Lucas’s expression didn’t change. It was as blank and unreadable as ever. “You’re the sheriff. You tell me what you’re thinking.”
That was a surprise. From everything he knew about Lucas De Angelis, the doctor never let anyone tell him what to do. It was one of the reasons he used to butt heads with his ex-wife—and Sly’s predecessor as sheriff—so much.
He didn’t know what Lucas was up to. As important as this was, he couldn’t let it bother him.
“I’m going to go out there, see if I can get Liam back without him being caught in the middle. Then we have to take… oh, jeez, I guess we’ve got to take Santa into custody.”
The tiniest of smirks tugged on Lucas’s lips. “Bet you never thought you’d be arresting Santa two days before Christmas.”
“Never thought he’d steal a child.”
“There’s that, too,” Lucas agree. “Okay, Sheriff. Let’s go get Liam back.”
While the snow still falling steadily left a fresh powder with quickly filling tracks to follow, the base layer of snow had frozen over some time ago. Heavy footsteps crunched through the icy snow until both men realized how far the sound traveled. In silent agreement, they moved quietly and swiftly, going forward on the tips of their boots.
They kept Santa and the boy in their sight while hiding amongst trees. Sly took the lead, Lucas stepping lightly behind him.
; Once there were less than ten feet separating them, Lucas moved ahead of Sly before chancing a peek around a large snow-covered oak. He nodded over at Sly and, keeping his voice low, said, “It’s him. Liam. See the mark on his forehead? There was a gash there two months ago. Stitching him up was the last thing I did before I left.”
Sly nodded without even bothering to look himself. He believed Lucas—about that part. The man was too secretive to trust him with anything else.
Besides, it didn’t matter. Whether the kid was Liam Johnson or this guy was the real Santa Claus, he was taking them both down to the station house. There was no good reason for either of them to be out in the middle of the woods during the snowstorm, especially when it was two nights before Christmas.
“Okay. You stay here. I’m going to try to take him in quietly.”
Lucas didn’t argue, which was good because Sly wasn’t above pulling rank. He was the sheriff, damn it, and while Lucas might always be considered a local in Hamlet, he’d left two months ago. To Sly, that counted for something.
Without a glance back at the doctor, Sly moved out in front of the trees, his hands held up in front of him in a gesture of goodwill. He didn’t want to spook the Santa lookalike in case the other man was armed—or desperate.
Which, a moment later, he was.
Not armed. At least, not obviously.
But that was a desperate gleam in his glassy dark eyes as he spied Sly, spit out a nasty curse, then lunged for Liam. Before Lucas could burst out from behind the trees, proving that the man was outnumbered, Santa already had grabbed Liam by the sleeve of his checkered Christmas pajamas, yanking him up by the arm and using the kid as a shield.
That… could have gone better.
Sly’s whole body went hot, blazing in fury. He struggled to contain his anger, knowing that level-heads would prevail here. If Lucas could stay cold and emotionless when a four-year-old went missing at Christmas, so could he.
“We’re just here for the boy. Give him to us and we’ll let you go.”
It was a bluff. There was no possible way that this outsider was making it out of Hamlet after what he did. The locals would be out for blood, but Sheriff Sylvester Collins would insist on justice.
Either way, the man wasn’t going free.
Santa might be stupid—because driving off with the boy and then dragging him into the snowy woods was ridiculously stupid for any criminal—but maybe he wasn’t that stupid. He didn’t fall for Sly’s bluff. Instead, he pulled Liam into him, the boy’s back pressed against the man’s front, before he wrapped a hand around Liam’s throat.
“Back off!”
Sly stopped edging closer. Without taking his steely gaze off of the outsider, he gentled his voice. “Liam? Can you hear me?”
A tiny whimper from the boy. “He’s hurting me.”
“How is he hurting you?” demanded Lucas.
“Squeezing me, Doctor Luc. In my arm, my neck. And he smells real bad, too.”