Page 42 of The Santa Claus Con

“But it sure as hell looks like we’re indulging one now,” Barrel finishes.

“Sir, narcissistic masterminds crave validation,” I explain. “I’m sure Sadistic Santa’s seeing this as an intellectual game. He thinks he’s being so smart. If we let him believe he’s getting away with it, at some point he’ll slip and get tired, and that’s when we move in.”

“When’s that going to happen?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’ll keep you posted, sir.”

I can almost hear Barrel’s jaw grinding. “I’ll call NYPD and bring in more backup to see what we can do about those landmarks,” he finally says. “End this, Payne. I’m about to ruin a lot of people’s Christmases.” There’s a brief pause. “Sadistic Santa… that’s pretty good.” Then the line goes dead.

I go back into the room, where Nathan’s studying the riddle. “How did this guy even manage to deliver a letter to the room without anyone noticing?” he asks, sitting down on the edge of the queen-size bed.

“It wasn’t delivered to the room. I got a call from the lobby concierge,” Meyers says. “With Scarlett’s name on the envelope, they knew we’d want to see it.”

Bird has already scanned the envelope and letter for the fingerprints and handwriting, but nothing came back in our system. Santa is a ghost.

Nathan tosses the plastic-bagged evidence onto the comforter and rubs his hand down his face, his beard slung around his neck.

I pick up the letter and study each swoopy word as if it will reveal something to me. Santa went with the calligraphy again, but this time the characters are less curly than the original invite, more smeared, as though…

“He wrote this in a hurry,” I realize. “He saw that I wasn’t playing, figured out that we put someone else in, wrote this riddle, and got it here as fast as he could. Which is probably why the last part doesn’t rhyme.” I tap the hotel’s logo at the top of the paper. “He’s got to be here.”

Even if the bomb’s not.

“Or he’s watching on the livestream and having someone else do his dirty work,” Bird says, standing in front of our giant whiteboard. “Could we be dealing with multiple Santas?”

“It’s possible he has help, but given how personal it is and the single person sign-off, I would be surprised,” I say. “Criminal masterminds don’t love sharing the glory.”

Nathan furrows his brows in thought. “Question is, how does he know who I am? How does he know I’m an agent?”

“It was a calculated risk putting you in. We knew that,” I say. “But he’s clearly not okay with it.”

“We’ve swept the room but maybe he’s monitoring the cameras?” Bird theorizes.

Meyers keeps one eye on her monitor. “Security has only given us access to their feeds. We explicitly told them not to give it to anyone else.”

“Unless he hacked his way in,” I say.

She frowns. “We’d have heard about a breach. He could’ve set up his own cameras?”

“Even just a few in strategic locations, maybe,” I say. “Sadistic Santa’s playing a much bigger game here, and now he wants to give us gifts. The who, what, when, where, why…”

“Bomb-related gifts?” Nathan asks, building on my thoughts. “Like answers to where it is? When he’ll set it off?”

I nod. “Yeah, could be. We need to figure out this extra task he wants us to do.”

Nathan crosses his arms, but in that suit, he doesn’t look very mad or intimidating. He looks as if he’s going to ask if I’ve been a good girl this year. “So Sadistic Santa wants to play reindeer games, and we’re just going to play along?” he asks instead. He’s fired up. “Like hell we’re waiting around for gifts. He’s a decent on-the-fly rhymer, but he got sloppy with that last line and Mr. Claus. Impulsive. We need to keep making him mad.”

“We’re already getting an impromptu game because we went against him,” I say, not loving Nathan’s proposed approach. “I just want to find the guy and these clues and not make this more complicated.”

Nathan looks surprised by my response as he stands to pace. I’m just as surprised by this version of myself. That proposition would have once excited me, given me a challenge. Honestly, it would’ve been my idea. When Nathan says it now, though, all I feel is… cautious.

“This guy’s two steps ahead of us,” he says, softer this time, maybe sensing my hesitation. “We need to anticipate his moves.”

He’s right. I know he’s right. There will be time to counterpunch, but right now maybe we need to poke a little. Make some noise to see what scatters. “Okay, yeah. We can’t let this bully win. Let’s poke the bear that’s out for blood.”

“Yes, great,” Nathan says. “I’d say we could eliminate people in the Green group, but we don’t know when the letter was delivered, do we, Meyers?”

Meyers taps on her keyboard. “Found the camera footage.” We gather around her monitor. “The letter was left on the concierge desk around eight fifty this morning, but whoever left it knew we’d be watching, so they covered their face.”