Free A Wicked Snow by Gregg Olsen

Hannah was unsure what it was.
    Then her mother called out. "Pull yourself together. Jesus! Act like a man."
    Hannah strained to hear. Although the words were incongruous with the holiday, she allowed herself to think that they were arguing over the assembly of gifts or something. Maybe for the boys? A pair of bikes? She got up and quietly crept to the window.
    She knew, despite his job as her mother's so-called handyman, Marcus Wheaton wasn't mechanically inclined.
    Then Wheaton called out, but his voice remained lower and therefore harder to decipher. Snow was falling and the wind sent a breeze that snapped the Santa banners that were hanging in the yard. Molly, the Logan's black lab, barked. There was commotion out there, but the two figures in the yard were maintaining some kind of control. This wasn't, thankfully, a knock-down, drag- out fight like they'd engaged in in the past. Hannah peeled aside a window shade to get a better view. Light seeped into the room, and she rubbed her eyes. She stared down from her window to the odd and snowy scene.
    Vapors of white puffed from Marcus Wheaton's mouth. She'd tease him tomorrow about being a dragon or something. She waited to see bikes or whatever wheeled across the white yard, but nothing happened. Her mother was nowhere in sight, and Wheaton disappeared. Whatever they were doing was over. Whatever they'd been up to had to be some kind of Christmas surprise for her brothers. Hannah crawled back in bed, pulled the covers up to her neck, and fell asleep.
    And Hannah, now grown, a mother herself, still couldn't let the rest of the story play in her mind. She finally fell asleep. It was after two.

    The next day was filled with paperwork for Hannah, though interrupted more than occasionally with thoughts of Jeff Bauer. Hannah examined documents she hoped would prove that little Enrique Garcia had been murdered by his violence-prone father, Berto. Each line needed to be examined. Tedious, to be sure, but necessary. It was difficult and slow going, with eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. A visit from Ripperton didn't make it any easier. He sauntered into her office like he owned the place. There was boldness in his manner, more exaggerated than usual. It was obvious that he was still proud of his investigative work on the Garcia case. Hannah noticed that the white circles around his eyes were pronounced. He had been tanning again.
    "Ted, this isn't a good time," she said a little too harshly when he asked if they could go over the Garcia interview report.
    "Someone," he said somewhat snidely, "got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning." Next, he paused and dropped a nugget of information that made her nearly jump from her chair.
    "Now Joanne Garcia says Mimi killed her brother," he said.
    Hannah was stunned. "What?"
    "I know you heard me, but I'll say it again. Mimi Garcia is the one who drowned the baby. Joanne says that she and Berto covered it up to spare the girl from living with such a horrendous deed."
    Hannah set down her paperwork. "That's complete bullshit."
    "I wish. I just got off the phone with her so-called lawyer--Deke Meyer. They want to work out a deal so that Mimi can be spared any emotional trauma."
    If it hadn't been so serious, Hannah would have laughed out loud. Ripp had a lot of nerve casting aspersions on anyone. He was, she was sure, the world's worst at what he did. Deke Meyer was merely in the bottom ten percentile of his profession.
    "Joanne Garcia is the biggest idiot or bitch. Maybe both. We're going to put her away for a long, long time. This is complete bullshit," she repeated, raising her voice. "Using a little girl to bail them out--unbelievable!"
    "I'm just the messenger," Ripp said, faking a cringe while he dropped another file on her desk before exiting, "remember?"
    Alone once more, Hannah felt the color drain from her face. The Garcias were not going to get away with what she was sure was the most outrageous defense a parent could