All I heard was something else fall over. Uh-oh.
A moment later, Barry answered in a sleepy voice, though he snapped to attention when I whispered, “Barry, I think there’s somebody in my house.”
I WAS HUDDLED IN THE FRONT YARD WHEN BARRY roared up in the Tahoe. He almost drove on the lawn. A police cruiser arrived a second later along with a helicopter. Barry’s instructions had been for me to get out of the house immediately. It was only fear that gave me the guts to propel myself out the window and face the drop into the bushes. Now I wished I’d taken a moment to grab a shawl or robe before I went out. Even with the adrenaline rush, I felt shivery. The helicopter began to circle, bathing me and my front yard in its spotlight.
Barry waved for me to stay put as he ran toward the front door with his gun drawn—this time at least he used his key. The two uniforms went around to the back of the house. A few minutes later Barry came and got me and brought me inside.
“It’s lucky Cosmo is staying with you. Blondie gets an F as a watchdog.” He took me into the den. “I checked and nobody is in here now.” The word now made me shudder. So somebody had been in there.
“Molly, first of all, this had nothing to do with your front door.” He showed me the bathroom window I’d left open a crack. It was now wide open with the screen missing. “Here’s where they came in.” The outside door in the den was ajar. “Cosmo’s barking must have scared them off.” The two uniforms were searching the bushes in the backyard with the light from the helicopter. “Whoever it was is probably long gone.” Barry said with a shrug. My backyard faced three others. All somebody had to do was go over my fence and exit through somebody else’s yard. Barry called off the two officers and the helicopter.
I glanced around the den. The end table near the window had been knocked over, but other than that everything looked okay.
For the first time it sunk in that Barry was dressed in the suit he’d been wearing at his first stop of the day at my house. The shirt looked a little rumpled and his tie was pulled loose. His usually neat short dark hair was askew. Then I got it. He must have been asleep at his desk when I called.
Barry pulled an afghan off the arm of the couch and draped it over me, wrapping his arms around me at the same time. “Is there something you haven’t told me?” he said with a little clench of his jaw. I had on occasion gotten involved in things that had gotten me into trouble.
I shrugged off his question as we headed to the kitchen. No way could I go back to sleep after all of this so I offered him breakfast. “All I did was tell Emily Perkins how to figure out where her husband was.”
“And that was ...” Barry said, following me as I turned on the lights. I told him about having her call the credit card company and his expression changed to admiration. “Good thinking, Sherlock. Though I still think you should mind your own business,” he said. I started to pull out eggs and butter and waved Barry over to sit down at the table. It was still solid dark outside, but already almost five.
“I can’t see how telling her that would lead to this,” he conceded. “Is there anything else?” He didn’t sit but instead came over to help me. Butter was melting in the frying pan and I was beating some eggs, adding some cream cheese and chives. Barry poured fresh coffee beans in the grinder and turned it on. “And don’t hold back, okay?”
I stirred the eggs a last time and poured them in the pan. I popped some English muffins in the toaster as I debated whether to tell him everything. But Barry is a master at reading dead air. “C’mon, Molly, you can’t fool me. There’s something else, isn’t there?”
“Okay, here goes,” I said. “You know about the holiday party slash launch the bookstore is putting on for the latest Anthony book?” No recognition showed in his expression. “The vampire-with-a-heart books. I told you about it before,” I said.
The no recognition was replaced with an oh-no look. Barry wasn’t into vampires and thought nobody else should be, either. “Our big reveal is who the author is. Mrs. Shedd thinks somebody is trying to scoop us. And some people might think that since I’m the event coordinator and this is a big event, that I already know who A. J. Kowalski really is and have the information here.”
Barry started to dismiss the idea, but I interrupted him. “Think the Harry Potter books or the Twilight saga. We’re talking a superstar author here. CNN is doing a live feed and all the entertainment shows are sending reporters. The local news stations are coming, too. The whole event would fizzle if somebody announced the author’s identity before the launch. And whoever put out the news first would get a lot of attention.”
Barry sat down at the table with an exhausted sigh. “Molly, you sure know how to fill a day.”
CHAPTER 4
“NOPE, DOESN’T WORK,” I SAID OUT LOUD AS I checked my image in the mirror. The makeup was supposed to cover up dark circles under your eyes. I’m afraid my lack of sleep was too big a challenge even for the self-proclaimed Miracle Circle Eraser. By the time Barry and I had finished breakfast, it was officially morning, though still dark. He checked all the windows and front door and then had to go home. It was his day to drive car pool. Barry was divorced and had his fourteen-year-old son living with him. Barry felt like a hero driving car pool. I don’t think Jeffrey quite saw it that way. Nothing like having your cop dad talk to you like you were a kid in front of your fellow eighth graders to bust your image as the cool drama guy.
And me? I tried lying down, but I kept thinking I heard noises. Eventually I accepted that more sleep wasn’t coming and decided to make better use of the time. I took the pile of thread snowflakes that Adele had made into the kitchen. I poured some liquid starch in a plastic bag and dropped the snowflakes in the pearly liquid one at a time. They came out looking like hopeless clumps of thread. The magic was in the drying. I had already cut apart a cardboard box and covered it with wax paper. I laid the snowflakes and carefully stretched them into shape and held them in place with nonrusting pins. When I had them all done, I put them on the dining room table as dawn was breaking. In the half-light, the snowflakes looked almost real.
I had another cup of coffee and found the snowflake I’d been crocheting. I worked on it until the sunlight streamed in the kitchen. That’s when I started with the makeup.
I was pulling out of my driveway on my way to work when I saw Emily standing beside her black Element in her driveway. I cut the motor and got out. I wanted to explain the middle-of-the-night commotion. When I saw her face, I realized we looked like no-sleep sisters.
I told her about the intruder and told her it was nothing for her to worry about. “I’m pretty sure it was all about somebody trying to find out about the author of the Anthony books.” The flat look in her eyes came into focus and she surprised me by asking if I knew the author’s real identity. Apparently Anthony was so hot, even a woman with a missing husband was interested. She mentioned that she’d read the first two books and couldn’t wait for the third. We talked a few moments about vampires and I glanced at her car.
“I don’t want to keep you. What time does your boat leave?”
Emily’s demeanor changed to annoyance. “I changed my mind,” she said. “I was so worried that something happened to him, but now that I know where he is, I’m not going to go running after him.” She stopped and we stood for a moment looking at each other. Were we both thinking the same thing? He might not be alone.
“I’ve got errands to run and a life to lead,” she said with a huff and she pulled open the SUV door.
As I headed back across my lawn, I saw Ryder standing across the street. He lowered his camera and headed back down the street toward his house. With no cop cars, I guess we weren’t YouTube fodder. I wonder if he knew he’d missed the second round of action at my house.
The scent of real pine was the first thing I noticed when I walked in Shedd & Royal. A six-foot-tall fresh tree was standing adjacent to the cashier counter. I was instantly glad Mrs. Shedd had been talked into getting a real tre
e. More than a real tree, it was a live tree. It was sitting in a large pot of dirt. I stood next to the tree and inhaled deeply.
More of the wonderful fragrance was coming from the box of pine boughs on the ground next to the tree. Mrs. Shedd was going all out this year. I thought the credit really belonged to Mr. Royal. He had a zest for living and it seemed to be contagious. Joshua Royal walked out of the storage room, carrying a box of tiny clear lights. He brought it over to the tree and began stringing the lights on the graceful branches.
“Where should I put this?” a male voice said behind me. Nicholas Hartman, owner of the store next to the bookstore, caught up with me and held out a menorah. A table sat adjacent to the tree and I pointed to it. “Mind if I put a small sign next to it, saying it came from my store?” Nicholas asked.
Mr. Royal and I both said it was fine. As he stepped back to get a better view of the position of the menorah on the table, Nicholas knocked over the cardboard cutout for Caught Under the Mistletoe. He viewed it with distaste as he picked it up. “The vampires are taking over.”
Nicholas’s store was called Luxe. It was best described as a lifestyle store and featured an eclectic array of items. I thought every item in the store had charisma, whether it was a scented candle in a silver cup or the brick red shirt with the crinkly texture that I’d gotten there. Nicholas was like the things he carried in his store—different. I didn’t know all the details, but I’d heard he had a whole different life before the store. Now it appeared the store was his life. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket. But the store seemed to be doing okay. All he needed was to get some young hip celeb to shop there and tell the paparazzi.
To me, Nicholas was all about the expression in his earthy brown eyes. They carried his smile and a little touch of uncertainty. His face was long and his brown hair had the ruffled and gelled look that seemed so popular. Once upon a time, it would have been considered messy.
No, I wasn’t falling for Nicholas. But I liked him and I liked his store.
Once he’d gotten the okay for the menorah placement, he turned toward me. He viewed me with concern. “Hard night, huh? I have some tea that might help.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll stick with a red-eye, though my neighbor said some tea you sold her really helped,” I said.
“Who’s that?” he said.
When I mentioned Emily, he nodded. “She was pretty upset. Has her husband showed up?”
I was surprised he knew. Hadn’t Emily told me she’d only told the truth to me and the cops? He listened attentively as I went through the whole chain of events, along with the latest update. It was hard to read how he was taking the information. He seemed to be absorbing it, but not reacting.
One of the new Hookers, Rhoda Klein, came in and saw Nicholas. She was a gruff, opinionated person with dark short hair and a sharp jaw. But all her edges melted when Nicholas greeted her by name.
Sheila Altman rushed in the door and then screeched to a stop when she saw him. She pulled out a blanket from her tote bag. “Is this what you had in mind?” she asked.
Nicholas laid it on the table and looked it over. I was almost drooling. Sheila had outdone herself this time. She was known for making shawls and scarves that were mixtures of yarn textures and colors. She tended to stay with blues and greens and her pieces had an impressionist feeling about them. This one was a soft teal blue that mixed with lavender and then green. The yarn had a halo and looked like it would be cuddly to the touch.
Nicholas pronounced it as being just what he had in mind. They made arrangements for her to bring in a few more and negotiated the price. Sheila looked like she was waiting for a problem to show up. It was no wonder. She’d sold some of her work before through a local consignment store and been stiffed for some of the money owed her.
“Stop by if you change your mind about the tea,” Nicholas said to me as he took the blanket and walked toward the door.
Sheila and I continued on to the yarn area. With the table always set up, our regular start-up time had gotten kind of soft around the edges. Translated—no matter how early I got there, there were always people already at the table.
As we got closer, I heard the conversation already in progress. Rhoda had only stopped in the front for a moment and then gone back to the crochet area. Her voice stood out above the others.
“You call that a vampire,” she said in a voice that still carried a tinge of New York even after twenty or so years in L.A. “He’s too foofie for me. Next they’ll have him joining a group like us.”
“Do you think he might actually join us?” Elise Belmont asked. She had a soft birdlike voice and was another new member.
“Who might join us, dear?” CeeCee Collins said, taking her seat at the head of the table. CeeCee was the unofficial leader of the group. Along with being a well-known actress and host of a reality show, she was a fabulous crocheter.
“That vampire, Anthony,” Elise said in total sincerity. “Wouldn’t we be the hottest group around if we had him as a member?”
Across the table Eduardo Linnares stifled a laugh. The cover model was amused but mannerly enough to hide it. Despite his large build and hands, he was an expert at delicate crochet. His grandmother had taught him well. The group was working on the gifts to be sent over to the women’s shelter. Everyone was making something different, from baby blankets to scarves and shawls. I took out the gray yarn and began to add on to the rounds I’d already done, moving a stitch marker each time I reached the end of one round.
Of course, Adele jumped in to the conversation. “Elise, Anthony is only a fictional character. Vampires aren’t real. Understand?” Without waiting for an answer, Adele continued. “I’m going to tell my boyfriend, William, he ought to do a vampire book. Maybe like Koo Koo Interviews a Vampire.”
“But you just said vampires aren’t real. I thought all of Koo Koo’s books were nonfiction, like Koo Koo Goes to the Dentist,” Sheila said.
Adele glared at Sheila. “I was thinking William should branch out.” I was surprised that she didn’t get the words my boyfriend in the sentence. Adele rarely said his name without adding my boyfriend. I think she hoped William’s next book would be Koo Koo Gets Engaged.
Elise gave a knowing nod. “That’s what they want you to believe—that they’re not real. Personally I think this A. J. Kowalski really is a vampire and the books are autobiographical.”
Elise focused on me. “You know the author’s real identity, don’t you?” All eyes were glued to me. I noticed Adele had a look of horror, no doubt thinking it might be true and once again she’d been left out.
“No,” I said. “Nobody but the publisher knows who A. J. is. And please spread the word that I am just as much in the dark as everyone else about who the author really is.” I gave them a recap of what it was like waking to find an intruder in my house. Adele interrupted to talk about how my house had been a crime scene when we returned from San Diego.
“So, who’s this neighbor of yours who took off?”
I said his name, expecting blank looks; instead, I heard a lot of sucked-in breaths of surprise.
Elise spoke first. “Bradley Perkins took off. That doesn’t seem like him.” Elise nodded to herself. “His wife must have done something really bad to make him that angry.”
I asked Elise how she knew the Perkins. “We’re what I’d call business friends,” she said. “I wonder if Logan knows about Bradley. Logan thinks he’s some kind of financial genius.” Logan was Elise’s husband and a member of the Tarzana Chamber of Commerce. He was one of the top real estate people in the area.
“That wife of his ought to thank her lucky stars for him,” Rhoda interjected. “The way he just stepped in and acts like a father to her two girls.”
“He’s not their father?” I said, looking up from my work. The body was taking shape.
“You don’t know?” Rhoda said, surprised. “They’ve only been married a couple of years. Emily’s first husband died.”<
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How odd that Emily had never mentioned either of these facts to me. Elise said Logan had sold them their house and he’d been taken from the beginning about what a great couple they were. “You have to give Bradley a lot of credit. He stepped right in as father to the girls. He even coaches their soccer team. I hear he’s at every PTA meeting. He ran a booth at the spring carnival at Wilbur Avenue Elementary. Logan said he always comes to the chamber of commerce meetings. He’s just this outgoing friendly guy. It’s hard to imagine him having a big argument. Emily is kind of moody. I bet she started the fight and is just telling everyone it was him,” Elise said.
So I wasn’t the only one to wonder about Emily’s story. All I had to go on was Emily’s version, and as Barry kept telling me, people lied.
Dinah came in at the end. I was going to bring her up to speed, but when I saw she wasn’t alone, I stopped.
All of a sudden I was pretty sure I knew what her news was.
CHAPTER 5
“DINAH, YOU DIDN’T,” I SAID AS WE HEADED TO the café. The crochet group had dispersed. I had held back from saying anything until we were alone. My friend’s dangle earrings jangled as she hung her head.
“I know it sounds crazy, but I missed them, and what are holidays without kids?”
She had a point about kids and holidays. Since my boys had grown, I’d let the holidays go. We had always celebrated everything so we’d made ornaments for our Christmas trees and lit Hanukkah candles and made donuts and potato pancakes. The last vestige had been our yearly Christmas Eve party and I’d let that go when Charlie died. Decorations and events at the bookstore had become my only way of acknowledging holidays lately.
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