Out Of Nowhere

“She’s coming toward you, on Parish from Twenty-fifth. If she doesn’t show up in three minutes, ring me back.”

He got out of the Shelby and went into the toy store. A delicate bell tinkled over Fox’s head as he stepped into a winter wonderland. White fairy lights trimmed every wall and window. There were no laser guns or skateboards here. Action figures had never even gotten a toehold. A train set—Fox recognized the maker from his own childhood—traveled the room at the ceiling, chugging round and round. The dolls that flanked the walls wore porcelain faces. Everything was old and precious. Americana at its finest.

“Can I help you, sir?”

Fox turned to find a granny-type woman wearing a long red dress with a white apron. She had tight gray curls. She looked like Mrs. Claus. “Yes, ma’am. Do you work here?”

She smiled. “I own the place. Merry Christmas. Do you have a special child in mind today?”

He hated to ruin her day but he took his badge out anyway. “Ah, no. I have some questions about the woman who was just in here. The one in the fur coat.” Faux fur, he thought, then he found himself remembering that wide-eyed look of awareness she’d given him when he’d touched her sleeve. Something moved and resettled inside him. It felt a little like his heart.

“Tara Cole?” the woman asked, snagging his attention again.

Her question jolted Fox somewhat. “Do you know her? Does she come in here often?”

“No, but she always pays by credit card. I got her name from a receipt some time ago. I like to greet my customers personally.”

“What did she buy today?”

“The wall.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That wall.”

The woman waved her hand. Fox turned. The shelves there were three steepled layers of the best of antiquity. Tops and puppets. Heavy, cast metal trucks—they didn’t make them like that anymore, he thought. He began to understand what the woman was implying. “She bought everything over there? But she didn’t take anything with her.”

He turned back to the woman just in time to see her kindly face harden. “We package everything and deliver it for her. What is this about? What could she possibly have to do with anything concerning the police?”

Fox realized that the woman only knew Tara from her credit card transactions. She obviously didn’t know who she was or that her stepbrother had suffered an untimely death right after she’d lost an heirloom ruby to him.

“She’s a wonderful woman,” she persisted. “Very polite. Kind.”

“I’m sure she is.”

“Why would you care what she bought?”

Fox put his badge away. “I’m just trying to find out more about her.” His heart moved briefly in his chest again as he realized how true that was becoming. For the first time he wondered about the exorbitant amount of overtime he was costing the city by keeping men on her around the clock. Because he thought she was the answer to this mystery…or to satisfy his own curiosity?

The idea didn’t sit well. He asked the next question anyway. “Where is she planning to send so many toys?”

“She has them sent over to St. Phillip’s. Father O’Neill there runs a Santa-For-The-Poor effort every Christmas.”

She’d just bought a whole wall of toys for charity, Fox thought. She was some kind of benevolent elf in dry-cleaned underwear.

The cop in him wanted to believe that she’d done this to whitewash her shaky image, that she’d known one of his tails would watch and see this and run straight to him with the information. The man in him wanted to believe that, too. He didn’t want her to be the kind of woman who gave Christmas to children who wouldn’t otherwise have one. It was easier to remember that she wasn’t his type when she was aggressive and sharp and outrageous.

He found himself wondering if even Adelia would have thought to do such a thing. He realized he couldn’t be sure. Her memory was getting lost beneath Tara’s sharp-tongued quips, heated eyes…and all that incredible hair.

Fox stepped for the door again, then he stopped. And this question, he thought, had nothing at all to do with the investigation. “One last question. What would something like that cost?”

The woman hesitated. “Three thousand twenty-two dollars. And change.”

“And she sent all of it to Father O’Neill? None to distant relatives, or to the children of friends?”

“No, not this time. Although occasionally something will catch her eye that she wants for herself.”

“I see. Thank you.” Fox went back outside, feeling decidedly uncentered.

Tara was pleased with herself. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at Mr. Raincoat standing below her office window. She’d stolen half an hour for herself and she was as giddy with the victory as she would be over an all-expense-paid trip to Hawaii.

But inevitably her thoughts curled back to the ruby. She hadn’t told Uncle Charlie what had happened when she’d called him to cancel their dinner the other night. She’d only told him that there’d been a breakdown in her negotiations with Stephen—and now, of course, Stephen was dead. Charlie had not attended the funeral. He had no fond feelings for the Carmens and he certainly didn’t consider that he owed them anything.

Tara couldn’t bear the thought of Charlie realizing that now she didn’t know where the Rose was at all. She had to find out if Fox Whittington had the stone before she talked to the old man again. Because if the cops really didn’t have it and it wasn’t in the library…then Stephen’s killer had it. That possibility was gnawing at Tara’s gut almost constantly now, like a small vicious animal that got bigger and stronger with every day that passed.