Page 159 of Christmas Kisses

Vidalia opened the front door before he reached it and then she was hugging him hard. “Poor man, you look terrible. We’re gonna find that boy, you mark my words.”

He nodded, but he realized when she said it that he wasn’t as certain. A bone-chilling fear had taken up residence deep inside him.

She tugged him inside then, walking beside him. He saw Edie turn around and hug her husband. She’d been standing at the counter, putting on a fresh pot of coffee. It made him ache for Kara.

“Mel and Alex are working on several possibilities,” Vidalia said. “Maya’s upstairs putting the twins down for a nap. How are the police doing? Any leads?”

“Nothing yet.” He looked around the kitchen. He didn’t see Kara, and the lead weight of longing in his belly grew heavier. “Is Kara here?”

Vidalia frowned. “Well, no, she never came home. We all assumed she’d changed her mind and she and Selene had gone back over to your place.”

“She didn’t.” He was suddenly worried.

“No doubt she’s out looking for that boy herself,” Vidalia said. “Land, but I never saw anything like the way she’s taken to that child. Not that the rest of us haven’t, but Kara... well, she’s as smitten with Tyler as she is with you, Jim.”

Another guilt arrow stabbed into his chest. It brought company; A new worry. “I don’t like that no one knows where she is.”

“She wouldn’t want you worrying,” Vidalia said, “much less diverting any time or attention from searching for Tyler to go out looking for her. She’ll call in.”

He pursed his lips and sent a look at Wade and Caleb.

“Let’s see what Alex and Mel are working on,” Caleb suggested. “Give her a little time to call home. Okay?”

Jim nodded.

“They’re in the study,” Vidalia said.

Jim followed her in, but he couldn’t get rid of the niggling dread in his belly.

CHAPTERFIFTEEN

Kara crept toward the motel room, but there were only the door and a large window there, curtains drawn. She was afraid she would be spotted for sure if she moved much closer. Biting her lip, she looked around at the way the place was set up. There were three blocks of rooms, two stories each, with pavement and groomed lawn in between. She eyed the room that held Tyler, memorized its position, counted the number of doors from the far end, then crept around to the rear of the building. There were windows in the back, too. Small ones, set high. One for each room, as near as she could guess.

Swallowing her fear, she began counting. When she got to the fifteenth tiny window, she crouched beneath it, then chanced a quick peek inside, quickly ducking down again. A bathroom. She hadn’t glimpsed anyone in it, so she rose and took a longer look. The bathroom wasn’t neat. There were damp towels piled on the floor, and clothes tossed beside them. The bathroom door was open, though, and she could see into the motel room itself. People moving around—a man and a woman.

Then she glimpsed Tyler. He was on the bed and had suddenly slid closer to the foot of it, bringing him into her range of vision. Her heart pounded as she drank in the sight of him. He looked all right. Unharmed. He wasn’t wearing his leg braces and she wondered why. Maybe they thought he wouldn’t be able to run away if they kept the braces from him. He’d taken off his tux jacket and tie, just wore the pants and white shirt, currently stained in red splotches that made her heart race, until she glimpsed the pizza box near him on the bed, and realized it was just sauce.

Kara backed away from the window, barely able to catch her breath. Quickly, she jogged back around to the front of the building, where she intercepted Selene on her way back to the car.

Selene met her eyes as they drew close. “No luck with them, they don’t know... What? What is it?”

“They’re in room fifteen. Right there.” Kara pointed. “There’s a window in the back—it’s a bathroom. I saw Ty. I think he’s okay.”

Selene gripped her sister’s hands. “Thank God. What do you want to do? Should we call the police? Jim?”

“Either one amounts to the same thing. And a hostage standoff is the last thing we need here, especially after your...vision. Or whatever. Maybe we can just...spirit him away.”

“How?” Selene asked.

“Okay, well. I have an idea.”

“Why do I think I’m not going to like this?”

“Because you’re probably not. But just hear me out Ty has to go the bathroom sooner or later. He’s a kid—they go every ten minutes, right?”

Selene pursed her lips.

“So you pull the car around back. There’s more parking back there, so it won’t look odd. Leave it running. Then you and I sneak up to that window and we wait. When Tyler comes into the bathroom, we get him to unlock the window, we pull him out and we take off with him.”

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