Twin Threat Christmas: One Silent Night / Danger in the Manger

Maybe she should have tried to get away before, even years before, but Jeff had always made certain that wasn’t possible. Even once Abby was born and Vanessa wasn’t bound with ropes or chains, it became too difficult to escape with a baby in tow. Jeff kept them locked in the basement whenever he wasn’t home to guard over her. For the past seven years, her priority had been giving her children a normal childhood—or as close to normal as she could provide under Jeff’s armed supervision.

Jeff’s threats echoed through her thoughts even now. Jeff knew too much about her family. He’d threatened to torture and kill her grandfather and sister, to take her children from her, malign her as a bad mother, claiming she’d lied to him about her real age and identity

No, Vanessa hadn’t dared try to escape, not as long as Jeff was alive to come after her or give information for Virgil to track down everyone she held dear.

But this time, Virgil’s threat was bigger than Jeff’s. Virgil had promised the last time that if he had to come back, he wouldn’t let any of them live, not even Jeff—which meant Jeff couldn’t come after her or tell Virgil anything that might help him find her.

In some ways the criminal was freeing her.

If only his vehicle wasn’t barring the way. It was far, far too late to call the police, even if Vanessa had any hope they’d let her keep her children. No, Jeff had made clear what she’d lose if she tried to get the law on her side. Her word against his, and that of his associates.

There was only one way out of the garage

Dear Lord, please let this work.

“Okay, girls, tuck your heads like I told you.” Vanessa had originally planned for the girls to lay their heads on their laps, covered by their arms, to protect them from possible gunfire as she backed down the driveway past the living-room picture window. But a tucked-head position might be just as protective going the other direction.

She had a good ten feet of empty storage space in front of her, maybe more. Normally she would never start a vehicle inside a closed garage, but they wouldn’t be in there for more than a few seconds.

She turned the key, threw the SUV into gear and stomped on the gas, throwing one arm up over her face and pinching her eyes shut, holding tight to the steering wheel with her other hand. The vehicle leaped forward, slamming into the wall, pushing through it with the sound of splintering wood and cracking boards.

“Mommy! You drove through the wall!”

“I know, Emma. It’s okay.” Vanessa steered around the girls’ playhouse. The Sequoia lurched across the sandbox, flattening the tall privacy fence that had long held them prisoner, clipping the neighbor’s back bushes en route to the street.

The big tires lumbered down the curb. Vanessa cruised down the familiar boulevard, four blocks, five, and came to a stop at the traffic light. She checked for oncoming traffic. Finding the way clear, she turned right onto the busy street, checked her rearview mirror for any sign of the Land Rover and breathed the tiniest sigh of relief.

No sign of them. Yet.

But Virgil and his men could come after them any moment.

The front of the vehicle was probably scratched and dented, but the windshield hadn’t even cracked. The girls were wide-eyed but silent. Sammy was whimpering. Still, most important, they were alive.

* * *

Alert!

Abducted children in danger!

Eric stopped flipping through the channels on the cabin’s relic of a television as the screen flashed pictures of two little girls and a baby. A boy. Samuel.

The reporter rattled off the details in a matter-of-fact voice. “The Nelson children are believed to be with their mother. Their father’s body was found this evening. Authorities at this time are assuming he was shot by his wife, who took the children following a domestic dispute.”

“So what’s the forecast?” Debbi, Eric’s younger sister, bounded into the room behind him, then stopped short. “Oh, no.”

“They are believed to be traveling in a brown Toyota Sequoia, which may have front-end damage. Authorities believe the woman drove through the back wall of the garage as she left.”

The scene on the screen switched from the children’s faces to a picture of an SUV superimposed over footage of splintered two-by-fours and the busted-out back wall of a garage.

The reporter turned to a man standing in front of a black Land Rover. “This is Chicago businessman Virgil Greenwood, who discovered the body of Jeffrey Nelson at Mr. Nelson’s Barrington home this evening. Mr. Greenwood, can you tell us what happened?”

Virgil Greenwood, a middle-aged man in a business suit, nodded soberly. “Mr. Nelson and I were supposed to have a business dinner together today. I had made arrangements to pick him up, but when I arrived, no one answered the door. I could see the living room through the window and thought I saw Mr. Nelson there, but when I looked closer, I could see he’d been shot. The front door was unlocked. I let myself in. Of course, my first thought was for his family. I knew he had a wife and kids. So I called out, ‘Hello, is anyone home?’ something like that—and then I heard the crash.”

“That’s when Mrs. Nelson drove through the garage?” the reporter confirmed.

“Yes, yes, the sound came from that direction. I ran to see, but the vehicle was already gone. But you can see the ruts.”

“Let’s get another look at those ruts,” the reporter requested, and the screen image shifted again.

“Eric?” Debbi touched his arm. “You don’t have to watch this.”

“I know.” Eric’s fingers twitched over the buttons on the remote, but he couldn’t bring himself to switch the channel. “They said the kids might be in danger. I have to hear what they think happened.”

“It’s okay. The forecast can wait. I can look outside. It was warm today, but the evening will be cooler. Typical October in Illinois.” Debbi spoke softly, almost as though she was afraid to disturb him.

She’d been that way eight years ago, too, when Vanessa first disappeared, and every time an unexpected memory or a missing-child report would trigger flashbacks. Being here at the cabin where he and Vanessa had spent so much time together both as kids and teens, the memories were closer to the surface, more real and harder to suppress.

Virgil’s voice continued as the camera panned in for a close-up of the tire tracks that cut jagged lines through an otherwise picturesque backyard. “What kind of crazy person would drive through the garage wall? And with the kids in the car? At least, I hope she had her kids with her. Who knows what she might have done with them if she did this to Jeff?”

The reporter, instead of shushing the man’s musings, encouraged them. “You mentioned you might know what could have prompted her to act, isn’t that right, Mr. Greenwood?”

“Oh, Jeff said he thought his wife was having an affair. I suppose she decided to leave him. Maybe they fought about it, I don’t know. It’s just crazy, isn’t it? They need to find those kids before she does anything to them. It’s getting dark out.”

“And here is a picture of the mother, Madison Nelson, who is believed to have abducted her own children after shooting their father dead.” A woman’s face appeared on the screen—blond curly hair, tired eyes, a wan smile.

“What kind of crazy woman does a thing like that?” Debbi muttered behind him.

But Eric was too distracted by the image to attempt to answer her question. “She almost looks like Vanessa.”

“Vanessa had brown hair, not blond,” Debbi corrected quickly. “And she’s too young to have a seven-year-old.”

“She was seventeen when she disappeared eight years ago.”

“She was declared legally dead.”

“Doesn’t mean she is dead.”

“Vanessa wouldn’t shoot her husband and leave him for another guy.”

“That is true. What kind of woman would do a thing like that?” Eric gripped the remote, finally winning the battle to change channels as the reporter intoned about the importance of viewers reporting any sign of the vehicle, the children or their mother—and speculations about the man she may have run away to join. “And what kind of guy would get involved with such a crazy person?”

* * *

Sammy was asleep when Vanessa placed his car seat in the concrete manger of the life-size nativity scene in front of her sister’s house. She felt a pang of doubt. Was she right to leave the baby with her sister? It was going to be difficult enough to run with the girls. Sammy needed frequent feedings and diaper changes. The girls, at least, could stay quiet when they needed to.

He’d be safer with Alyssa. Wouldn’t he? Vanessa looked at the concrete sculptures of Mary and Joseph, poised protectively over the manger. Mary’s expression of love and concern seemed to say she’d look over the child.

Vanessa knew she didn’t dare linger, no matter how much she wished she could see her sister. If Alyssa saw her, she’d have to take the time to explain, and that would endanger them all. Virgil’s men might catch up to her at any time, and Sammy would only be safe if the men who were after her didn’t know where she’d left him.