28
Two days before Christmas
Sleet hit Chicago like an icy whip early this afternoon, the Christmas gift that just kept giving. It was past evening rush hour and the sleet kept up as though it would never stop. I love snowy Christmases, but getting pelted in the face with icy needles was sheer misery, reminding me of my current relationship with my live-in love, Jake DeAtley.
Putting him out of mind so that I could concentrate on the job, I carefully negotiated the ice-laden pavement and took a quick look at the uniforms in charge of crowd control, the EMT guy at the body and the gathering spectator herd outside the yellow tape, taking their damn selfies with the dead guy behind them.
“Nice one for the holidays.” Detective Mike Norelli shook his grizzled head. “Great last minute Christmas cards.” He glanced back at me. “C’mon, Caldwell, let’s get this over with. I actually got a hot late night date.”
“Right,” I muttered, wondering what kind of a woman would go for the sarcastic cop. “I should rush to the scene and kill myself, too.”
Norelli snorted as he ducked under the crime scene tape. “That’s what you get for wearing killer boots.”
I wasn’t a fashionista like my twin sister Silke, but I had my moments. These knee length suede boots with high heels I’d seen in Westbrook’s windows had done me in. Or would do me in, I thought as I slid toward the dead man in the middle of the street. I regained control just in time to prevent myself from tripping over him.
“There’s the reason he’s dead,” Norelli groused, pointing to the tree on his other side. “Too into the Christmas spirit to get out of the way of traffic.”
“Nobody’s ever accused you of having too much spirit.”
But some kind of spirit was making my hackles rise. Sorrow…mourning…despair. A faint whisper in my mind like a voice that sounded like the night wind grieving froze me where I stood.
“Hey, Norelli, did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
I shook my head. “Probably someone in the crowd, I don’t know. Crying maybe.”
“Nope. Didn’t hear nothing. Maybe someone who knew the guy.”
“Right.”
Liar. I knew that wasn’t right. I recognized woo-woo the instant it hit me.
This psychic thing had started between Silke and me when we were little kids and had grown into our being able to talk to each other without actually speaking. Without even being in the same vicinity. Now Jake and I could read each other’s minds when we needed to tune in to each other. Too bad I couldn’t change his when it came to Christmas. Whatever was going on here at the scene hit me in the gut. I took a good look through the gathered crowd but saw no one in tears or appearing distraught. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was on the edge, no matter how much I wanted to believe otherwise. I felt it!
I shook myself back to what I could handle at the moment. “So did someone really run this guy down on purpose?” I asked the EMT, who was kneeling by the body.
“Don’t know for sure.” He got to his feet. He pointed to a small knot of teenagers behind him. “Those girls witnessed it. At least one of them got something on her phone.”
“I’ll go talk to them,” Norelli grunted.
He left me staring down at the poor middle-aged dead guy spread out next to a gorgeous pine tree unlike any I’d ever seen before. There was something magical about it, because despite the sleet that covered its branches, just looking at it warmed me inside. I steeled myself against showing any emotion, though, because there was nothing positive about the man’s death. I didn’t want anyone to think I didn’t have the proper respect. Poor guy probably had been bringing the Christmas tree home for his wife and kids. Oh, Lord, I hoped I wasn’t the one who’d have to share the bad news with his family. Worst part of the job.
“The county medical examiner’s van is on its way to take him to the morgue,” the EMT told me. “Ah, crud, I forgot to call Streets and Sanitation to remove the tree.”
They would not only remove the beautiful Christmas tree, they would destroy it, run it through their grinder to make mulch. Something kept me from wanting that to happen, at least not while it was still alive. The van to take the body away was already pulling up to the crime scene.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, wiping away sleet still hammering my face. “You take care of the victim. I’ll take care of the tree.”
And then I would have to deal with Jake when I brought it home.
***
“I thought we agreed on no Christmas tree,” Jake said the moment he laid eyes on it.
He wore nothing but an angry expression, the black diamond in his right ear and a towel low around his hips. I knew every inch of that beautiful body. Touch, taste, smell. I swallowed hard and tried not to admire what I couldn’t have. Not an early riser unless a little something erotic was involved—and there had been none of that in my reality since I’d insisted on decorating half of each room in the house for the holiday, including my half of the bed—he’d been dead asleep when I’d left for work that morning. Not literally dead, despite the vampire blood he’d inherited from his mother.
Sarge and Cadet were already circling the tree, sniffing it, no doubt wondering how long it would be before they could climb it.
“No!” I said a little too harshly. Sarge fell back on his haunches, his expression hurt and disbelieving, and scaredy cat Cadet ran behind the couch.
“I’m waiting for your supposed explanation.”
He was fiddling with the knot holding that towel in place. I was hoping he would fail and it would somehow drop to the floor.
Stop torturing yourself!
I cleared my throat and tried to speak normally. “I caught another woo-woo case. Really bad vibes.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “That’s your explanation for bringing home a Christmas tree against your sworn promise?”
“I’m telling you, there was something weird going on. I felt it right away.” Of course that’s not why I’d saved the tree from the chipper. “All right, then if you don’t believe me, don’t think of it as a Christmas tree. Think of it as a beautiful mountain pine that didn’t deserve to be destroyed while it’s still alive. It’s just here temporarily to make the house smell nice.”
“Right. Justify it all, why don’t you?”
“I didn’t do this to hurt you, Jake. I won’t even decorate it. I promise.”
His dark gaze cut through the room, half of which was already decorated with boughs of holly and strings of lights and candles everywhere. Well, on my half of the room, that is. I’d set out bowls of ornaments, most of which I’d bought one at a time, each with special meaning for me. Plus there were those from Silke’s and my childhood. “Santa” (Dad) always brought a few for each of us along with our other presents.
“By the way,” Jake added, “that ‘not a Christmas tree’ is on my side of the room.”
The barren side.
Grunting, I tried lifting the tree to appease him, but I swore it had gotten heavier every time I moved it. Or maybe I just needed to eat the meal I’d never gotten around to buying. “I suppose you wouldn’t consider helping me.”
In answer, he crossed his arms over his bared chest and raised one dark eyebrow.
My heart fluttering despite the tension between us, I did the best I could, dragging it, inching it along, finally leaning it against the wall next to the couch. I would have sworn I heard a sorrow-laden voice humming a mournful tune.
“Do you hear what I hear?” I asked, letting go of the tree.
“Hear what?”
I shook my head. The sound was gone. If it was even there to begin with, that was. “Nothing, I guess.”
I looked around for the tree stand. At least I didn’t have to go down to the storage area to find it. I’d brought it up with the rest of my decorations, also with no help from Jake. How the heck was I supposed to lift such a heavy tree into the stand myself?
Jake and I stared at each other for a moment, and I swore I read regret in his expression before he turned away.
“I’ll be in the shower,” he growled as he made for the bathroom.
Normally, that would have included an invitation for me to join him.
What exactly did he regret? For disappointing me? Or because he couldn’t shake the memories of a horrific childhood when none of his Christmases had been anything to celebrate?
The mother who’d loved him as best she could had been pregnant with Jake when she’d been turned by a vampire against her will. Amazing that he’d grown into a pretty normal man—okay, a spectacular man having tremendous speed, strength and hearing. And an appetite for very rare, very bloody beef. Couldn’t forget that one. From what he’d told me, he’d been as normal a kid as was possible, but his mother’s uncontrollable urge to feed on human blood came even before his needs at times. Definitely before Christmas. So after he’d spent holiday after holiday alone, no one to take him to Christmas services at midnight, no one to read him a Christmas story or to sing a Christmas carol with him, he’d given up celebrating, both religious and secular.
But now that we had found each other, had fallen in love, had bought a house, leaving his graystone two-flat where we’d lived together for a few months now rezoned for his thriving photography business, I’d convinced myself he would be open to something with such meaning for me. Until our Dad had died on the job, he’d made every Christmas special for Silke and me. I honored his memory every holiday. I’d told Jake that. I’d hoped that he would at least try to celebrate with me.
I’d been wrong.
And too stubborn to let it go.
So I’d come up with a compromise. “My half” of every room in our new house would be decorated as I wanted. Same with “his half.” I’d thought that maybe, just maybe, he would loosen up a bit. Instead, while he’d agreed I could hang my lights and set out my candles and ornaments on my side, the biting part of the bargain was that there was to be no Christmas tree.
I had reluctantly agreed.
Now this.
Saddened, I ran a hand along a branch of pine needles and it struck me again even harder.
Sorrow…mourning…despair.
I stood there for a moment staring at the branches, trying to discern exactly what was going on. The depth of feeling didn’t let up until I let go. And then I realized I hadn’t gotten the woo-woo signal from someone in the crowd earlier.
I’d gotten it from the tree itself.