I got the prompt for this story from the Writer’s Digest newsletter. I had to look up the Twelve Days of Christmas. This is a religious time, from December 25th until January 6th. Traditionally, like Hanukkah, a gift was given each of the twelve days. I turned the prompt into a mystery. Hope you like it.

12 Days of Christmas Gone Wrong

I received the first gift on December 24th. It was sitting on my desk when I got in that morning. The tag read, “To Bethany, The first gift for the Twelve Days of Christmas.” It wasn’t signed. I looked over the four foot cubicle walls. Hardly anyone was in the gaily decorated office. Most of my fellow sales account managers had taken today off to prepare for Christmas Day. Since David and I don’t have kids, I decided to work. With him out of work, every dollar counts.

I opened the festive package. There was no note, but there was a lovely silver picture frame with black velvet trim. How thoughtful, I thought. Just the thing to hold that picture of David and I at our third anniversary dinner last July. I slid the frame into my purse and got to work. There were still four clients I had to finalize sales with.

On the twenty-sixth, I was back at my desk. There were two gifts sitting there each addressed to me and saying they were for the 2nd and 3rd days of Christmas. Joy, across the aisle from me looked over. “They were on your desk when I got in.” She grinned at me. “Who are they from?”

I shrugged. “No idea. I found one on Christmas Eve, too.” I pulled the bows off of them and opened them up. The first was a set of two porcelain teacups and a teapot. All in a Chinese design. Joy’s eyebrows went up. The second gift turned out to be a black lacquer Chinese design tea tray.

Joy got up and stepped over to see. “They’re beautiful!”

I put the pot and cups on the tray. It was obvious the whole thing went together. “I love Chinese tea. These are so nice.”

Joy patted me on the shoulder. “Someone has an admirer.” She went back to her desk.

I shook my head. “I’m happily married. Maybe it’s David.”

Joy smiled. “That is so romantic!”

I busied myself with my clients. I didn’t say anything that night. I didn’t want to spoil David’s fun.

It went on like that for eleven days. After the weekend, I had 3 gifts on my desk. On the twelfth day I was full of anticipation. Each gift had been better than the last but today would be the final gift.

I unwrapped the box before the rest of the account reps arrived. It held a lot of tissue paper but I finally pulled out a photo. My heart stopped. It was a picture of David, sitting at a table. Piles of paper money were in front of him on a table along with a mirror covered with lines of white powder and several handguns. I blinked. This could not be real. I looked around quickly, no one was near though I could hear the voices of the others coming in. I flipped the picture over. “Put $10 grand cash in a holiday bag and leave it on your desk tonight or that photo goes live on the internet tomorrow at noon.”

I sank into my chair, picture in my hand on the desk. Where would I get ten thousand dollars? Why is David with all of that money and guns? Was that cocaine? I stared at the photo. There were other people in the picture but just arms or torsos. No faces. What is going on?

Joy approached with one of the other account managers. I shoved the wrapping paper and box into my trash can and hid it under my desk. The picture I slid into my suit jacket pocket.

“Bethany, did you get a gift today?” she asked as she pulled off her coat. “What was it?”

I shrugged. “Nothing. No gift on the desk this morning.”

Her face fell. “I thought for sure there would be something fantastic. It’s the last of the Twelve Days of Christmas.”

“Yeah. Me too.” I turned on my computer and pretended to work. I’ve got to figure this out. There was no way to pay the extortion. We had about $400 in the savings account. My only hope was to figure out who was blackmailing me. I made two calls to clients then told Joy I had to run an errand. I went to the coffee shop in the next building. At a table near the windows I pulled out a notepad and wrote down the gifts. There had to be a clue here, all of the gifts were thoughtful. The blackmailer knew me and obviously, David.

I wanted to go home and confront David, but there wasn’t time for that. Think! I told myself. Who knows us and has access to my desk? Who would do this? If they really knew us they’d know we don’t have any money. While the gears in my brain spun furiously, I watched a trio of men in the uniform of my building’s maintenance company walk by. One of the men had a snake tattooed around his right wrist.

I stared, then dug the vile picture out of my pocket. One of the hands on that table had that same tattoo!  I tapped the photo on the table while I thought. I didn’t know any of those men. I kept staring at the picture. There it is! I pulled on my coat and went to the police department.

The next morning the police were staked out in my office. The guy with the tattoo showed up at my desk at 3am where they nabbed him.

At 7am David and I were in the police station. The guy and his two partners had photo shopped David’s picture from my desk into their extortion note. The gifts were all stolen property that I had to return. It didn’t matter. David and I signed the last of the paperwork and went out to breakfast, bad guys behind bars.

The End

985 Words

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