Lone Star Santa (8 page)

“Oh, yes. Let’s not get into this on the phone. I really called to tell you that I’m waiting to go to an after-hours closing and to see if you could catch a ride home with your father. But since he’s not there—”

“Take your time. I want to keep working on this. So I’ll see you when I see you, okay?”

“All right. Thanks, sweetie.”

“Love you, Mom. Bye.”

Kristen intended to get right back to work, but instead, she let her mind wander to her acting career, or lack of one. She’d been trying to live life without acting to see if she could. To see if anything else interested her. But she’d turned this job for her father into an acting gig and everyone she researched became fodder for characterization.

Kristen didn’t know where she got this fascination for immersing herself into characters. No one else in
her family had ever acted. Her childhood was fine, she was fairly popular in school, and had suffered no more than an expected amount of teenaged angst, so she wasn’t trying to escape anything or anyone. Still, she thought she had a talent for bringing characters to life.

Or was she kidding herself?

Maybe. Probably. But she had a feeling she wasn’t the only one.

Kristen logged into yet another real estate site and stared at a screen with a whole lot of words and not any interesting pictures of properties. These names were beginning to sound familiar which meant she was due for a break. Too bad. No breaks when she was paying for access by the minute.

Still reading, she stood up and stretched, stomped her feet and sat right back down again. She had definitely seen some of these names before. They’d been buried within the Russian nesting doll–like structure of companies that started with that personnel company that had queried about Mitch’s credit report.

But was that something bad? It wasn’t illegal to have holding companies. And a credit query wasn’t illegal, either. And so what if some of those companies showed up more than once? And so what if Mitch’s partner’s name showed up, too? And so what if Mitch’s partner’s father’s construction company showed up, as well? Maybe Jeremy’s dad had thrown business their way. Nothing illegal about helping offspring. Look at Kristen.

And yet she felt she was missing something. Which meant Mitch was missing something.

Kristen added to her notes. She was using a cool fountain pen, which made the tedious work marginally
better, and a yellow legal pad that turned the ink a funky greenish black. There was probably some software program for what she was doing, but Kristen was rusty on spreadsheets and now was not the time for a tutorial.

She was so engrossed in her columns and arrows and patterns that she started when the door opened and her mother walked in.

“You scared me!” A big drop of ink blotted Kristen’s notes.

“I honked a couple of times.” Barbara hesitated.

“Oh, don’t say it.”

“What? That you should have locked the door?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Okay.” Her mother came to stand next to her and looked at the screen. “What have you got?”

Kristen was using a tissue to soak up the ink blot. “Names and companies. I’m looking for a pattern.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. It would help if I did. I mean, some of these companies are buying and selling property so fast. And what’s with all the different names? One guy has thirteen. Jeremy’s father has a bunch.”

Her mother went still. “Really.”

“Yeah—take a look while I wash the ink off my fingers.” Kristen curled them into claws around the tissue and hunched as she stood. “I’m merely an ink-stained wretch,” she said in a quavery voice while limping toward the bathroom. “Working for my daily crust of bread…”

When she returned—was ink always that hard to wash off?—she found her mother sitting in front of the
computer. She’d turned over the page with the inkblot and was writing on the one beneath. Writing a lot, Kristen noticed.

“Turn around.”

“Why?”

“I’m typing in my password.”

“Oh, Mom!”

Barbara gave her a look—one Kristen had never seen before and one that had her turning around pronto.

“What are you doing? Accessing some secret, legally iffy Web site you don’t want me to know about?” She tried to make it a joke, but it didn’t quite come off. Well, she’d never been a comedienne.

“Yes,” her mother replied.

Yes? “You’re kidding. Aren’t you? I was.”

“No.”

And that was the moment of Kristen’s parental epiphany. Her parents really
had
changed. Or more likely they’d shrugged off the parent role and were acting more like the people they were when they weren’t being her parents, if that made sense. Parents as people. What a concept.

“That bastard.”

Whoa, now she
knew
they’d changed. “Uh, Mom?” Kristen turned around.

“I need to trade information—may I use your notes?” Barbara’s voice was clipped.

“Sure,” Kristen answered before thinking better of it “—except don’t do anything that’ll hurt Mitch.”

Silence.

“Is there anything that’ll hurt Mitch?” she asked in a small voice.

Barbara gave her a long look. “That depends.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“I don’t like the looks of this.” Her mother waved at Kristen’s notes.

“You mean I actually found something?”

“You found pieces and I’m going to try to find the links. May I?”

Kristen nodded and immediately felt queasy. For heaven’s sake, she hardly knew Mitch, and yet, here she was, worried on his behalf. She thought about his smile and that stupid Santa hoodie. She thought about the abs beneath the stupid Santa hoodie. Kristen had developed a theory about potential relationships based on abdominal development. Too squishy and that meant a desk job and no time for a girlfriend. Or a guy who didn’t care and wouldn’t put in any effort. A well-defined six pack required hours at the gym and thus meant no time for a relationship and an attitude that girls were supposed to be grateful to be noticed at all.

Mitch had girlfriend abs. Defined enough to show that he’d made an effort, definitely cared, but still had time to spare for the right relationship.

Kristen watched her mother’s fingers dance over the keyboard. She would have made more money temping if she’d typed that well. “Wow. I didn’t know you could type like that.”

Without taking her eyes from the screen, Barbara commented, “I’m part of the generation where women were nurses, teachers or secretaries. I went for secretary. I remember what a big deal it was when our school got electric typewriters.”

“Mom.”

Her mother smiled to herself, but as Kristen watched the smile shrank. “Sloane Property Development and Construction. They really like their name on things, don’t they?”

Kristen figured it was a rhetorical question.

Glancing at Kristen’s handwritten notes, Barbara grimaced. “Why didn’t you set up a spreadsheet with this information?”

“It’s been awhile since computer class.”

“I’m going to set one up for you.” Barbara had already opened the software. “Then you can input the information while I make a couple of phone calls.”

Kristen watched for a few minutes and tried to remember anything about spreadsheets. Not happening.

“Okay. You’re set.” Her mother pushed the chair back from the desk. “I’m going to use Carl’s office phone. I don’t want a record on my cell.”

Kristen stared after her. “You’re scaring me.”

“Cell phone calls aren’t secure. Remember that.”

“Dad’s rubbing off on you.”

Her mother smiled over her shoulder. “Not often enough.”

“Mother!”

Her mother laughed as she shut the office door.

Type
, Kristen instructed herself.
Type and do not go there
. She stared at the closed door behind which her mother was doing who-knew-what.
Do not go anywhere
.

Chapter Five

Mitch popped in a cassette of his third black-and-white movie of the night. Since he’d left home, his parents had upgraded to a DVD player and he’d poked around until he’d found the old video machine in the guest room closet.

That room had been his sister Kiki’s room and it still looked girly with the pastel walls, her old white-painted furniture and the blue-and-white Chinese-looking bedspread.

Whereas his room had become the office-slash-gym and the old furniture was long gone.

Mitch had carried the VCR into the den, connected the appropriate wires with only a couple of miscues, shoved in the first of the tapes and settled back with a bag of microwave popcorn.

He liked THE BIG SLEEP with Bogey and Bacall, because if he squinted and stared at her mouth, Lauren Bacall reminded him of Kristen. He could see the whole thing Noir Blanc had going now and wondered if Kristen liked it, or just tolerated it.

These were some kind of women, he thought during
the second movie. Tricky women. Bad news women you were drawn to, desperately wanting to rescue them so they’d be able to be with you. Women being blackmailed. Women who betrayed. Women who loved unwisely.

He enjoyed sitting in the dark, watching the light and shadows play across the faces of the actors as their characters made really poor life choices. Mitch didn’t know why all this doom and gloom appealed to him, only that it did.

His parents arrived home midway through the third video.

“Mitch?” They appeared in the doorway.

“Are you alone?” his mother asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“Because of The Electric Santa truck blocking the drive way,” Robert reminded him.

It was the first time he’d driven the truck home since he’d started working there. “Oh, sorry. I’ll move it.” Mitch paused the movie, stood and dug in his pocket for the key.

His father was staring at the red hoodie Mitch had left on the sofa and his mother had bent to pick up the empty popcorn bags. She straightened, compressing the bags. Both his parents gazed at him silently.

“Hey, I was going to pick those up.”

“Really?” Patsy nudged the empty two-liter Coke bottle with her toe.

Mitch picked up the bottle. “Um, yeah. After the movie.”

They glanced at the frozen image on the screen. Or maybe they were looking at the DVD player he’d set on the floor and the VCR that he’d propped precariously on the shelf above the TV, a shelf that had previously
held a silver-framed wedding photo of his sister flanked by an engraved silver tray given to his father when he was salesman of the year and an engraved silver bowl presented to his mother by the City of Sugar Land. Everything was on the floor now.

“The video rental place didn’t have copies of the movies I wanted on DVD.”

“Okay,” said his mother without expression.

Mitch could tell she was holding back.

“And the truck?” asked his father.

“Oh, yeah. I’m working for The Electric Santa again.”

There was silence. Mitch figured that was probably for the best, but if he thought about this situation from his parents’ point of view—and he didn’t really want to—he would want an explanation. Only Mitch knew they wouldn’t like the real explanation and he certainly didn’t want them to worry. “These movies are a nice contrast,” he said to fill the silence. “You know flashing lights, bright colors and Christmas frenzy during the day, bleak people with doomed lives in black-and-white at night.”

His parents looked at each other and seemed to communicate in that mysterious parental way. “We’ve had a lot of Christmas frenzy today, ourselves,” his mother said.

His dad reached down and shook the bag Mitch had left on the coffee table. “Got any more popcorn?”

“Yeah. I bought two three-packs.”

“Lite, or with butter?” Robert asked.

“Butter.”

Mitch’s dad inhaled and closed his eyes. “Real butter or movie butter?”

“It said real butter on the package.”

“Robert,” Mitch’s mother warned.

“Patsy?” he pleaded.

“I give up.” She shook her head and laughed. “You two go shuffle the cars and I’ll pop the popcorn. Then we’ll watch the end of the movie together.”

“Works for me.” Could it be that Mitch had escaped an inquisition?

“Yes! Real buttered popcorn!” His father pumped a fist as they walked toward the driveway.

“Dad.” Mitch grinned.

“Oh, you don’t know what it’s been like. No salt, no bacon, no butter, no carbs—except she’s kind of over that—but no sugar and no egg yolks. I put my foot down about the herbal tea. She’s gonna kill me with all this healthful eating.”

Mitch still grinned, even though he was aware that his father was filling the silence to keep from questioning him. He touched his father’s arm when they got to The Electric Santa truck. “Thanks.” He figured his dad would understand.

Without looking at him, his dad asked, “Are you okay?”

Mitch thought of Kristen’s skepticism. “I think so.”

“You should know so.”

“You’re right.” Mitch nodded. “I should.”

“Need help finding out?”

Again he thought of Kristen. “I’ve got help.”

“T
HANKS SO MUCH
for all your help.” Kristen’s mother hung up the telephone and called to Kristen’s father. “The code is RE6SL94PDOR and the year you’re looking for.”

“What if I don’t know what year I’m looking for?” he bellowed from his office.

Everyone was getting a little testy, Kristen thought. Low blood sugar, no doubt.

Her parents had commandeered both computers, which left Kristen sitting in the waiting area trying not to bite her fingernails. She hadn’t had an urge to bite her nails in years and now, even faced with her perfect and difficult-to-do-by-herself manicure, she felt like nibbling a red thumbnail.

Maybe she should offer to make a hamburger run.

Maybe she’d make a hamburger run and swing by Mitch’s house and bring him back to the office to see how totally messed up his life was. Or was about to be. Depending.

Carl Zaleski had returned from following Nora Beckman, who had resisted temptation, bless her heart. Then he’d pretty much taken over from Kristen. With Barbara interpreting a lot of the real estate info, they’d found that essentially, Mitch’s company had funneled substantial investment money from clients into companies that turned out to deal primarily with, or were owned by, Jeremy Sloane’s father.