"Very funny," I said.
Josie covered her phone with her hand and addressed Brian. "I think we hit pay dirt. Candy said she had two suits in stock and rented them both at the beginning of December. She looked up the sale while I was waiting and said they used a credit card. If you want to give her a couple of minutes, she can fax over the receipt to you or text it. She can't give you the original copy though."
Brian put his hand out for the phone. "That's fine. Let me talk to Candy. I'll tell her where to send the information. If there's a hotline number associated with the card, we might be able to get an address within the hour—if we're lucky, that is."
* * *
We parted ways with Brian shortly afterward. He promised to keep us in the loop on his search for the Jolly-less Santas, and I was relieved that our sleuthing was done for the day. My back ached from walking, and the smell of chocolate had driven me to such distraction that I'd gone into the Lindt store for an impromptu purchase. A half hour later and forty dollars poorer, I'd emerged with every kind of truffle imaginable, from peppermint cookie to caramel to red velvet.
Josie grinned and shook her head as she opened the van door for me. I held my bag of goodies out to her as she got behind the wheel. "Have some."
"No thanks." She laughed and pointed at my belly. "I can see the baby moving. Guess someone else is enjoying them too."
"He's going to look like his father but take after his mother and her love of sweets. Chocolate always makes me happy, even when I'm a murder suspect." I reached into the bag for a hot chocolate-flavored candy. "We need to make truffle-flavored cookies."
Josie pointed at the windshield. "Check it out. Officer Hottie looks like he's on a mission."
I glanced up in time to see Brian exiting the mall, in full police uniform, with a duffel bag under one arm and his phone pressed to his ear. Adam was by his side. They hurried to the cruiser parked by the front door and sped off, lights flashing. "Holy cow. Do you think they could have found the Santas?"
Josie grinned wickedly at me as she started the engine. "Let's follow them."
Uneasiness shot through me like a cold gust of wind. "Jos, if they see us, Brian's going to be furious. And I promised to stay out of it."
"Aw, what's the harm?" Josie asked. "We'll stay in the van. Don't you want to see if they find the delinquents who almost killed you?"
I did, but I'd also promised Mike that I wouldn't take any unnecessary chances and intended to keep my word. "Maybe you'd better take me home."
Josie acted like she hadn't heard me and ran a yellow light. "We'll only stay a couple of minutes. Scout's honor."
"You were never a Girl Scout," I reminded her.
"True, but I wanted to be one. Once. At least for a day, I think." She took a left down a one-way street. "It still counts, right?"
There was a car in between ours and Brian's, so I didn't think he'd seen us. The emergency lights on his cruiser suddenly went off as we approached a three-story brick apartment building that looked like it might crumble to the ground at any second.
"They must be here for another reason. You're telling me that the Jolly-less Santas live less than ten minutes from the bakery? And no one's been able to find them?"
"Last I heard, they were supposed to condemn this building," Josie remarked. She guided the vehicle into a parking space near the rear entrance. A blue van with the apartment complex's name and logo on it was directly in front of us, and it shielded us partially from Brian and Adam's view.
Josie rolled down her window and stretched her body through it, peering around the van. "They just rang the bell and shouted something into the speaker, but I can't make out what. The door opened for them."
"Why are those Santas living in this dump if they've been robbing every store in Colwestern?" I asked. "Are they sitting on all this money?"
"Maybe because no one would think to look for them here," Josie said thoughtfully. "Or they're staying with a friend. It might be the perfect hide out."
My chest tightened. It bothered me that I couldn't see what was happening, and the entire situation was becoming scary. "We should leave."
"Let's wait a minute," Josie said, distracted by the pinging of her phone. She glanced down at the screen and pursed her lips. "That husband of mine. All he thinks about is what's for dinner. Doesn't he know we have more important things to do?" Annoyed, she quickly began to type out a message.
I was getting a bad feeling about this. Josie and I had been in similar situations before, and I wanted to avoid another. I had no intention of taking any chances with my unborn child. My nerves set another contraction in motion, and I tried to breathe through it as fast as I could.
Josie glanced sharply at me. "You okay, love?"
I managed a quick nod. "Another Braxton Hicks, I think. Look, Brian will call me later if he has any news. I want to go home and—"
A click sounded, and we both turned our heads. On Josie's side of the van was the big red man himself, sporting a cream-colored beard, with a gun pointed at Josie.
Icicles formed between my shoulder blades. No, please. Not again. "Oh my God," I whispered. "It's him."
Josie didn't reply. My normally outspoken friend had been frozen into immobility as she stared down the barrel of his gun. Santa Claus was surely going to be the death of me.
"Ho, ho, ho," Santa greeted us. The smell of peppermints wafted through the cold air and sent a chill down my spine. "I'm in a bit of a hurry, so get out of the van quick, and I'll let you live."
Josie started to shake, but she made no attempt to move. I touched her arm lightly. "Jos? Let's do as he says, all right?"
A stream of four-letter expletives fell out of Santa's mouth as he brought the gun to the side of my friend's head. "I said get out of the van. Now!"
Santa was short on patience today, but at least it seemed to draw Josie out of her trance. "O-kay," Josie murmured. "Just give me a second."
I stared wide-eyed at Santa as Josie unbuckled her seat belt. Yes, he was the one who had shoved me into the snow, I was certain of it. But where was his partner? Still inside the building? Under arrest? Had they seen the police car approaching and gone into panic mode?
Santa had clearly had enough of our stalling tactics. He yanked the door open, grabbed Josie roughly by the arm, and threw her to the ground. She fell to her knees on the parking lot blacktop.
"Hey!" Josie screamed. "Don't hurt my friend. She's pregnant!"
He turned his head and seemed to see me for the first time. More expletives followed. "Oh no. Not you again!"
Now it was my turn to sit there, frozen. This was a horrifying déjà vu no one should ever have to experience once, let alone twice. Shaking, I put my hand on the door to push it open just as Santa hauled Josie to her feet then pointed the gun at her head. "Get out of the van, fatso, unless you want me to shoot your friend."
Josie stared at me with fearful eyes. My hand still rested on the door handle, the other on my purse.
"I mean it," he warned and then muttered another obscenity at me. "Do as I say, or I'll shoot Red here."
My heart was in my throat. I prayed Brian and Adam would emerge from the building any second. I held up my right hand while my left one managed to press the contact button for Brian's phone.
Santa waved the gun in my direction. "Get out of the van!" he screamed.
"Sally?" I could faintly hear Brian's voice come on the line.
I held up both my hands and spoke loudly, for Brian's benefit. "All right. I'm opening the door now."
Santa gave Josie a push that sent her halfway across the lot. He got into her side of the van and tried to push me out of the door as a male voice shouted, "Let her go!"
We both looked up. Brian and Adam were standing a few feet away from the van. The other Santa was between them, sporting a pair of handcuffs. Before I could get out of the van, Santa wrapped an arm around my neck and held the gun against my head.
"Damn it, Leroy! Don't you dare ope
n your mouth to those pigs, or we're both dead for sure!" Santa screamed into my ear.
"I didn't tell them nothin', Lyle," Leroy insisted. "I swear. They don't know about the orders."
"Keep your mouth shut!" Adam told him sternly.
The gun shook at the side of my head, and I didn't dare breathe. I glanced helplessly out the windshield at Brian. He stared back at me, concern evident on his face. One false move and I was done for—along with my poor innocent child. I had tried to be careful. Why did these things always happen to me?
Brian kept his gun aimed at Lyle. "Drop the gun, and move away from her," he said in a strangely calm voice.
Lyle shook his head. "No way, man. You let Leroy go first, or she's dead." He pressed the barrel of the gun into my skull.
A lump of fear the size of a mountain grew in my throat. There was nothing I could do but pray that somehow Brian would get me out of this.
Seemingly of its own accord, the van's engine started. Lyle jumped in his seat, startled by the action as if someone had electrocuted him. He moved the gun away from me as I wasted no time pushing the door open and half falling, half stumbling to the pavement below. A succession of shots sounded as I lay on the blacktop, curled in a fetal position, my arms protectively around my belly, listening to Josie scream.
After a few seconds, all went quiet, and I forced myself to look up into the van's interior. Lyle was slumped sideways onto my seat, a steady stream of blood oozing from his head.
Brian ran toward me, but Josie had already reached my side and wrapped her arms around me. He stepped around us to check on Lyle. When he turned around and his gaze met mine, I knew the man was dead. Brian radioed for backup while Adam led a screaming Leroy into the back of the squad car.
"Oh my God, Sal!" Josie wept. "Are you hurt?"
I managed to shake my head no, my gaze still fixated on Lyle's body.
"Is he—" Josie faltered as she looked at Brian, who had squatted down next to me.
"Yeah. He's dead." Brian blew out a sigh and looked over at Adam, who was now trying to hold back a small crowd of people who had emerged from the apartment building. He stared into my eyes, the grief palpable in his own.
Josie noticed his expression as they both helped me to my feet. "Are you all right?"
"It's the first time I've ever killed someone." Brian's voice shook and was barely above a whisper. He stared down at the gun in his hand and then, as if he couldn't bear to look at it again, hastily shoved the weapon into his belt. Despite the terror and shock at what had happened to me, my heart ached for him.
Josie sobbed as she hugged me against her. "Oh, Sal. This is all my fault. Please forgive me. It was a stupid thing to do!"
"It was your idea to come here?" Brian asked sharply.
Tears streamed down Josie's face. "Yes, I made Sal come with me. She didn't want to."
Brian's mouth hardened in a firm, thin line. "I'm pretty pissed off at you, but I'll admit that it was a smart thing to turn that car starter on at just the right moment. You saved Sally's life."
Josie's large blue eyes looked as if someone had watered them down. "But I didn't," she wailed. "I'd have been too afraid it might backfire. The starter—I forgot it was in my pocket when I stuck my hand inside. I must have set it off by accident."
My body was still reeling from shock, and I was thankful for Josie's arm around my waist, supporting me. It took a moment to comprehend what she was saying. "Wai—wait a min-minute. You mean, you didn't set it off on purpose?"
She shook her head. "I wish I could say I did. I'm just thankful it worked out."
Sirens screamed in the distance, growing louder as they got closer. Nausea rumbled in my belly as I grabbed it between my hands.
"Oh, Sal, that had to be such a shock to your system. Do you think you're in labor?" Josie asked.
The baby kicked at that moment, and I managed a small smile. "No. I'm starting to think this baby is never coming out."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Grandma Rosa watched me curiously as I set my phone down on the kitchen table. "What did Mike have to say?"
I hesitated. It wasn't what Mike had said—it was actually how he'd said it. He'd gone bananas when he found out what had happened. "Not much. He, ah, is on his way over to get me."
"Oh yes. I can imagine that he is." Grandma Rosa's soulful brown eyes regarded me with sympathy as she set a cup of hot chocolate topped with homemade whipped cream in front of me.
I blew out a sigh and stared at the picture on the side of the mug—a Santa climbing out of a house chimney. No sense trying to fight it. The big red man was everywhere.
I took a long sip of the drink and then wrapped my hands around the mug, comforted by its warmth. I stared up at the cheerful walls of my parents' kitchen, painted the same color as the sun. I'd once run my bakery out of this room for a brief time, when there had been a fire at my shop and no other location available. It was bright and warm and always immaculate since my grandmother spent most of her day here.
The bottle of anisette on the Formica countertop caught my eye, sitting all by its lonely self. That would have been a comfort too. I'd never been much of a drinker, but if I wasn't pregnant, I may have been tempted to add some to my hot chocolate.
Grandma Rosa followed my gaze and raised an eyebrow in question. She'd been surprised when I showed up on my parents' doorstep. I'd purposefully asked Brian to bring me here instead of my house. Mike was going to be furious and upset, thinking that I'd lied to him about staying out of trouble, and that hadn't been my intention. "I'm using you, Grandma."
She shot me a puzzled look. "I do not understand. How are you using me?"
I put my head in my hands. "Mike will be so upset at me and at Josie, especially if he finds out she's the reason we were at the apartment complex. If you're here, he might not yell." Or perhaps not as loudly. "I don't want him to hate Josie for this, so I'm half tempted to say it was my idea."
Grandma Rosa's eyes widened. "No, cara mia. Do not lie. You must tell him that Josie took you there."
"But, Grandma—" I protested.
She wagged a finger in my face. "Never tell a lie to your husband. Well, to anyone, really. Besides, Mike must realize by now that trouble—well, it just seems to find you. No matter how much you try to behave, cara mia, I am afraid it will never leave you."
I blew out a breath, thinking the same thing. "Did you ever lie to Grandpa?"
"Eh." She wiggled her hand back and forth. "A couple of times. Once when your mother was dating your father. She was only nineteen and your father thirty-two when they began seeing each other. A big age difference back then, and your grandfather did not like your father either."
That part I already knew. "But you were okay with it?"
She put a finger to the side of her short white hair and twirled it around. "I knew from the beginning that your father was pazza, but what could I do? Your mother loved him, and I wanted her to be happy. As the saying goes, I turned a closed eye to it."
"That's blind eye, Grandma."
"Whatever." She stirred her coffee, and a wistful look came onto her face. "Of course, I told other lies that I am not proud of as well. Lies that had nothing to do with your mother and father. Remember how I told you the story of the young man I was in love with before I met your grandfather?"
"Vernon."
She smiled, pleased that I had remembered his name. Grandma Rosa had been seventeen to his twenty-three years when they met. Like my grandfather, her father thought Vernon was too old for his daughter. Being an old-school Italian, he had refused to let Grandma Rosa see the man, so they had met in secret.
"He went away to the Vietnam War, and you never heard from him again."
"He died," Grandma Rosa said sadly.
"But you don't know for certain," I pointed out, hating to see her unhappy. "Perhaps he's still alive. Maybe he had an injury and—"
Grandma Rosa cut me off. "No. He is dead. I can feel it in my heart." She patted
my cheek. "Ah, cara mia. Always such the optometrist."
She sighed, and I didn't bother to correct her this time. A dreamy look came into her eyes, which surprised me. My grandmother was not a dreamer. She was too practical and didn't have time for it. She was always cooking or crocheting or giving someone valuable advice.
For a moment, the lines faded from her face as she stared over my shoulder in silence. How I wish I had known her when she was younger. I'd seen black and white photos of her with the saddle shoes and poodle skirts that had dominated the 1950s, when she was a teenager. She had been beautiful, with long, black curly locks like my own and large brown eyes that sparkled with a bit of mischief. I suspected that she'd been a bit like Josie back then—a regular spitfire.
"I hope my child will be just like you," I said with all sincerity.
She smiled and went to the stove to turn the kettle off. "Your child will not be like anyone else, cara mia. She or he will always belong to themselves. A free spirit." Her eyes twinkled. "But I do think there is a little bit of me in you. We are both survivors. Never forget that."
My grandmother had been through so much in her life. After she'd given birth to my mother, the doctor had warned her not to have any more children. She'd worked as a nurse until she'd married my grandfather and then taken care of him when he'd fallen ill with cancer. She was an excellent cook and could crotchet or knit anything asked of her. I'd never had a hobby or craft I was very good at and could barely make decent cookies compared to Josie's. Maybe solving murders was supposed to be my calling in life in addition to being a mother. After today's latest episode, though, I wasn't sure how much more I could take. Suddenly I felt very tired.
The front door slammed, and I braced myself. Mike had been in the shower when I called, but he'd said he'd be over immediately. I was not looking forward to his lecture.
Gianna appeared in the doorway, her face white and drawn as if she'd seen a ghost. Her chestnut-colored hair, which always fell in perfect waves around her shoulders, looked as if she'd run a rake through it. "Grandma." Her voice quavered, and then she spotted me sitting at the table. "Sal! Is everything okay?"
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