The Mistletoe Secret Read online

  “Then I’ll see you tomorrow at dinner.”

  “I’d like that,” she said. She looked at me a little nervously and then said, “Do you want to do something after work?”

  “I would, but won’t you be too tired?”

  “I’m sure I will be,” she said. “But, do you want to do something?”

  “Yes. What would you like to do? Besides sleep.”

  She thought for a moment, then said, “I’ll surprise you. Good night.” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, then opened her door. She got out, stopped, and then turned back. “Do you know how long it’s been since a man pulled out a chair for me or scraped the snow from my car?”

  “No idea,” I said.

  “Yeah. Me neither.” She closed the door and walked to her car. I waited for her to pull out before leaving myself. As I drove back to the inn, I realized that I was gradually losing interest in my hunt for LBH.

  CHAPTER

  Twenty-four

  The next morning I hoped to see Ray at breakfast, but didn’t. I wanted to talk to him about Aria. As I was about to leave the dining room, Lita walked through.

  “Good morning, Mr. Bartlett. How is everything with your stay?”

  “Everything’s great,” I said. “Where’s Ray this morning?”

  “He’s visiting his grandchildren in Salt Lake. He’ll be back tomorrow. Have a good day.” She scurried off to help someone standing at the front counter.

  I went up to my room and got ready for the day. I had at least three visits planned: Laurie Heger, Lisa Hewitt, and Louise Higham.

  The first place I visited, the Laurie Heger residence, was an apartment about three miles east of the community center—a stretch, as far as festivalgoers walking by were concerned. Also, her window faced the opposite direction of the park. I couldn’t imagine people walking by in crowds past her apartment during the festival. Americans don’t walk that far. We just don’t. If it’s more than five minutes, we drive. Europeans will walk that far, but going to a Swiss festival doesn’t make people Swiss.

  I knocked, but no one answered. I crossed her off my list anyway.

  My second stop was Lisa Hewitt. Unlike the previous prospect, Lisa lived only a half mile from the community center. There was a young woman in the driveway brushing snow off her car as I pulled up in front of the house. She watched me park, then, as I got out, she threw her brush inside her car and walked up to me. She looked to be in her late twenties. “Hi,” she said brightly.

  “Hi, I’m looking for Lisa Hewitt.”

  “That’s me.”

  She seemed so forthright, I followed suit. “My name is Alex. I’m not from Midway. I’m just trying to find someone. She’s a blogger from around here.”

  “Cool. What does she blog about?”

  I had to think before I answered. I didn’t want to say “loneliness,” again revealing my aversion to the word. “Reflections on life, that sort of thing.”

  “Cool,” she repeated. “How can I help?”

  “I was wondering if it was you.”

  She laughed. “No way. I hate writing. In college it took me, like, an hour to write a paragraph for English.”

  “So you’re not a blogger.”

  “No. I follow a few, though. Have you read Allie Brosh? She’s hilarious.”

  “Is she the one with the funny, bizarre drawing of a fishlike thing?”

  “Yeah, that’s her! That’s cool you know who she is.” She took a step back, motioning to her running car. “Well, I better get to work. Good luck finding your bloggess.” She turned and walked back to her car. I waved at her as she drove away.

  That was easy, I thought. Another lead bites the list.

  My next stop, Louise Higham, lived about four blocks northwest of the diner. Her house was run-down and in need of a paint job.

  The doorbell had a piece of silver-gray duct tape across it, so I knocked. A moment later I heard steps, then an extremely large, middle-aged woman in a nightgown answered. She looked anxious.

  “May I help you?”

  “Hi. I’m looking for Louise Higham.”

  Awkwardly, she didn’t say anything.

  “Are you Louise?”

  “No, sir. Louise lives in the apartment downstairs. It’s around back.”

  I looked over to the side of the house to see if there was some kind of walkway. If there was one, it was covered in snow. “Is there a separate entrance?”

  “Yes. It’s over there. You’ll have to open the gate.”

  “Do you know if she’s home?”

  She strained her head out the door to look at the carport. “That’s her car there, so I suppose she is. No guarantee she’ll answer.”

  “All right. Thank you.”

  “Please don’t let the dog out.”

  She shut the door without saying good-bye. I walked around the side of the house to a tall wooden-plank fence and unlatched the gate. Immediately there was barking. I pushed open the gate just a few inches to look inside, mostly to see what kind of a dog it was. There was a medium-size, honey-colored collie standing on the covered back patio, her coat and belly white with snow. She continued barking but didn’t leave the dry concrete.

  The backyard was completely covered in snow. I put my shoulder against the gate to push it open just enough to squeeze through, then stepped into the snow. The dog was running around on the patio, barking like crazy.

  “Come on, girl,” I said, slightly stooping and putting out my arms. The dog came to me, her tail wagging as she bounded through the thick snow like a gazelle. She jumped up on me with snow-covered paws. I crouched down and scratched her for a while. After a few minutes, I stood, and the dog followed me over to the side of the house, where a vinyl awning jutted out over a concrete stairwell.

  “Stay,” I said. She obeyed.

  I clutched the cold metal handrail and walked carefully down the icy stairs. If it weren’t for the awning, the stairs would have looked like a mountain slope. It seemed like no one had been in or out of the place for a while. The landing was crowded with three full plastic garbage sacks, one partially opened, with trash—mostly beer cans and booze bottles—spilling out.

  There was no doorbell, so I knocked on the door. It was a few minutes before the door opened to a red-faced, inebriated woman. She wore no makeup and her hair was matted to one side. Her blouse was unbuttoned, exposing her bra. The house stank like cats or some collection of animals.

  “What do you want?” Her words were slurred.

  “I’m looking for Louise Higham.”

  “What do you want?”

  In her condition there was no reason not to speak plainly. “I’m looking for a blogger.”

  “A what?”

  “A blogger.” She just looked at me, so I added, “Someone who blogs.”

  “I don’t dance.”

  There was really no need to explain. “Okay. Thank you.”

  She shut the door.

  I petted the dog once more before leaving the yard, and I remembered to shut the gate.

  CHAPTER

  Twenty-five

  After checking my list, I decided to go back to the Swiss home I had visited the day before—the one that was for sale.

  This time there was a car parked out front. I walked in through the gate and was immediately greeted by a stout, redheaded woman. “Hello!”

  “Are you Lindsey Harman?” I asked.

  “No, Ms. Harman’s already moved out. I’m Gloria, with Keller Williams Real Estate. Would you like to see the house?”

  “No, I actually came to see Lindsey. I was interested in talking to her about her blog.”

  “I didn’t know she had a blog.”

  “When do you expect her back?”

  “I don’t. She already moved to St. George with her boyf
riend.”

  “Oh,” I said, gleaning in one sentence all I needed to know about Lindsey Harman. “All right. Thanks for your help.”

  “Don’t mention it. When I talk to her can I tell her anything?”

  I turned back. “Sure. Just tell her to keep up the good work.”

  Just four names left. Actually, this wasn’t really a good sign. Sometimes in my travels, while waiting at airport luggage carousels, I would guess how many bags it would take before mine appeared. What I learned is that if my bag didn’t come before the last ten, chances were great that it wouldn’t make it at all, and I’d have to go stand in the lost baggage line with all the other tormented people. What were the odds that LBH was among the last four leads? Or was fate just teasing me?

  Even though I was near the Mistletoe Diner, I didn’t want to wear out my welcome with Aria, so I drove past it two blocks to a local burger stand and got a chicken sandwich, fries, and Coke. When I got back to the inn I checked my phone messages. Satisfied that there wasn’t anything that was going to cost me my job, I rolled over and fell asleep. Other than that haze of a month when Jill had left me, I don’t remember ever taking so many naps in my life. Maybe it was the altitude. Or maybe I was just finally catching up on two-million-plus miles of travel.

  I drove to the diner around seven. The parking lot wasn’t particularly crowded but the restaurant was. Ridiculously crowded. Every table and booth was taken and there were at least two dozen people standing around the Please Wait to Be Seated sign.

  Aria, who was bouncing from booth to table, didn’t see me until she came to the front to seat the next guests. She smiled at me wearily. “I’m so sorry, we’re slammed. If you don’t mind, just take that seat at the counter.”

  “Thanks.”

  I started to walk when a man standing next to me said angrily, “Excuse me, Miss. We were here first.”

  Aria didn’t flinch. “I’m sorry, he has reservations. Do you have reservations?”

  The man just looked at her blankly.

  “I’ll be with you shortly.”

  “You’ve done that before,” I said to her when we had taken a few steps.

  “More than once.”

  I took the last seat at the counter. It was a few minutes before Aria got back to me. She brought me a plain lemonade. “I’m so sorry. This is crazy.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “There’s a crèche convention going on at the community center. They came here on a bus, so they all walked here.”

  “What’s a crèche convention?”

  “They’re for people who collect nativity scenes. You know, a crèche . . .”

  I shrugged. I had never heard the word.

  She took a deep breath. “Anyway, about tonight . . .”

  My heart fell. Considering her circumstances, I figured she was going to cancel. I wouldn’t blame her.

  “. . . I’ll probably be a half hour later. Do you still want to go?”

  “Of course. Are you sure you’re up to it?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Excellent,” I said. “I’ll be here.”

  Not surprisingly, we didn’t talk much, even though she smiled at me in passing. After I finished eating, I waved to her and she came up to me. She was out of breath. “How was everything?”

  “Thelma’s in good form.”

  “Thelma’s always in good form.” She took a deep breath. “So, I forgot to tell you something about tonight. Wear a swimsuit.”

  “We’re going swimming?”

  “Sort of. And wear a robe or something or you’ll freeze.” She smiled. “See you at eleven thirty.”

  Wear a robe?

  Instead of going directly back to my room, I decided to explore a little and drove east to downtown Heber. The town of Heber is larger than Midway and a four-lane highway runs through the center of it. Both sides of the road are crowded with businesses and restaurants.

  In addition to the commercial section’s decorations and light-strewn trees, the street was decorated for the season with large strands of tinsel crisscrossing the road at intersections. Oversize lighted plastic candy canes were fastened to the streetlamps that lined the highway. It pleased me to see it. Christmas Americana.

  I stopped in a grocery store to buy some sundries—­deodorant, shaving cream, and razors—then drove back to the inn.

  At a quarter past eleven I put on my swimsuit, donned the thick terry-cloth robe from the inn, and put my shoes back on. I thought of wearing my parka over the robe but decided I’d rather die of exposure than look that stupid. I walked downstairs and handed my key to Claudia at the front desk. “I’ll be back in a couple hours.”

  “You’re going out in a robe?”

  “I’ll bring it back,” I said.

  “That wasn’t my concern,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “It’s subfreezing. Keep warm.”

  “No guarantees,” I said. I pushed open the door and the brisk, chill air hit me in the face like a slap. I walked out to my car and got inside. I could feel the cold of the vinyl seat through my robe. It’s freaking Antarctica, I thought. My windshield was frosted inside and out so I started the car, turned on the front and rear defrosters, and sat for nearly ten minutes while the heater cleared up the windshields. Once I could see, I drove to the diner.

  I arrived to see Aria’s white Jeep idling at the far end of the parking lot, evidenced by a cloud of smoke and steam billowing out of its tailpipe. As I pulled in next to her, Aria stepped out of her car. She didn’t have a robe but wore a long peacoat with her bare legs exposed at the bottom. On her otherwise bare feet, she was wearing only flip-flops.

  “Aren’t you cold?” I asked, climbing out of my car.

  “Freezing,” she said, smiling. “The trick is not minding the pain.”

  I grinned. “Sorry I’m late. My windshield was frozen.”

  “No worries,” she said. “Nice robe.”

  “Thanks. It’s from the inn.”

  “I know. It has a pig head on it.”

  “So, couldn’t we have just changed into our suits wherever we’re going?”

  She cocked her head. “We could have, but I don’t know you that well. Come on, get in. I’ll drive.”

  I climbed into the passenger seat of her Jeep. I noticed that the back side window was broken and covered with a black plastic garbage sack duct-taped to the window frame. The heater was blowing loudly in compensation.

  “Sorry, my car’s a mess. I haven’t had time to clean it.”

  “How did your window break?” I asked.

  “Some kids threw a snowball at it.”

  “Recently?”

  “Last year.”

  She pulled out onto Main Street, which, not surprisingly, was deserted. We drove about a half mile west, then pulled off onto a dark side road still partially covered with snow. The road looked like it led up into the mountains and I couldn’t see any sign of a building or any place to swim.

  We continued past a grove of bare trees that opened into a large, snow-covered meadow. “In the summer this is all covered with sunflowers,” she said. “It’s beautiful. I love sunflowers.”

  “Me too,” I said. What actually came to mind was the time I gave Jill a bouquet of sunflowers for her twenty-eighth birthday. She asked me why I had given her weeds.

  “Just down this road is where we used to cut our Christmas trees,” Aria said.

  “You can cut your own?”

  “Yes. You need a permit, but it’s easy to get, and the trees are just right here.”

  “I’ve always wanted to do that,” I said.

  “Then why don’t you?”

  “There’s not a lot of Christmas trees in Daytona Beach.”

  “No, but at least you could find a starfish for the star on top.”

 
About two hundred yards from where we had turned off we came to another grove of trees. Aria pulled to the side of the road and turned off the Jeep. It sputtered once like a mechanical death-rattle, then died. “We’re here.”

  I looked around at the snow-covered landscape. The crystalline white sea of snow reflected a bright moon. “Where are we?”

  “The hot pot,” she said. She grabbed a towel from the backseat, opened her door, and stepped out. A moment later I followed, stepping out onto the tundra-like road. The cold air bit my exposed legs, and the only noise I could hear was the Jeep’s hot engine ticking and Aria’s footsteps as she crunched through the crusted snow in her flip-flops. The snow came nearly to the bottom of her coat.

  She was walking toward a mound about sixty steps from the Jeep. At the top, there was a crater where the snow was melted, revealing porous-looking lumps of rocks. Heat rose from the hot water, turning to steam in the cold air, almost as thick as smoke from a bonfire.

  The hot spring was surrounded by a wire fence excessively posted with No Trespassing signs, something I was keenly aware of after my visit to the crazy Mace woman.

  Aria twisted the wire off the fence and pulled it back as if she had done it a hundred times before.

  I looked around. “Is this legal?”

  “That depends on what you mean by legal,” she said.

  “Will someone arrest us?”

  “No. It’s a small town.”

  I nodded. “Okay, no problem.”

  “The owner might shoot us for trespassing. But you like taking risks, don’t you?” She stepped inside the wire cage, set down the towel, then took off her coat, folding it carefully over a rock. She was wearing a black bikini that showed off her beautifully curved body. She covered up well in her work smock, because honestly, she was even more beautiful than I had noticed or imagined.

  I think she must have noticed my attention and she smiled. “Well? Are you coming? Or are you afraid of . . . trespassing?”

  The way she looked, I would have eaten my way through the fence, No Trespassing signs and all. “I’m coming.”