Christmas Wishlist Read online

  Abby wrinkled her nose to show her superior taste in toys. “I want Bookworm Barbie. She comes with glasses and her own bookstore.”

  Barbie in bifocals. “Wonderful,” Katherine said.

  “Zeeeep! Zeeeep! Jet Jupiter blasts Bookworm Barbie into orbit!”

  “You better keep your stupid toy away from my Barbie doll, Andy!”

  Katherine had never been so glad to reach her floor. They weren’t even inside her office yet, and already she’d used up her best bribe and her last aspirin. When the elevator doors finally lumbered apart, she grasped each child by the hand and led them firmly to the receptionist’s desk. Janeen looked up, her expression changing from surprise to pleasure in an instant. “Hiya, kiddies,” she said with a smile. “Why aren’t you in school today?”

  “We got kicked out,” Abby informed her brightly. “We’re dink-quints.”

  “Delinquents,” Katherine interpreted as she pulled out her phone and quickly scanned her voicemail messages.

  “Uh-oh,” Janeen said, her voice smiling even though she wasn’t. “It isn’t good to be delinquents this close to Christmas. What’s Santa Claus going to think?”

  Katherine tossed the phone into her bag with a severe frown. “Santa Claus doesn’t think, because he isn’t real. Abby and Andy know that.”

  Janeen looked shocked. “Santa’s not real?”

  Andy looked at her, hopefully. “Do you believe in Santa Claus?”

  “Well, of course.” Janeen lowered her aesthetically perfect eyebrows in Katherine’s direction. “Only an old Scrooge doesn’t believe in Santa Claus.”

  “Don’t encourage them, please.” Katherine planted a hand on each of the twin red heads and tipped them up to look at her. “Janeen doesn’t believe in Santa Claus. No one over the age of eight believes in Santa Claus. And that’s the truth.” With a scowl for her receptionist, she urged the children toward her office.

  “I do, too, believe,” Janeen called after them. “I do believe in Santa.”

  * * *

  ANDY DUMPED THE box of crayons on the table and scattered them, looking for green. He glanced over at Abby to see if she had it, but she was huddled over a yellow pad of paper, drawing carefully with the red crayon. “What’re you drawin’?” he asked. “I’m drawing a monster with slime comin’ out his nose.”

  “That’s gross,” she said without looking up.

  He tried to see what she was drawing, but she kept her arm around the pad, so he couldn’t. She was probably just drawing the same old thing she always drew...a house with a dog, a cat, a mom and two kids. But he wanted to talk to her about Santa Claus, and now, while nobody was paying them any attention, was the perfect time. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, letting the words rush toward Abby. “What if the kids at school are right? What if Mom never knew about Santa Claus, when she was a kid? What if he is real and she just doesn’t know?”

  Abby looked at him across the table. “You think Mom is a liar?”

  He wiggled uncomfortably. “It wouldn’t be a lie if she didn’t know.”

  “She says the reindeer and the elves and the North Pole are all just made-up. They’re not real.”

  “I know she says that, Abby, but what if she just doesn’t know? Janeen believes in Santa Claus. What if she’s right and Mom’s wrong?”

  Abby looked at her drawing, then turned it around to show Andy. “I was trying to write a letter to Santa, but I couldn’t spell all the words, so I’m drawing a picture of what I want for Christmas.”

  Andy stared at the drawing, feeling that funny feeling that happened when he and Abby started thinking the same thing at the same time. She’d drawn a house with a dog, a cat, a mom and two kids...only there was a fat man in a red suit standing on the roof, and reindeer flying in the sky, and a lot of trees, and a bunch of other stuff. Andy pointed to a brown blob. “What’s that?”

  “A turkey.”

  “You want a turkey for Christmas?”

  “I want a turkey dinner on Christmas,” she clarified. “I don’t want to eat spaghetti at a restaurant like we did last year. I want Mom to cook.”

  Andy wasn’t sure even Santa could make that happen. He pointed at something else. “What’s that?”

  “A real pond, so we can ice-skate. And that’s the forest, with real Christmas trees growing in it. And those are decorations for the tree.” Her finger moved faster across the paper. “And those are the cookies Mom and I baked for Santa. And that’s a real dog and a real cat and the house is yellow like that one in the magazine, and Mom’s happy and the cat is purring, and it’s a real Christmas.” She bit her lower lip. “That’s what I want. If Santa’s real, he can give me everything in the picture. Can’t he, Andy?”

  Andy picked up a crayon—the blue one—and drew in another stick figure. “There,” he said, angling the pad toward Abby. “That’s our dad. If Santa is really real, then he can bring us a daddy, too.”

  “I don’t think Mom will let us keep him.”

  Andy nodded, certain she was right. “For a week, then. One week with a daddy and all the stuff in the picture. Santa has to be able to do that...if he’s real.”

  Abby took back the drawing and studied it with a frown. “But how do we find out, Andy? How do we find Santa Claus?”

  “I got an idea,” he said. “I got a good idea.” He leaned closer to Abby, so excited he could barely whisper. “We’ll hire a detective! They find stuff all the time.”

  Abby frowned. “But we don’t know any detectives.”

  “Mom does. I heard her talking about him one day on the phone. She said he was just a gory-fried house detective and she said he found the person she was lookin’ for and she said that’s what everyone in the building pays the Bo Zo to do, anyway.”

  “Is that his name? Bo Zo?”

  “Nah. I think it’s another word for detective. But, see, Abby, if everyone in the building pays him to look for people, he must work here somewhere. So it’ll be easy to find him.” Andy’s mind raced with possibilities as he jumped up from the table. “Come on. Janeen will help us.”

  Abby was slower getting to her feet. “You don’t think she’ll tell Mom, do you? If Mom finds out, she’s gonna be awful mad.”

  “She won’t find out, Abby,” he told her confidently. “Not until the detective shows her the real Santa. Then she can’t be mad. She’ll be too happy.”

  Abby tore her Christmas picture from the pad, folded it into careful fourths and tucked it into her pocket. “Santa better be real,” she said. “Or I’m gonna be mad.”

  “He’s real.” Andy was already planning all the things he wanted to do once Santa brought him a daddy. “He’s real, all right, and this is gonna be the best Christmas ever!”

  CHAPTER ONE

  “TIM WILTHAM WANTS to talk to you about the IDS system. Carl needs five minutes to discuss a personnel matter. Gina Haring requested thirty minutes to go over the in-house newsletter. You have reservations at Le Bernadin at seven-thirty, a chamber reception, also at seven-thirty, tickets for tonight’s Knicks game at eight, and your four-o’clock appointment is waiting in your office.”

  Gabe Housley stopped shuffling papers to glance at his assistant, Louisa, who matched him stride for stride as he walked down the hallway toward his office. “I don’t remember seeing a four-o’clock on my calendar.”

  “I made the appointment while you were out.” Louisa’s smiles were rare, so when there was even a trace of one—as there was now—Gabe was instantly alert.

  “Who is it?” he asked warily. “Not another of Dad’s clients who wants to murder him and sue me, is it?”

  “I screen your appointments very carefully,” she said, as if that were all he needed to know. Louisa Feigle had managed the day-to-day operations of Housley Security since time began, and she di
d so with such efficient authority that Gabe was either completely in awe or completely annoyed. Sometimes he was hard-pressed to tell which. She checked her steno pad again. “Your father left word he’s on a stakeout and won’t be home for dinner.”

  Gabe rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t suppose he gave you any idea of where he is or what he’s investigating this week?”

  “Mr. Gunther never reveals the details of his cases. You know that.”

  “Dad doesn’t have cases, Louisa. He has episodes. One week, ‘Spenser for Hire.’ The next, ‘Columbo.’” Gabe paused outside the door of his office. “Tell me again why I let my father wander the streets of New York, pretending to be James Bond?”

  “Because he’s of legal age, sound mind, and it keeps him out of the office.”

  “I knew there was a good reason.” Gabe passed the sheaf of reports into Louisa’s capable hands. “I’ll call Tim and Carl. Schedule Gina sometime tomorrow. Phone my regrets on the reception. Cancel the dinner reservations. Leave the basketball tickets in your desk drawer, and I’ll pick them up on my way out this evening. If the police chief calls again about Dad’s license—”

  “You’re unavailable.” Louisa jotted a note on her pad, as if she might forget...which was about as likely as Gun ever applying for a P.I. license. “Anything else?”

  “Call the deli and have them send over a couple of tuna salad sandwiches around six. On second thought, bring the basketball tickets to me before you leave. I don’t want Dad to get his hands on them this time.”

  “He said he wouldn’t be in the office for days.”

  “I’m not taking any chances. The old coot has a sixth sense when it comes to my Knicks tickets. Sometimes I think he has an informant at the box office.” Gabe reached for the doorknob. “Now, who did you say is waiting in my office?”

  To his dismay, Louisa’s stern mouth curved with unmistakable humor. “The Harmons,” she said. “Brother and sister. Short. Serious. Anxious to see you.”

  “If this turns out to be another elderly couple who wants a bodyguard for their aging Pekinese, I’m giving you the assignment.”

  Louisa’s sudden and surprising laughter struck fear in his heart, but Gabe bravely entered his office. Two tall leather chairs faced his desk and away from him, and as he closed the door behind him, two strawberry-blond heads popped up over the red leather...one head rising above each hobnailed chairback. “Hi,” one said. A girl. He could tell by the Pippi Longstocking braids.

  “Hi,” said the other. A boy, if one could trust the boyish cowlick and absence of pigtails.

  “Hi,” Gabe responded, wondering if he could afford to fire Louisa for letting these kids into his office. “Your name wouldn’t be Harmon, by any chance, would it?”

  The cowlick nodded enthusiastically. “I’m Andy.”

  “I’m Abby. We’re twins,” Pigtails confirmed. “We’re looking for a Bo Zo. Are you one?”

  Gabe ignored the impulse to open the door and yell for Louisa. Instead, he strolled around the chairs and stood behind his desk, eyeing the two rug rats who’d breached his own unwritten rule of security...no kids. Not in his office. Not in his life. But here they were, a boy and a girl, redheads, both of them, with matching blue eyes and a scattering of freckles across their noses. They were twins and they were trouble. Looking for a—? Well, he’d scare them a bit and then he’d find out who put them up to this little prank. Placing his hands on the desktop, he leaned forward, trying to look as intimidating as possible.

  “Why aren’t you in school?” he asked gruffly.

  “It’s four.” The girl, Abby, didn’t seem intimidated. “School’s over at three. Don’t you know?”

  “I haven’t been to school in a while.”

  “Don’t you have kids?”

  “No.” The word popped out, fast and firm. “I’m not married.”

  Abby eyed him curiously from the depths of the red leather chair. “Our mom’s not married and she got us.”

  “Some people are just lucky, I guess.” Gabe shifted his weight, wondering how his intimidation skills had gotten so rusty. “Where is your mother?”

  “Upstairs.” Andy patted the chair arms and explored the room with an inquisitive gaze. “Where’s your mother?”

  “My mother is...” He wondered if he could say ‘dead.’ It might frighten them. They might start screaming...or crying. Better to avoid that possibility, altogether, he decided, and settled for a vague “I don’t have a mother.”

  “We don’t have a daddy,” Abby informed him matter-of-factly. “Mom says daddies are redumbbant and we don’t need one.”

  Gabe hadn’t a clue as to what that meant, other than that their mother must be a really cold fish. And an irresponsible cold fish, to boot. “Does your mother know where you are?”

  “You can call her Mom.” Andy smiled, displaying a gap the size of two missing front teeth. “That’s what we call her.”

  “Sometimes we call her Kate the Great.” Abby intercepted a stern glance from her brother and made a face at him before she turned a quite beguiling smile on Gabe. “But that’s a secret, so you can’t tell her.”

  Kate Harmon. Gabe fitted the names together and had a vague sense of it being familiar, although it didn’t trigger any real recognition. “Don’t you think you’d better leave, before she comes looking for you?”

  “She won’t,” Abby assured him. “She’s busy.”

  “I’m a little busy, myself,” Gabe said sharply. “So why don’t you two run along and play a joke on someone else?”

  The twins exchanged glances, and then Andy slid from the chair and stepped up to the desk. “It’s not a joke,” he said solemnly. “We want to hire you.”

  “We have to find somebody who’s a real person.” Abby seconded the motion. “That’s why we need a Bo Zo.”

  Gabe frowned. “What did you say?”

  “We need a Bo Zo,” Abby repeated, looking at him strangely. “You know, a detective.”

  “A detective? You think a detective is a Bo Zo?”

  “That’s what Mom said.” Andy reached across the desk, picked up a pencil sharpener shaped like a Colt .45 and aimed it at the window. “I heard her. She said a gory-fried house detective finds things because that’s what everybody pays the Bo Zo to do. We asked Janeen and she told us you’re the house detective, so we came to hire you.”

  Gabe jerked the pencil sharpener from Andy’s lethal fingers and put it back on the desk. Then he sank into his big black chair and observed the redheads, wishing they were a nice, simple older couple with an arthritic Pekinese. “Look, kids,” he said. “This is a security company. We install and monitor alarm systems. We provide bodyguards and security personnel. We do data searches and investigative reports. But we don’t do detective work and we don’t find missing persons.”

  There was a brief consultation of glances. “We have money.” Andy clutched the edge of the desk and leaned forward with a somber man-of-the-world air. “We didn’t expect you to do it for nothin’.”

  “We have our own credit card.” Abby offered that information with a smug toss of braids.

  Gabe knew next to nothing about kids, but he was impressed to discover that they arrived with their own credit. “You can use a credit card?”

  “Yessss...” Abby stretched the word as if she found the question silly. “Can’t you?”

  “I deal in cash,” Gabe said, just to be disagreeable.

  Andy disappeared below the edge of the desk, and when he bobbed up again, he was holding a handful of bills. He opened his hand over the desk and the money fell in crumpled ones. Three of them. A fourth stuck to his fingers, and he had to shake it loose, causing Gabe to wonder where the kid kept his cash. Not that he actually wanted to know.

  Andy looked expectantly at Gabe. “Is that e
nough?”

  Gabe fought the impulse to tell the boy to stuff the dollars back in his pocket and looked at Abby, instead. “Where’s your money?” he asked.

  “I only have one dollar,” she said with a pout. “You don’t need it, do you?”

  Just like a female, Gabe thought. The little twerp was going to let her brother use all of his cash without ever once volunteering to add hers. “You’re in luck,” Gabe said in his best businesslike tone. “Five dollars is my consultation fee.”

  Andy looked over his shoulder at Abby, who rolled her eyes, sighed, and bent forward to pull a folded dollar bill out of her sock. “Here.” She handed the money to Andy. “But you better make sure Santa pays me back.”

  “He will.” Andy happily added it to the other four. “Five,” he said. “Now you’re hired.”

  Gabe hadn’t meant to be hired. He’d meant to get these kids out of his office. “It isn’t quite that easy. Your mother’s going to have to give her permission.”

  Both freckled faces looked horrified by the prospect. “We can’t tell her we came to your office,” Abby said. “We’d get in a lot of trouble.”

  “Well, I could get in a lot of trouble, too.” Which was true, Gabe realized as he said it. “You should just take your money and forget about hiring a detective until you’re older.”

  The two red heads shook vigorously, in an emphatic dual denial. “We’re going to be eight on our birthday,” Abby blurted out. “And then it’ll be too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  “To believe in Santa Claus,” the boy said seriously. “Do you believe Santa is a real person?”

  Gabe closed his eyes. I had to ask, he thought, then cleared his throat and dredged up his best diplomatic tone of voice. “What I believe isn’t important. It’s what you believe that counts.”

  Andy was having none of that. “It is, too, important,” he insisted. “Me and Abby have to know. Do you believe in Santa Claus?”

  Gabe decided he would fire Louisa for this...right after he strangled her. “Well, of course!” he lied with a boisterous laugh. “Doesn’t everyone?”