Afterward, the kids took turns sitting on his lap and telling him what they wished for under the Christmas tree. Morgan captured every interaction, and when the last child had spoken, Santa gestured to her, bending his white-gloved finger. “And you, young lady. What do you want for Christmas?”

“Oh.” Morgan gave him a dismissive wave.

“Come on, now.” He patted his knee.

Morgan looked around. The chaos had quieted. The lights had dimmed. It had to be eight o’clock or close to it. She looked around, searching for someone to save her, but caught only Bennett’s gaze. He sat at the end of the couch, a reflection of the firelight dancing in his green eyes. Morgan stared back, her brow raised, and lowered herself onto Santa’s lap.

She bit her lip and prayed he didn’t touch her.

“What’s your name, young lady?”

“Morgan.”

“Morgan.” He sounded it out one syllable at a time. “What a lovely name.”

“Thanks, I didn’t choose it.”

Santa chuckled. “What would you like for Christmas, Morgan?”

Sarcastic responses raced through her mind. A puppy? An Easy-Bake Oven? One of those fancy power lift recliners so her grandpa could hold on to a shred of his dignity instead of getting hopelessly stuck in the La-Z-Boy every night? That last one wasn’t sarcastic. “A Butterfinger,” she said.

Santa’s eyes twinkled. “A Butterfinger?”

“King-sized.”

“That depends. Have you been naughty or nice?”

Morgan froze. A shiver started at the base of her skull and trickled down her spine. It might have been the question itself, or the fact that his asking it made something pulse against the underside of her thigh.

Now finished and packed up for the night, and having said her goodbyes to the Reynolds family, Morgan stood on the porch where she’d stood hours earlier, contemplating the keyhole. She slid the key out of her cuff, and this time, as she approached the door, she heard a voice in the dark. “Looks like you’re off the clock, Morgan Mori.”

2 HUDSON

Jesus, Hudson, you sure know how to fuck up a crime scene.

Blue salt crystals dug into his knees, stuck to his palms as a final spasm racked his body. At the Fast Mart across from an empty furniture store, Investigator Ryan Hudson pressed his forehead to the cold concrete of the sidewalk. It grounded him, stopped the world from spinning out of control, if only for a few seconds.

Jesus, Hudson. He heard his friend’s voice as clearly as though Garrison were standing next to him. It was something they’d said to each other often, during the decade they’d spent on patrol together. Never serious, and almost always accompanied by a ribbing or an elbow nudge, it was a deflection, a way of one placing his blame onto the other, like when they’d been called to Breaker’s office after Garrison wrote forty parking tickets for the wrong side of the street. “Jesus, Hudson,” Garrison had muttered. Or, the time Hudson had misheard an address over the radio, and when they arrived, the resident––believing her friends had gifted her male strippers for her birthday––ushered them inside. “Jesus, Garrison,” Hudson laughed as he’d recounted the story back in the locker room. Garrison had unbuttoned his uniform then, revealing his black undershirt, and set his foot up on the bench in a mock striptease. Someone walked by and smacked his ass.