A Christmas Kiss (6 page)

But was she losing it? Joey had thought she might be. Then again, she'd seemed perfectly sane. Just wounded and hurt. Most people had to let the scar tissue build to survive, yet Cori kept the wound wide open, kept looking for Kit and insisting he was alive, and had come to New Orleans to launch her own investigation. Now, that was crazy. Deliberately stepping into danger wasn't the footwork of a woman with good sense.

He flipped through more pages. In all of the notes and reports on Kit Wells and Brently Gleason, now Cori St. John, there was no mention of chocolate candies. Relief was his first emotion, and then disappointment. Deep in the back of his mind he had thought that just possibly the chocolate kisses were part of the record, something that someone could find and use against Cori. Now he was back at square one. Either Cori had made up the business about the candy—or someone who had known Kit was taking advantage of personal knowledge to manipulate Cori into danger.

He closed the folder and got up. If he followed procedure, he'd fill out the paperwork noting that Cori had abandoned the WP program and put herself in extreme jeopardy. To safeguard his job, he should do so immediately. But something held him back. Hefting his keys, he went out the door as fast as he'd come in. The black sports car spun loose gravel as he tore out of the parking lot and headed back to the French Quarter. Perhaps he could pick up her trail once again.

The afternoon light slanted down across the French Market, giving the bundled vendors a golden glow. Cori was not deceived by the light. The day was growing colder and colder. Christmas was often a time for shorts and T-shirts in the South, but this year Jack Frost had come for a visit and dug in his heels. It was going to be cold enough for a fire. For those lucky enough to have a fireplace.

All afternoon Cori had waited, getting up to stroll around the area, to buy a croissant or a cup of hot coffee, or a paperback to pass the time. Now her book was half read and she was cold to the bone.

Several possibilities came to mind. Since she'd blown her cover completely, she could also call her sister Lane and make one human contact that would work against the depression and disappointment that was becoming all too familiar to her. But there were practical matters with more immediacy. Such as finding a hotel room. It was Christmas, and the hotels in the Quarter might be packed. That would mean moving to another section of town, which was something she didn't want to do. She and Kit had lived their life in the Quarter. This was where she'd find him—if he was here.

She pulled the heavy red sweater up and around her neck and ears and snuggled down into it. What she needed was just a tiny nap. The idea of sleeping on a park bench near the river made her smile. Had it come to this? Sleeping like a derelict on a bench? Yes. But the golden sunlight struck her face and forced her eyes closed, and she drifted deep into the warmth of the sweater, glad for the promise of sleep without the terrible dreams that often awakened her. Here, with the bustle of the market around her, she felt as if she'd come home. She could rest for a moment before she continued her search.

The last thing she remembered was the sound of a child crying in excitement at the puppets on display not fifty yards away. The vendor was fairly adept at managing them and was giving a small impromptu show. Exactly the kind of thing she loved to watch. She had fallen asleep with a smile.

When she woke, it was to stare into the face of a little girl. Fake fur earmuffs in a leopard pattern gave the child a comic look, until Cori sat up and took notice of her dark stare.

"Are you hurt?" the child asked. "My mother will help."

Cori shook her head and smiled. "I'm fine." The little girl was a true beauty. Dark eyes, dark hair.

She looked something like Joey Tio's sister. "What's your name?" Cori looked around to find the mother.

"Kayla." The little girl did a curtsey. "And yours?"

"Bren... Cori." In the two years she'd been in the WP program, Cori had never messed up her name. She had put aside her old self and become Cori. Now the name seemed to fit her far better than her old one. So why had she almost slipped? It probably didn't matter, anyway. She was out of the program. She could call herself anything she wanted. "Can I have a piece of candy?" The girl bit her bottom lip.

"I'm sorry, honey, I don't have any."

"Yes, you do." She pointed to the seat beside Cori. "That man put it there."

Cori turned slowly to look at the bench beside her. Resting so close to her thigh that they almost touched her were three kisses. Three little silver kisses. She felt herself swallow and knew she could not scream or she would terrify the little girl.

"Can I have one?" the child asked.

"Sure." Cori's voice sounded strained even to her. Kayla looked up at her in mid-reach, a question in her eyes.

"Mama says I shouldn't ask people for things."

"Take the candy." Cori forced a smile. "All three. I think the man must have meant to leave them for you, anyway." She took a breath. "Tell me, Kayla, did the man look like Santa Claus?" She tried to put a note of teasing in the question. If she frightened the child, she'd never get any information.

"Oh, no." She unwrapped a candy and popped it into her mouth, looking over her shoulder to be sure her mother wasn't watching the illegal candy consumption.

"Well, he must have looked like one of the elves, then?"

Kayla laughed, sucking the sweet chocolate. "No. He looked like Uncle Adam." She reached for another.

"And what does Uncle Adam look like?" Cori glanced around for the child's mother. Where was she? Surely she'd show any second and demand her daughter not do anything so foolish as stand and talk with a stranger.

"He's tall." Kayla nodded, then focused on the next candy.

"Go ahead," Cori said. "Have it."

Kayla reached for it. "He works on the oil rigs."

"Does he have dark hair?"

"Oh, no." Both little cheeks bulged, one slightly larger than the other where the freshest candy resided.

"Then he has blond hair?"

Kayla considered. "Not really blond. But kind of. Except this man had longer hair. And he stood and stared at you for a long, long time. I thought he was going to wake you up by staring."

"And then he put the candy down?"

"He took it out of the pocket of his coat. And he put it down___" Kayla imitated the very precise placement of the candy while at the same time snaring the last piece. "Just like that. He almost touched you but didn't. Is he your boyfriend?"

Cori felt her smile falter. "I don't know."

"But he left the candy for you. A Christmas kiss." She grinned impishly as she popped the third and last chocolate into her mouth.

The thought came to Cori so fast, so totally formed and filled with ugly possibility that she acted without thinking. She had eaten none of the chocolates left for her. What if they'd been poisoned? "Spit out the candy, Kayla." She grabbed the child's shoulder and shook her. "Spit it out!"

"What?" The little girl cried. "Mama!"

"Spit it out." Cori grabbed her jaw and forced it open, using her fingers to find the chocolates, one almost melted, and drag them out and onto the ground.

"Mama!" Kayla's eyes were wild and she broke free of Cori's grip. "Mama!"

Out of the crowd, a short, dark-haired woman came running. She scooped the child against her and then began to survey the crowd, her expression a fierce mask of fear and fury. She crooned to the child as she looked for the offender, determined to do terrible damage.

Kayla pointed to Cori, who remained on the bench.

"What have you done to my daughter?" The woman came at Cori like a mad dog. "What did you do?" She turned back to the marketplace. "Call the police! Call 911. This woman has hurt my child!"

Several men came out of the crowd and shifted closer, just in case Cori tried to make a break for freedom.

"I can explain." She spoke aloud but no one heard. Kayla was screaming against her mother's leg, terrified by Cori's abrupt behavior. The mother was guarding her and yelling instructions into the crowd.

Cori sat on the bench, her thoughts centered on a tall, sandy-haired man who had crept up on her in her sleep and put three chocolate kisses by her thigh. The child had seen him. He wasn't a figment of her imagination.

"You are going to jail," the woman spat at Cori.

"Your child found some candy on the bench beside me. She ate it, and it suddenly occurred to me it might be poisoned. I made her spit it out." Cori spoke softly, staring directly into the woman's eyes. At last her words penetrated and some of the fury left the mother's face.

She turned to the child and spoke in rapid French, which Cori had never learned to follow. The child looked at Cori, her eyes still filled with tears but no longer screaming, and nodded her head.

The mother knelt down and examined the little girl's mouth. Traces of chocolate were clearly evident.

"I shouldn't have let her have the candy," Cori said. "I wasn't thinking. But she saw it here, and I didn't care. But then I realized I had no idea where it had come from. That maybe someone had, you know, put something in it."

Cori's words raised another fear in the mother's face, but she was calmer now. She spoke to the child again. This time the little girl shook her head. The mother turned back to Cori. "She said the candy fell from your purse."

Cori felt as if she'd been slapped. "It didn't come from my purse. She told me a man left it on the bench."

The mother consulted with Kayla once again in the heated rush of French. She held the little girl's face so that she could not look away. At last she turned back to Cori. "She said it came from your purse, that it fell out on the bench."

"A man left it. Kayla saw him. She described him perfectly. She said he looked like her Uncle Adam."

The woman gave Cori a strange look and spoke to the child in French once again. Placing her hand on her daughter's shoulder, she slowly shifted her away from Cori. "Kayla made up the story of the man."

"Why?" Cori felt her boost of confidence fade and her fears grow as she watched the woman's face fall into an expression of pity. "Because you looked so sad and alone. She wanted you to have a boyfriend. She said the candy fell from your purse." The woman backed away from Cori. "Kayla doesn't have an Uncle Adam."

Cori sagged against the bench.

"The candy she ate, where did it come from?" The mother was still worried that the candy might be contaminated.

Cori looked up. "I don't know."

Something in her vague and troubled state made the woman pull her daughter against her body.

"We'll wash out your mouth, Kayla." She got a Kleenex out of her purse and picked up the candy from the pavement.

In the distance was the angry wail of police cars approaching at a fast clip.

Joey was drawn to the sound of sirens and the whirling blue lights of the black-and-white units that had congregated at the north end of the French Market. His gut told him that something bad had happened and that, somehow, Cori St. John was involved. He got out of his car and ran, dodging cardboard boxes filled with crafts and treasures. He saw four officers standing in a circle around a woman with dark hair and a big red sweater. Off to the side was a woman and a crying child and a gathering of sightseers that grew larger by the minute.

He stepped forward, flipped his federal commission to the cops and put a proprietary hand on Cori's arm. "Come with me," he said, smoothly pulling her through the tangle of black leather police jackets.

"Hold on." One of the cops grabbed Cori's other shoulder. "We've had a little problem here."

"You're going to have a bigger problem if you don't back off." Joey stepped between Cori and the policeman. "This woman is protected." He leaned forward. "Don't make me spell it out for you," he warned in a harsh whisper.

"This woman has been accused of accosting a child." The policeman, who was not as tall as Joey but several pounds heavier, was not budging. "We've made a report, and we have to file it."

Joey looked at the child, who was standing beside her mother. The mother looked less than certain.

"Ma'am, are you filing charges?" Joey asked.

"I don't know," she said. "Kayla said the woman didn't really hurt her. She gave her some candy and then forced her to spit it out." She looked behind her as if she wanted to disappear.

Cori finally spoke, her voice soft and her words directed to Joey. He seemed the only one there interested in hearing what she had to say. "The candy was left on the bench. I didn't care if Kayla had it, but then I realized I didn't know where it came from. I guess I overreacted. I did make her spit it out."

Her voice dropped to a whisper as she confronted a hard possibility. "I was afraid it might be poisoned. I haven't eaten any of the other candy."

"What candy?" The policeman wore a badge that identified him as Officer Lewis.

"Someone left candy on the bench while I was asleep. Some kisses." Even as she said it, Cori realized it sounded suspicious. Or at least deliberately dumb.

"This woman was attempting to protect the child." Joey eased Cori a little farther away. "I don't see where there's a problem."

"Ma'am, are you pressing charges?" Lewis asked the mother.

"No, no." She ran her hand through her child's hair. "But I am going to have a talk with my daughter.

She knows better than to accept candy from strangers. It could have been poisoned."

"That's true." Lewis nodded at her. "Okay, then." He turned back to Cori, his pale eyes boring into her. "Aren't you..." He stopped and looked at Joey, obviously putting two and two together. "Well, I'll be. I thought you'd been moved out of the South."

"This really isn't the time." Joey nodded toward his car.

"Oh, yeah, the retrial." Lewis nodded sagely. "You know, Mr. Tio, it would be better if you kept your clients out of the middle of public disputes." His grin was shark-like. "I wouldn't exactly call this protection."

"I, uh, I'm not in the..."