Note: You know how I feel about feedback, guys. I don't know if I can finish this story off without more of it. . . .

Chapter 15:

The taxi pulled into the driveway of the Maxwells' ocean-front estate. Max paid the driver, climbed out, and found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. Raising his eyes, he saw that it belonged to a man in uniform. Police. What kind, he wasn't sure.

"Put your hands up and turn around!" the cop ordered. Max obeyed.

"Lean against the car." Max did. The main thought running through his mind as the cop frisked him was which of several projects he had on the go had just gone south.

Sabrina, who was still extracting her long Russian-sable cape from other side of the taxi, hadn't even noticed. She looked up to see a dozen armed men surrounding the car, their guns pointed at her, and screamed.

"I want my lawyer," Max said over his shoulder.

"This is a matter of national security," the officer snapped. "What have you done with the boy?"

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Betty had wiped down her last table at the Salty Dog and signed out for the day. She was pulling herself up Main Street again, on her way to collect her father from the park. She wanted to get him home to change before the carol sing at church and the supper after.

She was smiling a little. Her manager had asked more questions, but once she'd mentioned her friend who worked for the Maxwells and the way they treated her and her little girl, he said he'd have wanted to do the same thing. He wouldn't let her pay for the extra meal or the discount. Just don't do it again when he was around, and don't put anything worse than salt on the food. She'd said she had no intention of doing anything like that again, as long as that pair didn't put in another appearance at one of her tables-and she felt pretty comfortably sure they weren't going to do that.

Yes, her feet were starting to ache and her back hurt a bit, but she was lucky to have a job in a place like that, she thought. Folks there acted like family-most of the time, anyway. Not everyone she knew could say the same. She couldn't imagine not working at The Salty Dog-not yet, anyway.

Josh had offered to get her a better job any number of times, but she'd always turned him down. Her friends thought she was crazy, but she was like her dad, she liked to feel like she was earning what she had, and she wanted to go on feeling that way for as long as she could. A better job would have to be out of the Cove, too, and she couldn't imagine living anywhere else. Too stuck in a rut and too independent-minded for her own good, probably, but that was the way it was. She wouldn't be comfortable any other way.

Still, she couldn't say she was angry with Josh for not taking no for an answer. He always left ridiculously large tips-or had, before the election, when he'd still been able to come to the Salty Dog without the Secret Service having to clear the place out first. And that last time, when he'd put that note in with the bills saying he and Donna had set up an account at the Cove-Maritime Bank in her name, and it was there for her anytime she got tired of this and wanted to give herself a break. . . .

Betty still teared up a little when she thought of that. She had no intention of using the money, not yet, not while she didn't have to-but it was nice to know it was there, she had to admit that. Nicer to know they cared enough to do it. Josh always said it was the other way round, that she'd looked after him when he'd needed it, but that was nonsense. She hadn't done anything for him; he'd done it all for them. For her father. For Joe.

Betty wiped her eyes, and pulled herself up that last bit of the hill. She'd just stop in at the church for a moment, see how the preparations for the supper were getting on, and then she'd go collect her dad. He'd stay in the park all night if she didn't, talking to the little kiddies, for all the fuss he'd made about putting that suit on.

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Sid Baker wasn't a natural Santa Claus. But Jerry Dean, who always did it, was down with the flu, Bart Smith's wife had had a bad fall and needed him at home, and Dan McFarlane was visiting his kids in Portland, so the Lions had called up Sid. He was glad to help out, but he didn't think he fit the role all that well. Even the padded suit couldn't make his lean frame look fat, and he was too reserved to be comfortable trying to seem jolly.

"You just be yourself, Dad," his daughter had said. "The kids will love you."

That was Betty all over, he thought: she never could see straight about anyone she cared for. He thought the kids would be scared of him. Kids who didn't know him often were at first; he was a serious-seeming man who didn't take any guff from anybody, and didn't care much for the modern style of letting children just run wild and do whatever they liked without having to quiet down and listen, and do what the grown-ups needed them to do once in a while.

Which didn't mean he didn't like kids; he did. He just wasn't the natural Santa Claus type, joking and jolly and knowing all about the latest toys and video games. Sid didn't think too much of video games, actually. He sometimes wondered how the boys were going to turn out, all these games and no real work to turn their hands to. He'd started on his father's boat when he was about the size of some of these little ones lining up to see Santa today.

Of course, there wasn't much work of that kind around here anymore, and what were the kids to do? Sid still took tourists out on the Mary B. in the summers, but he didn't fish much anymore. The fisheries were in bad shape, and getting what there was took a younger man than he was now.

Josh had tried any number of times to find ways to make up for that. He always dressed it up by saying Sid would be doing him a favor if he'd just do such-and-such, made it look like the money would be earned fair-and-square. Sid always said no, thank-you. He could smell charity a mile away and he wasn't having any of it, even though he was touched by the younger man's concern, and pleased by his tact in never offering the money directly. Not to Sid, anyway. He knew about Betty's tips, had guessed about the account, and of course there was Joe. But that was different. He didn't begrudge his daughter or his grandson anything. He was grateful to Josh for wanting to take care of them.

As for himself and Mary, he'd made a nice bit from that movie-they'd filmed parts of it in the village, and paid him a ridiculous amount for letting them use the Mary B.-and more still from the tourists who'd come to Crabapple Cove afterwards just to see where it had all happened, and who wanted to go out on his boat because of it. So he was doing fine. Not fishing had its advantages: he had more time now to help out with things around the village. What with the Lion's Club and the projects they got going, and the ones at the church and the school, there was always something to do, even in the winter. He was playing the fiddle more these days, too. He and some of the boys got together a couple of times a week and played up a storm. Sid never cracked a smile when he was playing: he'd close his eyes and his face would get as still as if it was carved out of wood, but his fingers would be flying, and the music would make the whole room get up and dance.

But today he'd been out in the park, filling in for Jerry Dean as Santa Claus so the children wouldn't be disappointed. It was getting dark now, and most of the families had gone home to dinner. Betty would be coming along soon.

He peered out into the gathering shadows. Yes, just a few more families to go.

Then the lights came on.

Sid heard the shot, and frowned. Some fool up in the woods. You could hunt coyote for half an hour after sunset, or raccoon, but Sid didn't like it, not so close to town, not when it would be getting too dark up there to see clearly. That was how accidents happened.

He remembered that Joe was up in the woods today, and felt a little prickle of concern. It only lasted a moment, though. Joe knew what he was doing. He was probably home by now, anyway. He was still on nights; he had to be down at the station in another hour or so.

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Joe McCarthy-who was no relation whatever to the infamous senator-had hiked into the woods with his shotgun shortly after lunch. He'd been hoping to bag a grouse or two, maybe even a pheasant-there were open stretches of marsh and meadow scattered all through the forest above Crabapple Cove, and in the open highlands beyond. He hadn't had any luck, but he didn't really care. His sister was visiting from Bangor with her kids, and fond though he was of them all, after a few hours he was always looking for excuses to get out of the house.

There'd been a fresh fall of snow last night, the air was crisp and cold, and it felt good just to be out in the woods stretching his legs for a while before he had to report in for duty that evening.

Joe had always thought he'd be a fisherman, like his grandfather, but time hadn't been kind to the fisheries. It was getting harder and harder to get by the old way, and while his Gramps still did all right taking tourists out whale-watching in the summer, everyone who had had anything to do with Joe for the past few years had gone out of their way to point out to him that it would be a good idea to find another way to make a living.

Fortunately, there was something else he'd thought he'd like to do. The most thrilling events his town had ever known had happened nine years ago, right down on the town dock in front of the Mary B. In the first few days afterwards, Joe had just been excited watching the video of the standoff between Josh and Cliff Calley that the village webcam had picked up and relayed all over the world. After a while, though, it had begun to sink in on him that Josh had very nearly been killed that night. And Josh had already become something more than just an ordinary friend to Joe.

The twelve-year-old boy hadn't been able to articulate what he really felt about the older man, but the twenty-one-year-old that Joe was now realized that Josh Lyman had stepped into his life not long after his own father had stepped out of it, and had taken on some of the heroic glamour that a different kind of father would have had in a twelve-year-old boy's eyes.

When it first occurred to Joe that Cliff Calley had been trying to kill Josh that night and had very nearly succeeded, all he could think of was that he should have been there doing something to stop it. It ate him up that he hadn't been. He spent hours and hours replaying the scene on the dock in his mind, imagining ways he could have made it come out better.

He hadn't really fallen asleep in the restaurant; he'd gone to see why Josh was taking so long, he'd seen what was happening, he'd jumped Cliff Calley from behind and brought him down. Or maybe he'd used a boathook, or lassooed him with an anchor rope. Sometimes Joe had a shotgun or a pistol with him, and he told Calley to drop the gun and put his hands in the air. He liked that one quite a bit: his voice sounded deeper than usual, with a lot of authority in it, and he could almost see the moonlight glinting off the badge on his chest.

There was one fantasy, too, in which he actually shot the guy, but that wasn't really a version he felt comfortable with. Josh had talked to him about guns and vigilantes and why it wasn't a good thing to take the law into your own hands. Better leave that for the cops, he'd said, and Joe-who would listen to anything Josh told him-listened and agreed.

Joe's real dad came and went. Things would start off well at first, but after a while he always ended up hitting Betty again. The last time it happened, Joe ran downstairs, dragged him off her, punched him in the face, and kicked his sorry ass out of the house, yelling that if he ever came within a mile of them again he'd call the cops.

That was before he went off to the Academy. He still wished it had happened later, when he could have thrown the bastard in the lockup himself.

He could do that now. The course had cost $9,000. Josh had paid it, over Sid's protests and objections. "I wouldn't be where I am now if it weren't for you and your family," he'd told the old man bluntly. "You helped me out when I needed it. Let me help now."

And because it was for Joe, not himself, Sid hadn't been able to say no.

Josh was the reason there'd been a job waiting in Crabapple Cove for Joe afterwards, too, though he hadn't had to pull any strings to get it for him. Having the President of the United States as a part-time resident meant that a lot more visitors were pouring into the village, and the town council had had to vote money for more police to keep things under control.

Joe lived at home. He was fine with that; he didn't have a girlfriend right now. He was shy around girls, and choosy, and didn't want to get himself in too deep with the wrong one. His grandmother still made the best pies in the world, and in the summers he still went out with his grandfather on the Mary B. whenever he could.

But the Mary B. was in dry-dock for the winter now. It was Christmas Eve, and Joe wanted to get out of the house, so he'd taken his shotgun and gone for a walk in the woods.

By four o'clock, though, the light was getting dim. Joe was already heading back when the first call came in. He put his head down, and started to run.

He let himself ease up a little after the second call, but not much. There wasn't any way he could get out to Ocean Front Drive to help bust those bastards, even if the Sargeant would have let him, but he wasn't going to shilly-shally around getting out of the woods while Noah Lyman was in trouble.

Joe was known around the village as a laid-back guy who always kept his cool, but as he jogged down the wooded trails his hands were clenched with a fury he hadn't felt since he'd pulled his dad off his mother and smashed his face in. He had to find Josh's son. He had to. And when he did, the other cops had better be there, too. Because if Joe was left alone with the monsters who'd taken him, he didn't think he'd be able to answer for what he'd do.

The shot barely registered with him. His whole attention was focused on getting down off that hill so he could help find Noah Lyman.

To be cont'd. . . .