Miraculously, Fusco got a real lunch break on Christmas Eve. He paid for the miracle, of course; when he got back to his car, there was an envelope taped to his steering wheel.
The car was still locked. It had to have been Mr. Wonderful.
Fusco made a face and grabbed the envelope. He was sure it was going to screw his Christmas with his son. But inside there were two tickets to the Nets game the next day. They were in the fifth row, right behind the bench. And they were clipped to a card for the Chaos Café.
He smiled and tucked the tickets into his jacket pocket. He’d told her not to get him anything, but he wasn’t really surprised that she had. Besides, Lee would love it …
Before the satisfaction could take a good hold, the passenger side door opened and John Reese got in.
Fusco scowled. “What?” he snarled.
“Merry Christmas, Lionel,” Reese said smoothly. “You should check your trunk when you get home.”
“Why? There another body in there I need to bury?”
“No. Just a token or two of our appreciation.”
“Great. So what do you want? I’ll tell you right now, I’m not helping you tomorrow. I’ve got my kid for Christmas Day and you’re not screwing it up.”
“I’ll do my best,” Reese promised.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Our girl’s worried about you. What’s going on, Lionel?”
“What’s going on?” the detective snarled. “Well, let’s see. I was a dirty cop, and then I got clean, but I still have to pretend to be dirty, because this psycho Simmons thinks I killed a different dirty cop, which I actually didn’t, but I did bury him after he got killed by this other psycho vigilante who keeps breaking into my car. Is that enough going on for you, or should I go on?”
“She’s right. You need to switch to decaf.”
Fusco shook his head. “Look, just … don’t call me tomorrow, okay? Give me one day?”
“We’ll try.”
“Try hard.”
“If it’ll make you feel any better, we found Christine a new place to live.”
Fusco looked over at him. “And she’s actually going to move?”
“It needs some renovation. Won’t be done until summer, probably. But she says she’ll go.”
“Good.” The detective nodded decisively. “That’s good.”
“I thought you’d think so.” Reese was quiet for a minute. “What else do you need, Lionel?”
“Nothing. I’m good.”
The big guy probably knew he was lying, but he decided to let it go. “All right, then. Merry Christmas, Detective.”
“Hey,” Fusco blurted before he could open the car door. “You’re right. There’s one more thing I want. I want you to promise me something.”
Reese was silent. Fusco knew he wouldn’t commit to anything until he knew what it was.
“If something happens, if I go down,” Fusco said quickly, before he could change her mind, “I know my kid’s going to hear all about what a dirty cop I was. I get that. Nothing to be done about it.” He looked steadily out through the windshield. “But I want you to promise me, you make sure he hears something good about me, too. Okay?”
“What do you expect to happen, Lionel?” Reese asked quietly.
“I expect you to get me killed, sooner or later.”
“I told you, I’ve got your back.”
“Yeah. Whatever. But you make me this promise. You make sure my boy knows.”
“I’ll make sure, Lionel.”
The words untwisted something deep inside him. He took a deep breath, and then another one, just to be sure he could. “Thank you,” he said quietly.
“I won’t get you killed,” John said. He clapped his hand on Fusco’s shoulder briefly. Then he slipped out of the car and was gone.
Fusco drove back to the precinct. In the parking bay, he looked around carefully, then opened the trunk. There was a big white box in it, with a fancy red bow. There was an envelope tucked under it.
In the envelope were three gift cards. One was to the gift shop at the Nets game. One was to a sporting goods store. The third was simply a prepaid MasterCard. None of them had amounts noted on them, and Fusco was almost afraid to know what they were worth.
Inside the box was what looked like a standard-issue NYPD bullet-proof vest. But when he picked it up, it weighed about a third of the one he was wearing. He could feel that it was different material, and although he’d never seen one, he knew what it was. State of the art, brand new, and expensive as hell. SWAT didn’t even have these yet.
He put it back in the box and closed the trunk. Then he stood back and stared at the car. He shouldn’t accept it. He should give it back. The vest and the gift cards both. He shouldn’t …
He’d buried a body for the guy. He’d broken more laws than he could count, let alone regulations. A little graft at this point was just icing on the cake. Not even icing. Just a little sprinkle of powdered sugar.
He put the gift cards in his wallet and went back to work.
***
Joss Carter got home after seven on Christmas Eve, but she didn’t really mind. Taylor was having dinner with his girlfriend’s family and she was on her own. She’d cleared out all her paperwork before she left the precinct.
Well, most of her paperwork. It was never really all done.
There was a big white box, tied in a red bow, sitting on her kitchen table.
Carter regarded it for a long moment. Then she pulled out her cell phone and called Reese. He didn’t answer; the call went straight to voice mail. “Seriously, John,” she said firmly, “we’ve talked about boundaries before. Stop breaking into my house!” She snapped the phone shut.
Then her curiosity got the better of her. She opened the box.
She put the envelope aside for a moment and lifted up the sweater. It was deep red, and it was the softest thing she’d ever felt in her life. Like fleece, like flannel, but smoother. It was the kind of sweater you wanted to wear with nothing on under it, just to feel it against your skin.
Carter smiled, felt her cheeks grow warm. She looked around quickly, but of course there was no one else in the apartment.
She didn’t bother to check the size. She already knew it would fit perfectly.
Beneath it was a bullet-proof vest. She paused for a minute at the contrast, but in a way it made sense. The two sides of Joss Carter’s life: Sleek and stylish on the surface, hard and well-protected underneath. She picked it up. It looked like a standard-issue vest, but it was very light. State of the art personal armor.
She should give it back.
But given the work she did with John and his friend, she might need it.
She put the things back in the box and opened the envelope. There were gift cards inside. The first was for a clothing store that Taylor loved. The second was for a book store. The third was just a prepaid MasterCard that she could use everywhere.
The fourth card was for an on-line site that specialized in women’s shoes.
“Shoes?” Carter asked aloud. She stared at it for a long minute. She had to give it back, of course. She had to give all of it back. The gift cards, anyhow. She couldn’t …
Her phone buzzed with a new text message. Carter picked it up. Unknown caller, of course, but the message was too precise and poetic to be anyone but Finch:
DON’T REFUSE
UNTIL YOU’VE SEEN THE SHOES.
Beneath that was a link.
Carter rolled her eyes and snapped her phone shut. She looked around again. Shuffled through the cards again. She had to give them back. There weren’t any amounts written on them, but she was pretty sure they’d be uncomfortably large.
She wondered if Fusco had gotten the same gifts. Although she couldn’t really see the red sweater being his style.
If he had, she was damn sure her partner was going to keep his.
The vest. She could keep the vest. They owed her that much.
She and John had taken a private jet to Texas to search for his friend. She was pretty sure money wasn’t an issue for them. But that wasn’t the point.
Finch wore suits that cost more than she made in a month.
Still not the point.
“Damn it,” she said under her breath. She snapped her phone open again and clicked on the link.
Carter rarely spent a lot on clothes for herself. Taylor shopped for labels, the latest trends, when he could, but she liked her work clothes conservative, serviceable. Not cheap, but sensible. There was always a chance they were going to get blood on them, or something even less savory, and she never wore anything she couldn’t bear to throw away. But shoes …
… shoes were her weakness. And maybe John hadn’t figured that out, but his partner damn sure had.
Boots that strapped around the ankle. Kitten heels and peep toes. Stilettos that would make her legs look a mile long. The site had everything, in every color.
“Damn it,” Carter said again.
Because if she kept the shoe card, if she used it, then she couldn’t very well send back the one for Taylor’s favorite store, could she? And if she kept those two ” well, the book store, maybe he’d find something he liked, that would keep him going on his college quest. SAT prep books, if nothing else. And she might find …
“Damn it!” she said a third time. The private jet. The suits.
She touched the sweater again. It was like a cloud.
Her resolve crumbled like a sand castle. She stacked up the cards and tucked them in her pocket.
***
It was easy, Reese thought, to break into a house without waking the people who lived there. Easier if they were an older couple without especially good hearing who slept on the second floor. And easiest of all if you have yourself consulted on the security measures for the home.
Easy to get in and out unnoticed. Once.
But on his third trip through the back door, and with at least one more trip to go, Reese slapped at his earpiece. “Finch,” he whispered, “don’t you think you overdid this a little?”
“You’re the one who added the chair,” Finch answered calmly. “I did offer to come with you.”
“If I’d known there was so much stuff I would have let you.” Reese carefully deposited his armful of presents under the modest Christmas tree, then tried to arrange them silently. Finch had, at least, wrapped most of them in square boxes. It helped, but the result was still well short of being decorative.
Of course, he doubted that the toddler would care much how artful the pile of presents was.
Reese grinned and made one more trip to the van.
The van, he thought, was a nice touch. He’d needed to rent it anyhow. Telling Finch that he needed it to haul Christmas presents to Leila’s house was just a bonus. He charged it on Finch’s credit card. It amused him. And honestly, he did need it.
The toddler-sized easy chair, in the shape of a ‘pengin’ with a lap, wouldn’t have fit in the trunk of a sedan.
Reese carried the chair in last. He put it beside the stack of presents under the tree and carefully added a huge red and gold bow to the back of it. Then he stepped back to observe.
It wasn’t Macy’s display window, but it looked good.
Grinning to himself, Reese crept out of the house. He made sure to reset the alarm and lock the door behind him.
“All done?” Finch asked.
“Santa mission accomplished,” Reese confirmed. “If you don’t need me, I’ll see you in the morning.”
“See you then.”
Reese turned off his earpiece, got into the rented van, and headed out of state.
***
Reese got back to his loft well after midnight, technically on Christmas morning. He was tired, but very pleased. All his Christmas Eve deliveries had gone without a hitch, and his one pick-up had been equally easy. As a bonus, there had been no new Number for two days. That couldn’t hold, of course. It was only a matter of time. But with any luck they’d get one more day.
There was a big white box with a red bow on the kitchen counter.
Reese looked at it, chagrined. He should have anticipated that while Finch had him occupied, the genius would not be idle. The box was bigger than the ones he’d left for Fusco and Carter. Of course, he already had one of the brand new vests, so that wasn’t what it was. There wasn’t a thing in the world that he needed that Finch hadn’t already supplied, except guns, which he’d acquired for himself.
So what was in the box?
Almost reluctantly, he slipped off the ribbon and lifted the lid.
The overcoat inside was blue-black. It was also some kind of cashmere/wool blend. It felt rich to the touch, elegant. The lining was silver. He lifted it out of the box. It would be warm, he knew, and it would look fantastic. He slipped off his old coat. It was still perfectly serviceable, but had bullet holes and tears expertly, invisibly patched in several places. He put the new coat on. It was perfectly tailored, of course. The sleeves were exactly the right length. There was room to move in the shoulders. It was the most comfortable thing he’d ever owned.
Beneath it in the box were a pair of leather gloves, calfskin, silver-gray in color, and a matching scarf.
The pockets of the coat felt heavy. Reese put his hands in. In one was an envelope. In the other was a small package. He opened the envelope first. It was a letter from an organization called “War Dogs Making It Home”, thanking him for his very generous donation. John smiled. He’d heard about the group from a news story; they paired returned vets with PTSD with shelter dogs, who trained as helpers. It had seemed like a genuinely good idea to him, and he’d probably mentioned it to Finch.
In the other pocket was a small wrapped gift. He opened it slowly. It was a brand new copy of Nine Princes in Amber. Reese had picked up one of the library’s copy early on, when Christine had first called Finch Random, but he hadn’t read very far into it. He’s meant to start it again when Finch had bestowed his own pet name on her. And he wondered where he fit into their mythos. If he did at all.
Maybe the book would tell him.
He picked up the scarf and draped it around his neck. Then he went and opened the closet door to look at himself in the mirror behind it. He looked ” powerful. Not threatening, precisely, though he knew he could appear dangerous just by putting the right expression on his face. But by itself, the coat said he was habitually, comfortably well-off. So accustomed to the finer things that he no longer noticed them. It was elegant.
He went to the windows and looked down to where the van was parked. It was locked, and the alarm was on. No one was going to mess with it. Finch’s gift was safe. And if all went well, he would actually surprise the man for the first, and perhaps last, time.
He rubbed his hand over the sleeve of the coat absently. It was so very Finch, both practical and extravagant. It kept him warm physically. And symbolically, perhaps, it was Finch’s way of going with him everywhere he went. I’ve got you covered. Reese closed his eyes. It had been a very long time since he really believed anybody cared about him. And longer still since he’d let anyone care about him.
He turned and looked around the loft. This was Finch, too. There was a time when John would have resented the gift, flailed away from letting someone give him a home, especially one so extravagant. Fought in protest, as Christine had, but with much more determination. But Finch, who claimed to be so bad at human interaction, had picked exactly the right time to offer it. Had made it easy for John to accept it.
He still didn’t know where Finch lived. He wasn’t willing to accept that he never would. Not yet.
He slipped his coat off and hung it up in the closet, then slowly stripped out of his clothes. He’d shower in the morning, he decided. Most of his Christmas chores were done. He could sleep late, have a big breakfast. Lots of time. He was looking forward to the next day.
Reese pulled back the covers, sat on the edge of his bed and looked toward the windows again. Outside, the normal street light was tinged with color, red and blue and green for Christmas. I’m looking forward to tomorrow, he thought again, surprised. How long had it been since he’d looked forward to Christmas morning? Years, at least. Maybe a decade. Maybe more. How many Christmases had he spent alone? How many had he spent working and fiercely ignoring the calendar? How many of them had he spent stubbornly drunk?
Even last year, he thought, he’d been in a cheap hotel, carefully hoarding the pay Finch gave him, certainly that their project would end abruptly. Still angry, still brooding. Still keeping his careful distance from Finch and everyone else. Still alone.
He stretched out on the bed and pulled the covers up. This year was different. This year he had places to go and people to be with. Christmas was awful when you were alone. But when you had friends, it was, well, wonderful. Not perfect, of course. It would never be perfect. But it was so much better than it had been in a very long time.
He was still smiling when he fell asleep.
***
q95;
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