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I run through the lobby, hoping to make it back before the end of the crowning ceremony. Arnold’s probably still in the ballroom. It would raise too much suspicion to suddenly leave.

Before I make the turn for the ballroom, I catch him out of the corner of my eye. Arnold. He’s at the bar in the Palm Court, just… sitting there.

What’s happening? Is the ceremony over already?

I walk under the room’s stained-glass dome and past potted palm trees and take a seat next to him.

He’s known who Nathan and I are, but does he know we’ve figured out who he is? I can use that to my advantage.

“Hey, Ron,” I say dejectedly. It doesn’t take much acting on my part.

He turns his head toward me ever so slightly. “Tough night? That was quite the scene.”

I set my elbow on the counter and rest my chin in my hand. “Tough? More like brutal.”

The bartender comes over and takes my order. I tell him I’ll have what Arnold’s having. A dirty martini for a dirty Santa.

“He gonna be all right?” Arnold asks. Honestly, I’m surprised he’s keeping up his persona.

“He was arrested on live TV for something pretty bad, so no. I don’t think he’ll be okay, Ron.” I look around. “Who won?”

“Tiebreak.”

A tiebreak? A tiebreak! That means there’s still time before the finale. There’s still time before a bomb potentially goes off. Is that why Arnold’s still hanging around? But if there’s a genuine bomb, wouldn’t he be long gone? The bomb squad did a sweep in the ballroom earlier, though, and found nothing. Maybe this isn’t about a bomb, after all.

“Between who?” I ask, keeping my voice neutral.

“Between Clifford and”—Arnold’s eyes flick over to me—“your Santa.”

Nathan still has a shot to be Santa of the Year?

I scroll through my @ChristmasSparkles50 feed to see what’s been happening. It’s all Hot Santa this, Hot Santa that. The audience, it seems, wants justice for Hot Santa. Wow. People did not love that Nathan was removed from the competition like that, and especially not with ten seconds to go.

The bartender sets my drink on a napkin as I say to Arnold, “You’re one of the judges. Surely you have some say. Shouldn’t you be in there?”

“Nelly and Todd are figuring out how to handle the tiebreaker,” he says, taking a long sip. Could this be his celebratory drink? His gloves are gone now, and his fingers are clean. Could I have imagined seeing the ink on them or did he wash it off? “Everyone else gets a twenty-minute break.”

I sit back and study Arnold’s profile. It’s not the same one that he had a year ago, at a very different bar than this one, but it’s the same man. Of that I’m certain.

In my necklace footage, he was looking in the same direction I was with love in his eyes. Who was he gazing at? It wasn’t Nathan, that much I know.

Last year, he appeared so much looser, lighter. So different than the person he was on New Year’s Eve all those years ago. As though the heavy years of crime had lifted off his shoulders.

The man behind all this, the one who blew up a star, who threatened me, who framed Nathan… he’s right here in front of me. And yet, he’s going to walk free because we don’t have hard evidence that he’s committed a crime, don’t have anything that ties him to illegal activities past or present. We can’t even technically prove that he’s Arnold Rossetti. At the end of all this, he’s going to get away with it.

And the man I love will take the fall for something he didn’t do.

Arnold glimpses at the watch on his right wrist. “I better get back.” He signals for the check, telling the bartender that he’ll be paying for my drink, too. Then he drains the last of his martini.

His fingerprint on the chilled glass catches in the light. I want to laugh, and then cry, and then laugh again. That impression alone can’t tie him to anything because somehow he’s not in our system. He was on the boat one minute, and then he wasn’t.

How?

And then a puzzle piece seems to click into place. A year ago, I sat at a bar with Arnold with sweet drinks and even sweeter lies hanging between us. As well as a snorkel set.

That’s it. That’s how he got away. That’s why it went missing. He had to have stolen it and jumped overboard as the agents approached. Random swimmers and snorkelers in the water might have been missed in the confusion.

Arnold reaches for the leather folder that the bartender’s dropped off. I lean closer, watching how he’ll sign. His watch is on his right wrist. Could he be left-handed? What name will he sign with? What room will he put?