Lone Star Santa

by Heather MacAllister

  Everyone knew what he meant.

  He leaned against the coffee bar and actually sipped the nasty stuff out of a thick white mug. Kristen shuddered. “You know, this reminds me of the plot of PALE SHADOWS with Lorna Morelle, Henry Cameron and Rudy Ives.”

  “That was a good one,” Barbara said.

  Carl continued, “A secretary is framed by her boss. When she gets out of jail, she frames him, not to the police, but to her boss’s mob friends.”

  “And they took care of him. Oh, I like that.” Kristen grabbed Mitch’s arm. “What do you think?”

  “Sounds promising, except for the jail part,” he said.

  “Oh, you’re not going to jail.”

  Silence in the room.

  Kristen glared at everyone. “Well, he’s not! Because I like the idea of figuring out who the bad guys are and making them nervous. I mean, we’ve got all kinds of information. And Mom, you can find out stuff on the real estate end—”

  Kristen’s mother suddenly stopped pacing. “Kristen Louise Zaleski, is that a belly ring?”

  Everyone looked at Kristen’s stomach. “Yes.”

  Typical. They were talking about crime, and framing, and the mob, and keeping Mitch out of jail, and yet her stomach was now center stage.

  “I think her belly ring is sexy,” Mitch said.

  Kristen appreciated his support, but maybe not quite in that way, given that all four of their parents were present and now evaluating the sexiness of her stomach jewelry.

  “I suppose it is,” Patsy said.

  Robert curled his fingers around her hand and leaned toward her. “Why don’t you get one?”

  They exchanged a look that made Mitch’s eyes widen.

  Kristen smothered a laugh until she looked up to see that her mother—her own mother—had pulled her top out of the waistband of her pants to check out her navel and look questioningly at Kristen’s father.

  “So,” Mitch turned to Kristen with a let’s-escape look in his eyes. “I actually have some light installations scheduled for today.”

  “Without sleep? Since we haven’t had any sleep. Because we were here all night. Working,” she added for the parents’ benefit. But were they listening? No, they were navel gazing.

  “I’ll be okay. Let me take you home. Hey, you guys didn’t wreck my Santa truck, did you?” he asked his parents.

  “Santa lives to ho-ho-ho another day,” Robert said.

  “Mitch.” Kristen’s mother stopped them. “The Sloanes are not going to get away with this. We’ll figure something out.”

  “Thanks,” he replied. “I appreciate you—all of you—believing my side of the story. I’m not sure I believe it myself.”

  Kristen’s father took his leather jacket from where it hung on the back of the desk chair and draped it around her shoulders. “Mitch, just remember that it’s easy to lie to an honest man.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  That was nice of her dad to say that. Kristen stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek before she and Mitch left.

  “Do you really have to install lights today?” she asked once they were in the car.

  Mitch nodded. “Monday I have to start on the Town Square Santa display.”

  “But Mitch, don’t you think you should concentrate on getting out of the mess you’re in?”

  “I can think while I work.” He glanced at her. “I took the job. It’s not fair to Sparky to quit right before Christmas.”

  Kristen could see arguing with him was pointless. “Then maybe I can help you.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You sound like you don’t think I can string lights or paint or hammer.”

  “It’s not that.” He glanced at her. “But you’re spending all your time on my problems. What about you?”

  This sounded suspiciously like the beginning of a blow-off speech. He wouldn’t dare. “What about me?”

  “What’s your plan? What about your acting? What about your life?”

  “My plan is to hang around you because your life is a whole lot more exciting than mine is at the moment.”

  “Wanna trade?”

  Kristen was silent. All those years of busting her butt and everything she owned fit into her luggage, not including the high school leftovers boxed in the attic. And that would be the attic of her parents’ home because Kristen didn’t have one of her own. But she was rich in experience. Unfortunately she couldn’t seem to convert it into a liquid asset.

  “You’re actually thinking about it!” Mitch turned into Kristen’s subdivision.

  “Not seriously.” Except she had been.

  “Good. Because there is nothing glamorous or exciting or fun about being double crossed by your best friend, or having your reputation shot to hell, or knowing that the business you poured your life into has been hijacked by criminals.”

  “No.” Kristen swallowed. “No, there isn’t.” She had nothing, but Mitch had less than nothing.

  Actually, that wasn’t quite right. He had her.

  “Sorry. I’m a little punchy,” he said.

  “You’re entitled.”

  A few minutes later, they arrived at Kristen’s house and Mitch walked her to the door.

  Her feet hurt and she wanted a hot bath. “I feel guilty sleeping when I know you can’t.”

  He drew a deep breath. “I couldn’t sleep anyway. Too much to think about.”

  Kristen bumped up against him. “Spend some of that time thinking about me.”

  He bumped her back. “I already have been. I’ve been thinking that we wouldn’t have connected if everything had gone as planned in our lives.”

  “So in a weird way, you’re grateful to Jeremy.”

  He gave a short laugh and threw his arm around her shoulders. “No.”

  She smiled up at him. “I could say I’m insulted, except I wouldn’t have bought the ‘grateful to Jeremy’ line, either.”

  “That’s not to say I won’t take advantage of the situation.”

  That sounded promising.

  They climbed the step to the entryway and Mitch took her hands in his. “Kristen, there is no way I can repay you for what you’ve done.”

  “There might be a way,” she murmured.

  “Seriously, I owe you big time.”

  Better and better. She swayed toward him.

  He squeezed her hands and let them fall. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  He leaned down and gave her a quick, dry, unsatisfactory peck on the cheek.

  And then he left.

  Left.

  Left her standing at the front door.

  Was it her breath?

  Like his would be any better.

  Grumbling to herself about clueless men, she unlocked the front door. She was hanging up her dad’s jacket in the front closet when there was a knock on the door. “Kristen?”

  Mitch.

  When she opened the door, he stood there, looking chagrined. “I…forgot.”

  “Wha—”

  That was as far as she got because Mitch stepped forward, cupped her face and kissed her.

  Deeply.

  Passionately.

  Thrillingly.

  Or maybe it just seemed that way due to her lack of sleep. In any case, it left her dazzled. Or maybe that was dizziness, again, because of the lack of sleep. But who cared? Certainly not Kristen.

  “Good night,” he murmured, still holding her face. He gazed into her eyes as he drew his fingers along her jaw and away.

  “It’s morning,” she sighed.

  “So it is.” And he kissed her again. Deeply, passionately and thrillingly. “Good morning.”

  “Yes.” A dazzled Kristen gripped the doorjamb because of the dizziness. “It is.”

  Chapter Nine

  There was something to be said for mindless jobs, not that anything having to do with electricity and power tools should be mindless. But while one part of Mitch’s brain was occupied with stringing light
s, the other part, the part that was very good with numbers, was analyzing everything Kristen had showed him and matching it with information stored in his mental files.

  His records might have been impounded, but the FBI couldn’t take his memory.

  And then there was Kristen, who astonishingly, wasn’t turned off by a guy who’d demonstrated incredibly bad judgment in picking his friends and was currently, and Mitch hoped temporarily, broke.

  Maybe she had a thing for hopeless cases. Maybe he shouldn’t overthink this and enjoy the ride while it lasted.

  He hoped the ride lasted a long time.

  At four o’clock that afternoon, he was finally able to head home to sleep. He called her from his car, partly to keep himself awake and partly to treat himself to her voice.

  “Hi. It’s your local laundry man. Got anything you need washed?”

  “Don’t even joke about that,” Kristen scolded. “How are you doing?”

  “When I close my eyes, I see flashing lights. But I see them when my eyes are open, too.”

  “You’re a nut. Have you had any sleep yet? I slept till noon.”

  “On my way home now.” Mitch smothered a yawn. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m at my mom’s office going through the files here with her.”

  He didn’t want to ask, but couldn’t stop himself. “Did you find anything else?”

  “Oh, yeah. Making certain people nervous is going to be a piece of cake.”

  Mitch didn’t ask how it was going to be a piece of cake. He just absorbed the confidence in Kristen’s voice, went home, and slept for fourteen hours.

  MITCH WAS A BIG BELIEVER in allowing the subconscious mind to work on a problem during sleep. And since it had been mulling over all things Jeremy yesterday, he fully expected to awaken with a plan of action.

  Instead, he awoke with Kristen, or rather with thoughts of Kristen. Strong, vivid thoughts. Thoughts of her in her cheerleader-gone-bad outfit. Thoughts of red lips and tight skirts. Thoughts of being surrounded by her hair with her mouth moving over his.

  Thoughts of trying to be noble by distancing himself and only lasting halfway down her front walk before coming back to kiss her. Twice. Twice with pretty much everything he had.

  Those thoughts.

  And his subconscious helpfully analyzed the scene with all four parents and noticed how easily everyone got along even under the circumstances. And how great it felt. And how natural.

  His subconscious needed to slow down.

  Mitch should get busy. He wanted—needed—to find out when Jeremy had gone bad. Or if he had always been bad. If Mitch was ever going to trust his personal judgment again, he needed to know when it had failed him this time.

  He sat at his father’s computer and raked his hair back from his face. This early on a Sunday morning it was unlikely that anyone would be working overtime at the office, which was good.

  Mitch carefully considered his next move. He hadn’t attempted to log into any of his accounts or files mostly because he thought it would look bad. Although Jeremy was no computer genius, there would be a record of activity on the network should anyone be monitoring. Somebody probably was.

  But that worked both ways and Mitch knew a few tricks.

  He set up a remote identity, logged in using Jeremy’s password—the guy had used the same one since college—and had the Sloane and Donner network server dump a copy of all activity from the beginning of November. That was going to take awhile, so he showered and fixed himself a spectacular omelet, if he did say so himself.

  Others might say it looked more like stuck-together scrambled eggs with bits of stuff poking through, but it tasted the same.

  After he’d washed the dishes, he made a fresh pot of coffee for his parents and went to check on the file transfer.

  He passed his parents on the stairs. “We’re on our way to church,” his mother announced and she didn’t look happy about it.

  “You ought to come with us,” his dad said. “You need the brownie points.”

  “I know.” He needed more than brownie points. “But I’m poking around in our company files while nobody is in the office and I want to keep going. I made coffee.”

  His father’s face lit up. “Real coffee with everything the good Lord intended it to have?”

  “Well, yeah. What’s the point of decaf?”

  “Exactly what I tell your mother.”

  “Stop complaining, Robert,” Patsy said from the bottom of the stairs. “I was going to make regular today, anyway. I want all my wits about me when I have to face the Sloanes in church and pretend I don’t know they’re ruining my son’s life.” She stalked into the kitchen.

  “Peace on earth, good will toward men,” Mitch’s dad muttered as he followed her.

  When Mitch checked the computer, he found it had finished, so he requested activity files from the previous December through March, which was when Kristen said Anderson Personnel had asked for a credit report.

  Mitch suspected it was around that time that Jeremy had Golden Boy “buy” Anderson, thus linking Mitch to the chain of companies and providing a marker to attract the FBI’s attention exactly the same way it had attracted Kristen’s.

  He’d also remembered something else. Five years ago, he and Jeremy had moved GBE from the original offshore account to another bank in another country to practice that type of transferring. He remembered signing the papers. Maybe Jeremy hadn’t signed. Maybe that’s when he’d taken his name off the account. Mitch wouldn’t have known unless he’d deliberately checked since they each had their own access codes.

  There’d been a jump in their business around then, too, which was when Mitch had stopped clubbing with Jeremy. They’d drifted into their roles of Mitch as manager of accounts and Jeremy as the one who got the accounts.

  It had been crazy busy. They’d moved into a larger space, they’d hired their first full-time employees, and Jeremy was bringing in business faster than Mitch could handle it.

  Mitch added a request for the activity logs of five years ago to the queue.

  “Bye, Mitch,” his mother called from downstairs.

  “If we’re not back by twelve-thirty, check the news,” added his dad.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll control myself.”

  “Patsy, I’m not worried about you,” Mitch heard as the door closed.

  He smiled. His parents had been great. Horrified, but great. He didn’t envy them facing the Sloanes, but knew it was best to act normally, which meant church on Sunday morning.

  Mitch froze. Church on Sunday morning. The Sloanes would be at church.

  He called Kristen, hoping she hadn’t headed for church, yet, herself.

  She answered with, “I was just going to call you. The Sloanes—”

  “Are at church right now. I know. I’m going over there.”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know yet. Want to come?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll pick you up.”

  “In the Santa truck?”

  Mitch had given up the rental car weeks ago. “Yes, in the Santa truck. We installed their lights. If anyone bothers to ask, we’re doing maintenance. Wear jeans.”

  Mitch raced over there. Kristen was waiting by the curb. He almost didn’t recognize her.

  She wore jeans and sneakers and her hair was pulled into a ponytail. If she was wearing any makeup, he couldn’t tell.

  She yanked open the door and hopped in. “You can put these on.” Mitch handed her his extra hoodie and a matching baseball cap.

  “Cool.” She took off her denim jacket and pulled on the red sweatshirt. Then she stuck her ponytail through the back of the cap and fastened the seatbelt. “How do I look?”

  “Like you’re about twelve.”

  “Kinky.”

  Mitch squealed away from the curb. “We did kinky Friday night. You look very girl-next-door.”

  “Oh, good. I was going for fresh-scrubbed high school girl.�
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  “You didn’t look like that in high school.”

  “Of course not. I was popular. Anyway, I’m not pretending to be me.” She eyed him. “You should wear a cap, too.”

  “I don’t do caps.”

  “You don’t want to be recognized.”

  “Trust me. No one is going to pay any attention to us in that neighborhood.”

  “What if Mr. and Mrs. Sloane decided to skip church today?”

  She had a point. “There’s another cap in the glove compartment.”

  Kristen dug it out and wrinkled her nose.

  “I gave you the clean one,” Mitch said.

  “I appreciate it.” She ruffled his hair.

  “Hey, watch it. I’m driving. What are you doing?”

  “Experimenting. Hold still.”

  Basically, she messed his hair up and set the cap way back on his head. “There. Your eyes look bigger.”

  He glanced at his reflection in the rearview. “Caps are not worn this way. I look like a dork.” He resettled it on his forehead, but now hair stuck out in front of his eyes. “Kristen.”

  “Okay.” She fingercombed his hair back and carefully positioned the cap on his head.

  Mitch pulled the bill down. “Covers more of my face this way.”

  “I give up.” But she sounded only mildly annoyed. “So. What are we looking for?”

  “I have no idea. I just thought I’d take the opportunity to look around. We’ve only got about forty-five minutes.”

  “Have you been to their house before?”

  Mitch shook his head. “Have you?”

  “No. I would have thought you might have visited Jeremy there.”

  “Jeremy and I didn’t really know each other until college and his folks only moved into that place about five years ago.”

  “No doubt when the construction company really started to take off,” Kristen said dryly.

  “No doubt.” The time period beginning five years ago was cropping up more and more. Five years. Five.