Chapter 7

seven

STERLING

W hen we walked back to where we’d left the car parked on the side of the street outside the museum, Harvey was acting weird. Weirdness seemed like Harvey’s default setting, but this was a new sort of weirdness. This wasn’t a ‘tell someone you’ve just met about your Trixie Belden obsession’ weirdness. This was Harvey being overly bright and perky, pointing out Christmas decorations as we passed and chatting animatedly about the history of Christmas Falls, and being six hundred percent invested in everything except making eye contact with me.

“Harvey,” I said, “Can we talk about it?”

“I don’t think we need to talk about it. Oh, see that graffiti there? That’s got an interesting story. Last year?—”

“Harvey. Come on. I don’t know if I need to apologize or?—”

“My phone!” he exclaimed suddenly, and pulled it out of his coat pocket to answer. “Hello?” His fake smile vanished, replaced by a more honest expression of delight, and his eyes widened. “Oh, hi. No, it’s not about the heating at the museum. I think the dead raccoon was a one-time thing. Well, I hope it was. I’m actually doing a local history research project, and I was hoping I could come and see you and ask you some questions about working for Blitzen’s back in the day.”

Travis Jones.

I listened avidly to Harvey’s side of the conversation with the man who was very possibly Cap Guy from Freddy’s photograph. I couldn’t make out anything except the faint timbre of Travis Jones’s voice. It sounded warm and friendly, which made Travis Jones just like everyone else I’d met so far in town, with the exception of Steven. And in all fairness to Steven, I’d made a hell of a confronting first impression.

“Okay,” Harvey said when he ended the call. His eyes were bright with anticipation, which helped settle the sudden and inexplicable nervousness that fluttered in my gut. “That was Travis Jones. He’s working over on the west side of town, but he said we can come and talk to him there if we want.”

“Okay,” I agreed, and drew a deep breath.

I didn’t know why I was so nervous. Was it just because this was what felt like our first solid lead? If Travis Jones was Cap Guy, then he’d known Freddy and might be able to tell us what had happened to him. That was the whole reason I was here, after all—to find out where Freddy was and circumvent any potential issues with my father’s inheritance. I’d spent my entire life knowing the family’s business empire would one day be mine to run. That was all this was, right? Business? Except there was Freddy, with his arm around another boy, and I’d made the same assumption Harvey had when I’d showed it to him: that Freddy was gay, and he’d run away to find some happiness. And just like that, it was about more than business. In a very uncomfortable way, one I didn’t want to examine too closely, it was about me .

I had a feeling Harvey knew it too.

Was that why I’d kissed him? He was cute as hell, but he was also warm and kind and fun, and I liked him. I felt about as sophisticated as a tween with their first awkward crush—all confusing big emotions and no way to express them—but I liked him and so I’d kissed him.

“Okay,” Harvey said, and just when I was wondering if we were going to keep saying ‘okay’ to each other all day, he tugged his car keys out of his coat pocket. “Let’s roll. I’m Trixie, and you’re Honey.”

“What? Can’t I at least be Jim?”

Harvey gasped. “You said you were a Nancy Drew fan! But you remember Honey’s brother’s name?”

“Adopted brother,” I said. And Trixie’s love interest, which had no bearing on why I’d wanted to be Jim to Harvey’s Trixie. None at all. “And I downloaded one last night.”

Harvey’s burst of laughter carried us all the way to the car.

Travis Jones didn’t look much like the guy in the photograph when we met him outside a daycare center on the west side of Christmas Falls, where he was doing something technical with the condenser of a HVAC unit. It looked like he was bashing it with a hammer, but then I was no expert.

The little kids inside the daycare were watching avidly from inside, noses pressed up against the window, as Travis smashed away at the unit.

He was a big guy; husky, but he carried it well. If he was Cap Guy, he’d spent the last thirty-some years packing on the pounds, but it was mostly muscle. He was wearing a red checked flannel shirt, an orange puffer vest, jeans, boots, and a woolen beanie.

“Hey,” he said when he saw us approaching. He set his tools down, wiped his forehead, and crunched across the snowy lawn to meet us on the sidewalk. “Harvey, right? From the museum?”

“Right,” Harvey said, shaking his hand. “And this is Sterling. Thanks for taking the time to see us. I’m sure you’re pretty busy with your job.”

Travis chuckled, looking over his shoulder at the daycare. “Oh, this is off the clock. But the heating goes on the fritz at a daycare, you come right out, doncha?”

At least you did in Christmas Falls, apparently, where the usual rules didn’t seem to apply. Or at least, the usual rules of my world. And my world was looking increasingly less welcoming the longer I spent in Christmas Falls.

Travis held out his hand to me, and I shook it.

“So, Sterling is in town looking for a relative of his,” Harvey said. “We’ve got a photograph, and Bob and Linda Hanks thought it might be you.”

Travis looked at me more closely.

“Not the relative,” Harvey said. “But someone who knew him. His name is Freddy Van Ruyven, but it’s possible he was using the name Gabriel. Gabriel Baum.”

“Well, shit,” Travis said. He rubbed his forehead, shifting his beanie back in the process and letting a couple of mousey brown curls escape. “That’s a name I haven’t heard in years. Gabe was...well, last I heard, and it’d be twenty-five years ago now, Gabe went and got himself killed freighthopping somewhere outside of Chicago. I always told him it was dangerous. Told him he’d get himself arrested, or worse.” He let out a long, regretful sigh. “I guess it was worse.”

The blood pounded behind my ears, as loud as the ocean. Isn’t this what I’d told myself I wanted? To know what had happened to Freddy? To have him removed from the family equation when it came to any claims he might make on my grandfather’s estate? Well, this was certainly removed. Unequivocally. So why did it feel like such a sudden and sharp loss, when it had happened decades ago and I didn’t even know the guy?

Because this is about me, too.

I could barely hear Harvey when he spoke.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, that’s really sad. I’m sorry.” I didn’t know if he was talking to me or to Travis, but his next question told me it was Travis. “Were you close?”

“Thick as thieves for a few months, then he hit the road again,” Travis said. “I asked him to stay, but whatever he was running from, it was biting at his heels.”

My heart clenched.

“He was a real funny guy,” Travis said, “once you got him to talk, at least. Then he’d open his mouth, and this slow drawl would come out, like he was a real cowboy or something.”

“Drawl?” I asked, at the exact same time Harvey said, “Cowboy?”

Travis’s brow furrowed. “Yeah. Gabe was Texan.”

“Oh,” Harvey said. “Oh!”

I dug into my pocket for the photograph and thrust it in Travis’s face.

He took it, his blunt fingers closing carefully around the edges. “Hold on,” he said. “That’s not Gabe. I mean, Gabe was blond, but that’s not him.”

“The guy in the cap,” I said. “Isn’t that you?”

He squinted at the photograph. “Nope. That’s not me either.”

Shit .

“Oh, wow,” Harvey said. “Bob and Linda thought it was you and Gabe.”

“Nope.” Travis gave the photograph back. “I mean, I guess you can’t really see the guy in the hat’s face, and maybe I looked kind of similar when I was a kid. But that’s definitely not Gabe. Gabe had a crooked nose from where it was broken once. Said a horse kicked him, but I always thought he was just playing up the cowboy thing.” He scratched his cheek. “Bob and Linda are both getting on a bit. Maybe their memories are fuzzy, or their eyesight is. And honestly, at that angle I reckon all us Blitzen’s kids would look pretty much the same.”

I stared at the window of the daycare place. Most of the kids had given up watching now that Travis wasn’t bashing things with his hammer, but there was still one little boy in the window, his hands starfished to the glass as he peered out at us. He saw me watching and waved. I waved back.

“So you don’t know who they are?” Harvey asked.

“Sorry,” Travis said. “The guy in the cap might be Matty? Matty Jessup. Hard to tell though. I’ll ask Linda and Bob when I go visit them after this. See if maybe they’ve got any more ideas for you.”

“Oh, they called you about the fence?”

“Not yet,” Travis said. He rested his hands on his tool belt, looking suddenly shifty. “I got an email. Not exactly sure who it was from...”

“Oh!” Harvey exclaimed. “Was it from the Secret Santa?”

“It was anonymous, which I guess is the whole point.” Travis gave another shrug. “Anyhow, Casper’s a little escape artist. I’d hate it if he got hit by a car or something, when the whole thing could be prevented by just fixing the hole in the fence.”

“There’s a Secret Santa going around town arranging for stuff to get fixed for people,” Harvey told me.“Or just leaving notes and stuff to cheer people up. I wish I knew who it was.”

Jesus. This town was so fucking nice . They had to be sacrificing tourists in pagan blood rituals for the winter solstice or something, right? Or whoever was in charge of Ginger’s Breads was putting some sort of illegal happy drugs in the sugar cookies.

“So you’ve had a mystery in front of you this whole time, but you had to wait for me to show up to start cracking cases?” I teased. I spoke easily and without thinking, but then immediately felt awkward. Like I’d said it to prove to myself, or Travis, or Harvey, or all of us, that I fit here. With Harvey and Travis going on about Bob and Linda’s fence and the town’s Secret Santa, I’d started to get that outsider-looking-in feeling again, and had needed to show that I had a connection to this place, that Harvey and I were friends, that I could participate in this conversation too.

To my relief, Harvey grinned. “Ah, well. I guess a Secret Santa has a right to remain secret.”

Travis snorted. “Whoever they are, I have a feeling they’re behind all the new kids’ books at the library. My daughter is obsessed with The Grumpus. My throat’s sore from doing the voice.”

“Worth it,” Harvey said.

“It is.” Travis rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help to you. But like I said, I’ll ask Linda and Bob about Matty Jessup.”

“We seriously appreciate it,” Harvey said. “And I really am sorry about Gabe. Linda and Bob said you guys had a falling out before you went to college.”

“Yeah.” Another long sigh, and another sweep of his brow. “I asked him to stay in Christmas Falls. But, like I said, he was running from something. I guess he felt like he needed to keep moving. Lot of times over the years I would have liked to have my best friend by my side. When I got married, when the kids came...” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I just wish he’d stayed, is all.”

I wondered why he hadn’t. Maybe, like me, he looked at how pretty Christmas Falls was, how nice all the people were, and knew instinctively that he didn’t belong here. Or maybe, like Travis said, he just needed to keep running. I wished his story had a happier ending.

“This is a weird question,” I said, but it was probably no weirder than anything else we’d sprung on him already. “But is there a reason Bob didn’t like Gabe?”

“Oh, Bob loved Gabe,” Travis said. “While he was here, at least.” He snorted, a flush rising on his cheeks. “After Gabe left town, Bob caught me wailing like a little kid into a popcorn machine. I was way too old to be crying like that, at least I thought so, but Bob said he remembered how hard it was to lose your friends, and it didn’t matter if you were eight or eighteen or eighty. Then he rolled his trouser leg up and showed me his wooden leg.” His expression clouded. “I’d forgotten he was a veteran. Anyway, I guess he was angry at Gabe for leaving after our big fight, and for not saying goodbye.”

On the drive back to downtown, Harvey and I were both a little subdued.

“Are you upset it was a dead end?” Harvey asked me as we drove through a quiet residential street.

“No, I don’t think so.” I drummed my fingers on my knee. “I’d hoped we’d find out Gabe was Freddy and get some answers, but at the same time, I’m glad it wasn’t him. It sounds as though Gabe, whoever he was, had a rough life.”

Harvey hummed. “It’s sad. Especially because Travis wanted him to stay.”

“Maybe he thought there wasn’t anything for him here,” I said. How many times since being here had I told myself that Christmas Falls wasn’t real? The truth was, maybe it wasn’t the town that was a fake. Maybe it was me. Had Gabe felt like he’d fallen into some weird mirror universe when he’d arrived in Christmas Falls?

It was like being on vacation. Sometimes you let your mind wander. You dreamed of moving here, buying a place, having every day be as good as your time here. But it wasn’t reality. It couldn’t be. That vacation shine would wear off the second you had to pay bills or go to work or, in the case of Christmas Falls, shovel snow out of your driveway.

Harvey let out a long breath.

I glanced at him. “So, about the kiss.”

Harvey jolted, jerking the steering wheel.

“I don’t want to die in Christmas Falls, Harvey!” I exclaimed as the tires scraped the gutter. Fortunately, we were only doing about twenty, and the street was empty of pedestrians. There were a few massive festive displays in danger though, if Harvey crashed. There would be Santas and reindeer scattered for miles.

“Why would you bring it up when I’m driving?” he asked, clenching the steering wheel more firmly as he got us back on our way.

“I thought you could drive and talk at the same time!”

“I can, usually!” He steered the car to the edge of the road and put it into Park. “Okay, so I guess I’d rather talk about this in the car than anywhere there are people around.”

“What? Why?”

“To...” He waved his hand. “I don’t know. I would just prefer there are no witnesses to my humiliation, I guess.”

“What humiliation?”

“The humiliation of being turned down by you!”

“What?” I blinked at him. “Harvey, I kissed you. Why would I turn you down after that?”

His eyes grew large. “You wouldn’t?”

“No.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or throttle him. “I know I’m only in town for a short time, and if you’re not interested because of that, then?—”

I didn’t get a chance to finish, because suddenly I had a lap full of Harvey Novak. And, let me tell you, there really wasn’t enough room in the passenger seat of a compact hatchback to have a lap full of anyone.

“Ow,” I said, as he kneed me in the ribs.

He hit his head on the ceiling. “Oof. I didn’t think this out very well, Sterling.”

“I can see that.” Laughing despite the jab of pain in my side, I helped to gently extricate him back to his own side of the car. “Are you okay?”

He rubbed his head and showed me a rueful smile. “Yes. Are you?”

“Never better.”

And I was surprised to discover it was the truth.

Harvey offered to drop me off at the hotel after we’d met with Travis Jones, but, despite having probably a thousand emails to catch up on, I declined.

“I was thinking of checking out the arts and crafts,” I said, and it wasn’t a lie. When was the last time I’d done something for no purpose other than the vague thought it might be enjoyable? The idea of picking up some homemade tchotchke, the kitchier the better, and giving it a home on my sterile bookshelves back in New York amused me. My apartment was clean, minimalist, and neutral-toned; it was everything Christmas Falls was not. I hadn’t even chosen the splashes of color or the artwork on the walls. My designer had, gushing about balance, and form, and the way the pieces drew the eye. I’d bet something from the Arts and Crafts Fair would draw a lot more eyes a lot faster.

“It’s awesome!” Harvey said, his eyes bright with enthusiasm. “It’s a great place to get your Christmas shopping done.” And then he raised his eyebrows. “Well, maybe not yours.”

“It sounds perfect.”

“Is Christmas Falls working its seasonal magic on you, Sterling?”

“Well, I haven’t been visited by three ghosts yet, but I can only assume that happens tonight.”

Harvey laughed.

In truth, I was feeling a little rattled since we’d spoken to Travis and learned about Gabe Baum. The possibility of finding out that Freddy’s story had an unhappy ending just like Gabe’s felt very real, and I was surprised at how much the idea unsettled me, and how much I didn’t enjoy facing it. I’d never been one for retail therapy outside of Berluti, but the distraction of shopping for Christmas trinkets to offend my apartment’s beige sensibilities was suddenly very appealing.

When we got back to the museum building, Harvey and I walked in together. There were people heading in and out of the Arts and Crafts Fair, the tinkling melodies of Christmas music accompanying them. At the door of the museum, an elderly woman in a hot pink puffer jacket and lime green pants was sticking a sign to the door. She was thin and a little stooped, and looked as though a stiff breeze would knock her down. She had a long gray plait that reached halfway down her back, glittery tinsel threaded through it. She turned to face us as we approached, andwhen she saw Harvey, her face cracked with a smile, her wrinkles deepening.

“ There you are!” she exclaimed. “I tried to call you, but you didn’t answer. I have to go and get some flour from the store, so I was just putting up a note.”

She gestured to it. It was the same sign I’d seen my first time here, and it was written in the same spindly handwriting: Back in 5 minutes.

Martha looked frail enough that she wouldn’t even make the front steps in five minutes, let alone the nearest store and back.

Harvey pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen. “I don’t have any missed calls.”

“Are you sure?”

Harvey blinked and nodded. “Yes. If you’d called me, it would show up on my screen, even if I didn’t answer.”

The old woman pursed her lips. “Well, whoever I called didn’t answer.”

“No, I know,” Harvey said. “But it wasn’t me. And you don’t need to type the number in every time. You can just find my name in your contacts.”

“Oh, Harvey, you know I’m no good with all of that.” She turned her attention to me, peering at me over the top of her glasses. “And who is this handsome young man?”

“This is Sterling,” Harvey said. “I’m helping him with a research project. Sterling, this is Martha. Martha works here at the museum with me.”

Martha held out a gnarled hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Sterling.”

I shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

Martha passed Harvey the sign. “Well, I’d best be going to get that flour, otherwise I won’t have any sugar cookies made for my nephews this weekend. I’ll be sure to make some for you too, Harvey.”

He beamed. “You make the best sugar cookies in Christmas Falls. But don’t tell my grandma I said that!”

Martha chuckled. “What about you, Sterling? Do you like sugar cookies too?”

“Um, yes, I do.”

“Well, I’ll have to make some for you as well,” Martha said, and headed for the exit.

This town and the people in it could not be for real, but the more time I spent here, the more I was starting to believe they were.

“She’s not just going to make me sugar cookies, is she?”

Harvey folded the sign and put it in his pockets. “No, she is.”

“But why? She doesn’t even know me?”

Harvey shrugged, and grinned. “Because it’s Christmas, Sterling. And it’s not just Christmas, it’s Christmas in Christmas Falls. That’s double the Christmas. I’ve done the math.”

“A counting horse could have done the math on that one.”

He laughed, his eyes shining, and then he nudged me with his shoulder. “I guess I should actually go to work, in case anyone wants to see the museum.”

“I guess you should,” I agreed. “What time do you finish?”

“Around five-thirty,” he said. “I’m usually out by six at the latest.”

“Let me take you to dinner?”

His cheeks pinked up as he gave me a pleased smile. “Okay.”

“Then I’ll pick you up at six,” I said.

“Okay,” said Harvey, biting his lower lip in a way that was more distracting than it had any right to be. “I’ll see you then.”

And it took every ounce of self-control I had not to kiss him right then and there.