Free The Christmas Thief by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark

Benny noted. “Why don’t we leave ours on one of them? Although it’s a shame—it was a good buy. Right after you sent word from prison to buy an old flatbed, Jo-Jo and I came across that one at an auction. Paid cash for it, too. We were so proud of ourselves.”
    “Benny, please!” Packy yelled. “When we get back here with my tree, you’ll pull our flatbed out of the barn, drive north on route 100 for about ten miles, and lose it somewhere. No. Wait a minute! Milo, you drive the flatbed. They know you around here. There’s no law against driving a flatbed. Benny, you follow in the van and drive him back.”
    This is more than I bargained for, Milo thought. I don’t think I’ll ever get to spend that money. But he decided not to protest. He was already in too deep, and he had never felt more miserable in his life.
    “Okay, that’s decided,” Packy said briskly. “Milo, don’t look so worried. We’ll be out of your life soon enough.” He glanced at the twins. “Come on, you two. We don’t have that much time.”
     
    When they got back to the site, the light snowfall had ended and a few stars were visible through the clouds. In a way Packy was glad to see them. It meant that he didn’t need more than the lowest setting of the flashlight to guide Jo-Jo and Benny when they were sawing the tree.
    The Rockefeller Center crane was in place to receive the tree when it fell. The cables of the crane were already attached to the tree to keep it from falling away from the flatbed.
    I was nuts to think I could cut anything this big and count on its landing on our flatbed, Packy admitted to himself. I was nuts to forget that the bottom branches of a tree this big had to be wrapped. Let’s face it, I was nuts to hide the diamonds in a tree in the first place. But the boys hired by Rockefeller Center took care of everything for me, he consoled himself. What pals.
    Jo-Jo and Benny took their places on either side of the tree. They were each holding one end of the saw.
    “All right,” Packy directed. “This is the way you do it. Benny, you push while Jo-Jo pulls. Then, Jo-Jo, you push while Benny pulls.”
    “Then I push while Jo-Jo pulls,” Benny confirmed. “And Jo-Jo pushes and I pull. Is that right, Packy?”
    Packy wanted to scream. “Yes, that’s right. Just start. Do it! Hurry up!”
    Even though it was a manual saw, the sound seemed to reverberate through the woods. Seated on the crane, Packy pointed the beam of the flashlight on the base of the tree. For an instant he pointed it at the tree’s back where he knew that somewhere the flask was hidden. He could see a ladder that hadn’t been visible to him before and then noticed that a length of branch was lying on the ground. An uneasy feeling stirred inside him. He pointed the light back at the twins pushing and pulling.
    Ten minutes passed. Fifteen.
    “Hurry up,” Packy urged them. “Hurry up.”
    “We’re pushing and pulling as fast as we can,” Benny panted. “We’re almost done. We’re almost—Timber!” he yelled.
    They had severed the tree at the base of the trunk. For a moment it wavered and then, guided by Packy at the crane, the large tree was held in the air by cables and lowered in a straight line onto the flatbed. Sweat was pouring down Packy’s face. How did I ever remember to do that right? he wondered. He released the cables, scrambled down from the crane, and rushed into the driver’s seat of the cab of the flatbed. “Benny, you get in with me. Jo-Jo, follow in the van, like you’re escorting us. Now if our luck holds…”
    With agonizing slowness he drove the flatbed out of the clearing and onto the dirt road. He passed the east side of Lem Pickens’s property, pulled on to route 108, and finally drove up Mountain Road.
    A few cars passed them on 108, their occupants hopefully too tired or too indifferent to wonder what was going on. “Sometimes they transport big trees like this at night to avoid causing a traffic