UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
India | New Zealand | South Africa
Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
This ebook first published in Great Britain by Penguin Books 2017
Copyright © Traci Lambrecht, 2017
The moral right of the author has been asserted
ISBN: 978-1-405-93453-4
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Follow Penguin
Emil Rice was snuggled in the back seat of his mom’s car under a fuzzy blanket printed with Marvel Comics superheroes, watching the dark countryside roll by through the frosty window. It was a clear, bitter night – the kind that made your ears and eyes and teeth hurt – but the moon was full in the sky, with freckles of bright stars scattered around its happy face, smiling an apology for the brittle temperature.
There weren’t many houses on this stretch of the trip, so he knew every single one by heart – which had the biggest Christmas tree, which had the most lights, and which had the best display of holiday statuary. His favorite was the white farmhouse with the big red barn and a sign with a cow on it, because they had everything, including Santa, his sleigh and all eight reindeer, plus Rudolph – the most famous reindeer of all – perched on the roof. And this year they’d added even more things.
‘Mom, mom, look!’ He vaulted forward, sticking his head through the space between the two front seats while he pointed frantically toward the new, lighted snowman that squatted like a giant marshmallow on the farm’s front lawn. ‘A snowman! A big fat snowman, and it glows! That’s so coooool.’
His mum slowed the car for a closer look, her deep, rhythmic chuckle reverberating in the darkness. ‘My, oh, my, would you look at that? That’s one fine fat snowman.’
‘And they have candles in all the windows this year, too! Do you see them?’
‘I sure do. And you know what’s coming up real soon, don’t you?’
Emil nodded reverently. ‘The star.’
He loved the star. It was big and beautiful and blue, perched on top of a silo his mom said farmers used to store food for the cows during winter. But at night you couldn’t really see the silo. All you could see was the star, hanging in the air, like a giant firefly, lighting the way to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. He gasped when it finally came into view and tried not to blink so he didn’t miss a single second of looking at it.
‘Isn’t it beautiful, Emil?’
‘Yeah,’ he whispered. ‘Do you think that’s what the Star of Bethlehem looked like when the three wise men followed it?’
She made a soft, happy sound. ‘Hard to say. All we really know is that it looked like something worth following.’
‘We’re just like the wise men! We’re following a star, too, only to Gram and Gramps’s.’
‘That’s right, Emil.’
Emil sagged back against the seat. ‘But there were three wise men and there are only two of us.’
‘That’s okay. Two is better than one.’
‘But isn’t three better than two?’
‘Not always. Why don’t you take a nap, baby? That will make the time pass faster.’
Emil sighed. ‘But I don’t feel tired anymore. The star means we’re close, right?’
‘We still have an hour to go. Just lie down and we’ll be there by the time you wake up, I promise.’
But he didn’t think he could sleep because it felt like there were squirrels running around in his stomach, he was so excited. The trip always seemed to take forever once they left the city, and he always worried that if he fell asleep in the car, he might not wake up in time for the magical moment when Grandma Polly pulled a hot batch of gooey caramel cinnamon buns from the oven on their arrival, or when Grandpa Moses played ‘Silent Night’ on the organ, which was always decorated with fresh pine and candles and frosty little bells that peeped out a squeaky tune when you pushed a button on the back.
He frowned suddenly, pondering a grave worry that troubled his mind every Christmas Eve. ‘How does Santa know to come to Gram and Gramps’s house and not ours?’
‘Because he’s been doing it for all of your eight years on this earth, Emil. Santa knows everything, including who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. Isn’t that right?’
Emil grinned at her in the rearview mirror. ‘I’ve been nice. And good, too. Really good. I got all As on my report card.’
‘Yes, you did.’
‘Does that mean Santa will bring me the Lego I asked for?’
‘He just might. As long as you save a cinnamon bun for him.’
‘Yeah. And milk, he likes milk, too. He drinks it all every year, so I’ll give him the biggest glass ever tonight!’
His mom started coughing then, like she’d been doing on and off for a few weeks. It was a bad, rattling cough and sometimes she couldn’t stop for a long time. ‘Are you okay, Mom?’
She nodded, coughed a few more times into her sleeve, then popped a menthol drop into her mouth. ‘It’s just a little cold.’
‘But you’re a nurse. Nurses aren’t supposed to get colds, are they?’
‘Everybody gets colds. Especially nurses.’
Emil thought about that for a moment. ‘Because you’re around sick people all the time?’
‘Could be, baby.’
‘Do you think I’ll catch your cold?’
‘I forbid you to catch my cold, young man. How about that?’
He smiled. ‘Okay.’
‘Now try to go to sleep.’
‘I’ll try,’ he finally said, in his best dramatic voice while making a great show of lying down, tucking in under his blanket, and arranging his pillow just so. ‘It’s not going to be easy.’
But after a few minutes, he felt the electricity in his arms and legs start to fade away, and he felt a smile build from the inside out. Christmas was just around the corner, an hour away, and he was suddenly content to breathe in the familiar smells of his mom’s perfume, the coffee in her travel mug, and the peculiar scent of the Chevy’s red vinyl seats. The car was old – much older than he was – and it creaked and groaned a lot, the way his grandpa did when he got up from his favorite chair. He knew those kinds of sounds made his mom nervous sometimes, both when the car and his grandpa made them, but to him they were soothing, and very soon he felt his eyelids droop.
When his eyes fluttered open again, the darkness outside the car window was now aflame with Christmas lights, flashing and winking at him, as if they were sharing a special secret. Icicles hung from the eaves of houses, and snow-covered pines wore sparkling necklaces of rainbow-colored gems. His mom had just pulled onto Main Street, a quick right at the only café in the little town where Grandma and Grandpa lived.
This was where Christmas really started.
His heart soared as they passed the old hotel on the corner that looked like a castle, then the brick school where his mom used to go, then over the tiny creek with the footbridge that was all but hidden from view by weeping willows that arched over it in a leafless, skeletal embrace.
He popped up in his seat when he saw the bright glow in the near distance that he waited for every year, as much as he waited for the star, as much as he waited to see Grandma and Grandpa. His mom smiled at him in the rearview mirror, her face blue from the dashboard lights. ‘Almost there, baby. Do you want to stop and see the kings first?’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah!’
‘I thought you would.’ Her smile broadened as she pulled up to an empty curb in front of the big church that loomed proprietarily just on the edge of the neighborhood.
Once the car had stopped, Emil barreled out, still wrapped in his fuzzy blanket, and raced across the lawn, oblivious to the fact that he was wearing sneakers and they were filling up with snow.
He had his eyes on the prize – the magical, grand tableau on the church lawn that featured larger-than-life statues of the three wise men, guarding a crèche under the glare of bright spotlights that stayed on twenty-four hours a day during Advent. He stood there, shivering and captivated, barely hearing his mom crunch through the snow behind him.
‘They’ve been putting this thing up every Christmas for as long as I can remember. I guess the magi need a paint job. What do you think?’
But Emil didn’t notice the peeling paint or the general shabbiness of the display that was so evident once you were up close. He was too entranced by the colors, the grand scale, the theater of it all. He did notice, however, that Jesus looked small in the crèche, and that his blanket was way too thin for the weather.
There’s one baby boy who has the world on his shoulders, he thought, suddenly feeling sorry for the plastic doll laid before him. As far as he knew, the baby Jesus had carried enough burden all of these years, and it just seemed wrong that, on top of it, he didn’t even have a decent blanket to keep him warm.
‘We should go, Emil,’ his mom finally said, her voice shaky and thin.
He looked up at her, his forehead puckering with a deep frown. ‘Why is your voice all wobbly, Mom?’
‘I’m just cold, Emil, that’s all.’
‘Oh. Then let’s go.’
They were already halfway to the car when Emil suddenly stopped in his tracks, turned around, and raced back to the crèche. He stripped off the blanket that had been draped over his shoulders and covered up the baby Jesus doll, careful to tuck the blanket tightly around him. And as he did, he felt the first flake of snow land on his cheek.
When he got back to the car, Christmas music was playing on the radio. Nat King Cole was singing ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’ and his mom was humming along.
‘This is my favorite Christmas song,’ she said.
‘I like it, too.’
‘You gave your blanket to baby Jesus.’
‘He looked cold.’
‘That was a fine thing to do. Sing with me, Emil. By the time the song is finished, we’ll be there.’
For the next five blocks, they sang along with Nat. Finally they pulled into the driveway and Emil saw Grandma Polly and Grandpa Moses in his Santa Claus hat, waving at them through the front window.
Las Vegas wasn’t a subtle town by any stretch of the imagination. Nor had it ever aspired to be. You could see the multi-million megawatt glow of its famous Strip from outer space, and you could stay in a miniaturized replica of just about any iconic landmark you could think of, from the Pyramids of Giza to the Eiffel Tower.
Sweaty tourists clamored on the sun-baked streets and oxygenated casino floors twenty-four hours a day, dumping coin like they had IV hook-ups to Fort Knox, while the darker elements of society lurked on the periphery, opportunistically feasting on the endless human buffet of naivety and drunken carelessness.
It had always seemed strange to Emil Rice that the Foley Federal Building – beacon of law and justice and everything else good that Vegas generally wasn’t – was situated smack in the middle of downtown, in the heart of the beast. Then again, maybe that was just exactly where it belonged.
He paused at the front entrance, shot his snow-white cuffs, and adjusted his tie. Well-dressed people of all colors and stripes were streaming in and out of the building, never giving a passing glance to the handsome young African American man in the fine suit, because such a thing wasn’t a strange sight at all in this day and age, like it had been in Grandpa Moses’ time.
Or maybe he was giving the human race too much credit: nobody paid much attention to anything beyond their smartphone worlds anymore. People were all just little planets now, orbiting their electronic suns – an absolutely fantastic cultural shift for a man like himself, whose stock in trade required invisibility.
His sharp, studied gaze followed the distracted foot traffic swirling and merging around him until he homed in on a harried-looking lady-who-lunches type heading his way. Her eyes were downcast to read her most recent text or tweet or email as she tried unsuccessfully to juggle her enormous purse and several bulging Neiman Marcus bags at the same time.
With a million-dollar smile, he gracefully swooped in to open the door for her. ‘Allow me, ma’am. Emil Rice, attorney at law and at your service …’
And then she was gone, never even noticing the man who’d been holding the door for her, as if doors magically opened for her all the time. And maybe they did.
Emil hurried after her, his long stride easily overtaking hers, although he had to admit she was pretty quick for a short little thing in skyscraper stilettos. Now she was conferring with her phone as if it was a sentient being, muttering a laundry list of things to do, or things she’d already done, he couldn’t guess which.
Emil politely merged into her space. ‘You know, I just have to tell you how nice it is to see someone with so much holiday spirit.’
Her brisk pace faltered at the unwelcome interruption from the outside world, and she jerked her head toward him and shot him a withering glance. ‘Yeah, right,’ she snapped, picking up speed again.
Emil matched her pace and amped up the charm-meter. ‘Oh, now, don’t you try telling me you get big bags full of presents like the ones you’re carrying without a heart just brimming with Christmas cheer.’
She stopped dead in her tracks and turned on him wild-eyed, like a cornered animal poised to bite at the slightest provocation. ‘What do you want?’
‘Nothing more than to share the joy of the season, ma’am. It’s a wonderful time of the year, isn’t it?’
She stared at him, dumbfounded, as if he’d just told her the earth really was flat. ‘Look, I don’t know what your problem is and I don’t care, but if you don’t back off …’ Her eyes narrowed into malevolent crescents. ‘Wait a minute. You said you were an attorney. Is this about that swimming-pool incident last year? Because if it is and you’re chasing me around, I’ll have you disbarred before the sun sets.’
Emil raised his hands in supplication. This was one angry woman and he knew better than to tangle with that kind of cat. ‘I don’t know about any swimming-pool incident, honestly, ma’am. I’m just trying to spread the good news.’
‘What good news? There is no good news,’ she spat, like a viper, then spun on her skinny heels and hurried away, leaving Emil slightly dazed in her wake.
He watched her disappear into the crowd, then found a secluded spot on a bench at the back of the lobby and surreptitiously started rifling through the very fine kidskin wallet he’d just lifted from her. There were a lot of credit cards, including an Amex Black, but no cash except for a five and some change. The credit cards were useless to him at this juncture in his life, so he pitched the wallet into a nearby trashcan and pocketed the five.
‘Damn credit cards ruined the world,’ he muttered, heading toward a bank of elevators, wondering how anybody who had an Amex Black could think there wasn’t any good news in the world.
Henry Foster was sitting at his desk in Probation, staring balefully at the straggly poinsettia on his cube mate’s filing cabinet. The stupid things grew wild in Vegas, but people still went out and wasted thirty bucks on a plant you could dig out of any ditch, only to pitch it in the trash a couple of weeks later.
Since when had Christmas become a disposable holiday? People threw away their poinsettias; they threw out their tree and the strings of lights wrapped around it, because nobody had any expectations that they’d work the next year. Add to the trash bin the Christmas wrapping after it had been stripped off the presents, half of which got tossed too, plus all the cards that came in the mail. Not that Foster got Christmas cards anymore, but he knew a lot of people still did because they felt compelled to display their running tally of friends in public spaces, right next to their poinsettias and photos of their humiliated pets wearing Santa Claus hats and reindeer antlers.
Christmas had definitely changed since he’d last celebrated it a long, long time ago, before his daughter was grown with a kid and a life of her own; and before his marriage had crumbled, like the last dried-out sugar cookie at a holiday buffet. Christmas swag wasn’t the only thing that was disposable now: so were lives, families and relationships. Maybe that was just the way things worked in this modern era, and he’d forgotten to keep up with the times.
‘Hey, Foster, can I grab a couple minutes?’
Caleb Tucker, the newest addition to Probation, was standing in the entrance to the office cubicle, a troubled look on his baby face.
‘Sure thing. What’s up?’
He tossed a file onto the desk with an anxious sigh. ‘I don’t know what to do with this guy. Six months with him, no troubles. Today, he’s a half-hour late and his phone’s disconnected.’
‘He’s a no-show. Call it in.’
‘If I call in the no-show, he goes right back for another two years.’
Foster flicked on a pair of reading glasses and opened the file folder. ‘And that bothers you.’
‘Yeah, it bothers me. Unlike some POs I could mention, I actually believe in probation.’
Foster grimaced. ‘You’re young yet, still plenty of time to get disillusioned.’ He scanned the first couple of pages. ‘Felony possession, theft, second-degree assault …’
‘It was his first time in. Everybody deserves a second chance. Besides, I think he really turned around. He hasn’t missed a day of work since he’s been out.’
Foster closed the file and let out a world-weary sigh. ‘He skipped, Tucker. And he’s going to do crime. They all do. Number one clue is an out-of-service phone – remember that.’
Tucker hesitated. ‘Maybe something happened to him. His car broke down, he got sick …’
‘And he forgot to pay his phone bill because his mom’s dying from eyelash cancer, his girlfriend stole his car, and his dog ate his wallet. I’ve heard it all. Get over it, Tucker, or you’re not going to last the year in this job. Call the sheriff and activate the warrant.’ He pushed speed-dial on his phone and handed over the receiver.
Tucker took it reluctantly. ‘I don’t want to throw back somebody if there’s a legitimate reason. Especially this time of year.’
‘Do it.’
‘You got no heart, Foster. No trust, no humanity …’ He paused, held up a finger and spoke into the phone. ‘Good afternoon, Deputy, this is Caleb Tucker in Probation. I want to report a no-show on one Harlan Vestemeyer, doing five for two on assault and …’ He listened for a minute. ‘Oh. Okay. Thanks.’ He hung up the phone and sagged into a chair next to the desk, his face a mess of betrayal and misery. Foster almost felt sorry for the poor kid – the first con was always the hardest con.
‘They just picked him up on the Strip,’ Tucker finally said. ‘He rolled a Salvation Army Santa.’
Foster shook his head in commiseration. ‘First offense, death penalty, that’s my plan.’
‘I trusted him. I believed in him.’
Foster eased back into his own memory, trying to recall if he’d ever possessed the same kind of cock-eyed optimism early in his career. Probably. But that was decades past now and long forgotten. ‘Don’t ever do that, Tucker. Just remember, cynicism is the first line of defense against faith in your fellow man.’
Tucker nodded and pushed himself up out of his seat like an old man, still unpracticed at carrying his new burden. ‘I guess.’
‘Listen, what do you say we grab a beer after we close this joint down? We can pontificate on the pitiable state of the human race.’
‘Wish I could, but it’s Christmas. Tons of family stuff going on, you know?’
‘Sure, of course.’
‘Sorry, any other time.’
Foster closed the Vestemeyer file and handed it back to Tucker. ‘Hey, no problem. And sorry this one didn’t end so well for you. I’m not going to say it’ll get better, but I can tell you that it won’t get worse. You just walked through your first fire. It won’t burn so much the next time.’
Tucker looked around aimlessly, like he was searching for an anchor he could pluck out of thin air to stabilize his floundering idealism. ‘So you’re saying I’ll get used to it, not that it will get better.’
‘It’s the job. You decide if it’s the right one for you. It isn’t for everybody.’
He nodded dolefully. ‘Thanks, Foster. Have a good one. Catch you in the new year, yeah?’
‘You got it. Take care. And merry Christmas.’
Emil wended his way past an artificial tree and through a claustrophobic maze of tiny work cubicles in the most government-ugly office the Foley Federal Building offered up. Once he reached his destination in the back, he rapped on the only acoustic divider that didn’t have some kid’s crayon drawing of a Christmas tree pinned up on it. ‘Foster, my man! Merry Christmas.’
Foster was the sorriest-looking haggard old coot Emil had ever laid eyes on, dragged down by droopy jowls and one bad attitude. He looked up from his desk with bleary blood-shot eyes and emitted a ragged, snuffling sound. ‘Oh, God. Has it been six months already?’
Emil flashed a smile. ‘You know it has, to the very day. Didn’t they tell you I was coming?’
Foster rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah, they told me. I’ve been trying to block it out.’
‘So how you been, old friend? You’re looking a little ripped up, you ask me. Whaddaya say we blow this place and get you over to the clinic for a B-12 shot, maybe plug some slots at the Bellagio, long as we’re out and about?’
‘You’re banned from every casino in this town, you know that, so shut up, Emil, and sit down.’ He jabbed a prematurely arthritic forefinger at a bent-up metal folding chair.
‘Thanks, Foster, but I think I’d rather stand up. You get that thing out of a dungeon somewhere? I mean, who does the decorating around here? A little upholstery might be a nice touch.’
‘I see your mouth is still running faster than your legs.’ He gave Emil and his suit a quick once-over. ‘You’re going to be the best dressed worker at McDonald’s.’
‘Funny, Foster.’
‘Not funny.’
‘Are you serious? No way you can be serious. You’re yanking my chain, right?’
Foster’s mouth curled into a wicked Grinch smile.
‘No wa-ay, man, McDonald’s? Again? For real?’
‘You know the routine. Halfway house and a really crappy job. You start tomorrow, five a.m. They don’t even bother to call you in for orientation anymore, you’ve been there so many times, and they still have a uniform for you. Keep up this frequent-flyer crap and they’ll probably embroider your name on it with French fries.’
Emil folded his arms across his chest with well-practiced indignation. ‘A man cannot make a living flipping burgers and dropping fries. A man cannot support a family working at some –’
‘Family?’
‘Well, yeah. Fact is, I’ve been thinking about settling down.’
Foster’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yeah, right. The longest relationship you ever had in your life is with me.’
‘I’ll have you know I just met a fine lady downstairs, and I want to tell you she was very receptive.’
‘What’d you take her for, Emil? Twenty? Fifty?’
‘Foster, you’re hurting my feelings. No reason to be so mean-spirited during such a blessed time of the year.’
He grunted. ‘And you’re breaking my heart. Park it.’
Emil sat down reluctantly, careful to smooth the back of his suit before he did. Foster pulled out a pair of reading glasses and squinted at the paperwork in front of him. ‘Halfway house is over on Custer. You got a month to find your own place. Not that you’re going to last a month.’
Emil decided it was time to change strategies. ‘You don’t see the changes, do you?’ he asked, with quiet sincerity.
Foster cocked a brow at him. ‘I see a nice new suit, and I suppose that means there’s a man somewhere in this city walking around naked.’
‘Hey, hey, now, back off, Foster. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve strayed from the path these past couple years –’
‘Past couple years?’
‘But I’m a whole new man now. You’re looking at a brand new edition of Emil Rice. I had a lot of time to think during the past six months, you know what I’m saying? Time to look deep inside, regroup, reassess, rehabilitate. I saw my future in that cold, barren cell and, let me tell you, it gave me a new perspective.’
Foster laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. ‘Me and the cops, we got a pool going, how long it’s going to take Emil Rice to screw up this time. I got the twenty-four-hour time slot.’
‘Oh, that’s nice, Foster, real nice. I’m here on my back, belly-up, sharing my rebirth, my renaissance as a human being –’
‘Yeah, yeah, whatever. It’s late, I’m tired, so listen up, buttkiss. Every Tuesday, five o’clock, right here. You’re a minute late, I call a no-show and you go back and do the rest of your time. Got it? And when that happens, I’m going to set your very thick file on fire and dance around it in my birthday suit, because by the time you get out of the can, I’ll be retired.’
Emil cringed at the prospect of Foster nude, even more than the prospect of more jail time. ‘You are one unforgiving man, you know that? Yes, sir, one hard and unforgiving man.’
Foster shoved a piece of paper across the desk. ‘Sign this. Conditions of your probation. Pick one. Violate it. Please.’
Emil sighed. ‘Well, I guess you’re just never going to believe a man can change until someone proves it to you. I’m going to do that, Foster. I’m going to restore your faith in humanity.’
‘Be my guest. I’m just waiting for a Christmas miracle.’