“I think my dad can handle it,” Bridget said, glancing over to the table where he sat. His nose was buried in one of the books he’d carted over. “He’ll research the legal side of things. Plus, he’s the one holding all the cards, and he knows how valuable his new plastic will be. He’s not going to sell it for any less than it’s worth—and that’s a lot. He’s always said that his new plastic will start up a whole new field of tech that we can only dream of.”
“Wow,” breathed out Adrienne as she stood. “Sounds like a really big deal.”
“It is,” Bridget said. Then, because she was starting to feel like she was bragging, she changed the subject. “How are we shaping up on closing tasks? Adrienne, have you stocked sandwiches yet?”
Adrienne shook her head. “Still working on milk,” she said.
“I’ll get sandwiches,” Bridget offered.
She was still smiling as she bustled over to the freezer where the pre-made Glitter Cup Café sandwiches were stored. As she counted out what was available and made note of which ones to grab from the bigger freezer chest in the back, she thought over her day. It had started out pretty terribly, thanks to the surprise of learning about her new staff member. Sebastian was aloof, unsociable, and had a poor attitude. But her concern over him had faded to the background thanks to her father’s exciting news.
I’m so happy for my dad, she thought, as she grabbed a frozen ham and Swiss sandwich on a brioche bun. All of his hard work is finally paying off.
At 6:15, she let her staff members go for the evening. She finished up the remaining few tasks on her own. It was 6:25 when she gathered her light spring coat and purse, and headed to where her father sat. “Ready for dinner?” she asked.
“Am I ever!” he said with a happy smile.
4
Beauty
The next morning, Bridget was walking down Klinger Boulevard when her cell rang. She was just a block from Glitter Cup, but she almost wished she was farther away. The spring air was delightfully warm for a change, though it was still only 8:30 in the morning. Alongside the boulevard in big cerulean blue planters, cheerful bouquets of blossoms greeted her as she walked. She answered her phone happily. “Morning, Dad!”
“Good morning, Pumpkin,” he said. As usual, he sounded distracted, like his mind was on a million things at once. “Are you at the café?”
“Not yet,” Bridget said. “But I’ll be there in a few minutes. What’s up?”
“I think I left my folder there. The one with all the details about my new plastic. I must have—can’t seem to find it anywhere around here.”
“That’s because your place is such a mess,” Bridget chided. “Did you look through your lab?” She knew her father’s habits. He often worked in his lab until one or two in the morning.
“Thoroughly,” her father said. “It’s not there. I must have left it on the table...”
“At Big Bobby’s?” Bridget asked.
“No, no... at your café.... I was sitting there reading with that nice juice you brought me. I had a stack of books about patents. I think I forgot to put the books back, too. The folder must be there with the books. Must be there. I’m sure that’s where I left it. I’ll pop by and get it in a few. I’ll need it before two... that’s when the meeting is. Mind putting it in your back office for me?”
“Sure thing, Dad,” Bridget said. She turned onto 4th Street, and Glassman Park came into view. Across the street from it was a towering new hotel which had opened up earlier in the year. And just past the monstrous luxury resort was Glitter Cup, though she couldn’t see it yet.
She always liked walking by the park, and sometimes she took a loop around Glassman Pond if time allowed for it. But with her father’s folder on her mind, she decided not to. She was eager to get it safely into her office.
When she walked into Glitter Cup, a feeling of familiarity and warmth spread through her. The little bookstore and café had become like a second home to her over the past three years. She walked past a display of the latest bestseller. The thick rose-colored carpeting changed over to honey-toned wood floors as she entered the corner of the space that contained the café. Only one of the tables in front of the counter was occupied by an elderly woman, a regular customer named Pat Melhue, who was reading the paper. Two of the handful of stuffed chairs were filled as well. Bridget knew that the café usually had a small morning rush around seven, when it opened up, and then things slowed down until around nine.
She checked the table where her father had been sitting the night before. The top was polished and empty. A little jolt of apprehension buzzed through her, but she soothed herself quickly; of course one of her staff had probably already moved the folder to the back room. She quickly slipped through the hinged counter door. “Morning, Sean,” she said.
Sean was standing in front of the espresso machine. “Hi there, Bridget!” he said cheerfully. “Beautiful outside, isn’t it? How was dinner with your dad last night?”
A timer went off, and Adrienne swept by, clicked it off, and then began fussing with the coffee pots. “That means it’s time for a fresh round of Italian roast!” she said. “Morning, Bridget!”
“Have either of you seen a manilla folder this morning?” Bridget asked.
Sean pressed a button on the machine before him, and rich brown espresso started drizzling into a waiting cup. “I don’t think so,” he said, as the machine hissed.
“Nope,” said Adrienne. She was busy measuring coffee grounds into a filter.
“Oh. Okay. It was out on the table there last night,” she pointed. “My dad left it. It’s important.”
Adrienne fit the filter into the waiting coffee machine. “Is it something to do with his invention?” she asked, her brow furrowed. “I think I saw him carrying it last night when he got here.”
“He was,” Bridget said. “And he’s pretty sure he left it here. I guess you never know, with my dad. His mind is a million miles off in Invention-land most of the time. He has some trouble keeping things straight.”
A knot was beginning to form in her stomach. The folder held important papers, and her father needed it for his meeting that was to take place in the afternoon. He’d be in soon, expecting to find it. Had a café customer walked off with it by accident? That wouldn’t be good.
She waited for Christine, who was at the register, to finish taking an order. “Christine, did you happen to see a manilla folder stuffed with papers on that table when you opened up this morning?” she asked, again pointing to the table.
Christine shook her head and reached for a sleeve of cups. As she unwrapped it, she said, “Why? Is something wrong?”
“It’s my dad’s invention paperwork,” Bridget said vaguely. “I’ll check the security videos.”
She left the café area and hurried through the bookstore portion of Glitter Cup. Jeremiah, a tall, heavyset man with a pale face and an impish grin was the manager in charge of the bookstore. He liked to wear flashy, patterned shirts under his pink or white Glitter Cup uniform tee, and the effect was almost dizzying. The computer next to the bookstore’s cash register had software installed for the store’s security cameras.
Jeremiah was clicking away at the computer, likely checking emails, which was exactly what Bridget would have been doing to start out her shift had she not been dealing with the missing folder. He looked up as Bridget approached. “Hey Bridge!” he said. “I heard about your dad’s good news! He finally cracked the code, eh?”
Bridget feigned a polite smile, though she didn’t feel like smiling at all. “Yeah, he’s pretty psyched,” she said. “How’d you hear about it?”
“Adrienne was telling me a little while ago,” he said. He held up a glittery cup. “She brought over my mocha, and a few books that needed to be put away. She said your dad’s going to usher in a new era of space technology. Lighter plastic—something like that?”
As soon as he mentioned space technology, his eyes lit up. In addition to flashy clothing, J
eremiah also adored science fiction, especially when it involved outer space. The shelves of the Dayton store carried a disproportionate amount of the stuff, a fact that the higher ups allowed because Jeremiah talked up the space-travel sci fi books so well that it always flew off the shelves.
“Can I take a peek at the security cameras?” Bridget asked. “I need to check something out in the café area.”
“Come on back,” Jeremiah said. He scooted over, relinquishing his spot in front of the desktop. Bridget moved around the counter and took over his position. She opened up the camera feed by clicking on an icon on the screen. There were six cameras in the shop, one aimed at each of the registers—the café register and the bookstore register. The other four were angled so as to cover the rest of the area. She clicked on the one that was positioned to offer a bird’s eye view of the café’s seating area.
She heard Jeremiah slurp his drink, just over her left shoulder. “What are we looking for?” he asked gamely as she scrolled back toward the footage from that morning.
“My dad thinks he left a folder here last night,” she said. “But it’s not on the table he was sitting at. I’m hoping some café patron didn’t walk off with it by mistake.”
The video feed stopped abruptly at 7:00 in the morning. The still shot that showed the tables in the café featured six bare tabletops. The books that her father had been reading the night before, and his manilla folder, were both missing. She tried to rewind further, but the software wouldn’t allow it. “What’s going on?” she asked. “My staff gets here at 6:00. Is there any footage of the store from 6:00 to 7:00?”
Bridget knew that her staff was supposed to arrive at 6:00 to start opening duties. The public wouldn’t be allowed in until 7:00, but there was a lot to do before then. The bookstore workers, including Jeremiah and another sales clerk, also didn’t arrive until 7:00, since the bookstore portion of the shop required less preparation than the café.
Jeremiah slurped his mocha, and then spoke. “The cameras are on a timer now. They come on when we open to the public. During off hours, we only have one camera on, and it’s the one over the front door.”
He reached for the computer mouse, and Bridget let him have it. “Here we go...” he said. He switched the feed so that it showed a camera positioned on the exterior of the building. It was angled down to show a view of the front door. “Will this help?” he asked, as he rewound the tape until it showed 6:00 a.m.
Bridget felt doubtful that it would. She was more interested in the table, inside the café. “I don’t know,” she murmured.
Jeremiah played the video feed at a high speed. Bridget noted that Christine had arrived promptly at 6:00, Adrienne showed up at 6:05, and Sean ambled through the doors at 6:12. At 7:00, Jeremiah showed up. The video feed showed him flipping the open sign, and then dragging a big sandwich board out onto the sidewalk in front of the shop. Soon after, the public started to arrive.
“Sean’s usually so punctual,” Bridget muttered. It surprised her a bit that he was twelve minutes late for his 6:00 opening shift. “At least, he is whenever I’m working with him.”
She reached for the computer mouse and started clicking on icons that would take her back to yesterday’s video footage. She found the interior video feed from Monday evening. At 5:55 p.m., she could clearly see her father sitting at a table. The manilla folder, as well as about a half-dozen books and a container of juice, was out on the table in front of him. Then at 6:00 p.m. on the dot, the video feed stopped. That was the hour that the shop closed to the public. Darn it, Bridget thought to herself.
“Sean probably puts on a bit of a show for you,” Jeremiah said. “Playing the good employee bit. Some of my staff do it, too. They act one way when I’m around, and completely different on my off days. I hear about it from the other staff members. You know the saying: when the cat’s away, the mice will play.”
“I guess,” Bridget said absentmindedly. She was too focused on the screen to really take in what Jeremiah was saying. She rewound again to 5:55 p.m. and pointed. “That’s the folder,” she said. “It’s definitely there.”
“So it was there yesterday evening, and gone this morning,” Jeremiah said. He took a big slurp of his drink.
“Yeah,” Bridget said. “And I need to figure out where it went.” She thought for a moment, to the tune of Jeremiah’s slurping. Then she said, “So you open the doors to the public at 7:00, right? And before that, they’re locked.”
She looked at him. He nodded.
She looked back to the screen. “My employees each have keys to let themselves in,” she said thoughtfully. “But the door stays locked until you arrive... What time did your sales person get in?” She stepped away from the computer to make room for Jeremiah as a woman brought a book up to the counter.
“Ohhh... the new Buster Leeman!” Jeremiah said, ringing the book up. “He’s my absolute favorite sci fi writer these days.” He picked up the book to scan it. “I loved this one. The main character is, like, my total hero.”
Bridget could see why Jeremiah succeeded in the bookstore. His passion for literature was obvious. He chatted with the woman for a few minutes, and then once she was gone, he turned to Bridget.
“I’m usually alone over here in the bookshop for the first hour we’re open,” he said. “Then at eight, Varun comes in.” He moved the computer mouse around, clicked a few times, and then pointed to the screen. “There’s Varun!” he said.
Bridget peered at the image. It was an older gentleman named Varun, entering the book shop and greeting Jeremiah. The two chatted by the table of bestsellers for a moment, and then Varun walked off.
She furrowed her brow. “So the only people in here from six to seven were my staff members, Christine, Adrienne, and Sean.”
Jeremiah made an exaggerated frown. “Sheesh. I guess when the cat’s away, the mice will steal folders, hm? What’s in the folder, anyway? You said it’s your dad’s?”
“It’s just some stuff to do with his work,” she said.
“His invention? The new kind of plastic?”
She nodded, and backed away. She didn’t want to go into details about how valuable the information in the folder was. It was bad enough that she’d been so naively open about it the day before. The fewer people that knew about the folder’s contents, the better.
In a mental fog, she walked back toward the café.
That folder contains his life work, she thought. Sure, Dad’s absentminded, but I believe him when he says he left it here at the café. It must be around here somewhere.
She was determined to find it. Between helping her staff handle the mid-morning rush, she searched every nook and cranny of the café, with no luck.
At five after eleven, Sebastian arrived, with the same ill-fitting pants and surly attitude that he’d been adorned in the day before.
She was too distracted by her folder search to pay him much attention. Instead, she asked Christine to spend the remainder of her shift training Sebastian on the register. He’d done so poorly with the espresso machine the day before that Bridget figured they’d tackle that again on a day that was slow as molasses. For now, it was safer to have him on the register with Christine.
Danny showed up at one, and Bridget reported that she hadn’t yet found the folder. “I’m sure it will turn up, Dad,” she said, as he wrung his hands and peered under and around the table, just like she had. “We’ll find it. In the meantime, keep searching your place. Maybe it’s there somewhere.”
Danny begrudgingly agreed. Then he spent the next few hours painstakingly going through the dumpster out back. It was 6:30 p.m. when Bridget pulled him away from his task, just as he finished sorting through the last bag. The folder was still nowhere to be found.
The next morning at ten, Bridget was at work, still puzzled about where the folder had gone, when Danny rushed up to the countertop. He had a piece of paper in his hands, and his hair looked even more freshly electrocuted than usual.
&nbs
p; “Bridget! Bridget, I’m so glad you’re here!” he shouted, hurrying up to her. He looked upset. Several of the customers seated in the café turned to see what the fuss was about.
Bridget opened the countertop door to let her father in. Then she ushered him to her back office. She showed him in, and closed the door behind them. Since the missing folder incident, she was feeling self-conscious about what she let the public—or her staff—overhear.
“I’m being blackmailed!” he said, as soon as her office door closed. “I received an anonymous email. Looks like it was sent yesterday, but I didn’t open it until today. They’re demanding payment, or they’ll leak my design! That will make it absolutely worthless! I rescheduled my meeting with GenSpace for this afternoon. I was sure we’d find it. Now this! What am I going to do?”
Bridget felt her eyes widen. She’d spent a sleepless night worrying about the folder, and her nerves were fried to begin with. Now, her father’s news threatened to push her over the edge.
She felt her eyes begin to tear up. “What?” she said in shock, as she accepted the paper that her father was holding out to her. She could barely believe what he was saying.
Her eyes scanned the page quickly.
Mr. Belvue,
I have in my possession your manilla folder, which contains the exact instructions for your proprietary plastic blend. If you want it back, you’re going to have to pay—100,000 dollars, cash. Put it in a backpack, wrapped in a trash bag, in the dumpster behind Big Bobby’s Burgers at exactly midnight this Friday. Make the drop alone. I will be watching. If I see any sign of police, I’ll publish your papers.
If you don’t pay, I’m going to publish your papers on the internet so that everyone who cares to will have access to them.
Bridget read the words over again.
And then again.
“One hundred thousand dollars in cash...?” she said. “You’ve nowhere near that much. How does this person think you’re going to manage to get your hands on that much cash?”
Beauty and the Blackmailer Page 3
