The Yuletide Rescue. Margaret Daley

or it may have been mischief-making teens.”

      “Jeremiah’s death wasn’t common knowledge. I reported it to the authorities, but until they checked for next of kin, they were going to keep his death quiet.” Although Bree had said Jeremiah didn’t have any next of kin, there was a possibility she wasn’t aware of a long-lost relative.

      “Then something else might be going on here.” His dad ambled to the sink, filled a glass with water and took his nightly pills. “Growing old isn’t for the faint of heart.”

      “You miss your job?”

      “Yes. It’s been six months, and I don’t know what to do with myself. If I’d had my way, I would still be police chief.”

      David knew the PD had a ceiling on how old a person could be to serve.

      “Just because you retired from one job doesn’t mean you can’t do something else,” he told his father.

      “Nothing else appeals to me.”

      “A security consultant?”

      “I’d rather do something different. That way I won’t yearn for a job I can’t have anymore. There’s nothing in Colorado for me.”

      David had been ready to leave the service after twenty years. Now, at forty-one, he was enjoying what he was doing, and he wasn’t financially dependent on a paycheck because of his pension and some wise investments over the years. He could do what he really wanted. “Is that why you decided to come for the whole month of December?”

      “There’s no one in Colorado, not even your daughter since she started college. I saw Melissa at Thanksgiving when she and some friends came to ski, otherwise she has been a stranger. I miss her. When is she coming for Christmas?”

      “A few days before.” She was only coming because her grandfather would be there. Otherwise David wouldn’t have seen her at all. Ever since his wife had died three years ago, and David had had to go overseas for his last tour of duty, Melissa had lived with his father.

      His father’s dark bushy eyebrows crunched into a single line. “Why not sooner?”

      “You know Melissa and I haven’t been on the best of terms since Trish died. She blames me for her mother’s death.”

      “You weren’t responsible for that, and I’ve made that clear to Melissa.”

      “Dad, I wasn’t there when Trish needed me.”

      “Because you were serving your country.”

      Tension gripped David as he thought back to three years ago when Trish had taken a lethal combination of alcohol and painkillers. He’d been halfway around the world, supporting ground troops as a B-52 pilot. Earlier, when he’d left Trish after her operation to repair her damaged knee and returned to the war zone, she’d been improving—or so she said—and had urged him to leave. If only he’d known then that she’d become dependent on painkillers, maybe she would be alive today.

      “Son, stop blaming yourself. You can’t change the past. Focus on the here and now.”

      “I’m trying.”

      “Is that why you’re working so hard when you’re supposed to be retired? You’ve made some good investments. You don’t even have to work, but then your job at the search and rescue organization is strictly volunteer.”

      “I’m only forty-one. Just because I retired from the service doesn’t mean I’m going to lie around on some beach doing nothing.”

      His father chuckled. “Well, certainly not here in Alaska. But Hawaii is only a plane ride away.”

      Too wired, David prowled around his kitchen, needing to sleep but not sure he could, even after his previous night sleeping restlessly on the couch in his office. “This volunteer job is perfect for me. I’d go crazy without it. You of all people should know what that feels like.”

      His dad held up his hands as if in surrender. “Okay. You’ve made your point. The Stone men aren’t good at relaxation.”

      David started to reply when his cell phone rang, jolting him. As he answered it, he glimpsed Chance’s name on the screen.

      “I hope I didn’t wake you,” his friend said.

      “No, Dad and I were talking. What’s up?”

      “I did some checking after we talked earlier, and I thought you might like to know Jeremiah’s emergency locator transmitter hasn’t sent a signal since the last pass of the satellite. I know you didn’t turn it off, since you were back in Anchorage by then, so who did?”