Winter Street by Elin Hilderbrand Read Free Book Online Page A

harder, and Kevin climbs into the passenger side and pulls her into his lap.
    A baby,
he thinks.
    He strokes her hair, and his heart soars. “We’ll keep living at the inn,” he says. “Just until we get on our feet. Maybe Dad will let us take the family suite on the third floor.”
    “But what if I get sent back?” Isabelle says. “It is always a danger! And now that I am…”
    “It’s okay,” Kevin says. “That’s not going to happen. I’ll make sure of it.”
    “How?” Isabelle says.
    He wants to say it. He nearly says it.
    But.

MARGARET
    C hristmas Eve morning, she receives a text from Drake:
All in.
    A wave of relief, followed by excitement. Margaret had been steeling herself for a cancellation from him; she always likes to keep her expectations low to avoid disappointment—but Hawaii will be far superior with Drake along.
    Buoyed by this good news, she packs four bikinis, two cover-ups, five sundresses, her straw hat, a copy of Donna Tartt’s
The Goldfinch,
which she’s been meaning to read for months—and then, because it
is
Christmas, she carefully packs the paper angel that Ava made in second-grade Sunday school, back when Christmas was Christmas, back when Margaret was a mother instead of a national icon.
    She calls Kelley and gets his voice mail. Then she calls Ava and gets her voice mail. The only people in America who don’t take Margaret Quinn’s calls are her own family. She thinks about calling the inn, but for some reason this intimidates her—probably because every other time she’s called that number, Mitzi has answered, and, as is to be expected, Mitzi does not appreciate hearing Margaret Quinn’s famous voice on the other end of the line. Now, though, Mitzi is gone (can this be true, really?), but even so, Margaret won’t call the inn. It’s Christmas Eve, and Kelley must be running at capacity, plus throwing thatenormous party. If anyone needs Margaret, she supposes they will call.
    After she packs, she brews an espresso and sits down at her computer. There are twelve more soldiers dead in Afghanistan. There is some kind of backlash or new order taking action; the U.S. has lost more soldiers in one week than we have since 2004. Margaret’s heart clenches as she scans the list. Not Bart.
    How do Kelley and Mitzi live like this?
    She calls Kelley again, and again gets his voice mail.

PATRICK
    I n the morning, he is awakened by a pounding on the front door. His head feels like a crumbling plaster cast of a head. It is both heavy and empty, filled with rocks and something that sloshes like liquid. The bottle of vodka has rolled under the coffee table; the pills are lined up on the glass surface. Ten pills left, which means he took only three. His stomach squelches; whoever is at the door is insistent.
    It’s federal marshals,
he thinks. He won’t answer, he won’t confess, he won’t surrender. He won’t leave the house; they’ll have to storm him like a SWAT team if they want to gethim. He is grateful now that Jen decided to leave with the kids; she wouldn’t take this well at all—a stranger on the front step, pounding on their door, attracting the attention of the neighbors.
    And yet, he misses Jen. He needs her. If she were here, she would go to the door and tell whoever it is to GO AWAY. She can be formidable; Patrick can’t imagine anyone intimidating her. Also, Patrick misses the kids—the shooting and helicopter noises of their video games, their screaming and yelling and fighting, their sweet, funky boy smell of sweat and grass and pancake syrup.
    Still, the knocking.
    Patrick thinks about standing up the way some people think about climbing Mount Everest. Can it be done? He moves his legs to the floor; that much goes okay. The more difficult task is raising his head and torso.
Ohhhhhkay.
He gets to his feet and hobbles over to the picture window.
    At the front door is a man in uniform. Patrick hides behind the Christmas tree and thinks:
I’m going to