Chapter 11

eleven

STERLING

“ I t’s fine,” Harvey said again as we headed back toward town. “It’s really fine.”

I couldn’t seem to stop apologizing—clipped, muttered apologies that made it seem like I was irritated with him, when it was my family I was pissed at. And myself, for hurrying back to them like a dog called to heel. And maybe I was a little irritated with Harvey, for being so kind and understanding. It only made me feel guiltier. I’d tried to explain a little about the situation, but by the way his eyes had glazed over at the word “shareholder”, my clumsy attempt wasn’t really helping things.

I kept replaying the moment when I’d stood on the dock, the cold breeze prickling my cheeks and something colder still squeezing at my chest, and said: “ I may have to take a rain check on dinner with you and your grandmother.” It was like I’d brought his whole world crashing down. And I didn’t know how to tell him how much it killed me to do it, so I just added, “ I have to get back to New York.”

And he’d said: “ Is everyone okay?”

He immediately assumed the issue was about people, not property. That my mother was in the hospital or my family dog had died or something. Of course he assumed that.

I’d anticipated the inevitable moment the vacation ended and real life came crashing back in. I’d hoped it’d at least wait until I was back in New York, but here it was: three unanswered calls from my father and one terse text message that said “Get back here now” that had shattered the illusion that Christmas Falls was real. Or that it could be real for me. I had no idea what fires needed putting out at home—something to do with Patrick, probably—but I knew I needed to be there at my father’s side instead of going on boat rides and lunch dates and reindeer shopping in Christmas Falls. Hadn’t the business been the reason I’d come here to begin with? Sure, I was personally curious about what had happened to Freddy, but I was here to protect the business, not soothe the itch at the base of my skull that drew clumsy parallels between my uncle and I. I wondered what would happen if I came out to my family. I wasn’t Freddy and Freddy wasn’t me. It was stupid to cast myself in the story of his life when I didn’t know a damn thing about him. Stupid to ascribe motives to Freddy’s actions, or my family’s, when I had no way of knowing either one.

I couldn’t even promise Harvey I’d be back. Once I was away from Christmas Falls, the spell would be broken. Once I was in New York, my sense of duty would wrap me as tightly as the warmth of this town had. Except it would be suffocating rather than reassuring.

Our investigation had ended with a whimper instead of a bang. Matthew Jessup had been our Hail Mary pass, that one last chance before the end of the game. And it hadn’t worked out. While a part of me told myself that was that, another part of me wasn’t ready to let go yet. Of the investigation, of this town, and of the man beside me.

Now, as we neared the Pear Tree Inn, I felt a wild, desperate urge to make things right with Harvey in some small way. “Look,” I said, my voice unexpectedly thick. “Trixie would never leave a mystery unsolved.”

He glanced over at me, looking concerned and a little pitying. “Family comes first.”

In his world, it did. And for the right reasons. “There’s no way I’m getting back to New York tonight. I don’t have a car, I?—”

“I can drive you to the airport.”

“In Martha’s car?”

He gave the ghost of a smile. “Martha wouldn’t mind.”

“That’s not the point. Whatever’s going on at home can wait till tomorrow morning. Today, I want to solve this mystery.”

It occurred to me I was doing something even worse than abandoning Harvey. I was drawing out our goodbye, making it more painful. But I couldn’t stop myself. It was self-serving too. If I could learn what happened to Freddy before returning home, I might have ammunition to use in whatever battle Patrick was set to wage. So I couldn’t even be honest with Harvey about that, either. I want to solve this mystery meant I need your help, and once I get it, I ’ m gone.

I swallowed. “You said when we met that all we’d have to do was ask around Frosty’s and someone would know who Freddy’s guy was.”

Harvey didn’t answer.

“I’m not sure why we didn’t start there, to be honest,” I added.

“You know why,” he said quietly.

To make it an adventure, to prolong the investigation. To spend more time together. Yeah, I knew. “Well, maybe we should go there now and show the photo around.”

He glanced at me for long enough that I wanted to remind him to watch the road. But he faced forward again in plenty of time to slow for the light. “You’ll have to come back, you know. Cash that rain check.”

It was my turn to hesitate. Because the answer I wanted to give—Yes, of course, just give me two days in New York to tie up loose ends, tell my family to fuck off, and pack a bigger bag—might be a lie. And I didn’t want to lie to him.

“Or, I don’t know,” he went on. “Maybe I’m the one who cashes it, since you’re the one who canceled. Did you know the term originates from baseball games? Starting in the 1880s, if a game was rained out, spectators would get a check that let them attend another game free of charge.”

“Wow. Your trivia knowledge extends beyond Christmas, huh?”

“You have no idea.” He gave me that slightly wobbly smile again. And I noticed that when the light turned green, instead of going toward the hotel, he turned onto Dasher Street toward Frosty’s.

“I’ll have to come back,” I agreed, hating myself for saying it, and even more for how unconvincing I sounded. “I still haven’t heard about the Catalan Pooping Log.”

He pulled into a parking space in front of the pub. “You can always Google it.” It wasn’t said harshly, not in the least. But it was said with a note of resigned finality that made me wince.

I feel it too , I wished I could tell him. We have chemistry, we have fun. You ’ re everything I ’ ve always wanted but thought I couldn ’ t have. I want to know a hundred thousand random trivia facts about you. “I’d rather hear it from you,” I said, meaning it.

He shut off the ignition, and I didn’t miss the way he passed the back of his gloved hand quickly beneath his nose before saying, “Alright, let’s crack this case,” in a shaky voice.

Before I knew what I was doing, my arms were around him, and we once again found ourselves contorted into a position God never intended in a vehicle that didn’t belong to either of us. Though it was mostly me doing the contorting. He patted the forearm I had slung around his middle, as though I were the one in need of reassurance. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I’m being stupid about this.”

“No, you’re not,” I murmured, resting my head awkwardly on his shoulder. He leaned into me a little.

“We were just having fun.”

And here was the part where I ought to say, Yes, we were having fun, but it became something more for me, and I don ’ t want to let you go. “I don’t want it to stop,” was about all the honesty I could manage.

“We’d better go in,” he said after a moment. “Martha’ll be wondering if I ran over a reindeer with her car if I’m not back soon.”

“Oh God,” I said, drawing back. “The museum. If you have to go, go. I don’t want you to lose your job.”

He snorted. “I’ll be okay.” He said it like he was trying to make it true by saying it. I felt like such a shit. “Could I see the photograph?”

I dug in my pocket and handed it to him. It was more dog-eared than it had been at the start of this trip. Harvey studied it like he was trying to memorize it. I wondered if he was thinking what I was: that my uncle had taken a chance, seized the happiness he couldn’t find with the Van Ruyvens in New York, so why was I such a coward? “I wonder what it felt like,” I blurted. “To realize he couldn’t be Frederick Goodwin Van Ruyven anymore. Or at least, not that version of him.”

Harvey eyed me skeptically. “Frederick Goodwin Van Ruyven?”

“My family has issues.”

“Apparently.” He looked back at the photo. “I don’t know how it felt. I’d guess pretty freeing. But I don’t know. I’ve never had family I wanted to get away from.”

Of course. And now I felt like an even bigger jerk, expecting sympathy for my family issues from a guy who’d lost his parents.

“It sounds like he did what was right for him,” he said diplomatically.

Then he unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car.

Frosty’s was between the lunch rush and the dinner rush when we entered, but there were still plenty of people at the tables. Mostly tourists, I guessed, by the fact most of them had clusters of shopping bags shoved under their chairs. Harvey cast a gaze over most of the diners, his brow furrowed, and then his expression brightened as he made his way to the bar.

“Juan, hi!” he said to the man behind the bar. “This is Sterling. We’ve been doing a research project. Sterling, Juan’s one of the managers here. He knows everyone.”

Harvey was still holding the photo, and he slid it across the bar.

Juan picked it up by the edges and looked at it for a moment. “I don’t know either of these guys.”

“It’s from 1989,” Harvey said. “They’d be a lot older by now.”

Juan squinted. “Shit, Harvey. That makes it even harder.”

Harvey wrinkled his nose and shot me a hopeful glance that made my chest tighten.

Maybe it hadn’t been our Hail Mary moment at the dock. Maybe this was it right here.

And, looking into Harvey’s eyes, I realized I didn’t want to waste my last chance at snatching a piece of good luck on Freddy. I wanted to save it for Harvey , because it was easy to believe that with my whole heart when the lights behind the bar were twinkling and promise hung in the gingerbread-scented air of this ridiculous town, whispering to me that Christmas was the time for miracles.

And then I imagined myself twenty-four hours from now, standing in my apartment, trying to believe what I did in this moment. How could I? Despite what the people of Christmas Falls would have you believe, and despite how incredible the illusion was, Christmas had to end at some point.

“I can’t even see that one’s face.” Juan tapped on Cap Guy. “Did you ask Bob?”

I opened my mouth, since it was my research project and I should probably get better at taking the lead. But nothing came out.

“Yeah,” Harvey said. “He wasn’t sure.”

A customer at the bar leaned over to look at the photo, then shook his head. “You should try posting it online. With all that AI, facial recognition stuff, you’d be able to figure out who it is.”

The idea of posting the photo online immediately made me wary. This felt personal. Freddy and Cap Guy deserved some semblance of privacy, no matter how long ago they may have parted ways with each other or with Christmas Falls.

Plus, a photograph of Frederick Van Ruyven circulating online after all these years? That was the last thing the family needed. You didn’t put out fires by flinging gasoline around in all directions. If Freddy was still alive, then I wanted to find him before he knew I was looking. Forewarned was forearmed, and you didn’t walk into any negotiations without some ammunition on you somewhere.

God.

I still didn’t know who I was in all this. The guy who looked at that photograph and saw a teenager he hoped was living a full and happy life thirty years later, or the guy who wanted to find him and cut him a final deal before he realized exactly how much power he’d hold in the company if he came back now? Because if he was alive, Freddy was an unknown quality, and there was nothing more dangerous than an unknown quality with fucking voting rights on the board.

Did being here mean more than that? I wanted it to, and I hated that I couldn’t parse my own motivations, or my emotions, in all this. Yes, I wanted to protect the company, and finding Freddy and offering him a deal to stay gone would do that. But I also couldn’t forget the sick feeling in my stomach when I’d first discovered the card that Freddy had sent long after he went missing. The sick feeling that had told me, from just a glance at the photograph, exactly why my grandfather had ignored him.

Funny. It had never been said aloud. One didn’t admit aloud to something as crass as homophobia. One supported all the right charities and foundations, naturally. But being a Van Ruyven came with expectations. How you behaved, how you dressed, how you voted, how you married. I’d known from the moment I saw the photograph that Freddy hadn’t fit those expectations in exactly the same way I didn’t.

“No,” I said. “It’s, um, a private family matter.”

Harvey’s brow creased, but he nodded at the guy. “Yeah, we don’t want to do that. He doesn’t look familiar at all?”

The guy shook his head.

“Sorry,” Juan said. He shrugged. “I don’t think I know the blond guy, and the guy in the cap? Hell, he could be sitting at the bar right now and I wouldn’t be able to tell.” He slid the photograph back to us. “Good luck, though.”

“Thanks,” Harvey said, but I could hear the disappointment in his tone. I think he knew, as well as I did, that we were done.

“Can I get you a beer?” Juan asked.

Harvey darted a glance at me.

“No, thanks,” I said, looking away from Harvey. Everything I’d said about wanting to solve this mystery today? Stupid. Whether I left here today or tomorrow, it wouldn’t make a difference. Freddy had been in this town once, thirty-some years ago, and there was no way sticking around overnight would miraculously flush out someone who remembered him. We’d had one Hail Mary attempt at the dock, and another one here at Frosty’s. It was stupid to try to draw this out any longer. Stupid to think it would be any easier to say goodbye to Harvey tomorrow than it would be this afternoon. “I’ve got a plane to catch.”

Driving out of Christmas Falls was a strange experience. I didn’t want to go, and it had nothing to do with the way I was genuinely starting to love the town, and everything to do with the man in the driver’s seat of Martha’s car. Stupid, wasn’t it, how we could tell ourselves we loved a place without admitting out loud that the reason we loved it was for the people we met there. Or, in my case, one person in particular. I wasn’t a fool. I wasn’t madly in love with Harvey Novak. I wasn’t going to turn up at his house with my heart on my sleeve and a boombox held over my head. But there was something between us that was impossible to ignore. And if leaving already felt like a regret when we were barely on the outskirts of town, what would it feel like in a year, or in five, or in a lifetime? Would it fade, like all the other regrets I’d ever had? I didn’t want it to.

There were a hundred things I wanted to say to Harvey. A million. Most of them were apologies of some sort. For pretending this didn’t mean as much as it did. For the way it was ending. For choosing to go back to New York when it felt as though my real unfinished business was here. For telling him I’d take a rain check when we both knew I wouldn’t be back for dinner at his grandmother’s house, or whatever else we might have shared.

But I kept my head turned toward the window, watching the snowy fields slide past.

Harvey had driven me back to the Pear Tree, and waited while I grabbed my suitcase and checked out. The next flight to Chicago was in an hour and a half, and it seemed like fate that I’d been able to book a seat. It probably wasn’t fate at all, though; everyone was coming to Christmas Falls at the time of year, not leaving it. Everyone except me.

“It’s fine,” Harvey said for the millionth time today when we pulled up at the small regional airport. “Don’t look so miserable. It’s fine.”

“Do I look miserable?”

His smile wobbled. “You look the same as always, kind of haughty, but?—”

“ Haughty ?”

“You wear it very well, though. Like, incredibly well.” His smile faded. “The last few days have been so great. We both know you’re not really coming back. So, um, thank you, I guess.”

“Thank you?”

He blinked rapidly. “For liking me for me. Even the weird bits.”

“I like the weird bits the most.”

“Not everyone does.” He laughed, and we both pretended the sound wasn’t wet. “I like your weird bits too, even if you keep them better hidden than mine.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, my throat aching.

Harvey gave a lopsided shrug and an even more lopsided smile. “It’s fine.”

It wasn’t fine.

But since it was more than clear that another few painfully uncomfortable minutes in the front of a silver Ford Taurus that smelled of lavender weren’t going to change anything, I opened the door and let the cold air inside the car.

“Take care of yourself, Harvey.” It was the sort of thing friends said, and I hated myself for saying it, when it felt as though we could have been much more, if only we’d had time. It felt as though we could have been everything.

“Yeah,” he said, that lopsided smile still bravely clinging. “You too.”

And I stepped out of the car into the cold.