Christmas At Timberwoods (23 page)
Read Christmas At Timberwoods Online
Authors: Fern Michaels
“No bother,” Eric said, sounding puzzled. Dan hung up the phone. Poor old Charlie. He must’ve been really sick to go home. That was why he hadn’t called about the cylinder. Dan congratulated himself on keeping his word and not getting Miguel into trouble before Christmas. Basically, Dan was all heart, even if some people didn’t seem to know it.
“Damn that Charlie,” Eric mumbled as he pressed a button on the phone. “Hey, it’s Summers. Is Charlie Roman here or did he go home? Get back to me . . . Well, how long? . . . For Christ’s sake, I could run around the mall faster than that . . . Yeah, I know there’s been some accidents . . . No, I don’t want to shovel snow . . . Okay, get back to me.”
Dolph Richards stomped into Eric’s office, a furious look on his face. “Now what the hell do you want?” Eric asked, not bothering to hide his agitation.
“I’ve had it up to here with you, Summers. Do you know how much work I have piled on my desk? Do you know that over the past three days there have been eleven accidents in this damn parking lot? Besides the accidents, we’re fielding a record number of complaints and I don’t know what the hell else—”
“Tell me,” Eric said wearily. “I’m here to help.”
Richards threw his hands up in the air. “You name it. A critically ill kid who wants to see Santa, missing propane—who the hell do they think I am? And you sit there playing games! Move it! Do something!”
“Could you be a little more specific?” Richards scowled. “For starters, you can handle these complaints. The people in question are waiting in my outside office. Right now, I have to go find Santa Claus and arrange for a private sitting for that little girl. Don’t open your mouth, Summers, because if you do I’m going to stick my fist in it!”
“The word from the floor is that Nick is up to his Santa hat in tots, and the line is getting unmanageable,” Eric replied tautly.
“What happened? No assistant? Did that damn elf quit?”
“As a matter of fact, she did.”
“Then get one of the girls from the food court to replace her. And get me a Santa, any Santa. One of the walk-arounds. Not like the kid will know the difference.”
“We’re short there, too. Lex told Charlie Roman to go home. He was sick as a dog.”
“Are you telling me there’s no damn Santa Claus? Is that what you’re telling me?” Richards snarled. “Want to suit up, Summers? Bet you’d look good in red!”
“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you, and no, I can’t play Santa. Not in my job description.”
“Now what?” Richards shouted. “What the hell am I going to tell the kid’s mother?”
“Maybe he’s still here.” Eric wasn’t impressed by the other man’s theatrics, but he didn’t want to disappoint a sick child. “I’m not sure. Someone called for him a little while ago. He said that Charlie was still here around eleven o’clock.”
Richards practically had steam coming out of his ears. “One of these days, Summers, one of these days . . .” He pointed to the clock in the office. It was 5:40.
Angela stood up from her seat on the bench by her father, her face haunted. “This feeling is getting worse by the minute. I feel like my head’s going to explode.”
She paced around nervously, her movements uncoordinated and jerky. “You have to get out of here, Daddy.”
“I’m not leaving you. Look, why don’t you call your friend, the one who has the puppies? Talk to her for a few minutes and maybe you’ll calm down,” Murray suggested helplessly as he looked into his daughter’s tortured eyes. “Use the pay phone. Mine doesn’t get much of a signal—must be the SIM thingy.” He waved her on her way. “Go.”
Angela walked around the corner to the phone booth, her mind whirling. Would Mrs. Summers’s calm voice soothe her? It was worth a try. Anything was worth a try if this feeling would just go away.
“Could I speak to Mrs. Summers?” Angela asked a voice she did not recognize.
“Mrs. Summers isn’t here right now,” the woman answered. “She had a doctor’s appointment and then she was stopping by Timberwoods to pick up a gift. She should be back in a little while—around seven, I guess. Do you want to leave a message? I’m her sister. I’m babysitting the puppies.”
“She went where?” Angela screamed.
“To the doctor’s office and then . . . to Timberwoods. Say, what’s the matter?”
“Are you sure?” Angela pressed. “What time was she coming to the shopping center?”
“I’m not sure. She said something about it depended on how long it took at the doctor’s. The roads aren’t too good, so she’ll be driving slow. What’s wrong? What’s the matter?”
“What’s the name of her doctor? Do you have his number? I have to reach her as soon as possible.” Angela chewed on her fingernail while she waited. “Okay, I’ve got it, thanks,” she said, breaking the connection. She dialed the doctor’s number and counted the rings.
“Hello, I’m trying to reach Amy Summers. Is she still there? . . . How long ago did she leave?” Angela let the receiver fall and raced to find her father. Quickly she told him of the phone conversations. “We have to find her, Daddy, and stop her from coming into the mall. We’ll go outside and check the entrances. Hurry, Daddy. We can’t let anything happen to her.”
“That’s doing it the hard way. All we have to do is call Eric Summers and he can station a man at each one of the doors to catch her.”
“I should have thought of that—oh, it doesn’t matter who did! She can’t come in here, she just can’t. Mr. Summers will take care of it.” Her eyes brightened momentarily in thanks to her father and his quick thinking.
Once they had called Eric Summers, Angela and her father prowled the mall, each intent on their own thoughts. No matter which way they walked, Angela invariably circled back and headed toward the North Pole display, going past her group of angel statues several times.
They could use a real one, she thought wildly. But then there never seemed to be a real angel around when you needed one.
Her growing sense of foreboding reached fever pitch. It was someone in the mall. She was certain of it. But who? Would she recognize him—or her—if the person came into her line of vision? She had no way of knowing—and no idea of how much time was left. She stopped and looked at her father imploringly, tears swimming in her eyes. In her peripheral vision, a flash of red appeared and then disappeared. Angela blinked the tears away and stared transfixed at the sight to her left. It was Charlie Roman trudging down Holiday Alley with a sack over his shoulder.
An excruciating clarity hit her hard. Words from her worst nightmare came back to her.
What you can’t see is sometimes right in front of you.
The aura of the unknown man in her vision surrounded Charlie—she knew. It was him. “Oh my God. Daddy! It’s Charlie. The Santa!” She grabbed her father’s arm in a viselike grip.
He gave her an incredulous look. “Santa is the bad guy? Doesn’t management do background checks on the seasonal hires?”
“I don’t know, I don’t run the mall! He’s filling in as a walk-around, I guess—the real Santa is over there on that snow-covered throne.” She put a hand to her mouth in horror. “Oh my God, look at all those kids in line! We have to tell Mr. Summers right away.”
“Okay, Angel, whatever you say.”
Charlie’s first reaction when he saw Angela pointing him out to the man she was with was to run. She knew what he was up to. He wasn’t sure how she knew, but she did. He could see it in her horrified expression, in her tear-filled eyes. He ran into the closest store—a health food shop—and ducked behind a vitamin display. Who was that man with her? he wondered. Probably one of the plainclothes police officers Eric Summers had brought in to investigate the bomb threat. Only it wasn’t just a threat. Not anymore. He pulled back his red velvet coat sleeve and looked at his watch. When he was ready, he would use his cell phone for a remote detonator, just in case the mechanical timer failed. The way things were going, it would.
“He shouldn’t be too hard to find, Angel,” Charlie heard a man say outside the store.
“I have to find him, Daddy. I have to. If I can find him I may be able to stop him.”
Recognizing Angela’s voice, Charlie peeked through the tall display of vitamins.
“I hope so, Angel. But what makes you think he’ll talk to you?”
“I—I can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?”
“Because he and I are alike in some ways. I guess you could say we understand each other.”
“What?” Her father’s reply was pure bafflement.
Charlie breathed in relief. She hadn’t given him away. For what it was worth.
“Come on,” she said exasperatedly. “Maybe he went that way.”
Charlie turned around and leaned his back against the display. “Angela,” he whispered, then let out a long sigh. She still showed consideration for him, even after the rough way he’d spoken to her at their chance meeting, even knowing that he was the one who was going to blow up the mall.
But her father would turn him over to the authorities in a heartbeat. Angela hadn’t succeeded in pulling him away from the outside of the store.
“This is too risky. Who is this Charlie guy, anyway? How do you know him?”
“I met him outside the mall. He tripped and people were laughing at him. I tried to help. He’s lonely. Like me.”
Her father coughed. “Lonely? He’s a psycho. Anyone could see that.”
“Don’t start! You sound just like . . .”
Their argument faded out of his hearing as they moved away.
Charlie was touched by what Angela remembered. Had he jumped to the wrong conclusion about why she’d left him? Maybe he should have given her a chance to explain. She might have had a good reason. Christ, he’d never thought about that. There could have been any number of reasons why she’d left. She’d told him that she’d tried to call several times. Damn, if only he’d gotten her message. He told himself not to get sentimental. It was too late for that. But he ought to get Angela and her father out. And tell her to get as many kids as she could to follow her, no questions asked. He owed her that much.
Then again,
an ugly-sounding voice in his head told him,
you don’t owe her a thing.
A growing darkness crept over him. She and everyone else would have to take their chances. It would be fun to watch. Unless the device he’d rigged up failed at the last second. The problem was how to test the detonator without setting off the bomb.
Consider it a challenge,
he thought irrationally. The kind of thing that got a man nominated as Employee of the Week. Yeah.
an ugly-sounding voice in his head told him,
you don’t owe her a thing.
A growing darkness crept over him. She and everyone else would have to take their chances. It would be fun to watch. Unless the device he’d rigged up failed at the last second. The problem was how to test the detonator without setting off the bomb.
Consider it a challenge,
he thought irrationally. The kind of thing that got a man nominated as Employee of the Week. Yeah.
Carol Andretti, her husband at her side, pushed the wheelchair down the hall toward the shopping center’s lower level. Maria was propped up with pillows, and a safety belt was fastened about her waist. Her eyes were feverishly bright as she tried to look in all directions at once. She wanted to tell someone how beautiful it was, but she felt too weak to talk.
“Mr. Richards said he would meet us over here by the angel display,” Carol whispered to Joe Andretti. “Look, there’s Santa, over in Toyland, but he has a hundred kids waiting in line. I wonder—oh, there’s another one, sitting by himself on the wrong side of the angels,” she said, trying to smile. “That must be the Santa he was talking about.”
“You sure?” Joe asked, looking down at his daughter.
“Do you have a better idea?” she asked her husband in a low voice. “We have to get in and out of here quickly, doctor’s orders. Come on, honey,” she said brightly to Maria, “one special miracle coming up.”
Mary and Cheryl sat in the manager’s outer office, talking while they waited and idly flipped through magazines. Two other women were ahead of them, clutching plastic bags with logos from expensive mall stores.
“There really isn’t any point in complaining, you know. What’s he going to do?” Cheryl demanded. “It’s almost six thirty and we haven’t eaten dinner yet.”
“How the hell can you be hungry? You just ate half those stale nuts.”
“That’s because I’m starving,” Cheryl griped. “We could be eating, but oh no, you have to come here and complain about the candy and nuts. Little Miss Quality Control, that’s you. Like he’s going to do anything; these guys are just fixtures. All they do is play games with the public.”
“It’s the principle of the thing. Seven dollars is seven dollars. And that clerk was rude. I don’t have to put up with that. And as long as we’re here, I’m going to bitch about that pursesearching business at the door.”
“Speaking of doors, I didn’t see—”
“I’m sorry I even mentioned it. Look, here comes somebody who looks like he handles complaints.”
“How can you tell?” Cheryl muttered.
“Because he has a clipboard, looks efficient, and he’s in a hurry. He’ll make short work of these two ahead of us.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Cheryl said as she stuffed more Jordan almonds into her mouth. “And did you notice she gave us all white almonds? I like the pink ones, and the blue ones, too. I hate white!”
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