Page 43 of No Business Like Snow Business

“Sterling?”

“Of course Sterling. You’re not exactly overrun with nice young men. No offense.”

“No, you’re right.” I grimaced. “Anyway, he’s gone back to New York.”

“Oh,” she said, her expression dropping from sarcastic as fuck to sympathetic. She gave my arm a squeeze. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. He seemed nice.”

“Yeah.” I tried to smile and missed it by a mile. “He was.”

“And to think I brought in the sugar cookies today,” Martha said, tsking. She turned away from me and began to straighten the postcards in the rack, and I sat down at my desk again. “At least there’ll be more for my nephews, I suppose. Kyle is watching his cholesterol, but Win will be happy to eat his share, as always.”

I snorted, clicking on a picture of a shelter kitten. “I’ll eat his share too.”

Martha chuckled. “You’d have to fight Win for them.”

“That’s a weird name.”

“I suppose it is.” She hummed. “Well, it’s short for something, isn’t it? Let me see, now. It’s been years since I was told. Was it Edwin?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “No, it was Goodwin. Ridiculous name, if you ask me, but people call their children anything they like these days, don’t they? My cousin’s granddaughter called her baby Sin-Thea. S-I-N-hyphen-Thea. You say it like Cynthia, but you spell it like you should be banned from having children.”

“Goodwin.” My heart raced. “Martha, what’s his last name?”

“Mackenzie,” she said. “He took Kyle’s name.”

“When they got married?” I asked.

Martha shook her head. “Oh, no. They’ve never married. They couldn’t, back when they met, and I suppose they’ve just never bothered since.”

“Do you remember Win’s original surname?” I felt dizzy with anticipation, adrenaline coursing through me. Was this how Trixie felt on the verge of solving a mystery?

Martha’s brow creased. “You know, I don’t think I ever knew it? He’s always just been Kyle’s Win to me.”

“Have they been together since the nineties?”

She tilted her head. “Yes, about that long. Why are you so interested in my nephews? They’re too old for you, and as far as I know the only thing they share is cookies.”

“Oh my god. Just—Win. I think he might be—is he blond?” Unlike Trixie, I couldn’t get my thoughts together in what might be the big revelatory moment, let alone my words. “I need you to look at something.”

Martha watched me curiously as I patted my pockets. Why did I pat my pockets? Did I think that Sterling’s photograph of Freddy and Cap Boy had, though the power of thought alone, transported itself into my pocket instead of his? Wow. Some big moment this was. Not only could I not string my words together, I also didn’t have any physical evidence to present. Trixie would be ashamed of me.

“We need to go to the airport, now!” I darted to the door and grabbed Martha’s coat off the hook. I tossed it at her, and then grabbed mine. “You need to see Sterling’s photograph. The research project we were doing—I think Win might be his uncle.”

Martha slipped her arms into her coat. “But who’s going to watch the museum?”

I waved my arms at the empty foyer. “I guess the hordes of tourists desperate to look at the mechanical Santa will just have to form an orderly queue.”

Martha clicked her tongue. “Let me write a note for the door.”

A few moments later we were on our way, a note withBack in 5 minutestaped to the door of the museum. The note was a lie. There was no way we’d make it to the airport in five minutes, let alone back again. We were just hoping that, firstly, nobody would turn up hoping for admission to the museum, and that, secondly, if they did, they wouldn’t time us.

As I drove to the airport for the second time in an hour, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and unlocked it with the passcode.

“Not while you’re driving,” Martha told me sternly, and plucked the phone out of my grasp.

“Can you call Sterling for me? And tell him we’re coming?” It wouldn’t be as dramatic as bursting into the airport in the nick of time, but security wouldn’t approve of anything too exciting, and also, a text would stop Sterling from boarding his flight early, right? Because I knew without a doubt that Sterling Van Ruyven was a member of some platinum or gold tier that allowed him to board first, cutting down the time he had to spend rubbing shoulders with the common folk in the line.

Martha jabbed at my phone screen. “Why am I looking at your photographs?”

“Oh my god, just?—”

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