Out Of Nowhere

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She wore an oversize Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt and that dark hair of hers was a tangled cloud. A long-fingered hand came up to scrape it back from her forehead and her eyes—a color between midnight and dawn—were at half-mast. Then they flew open wide and she gave a shrieking sound.

She came at him, her expression that of a woman who had just seen a million demons spew forth from hell and she meant to banish each and every one of them from her threshold. Fox caught her wrists a split second before her fists made critical impact with any vulnerable part of his body. “Easy.”

“Easy? Easy? It’s the middle of the night! What are you doing?”

Given that he didn’t particularly want to be here anymore than she wanted him to be, Fox’s temper sparked. “If you would just do what you’re supposed to do, I’d be sleeping by now, too!”

She looked near-crazed with disbelief. “What am I supposed to do?”

He still had her wrists in his hands. He had the absurd thought that her skin was the texture of rose petals. No matter that she was more like the thorns on the branch. But her pulse beat hectically beneath his thumbs and her skin was still warm and soft with sleep.

“Dinner at the Four Seasons?” he said. “Does that ring a bell? And what about the gallery opening you were supposed to attend tonight?”

Her jaw fell open. “You’re stalking me?”

“I’m surveilling you. There’s a difference.”

“The hell there is. Get out of here!”

She wrenched her wrists free, planted her palms against his chest, and shoved hard. Fox took a couple of staggering steps backward, then the door slammed shut in his face.

“That was definitely assault on a police officer!” he shouted.

The door behind him opened and caught on a safety chain. “Quiet down out there before I call the police!”

“I am the—”

The opposite door slammed shut as well before he could finish. It was that kind of night.

Tara’s alarm clock was something she had gotten at Disneyland when she was twelve, in one of those rare, perfect vacations with just her mother and her stepfather and a nanny. It had been a business trip for Scott Carmen—all of them had been—but she’d gotten her mother’s nearly-undivided attention for hours at a time and Stephen had stayed behind at prep school.

Mickey and Minnie embraced each other at a quarter past six and sent up a chorus of joyous music. The sound was normally one that Tara cherished. But this morning, seconds after opening her eyes, life came tumbling back in on her.

He’d come knocking on her door in the middle of the night! And he had touched her. He’d wrapped his fingers around her wrists and the contact had been anything but Southern or lazy. She’d felt a crackling summer storm where their skin had connected.

What was happening to her? She hadn’t even remembered to call the gallery last night to change her RSVP! He was getting into her life and rocking her world. She had to shake him loose before she forgot herself and let herself believe that these reactions he incited in her could possibly matter.

He thought she’d killed Stephen. There was no sense in letting a man like that get too close, no matter how tempting it was to let the slow, sexy heat of him burn through her loneliness. And when had she decided he was sexy or that she was lonely?

Her heart began to thud frantically. Tara swung her legs over the side of the bed. She went to the kitchen and ran her hand down the front of the coffeemaker, flicking on the knob she’d set last night. The machine began pouring forth brown liquid. Then she finally gave a hoot of laughter and some of the tension evaporated from her muscles.

Whittington thought her date book was gospel.

For a moment, she contemplated letting him believe that and chase his own tail for a while. It would be gratifying to watch. Except…he really was starting to get under her skin, she thought again. That was one problem. The other was how to turn the man in the right direction, away from her and toward the real killer and the Rose—assuming Whittington wasn’t sitting on the gem. She still clung to that possibility just a little.

Tara sipped coffee and went to her living room windows to check on the status of the cop who tended to hover at her home address. He was dark and burly and he was in the park again. Tara tossed back the last of her coffee in one scalding swallow and took it to the sink, then she went to the shower.

At ten minutes after eight, she left her apartment. She walked east on Poplar as she did nearly every weekday of her life. At the first corner, she paused to glance into the bowed window of a town home, shifting her weight slightly until she caught the reflection behind her.

The coast was clear. Mr. Big-Dark-And-Dangerous was gone. At least, she couldn’t spot him. Tara made her move.

A woman was entitled to some privacy, after all.

Fox had the sensitivity to move his phone away from his mouth while he brushed his teeth. Five hours of sleep. He was aware that there were those who considered that perfectly acceptable. He, however, had long ago learned to appreciate relaxation just as much as his accomplishments. He preferred a good solid seven hours. Eight was a boon.

He was tired this morning, and he was cranky. All because of her.

“Are you still there?” came Migliaccio’s voice.

Fox brought the phone back. “Unfortunately.”

“I said she’s moving.”

“I heard you.”

“She’s heading toward her office. What do you want me to do?”

“I’ll intercept you on the corner of Poplar and Twenty-seventh. I’ll take over there.”

“Okay—no, wait.”

Fox’s nape prickled. “Wait? Why wait?”

“She’s moving off target. She just took a turn onto Twenty-eighth. She’s heading south now, toward Parrish.”

Her office was on Parrish, but it was on Parrish and Twenty-third. And Fox knew for a fact that she always took Poplar to Twenty-third, then she turned south. They’d been watching her all week. She never broke from custom.

What now? Fox swore. Was this woman ever where she was supposed to be? “Stay on her. I’m on my way.”

He paused long enough to snag his leather jacket from the coat closet. He wished he’d had it with him last night. The tips of his fingers might not be so painful this morning if he could have enjoyed its pockets. He was pretty sure he had frostbite. All his digits would probably have to be cut off. Goodbye, career.

Her fault. All of it.

He took the Shelby. Migliaccio and the lady were on foot but they were five blocks ahead of him. He spotted Migliaccio at Parrish and Twenty-fifth. He slid the car into a rare spot at the curb. Migliaccio bent to the passenger window and Fox lowered the glass. The cop was alone. Tara was nowhere in sight.

“Where is she?” Fox demanded.

Migliaccio pointed a thumb behind him. Fox shifted in his seat to look over the man’s shoulder. He read the name on the store front there. “Toyland?”

“Does she have kids?” Migliaccio asked.

“No.” One of the first things Fox had done was run a profile on her. Her mother had married the wealthy entrepreneur Scott Carmen when Tara was four. The whereabouts of Will Cole, Tara’s natural father, were unknown. Scott Carmen had had one child by a previous marriage— Stephen. Stephen had never married, had never passed on his pudgy-faced genes. For that matter, Tara had never married, either.

“Well, Christmas is only a week away,” Migliaccio said. “She seems to be shopping for somebody.”

Fox thought that seems to be was a really dangerous phrase where this woman was concerned. “I’ll take over from here.”

He waited in the car after Migliaccio took off. Ten minutes later, Tara came out of the store empty-handed. She headed east again. She didn’t notice him. Fox took up his cell phone and tagged Currey, who was posted at her office building.

“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.