by Jule McBride
“I kept trying to get a number for you, but couldn’t. I tried every John Christopher in the tri-state,” Lewis groused. So that’s the man’s name, Santa thought just as Cyn crept up beside him. When he realized she’d brought her pocketbook, he nearly rolled his eyes. “So, I just started coming by here every day,” Lewis continued.
“Guess you want your part of the last haul,” Christopher said. “That’s why you came, right? You knew I was going to keep it here.”
Santa shot Cyn his steeliest stare, then pressed his finger to his lips. Small puffs of her breath clouded the air, and her cheeks, which looked even paler than usual against the black of her hat, had turned red in the cold. For the briefest instant, he shut his eyes. Why couldn’t the woman have just stayed in the car?
“No, you don’t understand!” Lewis’s voice rose. “We’ve got to give it all back!”
“Keep your voice down,” Christopher growled. “My mother’s in the kitchen, making a ham, and she’ll hear you.” He stamped his feet on the deck as if that might warm them. “The stuff was way too hot after the trial to pawn,” he continued. “So, I’ve still got it.” His voice lowered, persuasively. “Did you really think I’d try to rip off a partner?”
Santa watched Cyn’s eyes widen in disbelief. She was clearly starting to get the picture. The two men were talking about the Sweet jewelry. Santa glanced upward. Through the cracks in the planks of the deck, he could see the soles of the men’s shoes. Christopher started pacing. “Wait here,” he finally said. “I’ll get them. You can take your share.”
Above, steps sounded. A screen door snapped shut. A storm door slammed. The boards creaked as Lewis walked to the edge of the deck, leaned his elbows on the railing and stared out over the yard. He now had the same view as Santa and Cyn. The yard sloped toward the privacy wall. Brown dirt patches peeked through the frozen whitish grass. A concrete birdbath had been disconnected from its base and overturned.
Honor among thieves, Santa thought, shaking his head. Lewis hadn’t choked up Christopher’s name or revealed that Christopher had kept the jewels at his mother’s.
“He’s not listening to me,” Lewis said to nothing but the thin air.
“You’re not just going to sit here, like this, are you?” Cyn finally whispered, looking furious.
He had half a mind to clamp his hand over her mouth and drag her back to the car, since he was beginning to suspect that this had nothing to do with Amanda. It was about the Sweet robbery, and nothing more.
“We have to do some—”
“Shut up,” he mouthed, just as Christopher returned.
“But we—”
This time Santa did silence her. He deftly reached around her shoulders, drew her against him and pressed his palm over her lips. She tried to wrench away, but in her effort to stay quiet, the move was completely ineffective. Santa felt her lips purse against his skin. Good. She’s not going to talk. I’ll hear everything I need, get her out of here, then come back.
He gazed down at her eyes, which were riveted on the deck above them. He glanced up again. Christopher was holding out a bag. Gazing through the cracks, it was hard to tell, but it looked like a regular brown bag. The large sandwich kind.
“Well, take it,” he said angrily.
“You’re not listening!” Lewis burst out. “We never should have stolen these things. We’ve got to return them. We could just mail the bag back anonymously. You won’t get caught.”
“Get caught?” Santa imagined that Christopher’s mouth was gaping open in astonishment. The brown paper bag swung down with his arm and dangled at his side. “Did you get reformed in jail or something?”
“As a matter of fact,” Lewis said stiffly, “I did.”
Christopher’s low chuckle sounded menacing. “And here you are,” he taunted. “Out on a holiday pardon, and just dying to play secret Santa to the Sweet family. Why, Matt, where’s your little red suit?”
“Leave me alone,” Lewis said just as Cyn tensed in Santa’s arms. “If nothing else, I’ll return my half.”
“I don’t think so,” Christopher countered. “The Sweet family has undoubtedly collected and spent the insurance. They’re never going to see this stuff again.”
Cyn wrenched quickly in Santa’s arms. “Oh, yes, they are!” she shrieked, scrambling toward the stairs.
“Oh, Cynthia,” Santa muttered. He bolted after her.
“Don’t move a muscle!” She charged up the stairs, digging in her pocketbook. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Who the devil are—” Christopher began, instinctively dropping the paper bag. He began backing away stealthily.
“It’s Cynthia Sweet!” Lewis exclaimed, sounding as pleased as he was dumfounded.
“And she’s got a gun,” Christopher said flatly.
Sure enough, she’d gotten his gun out of the glove compartment. Fortunately, since Cyn had a gun, the two men were more interested in her than in him. Santa watched her train the weapon inexpertly on them, while she slung her pocketbook over her shoulder. The safety was on, and he was positive she’d have no clue about how to release it. At least he hoped not.
She bent with graceful agility, scooped up the paper bag, then glanced inside. “My class ring! The little diamond studs Daddy gave me for my sweet sixteen! And Mom’s necklace!” she exclaimed, glancing over her shoulder at Santa. She looked at him a second too long.
Christopher barreled across the deck, lunging for the gun. Christopher knew how to use it, too, Santa thought as he raced forward. Cyn’s arm flew upward. Santa caught both her hands, then the gun and, completing the arc, tossed the weapon far behind him, in a stand of trees.
“What’s going on out here?” The screen door swung open and a fiftyish woman peered out, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Get back inside,” Christopher said, his gaze still riveted on the bag in Cyn’s hand.
“I will,” the woman said. “But this time, I’m calling the police.”
The second the door slammed shut, Christopher charged at Cyn again. She swung her pocketbook at his head, and when Santa leapt between the two, the bag caught him square across the jaw. Christopher took the opportunity to sucker-punch his ribs. He wrestled Christopher to the ground, anyway, then hauled him across the deck. Reaching for his back, he grabbed the cuffs and hooked Christopher to the railing.
When Santa turned around, Cyn was staring at Lewis with her hands on her hips and murder in her eyes. And Matthew Lewis was beaming at her.
“You all stayed together,” he said, shaking his head.
“What?” she demanded in a tone that was nearly as menacing as Christopher’s.
Santa found himself wishing the earth would open, and swallow him up. “There’s something I think I should tell you, Cyn,” he said quickly.
“We can talk in the car,” Cyn said. “Right now, I want to know what this cretin has to say in his defense.”
“You and Jake stayed together,” he repeated, nodding at Santa.
Her eyes narrowed. “Jake?”
Lewis chuckled. “Or should I say Anton Santa?”
Cyn gasped. She pivoted around slowly and stared at him. Long moments passed. She tilted her head. Her eyes widened, then she squinted.
“It’s true,” Santa began, keeping his voice calm. “I can explain every—”
“I almost didn’t recognize you, because of the weight you’ve gained,” Lewis interrupted, in a booming voice. “How are you, Anton?”
“This is the craziest thing I ever heard,” Cyn murmured, sounding more puzzled than angry. Santa blew out a long sigh and waited for whatever was about to come. He’d let her get it out of her system, then he’d explain. She was still looking at him oddly, as if unable to make out any resemblance between him and Jake Jackson.
“Look, Cyn,” he said. “It’s not what you think.”
“Oh, it isn’t?” she finally bit out. “Well, Jake...”
“It’s Anton,” he managed to say.
“Anton Santa. That’s my real name.”
“Well, Jake or Anton or whoever you are,” she snapped. “I just wanted to inform you that your partner in crime or suspect or whoever he is—” Cyn raised her finger and pointed “—is getting away.”
Santa whirled around. Sure enough, the cuffs were dangling from the rail and Christopher was halfway over the privacy wall. Santa glanced at Cyn again, just in time to see her pivot on her heel and storm down the stairs.
“Cyn, wait,” he called, just as a siren sounded in the distance. Who was he going to lose—Cyn or Christopher? His gaze shot from one to the other. Then he leapt over the deck railing and sprinted across the grass.
Chapter Eight
Tuesday, December 20, 1994
‘T was five days before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Santa was reclining on Cyn’s sofa, with his hands folded on his belly and his feet propped on her coffee table. He stared at the lighted-up Christmas tree, then at the door, then at the tree again, wishing Cyn would come home. As he listened to the early morning silence, he told himself he had no right to be furious. He’d spent more than a week pulling the wool over her eyes.
But what was a mere week, compared to the three long years he could have been Amanda’s father? By the time he’d recaptured Christopher, Cyn had vanished with the car. Then he’d had to wait for the warrant to search the Christopher place, in order to get a ride back to the city in a cop cruiser. He’d grilled Lewis and Christopher, of course. Still, by the time he’d reached Cyn’s apartment, Cyn, Amanda and the rent-a-cop were gone.
It wasn’t until midnight that he’d found Analise, with Amanda and the cop at the Plaza Hotel. Not that he’d gone there. Cyn had gone elsewhere, but Analise hadn’t known where. As long as Amanda was with the rent-a-cop, she’d be fine. Besides, he meant to give Cyn time—not much more, but some—so she could mull over their unusual situation. And boy, he thought wryly, was it unusual. Maybe they were even now.
I should have chased Cyn, not Christopher. “No,” he muttered. “I had to do my job.” And he’d wanted the Sweets’ belongings returned, so that the past was laid to rest and he could get on with his life—as Amanda’s father.
He just wished Cyn’s place didn’t feel so empty without her and Amanda. He couldn’t help but miss their early morning sounds: the whoosh of the water jets in Cyn’s shower, the patter of Cyn’s bare feet on the kitchen tiles, and the cartoons blaring when Amanda turned on the TV.
The cheery holiday decorations made their absence more intense, too. Every red and green knickknack reminded him of it. The apartment felt as empty as the hotel in Washington where he’d spent the previous Christmas. And the one in Singapore, the Christmas before that. And the one in North Dakota...
I’ve been traveling a long time. That’s what he’d said the night he’d arrived. Now he found himself waiting for Cyn to walk right through that door, without anger or malice, and accept him back into her life...their lives. Not that she would. But he’d been traveling too long. And Anton Santa wanted to come home.
Another hour passed, during which Santa decided he was tired of waiting. He’d waited in countless hotel lobbies, on platforms and stages, beside closed doors during corporate meetings, and in parked cars outside the gates of mansions. He’d waited in crowded airports from Amsterdam to New York to San Francisco. All over the world, he’d waited.
Now, never moving, watching Cyn’s door, Santa decided that he’d never been waiting for the people he’d been hired to protect. Never for a high-ranking Swedish official, or a low-level French dignitary, or to take a bullet. No, all that time, in all those places, he’d really been waiting for Cyn Sweet. And what he’d been waiting for was her love.
Just as he realized that, the key turned in the lock.
* * *
REMEMBER THAT HE’S AS slippery as an eel. He’ll try to persuade and cajole, but don’t listen, and stay as calm and cool as he is, Cyn thought. She’d left Analise and Amanda with the rent-a-cop, then she’d gotten her own room at The Carlyle. She’d wanted to be alone, and she’d wanted to think.
Now she felt as if she were about to confront the devil himself. Her hands were shaking so badly that she could barely manage the electronic keypad. “No doubt he was trying to keep me out of my own apartment,” she muttered just as her keys rattled against the door. One by one, the dead bolts clanked, turning over. She took a last, deep breath, then flung open the door.
He was there all right, just as she’d known he would be. She stormed inside, slammed the door behind herself and leaned against it. He was seated on her sofa, in a soft-looking cream wool suit, as casually as you please. She realized, with a quick shock, that even under the circumstances she couldn’t help but react to the way he looked. How can I be attracted to someone so horrible? What’s wrong with me?
For long moments she merely stared at him. How could it be that this man was also Jake Jackson? They looked nothing alike. Their voices were different. And yet his kisses had told her the truth. Oh, how they’d told the truth, if she had only listened. All night she’d wondered why Jake Jackson would carry handcuffs and seemingly arrest John Christopher. Now she didn’t care how Jake had come to be here. She just wanted him away from her daughter.
“About time you showed up,” he finally said. “Where’s Amanda?”
His voice, which was every bit as soft as it was gruff, more than hinted at the South now. It had become pure Mississippi Delta. His more clipped, nearly Northern, accent had been nothing but a calculated ruse. Her lower lip began to tremble.
“Where is she?” he repeated. The words rose and fell in an almost lilting cadence.
She shook her head. She was looking at Anton Santa but hearing Jake Jackson’s voice. “In a safe place,” she finally returned. Everything in her voice indicated that Amanda wasn’t safe with him. Stay cool, Cyn.
He crossed his long legs. The perfectly tailored lines of his elegant suit made him look somehow draped across her sofa. His hands remained calmly folded in his lap. He could have been on an ad page in GQ. “With a kidnapper running around,” he said, “I’m not sure The Plaza’s so safe.”
Her lips parted in astonishment. Clearly he meant to evade the issue of his presence in her life. “You got your kidnappers,” she snapped. She reached for the doorknob just to steady herself. “And if you knew where we were, why did you ask?”
He lifted one of his shoulders in a graceful shrug. “Lewis and Christopher aren’t involved.” His voice was unnervingly gentle. “As for The Plaza—” His lips stretched into what might have been a smile but wasn’t. “I wanted to see if you’d tell the truth.”
I wouldn’t tell the truth! She pushed herself off the door, then fought the impulse to fly across the room and punch him. She had to keep her distance. Even now there was a chance she’d wind up in his arms. The only comfort was that he didn’t know she’d stayed at The Carlyle. That meant she could escape his clutches if she wanted to. “Whether I’d tell the truth,” she finally repeated, assuring herself it was anger, not desire, that made her voice turn raspy.
He nodded. “In four years—” he began tersely. She watched him clench his jaw, then swallow. When he spoke again, his tone was as even as her hemlines, and as silky as the fabric of her dresses. “In four years,” he continued, “you never bothered to mention that Amanda was my daughter.”
She tossed her hair over her shoulder with a quick jerk of her head. “Sorry—” She wasn’t about to let him think she was shocked to find he had another identity, or that she wondered why he was now carrying handcuffs. “But Riker’s Island isn’t exactly one of my haunts.”
He rose so lithely from the sofa that she gulped audibly. Fortunately he didn’t head for her but strolled idly to the window, making her wonder how she’d ever thought him ordinary. He lounged against the bars he’d installed, his whole body looking dangerously lean and sensuously languid. He carried his weight in his hips, no
t his shoulders, and now they swayed outward, barely perceptibly. He looked as restless and calmly predatory as a caged cat.
“So...Santa, Jake, Anton...where all have you been?” she asked with mock politeness. “Or should I say, ‘where have you all been?’”
“You mean, where did I go after I took the bullet that could have killed you?”
It was the last thing she expected. Her wry chuckle filled the room. “You seduce me, rob my family, then try to tell me you saved my life!” It was so ludicrous that she relaxed against the door, crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him, openmouthed. “I can’t wait to hear this one.”
“Good,” he said levelly, without bothering to look at her. “Because you’re about to.”
“Well, get on with it,” she quickly returned. “Because your time’s running out.”
Now he did glance her way. His muscular shoulder rolled against the bars and he barely turned his head. His profile nearly took away her breath. The nose was straight, the jaw firm, the forehead high below his slicked-back hair. When his eyes, which looked nearly black today, shifted from her face to the stocking-hung mantel, they looked mysteriously deep. How could a liar and a thief manage to look so arrogant?
“I used to be a cop,” he began slowly. “Undercover.”
He looked directly into her eyes, but she was too shocked to respond. During the night, the possibility had occurred to her, of course, but she’d rejected it. The man was too dishonest. If he’d been an undercover cop, he would have called her during the trial, to explain. He turned back to the window.
“I was pulled out of the academy before I’d even graduated. They set me up in an apartment in the Village.” A faint smile touched his lips. “But then, I guess you remember that.”
Her mouth went dry, as she thought of the apartment where she’d made love to Jake...to Anton. He sounded totally serious. Could he be telling the truth? No way. Watching him lounge against the window bars, it was easy enough to imagine him in a cell. The detective in charge said her testimony had put him away, too. After Jake left the hospital, he’d gone straight to jail. Don’t listen to him!