Happiness for H: Once Upon A Christmas

(Let It Snow)

"Aunt Emily, it's snowing pretty hard." The young man squinted as he peered out the front window at the swirling white storm. "Aren't we getting close to that big hill by Spirit Mountain? You know, the one where you can see out over East Duluth and all the way to Canal Park?" Hearing the hesitancy in her passenger's voice, Emily tried her best to be reassuring.

"We're close Ray Jr. It's really a breathtaking view, especially at night." As the van toiled up the last steep grade before descending down into the foggy bottom of the city, Emily refused to acknowledge that the vehicle was making a new whine that hadn't been there before.

"Not much to see tonight. Better slow down a little," he added as they both watched the fading red taillights of the car in front of them slide to the right. Her muttered, 'You sound just like your Uncle Horatio,' was lost in the constant blast of heat turned on the front window. The minivan shuddered as a gust of wind hit it and Emily gripped the wheel harder, her knuckles white from the effort.

"Not much farther," Emily murmured, almost as much to reassure herself as her passengers. "We get to the bottom of the hill and we'll find a place to stay."

Ray's muttered response, "As long as it's not the bottom of the Lake," was not lost on Emily.

"Now that's just creepy," she said with a grimace. "If I look at you Ray Jr., and you have red hair and blue eyes, I'm probably going to start screaming." Before the young man could comment further, a thump sounded from the rear of the minivan and the vehicle began to slide as if in slow motion.

"Willow, have you talked to the Deputy today? Maybe I should call him myself," he added quietly, more to himself than for his sister's ears.

"No! No, no Horatio, that' really not necessary." Horatio thought he detected a note of panic in his sister's voice. He swung his chair around from his desk and stared out the floor to ceiling windows that made up several walls of his office.

"It's no trouble, Willow," he said stubbornly. "I'm sure the Deputy wouldn't mind filling me in on their ... investigation." Some of the smirk he had been unable to hide had filtered into his voice.

"Well, Horatio, that's the thing," Willow hesitated and he heard her take a deep breath. "The Sheriff got wind that Frank, Detective Tripp, had called Deputy Opterhoste. He bawled the Deputy out, then he came over here and tried to bawl Grandma E out and well, you can imagine how THAT ended."

"Indeed," Horatio said slowly, a smile curving his handsome mouth as a mental image of Emily's diminutive Grandma cussing out the blustery sheriff in the Lodge kitchen popped into his head.

"Yes, well now the Sheriff is handling it himself," Willow winced as Horatio didn't succeed in moving the phone far enough away to muffle his sudden swearing. Knowing her half-brother's reputation to go overboard when his family was in danger, perceived or real, she tried her best to minimize the danger. "He knows you'll be here at the end of the week, so of course he'll be all over the the lodge next door as well as here until then. I think we'll be pretty safe, Horatio. I feel better knowing that you and Detective Tripp know." The silence coming from her half brother's end of the phone was deafening.

TBC