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CHAPTER
31
“PANCAKES OR WAFFLES?” NANA ASKED IN A VOICE SO CHEERFUL THAT everybody knew it was put on. Add to that the fact that both Jannie (always pro-waffle) and Damon (fiercely pro-pancake) said they didn’t really care, and it was obvious that worry about Alex had pretty much sucked the joy right out of the holiday.
“It’s Christmas,” Nana finally said. “Why don’t I just make both? Pancakes and waffles coming up!”
No response from the kids.
Suddenly Nana yanked off her apron and flung it to the kitchen floor. “Enough of this!” she shouted and began to march up and down, swinging her fists like she was punching the heavy bag in the basement.
That got everyone’s attention.
“Now, you all listen to me,” Nana said, snatching up a wooden mixing spoon and shaking it at them. “I don’t like this terrible situation any more than you do. I’ve got a grandson who’s missing for Christmas. Does it make me gloomy? Does it make me angry? Does it make me sad?”
She peered around at them in the intimidating way she’d perfected as a vice principal. “The answer to all three of those questions is yes. It certainly does. My heart’s as heavy as yours. I could burst into tears any minute. Fact is, I did, twice last night, and I may do it again. But the truth is, life has to be lived. This Christmas is today. Now. This Christmas will never come again. And I don’t mean to be giving a holiday sermon, but Christmas is about hope and faith. And we’d all better realize that, you hear me? Hope and faith. You hear me?”
Except for bacon popping in the frying pan, the room was silent.
“I said—you hear me?”
“It’s hard to feel hope and faith when you’re sick to your stomach,” said Jannie. “No one who doesn’t live in a police family can understand what this feels like, Nana.”
“It sucks,” Damon added.
“I don’t disagree with any of that,” their great-grandmother said. “If it were easy, I wouldn’t have to be delivering this lecture.”
“Okay, we embrace hope and faith,” Bree said.
She squeezed Nana’s shoulders and gave her a kiss. “At least, I do.”
“Now, that’s fine,” Nana said. “I hope your stepchildren will have the same common sense. Now, whoever dropped my apron on the floor, please pick it up and give it to me.”
Everyone laughed…a little.
“Then we’ll have a real fine breakfast,” she went on. “And then we’ll go into the living room, and we’ll each open up one gift. And then…”
“Then what?” Ava asked.
“Then Damon will go out and shovel the front walk. So when his father gets home we can all go to church.”
CHAPTER
32
“YOU ARE NOT GOING BACK IN THERE,” LIEUTENANT NU SAID. “I’LL NEVER BE able to look your wife in the eye again.”
“Join the club on that one,” I said, jumping up. “But I’ve got to go back in there, or that doctor is dead and maybe the others too. And I have a plan.”
“And that plan is?” McGoey asked.
I told Nu that while I’d slept, part of my mind must have worked out what was really behind Fowler’s fall from glory and his actions of the past twenty-four hours.
“We can use it, I think,” I said, and I told them what I was considering.
“Shit,” Nu grumbled. “You do have to go back in there.”
He hustled me into a SWAT armored vest, and I went back out into the blizzard once more. It was six thirty, a pale winter dawn, the second time I crossed Thirtieth Street to the Nicholsons’ home. The newscasters and onlookers had been pushed back. Only the vans and the MPD officers, the medics, and the SWAT teams were allowed to remain close to the house.
