I'll Be Home for Christmas Read online

  * * *

  CODY AND ROBBIE weren’t exactly sitting beside Ali. More accurately, they were bouncing up and down on their chairs. But that seemed to be the norm in the room. There’d be a lot of parents going home from the party with migraines.

  “I don’t think I’m ever going to have kids of my own,” Nancy said, looking past Ali at the boys. Her words were almost lost in the low-level roar that filled the activities room.

  “Sounds like a good game plan to me,” Kent muttered from beside her. “If you’d warned me how crazy these no-necks would get, you’d never have lured me away from the Cowboys-Redskins game.”

  “Kids are only really scary when they outnumber the adults like this,” Ali teased. “It’s their primitive pack mentality that’s so frightening.” She glanced past Nancy to Kent as she finished speaking, trying to decide if he’d been serious about not wanting children.

  She knew Nancy had been joking, but she’d had years of exposure to Nancy’s sardonic sense of humor. They went way back, had met during Ali’s first time around at university.

  Kent Schiraldi, though, she couldn’t read with any consistency, despite having known him for a couple of years. She’d met him, socially, just after he’d started going with Nancy. And recently, he’d helped her out professionally, by investing the proceeds from Bob’s insurance policy.

  He was a big, good-looking guy who’d played a lot of sports in college and kept in shape. And he certainly wasn’t short in the brains department. Beyond that, though, Ali just didn’t feel as if she really knew him.

  “Ms. Weyden?” Cody said, tugging on her sleeve. “Are you sure me an’ Robbie have to go last?”

  She told herself to be patient, even though he’d already asked the question about fifty times.

  “That’s the way your dad wants it,” she explained again. “I think,” she whispered, turning back to Nancy, “Logan’s afraid Cody will try to pull off his beard to let all the kids see it’s his father.”

  “But, Mom,” Robbie said, “there aren’t many presents left. What if he runs out before it’s our turn?”

  “He won’t run out, love,” Nancy assured him.

  “Did you count them? And count all the kids?”

  “Somebody did.”

  “But what if it’s only girl presents left?” he demanded. “Cody, what if we got Barbies?” He gave an exaggerated shudder that sent Cody into a fit of giggles.

  “There’ll be boy presents left,” Nancy promised.

  “We should count,” Robbie suggested, poking Cody. “Count the presents beside your dad and count the kids in line.”

  As the junior statisticians went to work, Ali absently gazed toward the front of the room, where Logan had a smiling little girl on his knee.

  Santa’s throne had been set up in front of a series of divider panels covered in red felt, and it was surrounded by a forest of decorated pine trees. The children were lined up to Santa’s left and made their way along a winding path to his throne. Then, after their minute or two of glory with him, they followed another path to the far side to rejoin their waiting parents. Whoever had decorated had done an outstanding job.

  “Hey,” Nancy whispered to get Ali’s attention. “How come you’ve never told me about Cody’s father?”

  “I have,” she whispered back.

  “No, you haven’t. I’d remember.”

  “I’m positive I have. The neighbor who’s always looking after Robbie?”

  “That’s the neighbor?”

  Ali nodded.

  “Well, you sure left out all the good stuff, then. Someone introduced us before he changed into the Santa suit, and he’s an absolute hunk.”

  “I guess he’s not bad.”

  “Not bad? I think you’d better get your eyes checked. And when you said a divorced neighbor, I assumed you were talking about a housewife. But this guy...what’s the story?”

  “There’s no story—except that being a novelist means he works at home, so we trade baby-sitting a lot. At least we have been, but he’s moving out of town soon. Don’t say anything about that in front of the boys, though,” she added in a whisper.

  “Mom?” Robbie said. “Mom, there’s no other kids. Just us. And the line’s almost gone. So me and Cody gotta get in it now.”

  “Cody and I,” she automatically corrected him.

  “Okay!” Cody shrieked, scrambling off his chair. “Let’s go, Robbie!”

  Ali followed them into the aisle and stood absently watching Logan while they waited. He’d been right about making a terrific Santa. The kids loved him. She began thinking, once again, how much she was going to miss having him and Cody around, then made a conscious effort to stop.

  Thinking she’d miss them wouldn’t change the facts. And odds were, once they went to L.A. they’d be gone for good. Some gorgeous starlet would grab Logan and never let him go, because Nancy was right. He was an absolute hunk.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have done such a good job of ignoring that for so many months. If she hadn’t been quite so intent on keeping men at the bottom of her priorities list, she and Logan might have...

  Absently, she pushed her hair back from her face, knowing it was pointless to speculate. She’d always had poor judgment when it came to men. Still, she’d always imagined what things would be like with the right man.

  If Logan Reed was Mr. Right, though, she’d waited too long to find out. Besides, she’d never been lucky in love, so what had started her thinking fate might have been ready to make an exception? The adult-size elf at the head of the line began speaking to Robbie, drawing Ali’s attention back to the present.

  “It’ll be your turn in just another few seconds,” the woman was saying. “I’ll tell you when to go, but don’t run, okay?”

  “Okay.” He grinned at Ali, and she knelt down between him and Cody.

  “I’m going over to the other side, now, so I can meet you both when you’re finished.”

  “And after me and Robbie, my dad’s done, right?” Cody said. “And I go home with him, not you and Robbie, right?”

  “As far as I know, that’s the plan, Cody.” She gave them each a quick hug, started off, then stopped halfway across the back of the room when a man called, “Ali?” Turning, she was surprised to see it was Kent Schiraldi. She hadn’t noticed him leaving his seat.

  “Talk to you for a minute?” he asked.

  “Sure.” She looked around for Nancy, but didn’t see her.

  “Nance went to her office,” he explained. “And I thought it might be a good time to ask you about something.”

  A quick glance told her Robbie was safely ensconced on Santa’s knee, and she looked back at Kent.

  “I realize you’re Nance’s friend, not mine,” he said quietly, “but I don’t know who else to ask.”

  “All right. Ask away.”

  “Ali...I think Nance is involved with someone else. Is she?”

  He stared directly into her eyes, obviously hoping to see the truth there, regardless of her words.

  “Is she?” he repeated.

  Ali shook her head. “No. I mean, if she is, she hasn’t said anything about it to me.”

  “And she would have, wouldn’t she?”

  “I...probably. But what makes you think she is?”

  “Somebody’s phoned a couple of times when I’ve been at her place. And it’s like she didn’t want to talk to him in front of me.”

  “You’re sure it was a him?”

  “I got that feeling. And, lately, I’ve just had the sense that something’s going on she’s keeping from me.”

  “Have you asked her about it?”

  “Yeah, and she denies there’s anything. But she’s a little too defensive, you know? Just now, I asked her while you were in line with the boys, and she said that if I didn’t believe her, why didn’t I ask you. Then she just got up and said she had to go to her office. So I thought, why not ask you?”

  “Well, she really hasn’t said a word. Bu
t...”

  Ali paused, glancing up to the front of the room again. It was Cody who was with Santa now. “Look, Kent, I’ve got to go get Robbie, but is there anything I can do to help? Do you want me to talk to her?”

  He shrugged. “If you could convince her to tell me what’s going on...not knowing is driving me nuts.”

  “All right, then why don’t we go out for pizza after the party? And I’ll make a point to get her alone and see what I can do.”

  “That would be great.”

  “There’s probably nothing wrong, though.”

  “Yeah. Maybe not.”

  Ali gave him a reassuring smile, then turned and started toward the front of the room.

  Even though Logan still had Cody on his knee, a few people were already getting ready to leave—shrugging into their coats and blocking her way. Likely some of the same people, she thought with annoyance, who left Blue Jays games halfway through the eighth inning, no matter who was ahead.

  When she finally made it to the front, Cody was tightly clutching a present while Logan was waving to the crowd. He gave a loud “Ho-ho-ho,” then called, “Goodbye until Christmas Eve, boys and girls.”

  She couldn’t see Robbie anywhere, and behind her everyone in the room seemed to be standing up. She swore to herself. Now she’d have to find a three-foot-ten-inch boy among a bunch of six-foot-tall adults. She started through the crowd, her gaze catching on at least a dozen brown-haired little boys who weren’t her son.

  When she reached the back wall she spotted the men’s room and stopped, a little surge of hope rushing through her. She had a rule about Robbie not going into strange washrooms like this by himself, but maybe he’d been desperate.

  “Excuse me?” she said, intercepting a man on his way in. “I’m looking for my son. Would you mind giving a shout and see if he’s in there? His name’s Robbie.”

  “Sure.” He stepped inside and called, “Robbie? Is there a Robbie here?”

  A second later he stuck his head back out. “Sorry. Not in here.”

  She nodded her thanks, her mouth beginning to feel dry. Then it occurred to her that Robbie might have gone back to their seats.

  Walking faster now, she headed in that direction. When she got to them, his jacket was still on his chair, between hers and Cody’s. He was nowhere in sight, though. Her anxiety level had been rising rapidly, but she forced herself to look around slowly and carefully. He had to be somewhere in the room.

  The crowd was thinning, so she should be able to spot him...but she couldn’t. She didn’t see a single child who wasn’t with an adult.

  She did see Logan and Cody, though, heading toward her, Logan still in his Santa outfit. When they reached her, she took a deep breath and tried not to sound as if she was nearing panic state. “Logan, I don’t know where Robbie is.”

  “Maybe he’s still with the man,” Cody said.

  Her heart stopped beating.

  Logan crouched down and rested his hands on Cody’s shoulders. “What man, son?” he asked quietly.

  “The man he went with.”

  Chapter Two

  Ali began praying she’d wake up and find this was a nightmare, because she couldn’t really be here and this couldn’t really be happening.

  But she knew it wasn’t a nightmare. Someone, some man, had stolen her son. Every mother’s worst fear had become her reality.

  “What man, Cody?” Logan asked quietly.

  Cody shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t see him.”

  “But you just said Robbie went with him, so you must have seen him.”

  “No. I just saw a piece of him. Just his arm and hand.”

  “But how could you see Robbie going with him if you couldn’t see more than that?”

  “Well...I could just kinda see.”

  Ali had an almost overwhelming urge to grab Cody and try shaking the details out of him. But she knew that would only make him cry, so she just wrapped her arms around herself to keep from trembling. Her skin felt burning hot and clammy at the same time, and her stomach had begun churning.

  “What do you mean, you could kinda see?” Logan was asking.

  “I mean I just saw for a minute. When I was getting on your knee.”

  “Cody, tell me exactly what you saw.”

  “Dad, is Robbie okay?”

  “I’m sure he’s fine, son. Just tell me exactly what you saw.”

  “Well...Robbie was walking. Then he stopped. I guess the man said something to him. Then the man put his hand on his shoulder. That’s how come I saw his arm.”

  “But that’s all you saw?”

  “Uh-huh. Just his arm.”

  “And did he have on a sweater? Or a jacket? What?”

  “A coat. A coat kinda like Grandpa’s. And gloves like Grandpa’s, too.”

  “And where was he? When he stopped Robbie?”

  Cody pointed in the direction of the throne. “By those red things. Robbie was on this side, but the man was on the other side. That’s how come I just saw his arm. He was kinda reaching between two of those red things.”

  “Logan?” Ali whispered, her throat so tight she could barely manage his name. She glanced at the red dividers.

  “It’s going to be all right, Ali.” He hoisted Cody to his shoulder, then firmly grabbed her hand. “We’ll just go have a look back there.”

  As they hurried forward, she realized that all the glittering Christmas trees practically blocked the lower halves of the divider panels from view. So if a man had been crouched behind one of them, if he’d stopped Robbie as he’d been walking away from his visit with Santa, would anyone have even noticed?

  She bit her lip, trying to hold back the tears burning her eyes, and silently repeated Logan’s words. It was going to be all right.

  It had to be all right.

  As they neared the throne, Logan lowered Cody to the floor. Then he shoved one of the panels aside so they could step behind them. A few feet along the back wall was a fire exit. A stick cracked the door open to the evening darkness.

  Her heart hammering in horror, Ali stood staring at the exit. Beside her, Logan ripped off his beard and Santa hat and tossed them onto a nearby chair, saying, “Ali, listen to me.”

  It sounded as if he was speaking through dense fog.

  “Listen to me,” he repeated. He took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “You’ve got to hang tough. We can’t be certain someone took Robbie. Maybe it just looked that way. Maybe he’s just in another part of the building. Or he might have wandered outside on his own.”

  She closed her eyes in silent anguish. Robbie wouldn’t have wandered anywhere without telling her. But why would he have gone off with a stranger without making a fuss? He knew never to do that.

  “Dad?” Cody said, his voice quavering. “Dad, what if Robbie is gone? What if the man disappeared him?”

  “Don’t worry about what if just now, son. I’m pretty sure Robbie’s going to be okay. But are you going to be all right, Ali?”

  She nodded, desperately trying to fight the woozy sensation that was making her feel more ill by the second.

  “Fine,” Logan said, giving her shoulders a hard squeeze. “We’ve got to start searching. Can you cope with that?”

  Too numb to speak, she merely nodded again. If there was a chance they could find her son, she’d cope with whatever she had to.

  “Good.” He glanced into the main area of the room, then back at her. “What was that guy’s name? The one who was with your friend, Nancy?”

  It took three tries, but she finally managed to get Kent’s name out.

  Taking Cody’s hand and wrapping his other arm tightly around her shoulders, Logan half walked her, half dragged her, back to the far side of the display panels. The activities room was almost empty now. Only a few stragglers had lingered to talk.

  “Kent?” Logan called across to him. “Kent, can you give us a hand here? Pronto?

  “Robbie’s disappeared,” he said t
ersely when Kent reached them. “We’ve got to check the building fast. Get Nancy to help, and anybody else who’s still here. Search every room. I’ll go check the parking lot.”

  “I’ll go with you, Dad. I’ll help you look.”

  “No, Cody, I want you to stay with Ms. Weyden and help her look. Maybe Robbie crawled into a kid-size space and you’ll see it. Hold her hand, okay? And stay right with her, because she’s worried. She needs to have someone she knows with her.”

  Ali looked down at Cody. The way her eyes were swimming, he was such a blur he might have been Robbie. That thought was enough to start her tears flowing.

  “Hang in, Ali,” Logan murmured, leaning closer. “We’ll give this ten minutes, and if we haven’t found him by then we’ll call the police.” Logan turned on his heel and started for the fire exit.

  “Hey!” Kent called, attracting the attention of the few remaining people. “Folks, there’s a little boy missing. If you can stay for just a few minutes and help us search the building, please do.”

  * * *

  THE CLINIC was small enough that it had taken no time at all to establish Robbie wasn’t anywhere inside. By then, Ali’s control was all but gone.

  “Come on, we’ll go wait in my office,” Nancy suggested.

  Once they were there, Ali sat huddled on a chair, her entire body trembling. When Cody crawled onto her lap and began sobbing quietly against her shoulder, she wrapped her arms tightly around him and tried to force her mind to go blank. Her thoughts continued to swirl, though, tumbling over one another in a jumble of fear. Logan was her last hope. Maybe he would miraculously find Robbie outside...

  “It’s going to be okay,” Nancy murmured.

  But what if it wasn’t okay? What if Logan didn’t find Robbie, and...and she just couldn’t stop thinking that she might never see him alive again. She tried to blink away fresh tears, then heard Logan in the hall. He strode into the office and silently shook his head. It made her heart feel as if steel bars were pressing in on it.

  “I’m going to call the police now, all right?” he said.