by Raven Snow
After smiling at me, he turned to Wyatt and said, “Your wife is lovely.”
He said it like he was giving a compliment on someone’s dog. To make matters worse, Sarah laughed and said that he was too kind, making eyes at him the whole time.
Wyatt, seemingly caught between good manners and the sharp, fiery edge of my fury, wisely said nothing. Keeping with his silence, he pulled out my chair for me and hurried over to make me a cup of tea.
“Harper,” Sarah said, “we were just discussing the charming little competition that’s coming up with your husband.”
“It’s a Christmas tradition in Waresville,” I said, my lips barely moving.
“Sarah was thinking of entering us,” Ben said. “I was hesitant at first, but I know how much you women love dancing.”
Wyatt shoved the cup of tea into my hands, distracting me briefly when hot water went flying. The second was all he needed to bulldoze over whatever rude thing had been about to come out of my mouth. I shot him a glare that screamed of retribution.
“What about you two?” Sarah asked. “Are you excited for the competition?”
“We’re not dancing.” I shuddered at the thought.
Sarah blinked for a moment, the same look coming across her face as when I’d told her Wyatt and I weren’t married. I waited for her to catch up as I mentally calculated the time it would take me to sprint from the kitchen, grab my keys, and head back to Miami. I wouldn’t have to worry about any neighbors there.
“Couldn’t you get your husband to agree?” she asked, putting a hand over Ben’s and grinning. “Mine’s too indulgent with me.”
For a moment there, I thought I would actually puke all over their pastries and coffee. The moment passed but not the feeling of disgust and nausea.
“I wanted to enter, actually,” Wyatt said, shooting an impertinent grin at me.
“Do you also want to sleep on the couch for the rest of your life?”
Sarah opened her mouth, a glint in her eyes that I didn’t like one bit. Shooting up from my chair, I grabbed Wyatt by the arm and hauled him up next to me. It was only remotely possible because he let me.
“We’d love to chat some more, but I have to see Wyatt off to work.”
Wyatt’s lip twitched. “You do?”
My teeth made a creaking sound from being ground together so hard. “I do,” I gritted out. Then, to the Goodfellows, I said, “I just want those few extra moments with him, what with us being newlyweds and everything.”
I ran Wyatt out the door in the next moment, returning the waves and promises to do this again soon. I meant every word as long as I could change the word soon to never. Wyatt grinned the whole way to the car, sealing his fate to be on my bad side for the rest of the day.
He didn’t start the car immediately, turning to me instead. “Newlyweds, huh?” He pressed a kiss to my temple. “Did it hurt you physically to say that?”
“No, only psychologically.”
Not moving to turn the key, he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me against the console, so I’d be just a little bit closer to him. His heat enveloped me, sending shivers down my spine.
“Would it really be so bad?” he whispered into my ear, distracting me with his very talented hands. “Being my wife? We already live together.”
“Er−” my sharp mind and clever tongue failed me. “Yes… No… Wyatt!”
He withdrew to his side of the car with a chuckle, starting the car and heading off toward the station while I was still trying to form full sentences in my head.
“We’re not getting married,” I told him, getting out of the car.
He locked it with an audible click. “Whatever you say, dear.”
When I continued to follow him inside, he stopped, turning around and raising an eyebrow at me. “Something I can do for you, Mrs. Bennett?”
He was playing with me. Even through the haze of panic, I could see the curl of his lips. Still, the intent look in his eyes belied that smile. The glint I found there was hot and dead-serious.
It took me a moment to recover from the urge to run. “Just thought I’d check in on my good pal, Officer Kosher.”
That frightening look left his eyes, and he frowned at me. “That might not be the best idea.”
Though he grumbled at me the whole time, Wyatt didn’t try and stop me from following him into the station. I waved at the receptionist who I didn’t know by name, but who I’d seen naked on more than one occasion. She was a regular bedmate of my ex-best friend, Oliver, and he had a fetish of doing it anywhere but in his own bed.
A mountain of paperwork awaited Wyatt at his desk, and to his credit, he looked pleased to see it. I watched him for a moment, taking pleasure in his obvious love for his job and the way he filled out paperwork with a happy competence.
Pressing a kiss to his forehead and sliding my hands through his hair, I wandered over to Kosher’s desk which, for the moment, was empty of the awful man. It was a far cry from Wyatt’s organized, color-coded area. Here, dirty coffee cups, stained papers, and takeout containers reigned supreme. I thought I saw something move in one of the latter, and I backed away from the desk slowly.
A new addition was taped to the board against the wall behind his desk. It seemed free of creepy crawlies, so I headed on over. It was a very detailed map of the town, but what struck me about it was the pins stuck into it at seemingly random spots.
I leaned in close and realized that each dot was placed on top of a business. Reading them off in my head, I smiled slowly, seeing the connection instantly. I was looking at Kosher’s map of the counterfeit bills’ appearances throughout Waresville. Interestingly enough, he had a few that I didn’t, and I had a few that he didn’t. Together, we completed each other.
Ew.
The most interesting tidbit of all, though, was what Kosher had circled at the very center of all the appearances of the fake money. Seeing it, my good mood was dashed and a cold sweat broke out over my skin. Kosher had circled Town Hall, because all the appearances formed a perimeter around it. Unfortunately, the only thing going on at the town hall right now was that dance competition.
“You!”
I whirled to see Kosher stalking across the room toward me, his face as red I’d ever seen it. His expression was murderous, and Wyatt, seeing it, abandoned his paperwork to intercept him, making him the new target of Kosher’s aggression.
“Get that… that−”
“Careful,” Wyatt said quietly.
Dropping whatever he’d been about to call me, Kosher said, “Get her out of here! Before I arrest her for interfering in a police investigation.”
“Pookey bear,” I said in a voice sweet enough to give the two men cavities, “if you want me gone, I’m gone.”
I blew Kosher a kiss on the way out, and Wyatt had to physically put himself in Kosher’s way to keep the officer from coming after me. Sure I was going to hear about that later, but I decided to enjoy my little win and pranced all the way to Town Hall.
I was interrupted, though.
An unmarked van—the type your mother warned you about as a kid—pulled up to the sidewalk I was walking on. Having never paid attention to any authority figure, I didn’t heed my mother’s warning and walked right up to the van, passing within feet of it.
As soon as I was in range, the doors slid open, and someone grabbed me, trying to pull me inside. Though I could feel their touch, no body belonged to the force, making it seem like air was trying to push me inside the van.
I didn’t dwell on that, instead fighting like a woman possessed against the invisible hands. Thrashing around and flailing into the side of the van, I was fighting a losing battle until a pair of meaty hands grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me back onto the sidewalk.
Before I could even catch my breath or think about getting a license plate, the van was flying up the street, disappearing from view within seconds.
Vic, my rescuer, put her hands on her hips, glaring at where th
e van had been. “You sure are popular today.”
“It’s a burden, yes.”
“Are we calling the police?”
I regained my breath and shook my head. “No, they’d just cramp my style.”
Walking arm-in-arm toward Town Hall once again, Vic frowned at me. “In a few weeks, I’ll be a cop.”
“The most stylish cop there ever was.”
That seemed to placate her for the time, so it must have been the right thing to say. While we traveled, I filled her in on the current case and everything I’d discovered while spying on Kosher. She listened on with awe until I was finished.
“The Academy is making me miss all the fun stuff!”
“Don’t be silly,” I said, opening the glass front doors to one of the few governing buildings in Waresville. “I haven’t even done anything illegal yet.”
Town Hall looked more like a shopping center than anything else. The “stores” on both sides of a large, wide stretching hallway were each offices for different affairs. I passed the DMV with a wince, thinking it was almost time to renew my license. On the opposite end of the entrance was a large, outdoor courtyard. This was more for decoration and housed gardens and picnics. And, during the holidays, it housed the dance competition.
“This,” Vic said in surprise, “is actually pretty nice.”
“The original Town Hall burned down a couple years ago, so they got to renovate it completely.”
She raised an eyebrow at me, and I grinned. “I have an alibi for the night it went up in flames.”
“Sorry. Too much time with straight-laced cops this week.”
We headed for the courtyard where they were just starting to set up the dance floor for tomorrow. The opening dance was something that anyone could participate in. They didn’t have to compete. It was supposed to be prim and proper but usually ended up looking like a mosh pit. Which was why I usually went.
“Who do you think wanted to kidnap you?” Vic yelled over the loud music the workers were testing out.
“Probably someone involved with the counterfeit case,” I told her.
Sure, I pissed off a lot of people on the regular, but abduction seemed like a rash, immediate reaction. That meant it was probably someone I had pissed off very recently.
Just then, I noticed Kosher off to the side, yelling at the rude, probably gay man who owned the clothing store, Julio. He put his hands on his hips, looking like he was doing anything but cooperating. After a moment, he stalked off, leaving Kosher looking pissed.
Kosher glanced around, making eye contact with a few of the other contestants. Curiously, they all looked away quickly, moving about their business without really paying any attention to what they were doing. I watched this whole display with a familiar sinking feeling in my stomach.
I started toward the check-in desk, turning back to say to Vic, “Police lesson for the day: The best place to be in an investigation is right in the middle of it.”
“Where are you going?” she called after me, not even bothering to thank me for that little gem.
“To sign up for the dance competition.”
A kindly old lady took my information, beaming at me the whole time. It was clear she didn't know who I was or what my involvement meant to her precious competition, but I rolled with it, smiling and nodding along.
After the paperwork was taken care of, she took me back to the makeshift mess hall to introduce me to the other contestants. It was a very creepy, déjà vu feeling, competing again. Just a couple months ago, I had been forced into joining the Witch of the Year competition. Now, I was wading in of my own volition.
The first person she brought me to was Julio and his cashier. The kid was dressed up fancy—probably by Julio himself—and he kept picking at his clothes, uncomfortable with this turn of events. He looked to be about college age with boyish good looks that Julio, for one, seemed to enjoy. I learned his name was Jamie.
Turning to follow the old woman after the unfriendly run-in with Julio, I smacked into the police station's secretary, Justina. I was instantly assaulted with images of her and Oliver getting it on, rolling around on the floors of my grandmother's shop.
"Harper," she said, blinking. After she recovered herself, she glanced around, a hungry glint in her eyes. "Is Oliver with you?"
Justina saw someone she knew and waved, leaving me to dodge out of the way of her long, sharp acrylic nails.
"No."
I was usually pretty talkative, so the lack of words had her shifting uncomfortably. "Oh. I was hoping—nothing. Never mind. Are you entering in the competition?"
The old lady was suddenly not by my side anymore, but I barely registered this, nodding to Justina and scanning the crowd for suspects.
"Have you met everyone?"
Zeroing back in on Justina, I smiled widely. "I haven't, as a matter of fact. Why don't you point them out?"
Complying, she waved to a Spanish man with swinging hips who was practicing his steps a few yards away and making faces at Justina. "That's my partner, Don. He's fresh off the boat, so to speak. You've already met Julio and Jamie..."
She snapped her fingers, trying to remember who was left. Pointing at a large, balding man with paint on his cheek and a young girl with very little clothes on, she said, "That's Greg and Katy. High school art teacher and former student. I'll leave it to you to decide which is which."
While I was watching, Katy fawned over some woman’s necklace. It was a little gaudy for my tastes, having more diamonds on it than Katy had years on this earth. Still, it wasn’t hard to see why the shine and sparkle would attract a girl.
Even though we were far away, I could see a sheen of sweat break out on Greg’s forehead when Katy noticed the necklace. By the time she was done admiring it, the art teacher had lost all his color and was practically wringing his hands.
“Interesting,” I said to myself.
“What’s interesting?” a heavy Spanish accent asked.
Don had made an appearance at our sides. Before I could answer, though, Justina excused herself to grab something to drink. Don, like a puppy, followed after her without hesitation.
Vic finally caught up to me, but she said nothing for a minute, watching me watch the pool of suspects widen and widen. For the first time that day, I realized that she wasn’t wearing her usual colorful spandex. Instead, she wore workout clothes: nondescript and tent-like.
“There are hours left before the ceremony tonight,” she said, eyeing a hot dog stand off to our right. “Whatever shall we do to pass the time?”
While hot dogs did sound appealing, I couldn’t help but feel as if I was forgetting something important for tonight. Something that I couldn’t dance competitively without…
“Wyatt!”
Chapter Five
A half an hour later, Wyatt was eyeing me doubtfully from across the kitchen table. His tongue seemed to be caught in an intense battle. The poor creature was trying to weigh what it knew about me and the strange request I’d just made of him.
“I thought you didn’t want to compete,” he said slowly.
I waved a hand, grinning. “And you took me seriously? I love dancing.”
A single eyebrow went up. “Ballroom?”
Sweat breaking out all over my body at the thought, I made my shrug as nonchalant as possible. “It’s just an earlier kind of boogie. No different from the Disco Shake.”
He stared at me for a moment, chocolate cereal left forgotten on the table. “This is a test, isn’t it?”
“Fine, I need a way to snoop on a deeper level into this counterfeit case. Happy?”
“Ecstatic,” he said. “Especially about the chance to dance with my lovely lady.”
We dropped Cooper off at his grandparents’—though it was really more like a drive-by, because we were already a little late. Peeling away, I watched Cooper glare at us from the driveway until we turned around the corner, his arms crossed and his expression decidedly not happy.
; At Town Hall, people were running around like chickens without their heads. The courtyard was crowded with the whole town, people eating and dancing and waiting for the opening dance to start to see who’d be competing for bragging rights and some lame gift cards.
Even the mayor, Carson Smiles—his birth name, unfortunately—had turned up for the show. He walked around with a big grin on his face that looked painfully frozen there. I wondered if liquid dribbled out when he tried to drink.
Before we’d even crossed the threshold, Vic and her vicious offspring ran up to us. Her hair was flying away and her face was red, probably from the running.
“They’ve been looking for you everywhere,” she hissed. “Something about getting into costume.”
I looked down at myself in confusion. I was wearing neon green disco shorts, high tops, and a tight, silk tank top in an equally bracing color. “I’m always in costume, Vic.”
“Probably they had a dress of some sorts in mind,” Wyatt said, carefully disinterested.
I wasn’t buying it. Turning away from Vic, I eyed Wyatt like a bug under a microscope. “You’ve seen me in a dress before.”
“Not the sort of dress they make you wear on opening night,” he said. “You know, poufy and formal.”
It didn’t take a genius or a psychologist to guess why he wanted to see me in a ball gown. The thought made all the blood leave my body, leaving me cold and shaky. Before I could say anything—or run—a classy old woman ran over to me, looking very put upon.
“You’re not dressed!” Her eyes raked over Wyatt with approval. “Your date looks impeccable, and you show up in this?”
The next moment, she was dragging me toward the makeshift dressing rooms, leaving me flailing in her wake. Wyatt, Vic, and Hope just stared after me, the traitors offering no help. Not that I’d expected anything from Hope. She looked devilishly pleased at my discomfort.
Vic did, at least, give me an identity for my abductor, mouthing her name to me despite the distance. Katherine Debutante. The lead judge for the competition every year. She was a bit of a legend in Waresville, the envy of every proper housewife in town, especially Wyatt’s mother. Infamously, she was also a hard-ass when it came to the competition.
