Page 32 of No Business Like Snow Business

I couldn’t say he looked like an angel when he slept, not with his face violently smooshed into my pillow like that. But he was breathing, so it didn’t seem like anything I had to intervene in. He just looked like Harvey—a little ridiculous, a lot cute, and probably dreaming of girl detectives and Christmas trivia. I resisted the urge to brush his hair off his forehead, and instead slipped out of bed and into last night’s clothes, gross underwear notwithstanding, of course.

I thought of what Harvey had said last night about gas station snacks, and figured that at least the coffee from there—hot chocolate for Harvey—had to be better than the Pear Tree’s. I left the room quietly, closing the door softly so Harvey could keep sleeping.

It was another cold, bright day in Christmas Falls, and my eyes watered when the breeze first hit me. I blinked away the tears and crossed the street. The gas station wasn’t directly across the road, but the walk was very short.

I was inspecting the selection of donuts when my phone buzzed. I looked at the screen, winced, and answered it.

“James, good morning.”

“Good morning, Mr. Van Ruyven,” he said, with a note of anxiety in his tone I hadn’t yet managed to train him out of. It was like he thought I was going to yell at him every time I spoke. To be fair to him, he had been my father’s PA first—a terrible month for everyone involved, honestly—so his concern wasn’t without cause. “I know you said not to bother you while you were taking personal days, but I thought you should know that there’s a board meeting scheduled for next week. I wanted to be sure you were advised, just in case you weren’t checking your emails. Not that you should be checking your emails if you don’t want to, just?—”

“I get it, James, thank you.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I wasn’t aware there was a meeting, so I appreciate the heads-up. Do we know what it’s about?”

“No, sir,” James said. “But Mr. Van Ruyven—Patrick—is coming.”

“Patrick hates coming into the city.” My father’s cousin was something of a recluse, which, in his case, was a synonym for asshole. We had a lot of synonyms for asshole in my family.

“That’s what I thought.”

Something was up, clearly. Patrick didn’t have enough support on the board to force my father’s hand in anything—though he’d sure as shit tried in the past—or did he? What did he know that I didn’t? Was it about Freddy? Surely there was no way Patrick could know I was off looking for Freddy.

Patrick had been pushing for years to try to gain a controlling interest in the company, but none of the other board members, most of them cousins of some description, would budge from supporting my grandfather’s decisions. But Grandfather’s death made everything a little uncertain; my father didn’t have the same level of support.

What if Patrick had found out what I was up to? I didn’t like my chances of finding Freddy. The most I could hope for was probably to discover that he had passed away like Gabe Baum. But what if Patrick knew I was here, and thought it was because I’d uncovered something concrete? The thought of another Van Ruyven out there, one who could vote either with or against him, might cause Patrick, and maybe even the rest of the board, to act rashly. Who the hell knew what he was planning for Wednesday?

In the corner of my eye, Christmas lights blinked on and off around the large windows that overlooked the gas station forecourt, and faint, tinny carols played in the background. Both things felt incongruous right now. I was here for business, wasn’t I?

“When is this board meeting?”

“Wednesday.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be back before then, but keep me updated, whatever you hear.”

I ended the call and stared blankly at the donuts while I tried to remember what I was doing that didn’t involve whatever Patrick’s latest bullshit was.

Right.

Donuts and coffee. Hot chocolate for Harvey.

And this morning would be about a million times better if breakfast and Harvey were my only priorities.

A dancing Santa on the counter swirled his hips and ho-ho-hoed in agreement.

Later that morning, after sharing a gas station breakfast with Harvey, he dropped me off downtown before he went home to get showered and changed for work. I went to Jolly Java, snagged a seat, and started on my second cup of coffee of the day. It was a lot better than my first. I was meeting Harvey for lunch, and then we were going to chase up another lead on the photograph. Yesterday, Travis Jones had said he thought Cap Guy might be Matty Jessup, which gave us another name to follow.

I had an itch under my skin this morning that I didn’t like. I should have been relaxed and happy. I’d spent the night with Harvey, and he wasn’t just fun to be around—he was cute as hell and had made me come harder than I had in a long time. We had chemistry both in and out of bed, and maybe it was just because it was a short term fling and none of the usual rules of my life seemed to apply in Christmas Falls, but I liked it here. More accurately, I liked who I was when I was here, with Harvey. But instead of being able to enjoy the memories of last night, or even think some more about the actual reason I was here—finding out what had happened to Freddy—that itch under my skin just kept dragging me back to the family, to the board, and to the business. I didn’t like that this morning’s happiness felt so badly anchored that it could easily be blown off course by thoughts of home. I felt cheated of my afterglow, thanks to James’s call. Notthat I blamed James for that. It was good that he was keeping me informed. Just...

Well, just fuck my life, I guessed.

On paper, it was an extremely good life. My work was influential, and I earned a hell of a lot of money doing it. I lived in an expensive apartment in the greatest city in the world, and, if I ever wanted to remember it was the greatest city in the world, I could book the family’s private jet to go and check out any other city for comparison anytime I wanted.

On paper, I had everything I ever wanted.

In practice, I was sitting in a coffee shop in Christmas Falls, staring intently into my coffee in the vain hope it would reveal all the universe’s secrets. Like why Christmas Falls in general, and Harvey Novak in particular, had thrown me for a hell of a loop.

“Ooh, careful the wind doesn’t change,” a woman said, sliding into the seat across from me, “or your face will get stuck like that.”

She was an old woman, possibly in her seventies, with a bright blue knitted cap pulled down tight over her frizzy gray curls, and eyes as bright as a bird’s.

---