Carats and Coconuts by D. D. Scott

words as he ran out of the living room.
    My mother leaned over to
Grams.
    “ What did you do to that
tea?”
    “ I told ya. Laxatives in
brownies are sooo yesterday.”
    My mother made the sign of the cross
and sat there shaking her head while Kat sprung into action with
the Cellebite device and began to capture everything we needed from
Father Time’s phone.
    “ Hurry up over there,” my
mom said, looking more and more nervous by the minute.
    “ Really, Suzie Snowflake.
I’m tellin’ ya. We got all the time in the world. That asshole
ain’t gonna be comin’ outta the loo for a long, long time,” Grams
said, taking another cookie off the tray and putting her feet up on
the edge of Father Time’s coffee table.
    Kat gave us a thumbs-up as she
disconnected the Cellebite from Father Time’s phone.
    We all cheered and high-fived as we
watched The Squad climb back into my mom’s car and head for
home.

Chapter
Eleven
     
    S ometimes the only way to stop a vicious enterprise is to use
the perps’ own tactics against ‘em. And that’s exactly what we were
about to do.
    Standing with my entire extended
family, right next to the gorgeous golden-star-topped potted
evergreen trees my mother had decorated this year in ruby reds and
over-the-top gilded splendor, we waited for the showdown to
begin.
    Any minute now, Dad would have his
team of reindeer hooked to his favorite sleigh for his annual
flight-simulation run.
    With Christmas Eve only two days away,
this was his final shot to make everything a “Go” for The Big
Night.
    Watching Rudolph’s mesmerizing
back-lit nose cast out its GPS signals, I giggled inside. He looked
as if he had a Tavernier Stone-sized ruby attached to his real
nose.
    Speaking of dazzling carats, I glanced
at my mother, still amazed she and I had managed to keep our secret
worries from my dad. He certainly had enough on his mind and didn’t
need the added stress of our concerns.
    Thankfully, though, Mom and I had
already made up our minds that after the holidays, we’d tell Roman
and R about our problem.
    I took a deep breath, letting the
crystal cold lake air rattle my lungs and shake me back into our
present quandary.
    “ You think Father Time is
dumb enough to bite on Zoey’s message?”
    I overheard Kat asking R.
    “ Oh, he’ll bite all right,”
R answered her, standing way too close to Kat to any longer be able
to deny their growing relationship. “This technique worked like a
charm when I used it to bust the privately hired investigator who
was feeding stories to the London tabloids about Roman and
Ross.”
    I had to admit, R’s plan was
brilliant.
    He’d had me call my dad’s phone and
leave a message with a fake story about tonight’s test flight. It
would lead anyone who might be tapping into it to think Dad was
revealing his holly fodder secrets tonight to major investors and
government regulators.
    I gazed out along our property lines,
knowing our security elves were in their places and ready to jump
into action, literally, when they were needed.
    “ What have we got here?”
Grams asked, cackling like a wild hen. “Your dad looks more like a
drag queen than Santa Claus.”
    “ Oh, for cryin’ out loud, he
does not,” Kat said, then playfully swiped at Gram’s silly
feather-thin head-scarf. “You’re the crazy-ass one who thinks that
damn chiffon scarf is protecting your bird-sized head from certain
frostbite.”
    “ Your Dad’s coat is just
beautiful this year,” my mother said, coming up to wrap her arms
around me.
    She looked rather wonderful too, I
must say, in the matching frock I’d made for her.
    Ever since I was a teenager, I’d been
designing and sewing their Christmas gear. It was a project I
looked forward to each year.
    I checked out my Dad in his gorgeous
red Italian wool coat. I’d found the fabric in Italy, where I buy
almost all my fabric now that I call Tuscany home.
    After cutting it and finishing the
seams, I’d hand-sewn a gazillion