Page 5 of Noel Secrets

Michael hitCallto try again.

Three rings. Four. He was about to hang up. But this time, she answered.

“You have to get us out of this,” Jayda said. No hello. No preamble.

Michael blinked, caught off guard. “Out of what?”

“This train trip. Tell your mom you can’t go.”

A laugh escaped him—sharp, amused. “Why? Afraid you’ll have to spend time with us?”

“I just…” She hesitated, sounding distracted…nothing new there. “It’s complicated. Something’s come up.”

“It’s always complicated with you.” He leaned against a lamppost, letting the winter wind bite his cheeks. “You never wanted to be part of my family, Jayda. But my parents—mymother—bent over backwards for you. She still does. You could at least be thankful.”

Silence crackled across the line.

Michael pressed on, a smirk tugging at his lips. “You know what? Iamlooking forward to this train ride. Maybe you’ll remember how much the Blairs have done for you.”

“Michael—”

“I’ll see you at Penn Station tomorrow afternoon,” he cut in. “Be sure to bring your jingle bells.”

Before she could reply, he hung up.

The satisfaction was immediate and petty, exactly the fuel he needed to get through the next two weeks.

If Harold wanted a “Polar Express” story, Michael Blair would give him one. But not the sugar-coated version. No—he’d write the truth. And maybe, just maybe, the people who deserved coal would finally get it.

Chapter Two

Jayda stuffed a backpack like she was a fugitive. Which, technically she wasn’t, but after introducing twelve thousand volts of electricity into a man with a gun and menacing scar, self-defense skills offered little comfort.

She yanked open her closet and grabbed more items: a thick sweater, a pair of jeans, and—because life was cruel—her last pair of clean socks with tiny candy canes on them. She shoved them into her backpack, ignoring the neat pile of casebooks on her desk, the ones she was supposed to have been reviewing last night for today’s criminal law exam. Instead, she stayed up all night on guard in case she had an unwanted visitor.

Thankfully, “Scar” hadn’t found out where she lived.

See, Michael? I’m thankful for something.

All night long, Michael’s voice rang in her ears from their brief phone call:You could at least be thankful.

Her grip tightened on the sweater.

Thankful. For what, exactly? For the years of polite but uncomfortable dinners at the Blair house? For the way Michael always looked at her like she’d stolen a place at the table that didn’t belong to her? For being reminded at every opportunity that she was the charity case in a family of overachievers?

And yet—ugh—there was the guilt. A small, irritating,traitorousvoice in her head whispered that maybe she had been standoffish, maybe Ginny Blair really had meant well, maybe Michael wasn’tentirelywrong.

Jayda shoved the thought away. She didn’t have the capacity for emotional self-examination when she was possibly on a mobster’s hit list.

She needed to find out who the guy was.

Her gaze slid to her phone, lying face-down on the desk. She could call the police. She could tell them about the man in the library, about how he chased her with a gun after she’d bolted. She could even give them a decent description—black leather coat, snake tattoo on the neck, scar beneath eyes that said he enjoyed hurting things.

But the idea curdled in her stomach. Growing up in the system had left her with a healthy skepticism of authority. The cops had never been on her side—not when her mother got sick, not when the landlord evicted them from the tiny apartment, not when Child Protective Services showed up two weeks after the funeral to split her from the only neighbors who’d cared.

The cops couldn’t protect her now. They’d take a report, maybe run a patrol past the library, and that would be the end.

Meanwhile, Jayda knew that man was coming for her…for the pictures and documents she’d swiped from the floor. Jayda grabbed them and added them to her bailout bag. For whatever reason, he wanted them, and Jayda didn’t think it was for reuniting with an old friend.