The Thief Who Saved Christmas

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

RYAN

Let’s be clear about one thing from the start: I’m an asshole. Always have been, probably always will be. If you’re the type of person who’s inclined to make excuses for assholes, I won’t try to convince you otherwise. You can blame my parents if you’d like. My father took off before my twin brother, Jake, and I were born, and my mother abandoned us in a motel room for several days when we were four years old. She came back…eventually. But not until we’d already been picked up by Child Protective Services. When they made it clear she’d have to fight to get us back, she said she’d rather not.

The child psychologist New York State sent us to for a few months seemed to think that sort of thing could mess a kid up.

Maybe he had a point. To this day, Jake can’t bear to be in a locked room, and I slipped into survival mode and stopped caring about anything but protecting my brother and myself.

So you can blame them, if you’re inclined. Or you can blame Edmund Roark, the man who made us thieves.

To be fair, I only met the guy because I tried to pickpocket him in Central Park when I was thirteen years old. I had it in my head that I could steal enough money for Jake and I to pull a runner from our foster home and live alone, obviously dumb given the cost of rent in New York City. Even in former crack dens, it’s expensive enough that no kid could afford it unless he stole the Mona Lisa .

I failed to pickpocket Roark, partly because he was a good half a foot taller than me and a faster runner. But also because he is a very good thief of very fine things. Given that he keeps a couple of goons on his bankroll at any given time, it could have been a painful lesson. But he asked me a few questions, which I answered because I was so scared I nearly pissed myself. Then he had his guys give me a few punches—fair’s fair—and offered to teach Jake and me “the art.”

At the time, I figured it was because he recognized the potential in me, like I could be the Captain America of thieves. No one had ever seen potential in me. My teachers all thought I was an idiot, and for my class superlative, I was voted Most Likely to End Up in Jail.

In eighth grade.

So it felt pretty damn good to have someone who was obviously successful see something in me. Jake felt the same way.

But as we got older, we figured out the score. We’re identical twins—a gold mine for a man who’s looking to con people out of their treasures. Get Twin One to turn on the charm, find out every damn thing he can about the treasure, like where it’s kept and how it’s guarded. Then send in Twin Two to make the grab.

Perfect alibi for Twin One, am I right?

I was Twin Two. Jake’s a better actor, and I have poor impulse control but a better ability with locks.

You might think I’d get pissed about being used, but it wasn’t a new feeling. From what I could tell, everyone on God’s green earth used everyone else. It was a food chain, and you didn’t want to be on the bottom, even if that meant climbing on a few heads to avoid it.

See? Asshole.

For years, Jake and I worked together for Roark, bringing in treasures for him. It was a challenge. A game. And I didn’t mind much, because the people we robbed were wealthy, with plenty to spare.

But this story isn’t about me being an asshole, or at least I hope it’s not. It’s about me deciding to do something decent for a change.

Of course, people don’t just wake up one day and decide to be decent. You’ve got to fall really low for that message to sink in…

And that’s exactly what happened to me.

Right before Christmas last year, my brother stopped talking to me. (If you’re wondering why, let’s just say it was my fault.)

On a related note, he told me he was going legit and probably leaving New York City. He made it clear that shit wouldn’t be right between us until I turned over a new leaf too.

He seemed to really mean it this time, unlike the half a dozen other times he’d said things like: I swear to God, Ryan, if you get me into any more messes, I’m done. Or: Why is there a groundhog in my apartment? You’re not allowed up here without supervision.

So when Roark called me the day before Christmas Eve and said he had a super important job for me, and if I didn’t do it, he’d pull Jake back in, whether my brother liked it or not, I asked, “Where am I going and when?”

It just so happened that when he called, I was in the bathroom of my friend’s bar, trying to scrub a cartoon dick off my face. Someone must have drawn it on me after I’d passed out in the back room. The air smelled like stale cigars and old vomit, the dick wasn’t coming off my skin which suggested the involvement of a Sharpie. So, yeah, at that point I was down for anything that would get me the hell out of New York City for the holidays.

“You’re going to steal Christmas,” Roark said with a huff. He liked to amuse himself. Didn’t matter to him whether anyone laughed at his jokes.

“That’s not specific enough for me. I’m a simple guy,” I said.

“You’re going to The Crooked Quill bed and breakfast in Colonial Williamsburg, in Virginia, and you’re going to steal an ornament for me.”

Half the time, I wondered if the shit he sent us to grab was actually worth anything, or if he was just a rich dude who liked messing with people who’d pissed him off. Either way, he paid a finder’s fee, and it was more than I could make working as a checkout clerk or a bartender. Unlike my brother, who at least had graphic design skills, I wasn’t good at anything that lent itself to making money legally.

“You got a thing for Christmas suddenly?” I asked.

“I have a thing for money, Ryan. Javier will deliver your car and identity.”

Javier was one of the guys who worked as Roark’s hired muscle and errand boy. It wasn’t a fancy gig, and he’d complained to me about it on a number of occasions. He was a good guy, Javier. We’d hung out at this particular bar several times, and he’d never once drawn a dick on my face.

“Who owns the B&B?” I asked, pushing my way out of the bathroom. The dick was still very much there, but I was too exhausted to care. No one was in the bar, so I walked toward the side exit, past the fake Christmas tree with its mini-alcohol-bottle ornaments…then swung back and checked to see if they were full. No dice. Holding the phone in place with my shoulder, I let myself out of the side door, which locked automatically when it was closed.

The first person I saw, of course, was a toddler girl with floppy blond hair and a headband with two bobbing Christmas trees on it. She pointed at the dick on my face and said, “What’s that, Mommy?”

I grinned at her mother and saluted.

She gave me the finger.

God bless New York City.

Roark still hadn’t answered—taking the whole dramatic pause thing too far, like usual—so I started walking toward my place, a railroad-style apartment I shared with a college kid named Billy.

“She’s a little old lady,” Roark finally said, amusement thrumming in his voice.

I cursed under my breath. “You want me to steal a Christmas ornament from a little old lady who runs a bed and breakfast?”

Sounded like a punishment, right?

“Good, you were listening,” he said with a hoarse laugh. “It’s a very valuable Christmas ornament.”

Which only made it worse.

I darted across the street, not in the mood to wait for the light, and nearly got creamed by a yellow cab. The driver honked at me, making my headache an automatic ten times worse. “I don’t like the sound of this, Roark.”

“I don’t care. If you don’t do it, I’m going to make your brother—”

Make him pay, make him regret, make him dance like a puppet. Blah-dee-blah-blah-blah. I had a feeling I was going to be hearing a lot of threats involving Jake moving forward. Worse, I had a feeling they were going to work.

Sighing, I said, “Fine, whatever. It’s not like I had any plans for the holiday.”

“I knew you didn’t, kid,” he said, almost sounding sorry for me.

He should.

Normally, I’d spend the holiday with my brother. In fact, this would be the first Christmas we weren’t spending together. But as I said, Jake wasn’t talking to me, so I hadn’t put up a single strand of twinkle lights. The little crappy plastic tree an ex-girlfriend had bought me was still packed up in one of the plastic crates next to my bed. Nowhere to store them. Billy wasn’t much for Christmas either, so he hadn’t done any decorating of his own.

“The information you need will be in a packet in the car. Do we understand each other?” Roark asked when I didn’t say anything. He was always careful with what he said over the phone.

“Yeah,” I told him, suddenly feeling my age. I was nearly thirty, and here I was, sharing a crappy apartment with a college kid, being exploited by a criminal five hundred times richer than me. Worse: it was all happening while I had a Sharpie dick on my face. It felt like a low moment.

I didn’t know anything about low moments yet.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’ll do it.”