The Curious Case of the Cursed Dice (Curiosity Shop Cozy Mysteries Book 2)

by Constance Barker

  "And did he?"

  Lila smiled, feeling she could let her feelings show. "Actually, he did." She tried to look shocked. “Are you telling me that he was working with Cecilia?”

  "If he wasn’t, we have another group poking around at the same time and that strikes me as too much of a coincidence. Now tell me what Cecilia knows about the lock."

  “She knew you had it and where it was.”

  “I think you are holding back information,” he said.

  Lila sighed. Ulrich was getting a bit boring—too focused. She didn’t want to give up Clarence. Not now anyway. He needed time to get away. And she liked him. A sacrifice play would be a waste of a nice guy. If she had to, she would, but for now, a little digression was in order to fill time. But what to tell him? She wracked her brain for something she could say about Cecilia, something that would let him think she had value. Obviously, he intended to check out whatever she said, so her consummate lying skills were not going to be as useful as she'd like.

  This wasn’t going well at all.

  Chapter 24

  Feeling a little like he was playing a role in a bad spy movie, Clarence flipped to the video feed of the action in the lobby. Just outside of the door to the security room he saw that the security team had assembled a number of people with serious faces. Four or five of them were maintenance people in coveralls, not security guards.

  Two of them wheeled up a rack of tall gas bottles mounted on a cart; a woman wearing a welder's mask, thick gloves, a face mask, and coveralls, turned the valves on the tops of the bottles, then ignited a flame at the end of a torch. Then she began cutting into the huge bolts that held the door on.

  What a mess they were making. But that meant that very soon they'd be inside the room. Even with a skilled tech, it would take them some time to undo the work that he'd done. That would take more than a cutting torch. It would take some time before they'd even work out that he retained control of the building's basic systems. But they’d easily override the elevators and reset the phone system.

  And they'd be looking for him. When they found the room empty, they’d put out an alert. They weren’t idiots, and the duct was the only possible route out of there. They'd initiate a search. He needed to get all the way through the duct fast. And he still needed a plan, and that meant more information.

  He sat on the stone step so he could study the video feed. He was sure that Lila was up to something and he hoped he could take advantage of it. He watched her push her chair back, ensuring that the camera picked her up. When she spoke, she looked into the camera and there were odd movements of her mouth. He needed to work out what it was. It was like she was telling him something. Zooming in on her mouth, he saw that she seemed to be exaggerating certain words, and marking them by nodding her head.

  He struggled to read her lips, wishing he had an app to do it. "…I was up NORTH. FIVE thousand miles from the artifact, in Fargo, North Dakota. I was one of a handful of GUARDS."

  He suddenly remembered the floor plan of Ulrich's apartment and saw want she was saying. She was telling him that there were five guards to the north of her. Okay, now he was on the same page. As he watched, she added detail.

  “What else did you do for the Cabal,” Ulrich asked.

  "Nothing. The job was over and I headed EAST as soon as I was paid. I thought I'd get some work in the EAST, but I SAW NO ONE, so I came here. Las Vegas is usually good for a quick score—if you don’t gamble."

  Clarence nodded. So she hadn't seen anyone in the hallway that went east from her location. A quick flip on the video feed confirmed that.

  He tried to visualize the floor, the locations of the guards, of Ulrich and Lila, and approximately where Cecilia was. He found her on another video feed. She was tied to a chair and extremely unhappy about. He couldn’t tell exactly which room she was in. It wasn’t one he’d been in, but he knew about where it would be in the floor plan. And a plan was forming.

  The empty east hallway was convenient as that was where the emergency elevator came out. He’d take his air duct crawlway to connect with the elevator. It seemed odd that Ulrich didn't have that route covered. He was incredibly thorough, but for whatever reason, Clarence knew he’d found a clear path that should let him get into the hallway undetected. Naturally, he didn't know how hard it would be to get there, or how he’d make the transition from the duct to the elevator and then to the hallway. Elevators were a bit outside his expertise, but at least there was a path. He’d have to take it a step at a time.

  And as far as escaping went… one thing at a time. They'd have to worry about getting out once they got free.

  Having to work that way wasn’t comfortable, but then what didn't these days? Nothing at all seemed to operate even close to what passed for the normal he knew. Not around the artifacts or the Cabal, or even Cecilia. Of course, Lila still had the dice, so maybe they were working for her, arranging things to get her out of this dilemma. That was something to keep in mind. If this was the result of luck, well as they'd seen, the luck could change at any moment. For now, he had to act. Unfortunately, that meant getting back into the air duct.

  He grabbed the edges of the opening. The thing wasn't designed as a handhold and the sharp edges dug into his hands as he hoisted himself back up. His feet tried to find traction on the wall, and finally, he hauled himself inside. Replacing the grill was awkward and harder than getting it off, but there was no point in leaving a breadcrumb trail any more than he could help it.

  When it was in place, he started crawling again, elbowing his way through the narrow space and heading to the emergency elevator. The narrow space seemed to go on forever until suddenly, he was there. He had passed several ducts, but this time he could see the top of an elevator was just below him. Now he had to climb down. The top of the elevator wasn't a pleasant spot. It looked greasy, dirty, and totally unpleasant. That made it about perfect as a place to hide. Obviously, it wasn’t easily accessible and it might take the bad guys some time before they thought to look for him on top of this tiny box held twenty-something floors above a concrete floor by a far too thin metal cable.

  It certainly wouldn't be a place Clarence wanted to be if the circumstances were different. But they weren't different, and apparently, necessity was the mother of hiding in nasty places as well as invention.

  Chapter 25

  On reflection, I wasn't pleased with my current situation. Being held prisoner, restrained in a chair and unable to move was unpleasant. I tried to use the time productively. Although I kept running clever escape plans through my mind, the main item my reflections produced was the thought that I'd rate my second time of being tied to a chair as even more maddening than the first one. It lacked not only the novelty of the first time, but when Clarence and I had been grabbed by that other faction of the Cabal we were knocked out and we both spent a part of our captivity unconscious—that helped make it better, or at least time passed quickly.

  Even more significant was the lack of help. The first time, Edgar had been there. Although it pained me to acknowledge it, I wouldn't have gotten out without his help. He'd scouted the area and then helped me loosen the bonds, which had been cotton clothesline.

  But now Edgar was in Ulrich’s vault and I was learning that there were times, times like this, when you can miss the companionship of your personal ghost a lot. I'd been taking him for granted. Maybe being haunted wasn't always a bad thing. I vowed to be nicer to him in the future, assuming I had one.

  Which made me wonder about the curse. The way I understood it, I was stuck with Edgar until someone accepted the pen from me. I'd given it to Clarence a couple of times but he'd given it back. Part of the curse was that any reasonable person would refuse to accept the pen from me. Now, since Ulrich’s men had taken the pen from me, or one of his people had, I wondered if whoever had it now was cursed instead of me? Was Edgar in ghost foster care?

  Somehow I didn't think so. Given that I fully intended to retrieve my pen, which
would bring the curse back to me, the question was rather rhetorical, but still…

  My impatience overcame my cool logic and I started working furiously at my bonds. I focused on one wrist, twisting and pulling until it got sore. Ulrich Steele's high-tech warriors had used wide cable ties to attach my wrists to the arms of the chair, but wiggling my hands still chaffed. The plastic was thin enough to make working my wrists around, trying to stretch them, rather painful. These handcuff substitutes were big, fat, industrial-strength cable ties and they looked a lot stronger than I felt. Sometimes I hate technology and the improvements it brought to modern life. Well, to my life anyway. I doubted I could chew through these things. I could happily have lived my entire life if no one had invented them.

  On the other hand, if someone could make them, maybe I could break them—somehow. You never know what you are capable of until you try, or some cliche like that. I've never been big on cliches, but I tried anyway. I wiggled, squirmed, pulled, tugged and generally made my wrists sore. And then, suddenly, without warning, one came loose. The loop with the little teeth in it that holds the tie in place simply… failed.

  I didn't think they did that. I thought they were stress tested or something. I'd hoped I could stretch it and get my hand out but this was just too lucky for words.

  I heard that last thought as words in my head and they stopped me. Luck was playing far too large a role in this entire little gambit for my taste. It made sense that it would, but still… and it was odd luck. Those dice! Ulrich had taken them, so why did I suddenly have some good luck? Or was this him having bad luck? Could he and the dice have used up his luck already? That would be good… for me.

  When your enemy is having bad luck, there is hope for you. Even as I considered that profound little bit of wisdom, the second cable tie came undone. Let’s hear it for positive thinking.

  The idea that Steele had already expended his luck struck me as wrong. It was too soon. And there was another option to consider… that the resourceful and devious Lila had gotten her hands on the dice again. She was a thief, after all. The flaw in that thinking was that my sudden burst of good fortune wouldn’t have anything to do with that, if she had gotten them, that should change her luck, not mine. Of course, since we were ostensibly working together, was our luck tied together too? If so, my fortunes could change on a dime. I had to prepare for that.

  This was all way too complicated to work out and anyway I was in the middle of making a daring escape from the Cabal. It was time to go with the flow. If I learned anything concrete, then maybe this luck thing would be useful.

  With my hands free I was able to undo the cable ties on my ankles and make my way to the door. I was slightly unsteady as I went out into the stark white, but happily empty hallway. All the time I was bracing myself for someone to shout at me, raise the alarm. When no one did it was almost anticlimactic. Could I be so lucky that they'd neglected to keep me guarded? Or worse, did Ulrich want me to escape? Was this some kind of setup? But why? What would he gain by me letting me escape? The negative spin, in terms of my ego, was that he had underestimated me and thought there was no way I’d get loose.

  I heard a sound, the mechanical clanking. I looked down the hallways and saw an elevator. This wasn’t the posh private elevator we’d come up in, but a more utilitarian one. There was nowhere to run, so I watched to see what was going on. The door came open but the elevator was empty. I noticed a hatch at the top of the elevator open and a lone figure started to lower himself down. Pretty clearly this wasn’t Ulrich Steele making an entrance. The man hung for a moment, swinging a bit, then dropped to the ground, landing awkwardly. He stood up and straightened his plaid bow tie.

  "Clarence!" I wondered if I'd ever been so glad to see anyone before.

  He smiled. "Hey there. I thought they had you tied up."

  "They did. But they used cable ties and they seem to have been defective."

  "How weird."

  "I know. Or lucky."

  He smiled. "Given everything… I'll bet that's what it is—luck."

  "Well, sure, but…"

  "The thing is, Lila has the dice again. I think she's using luck to get free."

  "How do you know that?"

  He laughed. "She showed them to me."

  “Just like that?”

  He explained how he'd been monitoring the video feeds on his cell phone and what he'd seen. "I don't know what she intends to do, or what she expects from us, but she has definitely been feeding me information. She let me know the number and location of guards and that somehow she managed to snatch the dice back without Steele knowing."

  "That’s amazing."

  He held up his cell phone. "She seemed to know I'd be able to watch her.”

  I pointed at the camera in the hall. “And aren’t they watching us?”

  “They think they are, but they are seeing archival footage of the hallway. Pretty boring stuff, for the most part."

  “And what did Lila do?”

  “She flashed the dice and did what I’ve read is called word marking… emphasizing the words she wanted me to pay attention to.”

  That was impressively smart. I wouldn't have thought of that. "Okay, but her having the dice just amplifies her own luck. What would that have to do with us being lucky?" My question was sincere. I was hoping he could figure that one out. It still didn't make any sense to me.

  He touched his nose. It was an odd gesture. "I've been thinking about that," he said. “It didn’t seem right.” I realized that the fact that it was bothering him too made me feel better. "I think that it’s because she is letting the dice amplify her luck while focusing on the goal of getting out of this bind. It’s a bet that would have long odds. I don’t know exactly how it functions, but it's possible that we might be the instruments the dice use. It gives us her good luck doing whatever is necessary to put us in position to help her escape. We are being lucky for her."

  That made an odd kind of sense. "So my luck with the restraints lets me escape to rescue her?"

  "Exactly." His nod was more confident than his tone of voice. “I think. She is the one who is heavily guarded, so the dice keep us free to help her out. That’s the logic I see.”

  "Clarence, is it just me or have you noticed that we use logic a lot differently than we used to, back in the days before we started chasing cursed objects all over the country?"

  "I was thinking the same thing myself. We see a lot of things differently. And in this case, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, when a person uses the dice to get good luck, it uses it up. They can make it run out quickly… abruptly, and with disastrous consequences. So we'd better get on with whatever we are supposed to do."

  "Good idea." I looked at him. "What's the plan?"

  He raised his eyebrows. "The plan?"

  "You always have a plan. You don't breathe without a plan."

  He looked embarrassed. "I’m afraid that this is an exception."

  "It is?"

  "It had to be. I was locked inside the security room and saw you two get caught. They were coming after me, and I had to adapt to the changes."

  I had to smile but tried to avoid looking smug. "I see."

  "I managed to divert Steele's thugs while I set up the system and snuck out through the air duct, but they were coming after me. Locating you two, deciphering what Lila was trying to tell me, and then getting here was a formidable feat that required improvisation."

  "Good for you." He gave me a look. "Seriously. I'm proud of you. You did an amazing amount.”

  "Well, right now the plan we had is in tatters and there's no time for research or planning a new one." He sighed. "I think we need to rely on your instincts."

  "You're serious?"

  "I am."

  "Why my instincts? Why not yours?"

  He grinned. "Because I'm new at this and because Lila's luck might have played a big role in how well mine worked so far. I don’t quite trust those feelings. You have more experience in winging it�
��you know how to read your gut feelings better than I do mine. When I try to read mine, something gets lost in translation… the only clear message I get is to hurry up and do something before the sky falls on me."

  "Well, in that our instincts agree. We do need to do something." I held back the part of that saying that goes, "even if it's wrong." Clarence was a novice at improvising and I saw no reason not to encourage his successes. But he was right about us not having time for standing around. We were on the clock. If Lila hadn't betrayed us, if her move had been to distract Ulrich Steele and get her hands on the dice, then she was taking a huge risk. We all knew that her luck would abruptly end.

  Despite my misgivings about her, my gut was favoring the idea that Lila was on our side. She was a con artist and a convincing actress, not to mention an opportunistic thief, but the things she had done were apparently intended to make sure we all got out of this alive. She hadn’t been giving us up to save her own skin.

  I hated having to be fair and open minded. It was a real pain. It also meant we had to get her. That was another risk. "Okay, then let's go get the damsel in distress."

  "Just like that?"

  I looked into his eyes. "That's what my instincts say. Unless you’ve got another idea?"

  “Nope.”

  So I started toward the stairs and Clarence followed without a complaint or question. I could get used to that.

  Chapter 26

  Ulrich stared at Lila. He didn't look happy and she was sure that was a bad thing. She would have been more certain of herself if he'd looked happy. But he wasn’t. He was scowling. Definitely not happy.

  He rubbed his palms together. "If you really knew the Cabal, if you'd worked with other members…you would know more than you are telling me and I don't think you do.”