I'd mentioned awhile-two years ago?--back that I was working on a Christmas short story called The Lemon Drop Kid. Welllll, the more I thought about that story and those characters, the more I realized 1 - Christmas story or not, I wanted to write it, and 2 - There was way too much story there for a short story.
Anyway, it's set at Christmas time, but I don't know that it's really a Christmas story. What I do know is, it's a bit of a departure for me. A little more emotional than of late? A little darker than of late, for sure.
BLURB
How The Cookie Crumbled
As sole heir to the Bredahl Cookies
and Cakes fortune, Casper led a comfortable, happy-go-lucky life. Some would
say, a charmed life.
As I stepped out of the wood line, I saw a black SUV parked
behind the Range Rover. The SUV bore the familiar—and now dreaded—red and white
insignia of Little Copenhagen Police Department.
My heart stopped.
I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m allowed to be here.
Before panic—and rage—could take over, I recognized the
tall, dark-haired figure peering through the driver’s window of my vehicle. No
uniform. A plainclothes officer. My heart kickstarted back into life, began to pound
in a painful mix of anger and hatred—made even more painful by my recognition
that even now, my instinctive reaction to seeing Raleigh was…delight.
Because I had loved him all my life. And as much as I hated
him now, the conditioned reflex of my blood and bones to the surprise of seeing
him was…
Stupid.
Raleigh must have caught my approach out of the corner of
his eye because he straightened up, turned. He didn’t look surprised, but then
he’d have recognized the car.
The snow made a squeaky-creak sound as the ice crystals
shifted beneath my boots. It seemed to take a very long time to cross that
clearing. Raleigh didn’t move. He was too far away for me to read his face, but
then it was always hard to read his face.
I kept walking toward him, not saying anything, just looking
at him without any expression. You learn fast to hide your feelings in county. You
learn fast not to have feelings.
Raleigh stared gravely back—his eyes were the color of the
shadows on the snow. Maybe he was waiting for me to get closer than shouting
distance or maybe he was waiting for me to speak first. If so, he was going to
wait a long time.
I was never willingly going to speak to him again.
Even as that thought formed, it was washed aside by the fury
now always bubbling beneath the surface.
“Problem, Officer?” I sounded clipped because I was out of
breath. It’s funny how anger winds you.
Raleigh gave a short shake of his head. “Hi Casper. Just
making sure everything’s okay.” He dipped his head, drew a sharp breath. “Actually,
I’m glad I—”
“Oh yeah,” I cut in. “Everything’s fantastic.”
His light gaze flickered.
“But you’re a detective now. You probably could tell that just
from the way I parked.” I made a commiserating face. “Then again, you’re a
pretty shitty detective, so maybe not.”
Raleigh’s expression changed, grew stony.
Funny—crazy—that I had kissed that straight line of a mouth.
That he had kissed me too. Not once, not twice, not by accident, not because we’d
been drinking. Many times. Many kisses. I regretted every single one.
Raleigh didn’t sound stony though as he stumbled through his
disjointed whatever-it-was-supposed-to-be. Explanation? It sure as hell wasn’t
an apology. “Look, Casper. I was doing
my job. You know I didn’t—you think it was easy for me?”
“Oh my God,” My parka crinkled in the chilly air as I put a
hand to my chest. “It must have been terrible for you. What am I
thinking? All those months you had to go on with your life and suffer through
getting a big fat promotion you knew fucking well you didn’t deserve. How can I
be so selfish?”
“I thought you were guilty!”
It seemed to bounce off the distant snowy hills.
And just like that I was calm again. Ice cold. “So you said
at the time.”
Both times. The night he arrested me. And the day he came to
see me in jail to explain why, friends or no friends, he couldn’t overlook my
committing murder.
Raleigh was calmer too. Quieter. “Casper.”
“But like you said, nothing personal.”
“I never said it wasn’t personal. Of course, it was
personal. I—” He gave a disarming swallow in the middle of it. “I cared for
you. You know that.”
“No doubt there.”
“But if you were capable of murder—”
“Except I wasn’t.”
He sounded sincere and kind, like the old once-upon-a-time-there-was-a-prince
Raleigh. “I know that now. We all know that now. And I’m glad you’ve been exonerated.
I can’t tell you how sorry I am for everything that happened.”
I smiled. “Worried about the lawsuit?”
He stared.
There wasn’t any lawsuit. Not yet anyway. My lawyer had
broached the idea; I figured he was disappointed he hadn’t been able to make
mincemeat of LCPD in court.
I laughed.
It wasn’t much of a laugh. It sounded like icicles falling.
I think one of those icicles must have found its target,
because Raleigh seemed frozen. He continued to stare at me and then he snapped
out of it.
His face was cold, his voice hard as he said, “Do your worst,
Caz. In the meantime, what are you doing parked out here in the middle of
nowhere?”
I opened my mouth—the old Casper would have snapped back
with a smartass answer. But I was eleven months older and, if not wiser, much
more careful. It took a lot to make Raleigh angry, but he was angry now. I didn’t
want to push my luck. The idea of being arrested, jailed—for even five
minutes—was enough to fill me with panic.
I understood how very fragile freedom was.
“Looking for Freyja. She ran away two days ago.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. Raleigh was as crazy
about dogs as me. That was one thing we’d always had in common. For another, I’d
got Freyja from Linda, Raleigh’s mom. Linda raised golden retrievers. Raleigh’s
dog Loki was from the same litter.
He said neutrally, “She’s chipped. Did you try the animal
shelter and the vet clinics?”
“I tried.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll keep an eye out for her.”
I nodded, shrugged. “Thanks. I know she’s gone. She wouldn’t
stay away this long.”
Just one more thing I blamed him for, and he probably saw it
in my face.
He nodded curtly. “Drive safely. It’s getting dark.” He
turned his back on me, not waiting for the response that he correctly assumed
wasn’t coming.
I didn’t watch him walk away. I unlocked the Range Rover,
got inside, and started the engine—and nearly jumped out of my skin as someone
thumped on the driver’s side window. Hard.
Raleigh glared down at me.
I fumbled to find the button to lower the window.
As the window slid down, he said hotly, “You know, I wasn’t
the only one. Everybody thought you were guilty—”
I said, matching his anger decibel for decibel, “You aren’t everybody,
Raleigh. You knew me. You were my—” My voice gave a humiliating crack, but I
got control. “You were supposed to be my friend.”
He was supposed to be a hell of a lot more than my friend.
So far it's only listed on Amazon and Smashwords. I'll try to get it up everywhere else today.
(I guess there's still an issue with the book being searchable on Amazon's global sites, so here are some direct links to the obvious suspects)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CWB2T8DN Amazon UK
https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B0CWB2T8DN France
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0CWB2T8DN Amazon Germany
https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0CWB2T8DN Italy
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CWB2T8DN Canada
https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0CWB2T8DN Australia
