Nick of Time

Mary scratched through her memory. “I’ve never met a man by that name, nor has Dad mentioned it. My dad and I are very close.”

“What about your stepmother?”

Her jaw tightened. “She’s only been in the picture for the past couple months. Before that, my father and I had no secrets from each other.”

“What do you know about his life before he moved here?”

“My dad’s lived in North Pole ever since I was born.”

“Where did he live before that?”

“I don’t know, I never asked. I knew he’d been in the military, but he didn’t like to talk about it.” For someone who loved her father more than any man in her life, she didn’t know him very well, did she? Her breath caught in her throat and she swallowed hard.

“What about your mother?”

“She was from Fairbanks, born and raised.”

“Was?” he prodded, his voice low, but insistent.

Mary turned to stare at the curtained window. “She died fourteen years ago in a car wreck.” Her death had been the reason Mary had stayed in North Pole as long as she did. Her father had loved his first wife completely. Olivia Claus had been a shining beacon, a consistently happy woman, content in her life in Alaska, thrilled to be a part of Christmas Towne and in love with her husband. And Santa had loved her more than life itself.

When Olivia Claus died, Santa needed Mary more than ever.

For the next twelve years, she’d concentrated on making her father happy. She graduated with honors from high school, went to college in Fairbanks and put off her dreams of moving to the Lower 48, indefinitely. Then she’d met Bradley and thought she was in love. When he’d turned out to be a cheat, her dreams of raising her children near her father fell through. That’s when her father arranged for her move to Seattle, to get away from bad memories.

She shook herself out of her morose musings. “How old was the man in Brooklyn?”

“Early sixties, maybe. We’re still looking into his background. I don’t know much about him yet, other than he was a retired army sergeant.”

“You think he might have known my dad before he moved to Alaska? Back when he’d been in the military?” When had her father moved to North Pole? Perhaps she could ask Christmas Towne’s janitor, Mr. Feegan. He’d known her dad about as long as anyone, she guessed. A glance at the clock confirmed it was too late to call now. At nearly midnight, she wouldn’t get a coherent response if she got him to answer the phone at all.

And Nick still hadn’t answered all her questions. “You still haven’t said who you work for.”

“Let’s just say I work for the country. You better get some rest. We want to start fresh and early looking for your father.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Like what?”

“That I still don’t know what you are.”

“I’m just a man here to help Santa.”

“Like some kind of saint from heaven?” Mary snorted. “North Pole’s very own St. Nick?”

“I’m no saint.” All humor disappeared from his face, leaving his eyes dark and fathomless.

She glanced at the gun in his hand. “How do I know you’re not here to kill my father? How do I know you didn’t kill Frank Richards?”

“You don’t.” He set the gun inside a dresser drawer and scooped her elbow into his palm. “Now, are you going to your room, or would your rather sleep here?”

Mary’s heart flip-flopped in her chest at the thought of staying in the same room with this man who was sexy enough to be a model and with just enough mystery to be dangerous. A deadly combination for her underexercised libido. If she didn’t leave now, it might be fatal to more than her tenuous hold on self-preservation. Who was to say he wouldn’t kill her? Her skin chilled. “I’m going.”

She couldn’t hustle across the hallway and into her room fast enough. When she turned to close the door, she noticed Nick leaning in his door frame. Having shed his jacket and with his black hair falling over his forehead, he could crank up any female’s blood pressure and she was no different. Damn.

Mary glared at him. “I intend to learn more about you and what’s happened to my father tomorrow. So don’t go anywhere.”

His lips twisted. “Don’t worry. I’m not. I’m just as interested in finding your father as you are.”

After closing the door with a sharp click, Mary leaned against it and wondered if Nick’s reasons were much darker than hers. She tested the lock on her window, and shoved her dresser in front of the door. When she fell into bed, she lay with her eyes half-open, jumping every time the heater kicked on or the walls settled. Questions raced through her mind, keeping her awake into the wee hours.

Who had bumped into her in the hallway? Was he after her father? Why hadn’t her father tried harder to contact her once she was in North Pole? And what did the sexy mystery man across the hall have to do with her father’s disappearance? Most of all, what did her father’s clue mean?

Chapter Four (#ulink_96662ef0-8ea7-53f7-af94-91b89d87f101)

The incessant theme from Mission: Impossible jarred Nick from the light doze he’d fallen into after lying awake all night, listening for any sound from the room across the hall.

Mary might have been certain about the intruder in her room being her father, but it didn’t account for the man who’d plowed into her in the hallway. Probably the same man who’d chased her father away on a snowmobile. Since her father had left a clue, what would keep the other man from coming back to claim it?

Nick grabbed for the cell phone on the nightstand. The display screen indicated a private number. “Yeah.”

“Tim did a name search into Alaska state records.” A pause lengthened as if an acknowledgment was required.

It took two full seconds for his boss’s voice to register. Tim was their techno-guru back at the SOS office in D.C. Royce Fontaine didn’t waste words on simple pleasantries.

“You awake?” Royce asked.

Nick scrubbed his hand down his face and glanced at the clock. The bright green digits indicated five-thirty, Alaskan time. “What did you find?”

“Not what, but who. Charles Hayes.”

Nick shook his sleep-clouded head. “And Charles Hayes should ring a bell?”

“Frank Richards had contracted with a NewYork publishing house to sell his Vietnam War memoirs. Tim hasn’t been able to tap into Richards’s computer. The motherboard looked pretty much like swiss cheese. We also learned that Frank Richards had recently been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. His doctor gave him three months to live, four months ago.”

“Could his memoirs be some kind of confession?”

“If so, it wasn’t just his actions he’s confessing. He’s got someone else scared.”

“What do Richards’s memoirs have to do with Santa?”

“Tim checked his phone records. He’d made two calls to North Pole, Alaska, in the past two weeks. The phone number he called belonged to our Santa Claus, aka Charles Hayes. Mr. Hayes had a legal name change over thirty-five years ago upon his arrival in Fairbanks. Your Santa’s fingerprints also match the military records of Hayes.”

“Why change his name?”

“That’s what we have to figure out. Do you need help on this one?”

“No. It’s still early in the investigation.”