I gave him a flat look. "Outside of movies and TV, have you ever seen an elf in real life?”
Jack leaned in and spoke in a hushed tone. "Have you seen Jasmine?”
“Jasmine?”
“We met her backstage at one of the shows.”
It could have been any number of women. I didn’t remember. “She’s not an elf.”
“No. Of course not. But that woman is fine.”
"Is that what this is about? Are you just doing this to impress her?”
"No. She called and asked, and I couldn't say no. Some of those kids are dying. If we can put a smile on their faces just for a minute, I'm there."
Since he put it that way, there was no way I could say no. It’s not that I didn’t want to help. I just didn’t want to look like an idiot.
I surrendered with an exhale. "Where do we find an elf costume on short notice that will fit?”
Jack smiled. "I don't know, but I'll find out.” He paused. "It'll be fun. We'll ask them for a list of toys and make their Christmas dreams come true."
"And what if they ask for something we can't deliver?"
Jack's face wrinkled as he dismissed the notion. "We can deliver."
"Just don't get their hopes up for something that's impossible."
"Would you stop being a downer?”
I raised my hands in surrender. "Whatever it takes, we’ll make it happen."
"That's the spirit!” Jack said with a grin. “Giving, sacrifice, joy! That’s what the season’s all about.”
I didn’t know it at the time, but there would be a lot of sacrifices made this holiday season.
“If we show up looking like this, we’re gonna scare those kids,” I said, motioning to my black eye.
“Relax. We’ll hire a special FX makeup artist. A little concealer and we’ll look as good as new.”
It would take a lot of concealer.
We took the rest of the day to recover from our torture session. JD and I hit the mall, got new phones, and synced our devices with the cloud. Jack touched base with the guys in the band and let them know we were okay. I returned missed calls and texts. We kept the evening pretty chill on the boat.
In the morning, Sheriff Daniels called with bad news.
5
Lights flickered atop patrol cars. The medical examiner was already on the scene. A crowd of curious neighbors loitered in the street, watching first responders come and go from the house. A few uniformed deputies kept them at bay.
We pulled up to the curb and parked behind the ambulance. JD and I hopped out of the 1979 Light Blue Metallic Porsche 911 SE, then walked across the lawn to the Stingray Bay mansion.
Whispers of gossip drifted through the crowd.
Paris Delaney and her news crew hadn't yet arrived, but the ambitious blonde would be here soon.
We stepped onto the imported marble tile of the foyer and followed the commotion up the grand staircase and down the hall to the master bedroom. All these cookie-cutter mansions looked the same. The neighborhood offered a handful of different floor plans—all nice, but if you’d been inside one, you'd been inside them all. Don't get me wrong, they were nothing to sneeze at. But the real money was in Palm Haven.
The bedroom was full of slick furniture and modern art. Atop the white four-post bed was a stunning brunette with lifeless azure eyes fixed on the ceiling. Completely naked and uncovered, her skin was pale, and her plump lips blue. The color had drained from her skin as blood pooled. She hadn't been this way long, judging by the faint trace of death in the air. At first glance, there appeared to be no trauma to the body. No blood splatter. Just a perfect porcelain corpse.
