Dashing Through the Snow (3 page)

She could not believe this was happening to
her. Here she was blowing out her lungs and further damaging her
already banged up right knee trying to keep up with a short fat man
who had to be in his middle sixties if he was a day. She, on the
other hand, was slim, almost thirty and in what she’d previously
thought was reasonably good shape. And
she
wasn’t the one
wearing a big red Santa suit
.
Yet, she was eating his
dust.

Lily blinked snow from her eyes as she’d been
doing the entire time she’d been chasing him. The snow ever
thickening beneath her feet wasn’t helping her cause, either. Her
boots were made for style rather than traction, and she wouldn’t be
at all amazed if she suddenly fell and broke a limb in her efforts
to keep up with Santa, whose unattractive, but practical boots were
serving him just fine. It didn’t help that she was now running on
cobblestones -- beautiful, but unforgivably hazardous.

Her eyes narrowed in disbelief as she watched
Santa turn his head, find her gaze with his own twinkling one, grin
and wink.

“Son of a --! Why, you little...” she panted
between labored breaths.

Outraged, she put on a burst of speed, and
then stared as he turned around and jogged backwards, giving her a
mock scowl and moving his hand in an impatient, hurry-up gesture.
He then turned back around, and elbows and legs moving in
exaggerated slow motion, silently dared her to catch up with
him.

Lily shook her head as she closed the
distance and reached out, her gloved hand just missing a square of
his red coat as he picked up his pace again. “Jesus!” she said
around a mirthless chuckle and promised her suffering right knee
that if it just held out a little longer, she’d never treat it in
such a callous manner again.

“Mommy, that mean lady’s chasing Santa
Claus!”

What’s it to you?
Lily wanted to say
to the child, who sounded downright appalled. She’d been chasing
him for almost ten minutes at least, and she still couldn’t believe
it herself.
And when I catch the fat little bastard, I have
every intention of having his holly-jolly ass thrown in
jail!

Her energy and her spirits were seriously
flagging, and Lily could think of nothing to do to raise them
again. The deep breaths she began to take didn’t help, and in fact,
only made her cough and feel sick.

Santa turned another corner, and
automatically her eyes went to the street sign. Pine Avenue: the
name struck a chord for some reason and Lily tried to figure out
why.
Oh, no!
she thought and raising her wrist to eye level,
shoved her coat sleeve back to look at her watch. It was 8:45.
Damn it
, she thought and took the corner herself,
the old
elf timed it perfectly
.

Grimly, she looked a few feet down Pine
Avenue, expecting to see exactly what she saw.

An enormous sea of undulating red and white
fake fur.

“God damn it!” Lily gasped as she was forced
to stop. She bent over, resting her hands on her knees. She tried
to catch her breath, each exhalation increasing her ire as she
glared resentfully at the scene in front of her. “God damn it, god
damn it, GOD… DAMN… IT!”

There were at least a hundred and fifty men
dressed in Santa Claus suits, all waddling toward the entrance to
City Hall. And her Santa was somewhere lost in the vast Santa
horde, which of course was exactly what he’d planned.
Who the
hell is this guy?

Every Saturday morning between Thanksgiving
and Christmas, the mayor invited the volunteer Santa Clauses into
City Hall for hot chocolate and pastries. One could also count on
some citizens turning out as well. So, winded and disgusted, Lily
just stared at them. Halfheartedly, she took her gaze searchingly
over the crowd. Of course she didn’t see him.

She looked at her watch again. She only had a
few minutes to get back to the office space she’d rented and
officially open for business. Indecision crossed her face as she
looked back at the crowd. In the end, she decided to go to her new
digs, but that would be after she went back to her car and met with
the police and after she went home for a quick shower and a change
of clothes. She absolutely refused to sit around all day in sweaty
clothes. She snorted. “As if.”

Chapter Three

“No, Mom, I’m fine,” Lily said into the
telephone receiver as she continued to scan the phone book for
insurance agencies. The book covered two other towns besides
Sheffield-Chatham and was easier to use than trying to find them
all on the Internet. Her goal was to get at least one or two of the
firms to hire her on as an investigator. She circled the telephone
numbers of the agencies she recognized and knew had decent sized
staffs. She knew investigating suspected false claims wouldn’t be
glamorous work, but it would at least bring in some money as she
tried to make her way in the industry.

“Wait -- Mrs. Johnson told you
what
?”
she stopped circling phones numbers long enough to listen to her
mother. “Of course she’s lying, Mom. I did not
tackle
Santa
Claus! I might have if I’d been able to catch up with him, probably
would even have smushed the squirrelly little bastard’s
ruddy-cheeked face in the snow,” she said in distraction as she
went back to her task.

“Lily!” her mother said in surprise. “Surely
you wouldn’t have -- ” there was a contemplative pause -- “well,
yes...yes, I guess you might have at that,” she finished with more
conviction in her voice.

“Certainly I would have. I have fifty
thousand irritating male cousins. That means I learned to fight
dirty with the best of them.”

Her mother made a tsk-tsk sound. “Don’t
exaggerate. You don’t have that many. Anyway, I’m just calling to
make sure you’re doing all right.”

“Other than wounded pride that I couldn’t
catch him, a sore knee and a sudden realization that I need to do a
better job of consistently working out, I’m peachy keen.”

“Oh, poor baby. Why don’t you come over later
and let your father take a look at that knee? And then I’ll make up
a nice ice pack for you.”

Lily quirked a brow. “Dad get a medical
degree since the last time I saw him?”

“What? No, I…”

Lily laughed. Her mother was always angling
to get her to come over. “Never mind, Mom. I’ll be over for Sunday
dinner.”

Glenda Carstairs sighed. “Your father and I
want you to come over and it doesn’t matter what day -- just so
long as we see you once in a while. You promise you’ll be here
Sunday?”

“I promise.”

“You’ll take care of that knee?”

“Done.”

“And you had your cousin Warren pick up the
car and take it back to his body shop?”

“Yes, though I started not to, considering
how he likes to fleece people, even those near and dear to
him.”

“His father would make sure he doesn’t with
you.”

“I’ll be sure to call Uncle Jett, then.”

“You do that. And you had your cousin John
come out and take the police report?”

Lily frowned in confusion. “No, Mom. Why
would I? He’s second in command. A patrolman came out and took
it.”

“Well, did you at least call him and ask him
to send out the best man for the job?”

For a cracked windshield?
Lily rolled
her eyes
.
“Ah, that would be a no. I did what other people
do: put in a call to the cops and then waited for whoever was on
call in that area to show up. The patrolman did everything he was
supposed to do.”

“All right, if you’re sure.”

“I am, Mom, positive.”

“I’ll see you for dinner tomorrow then. Six
o’clock. Did I mention that we’re having lamb? With asparagus,
roasted potatoes and apple cobbler and cinnamon ice cream for
dessert?”

Lily licked her lips. She hadn’t had a decent
meal all week because she was a horrible cook. Her mother, on the
other hand, cooked like it was something she was born to do. She
knew that lamb was one of Lily’s favorites and had probably chose
that dish specifically for tomorrow because in all her mother
wisdom figured that Lily was half an excuse away from not showing
up. She’d be right, Lily thought. I have good reason not to show
up. I’m positive Smith will be there. What she said into the phone
was, “Quit your torture, woman! I’ll be there; I promise!”

“Okay then sweetheart,” her mother said
around amused laughter, “I’ll let you go. Love you.”

“I love you, too, Mom. Bye.” Lily hung up and
humming, circled the last listing with a flourish. “Quincy!” she
called to her cousin who was sitting in the outer office. “Get your
lanky behind in here. I’ve got a job for you.”

Quincy poked his head into her office, a
surprised look on his face. “What? A job for me? Dude!”

Lily turned a narrowed gaze on him. “You
didn’t think I was going to let you just hang around, did you?” She
picked up the phone book and tossed it to him, smiling when he
barely managed to catch it when it fell against his narrow chest.
“I’ve circled the names of insurance agents in there and I want you
to do some research on them. Find out size, the kinds of claims
they usually deal with, yearly revenue and who to contact regarding
employment. Use that spankin’ new computer out there at the
reception desk and make me a pretty little Excel spreadsheet.”

“But --”

“I circled some of them, but now that I think
on it, you should just check them all out for me. I was trying to
stay away from independent agents, but they actually might be my
best bet for getting a job in the meantime in-between-time.”

She watched as her cousin’s young face fell
in disappointment. He really had believed she’d let him just sit
around all day and listen to his iPod or play on his iPad or
whatever else he had planned to laze away his Christmas vacation
from the local community college. She’d bet every last one of the
hundreds of dreadlocks on his head that he had.

“Aw, come on, Lily! That’s so totally
lame!”

She lifted a brow. “You haven’t heard? So
totally lame is so totally in around here. Since you let the family
convince you to insinuate yourself into my career, then you might
as well be of some use to me. I haven’t hired a receptionist slash
administrative assistant yet, so you can fill in until I do.”

“But, dude --”

“It’s either that or get out of here and
report back to base that you failed in your initial
reconnaissance.”

“Fine,” Quincy mumbled before stomping back
out to the outer office.

Lily smiled and pushing her chair back from
the desk, leaned back in it, satisfied that she’d extracted a small
amount of revenge. She indulged herself in a glance around her
office. The small room with its rich indigo walls and plush
carpeting represented success after three long hard-working years
of proving herself good enough to become a licensed private
investigator in the state of Illinois.

She looked at her certificate which she’d
framed and hung right next to her college degree. She shook her
head. She’d gone to college and majored in education, knowing even
then that she didn’t want to teach. But she’d gotten the degree
because she knew that it was what her parents had wanted for her
and because it was just the easy way out since she didn’t really
know what she wanted. Her mother and two of her mother’s five
sisters were teachers. There was an untapped wildness inside of
her; Lily had always known it, just as her parents had. It had
worried her, which was why she’d convinced herself that teaching
was a good industry for her.

She’d barely lasted three years and for a
year and a half after that, she’d bumped along from job to job
trying to figure out what she wanted. She’d been living in Chicago
since college and had a friend who was a Cook County state’s
attorney. That friend had gotten her a data entry job in the
State’s Attorney’s office. It was there that she’d met
investigators who worked for the attorneys. She’d been fascinated
and had transitioned from data entry to assistant in a private
detective agency. It had become natural after that to seek her
private detective’s license. And after three years at the large
detective agency, she’d finally been eligible to sit for her
license exam.

“And now I’m queen of the world,” she said
with outstretched arms and a wide smile as she took a three hundred
and sixty degree spin in the chair.

“Uh, cuz.”

Lily looked up to see Quincy standing at the
entrance to her office with a woman she didn’t recognize.

“There’s someone here to see you,” he said
with a smirk.

Unembarrassed, Lily stood with a smile and an
outstretched hand. “Hello, I’m Lily Carstairs.”

Tall, rawboned and perhaps in her
mid-forties, the woman answered Lily’s smile with a bemused frown
and shook her hand. “Benson. Mrs. Lenora Benson.”

“Would you like to sit down?” Lily asked,
stepping back and gesturing toward two chairs in front of her
desk.

“I can offer you coffee, tea or bottled
water,” Lily said once they were both sitting.

“Coffee, please,” Mrs. Benson said.

“Decaffeinated or regular?”

“Regular.”

“Hazelnut, Irish Crème, white chocolate,
cherries jubilee?”

Looking surprised, Mrs. Benson hesitated
before answering. “Uh, hazelnut.”

Lily smiled in relief, grateful the potential
client didn’t request anything unflavored because that was the one
kind she’d forgotten to get when shopping for her essentials. She
picked up the desk phone and pressed the button for the
receptionist, praying that Quincy would answer it. “Yes,” she said
when he did. “Please bring in two cups of hazelnut coffee.” She was
hopeful he’d bring it in on a tray with cream and sugar. That had
been the only thing she’d had time to go over with him when they’d
gotten to the office. The rest of the time she’d been taking the
calls of nosey relatives.