Free 3.5 Roasted in Christmas River by Meg Muldoon Page B

rushed out in front of my car when I was crossing through downtown, causing me to crash into the row of mailboxes, hadn’t been a raccoon or a skunk or a coyote.
    It had been Jack Daniels.  
    He’d broken free of his pen: with a little help from a friend.
    In some ways it was ironic: here Deb had been devastated that she wouldn’t be able to give her kids the Thanksgiving they deserved. But meanwhile, Frankie hadn’t wanted that kind of Thanksgiving. What he wanted more than anything was for Jack Daniels to be saved.
    The boy finally took matters into his own hands, cutting the wiring around the bird’s pen and setting him free into the cold, November night.
    “I knew…” he started saying, in between sobs. “I knew I had to save him. My mom was going to kill Jack. So I stole the wire cutters from my dad’s old toolbox in the garage. I thought the only way I could save Jack was to let him go. That has to be better than being dead, right?”
    He wiped at his runny nose with the back of his jacket sleeve.
    “I didn’t mean to make my mom cry,” he said. “I didn’t want her to be sad.”
    I pat him on the shoulder.
    “Honey, the only reason she was sad was because she thought you and your sister would be upset when you found out that there’d be no turkey for Thanksgiving,” I said. “She just wanted you to have a good Thanksgiving.”
    He sniveled some.
    “But, Frankie, why did you lie to Sheriff Brightman about this? He said that you said you saw a homeless man out by Jack’s gate.”
    Frankie brushed at his big fat tears, smearing them across his freckled face.
    “I got scared of getting in trouble,” he said. “I saw that homeless man out there once, and I… I just thought she wouldn’t find out it was me.”
    “It’ll be okay, Frankie,” I said. “But you shouldn’t lie about things like that. Especially when they could get someone else into trouble who hasn’t done anything wrong.”
    He nodded and started inhaling like he was trying to hold something in. But he lost the battle.
    “I’m sorry,” he wailed, a fresh flood of tears running down his cheeks.
    He reached out and hugged me, sobbing into my arm.
    I hesitated at first, having never consoled a crying child in my entire life, feeling like I didn’t know exactly what to do.
    But as Frankie kept crying, I just hugged him back.
    Maybe there wasn’t anything else to it.
    “ Shh ,” I said. “It’s going to be okay, okay? I’ll go with you to tell your mom about this. I’m sure she won’t be angry. And if she is, then I’ll be there with you.”
    He sniveled some more.
    “You’re a good kid, Frankie,” I said. “You have a heart. Which is something a lot of people don’t have.”  
    He let go of me. His cheeks were wet, but the tears had stopped flowing.
    His face lifted a little bit, that pug nose of his scrunching up.
    “You think so, Ms. Peters?”
    “Of course I do,” I said. “Now, I have a secret of my own that I want you to keep. Can you?”
    He looked up at me with questioning eyes.
    “Well, it’s a cure for the snivels,” I said, standing up and taking his hand. “You know what it is?”
    “What?” he asked.
    I smiled.
    “A heaping slice of warm Gingersnap Pumpkin pie,” I said, leading him to the glass case. “What do you say?”
    His eyes got a little big, and then he nodded.
     

 
    Chapter 25
     
    I pulled up to the edge of the woods near downtown, about the same place where Daniel and I had been just a few hours ago. 
    I had picked up the Escape from the mechanics earlier. The car looked as though it never plowed through a row of mailboxes, which I was grateful for. The brakes seemed to respond better, and the new studded tires seemed to grip the road with strength.
    It may have been a hefty price tag, but at least the mechanic had done a good job.
    I parked the car and got out. My feet crunched loudly against the frozen ground.
    There was a bite in the air and it smelled like snow. Up above,