by Jeff Shelby
“You took out a cash advance?” Even I knew those were a horrifically bad deal for consumers.
“What else was I supposed to do?” Mikey asked. “I have no money.”
“I offered to loan it to you,” I reminded him. “And I can assure you, my terms would have been far more agreeable.”
There was silence on the other end. Finally, Mikey spoke. “It doesn’t matter now, I guess. I’ll have the money and I can pay the ransom. If I know where to take it.”
I shifted the comforter, tugging it toward me to ward off the chill in the room. The days had been warm but the nights were cool, and my house liked to remind me just how drafty it was.
“Mikey,” I said slowly. “I really don’t think you’re going to need to pay any ransom.”
“Why not?”
“It still doesn’t make any sense that they picked you to target for a ransom,” I said. “You have no ties to Kenny. You don’t have a relationship with him beyond working together for a couple of weeks.”
“So you think someone called it in as a joke?” He sounded doubtful. “And why can’t anyone get ahold of him? Lance has been calling him nonstop. He isn’t answering. He stopped by the restaurant last night and told me he’d gone to Kenny’s apartment. No one answered when he knocked on the door.”
I frowned. Considering I had Lance on my suspect list for the theft of the statue, I didn’t put much stock in what he was telling Mikey about Kenny. But I didn’t say this. Mikey was clearly just as high-strung this morning as he had been last night.
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “But I think if someone really was holding him hostage, they would have called you by now. Don’t you?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been involved in a kidnapping before!”
“Me, either.”
“Look, I’m a good person,” Mikey said. “Maybe whoever kidnapped Kenny knows that. Maybe whoever is doing this knows that I wouldn’t want to see anyone suffer, and that of course I would do whatever it took to make sure this person was safe. Even if that meant paying a ransom.”
It was a fair enough assessment, and if I were being honest, it was better than anything I’d come up with to explain why Kenny had been targeted and why Mikey was being asked to cough up the ransom money.
But I still had my doubts.
Because despite Lance’s odd comment at the restaurant the night before, and despite the fact that he’d stolen a statue before, Gunnar had provided some fairly damning evidence that Dawn was the true culprit...at least as far as the missing statue was concerned. If she was angry enough to egg the restaurant, I could see her stealing the statue. I just couldn’t connect her to the kidnapping.
Something clicked in my head, like a light bulb illuminating a pitch-black room.
“Oh my gosh,” I breathed.
“What?” Mikey was on high alert.
“Don’t you see?” I pushed the comforter off me and stood up, intent on getting dressed. When I glanced down, though, I realized I was still wearing the same clothes I’d changed into after my shower.
“Don’t I see what?”
“Dawn knows you better than anyone,” I said as I hurried into the bathroom.
“Why are we talking about Dawn?” he asked.
I picked up my brush and began yanking it through my tangled hair. “She could be responsible for the kidnapping.”
“Dawn?” Mikey’s voice was laced with disbelief.
“Hear me out,” I said. “She’s upset over you leaving. She steals the statue. And she kidnaps the former chef. Not because you have some close relationship with him, but because of the exact reasons you mentioned. She knows you’re a good person. She knows you would feel obligated to help out. She knows you’d pay the ransom, which would pretty much lead to your financial ruin.”
“You really think Dawn would do something like that?”
I didn’t even hesitate. “Yes. Absolutely.”
“But...but...” Mikey struggled to form a sentence.
I took a deep breath. “But I also think that Kenny is safe. As angry as she is and as much as she wants to get even with you for leaving her, I don’t think she has it in her to kill a random stranger.”
“You don’t?”
“Remember how upset she was with her brother? He made her life a living hell but she didn’t kill him, even when she had the opportunity to do so.”
I couldn’t believe I was using this as a way to rationalize what I thought Dawn might or might not do.
“You really think Dawn did it?”
I set the brush down and opened the top drawer to dig out my toothpaste. “I do.”
“So do I go to the police?” Mikey hesitated. “To Sheriff Lewis?”
“Has Chuck said anything to anyone?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” Mikey said. “I threatened to walk away completely if he did.”
“Completely?”
“From the restaurant,” he clarified. “From everything.”
I squeezed a stripe of toothpaste on my toothbrush and ran it under the faucet. “Okay. Here’s what I want you to do this morning.”
He waited.
I held the toothbrush. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” he echoed.
“Nothing,” I confirmed. “Because I know exactly what to do.”
“You do? What?”
I stared at my reflection in the mirror. My hair looked like a cave woman’s, despite the brushing I’d just done, and my eyeliner and mascara from the previous day were now ringed around my eyes like fresh bruises. Even I had to admit I looked a little scary.
Which might be a good thing, considering what I needed to do.
“I’m going to talk to Dawn.”
TWENTY ONE
THE WICKED WICH ALREADY had customers when I burst through the door fifteen minutes later. I’d decided against arriving looking like a madwoman and had cleaned up the old eye make-up and tamed my hair by putting it in a loose ponytail. The last thing I needed was for my physical appearance to match the image some people had of me as the town oddball.
I didn’t see Dawn anywhere inside the restaurant but I spotted Charlotte right away. She was carrying a tray full of plates to a table at the back of the restaurant. She glanced in my direction, a worried look on her face, and I offered her a reassuring smile in return. I wasn’t there to see her, nor was I there to order food and create more work for her.
I headed toward the bar, hoping I might see Dawn in the back room. I approached the cash register and that was when I noticed the little girl sitting on a barstool on the other side of the counter.
“Olivia?”
The girl looked up. She didn’t smile.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
She grabbed a fistful of cheddar fish crackers and stuffed them in her mouth.
“Can I get you something?” Charlotte asked from behind me.
I turned around. Her face was flushed and her chest was rising and falling rapidly, almost as if she’d been running at break-neck speed the entire morning.
“Olivia is here,” I said, lamely.
Charlotte’s brow puckered. “Yeah, I’m aware.”
“What happened to Sophia?
Charlotte smiled bitterly. “She bailed.”
“What?” I glanced at the little girl. “What happened?”
“She decided having a preschooler in the antique store was a little too much. Her words.” Charlotte rolled her eyes. “So now I’m back to square one.”
“That’s terrible.” It was, but I wasn’t too surprised. Sophia was going to be in for a lot of rude awakenings once her own child was born. She seemed solely focused on decorating the nursery and showing off a beautifully outfitted baby. Her world was going to be rocked when the reality of sleepless nights, colicky crying, and maternal exhaustion arrived on her doorstep.
“You can say that again.” Charlotte glanced toward the back of the restaurant. “Dawn is furious that I
brought her in today but I didn’t have a choice! She wasn’t going to let me take the day off, and it’s not like I can have Olivia stay home by herself. ‘Here, kid. Watch TV and fix yourself some lunch. I’ll be back by dinner.’” She rolled her eyes again.
“Yeah, you don’t really have many options,” I said. “At least not until you get some permanent daycare squared away.” I thought for a minute. “Have you reached out to the Latney Ladies Society or the church? Maybe they could offer some temporary help.”
“Sophia is the Latney Ladies Society,” Charlotte pointed out.
Sophia had retired as treasurer after the missing money debacle, so I thought Charlotte’s statement wasn’t quite accurate. Yes, she was a member, but she wasn’t the end-all.
Charlotte glanced at her little girl again. “Dawn is definitely going to fire me,” she said. “And I need this job so badly.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to volunteer. I’d raised two kids; I knew the drill. And I was more than able to help out. I didn’t have a full-time job—or any job, really—and this was Mikey’s sister. If anyone could help, it was me.
But there was something pressing that had to take precedence. The statue. The possible kidnapping. I’d already committed to helping Mikey, and I needed to finish that before I could take on babysitting a preschooler.
I needed to talk to Dawn as soon as possible. Because if she was the one responsible for the theft and the kidnapping, it would be a complete game-changer. In all sorts of ways.
“This wasn’t even the job I wanted,” Charlotte muttered as she pulled a handful of crackers from a box to replace the ones Olivia had eaten.
“I’m thirsty,” the little girl said.
Charlotte headed around to the back of the bar, where Olivia was sitting, and grabbed a glass. She filled it with a couple of inches of soda and set it down. Olivia gulped it greedily.
“What job did you want?” I asked.
Charlotte’s cheeks flushed red.
“What?” I could tell she was uncomfortable with the subject, which made me all the more curious.
She let out a breath. “I applied at the new restaurant.”
“Mikey’s? The Cow & Vine?”
She gave a brief nod.
I was aghast. “You applied there? And your brother wouldn’t hire you?” I was immediately angry for her, and made a mental note to chastise Mikey over this bit of news. She’d already been given the short end of the stick by being left out of her grandmother’s inheritance, and refusing his sister a job felt like jabbing the knife even deeper into the wound.
“I didn’t apply to him,” she said. “He’s not in charge of the hiring. Chuck is.”
“Chuck?” I repeated. “So you gave him an application?”
“Yep.” Charlotte’s expression hardened. “I was sure he would hire me. After all, I’d spent a bunch of time helping them get stuff ready. For free,” she added darkly.
“And he told you no?” I asked. “Or did he just not call you about the application?”
“He told me no.” Her eyes glittered. “Said he didn’t think it was a good idea to have family working together. Could cause problems.” She gave a harsh laugh. “Funny how that didn’t matter when I was volunteering my time there.”
“What did your brother say about all of this?” I asked.
I couldn’t believe Mikey wouldn’t leap to his sister’s defense and put a good word in for her. Heck, considering how he’d stood up to Chuck in regards to the missing statue and the kidnapping, I was surprised that Mikey hadn’t insisted Chuck hire his sister.
She dumped a few more crackers in her hand and then transferred them to the napkin in front of Olivia. “He doesn’t know.”
“Why didn’t you tell him? I bet he would have intervened. In fact, I know he would have.”
Charlotte shook her head. “I shouldn’t have to beg, like some down on her luck vagrant.”
I stared at her. “You wouldn’t have been begging. You would have been telling him what happened.”
“Yeah, and then he would feel obligated to help. Just like how he offered to give me part of Gram’s inheritance.”
“I thought he didn’t make an offer,” I said, reminding her of the version of the story she’d told me.
She looked a little sheepish. “He only offered because he felt obligated, not because he wanted to give me any of it.”
She was only seeing what she wanted to see, and I was having a hard time following her logic. “But isn’t that what you want? A job and a part of the inheritance?”
“I don’t want to have to ask for it,” she hissed. “I don’t want to beg. I want to get it because people think I should have it. Don’t you get it?”
The woman in front of me was angry. Really angry. But she was also something else, something that was getting in the way of her succeeding in managing the obstacles she was facing. She was proud. Too proud to ask for help, and too proud to ask for what she thought was rightfully hers, too. Even when Mikey offered to give her part of the inheritance, she’d refused...because she hadn’t been included in the first place.
I didn’t know how to help her when she viewed what had happened through that particular lens. She had a chip on her shoulder, sure, but it went deeper than that. I could try to convince her that she was wrong, but I had a feeling I would be talking until I was blue in the face. She wasn’t going to see the truth until she was ready to...and I had no idea if or when that would happen.
“Why aren’t you working?” a voice growled from behind us.
We both turned to see Dawn standing there, her hands on her hips, a scowl on her face.
“Sorry,” Charlotte mumbled.
“You’re just like your brother,” Dawn snapped. “Standing around doing nothing.”
I almost laughed. Mikey was one of the hardest working people I knew.
“At least he didn’t bring his kid into work,” Dawn hissed, throwing a contemptuous glance in Olivia’s direction.
Charlotte stiffened. “She’s not causing any problems.”
“Yet,” Dawn said.
I momentarily forgot about the real reason I was there.
I whirled on Dawn. “Do you have a nice bone in your body?”
She snapped her head in my direction. “What? What is that supposed to mean?”
“You heard me.” I gave her a hard look. “What do you think it means? Charlotte’s doing her best. You expected her to start work immediately and didn’t give her any time to find childcare. But she did; she found someone who offered to watch Olivia. And when that fell through, she did the best she could do: she came to work anyway so you wouldn’t be left without a server. Olivia is sitting nicely and you come over here and immediately launch an all-out attack.” I took a deep breath. “So, tell me. Is there a nice bone in your body? Anywhere?”
Dawn’s lips pursed and she said nothing.
I turned to Charlotte. “I’ll watch Olivia,” I told her. “I have a couple of things I need to take care of today, but then I’ll be back. And I’ll watch her.”
She stared at me, her mouth agape. “You don’t have to do that,” she finally said.
“I know. But I want to.”
Dawn cleared her throat. “She can stay,” she half-mumbled.
“No,” I said shortly. It was too late for her to feel bad, too late for her to backtrack and change her mind. Olivia deserved better. And so did Charlotte. “I’ll take her where she’ll be welcome.”
Dawn’s eyes narrowed. “She’s welcome here,” she shot back.
I glared at her. “You have a funny way of showing it.” To Charlotte, I said, “Olivia and I will have a great time. I can take her to my house, show her my chickens. We can go exploring, too. There’s a little pond and a trail that winds around it.”
Olivia grinned, suddenly attentive. “Chickens? Real ones?”
I nodded. “Lots of them.”
“Can I pet one?”
“You can pet and
hold as many as you like,” I said.
The little girl squealed and shoved more crackers in her mouth.
Charlotte was looking at me funny. She smoothed a hand over her platinum ponytail and gave me a small smile. “If you’re willing, that would be great.”
“I am,” I said, nodding. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
Her smile grew. “Thank you,” she said. She glanced toward the back of the restaurant. “I should probably go check on that table.”
She hurried off, which left me and Dawn at the bar. My pulse quickened and I tried to take a couple of deep breaths to steel myself for what I was about to do.
She noticed. “What the heck is wrong with you?” she asked.
I bit my lip. It was now or never.
“Where’s the statue, Dawn?”
TWENTY TWO
“WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU talking about?”
“The statue,” I said evenly. “The statue that was stolen from the Cow & Vine.”
“I know what statue you’re talking about.” Dawn snorted. “Why would I know where that is?”
I folded my arms and stared her down. “Because I think you stole it.”
Dawn’s eyes widened. “Me?” she said, pointing to herself. “What the heck would I do with the world’s largest cow statue?”
“I don’t think you would do anything with it,” I said. It wasn’t like I expected her to put it on display outside of the Wicked Wich. “I think you did it to spite Mikey.”
Her glare intensified. “That’s ridiculous.”
It was. But a lot of things Dawn said and did were ridiculous.
“Where is it?” I pressed. She hadn’t attacked me yet—at least not physically—and now that I’d gotten the initial accusation out in the open, I was feeling a little more emboldened.
“I don’t have the foggiest idea,” she said. She slipped behind the bar and started wiping down the counter. Olivia had transferred her attention from the pile of crackers to the iPad sitting next to her, and was watching a cartoon.
