The Last Noel Read online

  If only her father kept a gun.

  But he didn’t.

  He’d never even kept a gun at the pub, joking that he and her mother might shoot each other. But the truth was, he didn’t believe in guns. He didn’t like them. He had always been afraid that if you drew a gun and didn’t kill your enemy immediately, that gun might be taken away and turned on you or another innocent. Besides, the pub was a stone’s throw from a police station.

  So there was no prayer of finding a gun in the house, but how did you combat a gun without a gun of your own?

  There had to be a way.

  She moved carefully up to the pantry, then stood dead still, listening. Voices didn’t filter back this far with any clarity, but she could tell they were all in the living room, and she could hear the man named Scooter speaking, followed by her mother. After a minute her ears became attuned to the acoustics, and she began to make out parts of their sentences.

  “You took a nasty blow…head,” her mother said. “I cleaned…have quite a cut there…your hairline. You…careful not to sleep for a while.”

  “He’s all right. Dinner…getting cold,” Scooter complained.

  “You’re the one…had…out for him,” Quintin snapped.

  “I could…frozen…death!”

  That was Craig’s voice. And he had snapped back at Quintin, apparently comfortable enough with the other man to show his anger. Her heart sank. He was with them.

  “Let’s…back to the kitchen,” Quintin said.

  “I need…first aid kit away,” Jamie said.

  “Leave it,” Quintin told him.

  “What should…do with him?” Scooter asked.

  Him? Kat frowned, then realized with relief that he had to be talking about Craig.

  “He…stay…stare…tree for a while,” Quintin said.

  Kat heard shuffling and people talking over each other, presumably getting Craig settled in the living room, followed by the sounds of everyone else returning to the kitchen. Without a plan—or a weapon—she knew it was time to retreat. She used the sound of their approach to cover her own escape back up the servants’ stairs to the second floor.

  David O’Boyle sat at his own table, completely powerless, in a fury, feeling beyond humiliation or help. He was trying with everything in him to keep his mouth shut. He was praying with the same words over and over again: God, help. Oh, God, help. God, help. Help….

  He had met his wife’s eyes so many times, had seen the plea in them. There was nothing they could do that wouldn’t get them killed except play this game.

  Great game.

  Scuzzy criminals who were probably cold-blooded murderers were sitting at the dinner table. His dinner table. They were complimenting the food, drinking his liquor, making conversation as if they belonged there.

  How the hell was he supposed to keep from throwing himself at one of them, even if it meant taking a bullet? But he couldn’t take the risk that the other one would shoot Skyler or one of the kids. God help him, if there was just one of them…But there were two.

  No, now there were three.

  Of course, one was prone and possibly passed out in the living room, so at the moment, he didn’t count. And he was younger, maybe not as bloodthirsty. Or maybe more so.

  Hell.

  He looked over at Paddy.

  Fuck the old bird. He was chatting away with their vicious guests as if they were long-lost comrades from Dublin, filling their glasses again and again with whiskey, and saying the same things over and over, as if he had Alzheimer’s.

  Filling their glasses…

  Was he hoping to get them drunk?

  Maybe so, and it wasn’t such a bad idea, now that he thought about it. Hell, it was better than anything he’d come up with.

  No heroics. Quintin had sworn that he would kill Skyler, and David had the feeling that he’d do it.

  “So when did you leave Ireland, old man?” Quintin asked, accepting another shot of Skyler’s best single malt.

  “The summer of sixty-four,” Paddy said. “I’d had it with the violence.” He winked at the table. “The minute I got to the States, I decided to be a Buddhist.”

  “Uncle Paddy, you’re not a Buddhist,” Jamie said.

  “He’s an alcoholic. That’s his religion,” Frazier told Quintin and Scooter. But there was no malice in his words. He was almost smiling as he looked at his uncle.

  “’Tis true. I do worship a fine single malt,” Paddy admitted.

  “So then you opened a pub?” Scooter asked

  “No, sir, I did not. My sainted and now dearly departed sister and her husband opened the pub. I merely worked in it.”

  “He thought he was the social liaison,” David heard himself say. But there was no malice in his voice, either.

  I’m sorry I ridiculed you and wanted you out of my house, David thought. He was sorry that he’d argued with Frazier about the tree, too. He was sorry that he had so often been quick to find fault with all his children.

  He stared across the table at Frazier. They might all end up dying in the hours to come. But not all of them, because he wouldn’t let that happen. When the time came…

  When would that time be?

  He didn’t know, but when it did, he would throw himself on one of the men and hope the others would overpower the second man left behind. And that someone would live.

  But it wouldn’t come to that for a while. Not while the wind and snow continued to rage. Not while the invaders were still being fed. Not while his family continued to entertain them.

  David wanted to tell Brenda that she was welcome in his house, that he was glad she and Frazier made each other happy.

  But he didn’t want to draw attention to the women in his house. For all he knew, Quintin and Scooter could be rapists as well as killers. In fact, he was afraid that the only reason nothing like that had happened was because Quintin wanted two guns available at a moment’s notice.

  He went back to trying futilely to think of a way.

  She came down the stairs in silence, a vengeful fire goddess with the red of her hair blazing against the white parka she’d found in her parents’ closet.

  Craig felt an instant rush of panic and looked toward the kitchen. There was no sign of anyone returning to the living room, but Quintin and Scooter knew nothing about Kat, and he was desperate for it to stay that way.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he mouthed as she walked toward him.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she mouthed in return.

  “Listen—” he whispered when she was close enough to hear him.

  “No, you listen. If you let them harm a single hair on the head of any one of my family, you are a dead man, do you understand?”

  “I told you to get the hell out of here,” he said.

  He tried to sit up, but though the room swam, he resisted the temptation to go under again. She touched his face, and her fingers were soft and cool.

  “You’re burning up,” she said, stepping back.

  “Get out of here,” he told her.

  “I need to know—from your lips—that you’re with them.”

  “You don’t understand.” He broke off when he heard a chair scrape against the kitchen floor. They could be heading back. “Get out of here, Kat, now.”

  She had heard it, too, but she paused, staring at him in a way that made his insides curl. “Do you have a gun, too? Are you going to shoot someone?”

  “I had a gun…. Quintin took the bullets.”

  “So you are with them,” she said in disgust.

  “No.”

  Another chair scraped back.

  “Get out of here,” he told her again.

  That time she listened and silently disappeared back up the stairs just as Quintin came into the room.

  “You’re sitting up. Feeling better?” Quintin asked.

  “Yeah. No thanks to you, you asshole.”

  “Careful. You’re the asshole, and I can make you a dead assh
ole real easy. In fact, I should shoot you. That would guarantee good behavior out of this family.”

  “Great. Why?” Craig demanded, making sure to keep his eyes on Quintin. Not to let them wander. Kat was on the landing, he was certain. Listening. Watching, perhaps.

  “Why?” Quintin demanded, as if surprised.

  “Yeah. Why bother with them?” Craig asked.

  “I like the food. The comfort. The warmth of the house. Hell, I even like the feeling of having a family for Christmas.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “What else is there to do? There’s no way to go anywhere in this storm, so tonight, we’re all just one big happy family,” Quintin said.

  “The storm will stop eventually. What then?”

  “And then we leave. I may let you live then, and I may not,” Quintin said.

  “What about them?” Craig demanded, lowering his voice.

  Quintin smiled. “What about them?”

  “What happens to them?”

  Quintin shrugged. “Well, tomorrow is Christmas. Not a good day for anyone to die.”

  “And then?” Craig persisted.

  “Then,” Quintin said very softly, “it won’t be Christmas anymore.”

  FOUR

  “I said, no more,” Scooter muttered irritably.

  “What?” Paddy demanded, waving the whiskey bottle in the air. “No more? This is the best, I tell ye, my good man.”

  “I said enough,” Scooter said.

  David was afraid that the man was really losing his temper. Although Scooter liked to talk big, Quintin was definitely the boss of the two. But Quintin was in control of himself, while Scooter was like a loose cannon.

  “Scooter,” he said.

  The man looked at him in surprise, perhaps because David had spoken to him by name. “What?”

  “He…uh…it’s Alzheimer’s.”

  Scooter frowned; then his eyes widened. “You mean the old fart’s going senile.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What?” Paddy demanded indignantly. But it had been his ploy all along. A good ploy? David didn’t know. But all of them were acting, and Paddy’s act was as good as any other. He lowered his head for a moment.

  “Nothing,” David said.

  “He’s not crazy, he’s just a drunk,” Jamie said.

  “A drunk going crazy,” Frazier told his brother.

  “I’m not drunk yet—unfortunately,” Paddy complained.

  “Close enough,” David said, though he didn’t really think Paddy was close at all. After years of pickling his brain, the old man could hold a prodigious amount of liquor.

  “Everybody be nice,” Skyler commanded, rising and picking up her plate. “Frazier, hand me that platter, please.”

  “What are you doing?” David asked.

  “The dishes, obviously,” she said.

  Do the dishes matter when we all might be dead soon? David wondered.

  He didn’t ask the question aloud. As he rose to help clear the table, Quintin returned to the kitchen, along with the newest arrival.

  The guy still looked a little green, but he offered what looked like a genuine smile. “I’m a little late. Mind if I grab something?”

  Skyler turned to him with a smile. “Of course not. What would you like?”

  That was Skyler through and through, David thought: making sure a crook didn’t go hungry. They couldn’t even get rid of rats at the pub in the normal way; they had to go out and buy the humane traps, then set the rodents free out in the country. Even when the rats were bigger than the alley cats that continually hung out looking for scraps.

  “Are you feeling better?” Skyler asked the newcomer.

  He shrugged. “I feel hungry. I think the smells coming from the kitchen gave me strength.”

  Just what they needed: to give the guy strength. “Sit. I’ll get you a plate,” David said. What else was there to do? At least this one was polite.

  “Who plays the piano?” Quintin asked.

  “Everyone in the family,” David replied curtly.

  “Do you all sit around the piano and sing Christmas carols?” Scooter demanded, laughing.

  “Yes,” Skyler informed him icily.

  “Christmas carols, huh?” Quintin said thoughtfully. “That might be…interesting. It’s not like we want to watch the news.”

  Ice trickled along David’s spine. They didn’t want to watch the news. Why not? What were the men afraid he and his family would learn about them if they were to watch the news? Or would anyone even know anything yet, with the storm at full fury?

  “Christmas carols sound great,” Craig said. He looked at Jamie. “Is the piano your favorite instrument now? Or is that guitar I saw in the living room yours?”

  Jamie shrugged. “The guitar’s mine, but I like them both.”

  Now? David thought. The man had said “now.” As if he knew Jamie. But that was impossible…wasn’t it?

  “Frazier can play the piano way better than me,” Jamie went on.

  “Except for my dad,” Frazier said. “Not to mention my mom. She’s the one who usually plays at Christmas.”

  “She loves Christmas,” Jamie supplied.

  “Christmas carols, turkey…a warm house,” Scooter said, almost talking to himself.

  “So everyone in the family is a musician,” Quintin said, frowning as he glanced at Scooter.

  “Comes from owning the pub,” David explained. “We didn’t have a lot of money when we took it over from Skyler’s parents. We couldn’t afford to hire a band, so we made our own music.” He looked at his wife and smiled, suddenly remembering the years gone by. Lean times, hard times, but they’d made do. Skyler had heard the old Irish songs all her life, and her light, melodic voice more than did them justice. His sons had grown up liking harder, Celtic-tinged rock. Frazier’s favorite band was Black 47, and he often headed down to New York to hear them.

  Suddenly David realized that Quintin was studying him with something like envy. “I wanted to play the guitar,” the man said, sounding natural for the first time all night. “I sucked. Took after my mother, who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.”

  “What about your father?”

  Quintin shrugged. “Never knew him—never even knew who he was.”

  “I could teach you a few chords,” Jamie volunteered.

  “Yeah? Well, we’ll see,” Quintin said, reverting to form.

  “Let’s hear some carols,” Scooter said.

  “Music,” Paddy said. “’Tis an Irish tradition, that it is. Along with a good whiskey. Drinking fine whiskey, now there’s a talent that can be learned quick.”

  “We’re going to sing Christmas carols, Uncle Paddy,” Frazier said.

  “You all go ahead,” Skyler told them. “I’ll finish up the dishes.”

  “We’ll all stay together,” Quintin said firmly.

  “Fine. Then let me finish the dishes,” she insisted.

  “What difference do the dishes make?” Quintin asked softly, something ominous in his tone.

  But Skyler spun around. “I was under the impression that you wanted a turkey tomorrow. If you want a turkey tomorrow, I have to clean up in here tonight. That’s how you run a good business. You keep up.”

  David was stunned at the way she was standing up to Quintin. Skyler was an enigma. She always had been. She hated controversy, and most of the time she was the sweetest human being in the world, but every so often…When it came to the right way to do things, she could definitely stick to her guns.

  “Fine. Everyone, up and help out,” Quintin said.

  Scooter wanted Christmas, David thought, and Quintin wanted turkey, which meant that, at least for now, they had time….

  David maneuvered to stand next to his wife at the sink. As she rinsed the dishes and he set them into the dishwasher, he had a moment to whisper to her. “I will do something,” he swore.

  “No.”

  “Skyler…”

  “Don’t make
them angry.”

  “Skyler…”

  “They plan to kill us before they leave. I know that. But wait, please. It’s only Christmas Eve, and it’s still snowing. We have time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “I don’t know. But…it’s Christmas.”

  Right, Christmas, with its tidings of comfort and joy. Only a few hours ago he had been irritable because Paddy was there, because Frazier had brought home a girl, because Jamie was holed up in his room, because they couldn’t get the tree to stand straight. Now…he just wanted them all to be alive to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

  She stared at him with clear, level eyes. She was praying for a miracle, he realized. And who was he to deny her? Hell, he wasn’t in any hurry to die.

  “Help may be out there,” she whispered, and left it at that. They both knew that Kat was still…somewhere.

  “Sure,” he said, and began to hum “Silent Night” to take his mind off the situation.

  The next thing he knew, something hard was sticking into his back. It took him only a second to realize that it was the cold nose of Quintin’s gun.

  “Quit whispering,” Quintin said coldly.

  David turned around despite the gun and stared at Quintin. “What the hell do you think we could be saying that’s such a big deal?” he demanded.

  Quintin thought that over, then shrugged. “Are you done in here yet?” he asked Skyler.

  “Just let me wipe the table and start the dishwasher,” she said. “While we still have power.”

  “You have a generator. I saw it.” Scooter pointed from across the room.

  “Yes, we have a generator. And enough gas to keep us going for about twelve hours,” David told him.

  “I’d hate to waste gas doing the dishes,” Skyler said. “We’ll probably need it to cook with tomorrow.”

  “Time to head out to the living room. Everyone. All together,” Quintin said, still holding the gun.

  Brenda made a little noise, not so much a sob as an involuntary sigh.

  “Don’t cry,” Quintin said. “I bet you can be plenty tough when you need to.”