A Woman With A Mystery

“What if he knew about her affair, maybe even knew who it was?” Slade interrupted. Joe Rawlins had died of a heart attack not six months after his wife’s murder. But Joe had never had a bad heart. That’s why Slade had always believed it had been heartbreak that had killed him.

Curtis let out an oath. “You think a cop like your father would let Marcella’s murderer go free?”

“Maybe there was a reason Dad didn’t go after the real killer. Or couldn’t.” All Slade had was a gut instinct, one that had told him years ago that the wrong man had died for the crime.

Curtis shook his head. “You’re opening up a can of worms here. Have you thought at all about Shelley and what this is going to do to her?”

“I always think of Shelley,” Slade snapped.

Curtis raised a brow as Shelley called from the other room.

“What’s keeping you two? No work! It’s Christmas Eve!”

Curtis reached for the glass of wine Slade had poured for Norma. “Isn’t it bad enough that your mother was murdered? You want to murder her reputation as well? And for what? Roy Vogel killed her.”

“Then you think she was having an affair,” Slade said.

Curtis swore. “If she was, I for one don’t want to know about it.”

Slade fell silent, thinking about what Curtis had said as he followed the chief back into the living room. The conversation turned to the holidays and food and parties.

He stared at the fire, the bright hot flames licking up from the logs, and tried to follow the conversation. But he couldn’t quit thinking. About his mother’s murder. About the young woman who’d come up to his office. He wondered what she was doing tonight and if she was all right. If she’d ever been all right. And if it was possible she’d given birth to his baby.

He couldn’t help but remember in detail how it had been between them and wonder…what if her memory of him were to come back—

He reminded himself that she was a thief and, more than likely, a liar. She’d stolen more than his money and his files. She’d stolen his heart.

Maybe that’s why he couldn’t get her or the Santa bell-ringer out of his head. Or completely forget about the damned letter in his pocket—and its possible ramifications.

“Don’t you think so, Slade?”

He jerked his head up. “What?”

“I asked if you thought this was our best tree yet?” Shelley turned to the others. “Slade and I went out and cut this one ourselves.”

He nodded. “The best ever.” But he could feel his sister’s worried gaze on him. She knew him too well. It would be hard to keep his concerns from her, let alone the letter. Especially once he started asking around town about their mother.

When Chief Curtis got up to clear the snack dishes, Slade offered to help, following the cop into the kitchen.

“Now what?” Curtis asked, only half as put out as he pretended, Slade suspected.

“Any chance you could get a license plate run for me tonight?”

“Tonight?” the chief asked in disbelief.

“It’s for a missing-person case I’m working on.” He gave Curtis the license number from the SUV the alleged Holly Barrows had left his office in. “I need a name and address. It’s important and I have a feeling it can’t wait until after Christmas.”

The chief grumbled but stuffed the number in his pocket. “I’ll have someone at the DMV call you. I’m trying to enjoy the holiday.” As annoyed as he sounded, the cop seemed glad that Slade had given up on his investigation into Marcella Rawlins’ possible infidelity. At least temporarily.

After all these years, Slade thought, his mother’s murder could wait another day. Maybe the woman who called herself Holly Barrows couldn’t.

Chapter Three

Christmas Day

The next morning, after opening presents and eating Shelley’s famous cranberry waffles with orange syrup, Slade followed the snowplow over the pass to Pinedale. It had snowed off and on throughout the night, leaving the sky a clear crystalline blue and everything else flocked in white with a good foot of new snow on the highway.

Pinedale was a small mountain town, forgotten by the interstate, too far from either Yellowstone or Glacier parks and not unique enough to be a true tourist trap.

He wondered what Holly Barrows was doing here—if indeed the woman he’d met yesterday in his office really was the same Holly Barrows the Department of Motor Vehicles reported lived at 413 Mountain View and drove a blue Ford Explorer.

Pinedale was smaller than Dry Creek, set against a mountainside and surrounded by dense pines. The entire town felt snowed-in and deserted, caught in another time. It had once been a mining camp, some of the scars of its past life still visible on the bluffs around it.

He found Mountain View and drove up to 413. The sign on the lower level of the building read: Impressions Art Gallery. He got out of his truck and glanced in the gallery window, not surprised to see a typical Montana gallery with bronze cowboys and horses, oils and acrylics of Native Americans, and watercolor scenics. He spotted a nice acrylic of a sunny summer scene along a riverbank. The name in the right-hand corner was H. Barrows.

Off to the left of the gallery was an old garage and tracks in the snow where a vehicle had been driven in within the past twenty-four hours.

He stepped back to look up at what he assumed was an apartment on the second floor. The sun glinted on the large upstairs window but not before he’d glimpsed the dark image of a woman there, not before he’d felt a chill.

Rounding the corner of the building, he found a stairway that led up to the apartment. He stopped at the foot of the stairs and glanced around the neighborhood. A handful of kids were dragging shiny new sleds up the side of the mountain a few doors down. A dog barked incessantly at one of the boys. A mother called from a doorway to either the dog or the boy, Slade couldn’t tell which. Neither paid any attention.

He didn’t see a Santa bell-ringer, but then he hadn’t expected to. He figured the man in the Santa suit already knew where to find Holly Barrows. The Santa had been waiting for Holly to show up at Rawlins Investigations as if he’d either feared she would—or had been expecting her. Why was that?

He realized as he glanced up the stairs, that he had more questions than answers. And one big question he needed answered above all the rest. Had Holly given birth to a baby—his baby?

He noticed fresh footprints in the snow on the steps to the apartment. The boot print looked small, like a woman’s, and since this was the address Holly Barrows had given as her home on her car registration, he figured the tracks were probably hers and was relieved to see that there was only one set of prints and they ended at the bottom of the stairs.

Someone had come down, it appeared, to get the newspaper and had then gone back up. The newspaper box was empty, the snow on top dislodged. With any luck, Santa hadn’t been here and Holly Barrows was home. But was the person he’d glimpsed in the window the woman he was looking for?

He climbed the stairs, finding himself watching the street. The dog was still barking. One of the kids squealed as he and his bright-colored sled careened down the hill and into the street. Kids.

Slade knocked at the door at the top of the stairs and waited, more anxious and apprehensive than he wanted to admit. He expected a complete stranger to open the door, figuring the woman in his office yesterday had lied about everything, although he had no idea why. Maybe she’d borrowed the car. Or even stolen it.

So, when she opened the door, it took him a moment. He stared at her in surprise. And only a little relief. She hadn’t lied about her name. Or her occupation. But did that mean she hadn’t lied about the rest of it either?

She stood in the doorway, a paintbrush in her hand and a variety of acrylic colors on her denim smock. She wore a sweatshirt and jeans under the smock, but she looked as good in them as she had in the skirt and blouse last night.

“You’re the last person I expected to see,” she said, not sounding all that enthused about the prospect.

“Yeah.” He glanced to the street again, then back at her. “Mind if I come in?”

She opened the door farther, motioning him inside. The place was small, but tastefully furnished, the colors warm and bright, the furniture comfortable-looking. Homey. Except there was no tree. No sign at all that it was Christmas Day.

“Don’t you celebrate Christmas?” he asked, curious.

“Not this year.”

He followed her through the living area to her studio on the north side of the building. The room, bathed in light, was neat and orderly. He watched her, wondering if the woman he’d come to know this time last year was the true Holly Barrows or if this woman, who seemed to be as dazed as a sleepwalker, was the real one.