A Christmas Miracle in Pajaro Bay (Pajaro Bay Series Book 6) (2 page)

M
att DiPietro stood
on the steps of the old Pajaro Bay Lighthouse, staring out into the darkness.

It was a clear night. Not a wisp of fog. As icy cold as it got on the central coast of California in late December. Matt put his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

He had needed a break. They both had. He had been spending his Christmas Eve working on a report for the Project, his former employers. He had promised to brief them on one of the Moreno cartel's obscure hideouts in the mountains.

He had no idea why they needed the information, but it was no longer his problem. He would brief them and be done with it. He knew his wife hated these old ties to his past life, but he still felt an obligation to help, if he could.

Lori was inside the lighthouse, working away in the little kitchen. Its cherry red Aga stove radiated warmth as she finished batch after batch of Christmas cookies: gingerbread men and oatmeal scotchies, cinnamon twists and chocolate-dipped biscotti. The baking was going on feverishly, though it was almost ten p.m. on this Christmas Eve.

He knew what she was doing. She was avoiding thinking by working, baking, and fussing over the stove. She was keeping herself busy instead of dealing with what they both weren't ready to face.

Neither of them had gone into the little bedroom down the hall. The door stayed closed to block the sight of the blue sailboat poster on the wall, and the little seashell mobile that Hector, the eccentric and addled old surfer, had insisted on giving them. The room was chock-f of decorations: the teddy bear from Father Anselm, the storybook prints from his sister, and Hector's handmade mobile, hanging crookedly above the empty little crib.

Matt knew he would eventually give away all the things they had gathered for the baby who would never come.

But not tonight.

R
icky heard
the cry of the gulls over the roar of the big cigarette boat's motors. All around him the sea was blackness, except for the white of the foam kicked up in the wake of the powerful craft.

The trail of white trailed behind him. Nothing else. So far. But he was sure he was being followed.

He held tightly to the wheel. The array of display screens in front of him were lit up, the only lights he saw for miles around. He was driving through the deep water without running lights, going faster than he'd ever gone in his life, but it wasn't fast enough.

He wondered how long he had.

He had never driven a boat like this. But he had filled the gas tank before. That had been one of his jobs when he'd worked for the Moreno cartel, and he remembered how it had seemed like he was pumping oceans of gas into the huge tanks of the cigarette boats. Much larger than the little panga boats he grew up with, these million-dollar speedboats were built to cross stretches of open water at incredible speeds. But that speed came at a cost.

Fuel.

He looked at the displays and tried to figure it out. Even at his best he wasn't good with numbers. He didn't know how the kilometers on the navigation screen compared to the fuel gauge. Did he have enough gas to make it all the way to Pajaro Bay?

He had to make it. He was going to pay back the Shadow if it was the last thing he ever did. If he was going to die, he was going to make sure the score was evened up before he left this life.

T
he timer went
off and Lori put on the red oven mitt, stepped over the sleeping black German Shepherd, and opened the door of the cast-iron stove.

The cookies smelled wonderful. She pulled them out and set them on the top of the Aga to cool.

She was running out of places to put the cookies. The table was full, and the top of the stove wouldn't take one more baking pan. This would have to be the last batch. She needed to start boxing up the cookies so she could take them to the family dinner tomorrow.

It struck her that she had baked at least one cookie for every person in Pajaro Bay. Even as large as Matt's family was, she might have slightly overdone it.

She took off the mitt and pushed the blonde hair back from her forehead.

But hey, since she was bringing them all these cookies, no one would mind that she was never going to bring them a grandchild, right?

As if he knew, the dog got up and came to lean against her.

She rubbed his big, bony head with one hand. "Thanks, Shadowfax. You always can tell what's going on with me." Even now that she didn't have any more seizures, her seizure-alert dog was still tuned into her moods.

No more seizures. After fighting all her life to deal with her epilepsy, she now had been seizure-free for over six months. After a year she would be able to apply for a driver's license. Yippee.

And all it took was giving up the dream of carrying a baby to term. Her last miscarriage had been her last, ever. Dr. Lil had broken the news gently, compassionately. No more trying. The drugs that were keeping her seizure-free also made it impossible for her to have a baby. And going off the medications was too dangerous. That was that. No seizures, but no baby.

Lori sat down on the floor of the old kitchen and let Shadowfax lick the tears off her face.

R
icky was drowsing
over the steering wheel. "Can you hear the angel, Matteo?" he whispered. "It's calling me home."

Matteo, the criminal mastermind known as the Shadow, couldn't hear. Matteo was somewhere across the vast, unforgiving sea.

Ricky straightened up. He gripped the wheel tighter, and tried to sit up straight, though it hurt somewhere deep in his side. His hand went down to the place where it hurt, and when he lifted his hand again, the palm was dark with blood.

He put his hand on the center display screen in front of him. 23 kilometers to go.

The angel was calling loudly now.

"Not yet," he said firmly. "I'm not going yet." One more task to complete first.

His hands stuck to the wheel. The blood was drying, and it made it easier for him to keep his grip now. The cry of the seagulls grew louder now, high and keening, like the angels warning him:
hurry, hurry. There isn't much time left.
He pushed the throttle all the way and the boat jumped forward through the darkness.

L
ori was carefully packaging
the cookies when Matt came back into the kitchen. There wasn't a single tear on her face, she'd made sure of that. She didn't want him to see how much it hurt. Then he would want to talk about it, and she wasn't ready.

He went into the little sitting room next to the kitchen. He'd set up a card table there, and had it covered in papers for the report he was going to make to the Project after the new year.

"Do you have to do that now?" she asked him, then regretted it. Because if he didn't work, they would talk, and she didn't want to talk now.

"You want me to stop?"

"I want you to be done with that life!" she shouted, mad at everything and wanting something to yell at.

He took it patiently, the way he always did. "I'm not part of it, not anymore. But it's important. George and I have to give a presentation after the holidays."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Secret agent stuff, and if you tell me about it, you'll have to kill me."

"But George and I—"

She threw the oven mitt down on the table. "I hate George!" she said, which wasn't true. George Asher had been a true friend and partner to Matt. And he had helped Matt leave the Project, helped him get back to a normal life. She should be grateful to him.

But tonight she hated George because he had a wife and two children, and he was at home with his family in Hawaii, and he was happy. She resented anyone being happy tonight.

"I'm sorry," Matt said.

Lori lifted her hand. "It's not you. I hate the whole world right now."

"I know," he said quietly. "Me, too."

Then he got up and came over to her. "I can do the report some other time."

She turned her back on him, not wanting him to hug her and make her cry again. "Go ahead and do it tonight. We have nothing more important going on."

T
he crash broke
the stillness only a short time later.

The dog was on his feet and barking even as the crashing, from somewhere outside, continued to echo.

Lori had dropped a tray of cookies on the floor at the first bang, and before the sound died away Matt was already on his feet and reaching for the compartment behind the fireplace grate where he kept his gun.

"What was it?" Lori asked.

He shook his head. "Don't know. Stay here."

"Not likely. I'll be there to call for help if you need it. But I will let you go first."

At the storm door, she had to forcibly push the dog back to keep him from coming along. She shut the door on the whining dog and then stood on the steps and watched Matt cross the stretch of lawn toward the cliff, his figure illuminated by the sweep of light as the lighthouse beam ticked around in its metered circle.

There was another beam of light, coming up the side of the island cliff, from down where the dock was.

Matt looked down the long steps toward the dock far below, then waved her forward. "It's an accident. Come on!"

They raced down the steps together.

At the bottom, they found a huge, sleek-looking boat had rammed into the dock—in fact had rammed into Matt's little speedboat,
The Lorelei
. Lori's namesake had been torn from its mooring and pushed against the rocks.

The Lorelei
was a goner. The powerful craft had split it in two, and it was already sinking farther under water as each wave swept over it.

Despite the destruction, the cigarette boat's engines were still revving. They saw a man sitting in the cockpit.

"Turn it off!" Matt shouted to him, but the man didn't respond.

"Some drunken idiot out joyriding," he shouted to Lori. "Merry Christmas!"

The boat's headlights were on, and one had been broken so the beam shone straight up, illuminating the side of the sandstone cliff. The big craft was jammed against what was left of their dock, its engines screaming in protest as they tried to go forward.

"Stay back, Matt!" Lori grabbed him by the arm. "That dock's gonna go!"

"Not if I can help it!" He shook her off and ran to the dock, then jumped the small gap to get aboard the cigarette.

Lori could see his body language suddenly change when he came up to the figure at the wheel.

There was a sudden silence as Matt reached around the man and turned off the engines.

In the sudden silence Lori heard a high-pitched keening, like the cry of a gull. She ran out to the dock, which was listing crazily. Then she jumped the gap to get aboard the boat as well. Her sneakers skidded on the wet decking, but she kept her balance.

The man at the steering wheel was not much more than a boy, maybe in his teens. A dark face, big brown eyes that were all pupil, labored breathing.

"He's hurt, Matt."

"Matteo," the boy whispered.

Matt leaned over him. "Si, Enrique."

The boy said something in Spanish. Lori caught the word
milagros
from the boy, then more soft words from Matt as he gently laid Ricky down on the deck.

"What gift?" Matt asked him. "What do you owe me?"

The boy closed his eyes and lay still.

"We'll have to take his boat," Matt said to her. "Ours is wrecked." He pulled out his gun. "Let me check below and then you can call for help while I drive."

She watched him cautiously move to the cabin door, then freeze. He disappeared inside.

Lori held the boy's hand and tried to comfort him as he moaned softly, words like "angelitos" and "milagros" and then in English, "Shadow."

Shadow? Was this someone from Matt's past; from that time when he had been the Shadow, the notorious gang member feared by the entire cartel?

"Lori," Matt called. "Come below."

She patted the boy's hand and then went to the cabin.

She went through the door. The cabin had been a luxurious concoction of shining chrome and soft white leather.

Now there were streaks of blood on the silver and white.

And on the girl. A teenage girl—just a kid, really—with long black hair and a fiercely determined expression on her face sat on the floor, her back to the smeared leather. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was labored, but she gripped a blanket to her chest as if her life depended on it.

Matt handed Lori his phone. "Call Captain Ryan. And Dr. Lil. It's an unsecured line so don't give away too much."

"I know the drill." Lori got down on her knees with the girl.

"Her name is Inez." Then he left the cabin.

A loud, keening cry came from the blanket Inez clutched. The girl, eyes still closed, gripped it tighter.

Lori leaned over and reached between the girl's hands, pulling the blanket back to see.

It was a baby, still wrinkled and wet from birth. And bloody. Lori looked as closely as she could without disturbing them, and decided all the blood was the mother's, not the child's. There was a perfectly round little hole in the girl's chest that seeped blood with every breath she took. "Oh, Inez," Lori whispered.

There was a roar as the engines started up again, and Lori grabbed the phone.

When she finished the calls she knelt down in front of the girl again. Inez's breathing was shallow, fast. Her eyes opened, and she looked panicked when she saw Lori there.

"No. Lie still. You're hurt. We're getting help," Lori said.

"The Shadow?" Inez whispered.

Lori nodded, and the girl's shoulders relaxed. She closed her eyes again. The baby started to slip from her grasp.

Lori sat down on the decking facing her and the two of them cradled the bundle between them.

"Hold on," Lori said, again and again. To the mother. To the infant. To herself. Just hold on.

R
icky lay on the decking
, in a haze of relief and pain. He could let go now. He'd done what needed to be done. His mind drifted back across the sea....