DETECTIVE MARK SANTORI had investigated a number of bizarre criminal cases in his six years as a Chicago cop, so not much surprised him. There'd been, for instance, the bank robber who'd hidden all his stolen money in his oven. He'd then gotten drunk, forgotten about the cash, burned it up and set his building on fire. One thing Mark had learned from that experience was that the red dye packs banks stuck into stolen money to mark it so crooks couldn't use it morphed into a number of interesting shades in intense heat. And, judging by the way the dye- spattered perp had been wailing when they'd taken him into custody, those suckers stung when they exploded in your face.

That had been a stand-out experience with the stupid criminals investigated by the anti crime division of the Chicago P.D., of which he was a member. But it certainly hadn't been his only one.

There'd been the purse-snatcher who'd had the crap beaten out of him by a couple of female impersonators leaving the Hidey Hole Club. The guy who'd tried to rob a liquor store using a plastic kiddie baseball bat and ended up getting his head split open by the owner's real one. The stupid bastard who'd nearly drowned in a barrel full of pickle juice — he'd hidden in it so he could rob a grocery store after hours. Not to mention the moron who'd broken into a home improvement warehouse and had tried to make his getaway on a stolen riding mower that went about two miles a day.

But this...well, this was pretty bad even for pathetic, scum-sucking criminals. A ring of costumed Santas were stealing anything they could get their hands on during the so-called season of giving. Not that the holidays had ever given Mark much more than a whole lot of heartburn. Still, sticky-fingered Santas lifting the sugarplums right outta the stockings of homeless kids were pretty goddamn low, even to a Christmas-hating hard-ass like him.

"I had intended to send a uniform over to that women's shelter to keep them calm until you got there to take the statements," his lieutenant said as he prepared to leave the 10th district police station of Chicago, where he worked. "But this damn cold weather has caused some power outages and I needed extra traffic control."

"It's okay," Mark muttered, already wondering how to deal with a bunch of pissed-off social workers who'd been cooling their heels for a couple of hours. His notes showed the initial call from a women's shelter about the theft of some charity money by a costumed Santa Claus had come in before lunch.

"You have any leads yet?" Lieutenant Shaker asked.

"Not much. Harriet's gone back to Riley's to meet with some of the seasonal employees." Riley's was a department store that had been robbed a few days earlier and Mark's partner, Harriet Styles, was working that angle a little more.

If the robbery had occurred at Bloomingdale's, Mark might have done it. He'd have done just about anything to try to get a glimpse of the dark-haired seductress he'd kissed in the women's dressing room last Friday.

Mark hadn't been able to get the woman out of his mind in the week since they'd shared that hot, sexy encounter. He'd thought about her, wondered about her, dreamed about her.

Stumbling into her arms had — as he'd told her — felt like something out of a movie. Only, on the big screen, he would've at least found out the woman's name, if not her phone number, address and favorite sexual position.

But nuh-uh. He had nothing to go on when it came to the woman's identity. Zero. Zilch.

Much like the Santa crime spree. "You really think this kids fund ripoff is connected to the others?" Shaker asked.

Mark nodded, his cop intuition still pinging, the way it had this morning when he'd first heard about the robbery at the shelter. "Yeah. This thing has escalated beyond pinching a few pennies from the bell-ringers on the street corners." Mark shook his head in disgust as he grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair. "I'll get over there now, I just had to take care of the Banner deposition this morning."

Shaker, a graying fifty year old, raised a questioning brow. Mark knew what his boss was asking. "I nailed it. We're airtight on that case." He was set to testify in the trial of a slimy local businessman who'd been selling stolen goods rather than imported ones. Which was why he was late going out to the women and children's shelter to get statements about the theft of the shelter's holiday fund.

Disgusting. As if the holidays weren't bad enough, now even needy kids were being ripped off.

Frankly, as far as Mark was concerned, the holiday season was the absolute worst time of year to be on the job. Every December, crime went way up as desperate people with no money tried to do their gift shopping without visiting the cash register. Beat cops were exhausted from working second jobs as security guards for the high-end stores on Michigan Avenue. City officials were jumping up and down screaming about overtime pay even as they hosted pricy parties for the rich and spoiled. And lots of lonely people took swan dives off the balconies of their penthouses rather than toast in the New Year with only Pansy the poodle for company.

Christmas was second only to Valentine's Day in terms of holidays exploited by retailers to make more and more money. At least Valentine's Day turned people into sappy flower-buying Romeos for only a couple of days. The Christmas season now seemed to start in September right after the stores got rid of all the back-to-school junk. And it lasted until the final blue and orange polka-dotted tie had been returned in mid-January.

Yep, the holidays were always trouble, and this year, with the jelly-bellied burglars, things were a lot worse.

Heading to his unmarked car as he zipped his leather jacket against the bone-chilling December wind — a reminder that winter had come early this year — he consoled himself with the knowledge that criminals always eventually betrayed their stupidity. Hopefully this latest crime, which had targeted the most helpless of victims, would give him just the information he needed to nail the scumbags.

And hopefully the shelter workers weren't going to lynch him for taking three hours to show up at the crime scene.

GETTING RIPPED OFF by Santa Claus was one lousy way to start the month of December.

As an avowed Christmas hater, Noelle Bradenton had already begun to prepare herself for the general cheer, goodwill and onslaught of commercials for CDs containing a thousand of the most popular holiday songs ever recorded. She'd been happily ignoring the garland and decorations going up in the front office of the women and children's shelter where she worked.

Good-meaning invitations from friends had been ever so politely rejected. Secret Santa plans had been ever so nicely refused. She had actually been walking around with a smile on her face, rather than her usual dismay that the most god-awful time of the year had rolled around again.

Up until this morning, when she'd realized the costumed Santa who'd come in to extend some holiday cheer to the scared kids in the shelter had robbed them, she'd really been looking forward to December 25. Because for the first time in her life, Noelle was going to spend the holiday season doing what she wanted to do.

While working her heart out to ensure a good holiday for the mothers and kids currently housed here — as well as some former tenants the shelter had helped get started in their new lives — she'd been secretly planning her own dream holiday, her own perfect Christmas. It had included no snow. No Santa. No frustrated shoppers elbowing their way down the crowded sidewalks on the miracle mile. No enraged husbands stalking their terrified wives and lonely children.

Just the sun. Sand. Rum laden drinks that contained neither egg nor nog. And if all went as planned, a hunky cabana boy or bleach-blonde surfer dude whose name she wouldn't even know, but whose body would become very familiar.

Oh, Lord, please let there be a hunky cabana boy or sun- kissed surfer. Because ever since last Friday, when she'd been in the arms of a gorgeous stranger in a Bloomingdale's dressing room, Noelle had been walking around in a constant state of arousal.

She'd been thinking about him — the man who'd kissed her, then disappeared without a word — during every waking hour since that day. And she'd dreamed about him — fanta-sized about him — every single night.

Noelle needed sex. Needed to touch and be touched, to take and be taken. It had been almost a year since her engagement had fallen apart. A year since she'd had a man inside her. And, being honest about her ex, several years since she'd had really good sex, with a great man inside her. Or maybe that had just been in her dreams, too.

But now she was finished dreaming. She wanted physical pleasure and fulfillment. Wanted it badly.

So, fabulous, uncomplicated sex with a hot-as-sin man she'd never have to see again was what she'd decided to give herself for Christmas. The encounter with the stranger last Friday had sparked the idea. His kiss — and her response — had made her realize she didn't have to be celibate just because she wouldn't trust a man to shovel her sidewalk these days.

Erotic sex with a nameless, anonymous stranger had been the perfect solution. There'd be no repercussions. No heartbreak. No taking chances and leaving herself open for any soul-crushing betrayals. Short-term and uncommitted...that was about all her tattered heart would let her go for at this point in her life.

Her vacation had sounded like the ideal opportunity for blameless, unforgettable sex. She'd have been far away, in a steamy country that was probably full of men dying to make a lonely female traveler's fantasies come true. In a place as exotic and beautiful as St. Lucia — the Caribbean island she was supposed to fly off to on Christmas night — she'd felt certain she'd meet someone who could make her feel like a sexual, sensual woman again. Noelle hadn't even been sure that woman existed anymore. Until a stranger had proved she did a week ago in a small, public dressing room.

Maybe a black-haired surfer guy. Yes. Dark hair and green eyes. Sun, sand and beach. Heat. Passion. Desire.

Or...not. "So long, St. Lucia," she murmured as reality sunk back in. And so long, sexy stranger.

Reality really sucked sometimes, because her vacation was suddenly looking more and more unlikely. Now that a fat pig in a red suit had absconded with all the Give A Kid A Christmas money the shelter had collected throughout the year, she didn't think any vacation was in her immediate future. Or food or rent money, for that matter. Because she was not going to let this robbery ruin one of the most important events this place offered, even if she had to pay for some of it herself.

The Give A Kid A Christmas program wasn't simply about buying some Barbie dolls and board games for needy kids. It was more about giving a true Christmas experience to children — and their moms — who might never have had one. It offered them a glimpse of the normal, happy family lives they could look forward to at the end of their long struggle for independence. Not fighting, abuse, addiction and rage, like many of them had experienced.

From the tree and decorations, to the toys, to the cookies to the pretty velvet Christmas dresses and the big turkey dinner, the program covered it all. And they didn't merely help the women and children currently living here, in the shelter, but also out in the community. A lot of them.

She couldn't let it be taken away from them. She wouldn't let it be.

"We'll replace as much as we can with a plea for donations from nearby businesses," she said to Casey Miller, who worked with her at the shelter, and who'd been with Noelle when she'd discovered they'd been robbed. Swallowing hard, she added, "As for the rest, well, I have some money I've been saving. I can pitch in."

"Oh, honey, tell me you're not giving up your dream vacation," Casey said, looking distraught. The skinny, red- haired caseworker knew how Noelle had been planning to spend her holiday season. "Isn't it all paid for already? Won't you lose your money?"

"I can pay a penalty and use the airline ticket another time." The thought cheered her up. The next one made her frown. "I will lose the hotel deposit, but thankfully they only required half up front. With what I'd saved to pay the rest, plus the meal and spending money I've been hoarding, I could make a dent in what we lost today." She didn't know who she was trying harder to convince — herself or Casey. Clearing her throat and nodding, she insisted, "I'd just be postponing my vacation. I'll go in the spring."

"In the spring, Chicago won't be full of singing elves whose mouths you long to tape shut, jingle bells you want to fling into the river and jolly Santas you'd like to run over with a lawnmower."

Casey was one of the few people who knew how Noelle really felt about Christmas. Nobody else at work was in on that secret, because the last thing she wanted was to make the holiday less special for the kids and their moms who already had so little happiness in their lives.

"A semi truck would be better for one certain Santa," Noelle said, still shaking her head in disgust at this morning's events. "How on earth did Alice let herself get suckered into letting that guy use the phone in the office — and leaving him alone to do it — when she knew the money was hidden there in the bottom of the desk drawer? And how did he find it so fast? It's almost like he knew we'd cashed out the account so we could go do the big shopping trip at that discount warehouse this weekend."