He pulled away, his brow furrowed. “I’m worried about Santa.”
“Me, too,” she said. “How did you get back from Fairbanks?”
“I hitched a ride with the beer truck.”
“Why didn’t you wait for Ms. Betty?”
“I couldn’t. Someone was following me.”
“Why?”
“Because of this.” Chris reached inside his jacket and pulled out a large envelope.
The package.
Mary took the item from him. Aware that delivering this package could be the only way to keep her father alive.
Her hands shook as she lifted it to the light of the moon. All that was written on the outside were the numbers she’d seen on her father’s note. The numbers were the P.O. box number to a box in Fairbanks. “Did this arrive today?”
“Yes. Your father left a note and a key in my room at Mr. Feegan’s.”
“Did the note say The Shop Around the Corner?”
“Yes, it did. I recognized it as that crazy game he’d play when he’d want me to find a surprise.”
“And you’d seen that movie?”
“Yeah.” Chris shrugged. “Your dad and I watched it just the other night before all this happened. It wasn’t bad for an old black-and-white. Anyway, when I got the note, I ran down to the North Pole post office, but the numbers on the boxes didn’t go that high, so I figured he meant for me to go to Fairbanks.”
Chris shivered and pulled his collar up around his ears. “Once I found the box and retrieved the package, I slipped through one of the back doors, like I used to slip in and out of the grocery store back when I had to steal for food.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “I circled back around and watched from a distance. A man waited by the door for a while, watching everyone entering and leaving. After a while, he went inside. When he came out, he stared around like he was looking for someone. I think that someone was me.”
“Oh, Chris.” Mary hugged him close.
The young man pushed her away. “I can handle myself. Since Ms. Betty had dropped me off, I figured he’d seen that and would be watching for her, so I decided to find my own way back to North Pole. That’s when I caught a ride in the back of the beer delivery truck.” Chris grinned. “A guy could get into a lot of trouble in the back of a beer truck.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“When I got back to town, I heard about Mr. Feegan.” Chris’s eyes glistened. “He’d been so good to me, letting me stay with him and all.” The young man rubbed his coat sleeve over his eyes.
Mary patted his shoulder. “Mr. Feegan was a good man.”
“I couldn’t go there, that’s why I’m here. I hoped your dad would call me on my cell phone and let me know what to do with that.”
The tune to “Here Comes Santa Claus” sounded from Chris’s jacket pocket. He stuffed his gloved hand in and pulled out a cell phone, staring down at the number on the display. “It’s Santa.”
Mary froze. Had the message she’d received been a lie? Could it be her father wasn’t being held hostage?
Chris received the call and pressed the phone to his ear. “Hello.” The young man listened, his eyes widening. “What did you say?” He jammed the phone to Mary’s ear.
She wrapped her fingers around it and listened.
“If you want to see Santa alive,” an ominous voice said, “bring the package to Santa’s house by midnight. Enter through the back door. Just you. No one else. If more than one person arrives or if any of the information in the package gets out, I’ll slit the old man’s throat. Understood?”
Mary gulped and answered in her best Chris impersonation, “Yes.”
The caller hung up.
Mary’s hands shook so badly she almost dropped the phone when she handed it back to Chris. “I got a similar text message just a little while ago.” She held out her cell phone, showing him the text. “He’s got my dad. I have to go there. Now.” She glanced down at the package, disgust curling her lips. “What could be so important in this that someone would kill a nice old man?”
