Chapter 12

twelve

HARVEY

L ife comes at you fast.

This morning I’d woken up to Sterling and hot chocolate, and now I was sitting in Martha’s car in the narrow alleyway behind the museum, between the back of the building and the dumpster, telling myself I wasn’t going to have a breakdown. I wasn’t sure if I was lying to myself or not, because it seemed ridiculous to be so upset about Sterling leaving. I’d thought I was heartbroken when Steven dumped me—or when I dumped him by declining his generous offer to continue being his side piece—but that hadn’t felt like this. I’d been angry and shocked and humiliated. I wasn’t feeling any of those things now. If I had to put a label on the chaotic swirl of emotions inside me, the only one that seemed to encompass everything was lost .

When I was a kid, I had one of those slot car sets with the loops and everything. If you hit the speed controls just right as your car was coming off the loop, it would jump off the track and skitter across the bedroom floor until it crashed. I felt like that slot car driver must have. He was on the track and going strong, when suddenly the whole world flipped and now he’s upside down in a Spider-Man sneaker with no idea how he got there.

I gripped the steering wheel like that tiny, imaginary driver must have, and closed my eyes while I let out a long breath. And then, because the world didn’t stop just because Sterling had left Christmas Falls, I got out of the car and hurried inside the building.

The familiar sounds of cheerful carols and happy voices coming from the Arts and Crafts Fair soothed me. So did the warmth that seeped into the cold tip of my nose. I debated going to the Arts and Crafts Fair to see if anyone there was selling fudge—I was going to need some fudge, STAT—but the thought of all those people was a bit too much to face right now, so I ducked into the museum instead, where I was much less likely to have to talk to anyone.

The museum was predictably, and comfortingly, empty of people.

I took my gloves off, shoving them in the pockets of my coat, and then I hung my coat on the hook by the door.

Okay then. Back to my regularly scheduled life.

Which was great . I loved my regularly scheduled life. Just... it would have been nice to have someone special to share it with me.

I sat behind my desk. Maybe I really should call the animal shelter and get a museum cat. Or two museum cats, since the first cat would need a friend. Was I allowed to keep cats on what was technically city property? Some places had library cats; I’d seen it on social media. Maybe if I talked up the mouse threat, I could get permission. That seemed like the perfect way to distract myself right now, and if I pulled it off, I could get cats. That was a win/win, right? It was best not to think about not pulling it off, since I was emotionally fragile enough that the loss of my museum cats—hypothetical as they were—might be the last straw.

I opened my laptop, going to the Santa’s Helpers website. I was browsing kittens for research purposes when Martha bustled in from the next room, clutching a broom.

“Oh, you’re back!” she said. “There’s a cobweb on the ceiling, and I can’t reach it.”

“Oh God. You were going for the ladder, weren’t you?” I stood up. “Please don’t go up ladders, Martha. My heart can’t take it.”

Neither could her octogenarian bones, if she took a tumble.

I took the broom off her and followed her into the next room, where she pointed out a cobweb in the corner. I didn’t bother with the ladder; I just jumped and jabbed the broom toward the ceiling. It snagged the edge of the cobweb and brought the whole thing down.

“Good job!” Martha said, patting me on the forearm as though she was genuinely proud of my ability to jump and stretch at the same time. To be fair, she might have been. She had once seen me walk into a wall with my eyes wide open. It was probably a miracle she let me borrow her car.

I put the broom back in the storage closet. “I’m going to put in an order form for new postcards. Do you think we should get snow globes? They’re very Christmassy.”

She looked at me over the top of her glasses. “Harvey, I don’t think we get enough visitors to make back the cost of snow globes, even if everyone was to buy one just to be ironic.”

“How did you know people buy them to be ironic? They might genuinely like them.”

She cocked a thin, sardonic eyebrow in my direction. “Sure.”

“ I genuinely like snow globes!” I tried to inject some levity into my tone, but I might have overdone it and sounded too enthusiastic, like I didn’t just like snow globes, but I’d go to war for them, and Martha’s eyebrow gained even more ground in her wrinkled forehead. “I mean, not in a weird way or anything.”

Martha tilted her head. “Are you all right, Harvey?”

“Yes, I lied. “I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

“Hmm. Where’s that nice young man of yours?”

“Sterling?”

“Of course Sterling. You’re not exactly overrun with nice young men. No offense.”

“No, you’re right.” I grimaced. “Anyway, he’s gone back to New York.”

“Oh,” she said, her expression dropping from sarcastic as fuck to sympathetic. She gave my arm a squeeze. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. He seemed nice.”

“Yeah.” I tried to smile and missed it by a mile. “He was.”

“And to think I brought in the sugar cookies today,” Martha said, tsking. She turned away from me and began to straighten the postcards in the rack, and I sat down at my desk again. “At least there’ll be more for my nephews, I suppose. Kyle is watching his cholesterol, but Win will be happy to eat his share, as always.”

I snorted, clicking on a picture of a shelter kitten. “I’ll eat his share too.”

Martha chuckled. “You’d have to fight Win for them.”

“That’s a weird name.”

“I suppose it is.” She hummed. “Well, it’s short for something, isn’t it? Let me see, now. It’s been years since I was told. Was it Edwin?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “No, it was Goodwin. Ridiculous name, if you ask me, but people call their children anything they like these days, don’t they? My cousin’s granddaughter called her baby Sin-Thea. S-I-N-hyphen-Thea. You say it like Cynthia, but you spell it like you should be banned from having children.”

“ Goodwin .” My heart raced. “Martha, what’s his last name?”

“Mackenzie,” she said. “He took Kyle’s name.”

“When they got married?” I asked.

Martha shook her head. “Oh, no. They’ve never married. They couldn’t, back when they met, and I suppose they’ve just never bothered since.”

“Do you remember Win’s original surname?” I felt dizzy with anticipation, adrenaline coursing through me. Was this how Trixie felt on the verge of solving a mystery?

Martha’s brow creased. “You know, I don’t think I ever knew it? He’s always just been Kyle’s Win to me.”

“Have they been together since the nineties?”

She tilted her head. “Yes, about that long. Why are you so interested in my nephews? They’re too old for you, and as far as I know the only thing they share is cookies.”

“Oh my god. Just— Win . I think he might be—is he blond?” Unlike Trixie, I couldn’t get my thoughts together in what might be the big revelatory moment, let alone my words. “I need you to look at something.”

Martha watched me curiously as I patted my pockets. Why did I pat my pockets? Did I think that Sterling’s photograph of Freddy and Cap Boy had, though the power of thought alone, transported itself into my pocket instead of his? Wow. Some big moment this was. Not only could I not string my words together, I also didn’t have any physical evidence to present. Trixie would be ashamed of me.

“We need to go to the airport, now!” I darted to the door and grabbed Martha’s coat off the hook. I tossed it at her, and then grabbed mine. “You need to see Sterling’s photograph. The research project we were doing—I think Win might be his uncle.”

Martha slipped her arms into her coat. “But who’s going to watch the museum?”

I waved my arms at the empty foyer. “I guess the hordes of tourists desperate to look at the mechanical Santa will just have to form an orderly queue.”

Martha clicked her tongue. “Let me write a note for the door.”

A few moments later we were on our way, a note with Back in 5 minutes taped to the door of the museum. The note was a lie. There was no way we’d make it to the airport in five minutes, let alone back again. We were just hoping that, firstly, nobody would turn up hoping for admission to the museum, and that, secondly, if they did, they wouldn’t time us.

As I drove to the airport for the second time in an hour, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and unlocked it with the passcode.

“Not while you’re driving,” Martha told me sternly, and plucked the phone out of my grasp.

“Can you call Sterling for me? And tell him we’re coming?” It wouldn’t be as dramatic as bursting into the airport in the nick of time, but security wouldn’t approve of anything too exciting, and also, a text would stop Sterling from boarding his flight early, right? Because I knew without a doubt that Sterling Van Ruyven was a member of some platinum or gold tier that allowed him to board first, cutting down the time he had to spend rubbing shoulders with the common folk in the line.

Martha jabbed at my phone screen. “Why am I looking at your photographs?”

“Oh my god, just?—”

She held the phone out of reach. “I can get it! Keep your eyes on the road.”

I gripped the steering wheel tightly and tried to pretend I believed she could do this. I loved Martha to bits, but phones were not her forte.

“And... sent !” she exclaimed. “‘I’m coming to see you. Don’t go anywhere yet.’ Oh, your stupid phone wrote yeti. Never mind. He’ll figure it out.”

The Christmas Falls airport—The Reindeer Runway—was only small. It was a very short dash from the parking lot to the terminal building, or at least it would have been without Martha slowing me down. Even at her pace, though, it only took a few minutes to get inside.

The terminal was tiny, and my heart sank when I looked around and realized Sterling must have already gone through security. I approached security—it was one TSA worker with a hand wand standing beside a baggage X-Ray.

“Boarding pass and I.D.”

“Hello,” I said. “Hi. My friend is through there, and I need to talk to him.”

“Do you have a boarding pass?”

“No.” I craned my head to look around the X-Ray machine to the small lounge area beyond. I could see a couple of kids playing on the floor, and a woman staring at a coffee vending machine. And, just behind her, I saw a pair of legs stretched out, though I couldn’t see who they were attached to because of the vending machine. But the jeans and shoes looked expensive. “Sterling! Sterling! ”

“Sir—”

“ Sterling !” I yelled one more time, and then backed away from the TSA guy. “Sorry! Merry Christmas!” I hurried back to Martha’s side. “Do you think he heard that?”

“I think the entire terminal heard that,” Martha said with an approving smile. She nodded toward the check-in desks. “You do realize you could have asked them to call him over the PA, right?”

“Well, I realize that now .” I tried to peer past the TSA guy’s glare. “I can’t see if he’s still sitting there or not. I think he’s still there? Is that?—”

“Harvey?”

I spun around to discover Sterling standing behind me, his handsome brow furrowed with confusion. “That’s not you.”

His brow furrowed further.

“In there, I mean,” I said, pointing a thumb over my shoulder at security. “Because you’re out here. You haven’t gone through security yet. Where were you three minutes ago when we got here?”

“The bathroom?”

“Okay, yes. That makes sense.”

I stared at him and he stared at me, and then he said, “What are you doing here? And hi, Martha.”

“Hello, dear,” Martha said.

“Um, didn’t you get my text? It sort of explained...well, no, it didn’t explain. But it did tell you we were coming.”

Sterling took his phone out of his pocket and checked the screen. “I didn’t get any texts.”

“Who did I send it to then?” Martha wondered aloud.

“Martha has a nephew called Goodwin,” I said, and Sterling’s expression morphed from one of confusion to one of utter shock. “Can she look at your photo, please?”

Sterling fumbled with his phone, and I reached out and caught his hand before he dropped it. “Thanks.”

I squeezed his fingers before releasing him.

He slipped his phone into his pocket, exchanging it for the photograph. He held it out to Martha, his eyes wide.

Martha pushed her glasses further up her nose and took the photo. She squinted at it for a moment, and then said, “Yes, that’s Win. And Kyle too. Look at that cap! This must have been back when they were still teenagers, and Kyle worked the festival.”

“Oh my God!” I exclaimed, loudly enough that the security guy looked over at us. “Sterling! We did it. We cracked the case.”

Sterling let out a long breath.

“ You cracked the case?” Martha raised her brows.

“Well, you did, mostly,” I amended. “Good job, Martha.”

“I…” was all Sterling said.

“Let’s go,” I told him. “We have to go talk to him. Martha, can you, I don’t know, call Win, and tell him?—”

“Tell him what?” Sterling asked softly, his tone putting a bit of a damper on my enthusiasm. He took back the photo Martha held out to him. “That I intend to pay him to stay out of my life? Out of all the Van Ruyvens’ lives?”

Martha and I stared at him.

“I wouldn’t lead with that, no,” I admitted.

He looked at me, and it seemed like he was sort of pleading with his eyes. But I didn’t know what he was asking. “No,” he agreed. “But that’s…that’s what I’m here for. Not to be part of some tear-filled family reunion. My family, they’re— we ’ re —not his people. His people are here.”

“He’s your people,” I said firmly. “ Your people are here.”

I meant me, of course, as well as Freddy. Even though I shouldn’t be thinking that way.

He shook his head and made as if he were going to hand me the photo. Like he wanted to hand over the whole situation, the whole burden, to me. “He’s here. He’s happy. He probably hasn’t thought of any of us in years. How can I go there and kick him in the gut out of nowhere by reminding him his family didn’t want him then, and we don’t want him now.”

I frowned. Well, when he put it like that…

Still, I placed a hand on his arm, and he didn’t pull away. “One step at a time.”

“Now hold on,” Martha said. “What’s all this about kicking Win in the gut and paying him off?”

Sterling sighed again.

“It’s kind of a long story,” I said, pretty sure I still didn’t know the half of it.

“I look out for those boys.” Martha gave me a sharp glance. “I’m glad Win’s long-lost nephew has shown up like a damn Christmas miracle, but if Sterling’s got bad news for him, I’d like to know what we’re dealing with.”

I racked my brain for a Cliff’s Notes explanation, but Sterling surprised me by speaking up. “It’ll probably be easiest if I only tell the whole story once. To all of you. It’s not that I have bad news, exactly. Just a business matter I need to discuss with my uncle.”

“Excuse me, sir?” a voice interrupted. “Are you on this flight?” It was the TSA agent. “You need to make your way to the gate if so.”

“Uh, no,” Sterling told him. “I’m actually leaving.”

I gave the TSA guy a small nod and a wave, and we all headed for the exit.

It was already dark out at five p.m., and we could see our breath in the cold. My phone buzzed in my pocket as we crossed the parking lot, but I ignored it. At the car, there was an awkward moment where Martha said, “You boys ride up front,” while Sterling and I insisted she wasn’t going to sit in the backseat of her own car, and then Martha said it would be like a chauffeur service, and Sterling finally got in the passenger seat after opening the back door for Martha. I started the car and got the heat going while Martha called Freddy. Win.

I could hear him answer but couldn’t make out anything he said. Martha laughed and made small talk for a couple of minutes, then asked if he was at home. “I was going to stop by and bring you some sugar cookies,” she said. The answer she received sounded very enthusiastic.

Sterling sat rigid beside me.

“I’ve got a couple of friends with me,” Martha said. A pause. “Never you mind. You’ll see.” They said goodbye as I pulled out of the parking space.

The drive was tense and silent. I cleared my throat and glanced at Martha in the rearview mirror. “So I’ve been looking at cats.”

“Cats?” she repeated.

Sterling shot a look my way too.

“For the museum,” I clarified. “I don’t think we can have just one cat. It might get lonely. But do you think we’ll get in trouble if we have two cats living at the museum?”

“In trouble with who?”

I shrugged. “The town council? The county? People with allergies?”

“Who’s going to say no to cats? Especially if we get them right before Christmas.”

“You’ll have to give them appropriately Christmas Falls-y names,” Sterling said a bit hoarsely, staring straight ahead as we approached downtown.

Martha leaned forward to tell me, “Just go straight through town and out the other end. Then keep driving.”

“What names would you go with?” I asked Sterling, to get him to focus on something besides his nerves.

“I don’t know. Carol?”

“No, that’s terrible. Carol’s not a cat’s name. Is it? I don’t think it is.”

“Mittens, then?”

“Oh, that’s smart. Winter-themed. But is it Christmassy enough? We’ll put it on the shortlist.”

My phone buzzed again. The next time we sat at a red light, I took it out.

My stomach dropped like dead weight.

Text after text from Steven. I ’ m not home, I ’ m downtown.

Meet at the Museum?

Where are you? I ’ m at the museum.

Where are you?

I scrolled up, already knowing what I’d find. The text from Martha, the one meant for Sterling: I ’ m coming to see you. Don ’ t go anywhere yeti.

“It’s green,” Sterling murmured, and I was confused until I looked up at the light and jammed on the gas.

Martha made a startled sound, and Sterling went, “Whoa there.”

I eased back a little. “Sorry.” I’d deal with the Steven situation later. Or, I’d deal with it as soon as we reached Win’s. I’d just send Steven a text saying the first text had been meant for someone else.

That would definitely go over great.