Christmas at Timberwoods - Fern Michaels [52]
“Okay, Charlie. Drive carefully.”
He grabbed his heavy jacket and left, musing over her parting words. Drive carefully. No one had ever told him that before. Did that mean she cared if something happened to him? Charlie wished he had more experience with women. But then women were supposed to be a mystery to men.
He frowned as he steered his car through the streets at a crawl, watching any and all traffic. This was no time to get himself in an accident.
Angela was different, though. When a girl said, “What you see is what you get,” how could there be a mystery? He had never liked mysteries, anyway—they always had unhappy endings, and the characters always got found out on the next-to-last page. But he didn’t have to worry about that now.
Chapter 9
Eric Summers’s head pounded as he clenched and unclenched his brown fists. His stomach was in one big knot. He watched Heather Andrews walk by, glancing over her shoulder every so often, her steps short and jerky.
Fear. It was a living thing touching all their lives. How could the new, endless waves of oblivious shoppers below not sense what was going on? And the damn merchants were so greedy for their holiday haul that they were willing to discount their own lives as well as those of everyone else walking through the giant mall. It was true: the love of money was the root of all evil.
And there was no escaping the brooding sense of menace in the atmosphere. He didn’t have the luxury of not noticing.
Lex came into his line of vision, his face grim and tight. Business as usual. You got paid for eight hours, had to argue for overtime, or you could kiss your job good-bye in this economy.
Bomb threats came under the heading of everyday nuisances. Just something you took in your stride while you hoped you survived the real deal, if it came to that.
Dedicated public servant—that was him. Yeah, right. Eric was edgy and he had every right to be. Downright frightened, if he wanted to be honest. How many hours were left of the seventy-two that the bomb threat referred to? Not many. He hated the absolute helplessness he felt. He should be doing something instead of this aimless wandering around. Another half hour and the Christmas parade would start. Was that when it would happen? When all the people were clustered in one area?
He turned at the touch on his shoulder.
“No, I don’t know anything and no, we didn’t find anything,” he said curtly to Dolph Richards.
“That’s because nothing is going to happen and there’s nothing to find. When are you paragons of law and order going to get that through your heads? The fool hasn’t been born who would have the nerve to blow up my mall. Relax, Summers, and enjoy the parade,” Richards responded urbanely.
“You know, Richards, you’re the fool. A first-class, grade-A, number-one fool,” Eric said, stomping away. He couldn’t look at the man’s face another second.
“Takes one to know one,” Richards said softly to Eric’s retreating back. It annoyed Richards that the mall was already full of plainclothes police and his own security people. What could possibly go wrong? There wasn’t so much as a hint of anything out of the ordinary. If the amount of packages and shopping bags the customers were carrying were any indication, then his projections were on target.
Spend, spend, spend, he thought happily as he made his way to the make-believe North Pole where the parade was to start. It really was a stroke of genius on his part to agree to feature Nick Anastasios, a real grandfather and a genuinely kind man, to play this year’s Santa. Nick was going to get a healthy bonus.
Maybe if everything went off well he would give his helper, that big lug named Charlie, a much smaller bonus. It did pay to show gratitude from time to time. Just look at the two of them. Richards grinned.
Santa was ho-ho-ho-ing with all his might. He waved his arms to signal that the parade was about to begin, then climbed into his sleigh with a boost from Charlie.