by Misty Simon
With those words I left the room in a dramatic exit, to go bang pots and pans around in the kitchen. I wasn’t actually going to cook anything, of course, but I was pissed and didn’t know what else to do with myself. I banged open the refrigerator, then took in the contents of the inside. We had fancy green leaf lettuce now, instead of my normal iceberg. We had hothouse tomatoes fresh off the vine instead of my normal red globes. I had felt fancy at one point, thinking I had moved up in the world from pedestrian foods to fancy veggies, but now they only made me a little sad.
I understood Ben was trying to help, but this wasn’t the way to go about it, and in fact could turn into a complete and utter disaster. I could feel it in my bones, and my bones rarely lied to me.
I told myself I didn’t want him to follow me into the kitchen, but when he appeared in the doorway, I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe now he would concede, and we could go back to what I wanted.
And yes, I was fully aware that I was being selfish. But I thought of it more as self-preservation at this point, since who knew if she was a crazed killer, stalker, and undresser, along with handcuffer? She could do a lot of damage while we slept. I wasn’t willing to let a psychopath sleep in my house, innocent or not.
“I called the police and let them know to come in with lights off.” He placed his cell phone on the counter next to my head where I was still searching the refrigerator. I didn’t want to turn and look at his hand or register the fact that he had effectively trapped me in the circle of his arms and the fridge. I could turn into him and go for a big hug. I could turn into him and knee him in the balls for letting me think he was going to let the demanding bitch stay here. I could…
I decided to turn into him and not so mock punch him in the chest. “Let me go. I’m still mad at you.”
“Why? I didn’t do anything wrong this time. I wasn’t completely ignorant of her trying to use what little wiles she has to lure me into thinking with my dick instead of my bigger head. I didn’t fall for the batting eyes or the thrust-out cleavage. You ought to be very proud of me.”
I snorted. “You want a medal or the chest to pin it on?”
He laughed, pulling me to him even though I put up token resistance. And I got to rest against his lovely chest that I wouldn’t want to replace for anything.
He was a pretty smart cookie, too, not just a pretty face.
Not that I really thought he was only a pretty face, but it was nice to see I wasn’t going to have to fight him about this police thing.
The sound of Heather tromping up onto the front porch made me shove Ben out of the kitchen to deal with her while I called Bella. My friend would want to know there was an imminent arrest in the making. She might even want to come over and watch. We could make popcorn and enjoy the show.
I placed the call, keeping my voice low because I could hear Heather’s braying laugh in the other room. If she even thought of touching…
Bella answered with a breathy greeting.
“For God’s sake, can you not let that poor man rest even when he’s been hit over the head and cuffed to a frickin’ tree?”
She laughed, a very naughty sound. “It’s called recuperation. You should try it some time.”
“And you should get some clothes on and come over here right now. I have Heather in my house.” But I was talking to dead air after I said “Heather.”
We would see how long it took her to get her butt moving.
Apparently a far shorter time than the police. I had no clue where they were, lights and sirens off or not. Ten minutes later they still hadn’t shown up, but Bella did, with a bang and a crash…and lots of screeching.
Perhaps I should have thought my brilliant idea all the way through before inviting her over. I had a feeling she wasn’t going to be content with popcorn and watching the show. She wanted blood, and even if I couldn’t blame her, I knew I was going to have to at least try to restrain her.
I hustled out to the living room right as she came busting through the door. No hello or eye contact with me at all. She just beelined right for Heather. And I almost felt sorry for the other woman. Until she grabbed Ben around the waist, her hand perilously close to his groin, and tried to hide behind him.
Bella was a force to be reckoned with, but she had nothing on me when I was obviously PMSing (witness all the mood swings) and my man was being touched by someone who thought a slut-o-licious shirt was the height of fashion, not to mention the fact that she thought she would keep her door unlocked for him tonight.
“Hands off, bitch!” I yelled in what I thought was a very scary, deep voice. The other people in the room must have thought the same thing, because everyone stopped in mid-motion and turned to look at me.
Unfortunately, it was enough of a distraction for Heather to duck out from behind Ben and make a dash for the still-open front door. She was out on the street like a shot and had her car running faster than I could say, “Uh-oh.”
“Great job, there, Ivy.” Once Detective Debbie had shown up—sixty-two seconds after Heather had made her dash to freedom—the haranguing had not stopped. Good word, no possible time to enjoy it since I was getting blasted from all sides. Bella and Ben had each taken a piece out of me in those sixty-two seconds, and now Debbie didn’t look like she was going to stop any time soon.
“Now we have no idea where she is and no real way of finding her. If this is your way of helping, then I have to say please don’t do it again.” She shook her head, making me feel like a kid who had disappointed her mommy.
I can’t tell you how much I hated that feeling. “Look, I’m sorry. For the fortieth time, I might add.”
“You might add that and make me even angrier than I already am.”
I did not have to take this in my own home.
“If you had been here sooner, like in five minutes instead of twenty, then it wouldn’t have been a problem, now would it?” I totally ignored the way Ben kept shaking his head at me. I was about done with the whole make-Ivy-feel-like-a-heel thing. As I said, Ben and Bella had already taken chunks out of me. I had given Debbie her fifteen minutes of ranting. I was done. D-O-N-E!
“I’ll take you in as an accessory.” She had her mean eyes going, but I tell you I was no longer scared.
The worst she could do was put me in jail for the night. I hadn’t really done anything criminal, so she had nothing to pin on me. Stupidity, as she had said many times before, was not a crime, no matter how much she might have wished it was.
“An accessory to what, exactly? Do you have any hard proof she did anything?”
Bella squawked at my words. “She tied up my boyfriend, naked. Only I’m allowed to do that.”
“I don’t need to know any more than I already do about your bedroom antics. And for your information, you can’t know she definitely did the deed. She wasn’t wearing the T-shirt here, and she didn’t look like she’d been romping around the forest. Unless you can absolutely prove it was her, there’s nothing the police can do.” I turned to Debbie. “Is there?”
“No,” she grumbled. Then she rallied. “But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have been able to get her to admit to her part in this afternoon’s escapade if I’d been given a chance at interrogating her. And now I don’t have that.”
With her hands back on her hips, she would have looked formidable if I could manage to get the image of her in a fluffy bunny outfit out of my head. Charlie had been in a sharing mood the other day and told me about some of the games they played in the bedroom. (I will never understand why people always want to share with me, but there you have it.) Now I couldn’t look at her without suppressing a giggle. Especially at this particular time when I was giddy with exhaustion and in serious need of my bed and a few uninterrupted days of rest. Not that I was going to get my wish, with Halloween coming and the shop bustling more than ever.
I had a feeling, too, that I would hear about this tomorrow from Charlie, since he had to live with this snuggle bunny. Snort!
In the meantime, Debbie had gone back to berating me.
I tuned her out because she had started repeating herself. Turning imploring eyes to Ben, I gave him a mental signal I was ready for bed. By this point it was almost midnight, and well past my bedtime.
“We’re sorry, Debbie,” Ben finally said when she took a breath. “If we hear anything about her whereabouts, we’ll certainly let you know. We won’t interfere again.”
My jaw nearly unhinged, making my mouth hang wide open. How in the hell did he expect to not interfere if we were going to solve this damn thing? Not only did I have my own curiosity to satisfy, but I had promised Mark, and more importantly Jerry. I would never breathe in the wonderful aroma of magical cheesecake again if I didn’t find out who had done this and tried to blame it on Jerry. Fortunately, no one had ever really thought he was a viable suspect, but he still wanted answers.
“You’d better stay out of everything,” was Debbie’s parting shot as she stomped out the front door.
Oh, yeah, I was so going to hear about this tomorrow.
After a night filled with strange dreams involving tons of bunnies and a granola bar I could not seem to swallow no matter how many times I chewed it into pulp, I woke up to face the next day.
The shop promised to be hugely busy. We had a shipment coming in of ordered costumes, and it was Mr. Hanks’ normal day for fittings. He had a special shipment coming in that he had actually paid next-day service for. I had let Charlie handle the details because, honestly, I didn’t want to know.
So we had all that, and I was also supposed to help Martha put together the menu for Thanksgiving. It was early, but my understanding was that about fifty people were coming for the feast, and Martha wanted my help. Yay!
Which was way off topic at this point. I didn’t want to even think about those things until some time this evening.
The scent of coffee drifted down the hallway. Unfortunately, it made me want to curl up in bed and calm the churning in my stomach.
“Ben,” I said weakly.
No answer.
“Ben,” I said a little louder, swallowing after, hoping I wouldn’t lose the ice cream I’d eaten last night. This flu thing was kicking my ass.
Still no answer.
“Ben!”
Finally he came trekking down the hallway.
“Yeah, babe?” he said, peeking his head around the doorjamb. “Did you want your coffee in bed? I have to get going to the office soon, but I can make you a quick cup before I head out.”
Ugh, the mere thought of coffee was enough to give me another pang in my stomach. Maybe the ice cream had been bad, not only bad for me, but bad as in stored in the freezer too long. Although that wasn’t really possible, since ice cream never stayed in the freezer long enough to even get those little ice crystals, much less go bad.
“No coffee?” He sounded shocked, and I didn’t blame him. On a normal day I would mainline the stuff if I could. But not today.
“Crackers?” I remembered something my mom had done for me when I was little. I didn’t remember much from her, since she had died when I was ten, but I did recall being sick and having her bring me crackers and water. “Water, too,” I croaked.
“I’ll be right back.”
And he was, which was only one of the reasons I loved him so much.
Chapter Nineteen
Fortunately, a little while later I was able to get up and into the shower. The cruddy feeling had passed, so I was almost feeling normal. Yay, me.
And now to face a day at the office. Oh, who was I kidding? I loved The Masked Shoppe. I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather be, other than in bed with Ben at my beck and call.
This was still a really close second, though. I had never known what was missing from my life when I was an office girl. Now I realized Great-Aunt Gertie had known me better than I knew myself. Thank God for her. I sincerely hoped she was entertaining Him up in the great beyond with her ribald sense of humor.
I took a stroll down to the shop, enjoying the way the crisp air felt on my cheeks and the lovely way the trees lining the street had put on their fall dresses.
The shop’s sign swung in the light breeze, its green-and-white lettering as clean and beautiful as the day I’d had it made. There was a little weathering around the edges, but it gave it a used look, in a good way, of course.
I could see shadows moving inside. A lot of shadows. Holy cow, it looked like a mass of shadows. And when I stepped into the front room, I could tell I wasn’t wrong about how busy it was going to be today.
Poor Charlie already looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and hibernate. Maybe I would need to think about adding some more help. But that was a thought for another day, because I had to jump in.
I rang up costumes and panties, riding crops I hoped were for Halloween costumes—but I sure wasn’t asking—and for some reason a ton of elbow-length gloves.
Charlie was in the middle of helping someone with a last-minute order for a Little Red Riding Hood costume when Mr. Hanks walked in. I thought about ducking and hiding, but really, when was I going to grow up? I loved what I did, enjoyed selling both the naughty and the nice to everyone else, and he had never asked me any really embarrassing questions. I highly doubted he was going to start now.
Then again I should have remembered my life never works so well.
“Hey, Ivy.” The conversation started out normal enough. “Did my order come in?” He twisted the watch on his wrist in a circle over and over again.
“Let me check,” I told him, continuing to be mesmerized by the way he fiddled with the watch. What did he have to be worried about? I already knew about the bustier and, even though Charlie took the order, I still had to call it in, so it wasn’t like anything in there was going to be a surprise to me.
Charlie smiled at me as I went into the office to the small closet where I kept those truly special orders. I rummaged around for what felt like forever until I found the box marked Hanks, then carried it back out front.
“If you’d like to take it into one of the dressing rooms to try on whatever needs to be tried on, I can wait for you,” I offered. Sometimes he would simply pay and walk out. He was such a frequent customer we had little trouble with his sizing. But this appeared to be different.
He smiled at me a little sheepishly (not that I understood why), and took the box into one of the velvet-curtained stalls across the room.
I went on to wait on another customer, and another, and another. About ten minutes later, I was starting to get nervous because he hadn’t come out of the dressing room yet. The box of things was small enough, so even if it contained a plethora (good word!) of banana hammocks, he should have been done by now. And I knew one of the items wasn’t for him, unless he really didn’t have a girlfriend and the bustier was for him. Ew! Maybe he and Charlie had more in common than I had originally thought.
I so wasn’t going there.
I looked over at Charlie during a two-second lull. “Should we go check on him?” I asked, dreading the possible yes that would make me have to do it. An image flashed in my mind’s eye of finding Mr. Hanks incapacitated on the floor in one of those aforementioned banana hammocks. A shiver wracked my body.
But Charlie offered to go check on him. Phew. Potential squicky moment averted. Yay, me!
Charlie came bouncing back. “He’s fine, just had a slight problem opening one of the packages.”
“Okay.”
And then the lull passed, to be replaced by a swarm unlike any I had seen before, even when al
l those women had been in here trying to buy lingerie to entice my Ben.
Another ten minutes passed as I kept one eye on the register and the customer in front of me, and the other eye on the curtain across the room. Mr. Hanks finally emerged, box in hand and all his clothes back on. I breathed a sigh of relief, motioning for him to come to my side of the counter.
“How’d everything work out?” I asked when he put the box on the counter. I already had an inventory list on the outside of the box, so there was no need to open the thing up to calculate the prices.
I removed the list, humming to myself as I considered what a huge haul this was going to be. Mr. Hanks must make some serious cash if he could be in here this often and consistently make these purchases. I certainly wasn’t complaining.
But then he put his hand over the inventory sheet.
I snapped my gaze up to his face to see if there was something wrong. He had gone the color of a tomato.
Uh-oh.
“Something the matter?” I asked in my best saleswoman voice. If this was going to be embarrassing for both of us, then I wanted my best professional voice as armor.
He cleared his throat.
Maybe I should run and change places with Charlie. No, I was a big girl, I could handle whatever Mr. Hanks threw my way.
“Well, it seems something is missing from the list.”
I ran my eye down the inventory, trying to remember if I had been the one to check the box when it arrived. I distinctly remembered pulling out each item and matching it with the list. I would have sworn there was nothing missing.
“I can check again, sir, but I was the one who went through it. Everything appeared to be in the order.”
“This was something special, something I had added on at the last minute.”
“Okay,” I said, drawing out the two syllables.
