Chasing Tinsel (Miranda Vaughn Mysteries) by Ellie Ashe Read Free Book Online

Santas stuffed fistfuls of jewelry into their velvet bags. Murph’s grip was enough to throw me off balance, and I tripped over the same velvet rope that had slowed down Pete earlier. I hit the dusty felt floor covering, falling face down in a cloud of ancient glitter.
    I scrambled to my feet and took in the pandemonium that surrounded the Winter Wonderland. Two Santas were stuffing their bags with jewelry while a third stood in the entrance to the store, pulling the engagement rings out of the window display. The jewelry store’s employees all dove for cover behind the counters. A shrieking alarm pierced the air, but there were still no mall cops to be seen.  
    The Santa near the store’s entrance yelled to the others and they abruptly stopped their looting and left the store, the three of them running back toward the center of the mall.  
    “Murph!” I yelled. “They’re getting away.”  
    Sprinting as fast as my low-heeled boots would allow me, I raced across the tile floor toward the retreating red suits that wove through the shoppers who scrambled to get out of their way. I had a pretty good idea where they were running to. The only clear path to an exit would be the side door by the carousel that led to the parking garage—the door I’d gone through last night.  
    The Muzak broke into a high-energy version of “Must Be Santa” and filtered past the alarm and into my consciousness as I reached out and grabbed a fistful of red velvet and hung on. The Santa I grabbed stumbled, and I ran into his back, our legs tangling. We went down hard on the tile floor, and rolled to a stop by the ear piercing kiosk. I blocked a fist with my forearm and grabbed the first thing I could get my hand on—a good handful of fake white beard. I pulled and tried to get some leverage to get off the floor, but the elastic snapped, revealing a familiar face—the young woman who had been browsing engagement rings at the jewelry store.  
    “Stop! Police!”  
    I heard the shouts and tried to look around to see if Pete and his colleagues had caught the other two Santas, but a small closed fist caught me in the chin. The blow stunned me. I fell backward, my head hitting the floor with a smack that jarred my brain. Little flickering lights filled my vision, and I wrapped my arms around the soft red suit and held on as tight as I could, an anchor to keep me from drifting off to unconsciousness.  
    “Must be Santa…”  
    Bob Dylan’s nasal voice echoed in my skull, providing a surreal soundtrack to the scene. The woman slapped at me, wiggled, and tried to get away, but I held fast.  
    “Must be Santa…”  
    My vision cleared, and I gritted my teeth against the fierce pain in my head. I threw an elbow and heard a corresponding grunt as I connected with something hard.  
    “Must be Santa, Santa Claus.”  
    The thrashing paused, and the figure on top of me went limp and pinned me to the floor. I lifted my head from the floor, blinking to clear the stars that lingered in my field of vision and then felt the weight on top of me lighten. I looked up and saw the blurry figure of a man in a familiar dark blue windbreaker lifting the unconscious woman in a red suit from me. He grinned.
    “Nice work,” he said. “I got it from here.”  
    I sat up and looked past him at the swarm of police that were wrestling three other Santas to the ground. I rubbed my eyes and then felt the back of my head where I’d smacked the floor.  
    “Don’t get up.”  
    I squinted at the officer who crouched over the unconscious woman on the floor and snapped handcuffs on her. With his back to me, my eyes focused on the large “FBI” on his jacket.  
    “Jake,” I whispered, the name slipping past my lips on a breath, almost silent.  
    “What’s your name?” the agent asked, turning back to me. His eyes were concerned, and they were a pale blue, not the warm, dark brown eyes I’d been hoping to see.  
    “Miranda Vaughn,” I said.