Three seconds later, a crack came from across the street. At the same moment, the third Santa flew out the downstairs window in a flood of glass…
…and yep, Logan issued a blood-curdling cry, grabbed his calf, and fell in a snow pile next to the Mercedes.
Mitch released the coat, gained his balance, and brushed off his wet knees. In the distance, police sirens rang out in the cold, clear night.
His phone buzzed with an incoming text. How was that? Honey.
Mitch grinned.
Beautiful. Perfect. Just like you.
A second later, she sent back, Keep up the flattery and you’ll get some tonight.
Oh, he was getting some tonight, flattery or not. He knew exactly how to make his sniper girlfriend a very happy woman.
He turned back to the building’s entrance. Where was the last Santa? Did Grey need help?
Syd ran out the door, coat on, dress firmly intact, throwing her head back and laughing. “God, I love your partner.” She stopped next to Mitch. “That protective streak of his is sexy as hell.”
Grey emerged, his usually tidy hair sticking out in all directions. He shook his right hand and checked the knuckles. Probably bleeding.
“Where’s the last Santa?” Mitch asked.
Syd laughed again. “He saw what Grey did to the other three and gave up peacefully. We tied him to a chair.”
“Where’s the suit?” Grey asked.
Mitch pointed to the snow pile half a block down. The leader of the ring was still down, groaning and holding on to his leg. “Logan’s not going anywhere.”
Syd squinted in the direction Mitch was pointing. Snow dusted her hair. “Ooh, Caroline got him. Atta girl. You think that’s the head guy?”
“Bet all the candy canes in DC on it,” Mitch answered.
Cop cars barreled around the corner. Grey frowned. “We should get out of here.”
“Are you kidding?” Syd said. “We have to tell the cops what was going on and make sure they round up all the perps.”
“Perps” sounded funny coming from Syd, but Mitch grinned. Grey’s girlfriend was an adrenaline junkie just like he was. “Grey doesn’t want the recognition. He likes keeping his renegade status under the radar.”
Syd looked disappointed, and as Grey started to walk across the street, she stopped him. “I’m not going anywhere until I’m sure the police understand exactly what was going on here and arrest all these guys.”
“I’ll stay and fill them in,” Mitch volunteered, straightening his coat and brushing off more snow and sludge. “I’m happy to flaunt myself as a hero. Makes Caroline hot.”
Grey stepped back up on the sidewalk, glaring at them and crowding both of their personal spaces. “Let’s go.”
Neither of them moved. In fact, Syd seemed to grow taller as she straightened her spine, ready to argue. For half a second, Mitch thought they might throw down right there as the cop cars flooded in. And, damn, he loved a good throw down.
“Syd…” Warning laced Grey’s voice.
“Grey,” she shot back, hands going to her hips.
His jaw worked, but it was too late anyway. Police were exiting their cars and rushing up to them. “Let me handle this,” Grey said, and in that tone that made it clear neither Syd nor Mitch should challenge him.
Half an hour later, the Santas and Logan had been hauled off to jail or the hospital, depending on their injuries. Caroline had left her vantage point on the building across the street and joined the three of them, and all of them had given statements.
A news van pulled up and Grey said something in one of the police officer’s ears, then drew Mitch, Caroline, and Sydney away from the scene. “The last thing the Justice Team needs is our members’ pictures on the front page of The Washington Post tomorrow.”
“So much for my dream of being a hero,” Mitch said. He waggled his eyebrows at Caroline. “I grow weary of always being the troublemaker.”
She goosed his side, then put her arm around his waist as they walked. “Trust me, the badass vigilante works well for you.”
Suddenly, he didn’t mind giving up the spotlight. “Does that mean I’m getting something besides coal in my stocking for Christmas?”
She smiled. “Only if you take me to dinner. I’m starving. We didn’t even get to start our meal at McCann’s, much less finish it.”
“And whose fault would that be?” Grey murmured, stopping in front of the restaurant.
He stared up at the darkened windows, his lower lip protruding slightly as the red glare from the closed sign reflected off his skin.
Syd made a disgusted noise in her throat and gave Mitch the stink eye. “You better think fast, Monroe, about how you’re making this up to us. Do you know how many strings I had to pull to get us in there? I worked every one of the shelter’s donors to make this happen.”
“Best burger on this side of DC is just around the corner.”
Caroline looked confused. “The only thing around the corner open at this hour is the bowling alley.”
“Exactly.” He put an arm around her shoulders and headed for the next street over before anyone could question his infinite wisdom. Or the load of bullshit he was flinging. “Cosmic bowling and the best burgers in town.”
Syd and Grey stayed where they were. “You’re kidding, right?” Syd said.
The snow was falling harder. Mitch flipped up the collar of his jacket. “Come on, Syd. Your dinner for Grey might have been ruined, but you got to play stripper and bust a bunch of bad guys. All in all, not a terrible night. What have you got to lose with a little bowling and burgers?”
She and Grey exchanged a look and she shrugged. “I’m too hyped up to go home and sleep. I may bust a seam bowling in this dress though. What do you think?”
Grey reached out and buttoned her coat where she’d missed one. “I can think of better ways for us to burn off that adrenaline.”
She grinned and patted his cheek. “You’re just scared I’ll beat you in bowling.”
He grabbed her wrist. “Is that a challenge, Ms. Banfield?”
“You know it is, Fed Boy.”
Mitch and Caroline laughed as Syd and Grey caught up with them. The four friends walked through the falling snow as Mitch recounted the details of the Justice Greystone vs. Santa beat down, exaggerating just a liiitttle, until Grey, who couldn’t stand Mitch’s over the top play by play, finally jumped in and set the record straight.
Chapter Four
“Mitch Monroe is a dead man.”
Sydney slapped the newspaper on her desk hoping for a good thwack that would express the proper level of outrage, but like most of her luck in the last two days, the clutter of files littering the desk’s surface absorbed the blow. Dammit.
Across from her, Grey sat in her crumbling guest chair and did that thing he always did. That thing where he stayed calm and thoughtful while studying his subject. Profiling her. Which he didn’t need to do because she had no problem expressing just how incredibly pissed she was at his best friend, even if the Post had labeled the four of them the anonymous “Holiday Heroes.”
There it was on the front page of the newspaper, the list of all the men arrested and how the anonymous heroes brought down the Santa theft ring plaguing the city these past weeks.
To make things worse, Christmas music blared from the shelter’s community room where the annual holiday party was in full swing. Full swing with a bunch of kids waiting for Santa to show.
Mitch Monroe. D.E.A.D.
Finally, Grey sat forward, his big shoulders squaring off in preparation for his defense of his best friend. “I know you’re frustrated—”
“Forget it. You always defend him. I don’t want to hear it. He’s dead.”
Grey sighed. “I don’t always defend him. That’s crap. But this time, I will. I mean, how could he know one of those four Santas we busted last night was your Santa?”
“He couldn’t have known. But if we’d kept our butts in our chairs, ea
ting that amazing meal, one Albert Meade—” she picked up the newspaper again, gave it another whack “—would be here fulfilling his promise to play Santa to those kids.”
“And possibly stealing from you, Syd.”
God, could she not get a break with this holiday party? First, one of her big donors—the gift guy!—had to bail on her at the last minute and what a mess that could have been. But Syd did what she always did. She survived by using her skill, ambition and madness. She survived by making a deal with Grey.
A deal that had them, twisted as it was, creating Grey’s own Twelve Days of Christmas. During those twelve days, Fed Boy got to be in charge of their sexual exploits. The idiot had been so proud of himself for negotiating what resulted in the fruition of every one of his sexual fantasies that he hadn’t realized Syd was just as stoked about the whole thing.
After all, sex with Grey—adventurous as it might have been—would never be a hardship. The man loved her, plain and simple, and with that love came the promise that he would A) never physically hurt her, and B) never force anything on her.
So, pretty much, Grey’s Twelve Days of Christmas turned into almost two weeks of pure ecstasy for both of them. And when it was over, Grey called his credit card company, told them to hang on to their asses, and he and Syd went toy shopping for a bunch of kids who might otherwise not get Christmas.
And the bonus was, Grey thought he’d gotten one over on her.
Silly man.
Syd stared down at her notes with Albert Meade’s phone number. Hiring a Santa had been the easy thing in this process. At least until Santa hadn’t shown up and she’d gone to her office to check her notes and give him a call. Upon opening her file, she spotted the name, got the ultimate of all sick feelings, just a mind throttling bout of nausea, and grabbed the newspaper hoping against hope that she was wrong. And—voila—her Santa had gotten pinched and was now in the county lock-up.
“I’ve got this,” Grey said, pulling out his phone.
“You’re amazing, Grey, but you’re not going to find me a Santa on Christmas Eve in the next forty-five minutes.”
“No. I’m going to be Santa. That’s a no-brainer. Mitch is going to make it up to you by finding me a suit.”
And, ohmygod, leave it to Grey to come up with a way to not only satisfy Syd, but get Monroe out of trouble. If she didn’t love him before, she loved him now. He could have gone out and found the damned suit himself, but this man knew how to work a situation. One phone call would get him two wins.
If they weren’t in her office with a bunch of little kids down the hall, she’d do him right now.
Grey eyed her while waiting for Monroe to pick up. “You’ve got that look, Syd.”
“What look?”
“The one that says you’d let me bend you over this desk.”
The man knew her too well. “Fed Boy, you pull this off and when this party is over and everyone is tucked in their beds, I may let you do that. Just this once. Never again.”
His eyebrows shot up. Until now, her office had been off-limits to canoodling. She ran a shelter for battered women. Part of her responsibility, she felt anyway, meant not parading her healthy relationship in front of a group of women accustomed to the wrong side of a man. But for this, assuming they wouldn’t get caught, she’d make an exception.
“Yeah,” he said into the phone. “It’s me. You got forty-five minutes to find me a Santa suit… I don’t give a shit. Syd’s Santa for the shelter’s party was one of those dumbasses we busted last night. An op you initiated. If you get my drift.” He looked up at her and blew her a kiss. “Yeah. Got it. Forty-five minutes or Syd carves you to pieces. I’m out.”
He stabbed at the screen and shoved the phone back into his suit pocket.
“What did he say?”
Grey shrugged. “Let’s just say he understands the volatility of the situation.”
Thirty-seven minutes later Monroe and Caroline rushed through the back door of the shelter, breathing a little heavy, their faces flushed. They each carried a contractor sized green garbage bag. At least they’d thought ahead and hid the suit.
They both wore jeans and sneakers. Mitch wore a sweatshirt announcing beast mode was engaged and Caroline a zip-up hoodie. Something told Syd they’d left wherever they were in a hurry and grabbed whatever form of outerwear at hand. They hustled into Syd’s already cramped office and dumped the bags on the floor.
Grey shut the door behind them.
“It’s not pretty,” Mitch said, “but it’s a Santa suit.”
Caroline tore one of the bags open and yanked Santa’s jacket out. “It’s a little weathered. It was the only one left. We called every party store in a ten-mile radius.”
Mitch grabbed the bottom half of the costume. “Given the time constraints, ten-miles was our max.”
“Weathered” didn’t give this suit justice. The legs were torn in two places, the bottoms completely frayed and the top had some sort of nasty stain on the left breast. No wonder it was the last one in the store. No one would want it.
“I don’t care,” Syd said. “We’ll make it work.” She walked over to Monroe and smacked a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you. I didn’t want to have to kill you.”
He snorted. “Anything for you, Syd.”
“Great. Now get out so Fed Boy can turn into Santa. You got the beard, right?”
Caroline held up a smaller bag. “We bought a new one. I was grossed out by the idea of a used beard. Who knew who wore that thing? And Santa’s belly is in that bag.” She pointed to the second garbage bag. “You might need extra padding though. It’s a little lame.”
Grey nodded, his mind in full-on Operation Santa mode. “Thank you, Caroline. I’ll get you a raise.”
“You will? How sweet. Now I’ll be able to buy that extra cup of coffee.”
Wasn’t that the truth? Syd didn’t know exactly how much Caroline and Mitch were paid as part of the Justice Team, but this was the federal government and no one on Grey’s team would retire to the Swiss Alps on their salary.
“Can we stay?” Caroline asked. “I love watching kids open presents.”
“Of course you can stay. You’ll love it. For some of these kids, it’ll be the only gift they get.”
For the lucky ones who were currently living at the shelter, as if that made them lucky, they’d wake up to more gifts—compliments of Grey—on Christmas morning. According to him, no child should wake up on Christmas and not have gifts to open.
God, she loved this man.
No time for that now. “Mitch, go out there and start spreading the rumor that you heard something on the roof. Operation Santa is about to launch.”
With Monroe and Caroline in mission mode, Syd helped Grey get into costume. While he adjusted his beard, she fastened the thick black belt, her fingers brushing against the itchy fabric of his jacket. He’d be lucky if he didn’t wind up with a rash. “I’m sorry you have to wear this awful suit. But damn, you make a hot Santa.”
Grey adjusted his beard for the third time, finally gave up, and blew air through his lips “Give it a rest. I’m the worst Santa I’ve ever seen.”
“It doesn’t matter. They’re kids. They’ll love you.” She reached up, squeezed his cheeks. “I love you. You always manage to save me.” Then she kissed him, scratchy, rough beard and all, and as their lips brushed, and maybe a couple of tongues did some dancing, she felt it, that familiar ping in her chest. Grey did that to her. Every time.
He pulled back, dropped another quick kiss on her lips and grinned. “Just don’t forget what you said about bending you over the desk.”
Typical man. “That’s nothing. Keep this up, Fed Boy, and you might wind up with another Twelve Days of Christmas.” She retreated one step and swatted him on his fake flab. “Now, let’s make some kids smile.”
In a flurry of activity, Syd rushed down the hall and slapped her hands over her cheeks right before she reached the archway leading into the common room th
at was really just the living room of the old Victorian. “He’s here!” she hollered, unleashing every ounce of excitement her body held.
The room went crazy. Kids screamed, moms laughed, and little Jackie Dennis, cut up that she was, fell on the floor in a faux faint.
Syd lost it. All the planning, all the stress and angst came down to this one moment when these kids forgot about the beatings and yellings they’d witnessed from men who were supposed to love their mothers. Tears filled her eyes, but she laughed, faking it the whole way because she would not let these kids see her cry.
Grey, a.k.a. Santa, nudged her from behind. “Hey, pretty lady. Get a move on, I got business to transact.”
She turned back, met his gaze. “You are so getting lucky tonight.”
“Excellent. Now get outta my way.”
An hour later, the room had gone quiet, all the kids clustered around Santa’s feet as he reached for the last box. Each child had received a gift and Syd wasn’t sure what was left, but she guessed they’d soon find out.
She leaned casually against the huge archway leading into the common room, watching the festivities with Mitch and Caroline. The four of them, once again, had averted a disaster. The smiling faces all around proved that, and Syd took it all in, breathing through the range of emotions swarming her. Working at the shelter wasn’t easy. Each day she interacted with women whose husbands inflicted their rage on them, sometimes leaving them with permanent injuries, the loss of vision or a few broken teeth.
The women in this room, though, had found the courage to run. To save themselves and their children who would one day be someone’s wife or husband. Someone’s parent. For that alone, that strength, that willingness to face an uncertain future with no husband to support them financially, Syd would help every one of them.
Santa reached for his last gift and the box sent up a red flag to Syd. Odd. She’d sat at Grey’s kitchen table—now her kitchen table too—and wrapped each gift, methodically adding bows and ribbon to each. And she didn’t remember one shaped like a shoebox. But, thanks to Grey’s melted credit card, there’d been a lot of toys and clothes and shoes, and in her delight of wrapping each one, she could have lost track.
Holiday Justice Page 3
