Anna laughed. “You know, I think the thief is just a bored teenager. Last year, some kid made an entire igloo out of other people’s inflatables.”
Tessa snorted. “If it’s just a kid, I’ll buy them a soda. But if it’s a grown man, I’m going to destroy him on live TV.”
Caroline put a hand on Tessa’s arm. “You can’t destroy everyone, honey. Sometimes you just have to let the lights go.”
Tessa grinned, not unkindly. “Not my style. But I’ll keep it in mind.”
Grace felt the tension drain from her, replaced by a sort of resigned affection. Tessa was impossible, but she was also, against all odds, one of them. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that even the most unbreakable people needed to be protected.
All she had to do was stay alive until midnight tonight, and then, she’d be safe. That shouldn’t be so hard, should it?
15
Grace was just on the edge of a caramel-apple coma and a perfectly good buzz when the universe decided to kick her in the shins. The crowd had thinned in the last hour. The children were gone, carted home by tired parents with hot cocoa mustaches and glittery mittens, leaving only the die-hard townsfolk and a few groups of tourists who were determined to get their money’s worth out of a Christmas Eve in Holiday Hollow. Most of them had transitioned to the “rowdy adult” phase, parading around the square with spiked eggnog and candy-cane vodka, singing along to the ancient outdoor speakers that now alternated between holiday classics and vaguely raunchy remixes.
Grace stood with Bryant near the dying embers of a fire pit, two empty paper cups at their feet, and watched a gaggle of grown men in Santa hats try, and fail, to limbo under a string of lights. It should have been funny, but she found herself watching the crowd with a mounting, sourceless dread.
Bryant’s arm was around her waist, his touch light but present, and she leaned into it, soaking up the moment. In the glow of the string lights, he looked younger and less haunted—just a man in love with a town, a holiday, and, maybe, a psychicwho could barely keep her scarf untangled. She wanted to hold onto that for a little longer.
“So,” Bryant said, “what’s the plan for midnight? You gonna turn into a pumpkin, or?—?”
The punchline was interrupted by a uniformed cop barreling across the square, nearly upending the tray of a churro vendor in his urgency. He made a beeline for Bryant, face red, breath fogging in the air.
“Deputy!” the officer huffed. “It’s Tessa. I lost her.”
Bryant straightened, every hint of warmth gone. “What do you mean, you lost her?”
The cop, young, hair cropped so short he looked unfinished, shifted from foot to foot. “She was at the last vendor stall, interviewing folks about the light thief, and then she just—” He made a vague, helpless gesture. “Disappeared. I circled the square twice. She’s not here.”
Bryant swore under his breath, then glanced at Grace, who was already pulling on her gloves. “Which way did she go?”
The cop shook his head. “No idea. I asked around, but she’s fast.”
Grace felt it like a gut punch. She hadn’t had a new vision, but she could remember the one with the snow and the blood splattering. And she could feel the tension in the air, the same thick, predatory pressure she remembered from the staircase at the Winter Ball, and the night of the tree-lighting. It was here again, coiling tighter, a snake under the snow.
Bryant looked at her, eyes asking the question he couldn’t say aloud: Do you feel it?
She nodded, once. “We need to find her. Now.”
The cop’s radio crackled, but there was nothing but background static and the distant crosstalk of carolers getting belligerent on peppermint schnapps. Bryant sent him to sweep the vendor stalls again, then turned to Grace, jaw set.
“Any idea where she’d go?” he asked.
“If she’s chasing a story, she’ll want to go somewhere the Christmas light thief might strike. Or maybe…” She trailed off, uncertain.
Bryant didn’t hesitate. “Let’s just start moving and see what our gut says.”
They started for the far side of the square, cutting between the vendor huts, but before they’d gotten ten feet, Caroline emerged from a crowd of tipsy PTA moms, clutching a giant inflatable snowman.
“Where are you two sneaking off to?” she said, blue eyes bright and slightly glazed.
Grace summarized in one sentence: “Tessa’s missing. Might be in danger.”
Caroline’s face reset in an instant, sobriety overtaking everything else. “Say no more.” She tossed the snowman to a passing child and called for Olivia, who appeared almost instantly, and Anna, who materialized from the shadows like she’d been listening the whole time.
Within seconds, the four of them had formed a flying wedge behind Bryant, moving with the shared determination of women who’d spent most of their adult lives organizing events, herding children, or otherwise running entire communities with nothing but coffee and threat of public embarrassment.
As they moved out of the main square, the noise faded. Here, the lights were softer, the snow unbroken except for their own footprints. Grace felt the old nerves creeping in, but she refused to let them win.
