The store was a swirl of sensations; colors in every hue from scarlet to fuchsia and back again, textures from smooth plastic to kitten fur soft, and countless sounds from mechanized barking to model train whistles. And smells. Children always picked up the most interesting scents and trailed them along like a security blanket.

Jonny lived on a farm, but was visiting his grandparents for the weekend: cow manure, fresh cut grass, stale airport, earl gray tea, prune juice, doilies.

Janie's parents worked at an Indian restaurant, her older sister was home from college and taking her out for the day: curry, movie theatre pop corn, Insomniac's Annonymous signature dark roast and a hot chocolate, girl's dorm room. Jocelyn sneezed as the older sister passed by in a could of peach body spray. Blech.

Jocelyn turned back to the display in the front window after she had finished glaring at Peach Spray's bobbing ponytail.

Yellow rubber ducks lined the front of the display, forming a cheerful yellow border. A gigantic tiger stuffed animal and a life sized toy soldier stood sentinel at each side. Three model airplanes hovered overhead, suspended by invisible threads. The main attraction, though, was the ornate doll house that stood in the very center. It was five feet tall, Victorian, pale blue with white trim, and it looked exactly like a real house. It almost wouldn't have been surprising if it had working lights and running water. The windows were dark now, though.

The house that little Daisy Price had vanished from had been dark, too. A little after one in the morning yesterday, Daisy had wandered out of her bedroom, down the stairs, and out the front door, gotten into a car, and disappeared. So far, that was all the evidence they had been able to piece together about what had happened.

Jocelyn was determined to find out more. Armed with a photo and a scrap of clothing, she was tracing the girl's footsteps backwards and forwards as far as she could. Forwards had led her only to the end of the driveway, to some untraceable car that had been waiting for her. Backwards had led the sleuth here, to the toy store where mother and daughter had shopped the day before the disappearance. Daisy had stood here, admiring the doll house, but that didn't really tell Jocelyn anything.

Up at the counter, she pulled out the photo of the girl with curly blonde hair and baby blue eyes.

“Pretty as a doll, isn't she?” The clerk mused. “I don't remember seeing her, though. There are so many children that come through here each day. They all kind of blend together after awhile” He smiled at her through his bushy white mustache. “I'm sorry I can't help you.”

Jocelyn thought she smelled a lie. If he did remember the girl, why would he hide it?

“Thanks for the help,” she muttered perhaps a bit too sarcastically to be strictly professional.

Up above the counter, an entire row of dolls smiled down at her, their glass eyes cold, unfeeling, and dead.

Maybe this was just a dead end.

If only toys could speak. These, and those in Daisy's room, might be able to explain what had happened.

"And you're sure? It was this woman?" Noel held up the picture of a granny. Plump, happy and apparently she was a key witness in at least two grisly murders in a train wreck of deaths that crossed state lines. The trail ended squarely in New York and the case had landed in Noel's lap because someone had a "hunch" that there could be mutant involvement.

Cold cases were like detention or remedial detective's work. The boss didn't expect Noel to make headway. He expected her to bang her head against a wall for a long time. That would keep her out of trouble and off his plate until a real case came into play. For now? Noel was stuck chasing grandma.

It wasn't necessarily the nature of the deaths that made this case heinous. It was the victims. Children.

The man nodded. "She bought enough candy to keep an elephant happy. Said the grandkid was coming in to town and her candy dishes were empty. You know the ones old people like. Only, they always fill them with candies popular when they were young. Kids today don't appreciate Necco Wafers or Mallow Cups and the like."

"Is that what she bought?" With a cursory sweep of eyes, Noel had no hope of finding an example on her own. The store was a glistening temple of sugar. The glass cases were polished. Bell shaped glasses covered fresh-made treats and the commercially produced confections poised on the brink of tumbling out of their tall chutes into waiting hands.

"Nope. That's what surprised me. She went for these new ones uh. Here." He pulled out a package of individually wrapped bon-bon shaped candies. "Cry babies. See? They're liquid in the middle."

Liquid? Noel bought a bag and finished up her notes as she walked out of the store. Well, at least one of the tips was legit. This case was seriously thin if all they had was a really hard to find old lady, but punishment was punishment and Noel was doing her own canvasing. She might was well ask around the entire area. It was a mecca for children's stores and if she'd had one hit already there were sure to be more.

The memorymancer stopped in next door to ask the clerk there about the old woman. Surprise, surprise. It was another well-to-do shop full of the glowingly pregnant, the harried and the... strong, single woman type staring at something. Someone didn't quite belong here. Noel looked at the woman then visually traced her line of sight to a row of creepy dolls. "Lost?" That could happen sometimes. Getting lost in a thought rather than staying grounded in reality.

A single blink brought Jocelyn out of her reverie and back to the real world. A breath cleared her thoughts of dolls and informed her about the person to whom she now spoke. Mutant. Psychic. Sea salt. Sharpie marker. A very different smelling person she spent a lot of time with; not a mutant, but not quite human either.

Gun.

This woman belonged in a toy store even less than Jocelyn did.

The detective raised one eyebrow a fraction of an inch, “No more so than you.”

Jocelyn's inquisitive mind was already whirring, trying to figure out the mystery of this woman. She'd been to the candy store next door; she carried with her traces of caramel apples, toffees, dozens of varieties of fudge, and one small bag of gum balls. It wasn't the usual type of purchase for an adult woman in a candy shop. She was armed, but wasn't acting in the slightest like she was about to hold up the clerk at the register. She didn't smell nearly nervous enough for that, nor would she have chosen to strike up a conversation with a random person. Nothing about her clothes really stood out; they blended with a crowd almost as if she had planned it that way, but there was no hiding the scar that turned her serious mouth into a macabre lopsided grin. It wasn't exactly the kind of thing one acquired working a desk job.

Jocelyn's gaze flicked from the woman's face, down to her toes, and back up again making no effort to disguise the gesture. Disguising anything from a psychic seemed like a rather pointless thing to try.

“I was looking for someone, actually,” she admitted. “And what brings you here?”

Snark, a good visual sweep, a heaping weight of cynicism? "Same. NYPD, right?" She just didn't have the flavor of a Fed. Her shoes, clothes, even the way she stood betrayed her for a plain clothes blood hound. While the trenchcoat was cute, in this weather it could only mean that she was hiding a gun-lump with the lines of the jacket.

This woman had too much attitude left in her. Not that Noel was a model Fed, but that was something they always tried to beat out of them. More uniform meant more reliable. Of course, RUPERT was a new take on the old cookie cutter...

The brunette pulled at the corner of a photograph that was sticking out of the wrinkled pages of a small handheld notebook. Inside the white paper frame sat an elderly woman, wide as she was tall and snowcapped. She looked utterly jolly. "Somebody lost a material witness. Seen her?" Probably not, but it never hurt to ask. Who knows? She could have been working on the same case and then Noel could hand off the photo and let someone else do the canvasing.

Mr. Shop Hand stood on tip-toe to catch a glance at the photo over the officer's shoulder. "Now her, I've seen." Noel's head wouldn't be the only one turning at the interruption. Under two fierce gazes he shrank down to the soles of his feet, but remained firm. The memorymancer took a few steps arm outstretched and handed the photo over. She watched him like a hawk as he studied the photo more carefully before rapping it with the back of his knuckles."Yep. I think this sweet lady sold me a few custom doll houses. That's one there in the middle. Really intricate work for her age, you know? So I kicked her a few extra bucks." He shrugged.

"Huh." He was telling the clean sheets truth. The brunette's attention turned back to the dollhouse. Evidence? It was too good to be true. "Have you sold any of these?" She motioned with her thumb over her shoulder toward the freakishly accurate looking house.

Jocelyn nodded, indicating that the woman's guess was correct.

As for her, the brunette wasn't a cop. She didn't have the snotty know-it-all attitude of the CIA coworkers her brother used to complain about. That left only one option, or so she thought.

“Fed?”

Jocelyn looked at the picture the woman offered. She was awful at remembering faces. If only she had one of Mrs. Claus' personal belongings, she'd be much more likely to be able to track her down. She shook her head.

“How about this one?” She flashed her picture of the missing child. Blonde ringlets, blue eyes, china white skin.

The shop keeper chose that moment to insert his helpful bit of information. Ah, so now he was overflowing with knowledge. Great. So very helpful.

The shopkeeper shrank slightly under their combined stare, but managed to answer Fed's questions, “They sell pretty fast. She only makes a couple each year and even at the price we charge there is always a buyer within a couple of days. This one's already been sold. The guy's supposed to come pick it up later this afternoon.”

“Mind if I open it up for a sec?” Jocelyn asked it like it was a question, but already had the back of the doll house swung halfway open before he was able to answer. She managed to knock over a paper tent in the process, one that commanded children 'Do not touch'.

The doll house had real windows, which had left the air inside relatively unstirred since it had last been closed, probably right before it had been shipped here. She took a deep breath of it before it mixed with the rest of the toy shop air as she visually inspected the little abode. Sawdust, wood glue, cotton, wool. The creator had crafted the furnishings of the house with as much care and accuracy as she had the exterior. Coffee, cheap cigarettes, a stale apartment with not enough air circulation. For some reason the layout of the house seemed almost familiar. Old fashioned perfume, mildewed clothes, gum balls like the ones Fed had perchased. Creepily familiar.

With one last sniff she closed up the house again, brushing away a thin strand of spider silk as she did so. She ignored the glare the shopkeeper was attempting to aim at her. Really, he called that a glare?

“Can we get granny's address and the name of the man who purchased the doll house?”

>“Fed?”

She nodded. The cop had good sense to be able to suss it out so accurately. "Kidnapping case?" Noel shoved her notepad under her arm in order to accept the photo. Strange that they would both be here looking for different people. It made Noel wonder just how many people who had been to this store before they turned up missing.

The memorymancer studied the picture carefully to commit the details to memory (for what good it would do her). Unfortunately the little girl looked like one in a million. Having no real grasp on developmental stages or little kids in general, Noel couldn't even begin to guess how old she was. "She's cute." Of course all the others were cute too... This one was just so cute that she almost didn't look real.

Noel held onto the photo while the cop did her nosing. Literally. Was she... sniffing a bit much? Noel was probably reading too much into it. There really was a stale smell that wafted out of the little house. Perfect little windows. Perfect little sconces on the walls. Perfect. It was really incredible if human hands crafted it with no mutational help.

The photo passed between hands again and once her hands were free, Noel collected her photo back from the shop hand. She brushed what felt like a long hair from her pant leg and reorganized her notes while the cop took the direct route.

>“Can we get granny's address and the name of the man who purchased the doll house?”

"We don't collect addresses or anything. And she drops the houses off around back." He motioned with his thumb most unhelpfully.

"But you paid her, right? And got payment for the dollhouse?"

"Oh. Yeah. Lemmie grab the receipt."

Money just about always left a trail. Looked like they would leave with a routing number for gramma and a name and billing address for the purchaser.

"That wasn't too painful..." Noel held the door for the detective and once they were outside blinking against the setting sun she introduced herself sans handshake. "Noel Gage. Was it just me or did that house look like some of the units on the Upper East Side?"

She was surprised that the clerk had been so forthcoming with the receipts of the two transactions, but then she may have been a little biased against him for not having been so very helpful on her missing person case. Once outside they got a proper introduction. Without handshakes. Smart girl. Someone had dealt with mutants before. Jocelyn gave a nod that said it all, a gesture she had learned from her older brother and his friends years ago.

She then replied with her own name, “Jocelyn Banks.” She left out the detective title. Noel had figured that out on her own. As for the Upper East Side, “and yes. Yes it did.” There was something odd about that, too; the little girl, Daisy, lived in that neighborhood. Even if it related more to Noel's missing granny case, somehow it felt like it was also connected to the missing girl. It was worth a shot, since she didn't have any more promising leads.

“So, Upper East, granny's bank, or the buyer first?”

"If we went to the Upper East Side now, we could get lucky and break this clam wide open. Of course, we could get unlucky and spend all day looking for a place that doesn't exist. Hitting the bank could get us an exact address, but I doubt we could get much without a court order." She was thinking out loud here.

"I'm down for a steak out. If it's a kidnapping attached to the doll houses then we'll be preventing one. If not, we can pound the Upper East side tomorrow just like one of us would have anyway." And just like that they were working together. Funny how these things happened sometimes.

The memorymancer pulled out the copy of the receipt that the shop hand had supplied them. The real advantage to large purchases was the need to confirm the billing address. She typed the numbers and letters into her phone and showed the directions to this Jocelyn Banks. "You have a black and white or an unmarked on hand?" Noel had taken a cab. Her driving skills today were a bit less than complete.

“Houses aren't going to get up and move, so we can check those any time. If we can prevent more kidnappings, I'm all for that plan.” She was always a bit sensitive about cases involving missing kids. She knew how she'd feel if it was her own ten year old son that went missing.

She checked the little digital map that Fed showed her and made a mental note to suggest that the NYPD invest in a couple of high tech phones for their detectives. They were nice.

“I've got a motorcycle and an extra helmet,” and they were parked just around the corner. That was one of the benefits to bikes; they got all the best parking spaces. It only took about a dozen steps and they were standing aside the machine in question. Jocelyn picked up the extra helmet and held it out for Noel to take if she wanted to ride along.

The motorcycle wasn't going to bite her. Logically she knew that, but her parents had been rather adamant about the no motorcycle thing when she was a kid. They even went as far as to show her bodies from the morgue. Mutilated bodies by the look of them, but really they were just un-protected motorcyclists.

"Uh. Thanks but no thanks. I'll grab a cab." Since she didn't want to loose the memory of her parents, that meant she was keeping associated memories too. Anything to keep them anchored in her mind. It was probably better not to ride with just a helmet anyway. Wasn't a motorcyclist supposed to have other stuff too?

Lucky for them this area was popular shopping. It was after lunch, but before the after work rush. That meant it was no time at all before a cab was idling in front of them all ready to take them to a stakeout. Permission pending, it would be a long night.

In the cab, Noel used the time to call it in and clear the hours. No point in giving her boss a hernia. Plus it meant she could dodge uncomfortable silence with a semi-stranger. Two birds, one phone call.

The cab dropped them off at a row house, tall and skinny. The kind of house that went up at least three stories as if some giant hand had taken the whole row of them and squeezed them between drug stores and strip malls. It wasn't the best part of town, but there were far, far worse. "How do you wanna do this? Ring the doorbell or what?"