by Alyssa Day
"You, too," I told her, but I was talking to empty air. Susan wasn't big on saying goodbye at the end of phone calls.
"How bad is Mr. Peterson?"
Jack sat back down on the couch and put his arm around my shoulders. I leaned against his shoulder and finally—for the first time since I'd gotten that first phone call from Susan—relaxed.
"I think he's going to be okay."
"We can go see him tomorrow. I should bake him a cake." I stood, with some befuddled idea of starting to bake right that moment, tiredness and maybe shock jumbling my mind.
"Not tonight," Jack said, pulling me back down next to him and smoothing my hair back from my face. "You should get some sleep."
"Best idea I've heard all night," I mumbled, closing my eyes for a moment to get the energy to go to my bedroom.
When I woke up, still on the couch, curled up in Jack's arms, my Aunt Ruby, Eleanor, and Lorraine were all standing just inside my front door staring at us, and they were all holding giant pictures of Aunt Ruby's head on sticks.
7
I blinked several times, not sure if I were awake or not. "Is this a nightmare?"
Jack's eyes sprang open, and all three women stared at him. "Only for me," he muttered, jumping away from me and running a hand through his hair.
"It's not what you think," he said, somewhat desperately.
"We don't think much, since you're both fully clothed," Lorraine said laughing. She thrust a large paper sack at him. "Now go set these donuts out in the kitchen and get the coffee started. We need to talk strategy."
Aunt Ruby, who had said nothing, was staring at me with her mouth open, and I could see that a version of "Just what do you think you're doing, Young Lady?" was in my future, based on my previous encounters with that expression.
"Yes, ma'am," Jack said, jumping up, grabbing the bag, and almost running down the hall to the kitchen.
"That is a man," Eleanor said, grinning at me. "Good job, Tess."
"I don't—we weren't—" I shook my head. Nope. Too complicated. Better to start with the simple stuff.
"Why are you in my house at," I glanced at my clock and flinched. "Seven o'clock in the morning?"
I pointed at Aunt Ruby. "I'm taking my key back. Clearly, you can't be trusted with it."
"Don't be ridiculous," Aunt Ruby said. "And don't think changing the subject will get you out of the conversation we're about to have."
My door banged open, and my little sister walked in, carrying another donut bag and another head-on-a-stick sign.
"Shelley!" I held my arms open for a hug, and she dropped her stuff on my coffee table and threw herself into my arms.
"Tess! I haven't seen you in so long!"
I hugged her close. "I know! I almost came and kidnapped you away from camp."
She giggled. "You would have gotten in big trouble."
"She's already in big trouble," Aunt Ruby muttered, and this time I shot her a Look.
"Still twenty-six years old, not twelve," I said.
"We'll discuss this L-A-T-E-R," she said, shaking both her heads at me—the one on her neck and the one on a stick.
Shelley shook her head and gave me a somber look. "She keeps spelling things. I think she might be going into M-E-N-O-P-A-U-S-E."
Eleanor let loose with a peal of laughter. "Oh, sweetie. That ship done sailed."
Aunt Ruby glared at Eleanor but then gave Shelley a sweet smile. "Anyway, let's get some coffee for us, and milk for you, and donuts for everybody, and tell Tess all about the campaign before we have to get you to school."
"Yay! School!" Shelley shouted, close enough to my ear that I winced. She'd only been my sister for a short while, and she was nine—almost ten—years old, smarter than I'd ever been, and way too quiet for way too much of the time, after losing her family to a car accident.
We'd been lucky enough to adopt her after we'd rescued her from a black-magic practitioner who'd wanted to use her for blood rites, and we were slowly but surely bringing her back out of her shell.
And she loved school.
When she shouted again, this time even louder, I remembered something—someone—else she loved.
"JACK!" She jumped over the back of the couch and ran down the hall, and I glanced over my shoulder to see her take a running leap and jump into Jack's arms.
After he'd shown up and been the tiger in shining armor who helped us escape the witch, he could do no wrong in her eyes. He was great with her, and he even took her out to the swamp for airboat rides with his friends when she was having an especially difficult time with her still very-fresh grief.
"Okay. What's going on?" I shoved my hair back out of my face and blinked sleep out of my eyes. "Why is your head on all these sticks?"
"They're for her campaign rally," Eleanor said, before heading back to the kitchen. "I'm going for coffee. I'll let Ruby explain."
Aunt Ruby bit her lip, suddenly looking uncharacteristically shy, which surprised me. My aunt had been a force of nature all through my childhood. She was pleasantly plump, her hair was "I used to be a cheerleader" blonde, and she always smelled like sugar cookies and warm hugs. I loved her with all my heart, in spite of how often teenaged me had butted heads with her, trying to assert my independence in the face of all that overwhelming—sometimes slightly suffocating—love.
Lorraine, who looked oddly unfamiliar without her pink Beau's Diner uniform on, waved her Ruby heads. "Callahan for Mayor!"
"What?"
Aunt Ruby took a deep breath. "It's true. They talked me into it. I filed the papers Friday. I'm an official Dead End mayoral candidate!"
I didn't know how to feel about that. I also desperately needed to escape to my bathroom. But I could see the nervousness in Aunt Ruby's eyes, so I did the only thing I could do for the woman who'd raised me and loved me and been my home base for so long.
I jumped up, grabbed two of the signs, and started waving them around. "Callahan for Mayor! I love it! You'll be the best mayor since Lorraine!"
"You bet she will," Lorraine said. "Now, donuts! We have campaign strategizing to do."
Five minutes later, we were seated around my kitchen table, planning my aunt's mayoral campaign at a ridiculous time of the morning. I could tell that none of the three women knew anything about the happenings of the night before, but it could wait until Shelley was at school.
On second thought, she'd hear all about it at school and be rightfully upset that I'd hidden things from her. So I told them a carefully edited version of the robbery, and the fact that the hardware store and bank had been broken into, too, and that Mr. Peterson had been injured, but would be fine.
Shelley's eyes grew bigger than the donut in her hand. "Wow. Tess, I'm so glad you weren't there. You could have been hurt!"
Jack leaned over and hugged her, simultaneously sneaking another donut off her plate.
"Out of the mouths of babes," he said, grinning at me.
"Hey!" Shelley said, taking her donut back. "You already had three!"
He pointed at himself. "Tiger."
She rolled her eyes. Apparently hero worship only went so far when donuts were involved. "There's another bag on the coffee table. I'll go get it."
When she ran down the hall, I quickly whispered that there was more to the story that I'd tell them later.
Aunt Ruby nodded, looking worried. "I was asleep when Mike got back last night, or he would have told me, and then he was down at the barn when I left this morning."
"Normal people are asleep at this time of the morning," I said, tearing a second donut in half and only taking half of it.
Jack watched me put the second half back and then pounced on it like … like a tiger pouncing on a donut.
There's no better metaphor for pouncing, trust me.
Shelley raced back in with the second bag of donuts and a clipboard. "You forgot this, Aunt Lorraine."
"Okay." Lorraine pulled a pair of reading glasses out of her giant bag and peered down at a pri
nted list. "We need a theme."
"Why?"
Everybody looked at Jack with pity—even Shelley.
"All political campaigns need a theme, Jack," she told him, patting his arm. "I'll explain it to you later."
I almost choked on my donut. My kid sister was awesome.
Jack pushed his chair back. "You know, I need to get going. I promised to do … a thing. Yeah, I really need to do that thing. You remember, Tess."
I gave him my best innocent face. "What thing?"
"The thing. The, uh,—" he stammered. We could all see very clearly that he was desperately casting about for something to use as an excuse, and finally Aunt Ruby took pity on him.
"Oh, go. We'll talk to you later, when we need to do the heavy lifting."
I raised an eyebrow. "Look. We don't need Jack when it comes to the difficult issues of the campaign. He didn't even know campaigns need themes.
"No. The actual heavy lifting, Tess," Eleanor said. "We're going to have a stand at the town picnic next month, and there will be a lot of heavy things to lift."
"Ah. Got it. See you later, Jack."
He started to back away from the table but then he caught me laughing at his pitiful escape, so of course he took that as a challenge and walked over to me, leaned down, and kissed me right on the lips in front of everyone.
Okay, it was a very brief, closed mouth, kiss, but still!
"GROSS!" Shelley shouted, but she had a huge, delighted grin on her face.
"Gross, indeed," Aunt Ruby said dryly, but Jack just winked at her.
"See you later, ladies. Sign me up for all the heavy lifting you need."
And then, leaving me speechless, he sauntered off down the hall and out my front door.
Eleanor sighed. "That's quite a man."
"Okay, okay, enough," Lorraine said, tapping her coffee spoon on the table to call us to order. "Campaign slogans. We need your opinion, Tess, because we can't agree on one. Which one is best?"
She pulled several cards off the clipboard and held them up, one at a time.
RUBY FOR MAYOR: BECAUSE SHE'S JUST BETTER
RUBY FOR MAYOR: OR ELSE YOU'RE STUPID
RUBY FOR MAYOR: HAVEN'T YOU HAD ENOUGH OF RATBOTTOM?
(This last one had a hand-drawn picture of a cartoon rat bending over and showing the world his butt.)
"I made that one!" Shelley said.
"I guessed," I told her. "That's very good art, but maybe not the best political campaign slogan poster, honey."
I thought she'd pout, but I'd underestimated my little sister. "You're probably right. Anyway, I researched, and I don't think any of these are good. We need something like Vote Callahan for a Better Future or Bring Dead End Back to Life."
"Those are actually very good," I said, amazed. I don't think I'd have been ready to research political campaigns so competently when I was nine years old. I was more in the "maybe I can grow up to be Wonder Woman" phase then.
"Maybe we can discuss this more tonight at my barbecue? I need to get ready for work and go in early, because there's a lot of cleanup to do. Eleanor, I know you weren't scheduled to work today, but if you have any time, I could sure use the help."
Eleanor nodded. "Of course, honey."
Aunt Ruby stood and put a hand on Shelley's shoulder. "We should get you to school. Tess, I'll see you tonight. Text me and tell me what you want to bring."
"We should all get going and let Tess get ready for work. Nobody wants her to frighten tourists out of Dead End with that hair," Lorraine said.
"Everybody's a comedian," I said, sighing, because it really was pretty bad.
I walked them out to their cars, and hugged Aunt Ruby and Shelley goodbye. Lorraine and Eleanor waited with me while my family drove off.
"I'm really glad you're supporting her on this," Lorraine said. "She'll be great, and the town needs her."
"Anybody would be better than Ratbottom," Eleanor said. "But Ruby will be wonderful. Hey, Lorraine, didn't you date Ronald once?"
Lorraine shuddered. "Back when we were very young. And he tried to get fresh with me when we were having lunch one day. Let me tell you, the man brought a teeny tiny weenie to the picnic, if you know what I mean."
She and Eleanor went off into peals of laughter, while I stood there and wondered if I could bleach my eardrums. "How am I going to talk to the man about my insurance claim after that?"
That set them off again.
"Hey, by the way, Tess," Eleanor said, when they could talk again. "One of the Fox brothers was at Mellie's bakery this morning, and I think he was interested in more than the donuts, if you know what I mean."
I didn't have a clue what she meant, and I must have shown that on my face, because Lorraine nudged me.
"He's interested in Mellie, who's single. And don't you think it would be nice if she went out with a nice guy like that?"
"Which brother?"
They both shrugged.
"Who can tell? Invite them both."
"Invite—oh. Right. Sure, I'll just need to get more food. You're both welcome, too, and please tell Dave that he's especially invited, because my new neighbor wants to get to know him."
Eleanor Wolf was Dave's mother and grandmother to his adopted son, Zane, which meant that I had seen approximately seven million photos of Zane.
"Oh! I have new pictures!" Eleanor started digging in her purse.
"You can show me at work. Can't wait," I lied, crossing my fingers behind my back. "I need to get to the shop, inventory the damage, figure out what was stolen, fill out a complete police report, and then get the mayor to file my insurance claim. We need to call Mr. Holby and tell him not to bring the tourist bus by today, too."
Lorraine stopped me when I turned to go. "You weren't telling us everything. What else?"
I quickly told them about the foot and the dead vampire.
Eleanor's eyes grew wider and wider as I spoke. When I was finished, she clutched her hands together tightly. "Tess! This is awful!"
I nodded. "I know. It's a lot. But the insurance—"
"Not that. The worst part—There are death cooties in the purse drawer!"
8
The problem was this:
Eleanor was right.
There were death cooties in the drawer, and neither of us was going to be the one to clean it out.
We spent four hours cleaning, sorting, and inventorying the non-death cooties part of the shop. Fortunately, none of the items stolen belonged to anybody but me, well, Dead End Pawn.
Unfortunately, one of the missing items was the silver cross.
I'd known it had to be mine; it's not like there was any chance that Ivan was just a random vampire who wanted to show off his taste in jewelry.
The cross, by the way, was real silver.
"I thought vampires couldn't touch silver?"
Eleanor, carefully packing jewelry into a box that we could put aside until the new cases I'd just ordered arrived, looked up at me. "I imagine they could wear gloves, though."
I rolled my eyes at myself. Of course they could wear gloves. And Ivan hadn't touched the pin with his bare hands when he'd shown it to me, either. He'd only touched the cloth of his lapel.
"I promised Zane I'd be Room Grandma at school this year, and I have to leave for a meeting with his teacher now, Tess, if you're okay."
"Yep. I'm going to wrap this up and get some lunch. I left a voicemail for the mayor about my insurance, so that's done for now. Thanks again for coming in, Eleanor. You've been so much help."
She waved a hand. "Oh, poo. That's what friends do. And I work here, too, you know. I'm proud of this store, and I think of it as mine, too. What they did to us makes me furious."
A wave of warmth swept through me, and I hugged her. "Thank you. You're the best."
She patted my back and then laughed. "I am the best. Remember that when it's time for annual raises, okay?"
"I promise."
I heard Jack's truck, which needed a new m
uffler, and then I heard him exchange greetings with Eleanor for the second time that day. For a change, though, he didn't come in the shop right away, but went into his office next door. I could hear him moving around in there and was mad at myself for the flash of hurt.
The man had a job to do, for Pete's sake. He didn't need to spend every waking minute with me.
Or every sleeping minute. My cheeks got warm at the thought of sleeping in his arms all night and not even being aware of it.
Clearly, there was something wrong with me.
"Lunch?"
I jumped a foot in the air and yelped.
Jack, who'd somehow snuck up behind me in stealth mode, raised an eyebrow. "That's a new noise. Can you do that again?"
"No, I cannot, Mr. Skulks Off When The Going Gets Tough. Where did you go so fast this morning?"
He shrugged, which did excellent things I tried not to notice to the muscles in his chest. "Home. Took a shower, ate a couple dozen eggs for breakfast. Want to go to lunch?"
"A couple dozen … never mind. I should know better than to question the stomach capacity of a shapeshifter by now."
I looked around at my shop. It was as cleaned up as I could get it, at least until Susan cleared me to get Dave's people over to clean out the broken counters and install my new ones.
Speaking of which…
"You need to get rid of the death cooties. We can't work with that in the shop."
Green eyes blinked once.
Twice.
Three times.
"Death cooties?"
I pointed to the counter that the cash register had always sat on. "The foot was in that drawer behind the counter. Eleanor and I can't work with that in the shop. Please use those egg-fueled muscles and take it to the dumpster."
"Now?"
I was tempted, but I didn't want to be charged with tampering with evidence or something.
"No, but as soon as Susan gives the okay. Okay?"
"Okay," Jack said in a cautious tone that I knew translated to "step away from the crazy person" but, for once, I didn't care, because … death cooties.
He held out a hand, but I shook my head. "No, I have Lysol hands. Let me go wash up, and then we can go to Beau's. I'd like to hear what everybody in town thinks about last night, anyway."
