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“Santa?” Bonnie says behind me. I pretend to hang up and slide my phone into my pocket. She hands me a bag containing a jewelry box. “Here you are. Merry Christmas.”

Back in the car, Scarlett and I are all business. I don’t mention the informant-ex-boyfriend. She doesn’t finish her sentence about my jealous tendencies.

“It’s light,” she observes, lifting the box. “Think they’re the earrings I asked Santa for?”

There’s a message written in gold ink on top.

A little ice, a little frost,

Even when it seems like it,

Not all is lost.

“The riddle we get for finishing this competition better have a clue on it, I swear,” Scarlett says.

“I’ll drive, you open,” I instruct.

“But this is the one he doesn’t want us to open. What if there’s a dye pack in there?”

“There wasn’t in the last one. He can’t honestly expect us to follow that rule.”

She looks reluctant. “We can try to outsmart him, but it still doesn’t feel like the right time.”

“What’s your gut saying?”

Scarlett pulls her sweater tighter around her. “It’s stalling for time. It’s like Gut Block, but not in a gross way.”

“Or it’s waiting for the right moment,” I try to reassure her.

I zoom through a yellow light, adrenaline coursing through me. “We need to know everything we’re working with.”

It takes Scarlett a few seconds to agree. She lifts the lid to reveal… a Ring Pop.

I grunt. “Is Sadistic Santa proposing? How romantic. Maybe that’s why he wanted to get you there. Have any long-lost suitors? Anyone who got away?”

Her eyes hold mine. “Yes.”

There’s something unresolved between us, that much is obvious. But we have ten minutes left on the clock. We need far longer than that to dig up and sift through the details from our past.

I break our eye contact and press down on the gas pedal. We zoom toward Central Park.

“If he was trying to delay us or mess with our heads or eliminate us, he’s going to be sorely disappointed when we make it through,” Scarlett says.

And then there’s a loud bang, a wheezing noise, and the rear of the convertible drops.

I swerve over into the bus-only lane and hop out. Stabbed into the sidewall of our deflated back tire is a candy-cane handled knife.

I lift the knife with my sleeve and put it on the floor of the back seat for evidence.

“When we were at the jewelry store,” Scarlett says, “Sadistic Santa was right there. He’s the only one who knew where we were.” She looks around. “I didn’t see anyone, but that truck was blocking part of my view. On the way, I’ll ask Meyers to pull street camera footage.”

“On the way?”

“Yeah, we need to keep moving.”

“Someone tried to sabotage us,” I say. “Right under our noses.”

“Getting eliminated won’t help us find him,” she says. “We’re not far from Sheep Meadow. We can drive on a flat for half a mile. More if you just believe.”