Page 24 of The Scrooge Effect

“You look like an idiot.”

“I look like a man who’s pleasing his wife,” he corrected. “Something you could take a few lessons in.”

“Tell me about it,” I muttered. “No matter what I do, I piss her off.”

“Yeah, I heard about the incident at the mall.”

I groaned. “How the hell did you hear about that?”

“Uh…it’s Harper. The whole town heard about it. I’m pretty sure they started selling Christmas candy at the grocery store in protest of your pissy attitude.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. They always sell Christmas candy.”

“Yeah, but Fox started a whole picket line thing just because of you. He even made up a song.”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“It was actually pretty cheery,” he grinned. “You’d probably even sing it. Hang on, let me remember… You’d better watch out. You’d better not cry. You’d better not pout. I’m telling you why⁠—”

“That’s just the regular Christmas song,” I cut him off.

“I know, but he threw your name in there somewhere,” he chuckled. “Seriously, it’s almost as bad down there as when Harper started the whole toilet paper fiasco.”

“She didn’t start that. Fox did.”

“Yeah, but it’s more fun to blame it on her,” he said as we walked into the conference room.

“Ah, the Grinch is finally here,” Cash muttered. “Good, we can get started.”

He tossed out the folders just as I took my seat. Flipping it open, I read through the first line, already slapping the folder closed.

“Nope.”

Cash grinned at me. “Aw, come on. I thought you’d love this one!”

“Santas? You want me to dress up as a fucking Santa?”

“To catch the bad guys,” he said as seriously as he could. “Honestly, it should be right up your alley.”

Lock, Brock, and Scottie all joined in the laughter, but all it did was piss me off. “Very funny, but I’m not doing it.”

“Alright, alright. All joking aside, I do need you to dress up as Santa, but it’s only to get on the inside.”

“The inside of what? A North Pole mission?” I said sarcastically.

He turned on the screen against the wall and opened the file on his computer. A picture of Nicholas Moreno popped up on the screen. “You all know Moreno. He’s been popping up on our radar a lot over the past few years, but now he’s pissed off the wrong people.”

“The Russians?” Lock asked.

“Nope. A children’s charity. He approached Sister Margaret at St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Missouri about using their basement to store their latest shipment of toys for kids. Apparently, a bunch of Santas are supposed to show up the week of Christmas and distribute toys to the needy. However, when Sister Margaret went to the basement to see if his workers wanted some refreshments, she found them loading stockings with drugs instead of toys.”

“Man, talk about a disappointment when a kid gets their hands on that,” Lock muttered.

“Obviously, some of the stockings have real toys, and the rest are simply a way for Moreno to distribute his drugs.” He changed the screen and pulled up mugshots of four different men. “These are our targets. Put a little pressure on these guys and they’ll turn in no time. They all have too much to lose if they go back to prison.”

“So, we get to these guys, flip ‘em, and take their places in the distribution process?” Brock asked.

“Exactly.”