Reva sighed. “Since Mom died,” she whispered. Despite the cold night air, Reva was flooded with warm feelings, feelings for Pam, feelings that took her by surprise.
She took Pam’s arm and began walking toward the front of the store.
“Listen, Reva,” Pam said urgently, “Foxy—I mean, Robb—he couldn’t have done it.”
“Huh?”
“He couldn’t have killed Mitch, Reva. No way,” Pam said with real emotion. “I know him too well.”
“I was shocked,” Reva admitted. “I didn’t think Robb could do it, either. But he must have, Pam.”
“No!” Pam cried. She pulled her arm out of Reva’s grip and stopped walking. “I’m telling you, Reva. It wasn’t Robb. I know it!”
“But he was talking so crazy,” Reva insisted. “He practically confessed this morning when they took him away.”
“You don’t understand—” Pam started.
“And I saw him fighting with Mitch yesterday morning,” Reva interrupted. “I saw him, Pam. He wanted to kill Mitch. Really. And then later that afternoon he asked someone else to be Santa for him so he could sneak away.”
“I can explain everything,” Pam declared. “There’s my dad’s car over there.” She pointed to the hulking Grand Prix at the curb. “Please, Reva. Let’s sit down, get out of the cold. Let me explain. Give me a chance.”
“Of course,” Reva said. She followed Pam to the big old car and climbed into the passenger seat. It smelled old, sour.
“I know why Foxy was fighting with Mitch,” Pam said, sliding behind the wheel, starting to talk before she had even slammed the door. “It was my fault.”
“Your fault?”
“Foxy knew that Mitch was blackmailing me,” Pam revealed. “That’s why he was fighting with Mitch.”
Reva’s mouth formed an O of surprise. “Huh? Mitch? Blackmailing you? Come on, Pam. Why?”
Pam hesitated. She rested her forehead on the wheel for a few seconds before sitting up again. “It’s too long a story, Reva. I’m sure it’ll all come out. But later. Right now, I want to talk about Foxy—I mean, Robb.”
Reva eyed Pam suspiciously. What is it she doesn’t want to tell me? she wondered. Why would Mitch be blackmailing her?
“So why did Robb ask someone to take his place as Santa?” she asked.
“It’s all very innocent, really,” Pam said, sighing. “He got a friend of his to stand in for him for an hour so he could see me.”
“You?”
“Robb and I have been going together for nearly six months. He knew I was very upset about . . . things. So he sneaked off to see me. Just to be with me.”
Reva knew Pam was telling the truth.
But there were still things to be explained.
“What was he saying when the police took him away, Pam?” Reva asked. “What did he mean that he was only trying to show me?”
“Foxy told me that he had been doing mean things to frighten you. Playing cruel jokes. He said he put a needle in your lipstick. And he sent you things. A cologne bottle. A mannequin in a box. I told him it was silly. But he was just so angry at the way you treated me, at how awful you were to me. And at how you tricked him into being Santa Claus, how you humiliated him in front of everyone.”
Reva avoided Pam’s eyes.
“But that’s all he did,” Pam continued. “You’ve got to believe me. He didn’t kill Mitch. I know he didn’t. I know he couldn’t.”
Reva saw that Pam had tears in her eyes, and to Reva’s surprise, she did too. “You had a right to be angry at me,” she told her cousin, her voice a whisper. “Robb did too. I guess . . . I guess a lot of people do.”
Then with sincere feeling, Reva reached over to Pam, threw both arms around her shoulders, and wrapped her tightly in a long hug. “I’m really sorry, Pam. Really. I’m so sorry,” she said.
“Can I drive you home?” Pam asked, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I want to call to find out what happened to Foxy.”
“Yes, thanks,” Reva said. “Maybe you could stay for dinner, and we could talk. You know. Catch up.”
“Maybe,” Pam said, searching for her car keys.
They were two or three blocks away when Reva realized she didn’t have her bag. “I must have left it up in Daddy’s office,” she told Pam apologetically. “Can we go back and get it?”
Pam made a U-turn at the next light. When they reached the store, Reva directed her around the back to the employees’ entrance. “Wait right here,” she told Pam. “I’ll be down in two seconds.”
Reva stepped into the narrow corridor, surprised to see that the night guard wasn’t at his table. Daddy wouldn’t be pleased about that, she thought.
She walked quickly through the dark, empty back hallway and stepped out onto the main floor, her eyes searching the darkened store. Except for some pale ceiling lamps against the far wall, the only light came from the twinkling tree lights on the tall Christmas tree under the balconies.
Chill out. Just chill out, she warned herself, feeling her old fear begin to return. Just a suggestion of the terror she always felt, a heaviness in the pit of her stomach. But she knew it would soon spread. The fear would soon spread until it had her in its grip.
Stupid phobia.
Chill out, Reva. There’s nothing to be frightened of.
What was that music? Reva stopped to listen. Someone had left the music system on. “Silent Night” echoed eerily through the empty store.
The Christmas tree lights still on. The music still playing. No guard at the back door. Someone had been careless, Reva decided. It’s a good thing Daddy’s not here. He’d make someone pay for these slipups.
The fear tried to push her back, keep her frozen in the center of the aisle. But with the soft Christmas music in her ears, she forced herself forward. She held her breath until she reached the employees’ elevator, then slipped inside and rode up to the sixth floor.
She stepped out into the executive waiting room, feeling relieved, feeling proud of herself for not allowing the fear to overwhelm her.
Moving quickly over the plush carpet, she hurried toward her father’s office in the corner. To her surprise, the security monitors were still on, their screens buzzing, filled now with nothing but gray.
What’s going on around here? she wondered.
And then she saw that someone was standing at the monitors.
“Hank?” she called, moving toward him. “Hank—what are you doing here so—?”
It wasn’t Hank.
The man who stepped out from behind the bank of monitors was wearing a blue security guard’s uniform. The buzzing, gray screens washed him in gray so that he seemed unreal, a strange video creation.
Staring into the gray glare, it took Reva a long while to recognize him.
“Mr. Wakely!” she cried, and then in her surprise she blurted out, “You don’t work here anymore!”
“I still have some work to do,” he said.
Then Reva saw the pistol in his hand.
Chapter 28
“TAKE IT EASY, MR. WAKELY”
The chorus singing “Silent Night” over the loudspeakers seemed to get louder.
Reva’s mouth dropped open as her eyes traveled from the pistol up to Mr. Wakely’s face, gray in the light from the monitor screens.
He took a step toward her. Then another.
His natural color returned. His eyes were red and glassy, Reva noticed. She could see red veins on the bridge of his bulbous nose.
“Maywood promised me there’d be no problem,” he said, his eyes floating from side to side in their sockets.
He’s drunk, Reva realized, returning her open-eyed stare to the pistol gripped tightly in his hand.
Drunk and dangerous.
“Maywood promised me,” he repeated. Maybe he wanted to explain his presence to Reva.
“Take it easy, Mr. Wakely,” she said, holding up her hands. “Just stay calm, okay. I’m sure everything will be all right.” He
r heart was pounding so loudly, she could barely hear her own words.
“No.” He shook his head. “It didn’t go all right. We messed up. We completely messed up.” He was slurring his words so badly, Reva had trouble understanding him.
“What do you mean?” she asked, still gripped with fear.
“The robbery. Maywood. He was the one who planned it. He said there wouldn’t be any trouble.” He took a step back and put a hand out against the side of a monitor and leaned against it.
“You mean the robbery here in the store?” Reva asked.
He nodded, his bald head shining gray in the strange light. “Maywood said that three kids were planning to rob the store. He said the three kids would be a distraction. You know. Keep the other guard busy. Me and Maywood would empty the downstairs safe, see. And the three kids wouldn’t even know it.”
He paused as if trying to remember what happened next. Then he continued, training his red eyes on Reva. “We got the money okay. It was a good plan, see. It would’ve worked fine. Only I stepped out from the back office, and I saw that one of the kids was mine!”
He shook his head sadly. “It was Mickey. My own boy. I had no idea.” His eyes burned into hers, pleading, desperate. “Maywood never said that Mickey was one of them. I didn’t know that Mickey was there. He didn’t know that I was there. And then . . .”
He trailed off, rubbing his chin with his free hand.
“And then what?” Reva asked, checking for the safest escape route.
“Then . . . I saw the guard. Ed Javors. He picked up his gun. He was going to shoot Mickey. What could I do? I’m a father, right? I couldn’t stand there and let him shoot my son. My only son? So I—I just panicked. I shot Ed. I didn’t mean to kill him. But I couldn’t let him shoot Mickey.”
He stopped again, lost in thought, leaning hard against the monitor.
On the loudspeaker the chorus continued its soft, reverent version of “Silent Night.”
“Did you kill Mitch too?” Reva asked. The question just popped out of her.
Mr. Wakely nodded. “Had to,” he said, trying to focus his eyes. “I knew what he was doing. I overheard, see. He was blackmailing my kid. That kid Mitch was out back the night of the robbery. He’d gone back to the store for something he left there. He saw Mickey and the other two come running out. And so he started blackmailing my boy. Going to turn him in. I couldn’t allow it, could I? I couldn’t allow Mickey to get into trouble for something I did.”
“But why did you send Mitch’s body to me?” Reva asked, staring at the pistol, still down at his side.
“Huh?” He squinted at her, as if that would help him understand the question. “Send it to you? I didn’t. I found a big carton with a bow on it. First big carton I could find. So I put the body in it and left it behind a counter,” he told her.
The carton that had the mannequin in it, Reva realized. It still had her name on it, and it had gotten delivered to her all over again.
Mr. Wakely squinted at her. “And now here I am. I came back to finish my work here, see. I just want to get paid, see. From the safe in your daddy’s office.” He gestured toward the office with the pistol.
“Too bad,” he said, standing up straight. His eyes seemed to be focusing now, clear and cold. He raised the pistol. “You’ve given me no choice.”
“No!” Reva screamed and whirled around to run.
Her legs felt as if they weighed a thousand pounds. But she forced herself forward, bending low as she ran, her entire body tensed in anticipation of the gunshots.
He was coming after her, the pistol poised. She could hear his heavy breathing, hear the heavy pad of his shoes on the thick carpet.
What can I do? Where can I go? she wondered, the empty offices flying by in a blur.
If I could just get onto the elevator—
No. Too risky. Too slow.
Then where?
If she could double back to her father’s office, she could lock the door, lock herself in, call out for help.
Yes.
But how could she get past him to get back there?
No time to think about it. No time to make a plan. She just had to do it.
She reached the waiting room, circled the couch, took a deep breath, and ran right at him.
His mouth dropped open in surprise.
Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.
She dodged past him, running hard, running at full speed.
It took her a while to realize that the object that rang past her ear was a bullet.
“Oh!” She uttered a terrified cry.
Another explosion behind her, this one louder, this one scarier since she knew what it was. Another bullet rang past, lodging in the wall ahead of her.
Reva froze.
Her father’s office was still halfway down the hall.
I can’t outrun a bullet, she thought.
And then her thoughts seemed to melt into bright colors, unconnected words, a loud, insistent ringing in her ears as her panic drove out everything else.
She backed up toward the low balcony overlooking the store.
Her back hit the railing. She didn’t really know where she was. She didn’t really know why she had stopped, why she was standing there, what she was doing.
A grim smile on his face, the smoking pistol held high, Wakely dived at her.
Chapter 29
ZAP
He’s got me, Reva thought, her back pressed against the low chrome balcony railing.
She glanced down, down to the main floor five stories below, and felt overcome by dizziness.
He leapt, arms outstretched, to tackle her.
She shut her eyes and ducked.
Wakely sailed past her—and plunged over the balcony.
She could hear him scream all the way down.
Then she heard the clatter of glass, a cracking sound, a low cry, a hard thud.
And then a deafening, final scream followed by an electrical zap-zap-zap, and a roar that seemed to shake the walls.
Reva peered down to the first floor. She cried out, raising her hands to her face, when she saw Wakely down there, his eyes frozen open in a wide stare of horror, his body being jolted in the midst of a blinding red and yellow electric current.
It’s the Christmas tree, Reva realized, still covering her face, turning away from the horrifying sight.
Wakely had landed on the tree, and it shorted out.
Reva felt sick.
She heard a last few pop-pop-pops, like automatic gunshots, and then the current fizzled out.
“Ohh,” she moaned softly.
And suddenly someone was holding her. Strong arms were around her, supporting her, comforting her.
“Hank!”
“I was downstairs, fixing a videocam,” he said softly, holding her tighter. “I saw everything. On the monitor in the basement. It’s all on tape. Wakely’s confession, everything.”
She raised her head from his chest and met his eyes, still dazed. “Huh? How?”
“I told you I was an electronics genius,” he said. “I tried to get up here to help you. Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner.”
“At least you’re here now,” Reva said weakly. And then she collapsed into his arms.
Chapter 30
REAL FEELINGS
Reva sat between Hank and Robb on the long wooden bench. They huddled together, hunched in their coats, collars up, squinting against the bright glare of the lights above them.
Footsteps echoed on the marble floors, and from time to time a door would open and a uniformed police officer would hurry past.
Reva and the two boys had been sitting outside the Shadyside police hearing room for nearly an hour, staring at the tile walls, not talking much, nervously waiting for Pam to come out.
“What’s it like in there?” Hank asked Robb, gesturing to the tall double doors that led inside.
“It’s not bad,” Robb said, shivering. “It’s warmer than out here.” r />
“The North Pole is warmer than out here,” Reva cracked, holding on to the arm of Hank’s overcoat.
“There are a bunch of little rooms back there,” Robb said. “With chairs and desks and stuff. That’s all.”
“And one-way mirrors, right?” Hank asked. “So they can spy on you?”
Robb chuckled. “I don’t think so. I didn’t see any mirrors at all.”
“How long were you in there?” Reva asked, glancing expectantly at the door, then checking her wristwatch.
“About an hour. Maybe a little more,” Robb replied. “I was scared. But I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong.” He blushed. “Except for those mean things I did to you.”
“I deserved it,” Reva said softly. Then she laughed. “Besides, I’ll find a way to pay you back. It’s my turn.”
Robb became concerned. “You’re joking—right?”
Reva nodded slyly. “Maybe.”
They sat in silence for a while, staring at the double doors, willing them to open. Reva gripped Hank’s hand tightly. “What do you think will happen to Pam?”
Hank shrugged.
The doors opened.
Pam came walking out, weary and pale, flanked by her somber parents. She brightened a little when she saw Reva and the two boys waiting for her.
They jumped to their feet as Pam and her parents approached, their footsteps echoing in the high ceilinged waiting room.
“Pam—what happened?” Reva asked, hurrying to her.
Pam shrugged and glanced back at her mom and dad. “There’s going to be a hearing,” she said. “In the meantime, I’m in my parents’ custody.”
“Custody?” Reva exclaimed. “What a horrible word.”
“Pam’s going to be okay,” her father said brusquely.
“She’s never been in trouble before,” her mother added. “So they’re only going to charge her with trespassing.”
“And what about Mickey and Clay?” Robb asked.
“I don’t know,” Pam said, shaking her head sadly. “Mickey’s hearing won’t be until after his father’s funeral. He’s staying with his aunt. Clay’s hearing is next week.”