Christmas At Timberwoods (17 page)

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Authors: Fern Michaels

BOOK: Christmas At Timberwoods
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“I see.”
“He was the only one who would even consider doing the procedure. Maxwell said he would try. Now it’s all over.”
“Where is your little girl?” Eric managed to ask as a hard lump settled in his throat.
“Down the hall. They have her in room thirtyfour, a private room with a nurse. They didn’t want her in the pediatric ward with all the noise and commotion.”
Eric walked back to the small group and motioned them to follow him. Quietly he opened the door of room 34 and motioned to the nurse to remain seated.
The men looked at the small patient in the bed. Dark curls framed a tiny, exquisite face that was nonetheless wan and pale. The child’s breathing was ragged and harsh. The nurse reached out to soothe her and gently stroked her hair, displacing a dark curl. A tiny gold circlet gleamed on the little girl’s earlobe. They didn’t need to see more.
 
 
Eric Summers felt like screaming with frustration. Here it was, Saturday afternoon, and he had so much on his mind. It was at times like this that he hated his profession. He watched the happy shoppers surging through the mall, and fear tugged at him for each and every one of them. Thank God Amy was safe at home. And, while he didn’t actually dislike or like Angela, he was thankful she was staying with his wife. At this stage of the game, the girl was better than no company for Amy.
He believed the young psychic one hundred percent after last night’s tragedy. So did the others. But he felt sorry for her. When he was a child, he had always wished he could see what was going to happen in the future. No more.
He had to hope that her ability wasn’t transferable, because he sensed something himself. There was an air of imminent doom hovering over the mall, invisible, but so strong he could feel it stalking him from spot to spot.
There was nothing he or anyone else could do. Disaster was looming, and it was going to happen. At this point he was numb, almost beyond feeling. But he couldn’t ignore it. How could he? All those thousands of people.
Tomorrow was Sunday and the mall opening was later and the hours would be shorter. He would do everything in his power to make sure every floor, every stairwell, every entrance and exit, was searched from top to bottom one more time. Dogs too, the entire K-9 squad, the head of the bomb squad himself on supervisory patrol. Every security officer called in for overtime. Eric knew in his gut that it wasn’t good enough. It was entirely possible that they could search till hell froze over and never find anything. The bottom line was that the mall was going to blow. Nothing and no one was going to change a thing.
Chapter 11
Charlie Roman needed to get out into the fresh air. His mind was foggy and unfocused. He decided to take a ride past the mall just to see if it was still standing. Something about the most recent threat response had been a little different than usual, and not knowing why was getting to him. Somehow he knew the police would still be there. With dogs. It would be fun to hide a thousand chew biscuits all over Timberwoods and see if the dogs could be distracted. Dolph Richards would only laugh, but Harold Baumgarten might get the message that someone who knew the mall well was playing a vicious little game with the surveillance team.
Nah. Harold was too damn dumb to figure anything out. But Charlie nixed the idea anyway. Someone in the upper offices was likely to spot him on the security monitors and most likely they would be checking the shopping center inch by inch. He looked at his watch and shuffled back into the house, his bedroom slippers making slapping sounds on the concrete floor. Time to take some cough medicine and more aspirin. Maybe he would take a cold tablet, too. A wormlike feeling of self-doubt crept through his mind. If they thought he was sick, they would make him go home. They would be afraid of him breathing germs on the little kids and giving Santa the sniffles. Then he wouldn’t be able to carry out his plan.
Angry and lonely as he was, he still wondered if he had what it took to carry it out. He forced himself to go numb, to think in robot mode. Soon nothing would matter. Not even Angela.
 
 
Murray Steinhart paced the large motel room, a look of fury on his handsome features. “You are incredible, Sylvia, absolutely incredible, do you know that? I’ve had just about all I’m going to take from you. This time you’re going too far. I went along with you before because I was stupid and I wanted to believe what you told me. But this . . . this is too much!”
“If you don’t do it, Murray, then I will. What else would you suggest?” Sylvia asked craftily. “Do you have a better solution?”
“No, I don’t, but you aren’t having Angela locked up like some criminal. I have something to say about what happens to her. I am her father.”
“Some father,” Sylvia snorted as she examined her flawless manicure for a second or two. Her eyes flashed with anger when she looked up at him. “Don’t think you’re going to wriggle out of it this time by taking off again. That girl has made me a laughingstock for the last time. It’s just a matter of time before the newspapers and those damn bloggers pick up on these visions of hers. Then the whole world will know that our daughter is a nutcase!” she said, her voice rising hysterically.
“She isn’t crazy!” Murray Steinhart bellowed.
“Oh yeah? What do you call it when a person thinks they can see into the future?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Look, Murray,” she said, lowering her voice, “I’ve finally been accepted by the people who matter, and she isn’t going to spoil this for me, not this time.”
“You’re a fool, Sylvia,” he replied with a look of contempt. “They don’t care about you. Social climbing is a losing game. I mean, we have money but not that kind of money. Jesus, I can’t believe you’re not aware of that.”
“Actually, I am. So you need to work harder. Make more. I believe in you, Murray, I really do,” she said, nervously clicking one long fingernail against another.
“Spare me. You’ve got your priorities all screwed up. You should be thinking about our daughter. She needs you. She needs both of us. We’re all she’s got.”
Sylvia took another tack. “There is an alternative we haven’t explored,” she said in a silky voice, moving up close to him and brushing an invisible speck of lint from his suit jacket. “Darling, teenagers are committed all the time to various rehabilitation centers for drugs and behavioral problems. I wouldn’t even consider such a thing if I didn’t think it was for her own good. Angela is deeply troubled. She needs to be in a treatment program where she can’t run away.”
“I want her home.”
“But what if that isn’t healthy for her right now?” Her wheedling tone made her husband frown, but Sylvia pressed the point. “A new setting with professional care around the clock would do her good. God knows I’ve tried everything, but I don’t understand her. My God, who does?” Sylvia forced a tear from her eye. “This is all my fault,” she said, pretending to shoulder the blame. “I should have been a better parent. I shouldn’t have let her retreat into that studio. She needed to be out in the real world, on her own, not lost in her own imagination.” She brushed the tear off her cheek. “I don’t know what to think anymore. It’s too late to change her now. She is what she is. I think the best thing for everybody concerned is to have her committed. You must see that,” she cajoled.
“That isn’t the answer,” Murray replied, moving away from his wife. “There’s got to be another solution to all of this. I just have to find out what it is.”
He paced the length of the room, thinking about the past, his relationship with his daughter. He couldn’t pin all the blame for Angela’s strange behavior on Sylvia’s coldness. He had to accept some of the responsibility himself. After all, he hadn’t been much of a father these last five years. To tell the truth, he hadn’t been any kind of a father. Every time Angela had needed something he had accused her of being in trouble, and when she’d assured him she wasn’t, he’d tried to soothe her with money.
Angela, Angela.
Within minutes after her birth, he’d told Sylvia he wanted to name her Angel. Sylvia wouldn’t hear of it, so he had named her the next best—Angela. In his mind, though, he always thought of her as Angel. And for the first six years of her life, that’s what she had been—his little angel. Daddy’s sweet little girl. If only he could turn back the clock and do things all over again. He would spend more time with her, talk to her, listen to her. He would do everything differently. Wouldn’t he?
Sylvia took a deep breath and forged on. “Just let me ask you one simple question, just one, Murray, darling.” She drew out the chilly endearment for emphasis. “What will we do if what Angela says comes true? No, I take that back,” she said, shaking her head. “What will we do
when
what Angela says comes true? Because it will come true, Murray. Her visions seem so—so real to her. Before now no one has known about them except me and sometimes you. But now a whole lot of people know. And once Timberwoods blows, every newspaper in the country will be carrying the story. I can see the headlines now.
GIRL PSYCHIC PREDICTS MALL DISASTER
. And worse. But you know what, Murray? The public isn’t going to believe she has visions. They’re going to believe what’s easiest—that she’s the one who set the bomb. You know that’s what will happen! They’ll probably call her a terrorist!” she continued in horror. “How will you explain that to your business partners? When Dr. Tyler opened his mental health center, Angela should have been his first resident patient. I thought about it, but when you said to let her try her wings for a while and then decide, I went along with you. And this, too, shall pass!” she finished dramatically.
“Can we skip the clichés, Sylvia? Let’s look at this calmly and discuss it like the adults we are. After all, we are her parents. I’ve made some mistakes, and so have you. Blaming each other isn’t going to help her or us now. Fix me a drink and we’ll go over it and decide what to do.”
“You aren’t at home now, Murray. This is a motel, or did you forget that? Your answer to everything is to have a drink. Alcohol isn’t the answer. For once I’ll have a discussion with you cold sober. You know what my position is—what’s yours?”
Murray looked at his wife helplessly. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. But there has to be an answer.”
“Let me ask you another question, Murray. Knowing what you know now, would you go to Timberwoods to shop?”
“My God, no, I wouldn’t go there. Why do you ask? Would you?”
“No. Hell no!” Sylvia turned away from him and picked her Chanel purse off the bed.
“Where are you going? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to find Angela and have her put under a doctor’s care. I’m certain that’s the thing to do. Everything will work out, I’m sure of it. But if you can come up with something better, Murray, I’m willing to listen.”
“There has to be another way. Somebody has to be able to do something. If not, then they have to close the mall,” he said stubbornly.
“Oh, please! They aren’t going to close the mall and you know it. Not during Christmas week. Don’t you understand—no one is going to believe her. Would you if you were in their place?”
“I’m going out,” Murray said briskly. “I want to walk and think this over.”
“While you’re out, why don’t you stop by the house and see what your little angel did? You’ll be lucky if twenty thousand dollars covers it.”
“Would you tell me why you have to put a price tag on everything? So what if it costs twenty thousand dollars or even a hundred thousand? I’m the one who’ll pay it, not you,” he said, putting on his jacket. “We’ll talk later when I get back. This isn’t the end of it.”
“It is as far as I’m concerned,” Sylvia glowered. It was the end and there was nothing more to discuss.
 
 
The roof of the Timberwoods Mall was an immense sea of drifting snow. The uniformed policemen looked like tiny ink spots staining the surface of a blank sheet of paper.
“Hey, don’t go too near the edge!” one of the policemen called to the others. “The abutment isn’t very high and it would be easy to go over.”
“We’ll never find anything up here,” his partner said as he slapped at his arms to keep warm. “We don’t even know what we’re looking for. How will we see anything in all this snow?”
“Yeah, well, just a few more minutes and the captain will be happy. If we go in too soon he’ll only send us out here again.”
“I thought this bomb business was yesterday’s news. Then somebody gives a green light and here we are again.”
“Yeah. My wife hates having me work on Sunday, but I could use the overtime. Christ, did you ever see so much snow? We’re in for a hell of a winter, I can tell you right now.”
“Yeah,” his partner agreed. “We should get hazard pay on top of overtime. Already the snow is covering everything. I almost broke my neck!”
“I know what you mean. I was going to check that equipment over there when I tripped. Thought I was gonna go over.”
“Did you check it out?”
“Oh, yeah, it’s all right. At first I didn’t know what it was, but then I scooped the snow away. It must be a CO
2
tank or something. Anyway, it says ‘Emergency Extinguisher.’ ”
“C’mon. We’ve been out here long enough. Call the other guys in—there’s nothing up here.”
Charlie Roman backed the car out onto the snow-filled road and slipped it into gear. He couldn’t explain this compulsion he felt to drive past the mall. Last night he had immersed himself once again in the details of detonating the bomb. He’d drawn in the margins of his scrawled notes on the subject once he’d made sure it was still going to work, doodles of black clouds and jagged lines, page after page of mayhem. For something to do, it beat Sudoku and old movies, now that Angela was gone.
His plan was sound, but there was no way he could see if the propane setup on the mall roof was still there. If marked and unmarked police cars were around, along with a million minivans and SUVs in every slot, then it was safe to assume that it was. If they’d figured out what he had planned, then the parking lot would be empty and the information would have been on the news.
Overall his luck was still holding, he thought wryly. It was good luck for a bad guy. Him. After all, the bomb squad would have come in as soon as the mall closed last night. If they hadn’t found it by now, most likely they weren’t going to.
His resolve had gotten stronger. He didn’t care anymore about anything. Let the place blow sky-high.
One last detail nagged at him. When he got to the mall, would the maintenance crew be out in the parking lot? It was a good thing he hadn’t answered the phone when it rang. He’d guessed it would be the chief wanting him to come in to help clear the snow, make everything nice and easy for all those shoppers who came to the mall with money to spend. Well, how about making life easy for him, Charlie Roman?

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