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It takes longer than I care for to get to the mayor’s office, and I’m shaking a little by the time I get there. The door is closed, and now I get the full blast of the pre-murder jitters. My pulse is racing, and my mouth is suddenly dry. If I miss this golden opportunity, I’ll be furious.
You can do this, Valerie.
I bring the lowest point in my life to the forefront of my mind and let my rage wash over me. What Hansen did to me was despicable, but what his father did was worse. He documented the whole thing for God knows what reasons. Maybe he sold those images on the black market, or maybe he kept them for his private collection. Either way, he has to die tonight by my hand.
I hear a muffled thud inside, followed by a whimper. Shit. He better not be having a heart attack. I burst into the room and stop in my tracks. Killer Santa is hunched over Mark Warner’s body on the floor, busy stabbing his stomach. What the hell!
“Not you again!” I blurt out.
He lifts his masked face, keeping his knife buried deep in Mark Warner’s chest. We don’t move for a couple beats. I do realize that I’m standing in front of a psychopath with no weapon besides a glass of poisoned whiskey, but I’m too fucking angry to care about that detail.
“You couldn’t leave this one for me, could you, asshole?”
He yanks out his serrated knife and jumps to his feet. Ah shit. I do the only thing I can think of and throw the glass of whiskey at him. He leaps to the side, avoiding the hit. Fuck. Now what? I glance at the collector’s bow and arrow the mayor has on display. I remember admiring it when I saw it for the first time. Killer Santa follows my line of sight. He knows my plan, so it’s now or never. I run to the only weapon at my disposal, certain that Mark’s killer will try to stop me. But when I turn around, he’s by the open window, sneaking out.
“Oh no you don’t.”
I rush after him, but he’s already on the run, heading to the park behind the mayor’s house. Damn it. He’s fast. I’m fast too, but his legs are longer than mine. I need to slow him down. I load the bow with the only arrow I have and take aim. If I miss, I can say goodbye to catching Killer Santa. Narrowing my eyes, I let the arrow fly. He lets out a yelp and falls down in the snow.
“Gotcha!”
I leap out of the window with the bow in hand. Killer Santa is lying on his side now and looking at the wound in his thigh. The arrow only grazed his skin, and it’s now sticking out of the snow a little ahead of him.
He’s still holding his knife, but when I come closer, he drops it and pulls his mask off. “What the hell, Valerie!”
Those intense blue eyes I know all too well are glowering at me.Holy fucking shit. Eric is Killer Santa.
eleven
Eric
Valerie’s eyes turn round as she holds my stare. I can’t believe she shot me with an arrow. It’s only a flesh wound, but I’m bleeding all over the snow and leaving DNA evidence behind.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she blurts out.
“I could say the same thing. Why did you shoot me?”
“Because you killed Mark Warner before I could, dumbass.”
Whoa. I wasn’t expecting that answer. “You wanted to kill him? With what? Your killer wits?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She drops into a crouch next to me and inspects my wound. “Does it hurt?”
“No,” I lie. “Thank God you have terrible aim.”
She narrows her eyes. “I don’t have terrible aim, jackass. If I wanted to kill you, I would have. I just wanted to slow you down.”
“Well, mission accomplished. We need to go before someone sees us.”
No sooner do I say that than I sense someone approaching. “Is everything okay?”
I turn and find a middle-aged lady staring at us with rapt attention. Fuck. That’s exactly what we don’t need. A nosy neighbor.
“Everything is fin—” I start, but the woman’s eyes zero in on the Killer Santa mask next to me, and her eyes go wild.
“You’re the killer!” She shuffles back. “Hel?—”
Valerie jumps to her feet as fast as a ninja with my knife in hand and plunges it deep into the woman’s throat, literally cutting her off.
