Christmas Confessions. Kathleen Long

of the phone, resurrected like the heartache Jack had denied since the day he’d buried Emma, since the day Boone Shaw had walked free.

      “Are you near a computer?” Simmons asked.

      “Give me a second.” Jack settled in front of his PC, clicking the icon to gain Internet access.

      He waited for the entry page to open, cursing the cable connection under his breath. He initiated a search for the Don’t Say a Word Web site, then clicked onto the site via the list generated by the search engine.

      As the site’s entry page came into focus, Jack’s chest tightened.

      Apparently Herb Simmons wasn’t the only family member back from the dead. Anyone looking at the modeling shot of Melinda would never guess the young woman had allegedly been strangled and left in the desert eleven years earlier.

      “Is he back?” Herb Simmons asked, his voice faltering, his emotion palpable across the phone line.

      Jack winced.

      Damn Boone Shaw for causing so many families so much pain.

      “Could be,” Jack answered as he skimmed the site for an indication of just who was responsible for posting the girl’s photograph.

      Jack remembered now where he’d heard the confession site’s name. The Web site and its cofounders had been profiled a few weeks back in People magazine.

      The site promised an anonymous means for the public to air their most personal secrets, the thought being that confession was good for the soul.

      According to the feature story, the public visited the site in droves, their morbid curiosity no doubt driving them to salivate over the suffering of others.

      So much for keeping a secret.

      Broken promises. Broken marriages. Broken dreams.

      As if any of the bull the confessor spouted was true.

      Each Saturday the site’s blog featured a sampling of handmade postcards received during the previous week.

      Today was Thursday. That meant the posted blog had gone up five days ago, and apparently the selected “confession” had been strong enough to carry the site alone.

      The faded black-and-white modeling shot of Melanie Simmons filled the majority of the visible page, and included only a one-line caption.

       I didn’t mean to kill her.

      Jack raked a hand through his close-cropped hair and winced. “Sonofa—”

      “I thought you’d want to know.”

      “You thought right.”

      “Don’t let him get away this time.” Simmons’s tone dropped soft, yet suddenly clear.

      “I didn’t let him—”

      But the line had gone dead in Jack’s ear.

      “—get away the first time,” Jack said for the benefit of no one but himself.

      He’d always thought that if he uttered the statement often enough, one day he’d believe the Shaw acquittal to be no fault of his own.

      That theory hadn’t paid off yet.

      Jack might have been a rookie detective at the time, and the powers that be might have kept him as far away from the actual casework as they could, but still, the thought that he might have done something—anything—differently haunted his every moment.

      He’d failed to keep his baby sister safe, and he’d failed ever since to find a way to bring her killer to justice.

      Jack woke each morning, wondering how he might have saved Emma from the monster that had taken her life. He went to bed each night determined to find a way to make Boone Shaw pay for what Jack knew he did.

      He’d never doubted the man’s guilt. He never would. And he’d never stop trying to bring the brutal killer to justice, not while there was a breath of life left inside him.

      Jack dropped the now silent phone to his lap and pulled his chair close to his desk, studying the blog entry—the reproduced photo postcard, the card’s typewritten message, and the weekly editorial.

      Apparently the site owner responsible for writing the weekly comments had deemed the postcard a crank.

      Jack scrubbed a hand across his tired face and laughed.

      What an idiot.

      Had the woman even thought to touch base with the local police or the FBI?

      No matter. Abby Conroy had just given Jack the first new lead he’d had in years. Maybe he’d have to say thanks…in person.

      Jack’s gaze shifted from the monitor screen to the calendar tacked haphazardly to the wall. Nine days until Christmas.

      The calendar illustration consisted of a holiday wreath draped over a cactus, no doubt someone in the Southwest’s idea of holiday cheer.

      But the timing of the Don’t Say a Word posting gnawed at Jack.

      Melinda, Emma and the other coeds had vanished during a ten-day period leading up to Christmas.

      Had Boone Shaw decided to resurrect his own special brand of holiday cheer? And if so, why now? Why wait eleven years?

      Granted, the man’s trial had dragged out over the course of two years, but after Shaw had gone free, he’d never so much as been pulled over for a speeding ticket again.

      And Jack would know. He’d kept tabs on the man’s every move.

      As crazy as the thought of Shaw sending a postcard to a secret confession site seemed, Jack had seen far stranger things during his years on the force.

      He’d seen killers tire with getting away with their own crimes. He’d seen men who might never have been caught, commit purposeful acts to gain notoriety.

      Who was to say something—or someone—hadn’t motivated Shaw to come forward now?

      Jack rocked back in his chair, lifting the hand-carved front legs from the floor as the possibilities wound through his brain.

      Truth was he wouldn’t sleep again until he’d held that postcard in his own hand.

      He blew out a slow breath.

      Christmas.

       On the East Coast.

       In the cold.

      He supposed there were worse things in life. Hell, he knew there were.

      He pulled up the Weather Channel Web site and keyed in the zip code for the Don’t Say a Word post office box. Then Jack leaned even closer to the monitor and studied the forecast.

      Cold, cold and more cold.

      Jack hated the cold.

      Almost as much as he hated Christmas.

      “Ho, ho, ho,” he muttered as he dialed his chief’s home number.

      The senior officer answered on the second ring, and Jack didn’t waste a moment on niceties, clicking back to the image of Melinda Simmons’s smiling, alive face as he spoke.

      “I’m going to need some time off.”

      ABBY CONROY COVERED the ground between her post office box and the Don’t Say a Word office in record time. The morning air was cold and raw, teasing at the possibility of a white Christmas the region hadn’t seen in years.

      “Good morning, Mrs. Hanover,” she called out to an elderly woman walking a pair of toy poodles, each dressed in full holiday outerwear complete with tiny Santa hats and jingle bell collars.

      Now there was something worthy of confession.

      Abby stifled a laugh and pulled the collar of her wool pea coat