Lone Star Santa Read online

  “Does Sugar Land still do that Christmas light parade?”

  “Oh, my heavens, yes.” Her mother blipped the car. “It’s huge now. A real tourist draw, thanks to Patsy. She’s worked her tail off. Sugar Land ought to put her on the city payroll. You’ve met her—her daughter, Kiki, was a bridesmaid in Nicole’s wedding.”

  “Hmm.” Kristen was only half listening as she got into her mother’s new car. It was huge and plush for ferrying around clients to potential real estate properties.

  “Mitch is living at home now, too,” Barbara added.

  “Who?”

  “Kiki’s older brother. He was a couple of years ahead of you in school. Do you remember him?”

  Kristen tried to summon up a face to go with the name. She remembered a Mitch from the debate team. “Uh…kinda geeky?”

  Her mother checked the rearview and backed the car out of their driveway. “Maybe in school. Not the Mitch I saw at the wedding.”

  Kristen shrugged elaborately. “He must not be my type or I would have remembered him.” Kristen was already getting into character and liked the ennui in her voice.

  “Kristen, be nice if we see him at Patsy’s.”

  “Mom!” So much for staying in character. “I don’t have to get out of the car, do I?”

  “Kristen…” Barbara trailed off with a sigh.

  Kristen’s interfering-parent antenna prickled. “Oh, Mom, please. You aren’t trying to fix me up with him, are you?”

  “I merely thought—”

  “No. No thinking. Besides, what kind of loser guy lives with his parents at his age, anyway?”

  They’d come to a stoplight and Barbara gave one of those mother looks to Kristen. “He’s here for an extended holiday visit—rather like you.”

  Ouch. “Guess we have more in common than I thought.”

  “MITCH?”

  “Hang on. I’m about to beat the level forty-seven boss and then I can get the invisibility cloak.”

  Mitch’s parents looked into his childhood room, now a cave lit only by the greenish hue of the computer monitor. He’d not only drawn the curtains, he’d put something over the windows to completely block all light. It smelled of stale Cheetos and burnt dust.

  “Have you been up all night?” Patsy Donner asked, knowing that he had.

  At first she didn’t think Mitch would answer.

  “What time is it?” he asked, eyes still on the monitor.

  “Nine o’clock.”

  “In the morning?”

  Patsy sighed. “Yes.”

  “Guess so.”

  She exchanged a look with Mitch’s father. “We wanted you to know we’re going to be gone most of the day. We’re working on the Christmas Light Parade.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Come with us,” his father suggested. “The committee could use the help and you used to be pretty handy with Christmas lights.”

  “I’m good.”

  Robert and Patsy exchanged another look and Patsy signaled that they should confer downstairs. Clearly, something was wrong and she and Mitch’s dad were negotiating the fine line between interfering in their adult son’s life and parenting a child in need.

  “Hey, Mom?” Mitch continued typing and stabbing the space bar.

  Maybe he’d leave his den after all. “What?”

  “Where did you put the laundry?”

  Patsy gritted her teeth. At least he was interested in clean clothes. That could only be an improvement. “I put mine away.”

  “Where’re my clothes?”

  “Wherever you left them.”

  Mitch turned his head and blinked at her. “Oh.” An explosion sounded and Mitch immediately began typing, showing more animation than Patsy had seen in three days. “No! Not there! Auuugh.” He pushed himself away from the keyboard and stretched his arms over his head as ominous music played. “I spent four hours getting that far and now—!”

  “Mitch!” She didn’t want hear any computer game details. She’d heard enough about computer game conquests and battles and points and kills and levels and raids when he was eighteen. “If you want food, there’s meat and cheese for sandwiches. We’re leaving.”

  She and Mitch’s dad were silent all the way down the stairs.

  “Robert,” Patsy began.

  “I know.” His lips compressed in a grim line.

  “What do you know?”

  “I know that the end of the year and tax season are his busiest times. I know that now is not the time to take a vacation. I know that he doesn’t appear to be leaving anytime soon. I know that he’s taken over my office. I know that he’s acting like he’s eighteen again.”

  “But do you know why?” Patsy asked.

  “No.”

  “He hasn’t said anything to me, either, and I’m afraid to ask him.”

  “Oh, I hear that.”

  They were silent for a moment. “Well, clearly something is wrong. I don’t want to interfere in his life because after all, he is an adult—”

  “Supposedly.”

  “Robert,” she said reprovingly.

  “There should be a book telling us what to do. Handling Your Adult Children. Did you notice that the how-to books just stopped after the Getting Your Child into the College of His Choice ones?”

  Patsy laughed, then sobered. “Listen, you know Jeremy’s parents have offered to host the parade kickoff party this year?”

  “And you didn’t like it because you thought it would be one huge advertising ploy for Sloane Property Development and Construction.”

  “Yes, but nobody else has offered to underwrite it. So, why don’t we take the Sloanes up on their offer? Then when you meet with them—”

  “Me?” Robert gave her a long-suffering look.

  “Yes. If I go, it’ll look like I’m worried, which I am. But if you talk to Jeremy’s father, it’ll just be two men discussing their sons who are in business together.”

  “I’m not good at this,” he cautioned, as he always did.

  “You’ll be fine,” she reassured him, as she always did.

  “You’re going to ask me for details and I won’t remember the right details.”

  “Just find out if they’ve had a fight or their business has gone bankrupt or something.” She opened the hall closet. “I have to know.”

  “Why don’t we just ask Mitch what’s going on?”

  “We can’t do that! He’ll think we’re prying.”

  Robert gave her a puzzled look. “Aren’t we?”

  “Yes, but we don’t want him to know!”

  “But it’s okay for Jeremy’s parents to know?”

  “No! Be subtle.”

  “I foresee doom.” Robert took his jacket out of the hall closet. “Come with me.”

  He really was a sweetie. “I can’t. I’ve got to go by Barbara Zaleski’s office for that check. I’m hoping it’s a biggie.”

  “I thought she was bringing it here at the crack of dawn.”

  “She was, but one of their couriers lost some real estate papers and she had to deal with it immediately. Very bad news.”

  “She could leave the check in our mail box.”

  Patsy hoped he wouldn’t notice that. “I wanted to talk to her. Her daughter, Kristen, is here visiting. You remember she was Miss Sweetest? Well, she and Mitch went to high school together. He was a couple of grades ahead of her, but—”

  “Oh, no.” Robert held up his hands. “No. That’s interfering. I’ll go see if the Sloanes mention anything about Mitch and Jeremy, but count me out of matchmaking.”

  Compromise. Ya gotta love it, Patsy thought.

  He kissed her on the cheek, turned, then came back and kissed her full on the mouth.

  “Mmm.” She leaned against him. “What’s that for?”

  He smiled down at her. “To distract you.”

  When he smiled that way… “I’ll need more distracting later.”

  “Absolutely.” He kissed her again and left.
r />   MITCH REALLY, REALLY WISHED he hadn’t heard the last part of his parents’ conversation. He stood at the top of the stairs, arms filled with laundry well past its prime, and waited until his mother closed and locked the front door. Then he tossed all the clothes to the bottom of the stairs and went to collect the rest.

  There were a lot of T-shirts. He’d bought some guy’s rock concert collection off eBay a couple of weeks ago and had been wearing them right out of the FedEx box. He hadn’t really paid attention to what had happened to the ones he’d worn, but now he could see that exactly nothing had happened to them. They were precisely where he’d dropped them.

  What was his mother thinking? Not about the laundry, but about Kristen Zaleski. Yeah, Mitch remembered Kristen. Perky. Popular. Pretty. And, from what he’d seen at that wedding his parents had strong-armed him into attending, pretentious.

  If he weren’t careful, his mother would strong-arm him into calling Kristen.

  Mitch sat on his computer chair—his father’s computer chair, to be accurate, since the SEC had impounded his—and collected the semicircle of T-shirts surrounding it.

  His parents were probably wondering what was going on. Hell, Mitch was wondering what was going on. He couldn’t believe he’d been here nearly three weeks. He hadn’t heard from Jeremy, other than an acknowledgement of the e-mail Mitch sent him telling him he was at his parent’s.

  Maybe their e-mails were being monitored and Jeremy was being cautious. And anyone who watched television knew prosecutors went after phone records.

  Jeremy had said he was handling the situation and if anybody could, Jeremy could. With his people skills, Jeremy would be far better than Mitch at clearing this mess up. But the waiting was hard. For pity’s sake, when were the SEC and the FBI and who knows who else going to figure out they’d made a mistake?

  On the other hand, Mitch hadn’t had a vacation in a long time. A marathon gaming session was just what he’d needed. He’d enjoyed himself and he knew his parents loved having him home.

  He turned to the monitor, the pile of T-shirts in his lap, and read the text messages scrolling at the bottom as he watched the action of the players from his raiding group who still survived the evil wizard who’d zapped Mitch.

  Absently, he took an open bag of bite-sized chips from next to the monitor and poured them directly into his mouth. Greasy fingers and precise keyboarding did not mix. Brushing his hands together, he started to type a reply to someone and then deleted it.

  Kristen Zaleski. If his mother asked him to, Mitch had no good excuse to refuse to call her. Oh, and if he did, he’d have to borrow money from his father for the date. That could not happen.

  Mitch ate more chips. Crunching soothed him. He needed his bank account unfrozen. Maybe it was. Temporarily abandoning the computer game, he logged onto his account, saw the red lettering and didn’t bother to read the depressing notice he’d already memorized.

  Before he could talk himself out of it, he phoned Jeremy.

  “Hey, buddy, what’s up?”

  How could Jeremy sound so cheerful? “That’s why I’m calling—to find out what’s up.”

  “It’s been crrrraaaazy. You know the EOY frenzy.”

  Did Jeremy have someone in his office? “I’m not checking on the end-of-year financial maneuverings. I’m checking on the investigation. What’s the status?”

  Jeremy inhaled. “No change.”

  “But…” How could there be no change? “What are they looking for? What looked funny to them? I can show them what I was doing. Let’s speed this thing along. What’s the lawyer say?”

  “Didn’t you get an attorney?” Jeremy’s voice had lost all his frat boy affability.

  Mitch’s stomach felt unsettled and it wasn’t because of the chips. He reran the last conversations he’d had with Jeremy. “You said you’d take care of that.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Conflict of interest on this end.”

  “You could have told me.”

  “Sorry.” Jeremy exhaled heavily. “I guess I thought we’d know more by now. You should talk to somebody down there anyway. I’m coming to Sugar Land for Christmas—my folks are heavy into that parade thing—and we can all take a meeting then.”

  “My assets are frozen,” Mitch reminded him pointedly. “Who am I supposed to hire—a snowman?”

  “Ahhhhhh…lemme see what I can do. Hang in there. Got another call.” And he was gone.

  Mitch replaced the phone in its charger. So no attorney was on board? Conflict of interest? Whose interest? And “lemme see what I can do” was not, “I’m hiring one today.”

  Mitch knew what had happened. Jeremy had no doubt called Peter DeAngelo, the lawyer they had on retainer, and he’d probably mentioned the “conflict of interest” thing. The two of them probably thought the whole situation would be resolved quickly and Jeremy had got caught up in the end-of-year craziness and had…forgot. For something this big, Mitch should have probably hired his own attorney, anyway.

  The thing was, Jeremy always came through. He drove Mitch crazy by waiting until the last minute and then would have a perfectly smooth solution to the thorniest of problems. If Mitch interfered, he always messed something up. It was always best to let Jeremy do whatever Jeremy did and not try to figure out how he did it. However, Jeremy was not the detail person Mitch was, and he was up in Dallas functioning unchecked. Who knew what kinks Mitch would have to straighten out when he returned? Whenever that would be.

  He needed money. And when a Sugar Land kid—no matter how old—needed money, he went to work for The Electric Santa.

  Mitch smiled at the memory of his college vacation job. During the holidays, Sugar Land overdid it on the light displays. Lining the sidewalks and yards with lights was even required in certain neighborhoods. That part was probably mostly done, but the Christmas Light Parade with the animated floats and the Town Center display would require people working right up until the last minute.

  Sparky Monaghan, owner of The Electric Santa, had told Mitch that he’d always have a job with him.

  Mitch decided to take him up on that.

  Chapter Three

  “Kristen?”

  “Yeah, Dad?” She pushed her chair back from her desk until she could see across the reception area and into the open door of his office.

  Carl Zaleski caught her looking and glared. “Kristen!”

  Oops. She resumed her position. “Yes, Mr. Zaleski?”

  “Intercom,” he insisted.

  Momentarily slumping and squeezing her eyes shut, Kristen straightened, pasted a professional expression on her face, and pushed the black Bakelite lever on the wooden box that sat next to the old-fashioned dial telephone. “Yes, Mr. Zaleski?”

  “Kristen, would you please call The Electric Santa and make an appointment for them to decorate the office?”

  Her father’s voice sounded crystal clear because the intercom box was just a facade covering the thoroughly modern speaker.

  And even if it weren’t the latest in technology, she could also hear her father from inside his office just a few feet away.

  But here at Noir Blanc appearances were important, the gimmick that made her father’s mid-life career change successful.

  “Do you want them to decorate the interior as well?” she asked.

  “No. You can handle decorating the office, can’t you?”

  “Sure,” Kristen said, even as she visualized climbing a stepladder in suede pumps and a pencil skirt. Not gonna happen. And forget taking off her shoes. Seamed stockings were expensive and she didn’t want to chance running them. She’d have to come after hours in her jeans.

  “Are the ornaments vintage, too?” she called.

  “Kristen—try to remember to use the intercom.”

  She pressed the lever, which was supposed to buzz the box on her father’s desk letting him know she wanted to talk.

  “Yes?”

  She pushed her lever. “Are the ornaments vintage, too?�
��

  “Some are and some are copies of old German glass ornaments. Expensive, but very effective.”

  “Sounds good.” Kristen released her lever and picked up the telephone. She hated the telephone. Instead of being an actual rotary dial telephone, it was a touch-tone pad with a dial over it. To work the phone, she had to poke her fingers through the round holes.

  She’d messed up her careful Revlon Red manicure before her father explained that the little plastic stick with the ball on the end that she’d found in her pencil drawer was a phone dialer. Who knew?

  “Electric Santa. Let us brighten your holidays.”

  Hey, nice voice. Sparky must have a new manager. Kristen wondered how he’d like her voice. “This is Kristen with Noir Blanc Investigations,” she purred throatily. “We’d like to have you, uh, brighten our holidays.” Said the right way, anything sounded suggestive.

  There was silence and Kristen nearly lost it as she imagined some college kid on the other end of the line with his mouth agog. With this job, she had to take her amusement where she could.

  He recovered quickly and she heard a soft, sexy chuckle. “It would be my pleasure, I’m sure.” He matched her tone before briskly reciting the Electric Santa offerings. “Our standard Up On the Housetop commercial package includes outlining your roof, windows, walkways, doorway, edging of the green areas and any parking lot. The Winter Wonderland package includes lighting your landscaping. The Electric Santa Special includes your choice of Christmas display figures.”

  “Hmm. As intriguing as the thought of displaying a figure is, I’ll have to go with the Winter Wonderland package.”

  “Wonderful.”

  Kristen could hear the smile in his voice.

  “Will you need your halls decked as well?” he asked.

  “No, I’ll rock around my own Christmas tree.”

  He laughed. “I’ve got Noir Blanc down for one Winter Wonderland exterior.”

  Hmm, yes. She did like the sound of him. “So when’s Santa Claus comin’ to town? I wanna know when to hang up my stocking.”

  “Well,” he drawled. “It depends on whether you’re going to be naughty or nice.”

  Kristen grinned and then had to use her fingers to mush her lips back in place so she could keep her husky voice. “The sooner you get here, the sooner I can jingle your bells.”