Read Christmas At Timberwoods Online
Authors: Fern Michaels
Christmas At Timberwoods (15 page)
“The girl is scared half to death, Eric. Where are her parents? Why was she brought here in handcuffs?”
“Look, Amy, believe me, it’s better you don’t know. You’re going to have to trust me. You have my word that nothing is going to happen to her. All we want to do is talk to her. Talk, Amy, that’s all. Why don’t you let me make you a cup of tea? You look tired.”
“I don’t want any tea and I’m not tired. Why are you trying to sidetrack me? How long are you going to keep her here?”
“She can leave any time she wants after she talks to us.”
“All right, Eric, I’ll go into the kitchen, but I want to see that girl before she leaves here. Promise me,” Amy said firmly.
“I promise,” Eric said shortly.
“I’m going to clean up the kitchen and then I’m going to bake a cake.”
“Fine, fine. Why don’t you make two cakes,” Eric said absently.
“Great idea and I’ll frost them with arsenic. How would you like that?”
“Whatever you say. You know I like cake,” Eric replied, his mind on other things.
The doorbell chimed. Eric opened it to admit Noel, Lex, and Harold.
“You really found her?” Lex asked, amazed. “Where is she?”
“Taking a bath,” Eric said disgustedly. “An herb bath, no less. Amy decided to do a little advance mothering. Angela has to scrub off a lot of mud and wash her hair, and then God only knows what else. She’s been in there a long time; she should be out soon. How about a drink while we’re waiting?”
“That sounds good to me.” Harold beamed. Noel and Lex nodded in agreement and watched Eric head to a small array of liquor bottles standing atop a sideboard.
Angela waved the blow dryer a few times around her springy curls and looked in the mirror. She would do. Mrs. Summers certainly was nice. She was grateful for the food. Wondering vaguely when the baby was due, she thought about buying a present for the new arrival, or making a colorful mobile to hang over the crib. She could even design a wall hanging—brightly colored animals all in a row, maybe, or whatever Amy wanted.
That is, she could get creative if she weren’t locked up somewhere. She tidied up the bathroom and put everything back the way she found it. Before leaving the bedroom, she tried Charlie’s number again. After ten rings she hung up. Where was he? He should have been home long ago. Or maybe he was home and just not answering the phone because he was angry at her. If only she’d left a note . . . but at the time she hadn’t been thinking about anything except getting out of there and ridding herself of the vision.
Angela went back to the kitchen and smiled at Amy, a sad but winsome smile that went straight to Amy’s heart.
“You were right, Mrs. Summers, that was the best bath I ever had. I cleaned out the tub and returned everything the way I found it.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I didn’t want you to have to scrub. I mean, with you being . . .”
“As big as a mountain. Thanks, honey.”
“When is your baby due?”
“Right around Christmas Day. Won’t that be a magnificent present?”
“The best.” Angela grinned. “I wish I could stay here and talk to you, but I have to go inside. Your kitchen smells so good. I love it in here.”
Tears blurred Amy’s eyes. “When you’ve finished your talk, you come back here and we’ll have some fresh chocolate cake and talk about my baby. Is it a deal?”
Angela nodded and walked through the swinging door into the living room. Eric was shocked at the girl’s appearance. Christ, she almost looked normal and she smelled like Amy, just like an herb garden. Lex raised his eyes and grinned at Harold. It was obvious the chief had a little trouble recognizing Angela for a moment. Soap and water certainly worked miracles.
“Angela, this is Dr. Noel Dayton,” Lex explained. “He wants to talk to you and so do we. I apologize for the way you were brought here, but you have to understand that we really had no other choice. You can leave, by the way. But I want to make it clear that we believe in you. All we want to do is talk. Is it a deal?”
Angela looked at the faces surrounding her. They looked harmless enough and they hadn’t called her mother. Maybe they did just want to talk.
Lex went on, “I’ve explained the situation to Dr. Dayton, but I want him to hear it from you. So far Mr. Baumgarten has only my word, as does Mr. Summers, about what you saw.”
Angela waited. Let them say everything they had to say and then she would decide. Where was Heather? She would feel better if the pretty executive from the mall was in on this—whatever this was. She didn’t want to call it an interrogation.
Angela willed her face to total blankness and Lex cringed. Jesus, what if she refused to talk?
Eric looked directly into Angela’s eyes. “Your visit to Ms. Andrews and telling her about a potential explosion at Timberwoods Mall has caused us a great deal of concern. I’m going to ask you straight out, Angela, do you know anything about the bomb threat that you haven’t told us? Did you send it? Do you know who did?”
Angela involuntarily took a step backward, wanting to put some distance between herself and the man who seemed to be trying to peer into her very soul.
“I . . . I only know what I’ve already told you, nothing about the bomb threat. I don’t know who could have sent it.” She could feel herself beginning to tremble. Her gaze fixed on Dayton. “You said he’s a doctor. What’s he doing here? Did my mother send you?” she demanded suspiciously.
“I’m a psychiatrist, Angela, and I want to help,” Dayton said.
“Help who? Me or the police?” she snapped defiantly.
Surprising her, Harold spoke up, his tone gentle. “We’re here to discuss the possibility of saving lives. If we’re to believe what you say, then you have to help us. We aren’t going to laugh at you, and we aren’t going to ridicule you. I don’t pretend to understand these things; that’s why Dr. Dayton is here. Summers and myself are responsible for the safety of the people who shop in the mall. Lassiter is here because Heather called him into the situation. We want to help, but before we can do that you have to help us.”
Angela’s expression stayed blank as she stared at first one man, then the other. If she talked, she could walk out of this house—but it didn’t really make any difference; they wouldn’t be able to do anything. “What do you want to know?”
She heard the audible sigh of relief from one of the men. So, they were worried.
Noel questioned Angela for over two hours, making notes on a small pad he held on his knees. Not once, by voice or look, did he show belief or disbelief. Harold shifted position from time to time while Eric just sat, his face stony and hard.
“That’s all there is to tell,” Angela said finally. She had consciously omitted any mention of Charlie. They didn’t ask and she didn’t say anything. Charlie cared about her, she knew he did, and she didn’t want anyone to spoil it by telling him she was a weirdo. She wanted to keep the barely begun relationship going with him—she couldn’t just let go. It was as though she was connected to him somehow, and she needed that connection. “You can’t do anything about Timberwoods Mall. Nobody can do anything. Why are you trying?”
“If nobody can do anything, why did you go to the mall and speak to Ms. Andrews? Why did you tell her the story?” Noel asked in return.
“I don’t know exactly why. I just felt I had to tell someone. I suppose I thought that if I told someone it wouldn’t be so bad. If I didn’t, all those people . . . well, what happened would be partly my fault.”
“What would you say if I told you we could close the mall during Christmas week and there wouldn’t be anyone there to get hurt?”
“You won’t be able to close the mall,” Angela said flatly. “You can’t change what I saw. What I see happens, just like the plane and the little—” Angela stopped, trying to gulp back her words.
“What plane?” Noel demanded.
Angela flushed. “Nothing.”
“Tell me, Angela,” Noel said firmly.
“I don’t want to talk about it. I told you, it’s nothing. Leave me alone. You said that when I told you everything I could go. Well, I’ve told you and now I want to leave,” she said. She got to her feet.
“Wait a minute, Angela. The deal was that you were to tell me everything. You said you would. Now, what about the plane?”
“The plane had nothing to do with the mall,” Angela said, her face drained of color.
“Please,” Noel said firmly. “Up to now you’ve cooperated beautifully. Why leave anything out? Whatever it is, it might help us. Let us be the judges.”
“If I tell you, then can I leave?”
“You have my word, and I don’t give my word lightly,” Noel said, leaning across the coffee table, his face earnest.
Angela licked her dry lips and looked from one man to the other. “All right, but you aren’t going to like it. I woke up, just before I went to Timberwoods, right before the cop picked me up. I saw the light, just like the other times. I screamed and wouldn’t open my eyes, but somehow my eyes opened and there it was. I don’t want to tell you,” she said, getting up suddenly. “I changed my mind. I want to leave now.” Her features were rigid with fear. She could feel herself shaking. The tremors reached her fingers, her toes.
“You have to tell me, Angela,” Noel said quietly. “Sit down and take a deep breath and let it all out. Don’t you feel better when you tell someone? Of course you do,” he answered for her. “When you talk about it, it doesn’t seem so bad. I want to know, Angela. I have to know so I can help you.”
“You can’t do anything about this, either, so why do I have to tell you?”
“We don’t know for sure that we can’t do anything. All we can do is try. Isn’t trying better than nothing?”
“Okay, okay. There was this plane . . . It was little, not like the big jets. I don’t know if it was night or day, because of the bright light. The plane was on fire; I heard the drone of the engine and then I heard the sputter . . . the sky was lit up and the plane was burning.”
Angela’s voice began to rise with the onset of panic. “I think it crashed. There was a little girl who might have died—I hoped she was asleep. She was very pretty and she had gold circlets in her ears. She was tiny and so still . . . she had a lot of dark curls. I didn’t want her to be dead.”
Tears trickled down Angela’s thin cheeks as she talked. Wearily she shook her head from side to side. “You see, you can’t do anything about this, either. No one can do anything.” She looked to Noel, as if for reassurance.
Noel was off the chair and kneeling beside her. “Right now I don’t have any answers for you. But I want you to listen to me. You had this vision a few hours ago. Is that right?”
“Yes. I’ve already told you.”
“Where was the plane? By that I mean, was it here in Woodridge, or was it some place farther away? Could you tell?”
“No. It could be anywhere.”
“These other visions, the ones you’ve had in the past—were they all more or less around here, let’s say within a twenty-five mile radius?”
Angela nodded.
“And you couldn’t tell if it was day or night?”
“No, because of the bright light. I couldn’t see beyond the light.”
“Did the plane crash or was it on fire?”
“I think it crashed because it was on fire. The whole scene was fire.”
“What color was the plane?”
“White with some red on the wings and black letters on the side.”
Noel’s voice rose in excitement. “Did you see the letters?”
“Yes, I saw them. P-654RT. Big black letters.”
“The little girl—think again. Do you know what happened to her?”
“I wasn’t sure. But she was so still.”
“How old was she, Angela? Do you know? Could you guess?”
“Three years, maybe four. It would be hard to say because she was so tiny. And she had those little gold earrings, almost covered by the dark curls.”
“Angela, if the plane was burning, wouldn’t she have burned, too? Or was she thrown clear?”
Angela frowned. “There wasn’t any fire around her. She wasn’t burned at all.”
“Where did she come from?”
Angela looked puzzled. “I don’t know. At first I thought she was asleep.”
“How do you know?”
Angela appeared confused. “I don’t know. Her mother was nearby, like she’d been watching over her. She seemed awfully sad. And don’t ask me how I know that, either. I just know.”
“Think. Was there anything else, anything you might have forgotten? Was there anybody else in the plane? What about the pilot? Were there any other passengers?”
Angela shook her head. “Just what I saw.”
“Is there any way for you to know how soon these things happen after you see them, how—”
“I don’t know!” Angela cried, jumping up. “A day, two days . . . I don’t know! Sometimes just a few hours. I don’t want to talk about it anymore!” Her voice rose to a shriek. She’d had enough. More than enough. She’d told them all she knew and they still wanted more. But there wasn’t any more. She buried her face in her hands and tried to erase the little girl’s face from her mind.
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