by Jill Shalvis
Who didn’t answer.
Chapter 23
#SubordinateClause
Molly stood in the back of what had formerly been bingo central, staring in shock at the room. The tarps supposedly covering the renovations were down.
It hadn’t been renovations going on behind them at all. Instead, the area had been transposed into a gaming area and now looked like a casino, complete with high top tables featuring various ongoing card games.
Serious card games by the look of the players and the people in charge of each table.
There was garland and twinkling strings of lights and mistletoe hanging from the rafters and several decorated trees along the walls. Christmas music was blaring out of hidden speakers. There were several elves circling the room with trays of drinks. The place positively hummed with the sound of voices, laughter, and glasses clinking together.
No one even glanced at Molly.
She searched for a glimpse of Janet or Santa. Or Santa’s brother.
Nothing.
From her bra, her phone vibrated an incoming call. She pulled it out and glanced at the screen.
A number she didn’t recognize. Ha. Nice try, unknown number, but she didn’t even answer to people she knew. So she hit ignore and walked through the room. People were gambling in a very big way tonight. Pulling out her phone again, she texted Lucas.
Bingo hall transformed into an underground and very illegal gambling site. Maybe we really do need backup.
Feeling very proud of herself, and like quite the professional, she slid away her phone just as someone came up behind her. Shirley. “You’re not going to make any tips just standing there like that,” the elf said. “Get moving. Go to the bar, get your tray, and start serving.” She gestured with a jerk of her head to the bar off to the side of the large room. “You want the boss to notice you’re not doing your job? Trust me, the answer to that is no.”
“Understood.” Molly started walking toward the bar, sneaking another quick text to Lucas.
Where are you?
At the bar, she nodded to the bartender. He was in an elf costume and looking pissy about it. “Hey,” she said. “How’s it going?”
“How’s it going? My nuts are caught in these stupid short shorts like a vice and the material’s so snug it’s going to give me hemorrhoids. Worse, it makes me look all . . . lumpy, so there goes any chance of getting laid tonight. Here,” he said, thankfully not requiring a response as he shoved a tray at her. “Right now we’re serving free eggnog, heavily spiked. If they want beer or wine, that’s five bucks a glass. A cocktail is eight. Cash only. The boss doesn’t like it when the girls write down their orders. They want you to memorize them, so go do your thing and don’t screw it all up.”
Okay then. She took the tray of eggnogs and turned back to the room. The first table waved her over and took all the drinks from her tray, saving her from worrying about what to do with them. She shifted, heading to the back of the room, planning on making her escape to go find Lucas. But just then she caught sight of Santa’s brother coming out of a narrow hallway, one she knew from bingo nights led to several small rooms, mostly used for storage.
He never even glanced her way as he headed toward one of the gaming tables. She pretended to be busy until he walked away and then she sneaked her way down the hallway he’d just come from.
Two doors. Both locked. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching before pulling two bobby pins from her hair to work the lock.
Sixty seconds later, her tongue between her teeth in concentration, nearly there with the lock, a hand settled on her shoulder. Instinct kicked in, as well as everything Caleb had taught her in the gym, and she whirled and kicked out hard.
Usually, whenever she’d practiced that move on Caleb, he’d let her connect so he could teach her how to not fall into whoever she was fighting.
But she didn’t connect. That was because the person standing there ducked and then straightened faster than the speed of light, whipping her around, holding her back to his chest, his arms pinning hers at her sides.
Before she could so much as draw a breath, he breathed her name in her ear, a whisper of surprise and shock in his low voice.
Lucas.
She sagged into him and he immediately loosened his grip, turning her to face him.
She started to say something, but then she got a good look at him and her mouth fell open in utter delight.
He was in an elf costume, and no one in the history of ever had filled out an elf costume like Lucas. Words failed her.
“What the hell was that?” he whispered with a good amount of shock. “You know martial arts?”
“A little. Sorry I almost kicked you.”
“Are you kidding?” he asked in disbelief. “If this costume wasn’t cutting off vital circulation, I’d be hard. With moves like that, why did you pour coffee into Santa’s lap rather than kick his ass?”
She shrugged. “Coffee in his crotch seemed more appropriate. Hey, do you know that you make a pretty damn hot elf?”
He grimaced. “I don’t want to talk about it. Ever. You didn’t answer your phone. I’ve got the flash drive. Time to get you and this memory stick out of here and call in reinforcements—”
“Yes please,” she agreed. “Just as soon as I get into this room. I’ve got a feeling about it.”
“Okay,” he said and turned his back to her, watching the hallway. “Go.”
Not having to be told twice, she went back to the lock. “I thought for sure you’d go all caveman on me and try to carry me out of here.”
“You’ve got a feeling,” he said simply and right then she felt her heart roll over and expose its underbelly. “As for the caveman thing,” he went on. “We’ll play that game later.”
She dropped the bobby pin, but she’d gotten the lock open.
“Nice,” he said.
“Not my first time.”
He snorted and opened the door. Dark room. He gestured her in, shut the door behind them and used her phone as a flashlight, shining the glow around the room, letting out a low whistle.
There were two long tables. One held two large duffle bags, one stuffed, one empty. The other table had some money wraps and a paper register filled with numbers. Lucas flipped through it and shook his head. “Cash entries. Large cash entries, by date. There’s already one written in here for tonight. Five grand—” Breaking off, he unzipped the full duffle bag and found it filled with cash. He looked at the still empty bag. “Someone’s going to be back and soon,” he said. “We’re out of here.”
“Agreed,” Molly said, snapping pics with her phone. “Just give me one more minute—”
“What the hell?” asked a woman. Janet. Standing in the doorway, she wasn’t in her elf costume, but in a Mrs. Claus costume instead, a red-and-white number that made her look like an apple dumpling. She was smiling her usual warm, sweet smile as she pointed a very small but lethal-looking gun at Lucas.
“Criminy,” she said, pulling the door shut behind her. “You two are such a pain in my patoot!”
Lucas reached for the gun at his back, but Janet shot him in the leg and what made it all the more shocking was that there was no real sound. She had a silencer on her gun.
Lucas hit the floor. “Molly,” he grounded out through his teeth. “Run.”
Like hell she was going to leave him. She dropped to her knees at his side and stared up at Janet in shock. “What are you doing?” She didn’t have to fake the quiver in her voice; it came naturally watching Lucas’s pant leg become soaked in blood as she slowly tried to reach beneath Lucas for his gun.
“Dammit to hell, Janet,” Santa grumbled as he came into the room, followed by his brother, Tommy Thumbs. “I told you to leave these two alone, that they’d be nothing but trouble.”
“And I told you I’d handle it,” she snapped.
Tommy sighed and pulled a huge gun from somewhere, pointing it at Molly’s face. “Freeze,” he order
ed.
Molly froze.
Santa’s brother glowered at Janet. “Are you shittin’ me?” He looked at his brother. “I’m not going back to jail for you two. Why the fuck do you need so many women in your life anyway?”
“No one’s going to jail, Tommy,” Janet said.
“Really?” he asked. “Because the one you just shot is a cop.”
“No, he’s a security specialist and an investigator,” Janet said.
Molly used this argument between the crazy old people to slowly reach beneath Lucas again, trying to get his gun free. Which was a lot harder than it looked in the damn movies.
“That’s even worse!” Tommy yelled at Janet. “We can’t let them go now, they’re onto you, you crazy old bat. And you’ll implicate me.”
“No, we’re not onto anyone, honest,” Molly said, coming up on her knees, holding Lucas’s gun behind her. “You can let us go.”
Tommy rolled his eyes, reared back and backhanded her with his gun. As she spun with the momentum, stars bursting behind her eyelids, Lucas somehow pushed to his feet. He reached for his gun again, but she’d dropped it at impact. She could see the exact second he realized they were both unarmed, but he changed tactics without blinking and took out Santa with a hard punch to the face.
It all happened in slow motion. Molly hit the floor in tandem with Santa. Darkness crept into the edges of her vision just as Tommy aimed his gun at Lucas and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
They all stared at each other and then Lucas dove for his gun. But Tommy grabbed a hunk of metal pipe from a shelving unit and swung it at Lucas’s head before he could reach it.
Molly screamed, the sound echoing in her head as darkness claimed her.
Chapter 24
#BabyItsColdOutside
Molly came to in a dimly lit space with a gasp.
Lucas had been shot.
Trying not to panic, she went to sit up and realized that her hands were bound behind her. At least her feet were unhindered, she thought as she blinked her vision clear. She was still in the storage room. Lucas lay only a few feet away, so terrifyingly still that her heart stopped. Flex-cuffs bound his hands too, and blood pooled beneath both his left leg and his head.
Scrambling to her knees as fast as she could—which wasn’t very fast without use of her hands—she scooted over to him. He had a nasty-looking gash at his temple. “Please be okay,” she whispered, fighting back an impending meltdown of epic proportions, because it was quite clear that he wasn’t okay, wasn’t even in the vicinity of okay, and in fact might not even be breathing. “Oh God, Lucas, don’t be dead.” She bent over him and saw that his chest was rising and falling with shallow but steady breaths.
A soft sob of relief escaped her, but she managed to bite back the one right on its heels. Get it together, and fast, she ordered herself and nudged Lucas with her shoulder.
He didn’t move.
She nudged harder.
Still no response.
“You’ve got to wake up,” she begged him. “I need you. I love you and I need you and I didn’t really know either of those things until right this minute, so if you could . . .” She broke off, suddenly realizing that there was a third person in the room.
Santa.
He lay on his back, his hands unrestrained at his side and a large bullet hole between his eyes. A shocked expression remained etched on his face.
She understood the sentiment. Cute, feisty, sweet, warm, little Janet, aka Mrs. Santa Claus, had taken all of them down.
From down the hall came the sound of applause. She could figure out what that meant. The evening was possibly coming to an end, which meant someone would be showing up with the last of the evening’s till.
And to finish what they’d started.
This would most likely include getting rid any evidence, of which she and Lucas most definitely were. Bending over him, she tried to rouse him again. “Please wake up,” she murmured, pressing her cheek to his chilly one.
He groaned softly, but didn’t come to. He’d lost a lot of blood and needed medical attention, but with her hands behind her back, she couldn’t help him. Instead, she gently dropped her forehead to his shoulder and allowed herself one last sob. “Just don’t die, okay?”
More applause, louder this time.
Struggling to her feet, she twisted to try the door.
Locked or jammed somehow.
There was a window. Unfortunately, it was high up on the wall. Long and shallow, it was meant for letting light in and some ventilation, not for escaping out of. She used her hip to shove one of the tables beneath the window, but the table was heavy and it took her a ridiculous amount of time to get it around Lucas without hurting him further. It also meant getting way too close to Santa, and when his leg jerked, she nearly had heart failure thinking he was still alive—until she realized the table had bumped into him.
When the table finally was up against the wall, she hit another snag. No hands to climb onto it. Turning her back, she attempted to hitch her butt up, but she couldn’t quite reach. Facing it again, she tried lifting her leg, but her numb thigh kept her from getting high enough. She tried the other leg and . . . her bad leg collapsed under her full weight and she fell onto the floor.
Hard.
Shaking her head to clear it, aching from the impact, she rolled over to get her legs under and came nose to nose with Bad Santa, now Dead Santa. With a startled squeak, she backed away and swallowed hard, getting over her aches and pains pretty quick because hey, at least she was still alive.
And so help her God, Lucas had better stay that way too.
She staggered upright and with sheer grit, managed to get onto the table. Getting to her feet from there was trickier because her leg was protesting loudly. Ignoring that, she slowly straightened and eyed the window. It was locked. She’d need her hands to get it open.
“Dammit.” She dropped to her butt and slid off the table, frantically running her gaze around the room for something sharp. The old, rickety metal shelving unit lining the wall had promise. The corner of it had rivets along the seam, basically just rusty, jagged edges of metal meeting metal.
Tetanus seemed preferable to being shot to death by Mrs. Claus, so she backed up to it and pressed the flex-cuffs against the metal, moving her arms up and down, trying to saw through the plastic. Moving too fast, she slipped and cried out as she sliced her hand open.
Taking a deep breath, she repositioned her hands and went at it again. It took what felt like hours, but was probably only a few minutes before her hands suddenly sprung apart.
Blood dripped down her fingers from a deep cut in her palm. Ignoring this, she ran back to Lucas. Still breathing, and . . . still not responsive. She needed help. She tried to find her cell phone, but it was gone. She looked at Santa. Blowing out a deep breath, she patted him down, looking for his phone. “You were an asshole,” she whispered when she found it in a pocket. “But I’m still sorry.”
She used the emergency feature on the phone to call 9–1–1. She asked for the cavalry and then wanted to call Joe. Unfortunately, Santa had a passcode, but she had the option of using a thumbprint. Gingerly, she picked up Santa’s hand and pressed his thumb to the home key. “Sorry about that too,” she murmured and called Joe.
He picked up on the third ring sounding breathless. “Who’s this?”
Normally, she’d bug him about his phone manners, but that could wait for later. All she could manage at the moment was his name. Her leg hurt and her hand hurt and her head hurt, and her stomach was thinking about throwing up. “I need you.”
His voice went from annoyed to very serious. “Molly? Where are you?”
“At the Christmas Village in Soma. I already called 9–1–1, but I need you.”
“Call Archer,” he said to someone with him, “tell him to get everyone to the Christmas Village in Soma ASAP.”
Molly knew he was probably talking to Kylie and that he’d alread
y be on the move to get to her. That was Joe, that’s what he did, he moved heaven and earth to get to her whenever she needed him.
“Molly,” Joe said, an engine turning over in the background. “Talk to me.”
She opened her mouth, but suddenly she realized she could also hear voices from the main room rising, like the games really were over now and everyone was saying their goodbyes. She managed to roll herself up onto the table again, leaving a gory bloody handprint that made her swallow hard. She looked out the window. The distance to the ground was nothing compared to the three-story distance she’d faced last time she’d been in a similar situation, but the brain was a funny thing. The drop felt like a hundred miles.
It didn’t matter, it was hers and Lucas’s only exit.
“Molly,” Joe said again, tightly. “What’s going on?”
“Just hurry,” she whispered. “The bingo hall. South window.” Again, she jumped down from the table, gritted her teeth against the pain and went to Lucas. Stuffing the phone in her bra with the connection to Joe still open, she hooked her arms under his armpits and pulled. All lean muscle, he weighed a ton. She huffed and puffed, managing to drag him over to the table. “Lucas.” She shook him. “Dammit, you’ve got to wake up. You weigh a freaking ton and—”
He groaned and cracked open an eye. “Did you just call me fat?”
She choked out a laugh that might have been more like a sob of relief.
Lucas blinked and appeared to focus in on the blood all over her. Suddenly looking far more alert, he struggled against his restraints to sit up. “You’re hurt,” he said. “The blood—”
