Save Me, Santa: A Chirstmas Anthology of Romance & Suspense (25 page)

Bertram spotted her. “Imogene. Come see Father Christmas. He has a present for you.”

“Yes. Ho, ho, ho.” Santa Ari turned and then his eyes widened. “You!”

She twisted the doorknob.

Santa Ari yelled, “Don't move.” He fumbled beneath the white, fur-lined coat and into the front waistband of his pants before whipping out a gun that had been tucked there.

“Good Lord, he's armed,” Bertram shouted as he jumped back.

“It's my second amendment right,” Ari said as he trained the muzzle on Mo. He stepped forward and grabbed her by the arm.

Ross, his face flushed and angry, jerked as if he would jump Ari.

Santa Ari yelled, “If you try anything, I'll shoot her. You all get your hands up and stay back.” He nudged the muzzle of the gun into Mo's side.

“Why are you here?” Mo demanded.

“Because I was booked by some company called Bertram Enterprises. They wanted a surprise appearance by Santa Claus at a Christmas party.”

“Father! What did you do?” Ross exclaimed.

“I'm sorry, son,” Bertram said, holding his hands high over his head. “I found his business card on Imogene's coffee table and thought Old Saint Nick would be a festive addition to the day.”

“You're coming with me.” Santa Ari clasped an arm around Mo, causing her to drop Ross's keys.

As he pulled her with him, shock froze Mo's brain like she'd taken too big a gulp of an icy smoothie. Before any real thought could register, she'd been taken out the door and dragged to a gold Honda Accord parked at the curb.

Santa Ari opened the car's passenger-side door and pushed her in. “Slide over. You're gonna drive.”

Ross stormed out of the house and onto the porch. Leo and then Bertram followed.

“Stay back,” Santa Ari yelled, firing a shot above their heads.

Mo used that time to open the opposite car door. She had one leg out when Ari ducked his head in and pointed the gun at her, stopping her escape.

Santa settled into his car seat and then buckled his belt. “Now drive.”

Her frantic eyes went to Ross, who was running down the porch stairs. What would happen if he reached them? She didn't want Ross shot… hurt… dead.

“Drive,” Santa Ari shouted.

* * *

Morrell Park, on Savannah's riverfront, was located scarcely ten minutes away. Once there, Santa Ari ordered Mo to stop the car. After Mo switched off the engine, he forced her out and around to the trunk.

“Open it,” he commanded.

“When I get out of this, I'm making mincemeat of your meatballs,” Mo warned with a glare. She knew it wasn't logical to threaten someone obviously as crazy as Ari, but Mo's temper was rising now that the shock had worn off.

“Then I'll have to make sure you don't get out of this, won't I?” He poked her in the side with the gun muzzle. “Open. Now.”

After unlocking the trunk, she pulled up the lid to find junk that seemed typical with the exception of a Christmas wreath perched on top of the pile.

Santa Ari reached in and fumbled around in the junk before he extracted a pair of handcuffs. He pushed them at her. “Put them on.”

Mo complied, but all the while, her eyes scanned the surroundings for a way out.

The riverfront was usually a busy tourist attraction, but Morell Park, situated at the east end, didn't have as much traffic despite the presence of the Waving Girl statue. Only two other people were nearby and their focus seemed to be directed to the five-story cargo ship motoring up the river toward the port.

Mo's attention returned to Ari as he placed the Christmas wreath over her head and let it fall around her neck.

“What the—”

“I was saving this for my ex-wife,” he said, jamming the gun into his waistband. “But I'll make another one for her by the time the real holiday comes around.”

Aside from the usual embellishments, this wreath included four plastic tubes that resembled 35mm film canisters. They were placed equidistantly around the wreath's circle. Each had wires running from their bottoms to a black cylindrical device at the top of the wreath.

“See this?” Santa Ari said, pointing to the device. “This is a timer power unit. It can trigger an electrical charge to the detonators. I press a button and BOOM.”

“Help,” Mo called to the couple snapping pictures of the passing ship. “Call 911. There's a bomb.”

The couple whirled around. The woman's mouth gaped open and her eyes went wide. The man continued snapping away, taking photos were of Mo and Santa Ari.

Kafakis pulled the gun from his waistband and waved it at them. “Get out of here!”

The woman tugged on her husband's arm and said something to him. The two then ran in the direction of City Hall's dome some quarter of a mile in the distance.

Mo's emotions vacillated wildly between fury and fear. Deliberately breathing deeply, she concentrated on stemming her panic. She refused give this jerky turkey the satisfaction of showing him fear.

Ross. Where was Ross?
She desperately wanted him here. But she also wanted him as far away as possible and away from the danger.

Santa Ari dragged Mo to the Waving Girl statue, which rested on a ledge about two feet above the ground at the park's center. He pushed her into a sitting position on the ledge. After releasing one of her hands, he attached the empty cuff to the ankle of the statue. He then twisted wires through the handcuffs and around her wrist before plugging their ends into the cylinder he'd called the timer power unit. Santa Ari inserted the key into the handcuff lock and broke it off. After telling Mo about the trembler switch, he started the timer's countdown.

Santa Ari pointed through the trees to the Talmadge Bridge. “
So be good for goodness sake
. Because if you're not… “ He tapped the triggering mechanism attached to his wide, black leather belt. “This wreath will blow sky high and take your pretty head with it. And you don't want that to happen, do you?”

With a snicker and a smirk, Santa Ari dashed off to his Honda and drove away.

The countdown continued… 56:23, 56:22, 56:21…

Mo fought to control her shaking body. How much movement could the trembler switch take before the bomb exploded?

At 56:03 the screaming of tire rubber on pavement made Mo turn her eyes as far a she could without moving her head in the direction of the sound. After an eternity—real time eight seconds—Ross's car came speeding into view and screeched to a halt. He jumped out and ran toward Mo.

Before he got within a few feet, she cried, “Don't touch me.” The sight of him started tears running down her face like boiling water overflowing a pot. “The wreath is a bomb and if it moves—”

She wanted to reach out and touch him with her free hand, but she didn't dare move. He seemed to know her mind because he took her hand without jolting her.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

“I followed as soon as I could, but lost you in traffic.” Ross's eyes scanned her as he spoke, taking in the situation. His gaze went from the wreath, down her arm and over to the handcuffs. “When Leo heard a police scanner transmission about a bomber dressed as Santa on the riverfront, he called me.”

Just then, Leo's car pulled up. Mo's brother climbed out followed by Ross's father.

Sirens announced the arrival of two patrol cars almost simultaneously. Four officers sprang from the vehicles, guns drawn.

“Hands where we can see them. Down on the ground,” the officers yelled.

Bertram and Leo quickly complied.

“They're unarmed,” Mo screamed. “They're my family.”

“I'm not the bloody bomber,” Ross shouted.

“Get down. Now,” an officer yelled at him.

Mo recognized him as an officer who had helped in the aftermath of their run-in with Russian mobsters three months earlier.

“Officer Tim,” Mo called to him. “It's Mo Tuttle and Ross Grant. Remember us?”

The officer came forward cautiously and Ross turned to him with arms raised. “A bomb has been strapped to Mo and the perpetrator has flown.”

While the other officers approached Bertram and Leo, Officer Tim inspected the wreath. Then he called for the bomb squad over the radio device on the shoulder of his uniform.

After they'd been patted down, Leo, and Bertram joined them.

“You'll have to clear the area,” Officer Tim said to Ross, Leo and Bertram.

“Yes,” she sobbed, the panic rising in her voice. “You all have to go. I don't know how much longer I can stand it. I feel like fire ants are biting my neck, and I need to rip this thing off.”

“Stay calm.” Ross's eyes searched Mo's face. “I'm not leaving you.”

45:32, 45:31, 45:30…

“Ross. My brother,” Mo cried.

“Leo.” Ross squeezed her hand, his eyes never leaving her. “Go back to the house and take the turkey out of the oven.”

“I won't go.”

“Please, Leo.” She released a heavy breath, calming her shaking voice. “What if the house burns down? Talley could be hurt.”

After a few seconds, Leo huffed, “All right. I'll go take care of the dumb turkey,” and then stalked past Bertram to his car.

When two bomb squad techs arrived, dressed in suits resembling those needed for space travel, Mo struggled to relay what Santa Ari had told her about the bomb's workings.

This morning she'd thought her biggest problem was Ross's father. She'd believed she had years to live. Now…

39:46, 39:45, 39:44…

“Don't think about it. Concentrate on us.” Ross squeezed her hand again. “I want to marry you.”

“You wait until now to propose?” Mo squawked. “You're only saying that because I'm going to explode into a million pieces.” Tears dripped from her eyes and liquid drizzled from her nose. She couldn't even wipe it away because of her chained hand.

“No.” Ross shook his head insistently. “I'm asking now because I love you.”

“Well, then you're going to have to come up with a more romantic setting for a proposal, Mister,” she joked, choking on her tears.

One tech interrupted them. He'd removed his helmet and gloves. “Although the wires from the handcuffs are connected to the wreath, they don't appear to be connected to the detonating mechanism, but the trembler switch does seem to be wired in. We're getting our x-ray machine to get a better look at what's in the canisters. There won't be time to get our jamming equipment here.”

As the timer continued to countdown, Mo's trembling increased. “Ross, if I don't survive, I want you to know that I've never felt like this about anyone before. I never believed I could care about someone so much. I love you.”

His eyes glistened with moisture and his voice choked when Ross said, “You are getting out of this. We both are.”

“You have to go,” she said, trying to push Ross away even though she clung to him at the same time. “There's nothing they can do in time.”

“I'm not leaving you. That's not an option.”

“At least put this bomb blast blanket around you,” the tech said, placing it over Ross's chest.

After a time, one tech turned back to them. “We've sawed through the handcuff. Now the only connection you have to the statue are the wires wrapped around your wrist. I'm going to cut them so that you won't be tethered to either the statue or the wreath.” Everyone else was waved back to a safer distance. Ross and Mo held their breaths as the bomb tech placed the blades of the cutter around the wires.

Mo couldn't help squeezing her eyes shut as if not seeing the bomb would make it go away. Or maybe she just didn't want to see her death coming.

Snip… No explosion.

Breath rushed out of Mo, Ross and the tech in a collective sigh.

After the wires were severed, Ross immediately caught Mo's newly freed hand and held it between his own. All that was left now was to neutralize the wreath, and they had plenty of time to do that, didn't they?

15:02, 15:01, 15:00… Fifteen minutes was enough time.

Three quick beeps sounded and the countdown accelerated. The timer now seemed to be ticking away minutes as seconds. Soon the LED read 10:00, 09:00, 08:00…

“No,” she screamed. “What do we do?”

“I'm getting this off you.” Ross reached for the wreath.

“It'll blow,” Mo said.

“We have to take a chance,” the bomb tech agreed. “Let me.”

03:00.

The tech lifted the wreath off her head. As Ross pulled Mo in the opposite direction, the tech flung the wreath like a deadly Frisbee. Ross, with Mo tucked beneath him, dove to the ground.

Three seconds later… Nothing.

Ross and Mo sat up and peered at the wreath where it had landed some thirty feet away.

Just then four small pops sounded and multi-colored confetti burst from each of the plastic canisters. Music—like that from a cheesy jewelry box—began to play ‘
Jingle Bells
.’

The tech inched closer to the wreath. “The readout says Merry Christmas. Mother F—It's a hoax!”

“What?” Ross shouted. He jumped up and pulled Mo to her feet.

A few yards away, Bertram clapped his hands. “Fantastic. That's brilliant.”

With Mo in tow, Ross marched to his father. “What do you know about this?”

Before they could get an answer, a police cruiser pulled up, taking their attention. Officer Tim emerged, opened the back door, and pulled out a prisoner in handcuffs: one Santa Ari.

“He was watching from the middle of the bridge just as he told you he would,” Officer Tim said, bringing him forward. “As if a guy wearing a Santa suit in June would be inconspicuous.”

“That's him,” Mo said. “That's the bomber… Well, not a bomber exactly because the bomb wasn't real.”

“This has been my greatest artistic performance to date,” Santa Ari said.

Bertram shouted, “What great fun. That really wound you both up. Happy Christmas.”

“I don't understand.” Mo shook her head. “This was all just some kind of joke?”

“Performance art,” Kafakis said. “I didn't realize you'd be involved when I was first contacted. That was just a bonus that made the whole thing more perfect.”

“And you hired Kafakis?” she asked Ross's father.

“An enjoyable Christmas gift,” Bertram said.

“Enjoyable for who?” Mo asked under her breath. In the aftermath of the prank her legs still felt as wobbly as over-cooked pasta.