Housekeeper Under The Mistletoe. Cara Colter
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had to leave for the train station in plenty of time to meet Beth. Yet he couldn’t ignore the chance to strengthen a potential bond with the leader of the second biggest gang in the area.
Oscar evidently saw the glance, though, because he immediately withdrew the offer. “Lawyer’s got places to be.”
“Yeah,” Rafe said. No sense trying to save the conversation now, and as long as he kept things straightforward there might be another chance later. “I’m picking up my wife. She’s taking the train in from L.A.”
The kid gave him a suspicious glance, even as he swiped his hand across a bench with a rival gang’s chalk-marked emblem. “That’s not the one that crashed, is it?”
A train crash? No, he would’ve heard.
“It was on the radio,” Oscar reported, evidently seeing his disbelief. “Some big wreck out in the desert.”
No. Not Beth’s train. There had to be, what, half a dozen trains between here and Los Angeles? More than that. There had to be.
But even so, he felt a cramp of fear in his chest before reminding himself that Beth was surely fine, that he wasn’t losing anyone he loved.
Not again.
Never again.
“She can’t be on that train,” Rafe told Oscar, who shrugged and looked past him toward the police car at the corner. “Not Beth.” Not his wife. “She’s fine.”
The kid shrugged again, as if unwilling to comment, and Rafe felt his body tightening with the same reflex he used to feel before an attack.
“It’s a mistake, that’s all,” he said. The radio probably reported things wrong all the time, and some station must’ve been trying to stir up excitement by announcing a train wreck that had never taken place. “I just need to straighten it out.” A simple phone call would do the trick, and for the first time he found himself wishing he’d given in to Beth’s request that he carry a phone for those nights he worked late.
“The radio—” Oscar began, and Rafe cut him off.
“I’ve gotta find out what happened.” There, a pay phone across the street. No one there, either, which—if the phone still worked—would save him the two minutes it’d take to run back to the office. He sprinted for the phone and felt a surge of relief at the sound of a dial tone, then fumbled in his pocket for change.
Beth was fine.
He just had to—
Damn! Two nickels and a couple of bills, which meant he’d have to hit the bodega for change and then—
“Here.” Oscar dropped a handful of coins on the ledge beside him, then sauntered away as Rafe fumbled with the quarters. Where to call, somebody, who, the train station? Right, they would know, and from memory he dialed the number he’d called at dawn to confirm the nine-thirty arrival from Los Angeles.
Somebody had to know, he told himself as he listened to the phone ring. Somebody there would tell him everything was fine, that Beth was fine—she had to be fine, he wasn’t losing her. She had to be safe.
“The nine-thirty from Los Angeles,” Rafe barked at the clerk who answered the phone. “My wife is on there, and—”
“Sir,” came the reply, “there’s been a…a delay…and we’ll have all the information here. If you’ll please come—”
“No, I just need to know, is she all right?”
A hesitation.
“Sir, please come to the station and—”
He slammed down the phone. This wasn’t working, but everything would be fine. Beth would be fine. Okay, maybe they were having some problems, but he could fix that. Get everything straightened out, make her understand they still had plenty of time for a baby. He could fix anything, he just needed to find out what was—who could—
Morton, he remembered. The cop who’d helped him, under the radar, a few months ago when those kids needed a word.
Morton could find out. Except, damn it, he’d left the number back at the office.
Rafe took off running, fueled by the same panic that had once filled his nights as a matter of routine, back when you never knew who was coming after you. Nobody after him now, the streets were almost empty—although that didn’t necessarily mean anything—but all he had to do was reach the clinic, fumble with the door key, shaking, damn it! and there was nobody waiting for him, good, because he couldn’t protect anyone else right now, not until he found Beth.
There, the phone. Morton’s number, direct line, if the cop would just pick up, okay, no time for conversation, just identify himself and ask—
“Can you find out about a train wreck?”
“What, the derailment?” The cop’s voice was more curious than bewildered, which meant Oscar’s radio report might’ve been accurate after all. But that still didn’t mean there was anything wrong. Beth was fine.
“The one from Los Angeles,” Rafe said over a short, tight breath. “My wife’s on there.”
“Oh, man.” Morton sounded alarmed, but that was probably just the phone connection. Because everything was fine. “Hold on, let me see what—hold on.”
Beth was fine, he repeated to himself as he gripped the phone with a fist too numb to release, and paced the six-foot gap between his desk and the door.
Beth was safe.
She was on her way home right now.
Right. Right, although people didn’t always come home—look at Mom, look at Carlos, look at Nita and Gramp and Rose—but this wasn’t the same thing. It wasn’t like he depended on Beth.
Never had, never would.
So she had to be fine. It was just taking Morton a while to confirm that, but any minute he’d be back on the line with word that Beth’s train delay was nothing, a minor glitch…. And there he was now.
“Rafe?” The cop sounded uneasy, and he felt himself bracing for a blow before he could remember that everything was fine. “Look, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but—” Then Morton broke off. “Wait a minute, was your wife traveling with—”
“Her sister, yeah,” he managed to answer. Maybe there was a mix-up, maybe something had happened to her sister. Which would be hard on Beth, yeah, but as long as she was still alive— “Anne. They’re twins.”
“Ah, hell,” the cop muttered. There was a pause, during which Rafe scrambled for any prayer he could think of, any hope, any magic, and came up completely blank. “The sister’s being transported to emergency right now. But Beth…I’m sorry. She didn’t make it.”
No.
No, he repeated as he slowly replaced the phone in its cradle. That wasn’t possible.
It couldn’t happen.
It happens all the time.
No.
Not this time.
“She didn’t make it.”
Not Beth.
Not again.
But already he recognized the feeling—that same heaviness, that same hot pressure of tears—
No.
No tears. He had to move, Rafe knew, he had to move someplace, do something—
Not cry.
No. No point. He stumbled into the lobby, where if anyone was waiting he could find something to do, something besides crying, because he wasn’t crying, this was crazy, even with nobody here he still wasn’t breaking down—
It hurts.
No,