“Over there,” Josh shouted from the backseat. “Mom, see that lady with all the bags? She’s gonna leave. You can get there.”
Amy spotted the woman two aisles over. “Sweetie, there are already half a dozen cars waiting for that space. Don’t worry. We’ll find one. It’s always like this on Christmas Eve. We just have to be patient.”
“What if Santa’s not even here?” Josh asked worriedly. “I mean, he’s in Michigan, right? How can he be in two places at once?”
“He’s here. I called.”
“Maybe he gets off early on Christmas Eve, you know, so he can start flying all over the world. We usually go first thing in the morning back home, then Dad and me shop to buy your presents.”
Amy bit back a grin at her pint-size worrier. That, at least, was a trait he’d gotten from her. It probably wasn’t the best one she could have shared. “I checked on that, too,” she told him. “Santa will be here till the mall closes at six.”
“What time is it now?”
“Two-thirty. We have lots of time.”
“Not if we don’t find a parking place soon,” Josh warned grimly.
Amy was forced to admit, she was beginning to have her doubts about that ever happening, too. People were nuts. Two cars were currently in a standoff over a space in the next aisle, both so determined to grab it that the poor driver trying to get out couldn’t even move.
“People in Michigan were nicer,” Josh declared from the back.
“No, they weren’t. These people are nice, too. Everyone gets a little stressed out on Christmas Eve.” A fat drop of rain splatted on the windshield and her mood deteriorated even further. She envisioned whatever bug she’d had this morning turning into pneumonia.
“I’ll bet Santa won’t come see them,” Josh predicted direly. “Not when they say bad words and stuff. Look at that guy over there. He said something bad and he did that thing with his finger that you told me never, ever to do.”
Amy regretted that her five-year-old had ever seen that gesture, but unfortunately it had been one of his father’s routine actions behind the wheel. She’d been forced to discuss its inappropriateness on numerous occasions.
“I think that’s enough play-by-play commentary on the parking lot,” she told Josh just as a space right in front of her opened up. The driver even backed up in a way that guaranteed Amy would be the one to get it, then waved cheerfully as she drove off.
“See, she was nice,” she told her cynical son. “Now let’s get your sister into her stroller and go see Santa before it really starts raining.”
Unloading the stroller, then getting Emma settled into it took time. Emma liked being carried. She hated the stroller…or thought she did. She kicked and screamed until Amy thought her head would split. Once she was in, though, and they were moving, Emma beamed up at Amy with the sort of angelic smile that made Amy wonder if she’d imagined all those heart-wrenching sobs only moments before. That was the joy of Emma. She could switch moods in a heartbeat.
As they reached the mall entrance, Amy gazed directly into Josh’s eyes. “No running off, okay?” she said sternly. “You don’t know this mall, so you have to stay with me and hold on to my hand.”
“Mom!” he protested. “I’m not a baby.”
“It’s either that or we go right back home,” she said in her most authoritative, no-nonsense tone. “I don’t want you getting lost on Christmas Eve.”
He rolled his eyes, but he took her hand. As soon as they were inside, he began to hurry her along past the shoe stores, lingerie shop, dress boutiques, cell phone kiosks and jewelry stores. Amy thought it was ironic that with all the big-name chain stores in the mall, it seemed every bit as familiar as anyplace they’d shopped back home. Maybe that’s why Josh thought he knew where he was going.
When she was tempted to linger in front of a toy store, Josh barely spared a glance at the games in the window, then tugged her back into motion.
“Mom, come on,” he urged. “Santa’s gotta be right up here. See all those people? He’s there. I know it! Hurry.”
“Sweetie, he’s not going anywhere. Slow down.”
“We gotta get in line, Mom,” he countered. “I’ll bet it’s really, really long.”
Before Amy could argue with that, with some sort of child’s radar, Josh spotted Santa.
“There he is,” he shouted. “See, Mom. He’s right there in the middle of all those Christmas trees! It’s like a whole Santa’s workshop around him.” His eyes lit up. “Wow! That is totally awesome! It’s better than anything I ever saw in Michigan! Did you bring the camera? We gotta send pictures to Dad.”
His excitement was contagious. Even Emma seemed captivated by the glittering sea of lights ahead.
“I gotta see,” Josh declared.
And with that he let go of Amy’s hand and bolted into the frenzied crowd that was swirling all around between Amy and Santa.
It took less than a second for him to disappear in the crush of people. Excitement and anticipation died. Panic clawed its way up the back of Amy’s throat. Instinctively, she gathered Emma out of her stroller and clung to her as she shouted over and over for Josh, pushing her way through the crowd, the stroller abandoned.
Most people were oblivious to her cries, but finally a young woman stopped, alarm on her face.
“What’s happened?” she asked, placing a comforting hand on Amy’s arm. “Can I help?”
Amy was shaking so hard, she couldn’t seem to form a coherent sentence.
“It’s okay,” the young woman soothed. “Take a deep breath and tell me. I’m Trish DiCaprio.” She gestured toward her name tag. “I work for the mall. What can I do to help?”
“My son,” Amy whispered. “He spotted Santa and took off and now I can’t find him. There are so many people and we don’t know anyone here and he’s never been in this mall before.” She was babbling now, but she couldn’t seem to stop.
“When did you lose track of him?”
“A minute ago at the most.”
“Then he can’t have gone far. It’s going to be okay,” Trish reassured her. “My brother is playing Santa. In real life he’s a cop. He’ll know exactly what to do. I’ll talk to him and we’ll find your son in no time. Will you be okay right here for a minute till I can get to him?”
Amy nodded. She was clinging so tightly to Emma that the baby began to whimper. Someone appeared at her side just then with the stroller. Dazed, Amy stared at it, wondering where on earth she’d left it.
“I saw your boy take off and then you ran after him and left this behind,” the woman said, her voice gentle. Her blue eyes were filled with concern. “Are you okay? Shall I stay with you till that young woman comes back?”
Tears stung Amy’s eyes at the kindness in the woman’s expression. “Thank you for rescuing the stroller. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You were just trying to catch up with your boy. What’s his name?”
“Josh.”
“Oh, my,” the woman said with a smile. “I have a Josh, too. Of course, he’s all grown-up now.” She gave a rueful shake of her head. “My kids used to pull this kind of stunt on me all the time when they were small. Trust me, they all turned up. Now they have children of their own putting them through the same thing. What do they call that? Karma, isn’t it?” She patted Amy’s shoulder. “Don’t you worry. Your boy will be back any minute. He’ll probably find you before they can even get a search going.”
She spoke with such conviction that Amy felt her panic slowly ease. “You’re very kind. I really appreciate it. If you need to get your shopping finished, I’ll be okay now.”
“I have time,” she said. “I’m Maylene Kinney, by the way. I’ll just wait with you till that nice young woman comes back with help. I heard you say that you’re new to Char
lotte. Is that right?”
Amy nodded.
“What’s your name?”
“Amy. Amy Riley.”
“Well, welcome, Amy. I know this isn’t the way to get off to a good start in a new place, but you will laugh about it someday, I promise you that.” She smiled. “Maybe not till that boy of yours is grown and his son is doing something just as bad, but you will laugh.”
Maylene’s soft, Southern voice and friendly chitchat kept the panic at bay, at least for now, but Amy couldn’t seem to stop searching the crowd for some sign of Josh. She ought to be looking for him, not just standing around waiting. She was always so careful to make sure he stayed in sight, to hold tight to his hand in unfamiliar surroundings. Now he could be anywhere, with anyone. This was her worst nightmare come true.
Her imagination immediately went into overdrive, envisioning every dire fate she’d ever read about. This time when the tears started, she couldn’t seem to stop. Apparently sensing her mother’s despair, Emma began to howl, too. Maylene put an arm around Amy’s shoulder and murmured reassurances.
“I can’t do this,” Amy said finally. “I shouldn’t be standing around crying. I have to do something constructive. I should be looking for Josh.”
“You will,” Maylene said. “Help will be here any second. They’ll know exactly what to do. If you go running around every which way and getting lost yourself, what good will that do?”
Amy knew she was right. She drew in a deep breath and accepted the wad of tissues Maylene handed her. “You’re right. I have to be smart about this.”
But she’d never felt so helpless in her life.
* * *
If Nick had to utter one more ho-ho-ho, he was going to scream. It had been 9:00 a.m. by the time he was decked out in this ridiculous red suit with all the fat man pillows stuffed into it. The stupid beard itched like crazy and the too-big hat kept sliding down over his eyes. If he was fooling one single person in this mall into thinking he was Santa Claus, he’d eat the oversize hat. Even the littlest kids were eyeing him with skepticism.
Even so, the line waiting to see him was endless. It had been nonstop since he’d settled onto Santa’s red velvet throne, which he intended to tell his sister was uncomfortable as hell. No wonder Santa hadn’t reported for duty.
He’d managed to eat two cookies and sneak a sip of a soda for lunch before Trish had snatched them out of his hands to have his picture taken with a dad and three teenage boys. He was so hungry he was about to snatch a candy cane out of the pile being handed out to the kids. And he was just about blind from the flashbulbs going off in his eyes. Every parent clearly wanted to record the scene.
At least the job didn’t require much acting on his part. Aside from trying to inject an unaccustomed note of cheer into his voice, his dialogue was pretty much limited to the ho-ho-ho’s and asking what the tiny monsters wanted Santa to bring them. He’d done okay with that, he thought. None of them had run off screaming that he was an impostor. Not yet, anyway.
“You go on being a good girl,” he told the shy imp sitting rigidly on his knee. “If you do everything your mommy and daddy tell you to do, Santa will bring you that doll you’ve been asking for.”
Her sky-blue eyes went wide. “Really?” she asked with such amazement that Nick wondered if he’d made a serious blunder. Never promise anything, Trish had warned him. Why hadn’t he listened? He cast an anxious glance toward her mother, who gave him a surreptitious wink. He sighed with relief. Thank goodness he hadn’t set the kid up for disappointment.
Just then his sister, who’d been suspiciously absent since she’d parked him here in Santa’s workshop, except for the photo-op with some contest winners, appeared at his side. He immediately noted the complete lack of Christmas cheer in her expression. She looked pale and even more harried than she had earlier.
“Something up?” he asked.
She leaned down and whispered, “We have a problem, Nicky. I’ve got a panicky mom back there who can’t find her little boy.”
Nick’s gut began to churn. “Call security and the cops.”
“I’ve already called security,” Trish told him. “But I’m worried she’s going to pass out or something. She just needs some reassurance that everything possible is being done. Can’t you help? It would make me feel a lot better if you would. You’re trained to deal with situations like this. And I’d rather not call the police in unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I’d just rather not, okay?”
He gave her a hard look. “Are you worried about how this would play out on TV or something?”
She frowned at his scathing tone. “Don’t look at me like that, Nicky. It’s part of my job to worry about things like that.”
A missing child scenario barely a month in the past played itself out in Nick’s mind. That one hadn’t come to a good end. He didn’t want to be in the middle of another one with a tragic outcome. And, goodness knows, he knew how stories like that played in the media. He’d seen his face on the front page of the papers and on the six o’clock news too damn many times.
“Then let security deal with it. Let them be heroes,” he repeated firmly, not even trying to hide his reluctance to be involved in any capacity. Trish had to know what she was asking of him was too much. He didn’t give a hoot how many favors he owed her.
“But I already told her you’re a policeman,” Trish pressed. “I know you’re not on duty right now, but she’s so scared, Nicky. Put yourself in her place. It’s Christmas Eve and her little boy is lost. They just moved here, so she’s all alone. It’s no wonder she’s freaking out. Please, you have to do something. Go into your professional mode. Ask the right questions, organize the search. That will calm her down until security can find her son. I’m sure it won’t take that long.”
Nick wasn’t nearly as optimistic as his sister. In a crowd like this, with everyone focused on last-minute shopping, how many people would even notice a little boy on his own? His stomach continued to churn. He poked a hand in his pocket in search of the antacids he usually had with him. Unfortunately, he hadn’t transferred them to Santa’s costume.
“What about the line?” he asked, preferring even another hundred kids to one desperate mom whose child had gone missing in this mob scene.
“I’ll tell them Santa has to take a break,” Trish said at once. “It happens. They won’t freak out or anything.”
She regarded him with that same imploring look that had lured him into doing whatever she wanted when they were kids. It might work a hundred percent of the time on Stephen, but Nick was pretty much a sucker for that look, too.
Even in the face of his continued silence, Trish didn’t let up.
“Security will be here any minute, but I need a real cop in charge, Nicky. You said it yourself. Please,” Trish begged.
He compared his own credentials with those of the average mall security staffer and resigned himself to the inevitable. Even if it weren’t his sister’s neck on the line, he only had one choice. He’d been brought up to help anyone in need. His police training had ingrained the concept. Just because he was a burned-out mess, that hadn’t changed.
“You get me out of here without all hell breaking loose and I’ll calm this woman down and help her look for her kid.” He gave Trish a fierce look. “If we don’t have any luck in the next half hour, I want every cop in Charlotte combing this place, okay? I don’t care what kind of PR nightmare it creates.”
Trish threw her arms around him and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Nicky. I’ll make the announcement about your break right now, then I’ll take you to her.”
Nick figured his good deeds for the day ought to be racking up big points by now. Maybe his debt to Trish was paid. Maybe with any luck, as soon as he’d located the boy, he could scamper right
on out the back door of the mall without one more ho-ho-ho.
Just as that cheerful prospect occurred to him, he caught a glimpse of the restless parents and disappointed kids as they were greeted with the news that Santa was taking a break and knew that plan was out the window.
He might be the lousiest Santa in the history of Christmas, but he was all these kids had. Heaven help them.
CHAPTER 3
While she was waiting for that woman—Trish something-or-other—Amy called for Josh until she was nearly hoarse, even though Maylene Kinney told her she was only hurting her vocal cords.
“Kids only hear what they want to hear,” Maylene admonished. “You save your voice so you can tell him how much you love him the second he turns up.”
“Right now I just want to kill him,” Amy said, though she knew the older woman was right. No matter how terrified and furious she was, she could hardly wait to hold Josh in her arms again.
How could she have lost him so quickly? She’d known precisely where he was headed—to see Santa. He had to be somewhere in this mob scene of frantic shoppers and impatient children right around Santa’s village, but there’d been no sign of him for what seemed like an eternity.
Finally the harried-looking young woman who’d spoken to her a few minutes earlier returned with Santa in tow. He was tall, at least six feet, and well rounded, thanks to plenty of fake padding. She couldn’t guess his age, because of the fake white hair and beard, but if he and Trish were brother and sister, then surely he wasn’t that old, late twenties or early thirties, maybe. Right around her age. Maybe he even had children of his own and would be able to empathize with her distress.
“Ma’am, this is my brother,” Trish told Amy. “Don’t be put off by the costume. He’s really a terrific detective. He’ll help you find your son. You’ll be back together in no time.”
Amy gazed into Santa’s dark blue eyes behind their fake, round little glasses and felt an odd zing that was totally inappropriate under the circumstances. She had the oddest desire to fling her arms around this man who was offering to help her find Josh and hold on for dear life. After all, Santa Claus represented all that was good and hopeful in the world. Add to that the fact that this Santa was an experienced detective and he was everything she needed in this particular crisis.
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