Mr. Nettle looked down at me from his perch inside my warm house. “Come back inside. There’s no reason to go out like that. You’re hurt. Your feet will freeze in those slippers, and you’ve got no coat.”
Sharp winter wind sliced through my thin pajamas, reinforcing his point and chilling me to the core. My body heat had melted the snow on my fleece pants, and the temperatures were attempting to freeze the cloth to my skin. Even so, going inside seemed like a decidedly worse option.
“No, thank you,” I said politely while taking inventory of my capacities. The cold was doing a marvelous job of reducing my ankle’s sting, and adrenaline was working overtime to convince me it was warm enough to run and I was a track star. Unfortunately, neither of those things was true.
I scrambled backward on the ground where I’d fallen over the deputy, avoiding his blood and a high drift of snow along the stone patio. I took stock of my fallen protector’s equipment as I put some distance between myself and Mr. Nettle. “You should get your coat from the living room,” I said. I didn’t want the deputy’s gun, but there was a radio on his shoulder. The spiral cord disappeared beneath him, attached to something I couldn’t see. “I’d hate for you to leave it behind as evidence when the sheriff gets here and finds us missing.” More so, I’d love for him to give me a head start running to the pickup out front.
Mr. Nettle’s expression dimmed. “I’m not leaving you alone out here so you can skitter off and hide, and I don’t leave evidence. You should know that by now. I’ll be long gone—coat, hat, car, and all—before the business at the town square is done. Now come inside so we can talk this over.”
I swung my chin left to right, trying not to fixate on the deputy. He was young and strong. His chest continued to rise and fall in shallow pulls. Movements so small, it seemed Mr. Nettle hadn’t noticed. The deputy could survive what Mrs. Fenwick hadn’t. I just needed to lure Mr. Nettle away before he finished the job. I also needed to call for help before he gave my head a whack with that tree marker.
I rearranged my arms and legs, forcing myself onto my feet. I swayed gently with the wind. “If I come inside, what will happen?” I stalled, slipping my hand inside one pocket to work the buttons of my cell phone. The power button was easy enough, but there was no way to blindly discern anything else about the smooth screen’s surface. How could I make a call when I couldn’t see the numbers? I could have been updating my Facebook status with gibberish for all I knew.
“You said you wanted to talk,” Mr. Nettle said. “Come back inside and we’ll talk.”
I stepped forward, and he opened the glass storm door wider, extending his free hand to beckon me in.
A knot of determination sank low in my gut as I resolved to make the only move I could. Mr. Nettle didn’t have a banged-up body and busted ankle like me. I had to slow him down any way I could.
“Hurry up,” he grouched. “There’s no reason to drag this out.”
I hung my head and lowered my eyes in a show of inferiority, then lunged at the open glass door and slammed it against his reaching arm with all my might, smashing the limb against the doorframe and shattering the glass in the metal frame.
A shower of swears and spittle spurted from his mouth as he stumbled back, clutching his likely broken arm. Shards of glass tumbled into the snow-covered ground.
I dove onto the fallen deputy before Mr. Nettle could get the door open again and wrenched the nightstick and sidearm from the deputy’s belt.
Mr. Nettle fumbled onto the patio opposite me, still gripping his arm. “Get back here you nosy, no-good troublemaker, and I’ll at least give you the dignity of a final good-bye. I’ll stage a suicide and let you write the note.” He tented his eyebrows, as if to ask if that was a deal.
I ran for the trees.
The back door slammed shut behind me, sending a wave of echoes into the night. He must’ve gone back inside for his coat, but I was already headed in the wrong direction, into the shadows, away from the house and truck. I had nowhere to go. No coat. Sopping-wet slippers. What had I done?
I couldn’t keep going. I needed to hide. Every step I took sent blades of pain through my aching foot and cast a sheen of sweat over my freezing forehead, not to mention the path through the snow that led straight to me.
I cut between the rows of trees, where reaching branches had restricted the amount of precipitation on the ground. I pressed my back to a tree trunk for support and dialed the sheriff.
A cheerful whistle raised into the air. “Holly,” Mr. Nettle sang. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
The call at my ear connected with a loud click. “This is Sheriff Gray.”
I pressed a shaking hand to my mouth, suppressing the sudden torrent of emotion. Help was just on the other end of my phone, but I couldn’t speak, could barely breath. I didn’t know where Mr. Nettle was or if he’d hear my voice if I answered Sheriff Gray.
“Holly?” The sheriff’s voice came again, louder and firmer this time.
I sucked in a rattling breath and scurried deeper into the trees, catching the limbs with numb fingertips in an effort to support my awkward stride. I slipped from row to row in the densest part of the forest. “Help,” I whispered into the phone, cupping one hand around my mouth to direct the sound into the receiver. “Help me.” I crouched to bury the gun in a pile of snow. I wasn’t going to shoot anyone, but I also didn’t want to be shot.
Twigs snapped in the distance. The familiar stride of a brisk walk drew nearer by the second.
Darkness loomed over me like a suffocating blanket, and my throat burned with each new inhalation. The light from the house and garage was long gone, swallowed up by the night, buried beneath the horizon of a rolling hill. Even the plastic light-up Santa at the chimney was vanquished from existence. There was only Mr. Nettle, myself, and the trees.
I ducked under the wooden perimeter fence and into the trees at Reindeer Games. My heartbeat pounded in my ears.
“Where are you?” the sheriff demanded. “I’ve dispatched another deputy to your parents’ home. Are you there?”
“No.”
“Then where the hell are you?” The words were pointed and lethal.
“Hiding.” The word lifted from my lips in a cloud of white steam that I was certain Mr. Nettle could see.
“Where’s Phillip?” he asked next.
“Who?”
“My deputy. The one protecting you,” he demanded.
A tiny sob escaped my trembling lips. What now? Speak? Don’t speak? Have a conversation while Mr. Nettle sneaked up and bashed my head with a wooden stake? “I’m in the trees at the farm,” I said as softly as possible. “Phillip is down.”
“Ah-ah-ah,” Mr. Nettle taunted. His hot breath blew over my burning neck.
I tensed. A fiery battle of fight or flight warred inside me. I couldn’t outrun him. Not tonight.
A heavy hand landed on my shoulder, and I spun on instinct. Even before the decision was fully formed, I swung the stolen nightstick at the man behind me. My weapon connected with a sickening thud, and Mr. Nettle cursed. I dropped my phone in favor of a two-handed grip on the club and lashed out a second and third time until he released his grip on me with a shout.
My feet were in motion, carrying me over the snow, leaving a trail anyone could follow. I ignored my body’s protests—the pain in my ankle and the burn of the air.
I jetted through the field, guided only by the moon and an array of distant twinkle lights on rows of Reindeer Games’ trees. A renewed sense of hope rushed through me. I could do this. A killer had had his hand on me, and I’d earned my freedom. All I needed now was somewhere to hide until the sheriff or his deputy arrived.
A lump formed in my throat. My phone was gone. My already sprinting heart beat unfathomably faster. I’d lost my lifeline, but the sheriff knew I was in the trees at the farm.
I moved again, vanishing between rows of towering evergreens, begging the sting in my hands and feet not to mean what it could—frostbite. I slowed to rest my foot as the trees grew more and more sparse. “Why’d you do it?” I listened for signs of Mr. Nettle’s location in the dark.
“Do what?” his voice echoed through the trees, carried on the groaning wind.
I pressed my back against a mature fir and struggled for another painful breath. The adrenaline had run its course, and my body temperature was plummeting. My swollen ankle had become stiff and uncooperative. My fingers and toes had gone from burning to numb.
“Why’d you kill Mrs. Fenwick?” I pushed. “Was it because she caught you stealing the town’s grant money?”
I needed a better plan than waiting for help to arrive. Hypothermia was a frighteningly real possibility, and I didn’t have long before the effects took hold. The wet and freezing material of my pajamas seared my skin. It was too dark to see my fingertips, but they were undoubtedly the color of the snow. By now, blood had likely stopped trying to save my extremities in favor of keeping my organs pumping.
I swallowed a brick of ice and tried again to make Mr. Nettle talk. “When she sent the grant application to the Historical Preservation Society for the covered bridge, she learned that they’d already given money to Mistletoe this year, didn’t she? Did she come to you and ask why the HPS said they’d sent a check but you’d told her the grant had been denied? How many other grants have you stolen? How much do you owe this town?”
Projecting my voice stole the last of my energy, and soon my shaking knees gave out. I dropped into a squat against the tree and prayed to live.
There was movement in the row of evergreens opposite me. A shadow stretched and morphed under power of the moon and stars until there was no doubt—it was my hunter.
I mashed my chattering teeth together and scanned the greater picture. A squirt of adrenaline pushed me back into motion. I needed a new place to hide.
A familiar tree caught my eye as I slipped away, moving toward it as quickly as possible. The tree in my sights was separate from the others and possibly too good to be true. I strained to acclimate myself for confirmation. Had I really come so far on adrenaline and fear? All the way to the property’s edge in pajamas and slippered feet? I struggled to blink frozen eyelids, hoping it wasn’t a mirage.
Salvation was less than one hundred feet away. The sinkhole I’d leapt over for fun as a youth would save my life tonight. All I had to do was summon the energy to make it that far, through drifting snow, past the man who wanted to kill me, and jump.
My eyes warmed and blurred as I hobbled toward the pit. What if I couldn’t make the jump? What if I fell in and Mr. Nettle followed me down? He’d surely kill me like he had Mrs. Fenwick. What if I fell and he didn’t? He’d walk away, collect his car, and leave. I’d be long dead before anyone found me, frozen among the discarded limbs, and Mr. Nettle would get away with murder. Again.
He stepped through the trees, as if on cue, a crazed look on his haggard face.
I didn’t wait for him to speak.
I flew in the direction of the pit, yipping with every step. My twisted ankle felt suspiciously broken, but that wouldn’t matter if I failed.
“Stop running!” Mr. Nettle screamed. His fingertips brushed my elbow as I stayed just beyond his reach.
I raced toward the finish line. I ran for justice. For my town. For my folks. I couldn’t die on the land that had provided and sheltered us all these years. I wouldn’t.
The pit came closer with each new stride. I counted silently and with unmatched determination. Three . . . two . . . one . . .
I pushed off the ground with everything I had, leaping into the air, deftly clearing the pit, now camouflaged in darkness and snowfall. My victory was stunted as I bounced on my chest against the frozen earth. Wind expelled from my lungs with a deep whoosh.
Behind me, Mr. Nettle’s footfalls were replaced by a terrifying scream and a thunderous crack. He’d run directly into the pit.
My lids fell shut as the weight of my predator disappeared, and I dreamed immediately of my name on Sheriff Gray’s lips.
“I dropped the phone,” I whispered to the sky. What I heard wasn’t him. It was delirium. It was my body giving up and the cold sleep of death come to give me rest.
My hazy thoughts drifted to a brighter day, when Mom and Dad waved to me from their front porch rocking chairs and the sun warmed my cheeks. I relaxed into the memory until the light began to blind me.
I grimaced and shook my head as the beam seared my eyelids. Sounds of machinery and engines pulled me away from my family and back into the frozen night.
“BP sixty-two over forty,” an unfamiliar voice informed no one in particular. “Low but stable. Pulse is weak, but she’s got one. I count that as a win.”
My limbs sprawled and dangled a moment before being tucked against my sides. Something hugged my head and neck.
“You have the right to remain silent,” Sheriff Gray’s voice thundered like the Great and Mighty Oz. Whoever had crossed him in that disposition was unlucky to be sure.
I attempted to turn my head toward the sound but couldn’t.
“You’re going to be just fine,” the same unfamiliar voice promised.
Multiple flashes of light burst beyond my frozen lids. Was someone taking pictures?
“Griggs”—Sheriff Gray’s voice was sharp and deep—“get the hell away from here. What are you doing? Following me?”
A woman with round cheeks and a knitted cap smiled down at me. The little green-and-red yarn ball on top of her head bobbed along with each of her steps.
“Where are we going?” My gummy tongue stuck to the roof of mouth, distorting my speech.
“You’re on a gurney, and we’re taking you to Mistletoe General for a few tests and a nice warm bed.”
“She going to be okay?” Sheriff Gray’s voice arrived nearby.
I wiggled on my little bed, straining to see his face.
“We’ll know soon,” the smiling woman said.
I had so many questions, but when I opened my mouth, a sob came out. Reality exploded in my heart and head like a hand grenade. I wasn’t with my parents on a warm summer day. I was cold and wet; I was nearly murdered by a middle-aged accountant.
“I’ve got her.” The sheriff’s face swam into view as I peeled my frozen eyes open. He bumped the lady out of his way and took control of my gurney. “How you doing, White?”
My vision blurred, and a hot streak swiveled over my cheek then landed in my ear. “I was hoping to run into you.”
Sheriff Gray produced a handkerchief and wiped the wetness away. “You scared me,” he said. His honest green eyes burned with emotion. “When I promised I’d keep you safe, I had no idea you were going to make it so hard.”
“Phillip,” I croaked, suddenly recalling the name of his deputy.
“He’s okay. He called from your parents’ landline thirty seconds after you hung up on me.”
“I lost my phone.”
The rosy-cheeked woman popped back into view. “That’s what she was saying when I got here. Mean anything to you?”
“Yeah,” he said. “She needs another phone.” Red light passed over his face as we stopped behind the ambulance, and he released the silver bedrail. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me most.”
Together, he and the woman hoisted my gurney into a well-lit ambulance, where a waiting EMT snapped an oxygen mask over my face and a glowing clip onto the end of my finger. I lifted it slowly like a doped-up E.T.
Sheriff Gray climbed inside and took a seat beside the woman preparing an IV. He leaned his face to mine and bound my hands in his. “You’re going to be feeling lots better as soon as that medicine kicks in.”
I fought heavy eyelids as the needle punctured my skin. “Don’t go,” I mumbled.
The vehicle rocked to life, and we began a slow roll away from my worst nightmare.
Sheriff Gray lowered his lips to my forehead and left a kiss behind. “You did good tonight.”