Chapter One
It was Christmas Eve in New York City. The cab slowly made its way down Fifth
Avenue. It was nearly five o'clock. The traffic was heavy and the sidewalks were
jammed with last-minute Christmas shoppers, homebound office workers, and
tourists anxious to glimpse the elaborately trimmed store windows and the fabled
Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.
It was already dark, and the sky was becoming heavy with clouds, an apparent
confirmation of the forecast for a white Christmas. But the blinking lights, the
sounds of carols, the ringing bells of sidewalk Santas, and the generally jolly
mood of the crowd gave an appropriately festive Christmas Eve atmosphere to the
famous thoroughfare.
Catherine Dornan sat bolt upright in the back of the cab, her arms around the
shoulders of her two small sons. By the rigidity she felt in their bodies, she
knew her mother had been rig ... read full excerpt from Silent Night ebook
