A Forever Christmas - By Marie Ferrarella Page 0,50

right in. “So help you what? Help you level with your sister?” Alma suggested.

Joe rose, unfolding his lanky torso. “I think I’ll look in on Ben, see how our resident town drunk is doing this morning,” Joe said to no one in particular.

“See if he’s sober and ready to go back to his wife,” Alma called after Joe’s departing back.

“It’s either one or the other. If he’s sober, he won’t be ready to go back to his wife,” Joe pointed out without turning around.

Turning back to her brother, she coaxed, “Why don’t you just admit that Angel’s gotten to you? After all, she’s beautiful, bright, cooks up a storm and anyone with eyes can see that she’s just crazy about you.” Alma rested her case. “In short, she’s everything I ever wanted for you.”

“Fine, ‘Mom.’” He deliberately inclined his head submissively, although he did manage to keep the sarcasm down. “She’s gotten to me. Now answer the question. Has anyone called about the poster?”

Alma dropped her teasing attitude and shook her head.

“Not so far, no.” She felt obligated to add a coda to that. “The posters probably got lost in the shuffle.”

“Most people don’t pay that much attention to something that comes via snail mail these days,” the sheriff commented.

Brother and sister turned to look toward Rick’s office. Their boss was standing outside the doorway, nursing what amounted to his third cup of hot tar.

“How long have you been standing there?” Alma asked.

Though Rick was generally affable, Alma was the only one in the office who ever challenged him or acted as if they were basically on the same level. She’d been with the sheriff’s department the longest length of time and figured that put her on close to equal footing with Rick.

“Long enough to decide that there isn’t a brother and sister on earth who don’t argue,” Rick replied, a half smile on his lips. “So, no takers for our amnesia victim?” he asked, looking to confirm what he’d overheard.

“None,” she replied. “And I haven’t found any matches to missing persons files since our system came back up yesterday,” she added.

“Would be nice to tell ‘Angel’ who she really is by Christmas,” Rick speculated.

Alma exchanged glances with her brother. “Maybe Angel doesn’t want to know who she is,” Alma suggested.

Had Angel said something to Alma? Gabe wondered. “What makes you say that?” he asked suspiciously.

Alma shrugged. “Just a gut feeling,” she admitted. “I figure if it really mattered so much to her, she would have been pushing us to try harder.”

“Meaning what?” Gabe asked. Was she suggesting that Angel wanted to cover something up?

“Down, Gabe. I meant no disrespect here. It’s just that maybe, on some level, she’s afraid that she won’t want to find out who she is. Maybe, when you found her, she was already running from something.”

Gabe had his own theories on that. He snorted. “Most likely whoever it was who left those fatal notches on her brake lines.”

Rick nodded, agreeing. “Sounds like a good theory to me. Too bad the sedan was so badly damaged. There might have been a decent set of prints or two we could have lifted.”

Gabe nodded, but his mind had raced ahead and was now elsewhere. What if someone did recognize her from that photocopy Alma had sent out? How was he going to be able to determine that whoever came looking for Angel wasn’t the guy who’d obviously set out to kill her?

He frowned. “Really wish you hadn’t sent out that poster, Alma.”

“We had to do something,” she pointed out defensively. “Can’t just hang back and let her go on wondering who she is for the rest of her life.”

What Alma said was true enough on the surface, but what if what Angel found out was something she would have rather left buried in the recess of her mind? He’d be doing her no favors by digging all that up.

Just then, a loud noise erupted from the rear of the building where their jail cells were located. Stunned, all three law enforcement officers quickly made their way to the back where they discovered Ben Walker, the man known affectionately as one of Forever’s two resident drunks, was standing on his cot, looking properly terrified by the slip of a woman standing on the other side of the cell’s bars, shouting at him to stop acting like the state’s biggest ass and the greatest disappointment of her life. The sentiment was reinforced and peppered with a great many blue words.

“Now,