How the Hitman Stole Christmas - Sam Mariano Page 0,35
room for us, too. Especially if Uncle Arlo comes this year. He’s on a fixed retirement budget; he’ll definitely need to stay with my mom.
Autumn will enjoy staying in town, though, and having a safe haven away from my family in case they drive me too crazy sounds good to me.
Since I don’t know the area well, I plug my mom’s address into the directions app on my phone now that I’m actually heading there.
When we get on the road that seems to be hers, it’s away from the cute Main Street. There are houses dropped between dense spots of forest, snow-covered trees on both sides of the road. It’s not outside of my expectations. I see a little beige ranch with a few cars parked out front and expect a house like that.
But the road is long and I have to turn a couple times. I start to frown as the GPS says we’re almost there, but the neighborhood I’m driving into seems… wrong.
There are still lots of trees on both sides of the road with houses hidden in between, but as we drive past the first few, I can’t help noticing the quality—and property values—of the houses has risen dramatically. These aren’t standard ranches owned by working class Americans.
These are rich people houses.
“Wow, that one is gorgeous,” Autumn marvels as she gazes out the window at a big, fancy house set back off the road.
“It sure is,” I murmur uncertainly.
She sighs dreamily, looking over at me. “I think that’s the prettiest house I’ve ever seen. Did you see the tree in the window?”
My gaze drifts to my left at an enormous brick house on a little hill. “I saw it.”
There’s a trace of hesitance in her tone now. “Your mom… lives here?”
I shake my head. “Can’t be. No. Maybe there are normal houses after these.”
I keep saying that to myself as I drive past a few more sprawling mansions, but looking at the map on my GPS… her house is close. Really close.
I would know if my born-in-poverty mother lived in a fucking mansion… right?
I take a left when the GPS tells me to, down a less densely populated road by the looks of it. I thought I was already on mom’s road, but apparently I missed the “place” in her address.
“You have reached your destination,” my phone announces as I roll to a stop on the road in front of a sprawling brick ranch house all decked out in Christmas lights.
“Is… is this it?” Autumn asks hesitantly.
Understandably, she expected when a common fucking criminal kidnapped her and took her home to meet his family, the home would be a little more modest.
“This can’t be it.” I pull in anyway, but I don’t roll down the long driveway to where a black SUV is parked. I stay back by the road so I’ll be able to back out and turn around when Nora inevitably tells me I typed in the wrong address.
When I text Nora for the address again, explaining I think she gave me the wrong one before, I wait for some form of, “Oh, you’re right, silly me! Here’s an address back on that road with all the normal houses, now hurry up and back out before the people who own this one think they’re being burgled.”
Instead, Nora walks outside and waves her arms to get my attention. The text she sends back says, “Nope, you’re in the right place. I see you! Yay! I can’t believe you’re here!”
I can’t believe I’m here, either.
I sit there for a minute, unable to grasp the reality of it.
I guess we have to go inside. It still doesn’t seem like we should be allowed to. Maybe it’ll feel real once we’re in the house.
It’s not like I’ve never been inside a big, fancy house before. The massive mansion my boss lives in is essentially a compound, a castle fit for a king—makes this one look like a playhouse.
But my mother doesn’t live there, so it’s not weird.
This is fucking weird.
I don’t want to keep my sister waiting, though, and sitting here in the parking lot for 15 minutes won’t make things less weird, so I pull up behind the SUV and kill the engine.
“I guess this is it,” I tell Autumn.
“Wow,” she says, not bothering to hide her surprise. “Well, I mean, it’s really nice. Not what I expected, but really nice.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, looking at the house. “Not what I expected, either.”