A Diamond Choker for Christmas Read online

  A DIAMOND CHOKER FOR CHRISTMAS:

  A Toni Diamond Mystery Novella

  Nancy Warren

  Editor’s Note: Nancy Warren is known for her funny, sexy, and suspenseful tales. She’s an avid hiker, animal lover, wine drinker, and chocolate fiend, and loves to wander the North American West coast. Here she takes us to a trailer park in a suburb of Texas, where we meet a mother-daughter team with big dreams. These two won’t let a jewelry heist spoil their holiday!

  Chapter 1

  Toni Diamond heard the ping signaling a text message. As though the signal had an echo, her daughter, Tiffany, received a text at the same time.

  They glanced at each other across the kitchen. Toni was in the midst of pouring her second cup of Monday morning coffee. Tiff was munching granola at the breakfast bar. They both checked their phones. No surprise, both texts were from Linda, Toni’s mother: Remember my beautiful girls, what we imagine happens! Imagine success today!

  “She went to her positive thinking meet-up group last night, didn’t she?” Tiffany asked.

  At seventeen, Tiff was growing into a real beauty, though she still didn’t embrace Lady Bianca cosmetics the way Toni hoped she would. Since Toni and her mom made their living as independent consultants for Lady Bianca Cosmetics, she’d hoped to bring Tiffany into the family business. So far, her daughter would barely use a swipe of lip-gloss, but she was young yet.

  “Probably.”

  “She’s addicted,” Tiffany said. She flipped back through the string of texts she and Toni received several times a day. “She’s addicted to positive thinking.”

  “Well, it’s harmless,” Toni replied.

  “It’s the crack of self-help,” Tiffany maintained.

  Another text alert rang out for both of them.

  Girls, fantastic idea for Christmas Party. I’m going to manifest diamonds. We create our reality.

  “Seriously, Mom, Grandma’s lost the program.”

  Linda Plotnik hosted a Christmas party every year at her mobile home park and invited all her neighbors, customers, potential customers, and of course her daughter and granddaughter. Her party was this Saturday, four days away.

  “What did she mean about manifesting diamonds?” Toni asked, feeling the first qualm of uneasiness about her mother for the day. And she’d been up all of thirty-five minutes.

  “With Grandma? Who knows?” Tiffany went back to munching her fair-trade granola, and Toni took another fortifying sip of coffee. “By the way, I can’t go to Grandma’s Christmas party this year. I’ve got to work on my college entrance papers. After all, you’re the one who wants me to go to college.”

  “Nice try, Sweet Pea. You’d no more break Grandma’s heart than I’d go out of the house without lipstick.”

  Tiffany took her now empty bowl to the dishwasher. “Thursday is the holiday party for the kids at the hospital.”

  “And you’re volunteering?” Tiffany helped out a couple of times a week. She said it was to strengthen her college applications, but Toni could see how much she enjoyed helping out with sick kids.

  “Yes. Then Becca wants me to sleep over at her place Thursday night. We’ll be studying late.”

  Tiffany was one of the few kids who, if she told her mother she was going to a sleepover in order to study, she was going to a sleepover in order to study. Coming from the Diamond/Plotnik gene pool, this girl was a miracle.

  Half an hour later, Tiff had left for school, and Toni was showered, dressed, and putting the final touches on her makeup. After years of practice, she had her full-day face routine down to fifteen minutes, not including cleansing and moisturizing. It was while she was darkening her brows with Lady Bianca’s Cocoa Bean eyebrow pencil that she saw her own eyes widen in the mirror.

  What was her mom always saying? Manifest what you want to appear. How was she planning to manifest real diamonds? That was the part of the text that had Toni blinking at her own startled reflection. Did her mother think she could mine gems through positive thinking?

  The following afternoon, she had her answer when Linda showed up at their door.

  “Well, girls, what do you think?”

  Toni could not find the words. Linda had one of her most opulent hairpieces on, and she looked like a cross between Marie Antoinette and a Vegas showgirl. Her false eyelashes glittered, her makeup was on the brighter side of flashy and her figure-hugging white and silver pantsuit bared a lot of cleavage. But what had Toni’s eyes bugging out of her head was the flash and sparkle that encircled her neck. The necklace was diamond and sapphire; big, gorgeously cut stones that glittered with suppressed fire. Toni might not be a gemologist, but she could tell fake from real when it came to diamonds.

  Those were not fake.

  Her answer to the question came suddenly as she pulled her mother inside the house. “That should be locked up.”

  “Locked up?” Linda asked, looking bewildered.

  “She means the necklace should be locked up, Grandma, not you,” Tiffany said from behind Toni, though, in fact, she wasn’t so sure that was what she’d meant.

  “Where did you get the bling, Grandma? Did you knock over the jeweler’s at the mall?”

  Instead of looking appalled that her granddaughter considered her capable of a jewel heist, Linda appeared delighted at the idea. “Wouldn’t it be exciting? To have all that gorgeous jewelry and all you had to do was reach in and grab it and stuff it in a velvet bag? Not even to consider your credit card limit for a second?”

  “And then do five to ten in jail once you got caught,” Toni put in.

  “Oh, you’re such a spoil sport. It was fun to imagine for a moment. I always thought being a cat burglar would be so exciting. If I wasn’t so bad at climbing ropes.” She glanced down at her impressive chest. “I think it’s being so well endowed. Throws off the center of gravity.”

  “Where did you get the necklace, Mom?”

  “I borrowed it.”

  “Borrowed it?”

  “Yes. For my Christmas party. You know how at the Oscars Harry Winston always loans out the most fabulous pieces for the Hollywood stars to wear? That’s where I got the idea.”

  “You went to Harry Winston?” Toni felt faint.

  “Of course not. I went to a local jeweler. Lone Star Gems and Jewels.”

  However, Linda wasn’t a Hollywood star, and their local jeweler wasn’t going to get a lot of business from a Christmas party in a mobile home park populated mainly by seniors.

  “And they let you borrow it?”

  “Of course. Bert Green, he’s the owner of Lone Star Jewels, he’s in my Circle of Success meet-up group.” Linda walked to the hall mirror and turned to one side and then the other. “Just look at the fire in those stones. You simply can’t duplicate the look of a real diamond.”

  “What’s it worth, Grandma?”

  “This piece retails for more than a hundred thousand dollars, but Bert’s promised me a very nice discount when I buy it.”

  “A nice discount.” Toni rarely drank alcohol during the week, but she was starting to feel the need for a stiff drink.

  “That’s right.” Linda turned to Tiffany. “You noticed I said when. Very important for success that we speak of our dreams and, even more vital, believe in them as though they’ve already happened. I said I wanted a fabulous diamond-and-jewel necklace to wear at my party, and here I am wearing it. Positive thinking is amazingly powerful.”

  “How did you pull it off, Mom?” Toni was a big believer in the power of positive thinking, too, but Linda seemed to be taking the concept a little far.

  “They put a lien on my home.”

  “A lien?” Tiffany asked.

  “Yes, i
t means I signed a paper saying that if anything happens to the necklace, they can take my mobile home. Of course, nothing’s going to happen. It was just a formality.”

  “You put up your house as collateral for a diamond necklace?”

  “I’m only borrowing it, honey.”

  “But what if something happens. You lose it, or it accidentally gets caught in the garbage disposal unit.”

  “My garbage disposal is broken, so that’s never going to happen. Besides, if anything awful happened, I’d move in here. You’ve got plenty of room. Gosh, I can’t believe we’ve never thought of that before. It would be like a girls’ slumber party every night.”

  Scotch. There must be a bottle of Scotch somewhere in the house.

  “Anyway, we’re all friends at the group, and we all believe in each other. At first, Bert wasn’t sure about lending the necklace at all because it’s so valuable, but Henry Castillo, he’s the lawyer in our success circle, he stepped up and said he’d take on the risk. He’s the one who drew up the paperwork. So then everyone was happy.”

  “The party’s not for four more days. Where are you going to keep the necklace?”

  Linda ran her fingers over the gems. “In a very secret hiding place.”

  Toni groaned. “Mo-ther, if it’s at the bottom of the trash can in the bathroom, please just don’t.”

  Linda’s eyes opened so wide one of the sparkle tips snapped off her fake eyelashes. “How did you know? I read that idea years ago and always thought it was the perfect place to hide something important because no thief would ever look there.”

  “I know, because you hid the grocery money there when I was a kid and then threw it out with the trash.”

  Linda’s hand flew to her open mouth. “Oh, my gosh, I did. But we got it back.”

  “Only because you remembered before the trash got collected. We spent hours going through the household garbage before we unearthed it.”

  “Well, I’ll find a better hiding place this time.”

  “Why don’t you get the store to hang onto it until the day of the party? They have a safe and a security system.”

  “Sweetie, I think it’s important for my self development to wear this fabulous necklace. It’s a constant reminder to myself that I am worth it!”

  When her mom got stubborn, she pursed her lips so that with her red lipstick the shape was very much like a stop sign. Toni knew there was no point arguing any longer. All she could do at this point was hope that nothing happened to that expensive bit of bling. And maybe talk to an architect about building a mother-in-law cottage in her back yard.

  “Anyway, I want to wear it to my Circle of Success meeting tonight.”

  Chapter 2

  Tiffany and her mother exchanged glances. Toni could not find words to adequately express her feelings. And for Toni that was not a normal state of affairs. She’d discovered in herself a talent for sales that was remarkable enough that she was one of the top representatives for Lady Bianca cosmetics in all of the country. But she knew when she was facing a prospect who was a dud. There was a time to stop selling since she was wasting her time. Trying to sell her mother on the idea that the fabulous necklace should be locked up safely until her party was hopeless.

  “Tell me more about this success group, Mama.”

  “Well, honey, I’d ask you to join it but we only allow one person from any industry. That way, there’s no competition. The idea is that we all use each other’s services as well as motivating and encouraging each other. But, let’s see, we talk about sales techniques, and each week we start out by sharing our biggest success of the week. We all applaud and cheer each other on. William Young, he’s a real estate investor and you would not believe how successful he’s been. He started after the crash picking up foreclosures and now he’s a multi-millionaire. I should introduce you to him. It would be good for you to diversify your portfolio.”

  Since her portfolio consisted of paying off her house and saving up for Tiffany’s college fees, she didn’t think Mr. Young would find her very interesting.

  “I don’t want you to think that we’re all only interested in money; we absolutely make sure we give back. Katie Lewis, she’s the caterer in the group, she volunteers for the Girl Guides. Henry Castillo is an amateur magician. He goes to hospitals and old folks’ homes and entertains them with magic tricks. And I’m teaching step dancing to the other residents of Pecan Heights.”

  “You’ve been busy.”

  The jewels sparkled as she admired them once more in the hall mirror. “I’m having the time of my life.”

  “You want some coffee, Mama?” Linda glanced at her glittery watch and shook her head. “I have to run. I’ve got to get to my Zumba class.” Since discovering Zumba on board a cruise the three women had taken, Linda had become a firm devotee of the aerobics and dance fusion classes.

  When Linda left, Toni turned to her daughter. “What are we going to do?”

  “She should have a bodyguard. Somebody big and armed and dangerous.”

  “I don’t know anyone like that. But I do know a cop.”

  There were moments when having a friendly relationship with a Dallas detective was a real benefit. Toni felt that this was one of those times. She called Luke Marciano on his cellphone.

  “Marciano,” he snarled the name. Since he obviously knew it was her calling, he was snarling because he was busy, because one of his colleagues could overhear him, or because he was in a bad mood.

  “Hi, honey. Bad day?” she asked.

  “No worse than usual. Busy.”

  Okay, she could take a broad hint. “Why don’t you call me back when you’re not so busy.”

  “Will it be good news?”

  “Call me back and find out.” They saw each other when they could, but between his work schedule, her work schedule and Tiffany’s schedule, they didn’t connect as often as they’d like. She thought the arrangement suited both of them. For now.

  “No, it’s okay, I’ve got five.”

  “Well, it’s kind of a good news, bad news situation.”

  “Good news first.” As a detective, he worked with bad news all day. She understood that his relationship with her was one of the bright spots in his life, even if she did have an unfortunate habit of finding trouble.

  “Tiffany’s sleeping over at her friend’s on Thursday.”

  “Does that mean her mom’s available for a sleepover too?” When he wasn’t snarling, he had the sexiest voice.

  “It does.”

  “I’ll pencil you in.” There was a moment’s silence and then he said. “Okay, what’s the bad news?”

  “It’s my mother.”

  “What’s she done this time?”

  “Luke, she’s borrowed a fabulously expensive necklace to wear to her Christmas party this Saturday.”

  “Who’d she borrow it from?”

  “A jewelry store. They put a lien on her house before they’d lend it to her.”

  Luke was smart and intuitive, which made him a great detective. Also, he knew Linda so she didn’t have to explain all the ways this was a terrible idea. “Where is it now?”

  “Around her neck. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s wearing it to Zumba class, the grocery store, her sales calls, all around her mobile home park.”

  “What’s it worth?”

  “A hundred grand.”

  In his silence she could hear the curse words he didn’t voice.

  “Want me to talk to her?”

  “It won’t do any good. She’s determined that wearing real jewels will manifest success in her life.”

  “More likely to get her robbed.”

  “That’s my biggest fear. If she loses her home, you know where she’s going, don’t you.”

  He chuckled. “Better start cleaning up your spare room.”

  She did not join in his amusement. “You can come as my date if you want. It’s her annual Christmas open house.”

  “I know. I got the e-vit
e.”

  “How did she get your email address?” Linda hadn’t mentioned that she was inviting Luke to her party. Toni wasn’t surprised. Linda made no secret of the fact that she thought Luke would make an excellent son-in-law.

  “Maybe she manifested it,” he said drily.

  She didn’t figure either of them needed detective skills to work out that Linda had snuck up to Toni’s office and taken Luke’s email from her computer. “Sorry. Please don’t feel like you have to come.”

  “I’ll try and drop by.” She knew he was busy on the weekends. If he wasn’t working, he restored antique cars and trucks as a hobby, played sports, and caught up on his household chores.

  If Linda insisted on wearing a valuable necklace she thought having a cop around would be as good as hiring a security guard. “I’d appreciate it.”

  ~*~

  Toni had just finished her weekly sales report and, to her satisfaction, her team’s sales were rocking, when her mother called. “Honey, I need your help with the lights.” Something about the tone behind those words filled Toni with dread.

  “What lights, Mama?”

  “Why the Christmas lights, of course.”

  “I thought the caretaker put up the lights. He's done it every other year.” Jim Tucker had been the caretaker of Pecan Heights Mobile Home Park for as long as Toni could remember. He was long and lean, with pale blue eyes in a darkly tanned face. He didn't say much, and she could never recall him either cracking a joke or laughing at one. But Jim kept the grounds clean, made sure the trash was always picked up on time, and if a resident needed their windows cleaned or some extra chores done around the house, Jim was always available if the person paid him in cash.

  One of his responsibilities was the decorating of the park grounds for the holidays. He strung the clubhouse with white twinkle lights, and in the main square of the mobile home park he put up the same wooden Santa waving from a wooden sleigh and surrounded by wooden reindeer that had decorated the park for the last dozen or so holidays.

  On top of that, residents were invited to decorate their own homes in whichever way they pleased. Somewhere along the way a competitive spirit overtook the residents of Pecan Heights and every year the holiday splendor exploded with so many colorful lights, dazzling displays and neon candy canes that Toni always made sure she had her sunglasses in her bag if she went to visit her mother during the last part of December. Linda had put up most of her decorations, with Jim Tucker’s help, at the beginning of December.