“I really do want to get him some cuff links.” Dinah shook her head as if she couldn’t believe what she was saying. “How did I end up with someone who likes French cuffs?” Dinah was still having some difficulty dealing with what she considered Commander’s over-the-top fastidiousness. Whether it was the creases in his casual pants you could cut butter with or the tassels on his polished loafers, she thought he was a little too meticulous for her taste. But she liked him well enough in other ways that she was trying to adjust. “Maybe if I say the kid’s picked them out, he’ll feel a little better toward them.”
As soon as we walked into the jewelry store, a salesman in a well-fitted dark suit stepped forward and offered his assistance. I wasn’t particularly into fine jewelry and hadn’t been in this store for years. I liked silver and stones with colors like turquoise or amethyst. When it came to watches, my only requirement was that it kept time. This store was filled with gold and diamonds and watches where keeping time was only a side benefit.
The salesman was pleased to bring out trays of cuff links for Dinah.
“I thought I saw Emily Perkins come in here,” I said, looking around with a innocent face.
A woman at the next counter looked up. “You just missed her.”
“She has such good taste. What did she buy this time?” I said, hoping they’d think I was implying I might buy the same thing.
The man showed Dinah some gold cuff links with onyx inserts. I heard Dinah choking when she glanced at the price ticket. He directed his attention my way momentarily. “She was picking up,” he said.
“Picking up?” I said, surprised.
“She brought in her husband’s watch to be cleaned and serviced,” the woman said.
“Really?” I said, trying to keep the surprise down in my voice. I asked if they’d heard about what happened to him. The man glanced toward the woman and they both nodded.
“I thought under the circumstances she’d want to sell the watch. It’s a Bond Submariner Rolex,” he said as if I was supposed to understand what that meant. “But when I offered to buy it from her, she said no without the slightest hesitation. She just paid for the service and asked if she could use the phone.” He sighed. “I really was hoping she would sell it. I’ve been trying to find one of those watches for a long time.”
Dinah kept looking at cuff links while I processed what he’d just told me. Or tried to. It simply didn’t make sense. She’d made it clear to Nicholas she was short of money. The watch sounded like it would have gotten her a hefty hunk of money. Was it sentimental value that was making her hang on to it or something else?
CHAPTER 14
“I SURE HOPE COMMANDER APPRECIATES THE GIFT,” I said as we headed toward Le Grande Fromage. Sheila had already gotten a table and was looking over the menu when we walked in.
“I still can’t believe I’m encouraging his fussiness by buying him cuff links. I should have bought him a sweatshirt with the arms cut off to help loosen him up,” Dinah said, eyeing the tiny shopping bag with the elegantly wrapped box.
The café was busy and there was a line at the counter waiting to place their orders. Logan was sitting at the back table with his portable office setup. He wasn’t alone. Two men were standing over the table, with their hands resting on it. It appeared they were trying to keep their conversation private. And judging from the expression on Logan’s face, whatever they were talking about wasn’t happy.
Pretending to be bothered by the closeness of the door to our table, I suggested we move. I chose the table next to Logan’s, but made sure to appear not to even notice him. Then I made a big deal about looking over the menu. Of course, it was all a ruse while I leaned back in my chair and tried to hear.
“I’m in the same boat with everyone else,” Logan said.
“You better take some responsibility. The only reason I turned over our money to Bradley was because of you,” one of the men growled.
“Everyone’s saying he must have given you some kind of commission,” the other man said.
Logan neither confirmed nor denied it but tried to convince them that he was in no way Bradley’s partner or involved with the stock dealing. He insisted he’d been duped by Bradley as much as everyone else. Both men objected and seemed convinced that Logan was more involved with Bradley’s business than he was letting on. Their voices flared as they both reminded Logan that just saying he didn’t know anything didn’t let him off the hook as far as they were concerned. Logan told them what Elise had told us—that he was helping the SEC people sort things out. The men didn’t seem to care. They were just angry that they’d lost all their money and they were looking for somebody to blame. Logan was that guy. The degree of their anger made my heart palpitate. I was afraid a fight might erupt. I was relieved when the men walked away. When Logan was alone, he banged on the table as he packed up his stuff and mumbled something about being ruined. Then in a voice that gave me a chill he said, “If Bradley wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him.”
“THERE YOU ARE, PINK,” ADELE SAID WHEN I GOT back to the bookstore. She stepped in front of me and put her arms on my shoulders, pushing me back toward the front door. “You have to do me a favor.”
I chuckled to myself. “You could say please.”
“Huh?” Adele said. Her confusion was real, definitely not faked. She had no sense about how to deal with people.
The favor involved helping her do a favor for William. He’d had a new dishwasher installed and the city permit guy was on his way to check it over. There was some complicated story about William’s car being in the shop and Adele letting him use her new car. She must really care for the guy to let him actually drive her Matrix. She would barely let me operate the windows. I offered her the use of my car, but she said she’d become too used to driving a new car and probably would strip the gears or something if she tried to drive the greenmobile. I resented her calling it an antique.
Adele made a face as she opened the passenger door. Maybe it did squeak a little bit, but I thought it was entitled. The 1993 190E Mercedes ran beautifully but was beginning to show its age in little malfunctions and weird noises. Adele got in as if she thought the car might crumble.
Technically this was supposed to be my day off, but I’d come in for the Hookers meeting, so helping Adele out wasn’t really a problem.
William’s house was in a Woodland Hills area called College Acres. The name came from its proximity to Walter Beasley Community College, I mean WBCC. I really needed to get my abbreviations down. Was I ever really going to start saying OMG and LOL out loud?
The streets around William’s house went by a different name at this time of year. I didn’t know when or how it started, but all the houses in the area went into decoration overload for the holidays. Everyone knew the area as Candy Cane Lane.
I had lots of memories driving through it when Peter and Samuel were young. Everybody turned off their cars’ headlights and crept through the streets with parking lights. I glanced up and down the street. The decorations were in the process of going up in the yards on either side. It seemed to me in the old days it went from right after Thanksgiving to New Years, but over the past years, it seemed to have been funneled down into a few weeks before Christmas until New Years.
Who could blame them? I thought of the congestion on the street. Heaven help anyone who lived in the area and wanted to pull out of their driveway after dark.
“Does Koo Koo know what he got into?” I said to Adele as we pulled into the driveway of William’s house. Next door two men were carrying a giant animatronic Santa into the center of the yard. I watched as they placed it on the lawn and plugged it in. The giant red-clothed figure began to wave and shout “Ho, ho, ho.” Adele let out a loud harrumph and told me to follow her. She fished the keys out of her purse, and although she tried to act as if they were hers, the note attached to them said “spare set.”
The house was appealing from the outside, with its white-wood siding and green shutter
s. She struggled with the lock, one more indication she hadn’t done a lot of coming and going on her own. As much as she tried to give the impression that she and William were on their way to a permanent relationship, I began to wonder if it was mostly in her imagination.
Inside, the house smelled of fresh paint and new carpet. My first impression was of lots of light and very little furniture. I followed Adele down a short hall and through the service porch into the garage.
“Pink, William not only knows about the area, he’s all set with his own decorations,” Adele said as she flipped on the light. I stepped back and almost tripped over a bike. A giant wooden cutout of Koo Koo dressed as Santa was in my face staring back. The trademark giant red shoes showed from underneath the Santa suit. A freestanding toy bag sat next to the figure. I laughed when I saw what was showing out of the top. Apparently William had large mock-ups of all the Koo Koo books made and then positioned so they showed above the bag. Underneath the quiet exterior, William was apparently quite the marketer.
The doorbell rang and Adele said it must be the inspector. She started giving me some speech about how William asking her to handle the city inspector meant he thought of her as more than just a girlfriend. “A girlfriend with a future,” she said, touching the door in a possessive sort of way.
Adele took the inspector into the kitchen and I took the opportunity to look around, curious to see how William lived. The living room did nothing to change my initial impression of him as very orderly and on the austere side.
I wandered toward the bedrooms. The smallest one was completely empty of furniture. There were just three pairs of the giant red shoes. He seemed to be using the next bedroom to sleep in, which was odd since it was clearly not the master bedroom.
I understood why when I got to the master. It was his writing studio. A computer sat in the middle of a glass desk. The walls were covered with framed book covers of his books and some awards he’d gotten, along with reviews. One whole wall was a bookcase. He had an interesting combination of children’s books and reference books. There were books on the history of dentistry, ciphers and codes, and an encyclopedia of animals. He had a whole set of different kinds of dictionaries and even a whole section devoted to myths, angels and fairies. I was surprised to find a copy of Caught By the Hook sitting on a table next to a comfortable-looking chair.
A large table sat against the wall. I was just checking out what was on it when Adele stopped in the doorway.
“Pink, you shouldn’t be in here.”
I didn’t move and she glanced around the room from her vantage point as it came out that William had never allowed her in the room. “He calls it his man cave and said it was strictly private. The door is always closed.”
“It was open this time,” I said with a shrug. “It just looks like a workroom to me.” I said, laughing at the man cave name. It was so light and bright, calling it any kind of cave seemed ridiculous.
“You’re right.” She took a tentative step into the room. I guess she went along with the in-for-a-penny-in for-a-pound approach. Once she’d stepped into the room, she must have figured why not check everything out. She went to his desk first and picked up an electronic frame and watched as it flipped through the photos.
“None of me?” she said in a disappointed voice. “He probably just doesn’t have any.” She moved over to the table and did a double take when she saw its contents.
“What’s he doing with crochet hooks and yarn?” she said, touching the selection of hooks and yarn that were scattered across the table. I looked over Adele’s shoulder as she checked out a stack of books.
“This is one of mine,” Adele said, picking up the top book and waving it about. “William asked if he could borrow it for someone at his school.” She looked at the ones underneath. They were instructional volumes and had crochet patterns in them.
“Maybe William took your suggestion and is planning to do a Koo Koo Crochets book.”
Adele set the book back down and looked over the things on the table. She seemed concerned when she saw a sheet of green paper on the floor.
“I guess this must have fallen out of the book he borrowed.” She scooped it up and waved the sheet in front of me. It had a drawing of something with squares and lots of notes all over it. “It’s just the notes I made about your neighbor’s afghan. I must have used it as a bookmark.” She appeared flustered—something I’d never seen before. “Did you happen to notice where it was in the book?” When I shrugged helplessly, she took a deep breath and stuck it in the middle. “William is very into details. I don’t want him to figure someone was in here.”
She looked around the room again. “I wonder why he’s being so secretive. I could write the crochet book with him.”
I didn’t want to say that might be the exact reason he was being secretive. I knew what it was like working with Adele. She seemed deep in thought as she moved around the room. She checked out the chair and books next to it. She looked at the bookcase and examined the titles and all of a sudden she screamed. “Pink, I know why he’s being so secretive.”
She had pulled out a book and held it for me to see. It was an old book with a dark worn binding. There was no dust jacket; instead, it had paper plate on the cover. In gothic-looking type was the title—Vampire Legends. When I didn’t respond, she yelled at me.
“Don’t you get it, Pink, he’s not writing an instructional book. Vampires and crochet research. William is A. J. Kowalski.” Adele’s excitement bubbled over into her jumping up and down. “It makes sense. He wouldn’t want to write the Anthony books under his own name because then people would expect them to be kids books.” She stopped jumping and put her hand on her hip. “You know people do that. Like Nora Roberts calls herself J. D. Robb when she writes mysteries.”
She grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the room and shut the door behind us. “I’m A. J. Kowalski’s girlfriend,” she said, dropping my hand and letting it sink in. “Pink, we can’t tell anybody.” She said, “wow” a bunch of times and then grabbed my arm. “I have to make him one of those vampire scarves. Thank you, Pink. If you hadn’t been so nosey, I’d never have found out.”
Adele had a way with compliments.
CHAPTER 15
WE WENT BACK TO THE BOOKSTORE. MRS. SHEDD was with a customer, and as soon as they left, her smile faded. I took the opportunity to tell her the latest developments in the Bradley Perkins situation. Mostly I wanted to tell her about the SEC people not knowing who all the investors were. I suggested she might want to let them know she belonged on the list. I couldn’t tell if she planned to or not.
The store was bustling with customers, many of whom seemed as if they needed assistance. Day off or not, I stowed my purse and went to help out. Mrs. Shedd looked over and her eyes softened and she mouthed a thank-you.
There was a lull later in the afternoon and I slipped back to the yarn department. I managed to complete one crocheted swatch. I really got the point of the swatches when I looked at the finished little piece. The ball of yarn was pretty with its shades of blue and purple, but nothing compared to how the yarn looked when it was crocheted. The swatches were going to help sell a lot of yarn—if I ever got them finished.
There was a surge of business in the late afternoon and I went back to waiting on customers. When I finally left I was determined to work on snowflakes all evening to add to the stock. I promised myself I’d only do a couple of rounds on the owl. I loved the sparkling white yarn I’d chosen to use instead of the plain white in the pattern. Our last holiday event before the launch party was coming up and we all agreed the snowflakes needed to be hung by then. I pushed away any thoughts that it might be our last bookstore holiday event altogether. It was too sad to consider.
People always thought of Southern California as being warm in the winter, and maybe compared to the Midwest it was. However, the Valley occasionally got frost in the middle of the night. It wasn’t enough to kill anything but the most fragile of fl
owers, but the grass and leaves on the orange trees would have bits of ice in the morning. It felt like it was going to be one of those nights when I walked outside. There was a sharpness to the cold and it cut right through my fleece hoodie. The days were almost at their shortest and it had already been dark for so long it felt very late, though it was only seven. Before I turned into my driveway, the car’s headlights washed over the tall gangly figure of Ryder. He was sitting on the curb. His face was illuminated by the bluish glow that came off his video camera as he watched something he’d taped.
I pulled in quickly and hit the brakes, making the car squeak to a stop. I cut the motor and jumped out of the car and marched toward him. Something in the way I was walking must have scared him because he stood up quickly and took a defensive pose. I couldn’t say I blamed him. I had a bit of the crazy-lady thing going by then.
“What’s up, M?” he said.
“I’ll tell you what’s up,” I said, getting so close to him, he stumbled back. “I know you are all focused on your career in journalism or reality TV or being the YouTube king and you probably think the ends justify the means and all that trash talk. But you sneak in my house one more time and throw everything around, and I’m giving you up to the cops.”
“W-what?” he stammered. “Why would I be sneaking in your house?”
“We both know why. You want to scoop everybody and find out who the vampire book author is. You think I know who it is and have the information hidden in my bags of yarn.”
“Wow, do you? Know who it is, I mean?”
“No,” I said firmly.
“You have to believe me. I wasn’t in your house,” he said. “I do want to be a journalist, and I know you have to walk that extra mile to get a story sometimes, but I didn’t. I mean, I wouldn’t—”
My crazy-lady demeanor began to diminish. As much as I didn’t want to believe him, I did begin to think he was telling the truth. But if he wasn’t breaking into my house, who was?
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