The Christmas List Read Online Free PDF Page B

Bublé CD Traci had given him. He smiled as he considered the Allen property. It was worth a fortune. He drove out of the parking lot and headed for Park City.

CHAPTER
Eight

The storm arrived early as Kier drove his arctic white BMW up the canyon toward Park City, his wipers flipping frantically to keep up with the snowfall. On both sides of him the canyon walls rose jagged and white, plastered with ice and snow. The traffic around him had slowed to a crawl and cars, covered in snow, moved slowly, like a herd of mobile igloos. It bothered him that he couldn’t get Sara off his mind. How she looked. Her fall. Her last words to him— I’m not your problem anymore. He realized that he had never really confronted the reality of her dying.
    Christmas Day would have been their silver anniversary: a quarter of a century. Kier hadn’t much experience with death. His mother had died when he was two; he didn’t remember her or her passing. His father had died six years ago, but they hadn’t spoken for years and he didn’t even attend the funeral. But Sara was different. He wondered how long she had left and how her death would affect him.
    He took a drink from his bottle of water and set it on the seat next to him. He couldn’t figure out why Sara had delayed their divorce for so long. It clearly wasn’t about money; she asked for much less than she was entitled toand they both knew it. He was still puzzling over this when he arrived at the Park City junction. In another ten minutes he turned off the highway to the Snowed Inn bed-and-breakfast. Traci would be up in a few hours. He could worry about Sara later.

CHAPTER
Nine

The Snowed Inn was a large Victorian with three great gables set above a wraparound front porch. White Christmas lights outlined the building, creating a thin halo in the pale fog. Broad red ribbon was wrapped around the porch’s supporting pillars giving them the appearance of giant peppermint sticks. The two front doors were garnished with pine wreaths adorned with silver and red baubles.
    Kier parked his car. When he reached for his cell phone on the seat next to him his hand found a pool of water and his phone in it. He lifted it, dripping. The screen was blank, Kier pushed the buttons on the keypad but nothing happened. He angrily threw it on the car floor. Then he climbed out of the car, grabbed a small sports bag from the trunk, and walked up the steps into the inn.
    The Snowed Inn had originally been built at the end of the nineteenth century as a home by Clayton Daly, a successful silver prospector and co-owner of the Daly-West Silver Mine. When Daly was killed in an explosion in the mine, his wife had tried to support her family by turning the home into a boardinghouse. Within a few years World War I lowered the price of silver and as prospectors left the town, thebuilding became just another relic of a ghost town. When developers rediscovered the city in the late sixties the old building was revived as a bed-and-breakfast and had done well ever since.
    Just inside the door, under a daguerrotype of Clayton Daly, was a crescent-shaped walnut counter. Behind it stood a portly, silver-haired man wearing a red flannel shirt and brown corduroy pants with blue suspenders. He smiled as Kier entered. “Good afternoon, sir. Welcome to the Snowed Inn.”
    Kier, still angry about his phone, was in no mood for pleasantries. “I’ve got a reservation,” he said curtly. “It’s under Kier.”
    â€œYes, Mr. Kier, we’ve been expecting you. You have a very pleasant secretary, I might add. Your secretary left a credit card number with me, so if you’ll just sign right here I can take you right up to your room.”
    Kier signed the registry. “Do you have Internet access?”
    â€œWe have wireless in every room. The access code is printed on the keycard sleeve. How many keys do you need?”
    â€œTwo, but I want to leave one