“So,” Nolan said as the cab moved through the falling snow and the brightly lit streets. “This is really nice.”
“No, it isn’t,” Reese said.
Actually, it was. Nolan was pressed warm against her, and if she forgot everything that had happened and repressed all her common sense, it was almost like they were together again, and that felt good. Pathetic, she thought, but she didn’t move away from him.
“What’s in the other bag?” Nolan said, looking into her first shopping bag. “Is that a cow?”
“Yes,” Trudy said. “It says, ‘Eat chicken,’ when you pull its string.” He looked at her in disbelief, and she said, “Well, earlier in the evening that was hysterically funny.”
“It is funny,” Reese said, tightening his arm around her. “It’s very funny.”
Nolan frowned. “I hadn’t figured you for the stuffed-animal-giving type,” he said, taking the lanky spotted cow out of the bag.
“Really,” Trudy said coolly. I hadn’t figured you for the grave-disappointment type.
“More the educational-toy-giving type. You seem so … practical.”
It was embarrassing to think what she had figured him for. He’s smart, he’s funny, and he’s got swivel hips, she’d told Courtney. Just imagine. Yeah, that was the kind of statement that came back to haunt you.
“You know. You seem pretty … straight,” Nolan said. “Being a librarian and all.”
“I’m the assistant director of library sciences,” she told him, trying to crush him with disdain.
“Right.” Nolan nodded. “A librarian.”
“Yes,” Trudy said, giving up. “I’m a librarian.”
Reese tightened his arm around her. “I never thought of you as a librarian. I think that’s a terrible thing to call you.”
Well, yeah, except I am a librarian, Trudy thought, and then her cell phone rang and she answered it.
“Three toxic wastes,” Courtney said, her voice much looser now. “I want to bury Evil Nemesis Brandon in the stuff.”
“There’s no need to be unpleasant,” Nolan said to Reese over her head. “It’s Christmas Eve. Goodwill to men.”
“Not to you,” Reese said.
“Here’s the situation,” Trudy said to Courtney, putting one hand over her ear to shut out the cab radio—gimme gimme gimme—and the two guys bickering over her head. “I met one of Dad’s old research assistants in the toy store, and he says he knows where they have this year’s MacGuffin, but it’s out in some dangerous deserted warehouse on the edge of town.”
“He can get one of this year’s? Yes. Go!”
“Good to know you’ll sacrifice me for a homicidal toy,” Trudy said. “But that’s okay; I’m already on my way.”
“What’s this guy’s name?”
“Reese Daniels.”
“Did you check his ID?”
“No, Courtney, I did not check his ID.”
“Always a good idea,” Nolan said. “You never know with research assistants. They can turn on you like that.”
“Who’s that?” Courtney said.
“Nolan.”
“Still?”
“Yes,” Trudy said repressively.
Reese took his wallet from his jacket, flipped it open, and showed her his driver’s license.
Trudy squinted at it. “His driver’s license says ‘Reese Lee Daniels.’ Born 1982.”
“A younger man,” Courtney said, distracted. “Is he cute?”
“Sort of,” Trudy said. If you like surfers. Dude.
“I really think you and I should go out again,” Nolan said. “Let’s give us another chance.”
Trudy closed her eyes in the dark and thought, No, it will not work out, he’ll just forget you again.
“Do you mind?” Reese said. “She’s with me.”
“Forget cute,” Courtney was saying on the phone. “Does he have a job? Does he look like he’ll be faithful?”
“No,” Trudy said to Nolan. “No more faculty, no more film.”
“Okay, we’ll go to the Aquarium.” Nolan put the cow back in the bag. “It’ll make you calm. You can taunt the sharks.”
“I bet he won’t be faithful,” Courtney said.
“What kind of person taunts sharks?” Trudy said to Nolan. “They’re trapped in a tank.”
“Okay,” Nolan said, the voice of reason. “Where do you want to go? Your choice.”
“Do you mind?” Reese said to him again. “This is my cab. Stop putting on the moves.”
“I’m not asking you,” Nolan said to him.
“He’ll betray you,” Courtney was saying gloomily. “Younger, older, they’re all rats.”
Trudy ignored the two guys to answer her. “That’s the gin talking, honey. I thought you were going to ice gingerbread.”
“I swear,” Nolan said to Trudy. “No more film festivals.”
Trudy waved her hand at him to get him to shut up so she could hear Courtney.
“I am icing gingerbread.” Courtney sounded more depressed than ever. “But I broke more arms off. So I switched to the gingerbread house, and I got it together, but now the gumdrops won’t stick.” She sounded ready to weep.
“Why don’t you wait until I get home and I can help you,” Trudy said, trying to make her voice cheerful. “You probably just need thicker icing.”
“Damn.”
“What?”
“A gumdrop fell into my drink. Wait a minute.”
Trudy listened for a moment.
“You know, they’re not half bad in gin.”
“Court, put the gin away and go lie down. I’ll be home as soon as we get done at this warehouse, and then we’ll finish the gingerbread house together.”
“No more faculty parties, either,” Nolan said.
Reese leaned forward, smushing Trudy between them. “She doesn’t want to go out with you, okay?”
“That warehouse sounds dangerous,” Courtney said. “Get the cab number and the cabbie’s name.”
Nolan shook his head at Reese. “We don’t know that she doesn’t want to go out with me. She never really got to know me.”
“And whose fault is that?” Trudy said, turning on him. “Three dates and then you don’t call, you don’t write. But hey, it’s not the end of the world.” And you never kissed me, either. Han Solo would have kissed me.
“Trudy?” Courtney said.
“In a minute,” Trudy said to her.
“I know, I know, that was bad of me; I’m really sorry,” Nolan was saying. “But you didn’t seem like you were having a good time.”
“A good time? I was on my best behavior, you jerk. What else did you need? Cries of delight at the faculty party? Moans of appreciation for the movie popcorn? Which, I might point out, I ate alone. Did you think—” She stopped, realizing that arguing made it sound like she cared. “Never mind. I’m sure you had a good reason for disappearing out of my life without a reason. Forget it.”
“Forget what?” Courtney said. “The name of the cabbie? You never gave it to me.”
Trudy leaned over to look at the cab license for her, and Reese tightened his arm across her shoulders. “Alexander Kuroff,” she said into the phone as she straightened.
“Write it down,” Courtney said.
“I don’t have any paper,” Trudy said, and Nolan rummaged in her shopping bags and pulled out the Christmas paper she’d bought.
Trudy tore the cellophane off the corner of it and said, “No pen.”
Both men offered her pens, Reese a beat behind Nolan. Trudy took Reese’s and wrote the cabbie’s name on the white space around the red printed words on the paper.
“And the cab number.”
“Court—”
“Read it to me so I can write it down, too.”
Trudy read it off. “I don’t see what good my writing it down is going to do. If I die, the wrapping paper goes with me.”
“You’re not going to die,” Nolan said. “I’m here.”
“Oh, give it a rest,” Reese said.
“What cab company?” Courtney said.
“Yellow Checker,” Trudy said. “And I’m stopping this conversation now.”
“Call me every hour,” Courtney said. “If you don’t call me, I’ll call you. Every hour until you come home with the MacGuffin.”
“What are you going to do if I don’t call and I don’t answer?”
“Call nine-one-one. But you’re going, right?”
“I’m on my way,” Trudy said, sitting back.
“Every hour,” Courtney said.
“Every hour.”
“I’ll watch out for her,” Nolan said, close to the phone.
“Who’s that?” Courtney said on the phone.
“Nolan again,” Trudy said. “He wants a MacGuffin, too.”
“Well, at least he’s the devil we know.”
“We don’t know him that well.”
“Hey,” Nolan said. “Your dad can vouch for me. We’ve been in the same department for two years.”
“That is not a recommendation.”
“What?” Courtney said.
“Dad can vouch for him.”
“Push him out of the cab.”
“Her dad can vouch for me, too,” Reese said, sounding about twelve.
“I have to go, Court,” Trudy said, before they started punching each other on the arm. “It’s going to be a while.” She handed Reese his pen back and started to put the wrapping paper back in the bag one-handed and then looked at it more closely in the lights from the street. “Oh, hell.”
“What?” Courtney said.
“I got birthday paper,” Trudy said. “I need Christmas paper, and this is birthday—”
“Trudy,” Courtney wailed.
“Maybe you can fake it,” Reese said, with badly concealed exasperation. “If it’s just a bunch of animals, it could be anything.”
Trudy held up the paper. It said Happy Birthday over and over and over. “No animals. Just ‘Happy Birthday’ in red.”
“Well, then you’re screwed,” Reese said, sounding bored with the whole thing.
“No, she’s not.” Nolan held out his hand. “Give it here.”
“You’re going to fix this?” Trudy said. “How are you going to fix this?”
Nolan wiggled his fingers. “Gimme.”
She handed the paper over and watched while he took out his pen again and wrote Jesus under every Happy Birthday.
“You’re a grave disappointment, but you’re also a genius,” Trudy said, giving credit where it was due.
“Did he fix it?” Courtney said.
“Yes,” Trudy told her.
“Make him help you get the Mac.”
“Goodbye, Courtney,” Trudy said, and hung up.
“So you’ll go out with me again?” Nolan said, handing the paper back.
“Not a chance in hell.” Trudy put the paper in the bag with the cow.
“Okay, lunch,” Nolan said. “Lunch isn’t really a date.”
“Oh, give it up,” Reese said, and let his head fall back against the top of the seat. “I have lost my patience with you.”
“Well, look for it,” Nolan said. “Maybe it fell off the sleigh.”
“Man, I don’t know about you,” Reese said.
“I’m a man of mystery,” Nolan agreed. “Another reason Trudy should see me again.” He smiled at her in the dim light as the cab sped toward the warehouses. “So, meet me for coffee?”
“She doesn’t want to meet you for anything,” Reese said.
Yes, I do, Trudy thought.
“So, coffee,” Nolan said, warm and solid beside her.
“Gimme, gimme, gimme,” the voice on the radio said.
Kill me now, Trudy thought, and put her head on her shopping bags.
* * *
The streets grew dark as the cab left the city proper and turned into the warehouse district, and ten minutes later they stopped outside a deserted building, the parking lot lit by one lamp, high over its main door.
Reese opened the door and got out, holding the door for Trudy, who slid over on the seat and peered out at the darkness.
“There aren’t a lot of people here buying MacGuffins,” she said, staring at the empty lot.
“They probably sold out of them while you were trying to decide if I was a rapist,” Reese said, sounding peeved.
“We could turn around and go back,” Nolan said. “I’ll buy the coffee.”
Trudy took a deep breath and got out, her three shopping bags bumping against her knees.
“Want me to take those for you?” Reese said.
“No,” Trudy said as Nolan got out behind her.
“You are not a trusting woman,” Reese said.
“I don’t think they make those anymore,” Nolan said to him. “Tell you what, since you found the warehouse, I’ll pay for the cab.”
“Keep the cab,” Trudy said, and turned back to Reese.
“The Macs are in here,” Reese said, and opened the door to the warehouse.
There was light inside, but Trudy stopped at the door to wait for Nolan. He talked to the cabbie, and then he turned and came toward her and the cab drove away.
“Hey, I told you to keep the cab,” she said, and Nolan took her arm.
“He’s coming back,” he said, and his voice sounded different as he looked over her head into the warehouse.
“Why is he leaving at all?”
Reese came back to the door. “Come on in. You’re letting the heat out.”
Trudy took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold into the warehouse, dragging Nolan with her since he wouldn’t let go of her arm.
The place was a cavern filled with rows of shelving crammed with boxes, a giant version of the old toy store. High above, industrial lighting made the center space by the door bright, but the rest of the place was dark. It wasn’t silent, though. There was a radio somewhere blaring “The Little Drummer Boy.”
“Rum-pa-pum-pum,” Trudy said, not at all reassured.
“Over here,” Reese said, and led them away from the door, Trudy pulling Nolan along, since he still wouldn’t let go. “You can leave your Mac here.” He dropped his bag with the Twinkletoes in it. “I’m leaving my bag here.”
“Where are the MacGuffins?” Trudy said, keeping a tight hold on her own bags.
“And who are they?” Nolan said, and Trudy looked back to see three men now standing in front of the door. They looked a lot like Reese, young and dudelike in denim jackets, but they weren’t smiling.
Uh-oh, Trudy thought.
“Wait here,” Reese said, and went over to confer with the men.
“You know, I don’t feel good about this,” she said to Nolan.
“Good instincts,” Nolan said, not taking his eyes off the men. “Come here.”
He tugged on her arm, and she let him pull her over to the closest row of shelves.
“Be with you in a minute,” Reese called back, and Trudy nodded to him, and then Nolan jerked her arm and she tripped after him between two rows of shelves and into the darkness.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Shhhh.” He kept going, tugging her deeper into the gloom of the unlit shelving.
“What do you mean, ‘Shhhh’? What’s going on?”
“Quiet.” Nolan pulled her down another side row and then across another one, effectively losing them both in the darkness.
“Stop shushing me. I don’t like—”
He stopped and cupped her face with his hands and whispered, “Trudy, please shut up.”
“Why?” Trudy whispered back.
He leaned closer and whispered in her ear. “Because I think Reese is a bad guy. And I think he wants your MacGuffin. And I think those guys out there are his minions. So we should—”
“Minions?” Trudy said, so startled she spoke out loud.
Nolan put his hand over her mouth. “And we don’t want them to find us,” he whispered. “Not unless you’re prepared to give up that MacGuffin.”
Trudy shook her head, and he took his hand away and bent to her ear again. “Then we should hide it here. They’re going to find us, and we can tell them the box is here and let them spend the rest of their lives looking for it—”
Trudy shook her head again. “No.”
He slapped his hand over her mouth and whispered, “Listen. I’m not a toy collector, I’m an undercover cop.”
Trudy pulled back, trying to see him in the dark. “I don’t believe it,” she whispered back. “An undercover cop who teaches Chinese lit?”
“I’m a well-educated undercover cop.”
“This is your explanation.” She shook her head and started to move away, and he pulled her back.
“Look,” he whispered in her ear, “we knew the bad guys were operating from the university lit department, and I really do have a degree in Chinese. And some literature. Hey, I’m a good teacher.”
Actually, he was, Trudy remembered. That was another thing that had made her want to go out with him, competence. And now he was telling her that there was a toy-theft ring operating out of the lit department. “‘The bad guys.’ Is that really cop talk?”
“It’s too dark to show you my ID. Want to feel my badge?”
“You have to be kidding me.”
“Your buddy Reese—”
“He’s not my buddy,” Trudy said, and then she heard Reese call her name from the center space of the warehouse and stepped closer to Nolan.
“Listen to me,” Nolan said. “They’re toy hijackers and they want that doll. If things get bad, give it to them.”
Toy hijackers? “No.”
She heard him draw in his breath in exasperation, but she didn’t care.
“This is for Leroy,” she whispered. “His rat daddy ran off with the rat nanny, and his mother is in meltdown, but he knows Santa is bringing him a MacGuffin. He’s getting it.”
“Oh, Christ,” Nolan said under his breath. “I’ll get him another one, I swear. Just give them that one so we can walk out of here alive.”
“That’s not very heroic.”
“I’ll be heroic when you’re not here,” Nolan whispered. “Now I just want you out in one piece.”
“I’m not giving up Leroy’s Mac. What’s your Plan B?”
Nolan sighed his exasperation and then took her arm and drew her deeper into the shelves. “We hide.”
“Hide?” Trudy whispered back. “How—”
“Shut up,” he whispered, and she did, following him deeper into the darkness until they came to a wall. He took her hand and led her along the wall until he found a staircase, and then he took her slowly up the stairs, testing each tread to make sure it didn’t creak, which wasn’t really necessary since “The Little Drummer Boy” had given way to Brenda Lee singing “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” making her usual Christmas fortune in residuals.
When they reached the top, they were on a walkway, looking out over the warehouse beneath the windows of a darkened office. Nolan tugged her arm and she sank down with him on the metal platform as silently as possible, her shopping bags rustling.
“Now what?” she whispered.
“Now we wait for backup.”
“What backup?”
“The backup I sent the cabbie for. Shhhh.”
He was peering over the rail, but they were too far away to see into the lighted part of the warehouse.
“You’re really a cop?” Trudy whispered. “Why do I find that hard to believe?”
“I don’t know,” Nolan whispered back. “Why are you holding on to that damn doll when that could get us out of here?”
“What if you’re not a cop? What if Reese is your accomplice and you’re working together to get the Mac from me?”
“For our mutual nephew?” Nolan’s whisper sounded a lot tougher now, but that might just have been the exasperation in his voice. “Has it occurred to you that you’re trapped in a deserted warehouse with a bunch of thugs?”
“Yes,” Trudy whispered back. “Well, no. For all I know, that’s Reese’s glee club out there. Maybe it’s his bowling night. They’re all wearing the same jacket.”
“Be serious, Trudy. You’re risking your life for a doll so your nephew won’t be disappointed on Christmas Day in spite of the fact that his father is gone and his mother is in a gin coma.”
“Hey.”
“Shhhh. He’s already disappointed, Tru. His family’s gone. Give Reese the doll. When he makes a run for it, we’ll arrest him. He won’t get away with it.”
Trudy pushed him away. “First, my sister is not in a gin coma. Second, his family is not gone; he has me and his mother when she sobers up. Third, if I give Reese this doll and you arrest him, the doll becomes evidence and I never see it again. So no. Leroy is going to get this doll tomorrow morning. He is going to believe in Santa, since he can’t believe in men or nannies. When does your backup get here?”
“I don’t think you can indict all men because of one rat daddy.”
“Yeah? How many times have you lied to me tonight?”
Nolan leaned back against the wall. “Too many to count. But I’m still here trying to save your cantankerous butt. That should mean something.”
“I have only your word for that and as we know, you lie.”
“Okay. We’ll sit here and wait and hope Reese doesn’t find us.”
“That’s your plan? Hope he doesn’t find us?”
“You always this cranky?”
“Only when I’m cold, I’m tired, I’m scared, and men keep lying to me while I’m trying to get a kid the Christmas present he deserves.”
“Okay, fine.” Nolan shifted on the platform, his whisper savage in the darkness. “We’ll take the doll if we can get out of here with it. Just promise me that if he says, ‘The doll or your life,’ you’ll give him the doll.”
“No.”
“Trudy—”
“I can’t.” Trudy swallowed hard. “Leroy believes. Do you know how long it’s been since I believed in anything? In anybody? But Leroy believes that when he comes downstairs tomorrow morning, there’ll be a MacGuffin under his tree. He knows there will be because he believes in Santa Claus; he believes the world is a good place. And he’s going to keep on believing that because I’m taking this doll home no matter what.” She shifted against the cold wall. “Besides, nobody shoots anybody over a doll.”
Nolan sighed. “I suppose it has occurred to you that you’ve lost your grip.”
“No,” Trudy said. “I’ve lost my faith. My grip is just fine.” She pulled the shopping bags closer. “Leroy gets the Mac and Courtney gets the Twinkle, and then we’ll put our lives back together.”
“Their lives,” Nolan said.
“Mine, too. My resolution for 2007 is to start believing in people again.” She leaned closer to him. “I might start with you if you help me get this doll home.”
He was quiet for a while. “Okay. I’ll try to help you.”
She pulled back. “I’ll try to believe in you, then. No guarantees, of course.”
“Okay, fine, I will help you,” Nolan said.
“Promise me,” Trudy said, gripping his coat. “Promise me that Leroy will have this Mac tomorrow morning.”
“Trudy—”
“Fine.” Trudy stood up, trying to keep her bags from rustling. “I’ll do it myself. Could you move? I need to get past you to the stairs.”
“I promise,” Nolan said.
She looked down at him in the dark. “Easy to say.”
“I promise,” he said grimly, getting to his feet. “But now you have to do what I say.”
“And why would I do that?” she said.
“Because you trust me.”
“Ha.”
“Then why are you listening to me?”
Trudy bit her lip. “I might trust you a little.”
“All the way, Tru,” Nolan said. “If I’m going to get you out of here, you have to do exactly what I say.”
Trudy felt him close, his body warm next to hers in the darkness. If she was going to start trusting people, he might be the place to start. “You never even kissed me,” she whispered. “What was that about? You never—”
He bent and kissed her, not gently, and she clutched at his jacket, wanting something to hold on to, putting her forehead against his shoulder when he broke the kiss because it had felt so right, everything about him felt so right.
The radio changed to “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”
Our song, Trudy thought. “Okay. I trust you. What do we do next?”
“Pray,” Nolan said, sounding a little breathless. “Because we’re in a world of hurt here.”
“Well, then—”
Something moved behind him and Trudy saw one of the minions, just his face, for a second before Nolan jerked his elbow back and caught the guy across the nose. He turned and hit him again before he fell, catching him before he rolled off the platform. Trudy fumbled in her purse for her miniflash, but by the time she found it and turned it on, the guy was at Nolan’s feet, his arms tied behind his back with a belt, and Nolan was putting on the guy’s blue jacket.
“Turn that off,” Nolan whispered, and Trudy did.
“So you’re a cop,” she whispered back.
“Here’s the plan.”
“How did you know where to hit him?” Trudy said. “It’s dark as hell in here. How did you know?”
“You were looking at him,” Nolan whispered back. “I hit what you were looking at. We have to move now; this guy found us and the others will, too. So I’m going down there to distract them. You’re going out the door. If there’s nobody out there yet, run for the street.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Trudy said, holding on to his sleeve.
“Trudy, I’m safer with you out of here than I am with you in here. You’re a distraction. Now follow me until I get out into the light and they see me. Then run like hell for the door. Got it?”
She didn’t want to leave him, that was wrong. But he was probably right, she wasn’t going to be any help at all. “Okay.”
“One more thing,” Nolan said, and kissed her, and this time it hit her hard, he was going out there to save her, and she kissed him back with everything she had.
When she came up for air, she was dizzy. “Maybe we should stay here,” she whispered. “Hiding is good. We could do this until the backup shows.”
“They’ll come looking for this guy,” Nolan whispered back, nodding to the minion at his feet. “We’ll do this later.” He looked at her, shook his head, and kissed her again, and she relaxed into him, irrationally happy about the whole mess.
Then he stepped back and she sighed.
“Right. Later,” she said, and followed him down the stairs toward the light.
* * *
Nolan left her in the first row of shelves nearest the door, just steps away from the lighted part of the warehouse and the way out. “Watch until their backs are turned,” he said. “Then run like hell.”
She nodded, and he disappeared down the row again as her heart pounded.
He would be okay. Nobody killed over toys, even Major MacGuffins. They wouldn’t do anything to him. She was almost sure. She bit her lip and waited, and then her cell phone rang, and she grabbed it and answered it before it could ring again.
“Don’t do that,” she whispered into the phone.
“You didn’t call me,” Courtney said. “You’re fifteen minutes late.”
“Yeah, well there are guys after us,” Trudy whispered.
“What guys?” Courtney said. “What us?”
“Nolan and me. Reese’s got a ring of toy thieves here—”
“Toy thieves? What are you talking about?”
“Call nine-one-one,” Trudy said, and then realized Courtney didn’t know where they were. “We’re—”
Somebody took her cell phone out of her hand, and she screamed and turned.
“Let’s talk,” Reese said, and shut off her phone.
“I’m not giving you the Mac,” Trudy said, holding her bags behind her.
Reese sighed. “Trudy, I don’t know what Nolan’s told you, but I’m positive it’s not the truth.”
“He’s a cop.” Trudy took a step back. “And boy, are you in trouble.”
“He’s a double agent for the Chinese government,” Reese said.
Trudy tightened her grip on her bags. “Whoa. You’ve got a better imagination than he does. He said you were a toy thief.”
Reese looked taken aback. “A toy thief? Who the hell steals toys?”
“The Grinch,” Trudy said. “I don’t know. It sounded plausible when he said it. It still sounds plausible compared to the Chinese-double-agent bit.”
“I am not a toy thief,” Reese said.
“But you don’t have a nephew, either. Because we’re in this warehouse and there are no Mac Twos, which means you had to get me here for some reason.”
“The Chinese spy codes.” Reese nodded toward her bags. “They’re in that MacGuffin box. I’m with the CIA and I need them.”
“Fat chance.” Trudy stepped back again. “I don’t care what alphabet you flash at me, you are not taking this Mac from me.”
“Look on the box, Trudy,” Reese said patiently. “In the lower right-hand corner, there should be a black X.”
“There isn’t,” Trudy said, holding the bag tighter.
“It’s small,” Reese said. “Look for it.”
Trudy hesitated, but he met her eyes without flinching. He’s telling the truth, she thought, and put her bags down. She took the Mac box out of the bag and stepped into the light to look at it.
Sure enough, in the lower right-hand corner on the back was a small black X.
“You put it there,” Trudy said, not wanting to believe Nolan was the bad guy.
“When?” Reese said. “You haven’t let that box out of your hands since you got it.”
“Oh, hell.” Trudy swallowed. “I need this doll, Reese.”
“It’s okay,” Reese said. “I don’t need the doll. I just need the instruction sheet. That’s where the codes are. Deal?”
Trudy bit her lip. Leroy didn’t need the instructions; he probably knew more about the toy by now than the designers did. Toy hijackers and Chinese double agents were both ridiculous; Leroy was real. “Okay.”
Reese held out his hand for the box, and she tightened her grip.
“Just the instructions.” She opened the lid and felt down the back of the box for the paper, but there was nothing there. “Damn.” She held the box into the pool of light cast by the fixture far above her and looked in. “It must have fallen under the doll.” She carefully pulled the doll out, still wired into the cardboard backing that showed explosions, and shook the box upside down.
“Trudy,” Reese said, his voice grim.
“I’m looking.” Trudy dropped the empty box to unwire the MacGuffin to see if the instructions had lodged behind it.
Reese picked up the box and began to dissemble it, checking in all the folds. “It’s not here.”
“It’s not here, either.” Trudy pulled the cardboard background away from the doll and handed it over, holding on to the Mac tightly. “And it was earlier.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Nolan checked—” She stopped, appalled.
“Nolan opened the box and took out the instructions,” Reese said, sounding grim.
“But he put them back, I saw him,” Trudy said. “He slipped them behind the cardboard and closed up the box.”
“He palmed them, Trudy. He got the codes.”
Trudy thought back. “He couldn’t have. I was watching him, right up to…”
Reese looked at her patiently.
“Right up to when you called to me in the checkout line,” Trudy said, clutching the Mac closer and feeling miserable. “I looked away to talk to you. Did you see him take them?”
“No,” Reese said. “I was looking at you.”
Trudy felt ill. “Can I have the box back? At least I can give the doll to Leroy for Christmas.” She bent, keeping the doll in one hand, and picked up the shopping bags with the cow and the Twinkletoes in them.
“Look,” Reese said. “I need your help. Nolan’s a bad guy, and he’s somewhere in this warehouse with those codes, and he trusts you. You call to him, get him to come out to us, and we’ll take it from there.”
Trudy stepped back. “You’ll hurt him.”
Reese shook his head, moving closer. “You watch too many movies. Spies don’t hurt people, they just swap information. And that’s all we’re going to do. Take back the codes.” He smiled at her, his baby face reassuring. “Just call out for him, Trudy. He’ll come to you. He likes you. Then you can take the doll and go home, and you’ll have done a good thing for your country, too.” She hesitated and he said, “Of course, I’ll have to check the doll before you go to make sure there’s nothing else there.” He held out his hand for the MacGuffin.
Of course you will, Trudy thought, and looked around him at the door. Could she shove him out of the way and get out?
“Come on,” Reese said. “Who are you going to trust, me or the guy who lied to you and stole the instruction sheet?”
Good question.
She stuck the Mac under her arm, looped the two remaining shopping bags over her wrist, and opened her purse.
“Trudy?” Reese said.
“I’m gonna go with the guy who lied,” Trudy said, and Maced him.
* * *
Reese had stopped screaming by the time Trudy found the staircase again, which comforted her some. If he was really a CIA agent, she’d just Maced a good guy, but on the other hand …
Actually, there wasn’t an other hand. She’d just Maced a good guy.
“What the hell did you do to him?” Nolan whispered, and she jerked back, almost dropping her last two bags.
The Mac she kept her grip on.
“I Maced him. How’d you know I’d be here?”
“I figured this is where you’d run to once the other guys blocked the door. You were supposed to get out.”
“Yeah, well, you were supposed to be the good guy,” Trudy whispered back. “You took the instructions, you bastard.”
“Yeah,” Nolan said. “So?”
“So you’re not a cop,” Trudy said. “You’re a double agent for the Chinese, you rat—”
“He told you that?”
Trudy stopped. “That is pretty far-fetched.”
“Trudy, he’s the double agent for the Chinese.”
Trudy glared at where she thought he was in the darkness. “Do you guys just make this stuff up as you go?”
“MacGuffins are made in China,” Nolan whispered. “They marked one box last year and sent it over to that toy store. We just found out that it went missing and never got picked up, which is why we had the toy store staked out.”
“We who?” Trudy whispered back. “No, wait, I know this part. You’re the CIA. And I’m pissed off. Do you really think I’m going to believe this crap? That the Chinese secret service puts codes in dolls? Why don’t they just e-mail them?”
“Computers can be hacked.”
“And Major MacGuffins can’t?” Trudy looked at the doll in her arms.
“One sheet of paper, all the codes,” Nolan said. “On microdot. Very efficient. Except they lost them last year.”
“So this is about last year’s codes?” Trudy shook her head. “Why would you want last year’s codes? This story needs work.”
“Because with last year’s codes we can decipher all of last year’s transmissions that we intercepted. Which is what’s going on right now.”
“Right now.”
“I took them out of the box and passed them on,” Nolan said. “If you’ll give the doll to Reese, he’ll realize it’s over and hit the road.”
“Evidently not,” Trudy said. “He knows you’ve got the instruction sheet and he doesn’t seem to be leaving. I’m not buying any of this, you know. But I also don’t care about any of it. As long as Leroy—”
“I know, I know, he gets the doll.” Nolan sighed. “I can’t believe I promised you that. I’m going to end up getting shot for some stupid doll.”
“Yes, but you’re saving a little boy’s Christmas,” Trudy said. “That’s very heroic.”
“I’m still gonna get shot,” Nolan said. “So here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to take your Mace—”
“I dropped it,” Trudy said.
“Great,” Nolan said.
“Well, I never Maced anybody before. He scared the hell out of me when he screamed. But I’ll be better now. And I don’t need the Mace. I’ve seen Miss Congeniality twenty times, it’s Courtney’s favorite movie.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That SING thing. Solar plexus, Instep, Nose, Groin.”
“No.” Nolan’s whisper was flat in the darkness. “Do not think you’re Rambo. Just run for the damn door.”
“Okay.” Trudy shifted the Mac to her other arm as she tried to remember what other weapons she might have in her purse. No Mace. No knife. No gun. She clearly hadn’t come out prepared for Christmas Eve. Not even a nail file.… “Wait a minute.” She reached in one of the bags, pulled out Courtney’s Twinkletoes box, and pried the top open.
“What are you doing?” Nolan whispered.
“Arming myself.” Trudy opened the manicure set wired next to Twink’s feet. There was a nail file in there, just as she’d remembered. “Got it.”
“Do not fight with anybody,” Nolan whispered, the order clear. “Just run for the damn door.”
“Okay.” Trudy put the nail file in her coat pocket.
“We need something to create a disturbance. Too bad that grenade in the Mac doesn’t work. I could use a grenade.”
“There’s a gun,” Trudy brought up the Mac’s hand so she could look down the barrel of the Mac’s revolver. “What’s this thing stuck on the end?”
“A silencer,” Nolan whispered. “If only I had one for you.”
“So is the gun louder with it off?”
“Don’t fire that thing, we don’t know what it’ll do.” Nolan peered over the edge of the stairs.
Trudy leaned back against the staircase and looked at the gun. It was a horrible thing to give a kid. What were people thinking? Evil Nemesis Brandon’s mother must have had a politically correct meltdown when she realized what was in the box, but she got it for him anyway. Well, good for ENB’s mom. Trudy resisted the urge to pull the trigger and pulled on the silencer instead, which popped right off. “Whoops.”
“Shhhh.”
The silencer felt a little heavy for something that was basically a plastic cap. Trudy stuck her hand in her purse and found her miniflash. Hunching over to shield the light from the warehouse, she looked inside the cylinder. There was something rectangular stuck in there, about half an inch wide, with a slice of something white in it.
“Oh, hell,” Trudy said out loud.
“Shhhh.” Nolan turned on her. “You—”
“It’s a thumb drive,” Trudy whispered.
“What?”
“The silencer. It’s a USB key, a thumb drive, you know, a mini hard drive. It wasn’t just the code in the instructions—”
Nolan leaned in to look, and Trudy felt him press warm against her as he took the silencer, his weight a comfort, especially since she knew she was holding something that Reese probably would shoot her for.
“This is not good,” she whispered.
“Oh, honey, this is great,” Nolan said in her ear. “Oh, babe, do you have any idea what you just found?”
“The thing Reese is going to kill me for?” Trudy said.
“He’s not going to kill you,” Nolan said, but he didn’t sound as though he were giving the thought his full attention. “Give me that doll.”
“No,” Trudy said. “You can have the silencer, but you can’t have—”
She heard something and shut up as Nolan froze.
Then he leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “I need your tape.”
She frowned at him, and he began to go silently through her bags until he held up the Scotch tape she’d bought to wrap Leroy’s Mac a million years ago. Then he put the gray plastic silencer on the underside of the gray railing along the wall and began to wrap tape around it.
Good thing I got the invisible kind, she thought, and wondered if she was ever going to get home.
“Okay,” Nolan whispered when he was done. “We’re going out there again. And I will distract them and this time you will run for the door even if your phone rings.”
“How are you going to distract them?”
“Give me that cow.”
“The cow?” Trudy handed over the bag with the cow and hugged the Mac to her.
“You pull the string and it talks, right?”
“It says, ‘Eat chicken.’”
“Right. Come on.”
“Aren’t you going to kiss me good-bye again?”
“No. I’m going with you this time.”
“That’s good, I like that better,” Trudy said, and followed him down the stairs again, clutching the Mac and the Twinkletoes bag.
When they were back at the end of the row by the door, Nolan pulled the string and wrapped it around the cow’s body. “Door’s there,” he whispered, nodding toward it.
She nodded back and gripped the nail file in her pocket while he drew his arm back.
“With your shield or on it, cow,” he said, and tossed it over the shelves.
The string unwound itself before the cow cleared the top, and it mooed, “Eat chicken” as a fusillade rang out. Nolan shoved her toward the door, and she ran for it, hitting Reese, who was running around the end of the shelves, his eyes still red and streaming from the Mace as he raised his gun. He grabbed for her, and she stabbed him in the gun arm, dropping her Twinkletoes bag but still clutching the Mac as he screamed, and then she kicked him in the knee and ran like hell for the door, wrenching it open as Reese fired, hearing the bullet ping on the metal as she dove for the darkness.
* * *
Trudy ran for the edge of the parking lot, clutching the Mac, adrenaline pumping, not stopping when she heard, “Hold it!”
Somebody grabbed Trudy’s arm and swung her around and she saw it was the cabdriver. “Give me that doll,” he said.
“No.” She smacked him with the bag and as he raised one hand to protect his head, she saw the gun in the shoulder holster under his leather jacket.
“Damn it,” she said, and swung her elbow sharply into his solar plexus, stamped down on his instep, punched him in the nose, and then tried to kick him in the groin and missed and got his thigh instead, collapsing him onto the pavement.
Good enough, she thought, and took off for the street, only to have somebody else grab her arm just as she reached the chain-link fence.
“No,” she said, and tried to turn, but whoever it was wrapped his other arm around her waist and pulled her back against him.
“Stop it!” Nolan said. “It’s me. Give me the Mac.”
“No,” Trudy said, furious, and smacked her head back into his nose. She heard him swear and knew she’d gotten him, but he didn’t let go, so she tried for his instep, but he jerked her off her feet.
“Trudy, stop it.”
She swung her elbow back again and missed, and he kicked her feet out from under her and dumped her onto the grimy, wet pavement, yanking her arms behind her.
“You couldn’t make this easy, could you?” he said as her cheek scraped on the ground. “You had to be a hard-ass.”
“You bastard, you promised me I’d keep the doll,” she said, and then she felt him yank her wrists together as he slapped handcuffs on her and took the Mac away from her.
“Trudy Maxwell. You’ve been taken into custody for criminal obstinacy.”
“Fuck you,” Trudy said into the pavement. “And you have to be an actual cop to take me into custody, which you are not, so don’t think I’m not going to sue your ass for kidnapping.”
He put his arm under her and lifted her gently back onto her feet. “I’m not kidnapping you.”
“Yeah?” Her hair fell in her eyes and she couldn’t brush it out, which made her madder. “You and Reese, this was all a setup. He didn’t even shoot at you back there, he shot at me. You were working together.”
Nolan swung her around and gave her a gentle push back toward the warehouse. There were more cars there now and a van, and while she watched, somebody shoved Reese into the back of one of the cars. He was handcuffed.
“Not working with Reese,” Nolan said.
“I don’t see any police department insignia on these cars,” Trudy said, shrugging off his hand as he prodded her forward. “In fact, I don’t see any insignia at all.”
Nolan stopped her in the pool of light from one of the warehouse lamps and showed her his ID.
“‘NSA,’” Trudy read. “Very cute. Got one for the CIA and the FBI, too? How about FEMA, I hear they’re really tough. Not as tough as double agents for the Chinese, of course. How dumb do you think I am?”
“Trudy, I am NSA, Reese was a double agent for the Chinese, and I really did try to help you.”
“Yeah,” Trudy said bitterly. “That’s why I’m in handcuffs now.”
“You’re in handcuffs because you’re resisting,” Nolan said. “I’m trying to get a promotion here, and you’re beating me up. It makes me look bad.”
“Great. That’s what this is about, some damn promotion? Knock a helpless woman to the ground and steal her little nephew’s Christmas present?”
“The ‘helpless’ is debatable,” Nolan said as they went past the cabbie, who was dabbing at his bleeding nose and glaring at her. “You owe Alex an apology.”
“He attacked me.”
“He was trying to get you into the cab so he could get you away from here,” Nolan said. “He’s one of ours.”
“He was trying to take the doll, so he’s not one of mine,” Trudy said, and then she saw the woman they were moving toward. She was wearing a red and green bobble hat, but she didn’t look like a Christmas shopper anymore. “Who the hell is she?”
“My boss,” Nolan said.
Trudy waited until they were in front of the woman, and then she said, “Is this guy really an NSA agent?”
“Yes.” The woman spoke without any expression whatsoever, which only made Trudy madder.
“Well, he groped me in that warehouse,” Trudy said.
“I’m not at all surprised,” the woman said, and held her hand out for the Mac.
Nolan gave it to her.
“You bastard,” Trudy said.
“Trudy, it’s national security.”
“No, it isn’t,” Trudy snapped. “You got the codes when you got the instruction sheet, and then you got the USB key when you got the silencer. You don’t need the doll. You don’t care that a little kid is going to wake up tomorrow and know that everything in his world is a lie, that doesn’t bother you—”
“Trudy,” Nolan said, misery in his voice.
“—as long as your work gets done.” She wrenched away from him, her hands still cuffed behind her. “You guys, guys like you and Reese and Prescott, you don’t care about anything as long as you get what you want. Well, fine, you got it. Now take these handcuffs off me, because you know damn well you’re not going to arrest me for anything.”
“You have to promise to stop hitting people,” Nolan said.
“Fine,” Trudy said. “I promise.”
He unlocked the cuffs and she kicked him in the shin. He said, “Ouch,” and grabbed at his leg.
“You promised me,” Trudy said. “You said I could trust you, and I was as dumb as Courtney, I believed you.” She turned back to his boss. “You need me for anything else or can I go home to my devastated family?”
“We have questions,” the woman said, and gestured to the car. “We’ll have you home in a couple of hours.”
“Fine,” Trudy said, refusing to look back at Nolan. “I’ll tell you anything you want as long as you give me back the Mac.”
“Unfortunately not,” the woman said.
“Here’s your Twinkletoes,” Nolan said, holding out a shopping bag. “I found it in the warehouse.”
Trudy took the bag. “Rot and die,” she said, and walked toward the car.
“Trudy, be reasonable,” he said, following her. “This is national security—”
She turned around and he almost bumped into her. “You didn’t have to kiss me and tell me I could trust you. You didn’t have to make me believe in you again. You had the NSA out here, you were always going to get that damn doll. You could have left me my dignity, but no, you had to sucker me in.”
“That’s not fair.”
She stepped closer. “That’s why I hate you. That’s why Leroy’s going to hate his dad and his mom and me tomorrow, because he knew there was no Santa, but we all said, ‘Trust us, Santa’s gonna come through for you.’ We hung that kid out to dry. He’s going to be right to hate us. And I’m right to hate you.”
She turned to get into the car, and he caught her arm and said, “Trudy, I’m sorry,” and she shook him off and got into the backseat without looking back at him.