“Yeah, I had a little more time to look over the names toward the bottom of the list after everything settled down. Imagine my surprise to find yours there!”
Dee’s shock turns to a scowl that turns into a self-satisfied smirk.
“Yes, Jack. You’re right.
“As always.
“It was me. It was always me!
“I convinced Father Time to stop the new year. Do you think that fool could’ve ever come up a plan to make a grab for eternal power on his own?
“I’ve had you all eating out of my hand from the beginning!”
“Why Dee? Why did you do this?”
“Aren’t you listening, Jack? Father Time was always a boob. He was nothing but a figurehead during his entire administration. I was calling the shots from day one!
“It was a trend I’d hoped to continue for all eternity. From behind the scenes, I was going to rule the holiday worlds beneath the shadow of everlasting night!”
Dee snarls at me.
“But you had to come along and mess things up!
“I told that old fool it was too risky to bring you into this, but he insisted it would look suspicious if we didn’t.
“I could’ve figured out an excuse, but he wouldn’t wait. He made me call you right away, the old windbag!”
“And I’m glad of it.”
I rise to my feet.
“Well come on, Dee. Let’s go.”
“What?”
“I’m taking you in. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”
Dee laughs, the sound high and shrill.
“You’re kidding, right? That printout is circumstantial at best. Talbot associated with a lot of folks who aren’t criminals.
“Jack, my dear, you have no proof and I’m certainly not going to confess!”
I sigh.
“You already have, Dee.”
Her face fills with alarm.
“What are you talking about?”
I open my cloak and shirt to reveal the wire I’m wearing.
“I told you before, Dee. You should be careful what you say. You never know who could be listening in.”
Dee’s jaw drops in stunned realization.
The feds I’ve had listening in exit their hiding places among the trees and walk toward us.
“I wouldn’t try to run, sweetheart,” I say, my voice grim.
I turn and begin to walk away in the opposite direction of the approaching feds.
“Jack—!”
“Goodbye, Delilah.”
I hear the feds reach Dee and begin reading her her rights, but I don’t bother looking back.
Father Time was right about one thing—it’s going to be a long, silent night alone for yours truly.
Hoo-ray! Hoo-rah! Time was back in full swing.
Christmas was saved and now the New Year did ring!
Jack Frost saved the day. Now all was well.
But there was still one last piece of story to tell.
Jack and Dee sat on a bench in the H-Town park,
Laughing and talking, happy as a lark.
“I love this,” Dee said. “We should do it another time.”
“But tell me one thing, Dee: Why did you commit the crime?”
“What do you mean, Jack? This isn’t funny!”
“Don’t play coy, Dee. Was it power or money?
“Why did you have Father Time kidnap my pop?
“Confess, Dee. The final shoe, please drop.”
“You’re right, as usual, Jack. You always are.
“Without my brains, Father Time wouldn’t have gotten far.
“He was a patsy. I ran things from behind the scenes.
“I’m wicked Halloweenian, Jack. It’s just in my genes.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jack said. “Let’s be on our way.
“Don’t make me laugh,” Dee said. “I’m not going away.
“You don’t have any evidence, facts, or proof!”
“I’ve recorded your confession, Dee. I’m a master sleuth!”
SECOND EPILOGUE
“Frost Detective Agency. Christy speaking—-just a moment.”
Christy puts the caller on hold just as I walk in the front door of my new office in H-Town. Why would I hire a witch as my administrative assistant after my dealings with Dee, you ask? What can I say? I have a soft spot for Halloweenians.
“Jack,” it’s the chief of the Holiday Guard. She says it’s urgent.”
“It always is. I say as I waltz by Christy’s desk, dropping her lunch off in my wake. “Tell her I’ll call her back in a minute.”
“But Jack—!”
“In a minute, Christy!”
I saunter back to the room I’ve set up for Fred—-larger than my own so as to accommodate his equipment, the little nutcracker—and knock on his door.
“Open, it is,” he calls from the other side. I open the door and find him at his computer, as usual.
“Heads up!” I say as I toss him his sandwich.
“Very much, thank you,” he says.
“What kind of hip-hop lingo is that?” I ask.
“Hip-hop, so last decade is. Talk in Yoda-speak, now do I.”
“Yoda-speak? Does this have anything to do with those movies you saw last week?”
“Greatest films ever, they were!”
I shake my head and leave Fred to his work.
I open the door to my office and a half ton of fur and muscle crashes into me.
“Down, boy!” I say as I scratch the polar bear’s head.
I hand him a large fish I got from the H-Town market. He swallows it in a single gulp.
“Greatest films ever or not, I still don’t know if I like the name Fred came up with for you, Chewie.”
Chewie snorts and begins sniffing around in my bag.
“No, no! You’ve had your lunch. That’s mine.”
I sit and throw my feet up on my desk. I’m about to take a bite out of the snow cone I bought for my lunch when my globe rings.
Reluctantly, I pick it up.
“Christy, I told you—!”
“Frost?” It’s not Christy’s voice I hear, but that of the chief of police. “Frost, where have you been? No! Never mind that. Is your crystal ball on?”
“Why?”
“Just turn it on!”
“What’s the big—?”
“Turn it on, Frost!”
I sigh and pick up the remote and pop on the idiot ball I have mounted on my office wall. The picture comes on to reveal someone in a mask standing in front of the familiar tanks of the H-Town magic works.
“—And I will release this toxin,” the masked man’s image says, “into the H-Town magic supply in exactly one hour if Detective Jack Frost does not present himself to me, alone and unarmed. This is not a hoax—”
“Frost,” the chief’s voice says over the phone. “Frost, are you there?”
“I’m on my way, chief!”
Without bothering to hang up the phone, I leap over my desk and skate out the door, knowing the city is depending on me.
“I’m on my way!”
And so our story ends on this last page.
We hope you enjoyed it and found it all the rage!
We hope we entertained you and on a journey took,
Your imagination while reading this book.
But now is the time for sleep, work, school, and play.
We’ll always be here for you to visit on another day.
We hope you’ll come back, should Jack Frost skate again.
There are more crimes to solve, more cases for Jack to win.
And so we bid you farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye.
Keep your head in the clouds, and the twinkle in your eye!
Stay young at heart and you’ll always be all right.
Thank you for reading THE LONG SILENT NIGHT!
Long Silent Night Page 12