Better Not Cry (Rebekka Franck Book 8) Page 8

  It doesn't get better. Just easier to live with.

  Alyssa sighed and walked down the stairs into the kitchen. She found a bunch of the lasagnas stabled on the counter. The rest were packed in the refrigerator and in the freezer. The ones left out were the ones that there was no room for.

  Couldn't people think of any other dish to bring? Alyssa couldn't stand lasagna and after this was over, she was never going to eat the dish again.

  It's not gonna be over, Alyssa. Only easier to live with.

  She grabbed a plate and cut herself a piece, then sat down at the breakfast counter and ate. It didn't taste like anything. No food had tasted good since her brother died. It all tasted like that awful smell that had been in their house on the morning they found him. The same smell the entire house still reeked from.

  The stench of burnt skin.

  They believe he had still been alive, the police had told them. That Tobin had gotten stuck and maybe passed out inside the chimney and then when the fire was lit, he had been suffocated by the smoke and his body burned. About-two thirds of it was completely charcoaled while the head and shoulders remained untouched.

  Alyssa shivered when thinking about it, and lost her appetite. She put the plate in the sink, then grabbed a glass of water and drank. As she swallowed the cold water, she thought she heard the sound of bells ringing, but shook it off as being ridiculous. When she put the glass down, it was there again, sounding even closer.

  It's probably coming from the road outside. Maybe someone is walking their dog with bells on the leash or collar.

  Alyssa spotted a box of chocolates and opened it. She unwrapped a piece and ate it when she heard the jingling again. This time, it sounded just like it came from the living room. She walked in there.

  "Hello?"

  Nothing.

  Alyssa shook her head and was about to walk away when she heard the jingling again. She gasped and turned around, realizing it was coming from the chimney.

  What the heck?

  "Hello? Who's there?"

  Still nothing.

  Alyssa sighed and walked back toward the kitchen to grab another glass of water. The chocolate had made her thirsty. It always did. She had almost reached the end of the carpet when she stopped. There it was again. The sound of darn jingle bells.

  "Hello?"

  Alyssa turned around and faced the chimney. Was this some sort of sick joke? Was someone playing a trick on her?

  "Who’s there?"

  A dripping sound caught her attention. Alyssa held her breath as she spotted the blood dripping from inside the chimney into the fireplace. She gasped and backed up, then turned around to run, when she stopped. In front of her stood her brother. He was holding a plate of cookies in one hand and a glass of milk in the other.

  "T-Tobin?"

  But it wasn't really Tobin. Looking into his eyes, she knew it wasn't. His eyes were dead. His lips were colorless, the skin on his face grey. He held out the plate of cookies toward her.

  "Christmas is my fa-a-vo-rite time of year," he said. "What's your fa-a-vo-rite time of year, Alyssa?"

  Alyssa stumbled backward with a loud whimper. Tobin remained still, staring at her with his soft brown—yet lifeless—eyes. She was paralyzed until the boy's mouth turned upward in a slow steady smile and showed off a set of very sharp teeth and soon wasn't a boy anymore, but a man, a grown twinkly-eyed man with red gleaming cheeks wearing a crimson red suit and a black belt holding in his plump stomach.

  "S-Santa?"

  Santa bent forward. He hissed at her and snapped his teeth, his breath smelling like candy canes and cookie dough. Alyssa stormed past him up to her room, slammed the door shut, blocked it with her chair, and pulled the covers over her head.

  As she lay there the rest of the night, wondering if she was going insane, she was certain she could still hear Santa's deep jovial laughter coming from downstairs.

  Part III

  35

  Sara Andrews—aka the Santa-Shooter—was small and skinny. If she had been beautiful, it was a long time ago. She was younger than me but looked like she could easily be ten years older.

  I had come as a reporter and told the prison I was here to ask her to tell me her story for an article. It wasn't completely a lie since I would write a story about the strange deaths in Cocoa Beach if there was a story there. I just didn't know who I would write it for. I doubted Jens-Ole would put it in our local paper back home since the people dying weren't Danish, but as the days passed, I got the idea that maybe I could sell the story to a newspaper over here and make a little money while on vacation. We sure could use it.

  Assuming there was a story to tell.

  Four days had passed since the funeral and things had gotten better at the house. Sune was still angry with me and at the world, but the kids and I had started to really enjoy our little vacation here in paradise. I was beginning to look forward to spending Christmas in the beach house and we had even bought a tree. It felt weird that it was so warm when carrying the tree inside and decorating it, but somehow, I enjoyed the change it provided. This was so different from any other Christmas we had ever experienced, and to me, it was quite exotic.

  The kids had been begging to go to Disney World soon and I had promised them we would. So far, we had been to Kennedy Space Center, which I found very interesting and so did the boys, whereas Julie found it boring and kept asking where the rides were. Somehow, she had gotten it into her head that it was like an amusement park and there would be roller-coasters and not just boring old rockets and old spacesuits worn by people so long ago she couldn't even imagine it.

  Those were her words, not mine.

  "I'm Rebekka Franck," I said and shook Sara's hand when she approached me flanked by two prison guards.

  We sat down. The guards retreated to the wall behind them. I smiled compassionately, yet a little anxiously. The woman was—for all I knew—a murderer. She had killed her ex-husband and maybe also her boyfriend and younger brother.

  "So, you're a reporter, huh?"

  "Yes."

  "From Denmark?" Sara scoffed. "Am I really so interesting that they'd send some reporter all the way from across the pond?"

  I nodded. "Well, I was here anyway, but I stumbled across your story by accident and wanted to tell it."

  "What story?"

  "That's what I was hoping you'd tell me."

  I reached into my backpack and pulled out a file of papers. Sydney had helped me get ahold of some things from her dad's stuff. Among them, a notepad, the one he had used to take notes when interviewing Sara Andrews. I flipped through the pages, then stopped at one, and showed it to her.

  "Last year about this time, you were evaluated by a psychiatrist."

  "Dr. Hahn, yes. He didn't believe a word I said."

  "You do know he is dead now, right?"

  Sara froze. Her big eyes stared at me. "No, I didn't."

  "He hit a tree with his car right after talking to you. They called it suicide, but his daughter is of another opinion. You were the last person to speak to him."

  Sara rubbed her face. "I'll be…"

  I showed her the picture of Dr. Hahn's neck that Sydney had given me. "He had these red marks," I said and watched her reaction. It was violent. Her shoulders were shivering. Her eyes reached mine.

  "I thought you might recognize them?"

  "I…I…"

  She didn't say any more, only shook her head like she didn't believe what she had seen.

  "The last thing Dr. Hahn wrote on his notepad when he spoke with you was," I continued, while reading up from the notepad: "SANTA, AN ANAGRAM FOR SATAN, followed by a question mark."

  I paused and looked into her eyes again.

  "Now, why would he write that?"

  36

  Sara Andrews wasn't speaking at all. She was simply staring at me, her eyes wide and fearful.

  "When I read the notes, it seems that you kept mentioning Santa," I said. "Like here, when you speak a
bout your younger brother who was killed back in ‘92, and your boyfriend when he disappeared, you told Dr. Hahn it was Santa who killed them, am I right? Was that why you were ready to shoot your ex-husband when he came down the chimney? Because you believed Santa was coming?"

  Sara Andrews shook her head. "I…I don't…"

  She stopped. I could tell I was losing her. Tears sprang to her eyes. "I’ve spent so much time trying to forget," she said. "Telling myself it wasn't true, that I made it up. I can't…I can't go back there."

  I looked at her, scrutinizing her. I didn't know what to think. Up until now, I had believed she was nuts, paranoid even, thinking Santa somehow was out to get her, but she didn't seem to be. I was still hoping she could give me something to move on.

  "So, what you're saying is you made up the part about Santa?" I asked.

  Sara still shook her head. Her eyes became distant. "No. No. I can't…I can't talk about it."

  "Why not?"

  Her eyes met mine, yet they still seemed far away.

  "Because I don't know. I don't know what happened. All I know is I saw him. I saw him in my brother's bedroom on the night he died, blood dripping from his teeth. The teeth that left that mark, the same as in that picture there on my brother's neck. I also saw him come out from between the trees in the park and attack Rob, who got so happy when he saw Santa that he ran to him. He used his…long pointy nails to rip open his vein, the one in his throat, the big one, and blood…blood was everywhere. I saw him, but I don't know if he was real. They tell me he wasn't. For years, that's what they have told me. That I made him up because of all the awful things I had done. That he was only in my head. That I made him up because I couldn't face my own actions. Every time I talk about it, bad things happen. Like me shooting John. I can't let this happen to me again or to anyone else."

  I bit my lip, trying to make sense of her and what she was telling me. I didn't know what I had expected from her, maybe a crazy bat crying loudly about Santa coming after her and wanting her dead, like the ones you'd meet in the subway. I knew she had blamed both deaths on Santa, as I had researched her trial in the local newspapers since they seemed to have a blast telling the story of the crazy lady blaming sweet jolly Santa for killing her brother and boyfriend. Heck, I even found it funny when reading it, but now I didn't find it as amusing anymore.

  I closed the notepad, wondering where I was even going with this. These deaths were all coincidences happening around December. It was just as detective Ryder had said. Christmas brought out all the craziness.

  "I am sorry," I said. "Maybe this was a mistake."

  Sara stopped me.

  "Wait. You're the first one to ever listen to me when I spoke about these things," she said. "Most people only laugh at me."

  "Well, can you blame them?" I asked.

  She shook her head. "No. I would laugh too. Only I’m the one it happened to, so I’m not laughing anymore. I'll tell you my story, in detail, but the thing is, once I do, he might come after you too."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because you'll start believing in him. He only comes to those who believe."

  I chuckled. "I'll take that chance."

  37

  I left the prison feeling strange. I passed the tree where Dr. Hahn had been killed and recognized it from the photo in the police file. A chill ran down my spine when thinking about it and I accelerated, thinking about the stories I had just heard from this woman.

  I didn't believe a word of it since it seemed so far out; I had to stop myself from laughing while she spoke. How could anyone believe something that ridiculous? Santa as a bloodthirsty entity?

  But I didn't doubt for a second that Sara believed it herself. She had seen it and this was her story. I didn't know whether it brought me any closer to the real story, though, and I wondered about it as I drove back.

  There had to be an explanation for all this. There simply had to be. I wanted to find it and hand it to Sydney, so she could finally move on. Maybe it was for my own sake as well. Because I couldn't stop thinking about Jackie and her son in the chimney. I needed some closure as well. I needed to answer one simple question:

  Who started the fire?

  As I found the beach-line and drove toward Cocoa Beach, I speculated whether there was some smart killer on the loose, someone good enough to cover everything up, to make it all look like accidents. One who had been active for twenty-five years?

  But what about the marks, Rebekka? There were red marks on all of them.

  I shivered and decided I didn't want to think about it anymore, then turned up the radio, found a good song, and sang along. I reminded myself I was actually on vacation and maybe I should just let it go for now. There really wasn't much of a story, if you looked at it, and maybe I should focus more on my family instead. I realized as I reached Cape Canaveral and A1A, that maybe I had only thrown myself into this story because I didn't know what to do about Sune and me. To give myself an excuse to get away. Maybe it was because I didn't want to face the real issue here, which was that I was sick of the situation with Sune but saw no way out. There was nothing I could do to make things better. I couldn't make him walk and he wouldn't even talk about it anymore.

  I was fed up.

  But what kind of woman leaves a loved one when they end up in a wheelchair? I had promised myself I wasn't going to do that. The fact was, I wasn't going to leave him because he was in a wheelchair, but because of the way he treated me, the way he had become. But in my mind, it would always be because of the chair, because of the accident. I would end up always feeling guilty about him.

  I sighed and drove into downtown Cocoa Beach, which had to be the smallest downtown I had ever seen. It was cute, though, and I really liked it here. People seemed to be so happy and always polite and friendly.

  I drove through town and into the driveway of the beach house and stopped the engine. Sune had been angry at me for leaving them again, but I was getting used to him disapproving of everything I did. It didn't matter what it was, so I had left anyway. I needed the excuse to get away. I needed a time-out. But the problem was, it hadn't helped anything. I still dreaded walking through that front door.

  38

  Sara Andrews was about to cry. When they escorted her back to her cell, she could barely keep it together. So many memories bubbling up inside of her, most of them terrifying. For so long, she had tried to not think about it; for so long, she had kept it away. Yet, here she was once again, wrapped up in the whole thing, unable to keep all those emotions and the fear away.

  She was put inside the cell, the door shut and locked behind her. Left alone once again to her own thoughts.

  Talking to the journalist had made it all come back, even though she had fought it, and now she could no longer keep it at bay. She kept seeing her baby brother through her inner eye, all pale and lifeless, the big Santa figure bent over him, his teeth covered in the poor boy's blood.

  At night, she would often dream about it and, this night, as she dozed off, she did so again. She was back at her childhood home, waking up to the sound of jingle bells sounding from outside her room. Wondering if it was Santa bringing her presents, she rushed out into the hallway, then realized the sound came from her baby brother's nursery.

  The door was ajar and Sara pushed it gently open, only to see the big man in the red suit. She had screamed loudly once she had grasped the situation, and Santa had disappeared. But it was already too late. Her brother was dead.

  "Sara!" someone called and she woke up with a gasp, emotions overwhelming her as she once again realized her life had been nothing but one long nightmare.

  She still remembered her mother's expression when she entered the room on that night. The look she had given Sara afterward. That was when she realized her mother blamed her for her brother's death. She believed Sara had somehow killed him. And after that, she had been terrified of her. Terrified of her own daughter.

  Sara sobbed and wiped away tears as
she sat on her bed in the darkness. So many things she regretted today, but how could she have acted differently? She had told Rob to not go near Santa, but he wouldn't listen. She had told John not to take their daughter to the mall to sit on Santa's lap. But he wouldn't listen either. And then when he came down that chimney, she had been certain it was him, the real Santa coming for her or even worse, her daughter, and she had shot him.

  Poor John. Poor, poor John.

  Sara leaned back on the bed that squeaked on its hinges, sounding like it was complaining. She couldn't find rest again and was tossing and turning when she heard a sound that made her blood freeze.

  The tinkling sound of jingle bells.

  Sara shot up in the bed. "Who's there?"

  No answer.

  "Who's there," she said, wondering why she would ask such a ridiculous question. Who could be there? She was inside a prison cell for cryin' out loud.

  It's the hallucinations, Sara. Don't give into them. That's how the crazy starts.

  TINKLE. TINKLE.

  Sara stared into the darkness, her heart thumping in her chest.

  TINKLE. TINKLE. TINKLE.

  Slowly, she looked over the side of the bed and peeked under it. A set of glowing red Christmas globes looked back at her. A bearded face appeared as he came closer to hers, his breath smelling like candy.

  "Have you been a good girl this year, Sara?"

  A jolly laugh followed before he reached his long nails up toward her and grabbed her throat.

  39

  The Christmas tree in our living room was gorgeous. I enjoyed looking at it while baking cookies the next day. I was beginning to get my Christmas groove on and seriously looking forward to the big holiday.