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Cute.

Fifteen convertibles are parked around the fountain at the Plaza. In the next hour and a half, we need to deliver each package to the designated location. The first ten Santa Wannabes who get to Sheep Meadow in Central Park by six o’clock make it through to the next round.

“This car sleighs,” I say when I find Nathan, who’s already claimed the driver’s seat. Well, more of the driver’s side, given that the front seat in our convertible is like a bench, extending across the width of the car.

After debriefing with the bomb squad and my boss, we made it back to the hotel in time for a bathroom and snack break and to drop off the map and note with Meyers and Bird. I used the UV pen to reveal and trace over Sadistic Santa’s rerouting. Meyers scanned and printed me a duplicate copy of the map and the riddle for the road so that Bird can test the tampered-with map for fingerprints and submit it into evidence.

“I’m the contestant. I get to drive,” he says, preempting my objection. He runs his palms down the oversize steering wheel. No expense was spared for this event—the convertibles have been updated to automatic transmissions.

“This time, listen to me, okay?” I say, sliding into the passenger seat. Cameras have been mounted on the dash for the livestream while the judges and live audience watch on the big screens at the next competition’s location. Viewers at home get to feel like they’re riding along with us. Thankfully, the sound is muted.

Nathan brings the engine to life. I search the other cars to see which one Freddie gets into and memorize the license plate. “Is the car clean?” I ask.

“Nothing in the trunk, but I did find a decoy tracker under the car.” Nathan opens the glove compartment to show me. “And a real tracker.”

“Why, though? We’re being filmed. He’ll always know where we are.” Which means when it comes to the Snowflake stop, we’ll have to make it quick or play it off by pretending we got lost.

On the dashcam, Nelly and Todd count down. Then the clock starts. The race is on.

Nathan follows Freddie’s car down the street, switching lanes every now and then to avoid looking suspicious.

“The original map had five stops for us to make,” I say, comparing the map Todd emailed me against Sadistic Santa’s version. “The reroute has us going to the same places, plus the Snowflake destination, but taking different streets.”

The extra stop makes me nervous. Even one detour is going to cut it way too close.

“Why? He wants us to stay in the competition and hit our assigned drops but doesn’t want it to be easy? Or for us to follow him?” Nathan asks, gunning it when the stoplight turns yellow.

“Todd told me we all have unique routes to begin with.”

“Maybe there’s something on those streets? Or Sadistic Santa’s trying to throw us off. Or make us spend valuable time overanalyzing it.”

It’s working.

I throw out a sugarcoated speculation. “There’s also a chance he optimized our route so we can squeeze in the Snowflake stop.”

“How thoughtful of him.”

We have Meyers’s and Bird’s voices in our earpieces, Nelly and Todd on the speakers, and a clock on the dashboard set to less than ninety minutes. It’s a sensory overload reminding me all at once what’s at stake.

To get good shots of the city, the convertible tops are down. The Santa-faced sweater Nathan sent me years ago as a joke (or a dare) isn’t warm enough, so I blast the heat the highest it can go. Seeing this, Nathan peels off his Santa jacket at a red light and hands it to me. “Consider this me giving you wood for your fireplace of a body,” he says.

Though I normally run hot, today’s forty-one degrees has chilled me down to the bone. In the Con’s world, elves don’t wear jackets. “Weird way to call me hot, but okay,” I tease, offering him a grateful look.

“Weird way to turn something into a compliment, but okay,” he shoots back with a smirk. My eyes dart up from his thermal that hugs every muscle in his chest and arms. It’s both a blessing and a curse that I know what those muscles feel like.

Seems wrong to be having fun when we still haven’t caught Sadistic Santa and the threat of the bomb is more real than ever before, and yet, I’m not not having a good time. I know it’s because of the Santa beside me—my Santa, my heart screams.

We’re going to find the person behind this—we need to—but if we don’t, I wouldn’t have wanted to spend my last day with anyone else. It’s not the first time I’ve had this realization, but it is the saddest instance and the most fitting representation of Christmas: putting on a happy face while melancholic feelings linger beneath the surface.

As we speed down Fifth Avenue, I spread the photocopied map against the dashboard. This could be the moment we counterpunch and not go to the Snowflake location, but the timing doesn’t feel right. And if the map leads us to our clue, we have to follow it.

“Think Sadistic Santa had to take a poetry or calligraphy class in preparation for this?” I ask, tracing the swoops of calligraphy letters with my finger.

Nathan shrugs. “If he had a lot of time to prep, it’s possible. Which… maybe he did.”

“People like Sadistic Santa can be pathological liars. Deceptive. Let’s not get our hopes up about what we’ll find at the Snowflake.”

“He’s probably just going to keep leading us to so-called gifts until it’s too late,” he says flatly. “The who, what, when, where, why, my ass.”