about it.”
“No, Mom, you don’t understand. Melody and I saw Steve yesterday at the cookie decorating contest, and I . . . I . . .” He pressed his lips together.
Hope’s heart snagged. “What did you do?”
“I said what if we could get Daddy to say yes to the prize, and Steve said if he did, we could go to Disneyland.”
“Oh, lord,” Gabe said.
Hope groaned.
“What if Melody went to Steve’s to call Daddy?” Todd mewled.
“How would he do that?” Hope asked.
“Melody found his number on your telephone.” He turned up his palms. “We both wrote it on our hands.”
