12 Days Read Online Free Page A

royal pain in the ass. He wasn’t going to leave the station in the middle of the night for a car alarm. But she’d mentioned a Santa outfit, hadn’t she?
    He shrugged at Kramer.
    “I blew her off.”
    “So what, we all do.”
    Jim looked over at the tree.
    “I got a bad feeling,”
    “About what?”
    “Alice and her Santa and the dead guy in the tree. I hope it’s just a coincidence.”
    Kramer saw where Jim was headed.
    “Come on, man. What are the chances she’s suddenly legit?”
    “With my luck, better than even.”
    “You think it’s the same guy?”
    “I fucking hope not or I’m going to be in for a world of hurt. See if you can get forensics to print the Civic; find out if they can match that Santa to our Santa.”
    Jim looked away.
    “Fuck me. I probably should have checked it out.”
    Kramer shook his head.
    “Water under the bridge, my friend, water under the bridge.”
    “Look, I need to check the scene again.”
    “Knock yourself out.”
    Kramer saw one of the forensic guys putting numbered markers on the floor.
    “I’ll grab one of the jumpsuits and we’ll print her Civic. Catch you later.”
    As Kramer turned to walk away, Jim Jovian walked toward the tree. What had he missed? He stared up into the branches. You could see where the rope had dug into the bark, where the branch had almost been torn from the trunk. There was nothing there. He walked around the tree slowly, looking at the roots and making his eyes peer intently over every inch from base to branch. Then he stopped. There it was, at eye level. How the hell did no one see it?
    “Hi, Officer Jovian.”
    Jim reflexively reached for his gun and answered without turning around.
    “Ms. Klein.”
    Jim suppressed a smile. There was a brief pause, something between them, before Lisa replied.
    “What were you looking at?”
    “Nothing, just looking.”
    Lisa paused again.
    “You spotted it, too. Didn’t you?”
    Jim tried to sound noncommittal and turned to face Lisa.
    “Spotted what?”
    “Listen, Officer Jovian, I thought that we had an understanding. You want to play amateur night with me, that’s fine. I’ll see you around.”
    She turned to walk away.
    “Wait!”
    She turned back, looking peeved.
    “What?”
    “I didn’t see it this morning, but I wasn’t really looking.”
    He jerked a thumb at the tree and watched her eyes. He could tell she was interested in the same thing.
    “What do you think it means?” Lisa asked.
    “I don’t know,” Jim lied.
    He knew that she knew. He could feel the rattle in his bones. This was the beginning of something. No doubt about it. There was going to be more to this, a lot more. They stared in silence at the sycamore tree that earlier that morning had borne its heaviest burden, the dead man who was now at the morgue. The flash of Lisa’s iPhone went off, illuminating what they were looking at. There, carved into the bark on the eastern portion of the tree, plain as day, was a big number ‘one’.
     
    Day One: 2:46 p.m.
    He sat in the empty parking lot of the McDonalds on Glendale Avenue, north of the 134, finishing off his fries. He never really understood greed, or how people could replace need with want. Janette McDermott was a woman with a nice home and a fancy car; things that he certainly would never have. All that money and still the good Catholic soccer mom wanted to sell a house on Christmas day. Unbelievable greed. Fucking sacrilege. Somewhere in Heaven, an angel was puking rather than getting his wings. But that’s why he was there; to make things right. The silent pleasure that he had hoped to derive from the final two slurps of his vanilla shake was spoiled by the sound of Janette kicking the inside rear quarter panel of his truck. She was making quite a racket back there and it was giving him a headache. He should have used the chloroform on her, he thought, like he did with the other guy. That would have kept her quiet and prevented the blinding pain that was