Chapter Nine: Christmas Day

On Christmas morning the Vaughn family opened their gifts from each other and from Santa, who still came even though Jack and Emily were too old to believe in him. It would have been a pretty typical Christmas—Emily gave their father a bottle of the same cologne she gave him every Christmas, and Jack gave their mother a necklace she probably hated but wouldn't return. As expected, Emily acted like a total freak all day. Jack knew he probably shouldn't have told her about their grandmother's latest note, but if possible, he wanted her to come with him to the meeting at White Sands, and anyway, he'd thought she'd be able to come up with an excuse to get them out of the house by five. She hadn't. By four o'clock Christmas day he still had no idea what he was going to tell his parents.

As it turned out, he shouldn't have worried.

"We're invited over to the Kincaid's for dessert," Jack's mother announced at promptly five after four. By then, the gift wrappings had been thrown away, the dinner dishes had been cleaned up, and the four of them were lounging around the living room, watching television and admiring their gifts.

"I forgot about that," Michael said with a frown, looking up from the puzzle Emily had received as a gift. "I guess we should go, right? They come into the restaurant almost every week."

"We really should," Sydney agreed. "Jack and Emily, do you want to come?"

And the excuse popped into Jack's head as readily as if he'd spent hours dreaming it up. "I might actually run over to White Sands."

Emily stared at him, mouth agape.

"Colby Sawyer's mom rented a bunch of rooms there for relatives that are visiting." That much was true—she'd done that every year for as long as Jack could remember. "He invited a few of us over to use the pool and hang out and stuff. I was thinking I might just stop over and say hi."

Sydney exchanged a glance with Michael, and Jack held his breath. Oh, God, she knew he was lying, she—

"Well, that sounds fine," Sydney interrupted his thoughts. "Emily, you'll come with us, then?"

"I don't wanna," Emily said, sounding four instead of fourteen.

"I don't want you here by yourself," Sydney objected.

"Come on," Emily whined. "Don't you trust me?"

Sydney and Michael exchanged a glance, and Jack hid a smile. "She could come with me," he suggested.

Michael frowned. "I don't know if that's a good idea."

"Daddy--"

Jack held up a hand to silence Emily. "I won't be long, Dad," he assured him. "And I'll keep an eye on her."

Emily scowled but didn't say anything.

"I think it'll be fine, Michael," Sydney said, placing a hand on her husband's arm. "I'm sure they'll make it home before we will." She punctuated her sentence with a look at Jack that plainly said, You will make it home before we will.

"Fine," Michael said with a sigh. "What time are you heading out?"

"I'm supposed to stop by around five," Jack said quickly.

Michael nodded. "Don't be gone more than a couple of hours."

"That was smooth," Emily commented later, as they began their trek over to the hotel. "Telling them we were going to the hotel, just for a different reason."

"Tell only as many lies as necessary," Jack said with a smirk. "I'll bet it's written in some CIA handbook somewhere."

"I'll bet it's written in the script for some crappy spy movie somewhere, too," Emily snickered.

They walked in silence for a moment before Emily spoke again. "So, Mom and Dad did that?" she asked, kicking at the sand as they walked. "They were, like, spies?"

"Apparently," Jack said with a shrug.

Emily smirked. "Then you'd think they'd have caught me sneaking out of the house a hell of a long time before they did."