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“This isn’t Santa’s sleigh. It doesn’t run on Christmas cheer and spirit.”

Scarlett slides onto the seat. “We don’t have time to change it. Let’s go.”

I get back in the car. “Does anyone here look at all like your informant? The one who escaped?” I ask as I bumpily merge back into traffic.

Her head snaps up to me. “No… why?”

“Maybe he’s seeking revenge,” I hypothesize. “Before he became your informant, you caught him doing something illegal.”

“Yeah, but he wasn’t like that,” she insists. “He was a good guy caught up with bad people.”

“Aren’t most of them?”

“I just… I really didn’t think he’d disappear like that or betray us. Betray me. My instincts were wrong, and I made a bad call. I know that now. Besides, the clues wouldn’t make sense for it to be him. Popcorn, Silver Belle, jewelry… They’re not related to the operations my informant and I worked on together.” Her eyes widen. “The numbers.”

She pulls up the notes in her phone. 2-4-5-7-25.

“What if the numbers are a string?” she asks, counting out loud. “Two and four is twenty-four. Five and seven wouldn’t be a string—there’s no fifty-seventh day. Added up, though, they equal twelve.”

24-12-25

They weren’t given to us in order. I rearrange the numbers. And suddenly, it’s all so obvious. It’s definitely a date. “Twelve, twenty-four, twenty-five.”

“December twenty-fourth, 2025,” Scarlett whispers.

I inhale sharply, the freezing air piercing my lungs. “Last Christmas Eve.”

There’s heavy silence for a few seconds as we both process what this means.

“I’m not the one Sadistic Santa wants,” she says, delivering the bad news to me slowly. “He’s after you.”

Chapter 22

NATHAN

One year ago, Christmas Eve

Maui

Scarlett disappears beneath the dark waves. I navigate the dinghy around to the other side of the Silver Belle, keeping an eye out for her the entire time. It takes her ten seconds—ten painfully long seconds—to surface next to the catamaran. She’s still out of Brody’s sight.

I drive up to the stairs, where Brody’s scowling at me. “Where’ve you been?”

“You think I’m really gonna miss the boss’s birthday?” I ask dismissively. “Boats aren’t my specialty. But hey, when everyone leaves without you, you steal what you have to.”

“Where’s your plus-one?”

“Broke up,” I say. “Hence the tardiness.”

Brody’s frown softens. He eyes the present in my hands and then says begrudgingly, “Upper deck.”

It’s only when I’m halfway up the stairs to the main deck that I hear Scarlett shout, “Help! Please!” She’s flailing her arms so convincingly that I’m half tempted to rescue her myself.

Instead, I dive into one of the individual bathrooms complete with a toilet and a sink. I turn the lock to show that it’s occupied but leave the door propped open.

While I’m waiting, I hear Agent Hall’s voice in my earpiece. “Lambros, a server said he saw you. Did I stop the boat so you could get on it? I said to stay put—”

“Plan A’s back on,” I say quietly into the mic.