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  ALSO BY RICHARD PAUL EVANS

  The Walk Series:

  The Walk

  Miles to Go

  Promise Me

  The Christmas List

  Grace

  The Gift

  Finding Noel

  The Sunflower

  A Perfect Day

  The Last Promise

  The Christmas Box Miracle

  The Carousel

  The Looking Glass

  The Locket

  The Letter

  Timepiece

  The Christmas Box

  For Children and Young Adults

  The Dance

  The Christmas Candle

  The Spyglass

  The Tower

  The Light of Christmas

  Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25

  Simon & Schuster

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and

  incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or

  are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events

  or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 by Richard Paul Evans

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or

  portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address

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  First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition November 2011

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  Designed by Davina Mock-Maniscalco

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Evans, Richard Paul.

  Lost December : a novel / Richard Paul Evans.

  —1st Simon & Schuster hardcover ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Christmas stories. I. Title.

  PS3555.V259L68 2011

  813’.54—dc23 2011035082

  ISBN 978-1-4516-2800-5 (print)

  ISBN 978-1-4516-2802-9 (eBook)

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A sincere thank you to all my friends at Simon & Schuster, for all they do and have done to share my books with the world for nearly two decades.

  To my Father, with love.

  Lost December

  A certain man had two sons:

  And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.

  And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

  And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.

  And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.

  And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.

  And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!

  I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,

  And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

  And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

  And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.

  But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:

  And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.

  Luke 15:11-24

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  A ninety-year-old man went to confession. “Father,” he said, “I left my wife and ran off with a thirty-year-old woman.”

  The priest said, “That’s terrible, but I don’t recognize your voice. Are you a member of this parish?”

  The old man replied, “No. I’m not Catholic.”

  “Then why are you telling me this?” The priest asked.

  “I’m ninety years old,” the old man replied, “I’m telling everyone.”

  There are those who share their stories of waywardness with false shame and fond recollection—a misplaced pride in past misdeeds. I am not that fool. I share my story for your benefit, not mine. On my part, I feel nothing but shame and gratitude. Shame for the people I hurt and gratitude that they didn’t desert me when I most deserved it. It has been said that sometimes the greatest hope in our lives is just a second chance to do what we should have done right in the first place. This is the story of my second chance.

  CHAPTER

  One

  Some mistakenly believe that “prodigal” means lost or wayward.

  It doesn’t. It means “wastefully extravagant.”

  No matter, both definitions are true of me.

  Luke Crisp’s Diary

&nbs
p; My seventh-grade English teacher, Mr. Adams, used to say, “No matter how thin the pancake, there are still two sides.” Two sides to every story. People mistake that little chestnut for wisdom—as if all real evil in this world can be explained away if we’ll but listen to the other side of the story. Tell that to your local serial killer. I believe that adage amounts to nothing more than moral laziness—a motto for people who carry moral compasses without needles. Make no mistake, all evil has its side of the story.

  I’m telling you this because in presenting my side of the story, I do not want you to confuse it for justification. No matter what excuses I told myself at the time, my choices were wrong. I was wrong. I’ll warn you in advance—as you read my story, you won’t like me. I understand. Neither did I. You have likely heard the story of the prodigal son. That’s my story too. I’m here to tell my side of the story.

  CHAPTER

  Two

  Only those who never step, never stumble.

  Luke Crisp’s Diary

  If the seeds of my fall were planted in my youth, they didn’t begin to bloom until my years at Wharton business school at the University of Pennsylvania, carefully cultivated by a gardener you’ll learn about later.

  Before then, I lived where I was born, in Scottsdale, Arizona, an upscale suburb of Phoenix. My childhood was a little unusual. My mother died of breast cancer when I was seven, and my father threw himself into his work to deal with his grief. My father, Carl Crisp, was an innovative and brilliant man—a corporate visionary. Through his industry he built an international company. Unless you live in an Appalachian cave or a shanty in an Everglades swamp, you’ve probably heard of it: Crisp’s Copy Centers. There are currently more than two thousand locations throughout the U.S. and Canada, the number of stores rising monthly.

  My father threw himself into his work, but he didn’t neglect me. Rather, he took me with him. I spent my early years at his side. When most boys my age were learning to throw a curve ball, I was learning how to replace a toner cartridge in a color copier.

  By the time I was sixteen, I was managing my first copy center—a small Crisp’s copy shop in Gilbert, Arizona. I’m pretty sure that I was the only sophomore in high school driving a self-financed BMW. I oversaw twelve copy centers while going to college. By the time I was twenty-one, I had graduated summa cum laude from Arizona State University.

  People always say that I look a lot like my father, which I consider a compliment. We are both tall and a little gangly, with light brown hair. But that’s where our likeness ends. My father’s most noticeable trait is his intense, dark eyes, partially shadowed beneath bushy eyebrows. He always told me that the secret to success is “laser focus,” and he had the eyes for it. He could always see through me.

  CHAPTER

  Three

  On the calendar, all days look the same,

  but they do not carry the same weight.

  Luke Crisp’s Diary

  If I had to pick a day that my life turned, I’d peg it to six weeks after my December graduation from ASU. My father and I had been working together on a presentation and stopped to have dinner at our favorite restaurant, DiSera’s, a fancy and popular Italian restaurant halfway between our home and the Crisp’s corporate office building. We ate there almost weekly, and the owner, Lawrence “Larry” DiSera was a close friend of my father. We even had our own table in the restaurant, beneath a painting of a buxom Tuscan girl stomping grapes. On special occasions—birthdays and celebrations—Larry himself would come to our table and play the mandolin.

  But the night my life changed, it wasn’t my birthday and we weren’t celebrating anything. We were just eating. Somewhere between the antipasto and the primi piatti, my father said, “I think you should get an M.B.A.”

  The comment came as far out of the blue as a meteor. I was glad to be back to work at Crisp’s and already felt like college had been an unnecessary delay. For a moment I just looked at him. “Why?”

  “I think it would be good for you.”

  I hoped he wasn’t serious, but from his demeanor I knew he was. It was the same look he’d had when he suggested I take over as area manager of our Phoenix stores.

  “I’d rather learn business in the real world,” I said, “You didn’t get an M.B.A. It hasn’t hurt you.”

  “More than you think,” he replied.

  “You founded one of America’s largest companies. How can you say it hurt you?” I punctuated my argument with a bite of caprese salad. When I finished chewing, I said, “Besides, we’ve got enough going on getting ready for the public offering.”

  “That’s why I think you shouldn’t wait,” he said

  “You want me to go back to ASU?”

  “I was thinking somewhere out of state. Maybe Harvard or Wharton.”

  Our conversation seemed to be spiraling off in the wrong direction. “What’s wrong with staying here?” I asked. “ASU’s got a great business program. And there’s Thunderbird.”

  “They’re good schools,” my father said. “I just think it might be good for you to get out on your own for a while. Going back East would help you get a feel for the climate outside the Southwest.”

  Up to that point in my life I had always lived at home with my father. “You sound like you’re trying to get rid of me.”

  My father smiled. “Maybe I am,” he said. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately. It’s a parent’s job to give their children roots and wings. I’ve given you roots—maybe too many of them—but not enough wings. I think I need to nudge you out of the nest a little. I want you to fly.”

  “Or plummet to my death,” I said.

  He grinned. “That’s not going to happen.”

  “I didn’t think I was doing so bad here,” I said.

  “Bad? I couldn’t be more proud of you. You were successfully running a multimillion dollar business at nineteen. This isn’t about not measuring up. This isn’t even about business. This is about your life. I want you to have the opportunities I didn’t have. I don’t want you to have any regrets.”

  “I don’t have any regrets,” I said.

  He looked at me for a moment, then sighed. “Maybe I have them for you. You didn’t have the childhood most of your schoolmates had.”

  “I don’t want their childhoods. I like my life the way it is. I like working at Crisp’s.”

  “It’s a lot bigger world out there than just Crisp’s.”

  “You don’t want me to work at Crisp’s?”

  “I’m not saying that. You know that I want you to take over the company someday. But I want you to make that choice with your eyes wide open. It may be that in the end Crisp’s is exactly what you want—or maybe it’s not—but, whatever you choose, at least you had a choice. I won’t take that away from you.”

  “If I went back East, who would take care of things here?”

  “Henry will do until you get back.” Henry Price was my dad’s chief financial officer and number two. “I’m sure he’ll relish the chance to step up.”

  I had no doubt he would. Henry had always struck me as ambitious. “Who will take care of you?”

  My father looked at me and I saw a mixture of sadness and pride in his face. “That’s what I was afraid of,” he said softly. “You’ve been watching over me instead of the other way around. I’ll be fine. Besides, I’ve got Mary.”

  Mary was my father’s personal assistant. She had been with my father even before my mother died—way back in the early days of Crisp’s when there were just three stores and they were still running to the local office warehouse to pick up boxes of copy paper. Mary was in her late fifties, single, childless and affable. She didn’t have a high school diploma, but what she lacked in scholarship she made up for in devotion to my father. I always thought she seemed more like a mother than an assistant.

  My father went back to eating while I thought over his proposition. After a few minutes I breathed out slowly. “I’ll think it over.”

  My father said
without looking up, “Fair enough. In the meantime, we have the national conference to prepare for. So hurry up and eat. There’s work to do.”

  CHAPTER

  Four

  Under the right circumstances, a tiny spark

  can grow into an inferno that can overcome an entire city.

  So can an idea.

  Luke Crisp’s Diary

  The spark from that dinner conversation caught fire. By the next week I had sent in my application to Wharton business school. My father had an old investor friend in the Wharton administration who was able to help expedite things, and a month later my father and I were on a plane, flying to Philadelphia for my enrollment interview.

  In spite of my initial resistance, I liked what I saw. I suppose that my father was right—a part of me wanted to venture out and see what else was out there. I was accepted into the program, and I enrolled with a major in operations and information management. A week after my acceptance I returned to Philadelphia to find housing. I found an apartment in Sansom Place, a tower within walking distance of the campus, and by the next August I was back in school.

  Even though I was in my twenties, I was homesick those first few weeks away. It was the first time I had lived alone and Philadelphia was a strange new world. The city was crowded and old and, for most of the year, cold—a far cry from the dry heat of the Arizona desert. I had my own room in Sansom, which was a double-edged sword. The good news was that I had privacy. The bad news was that I had too much of it. Those first few weeks I was agonizingly lonely. I had no idea how much that was going to change.

  My fifth week at Wharton, I was sitting in a management communications class when a pretty young woman sitting two chairs to my right, suddenly leaned toward me, her long, brown hair spilling over the vacant chair between us.

  “Hi. I’m Candace,” she said. She had beautiful dark, almond-shaped eyes, the kind you’d probably stare at if you knew you wouldn’t be caught. I instinctively looked behind me to see if she was talking to someone else. That made her smile. “I’m talking to you,” she said. “What’s your name?”