One for the Hooks

by Betty Hechtman

  I assured her that we had plenty of kits and that some of the Hookers would be there to give lessons. I’d arranged with Bob to have drinks and some snacks. That also drew extra people in. I hoped they’d come for the treats but end up excited about the kits.

  “I do think it was brilliant of you to figure out how to make it appeal to people who don’t know how to crochet.”

  She went off to help a customer, and I went back to the yarn department to straighten up and create a display for the front of the store. I decided to use a glass case we used for expensive items. I put Sheila’s scarf in it with several of the kits and a sheet listing the details of the event. I placed it near the door so everyone walking in couldn’t miss it. I located some free-standing cardboard display cases we had for books, and realized they’d be perfect for the kits. I filled them and left them in the storage room to be brought out the next day.

  Mason had a dinner meeting that night. Peter texted me that he was meeting some people for a round of golf and then they’d be coming back to the house, which I took to mean I ought to make myself scarce. He said he’d attended to the animals and even played fetch with them. Maybe our moment the night before had somehow transformed him into a better version of himself.

  I had a greeting committee watching me as I came across the patio to the kitchen door when I got home. Although Peter had said he’d attended to them, I wasn’t sure whether he meant all of them. I dropped my things and headed across the house. Blondie was in her chair with Princess nestled next to her. I got them both to come with me and let them into the yard. I gave the whole crew an extra dinner just in case.

  My lunch with Mason had been so emotionally charged I hadn’t eaten much, and now I was hungry. But I also had limited time. I considered my options while my mind went back over the afternoon. I was glad that I’d told Mason everything since he’d imagined far worse. Everything I’d said was true. The moment with Barry had come out of the events that led up to it.

  I thought back to the secret garden now known by the much less romantic name of Flood Control Location 23. I’d learned the hard way that next time I went exploring, I’d make sure I had an exit.

  The quickest thing to make was an omelet. I sautéed a handful of fresh baby spinach with some white mushrooms and set them aside while I made the eggs. I’d mastered how to shake the pan and push the edges of the cooked eggs, letting the raw part get to the heat. When it was perfect I poured on the filling and flipped it in half. It always gave me a sense of satisfaction to make a perfect omelet. Glad to have the whole place to myself for the moment, I sat at the kitchen table and ate. True, I kept glancing outside for any signs of Peter’s return with his golf people.

  As it got dark, they’re arrival became more imminent. I finished up, grabbed my infamous tote bag, and went to my room. I didn’t have to worry about the animals; the cats and dogs followed me like a parade. I had brought home some work. I still needed to add the fringe to the scarves I’d made.

  I had purposely not been thinking about Barry. But now, when I was sitting in my room, cutting up pieces of different yarn to add to the scarves, I began to wonder if I’d ever hear from him again. I was sure the whole kiss thing had unnerved him. He was so good at keeping cool and collected, it must have upset him to have lost it. I didn’t want to even consider what feelings were behind it.

  I heard cars in the driveway and voices as Peter and his guests arrived.

  Even if I never heard from Barry, it wouldn’t stop me from getting to the bottom of what happened, I thought with a shrug.

  I glanced down at the phone next to me in the chair, to make sure I hadn’t missed a call. Thanks to Peter’s moving in, I’d become dependent on my cell phone and forced myself to carry it around, but even so it still got left in my purse a lot of the time. No one had called. I finished putting on the fringe and packed up the scarves to take with me the next day.

  The phone rang, startling me. “Rang” wasn’t really the right word—my ringer was set to harp sounds, which always made me feel like heaven was calling.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Sunshine, you sound funny. Did I wake you?” Mason said.

  “No, no. The phone startled me,” I said. I’d forgotten that he’d said he would call.

  “I was hoping to be able to see you,” he said and I heard him yawn. “I hate to admit that my body remembered that I wasn’t in my twenties, thirties, geez forties either anymore. Tomorrow for sure.”

  “I have the event at the bookstore,” I said.

  “We can do something afterward,” he said with a chuckle. He let out another yawn as he said goodbye.

  When the phone rang again, I thought he’d called back to see if he could get me to come to his place.

  “I thought you were too tired,” I said in a flirty voice.

  “Too tired for what?” Barry said.

  “Oh, it’s you,” I said, surprised and uncomfortable. It was going to be the last time I answered the phone without checking the screen, no matter how sure I was that I knew who was calling.

  “Sorry it’s so late,” he said. “I was tied up. I realized we never got to talk about what you found out during your snooping expedition. It’ll probably be the last time we meet. Could you do it now?” He sounded all business.

  I figured it was probably best to get it over with, so I agreed.

  “We’re talking in the Tahoe, right?” he said.

  “Sure,” I said. He explained he was parked down the street, away from the street lamps.

  I grabbed a sweater and slipped out the den door.

  I got into the passenger side and almost laughed when I saw a pile of stuff on the console between the seats.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said. There was an awkwardness in the way he was looking out the front window instead of at me as he spoke. I suppose it could have been a cop thing, like the way he always sat with a view of the room, but I sensed it was something else.

  “We can’t really sit here,” he said. “One of your neighbors could look out their window and decide we look suspicious.” He waited until I put on my seat belt and he put the car in gear. He turned onto Wells Drive. The road curved around the base of the hills. The houses were all big and behind tall fences. As we passed a side street, I saw the side of Miami’s house in the streetlight. Funny, I hadn’t realized how close it was to the corner estate on the curving street.

  “We should really get right to it,” he began. “Did you find out anything about the Yanas?” I glanced over at Barry, who had his eyes on the road. At least now he had an excuse for not looking at me as he spoke.

  “The food is really good at their place,” I said, hoping to lighten things up. I could see him shaking his head in reproach.

  “I suppose you told Mason all about it,” he said.

  “All about what?” I asked.

  “Molly,” he said with a touch of annoyance, “don’t play games with me. You know what I mean, and it’s not the crab legs.”

  “Did you tell Carol?” I asked.

  “Can’t you just answer a question without another question?”

  “Can you begin by answering mine?”

  He blew out his breath. “I didn’t know how to tell her. It would have required explaining too much. It sounds idiotic to be using your ex as an informant you’re meeting in her bedroom.” He finally stole a quick glance my way. “Did you tell Mason where we’d been talking?”

  “Don’t worry, he’s not going to demand you have a duel at dawn. He’d imagined far worse than it was. When I explained the events of the evening, he got that there was just an overflow of emotion. All my fault because I started bugging you about being so collected. I’m sure you just meant to put an arm around me to help me calm down,” I said.

  “Right,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road ahead. “Can we get to what I’m here for?”

  For a moment I toyed with answering with another question, but it seemed better to give him the informat
ion he wanted and get out of there. We were separated, but it was still close enough to catch the scent of the lemon soap and something more that I was trying to ignore. I began by telling him about stepping on the seafood shell behind Miami’s fence.

  “You do realize what that means?” I hadn’t been paying attention to where we were going and finally glanced out the window as we went up and down a steep hill. It took a moment for me to orient myself to what street we were on. He’d taken Wells until it became Serrania and then turned onto Dumetz.

  “Why don’t you tell me what you think it means,” he said.

  “I think the drone was loaded with the shells and took off from there. Unfortunately, that doesn’t narrow it down. I spent a lot of time looking at those fences, and all of them had a gate to that back area. I got the splinter to prove it.” I held up my hand as the SUV glided to a stop at the traffic light for Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

  I was surprised when he grabbed it and used the flashlight on his phone to check the wound.

  “You’re not going to kiss it and make it better?” I joked, and he scowled. The light changed and he turned onto the cross street. I thought at any moment he’d make a U-turn and head back the way we came.

  “I’ll leave that up to Mason,” he said. “You’re still planning to go off and be his legal sidekick, aren’t you?” Not only had Barry not turned to go back the way we’d come, but we’d passed the level part of the street and begun the winding ascent up through the canyon.

  “Yes,” I said, finally.

  “And then you’ll probably marry him.”

  “That hasn’t been decided. I’m not sure.”

  “If you go with him, you will. He’ll wow you with rose petals floating in a tub surrounded by candles and glasses of champagne.”

  I laughed. “Where did that come from?”

  “I don’t know. Forget I said that.” He let out an exasperated breath. “We’re getting off the subject. Back to the case—you were going to check on the Yanas,” he said.

  I was relieved that he’d changed the subject. It was getting a little too personal. “When Dinah and I ate at their restaurant, I made a joke about drones, and they freaked. And Massey Yana told Dinah to be careful not to get any shrimp shells in her purse because they stink.”

  “What about the yards? You said you looked in all of them.”

  “I was getting to that. I didn’t get a long look at any of the yards, but the Yanas have practically a drone airport in their yard. They were all sitting on a long table with bags of stuff next to them. They wanted Miami to let them leave coupons for their restaurant in the rental rooms and weren’t happy when she said no. Plus I have it on good authority that they’re having financial problems. It looks pretty bad for them, but you can’t really discount the others, except the O’Malleys since they’re not home.” I laughed to myself and told him how I’d named the houses and called theirs Colonel Mustard.

  “Not something I would do, but cute,” he said. “Continue.”

  “The Jonquets have a lot of remote toys. A drone isn’t too far from that, and the remote-control SUV is even closer. The husband was worried about their property value. The people in the blue ranch house have lived there since the houses were built. The man seems like a cranky engineer type. He’s livid about the short-term rentals, and he hangs out with a friend in his workshop. They probably build things, like maybe a drone.”

  “Thanks. I’m impressed at all the information you got. And more impressed that you just told it to me instead of making me pull it out of you. I knew you’d get better stuff than I would because they’d let their guard down with you. Sometimes it’s harder when you’re dealing with an average Joe who made a mistake rather than a premeditating killer.”

  “About that,” I said. “I really think you should consider that Sloan was the target.”

  “Are we back to Adele’s video again?”

  “If you’d seen it, you’d know what I mean.” I’d been too involved in our conversation to keep track of where we were. As we came to a stop at a traffic light, I was surprised to see an expanse of dark ocean ahead of us. The view always mesmerized me. The sky was midnight blue, with a few stars visible, and the quarter moon was a lonely shade of yellow that barely reflected in the dark water.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked.

  Barry didn’t say anything, but I could tell he was upset with himself. “I don’t know. I must have been on automatic pilot.” He kept his gaze on the road. “As long as we’re here—there’s an all-night donut stand up ahead.”

  We had donuts and coffee, sitting in the parking lot, looking across the highway to the beach. I didn’t know what to say, and I guess he didn’t either because he was silent too. It was a relief when he turned on the radio for the ride back.

  He dropped me off where he’d picked me up. I was expecting a speech thanking me for whatever I’d done, but letting me know that he didn’t need my help anymore. It would be his way of controlling an uncomfortable situation.

  “Good night,” I said, opening it up for him to give me my swan song.

  But instead he said, “If you get any proof that Sloan was the intended victim, let me know.”

  “Then you listened to what I said.” I was surprised and pleased.

  “Why would I go to all this trouble to meet up with you if I wasn’t going to listen to you? But remember, I said proof or evidence, not a disappearing video.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I made a point of slipping in through the den door when I got home, but it wasn’t necessary. The house was quiet, and the door to Peter’s room was shut. When I checked the house phone, there was a message from Samuel. He offered the usual update from the concert tour, telling me my mother’s group the She La Las was still “killing it.” He said they were doing their last show and gave details about when they’d be home over the weekend. I’d kept them all in the dark about everything. They didn’t know Peter had moved in, had a pregnant girlfriend who’d moved out, or that Mason had proposed. I’d only said that I was going out of town for a short time.

  I was glad that Samuel would be back in time to take care of everything while I was gone. But I knew there’d be chaos and a power struggle. I doubted Samuel would be as agreeable as I was to making himself scarce for his brother.

  It was all too much to think about right now.

  * * *

  I awoke after a restless night. Princess had decided to leave Blondie’s side and joined the other two dogs and cats in bed with me. Felix and Cosmo weren’t so sure about having to share the space. I was the one who really should have been upset, since it left even less room for me.

  It was going to be a long day at the bookstore since the event was scheduled for the evening. We didn’t usually have events on weekend nights, but since I was leaving and we’d arranged it for Saturday, I had my fingers crossed that we’d get a good turnout.

  In the back of my mind I was thinking this might be the last event I put on at the bookstore. If I was going to be away traveling with Mason a lot, I’d have to give up being assistant manager and events coordinator and become just a bookstore associate, which was a nice way of saying sales help. Adele would grab my old position. I let out a groan, imagining her running the events and the yarn department.

  Dinah and Mrs. Shedd were the only ones who knew I was taking a week off. And Dinah was the only one who knew what it might mean.

  Mason had sent me a long text, wishing me the best for my day and reminding me we were getting together after the event was over. There was a lot of sweet stuff about how he couldn’t wait to see me. He seemed to understand that I was feeling emotional about the changes in store and he wanted to be supportive. His last line was assuring me that I would see that what I was getting was far more than what I was giving up.

  Mason came with a lot. He was fun and had the ability to make anything into a special occurrence. He was interesting and always up for an experience. The idea of wor
king with him seemed appealing since it was literally giving people new lives. It had always been casual between us, fun with no strings. Then he had started wanting strings, which we decided was like going steady.

  That had been about as serious as I had wanted it. When Charlie died, I’d had to restart my life. I’d never lived on my own and hadn’t had a job beyond working with him in his public relation firm for years. I’d gotten the job at the bookstore, met the Hookers, and learned to crochet. I’d made friends and created a whole life of my own.

  Maybe it was time for another new chapter, this time as a committed part of a couple.

  I pushed the thoughts from my mind as I went into the bookstore.

  At the last minute, I thought we should talk over how the event would go. Rhoda was going to be the main crochet teacher for the demonstration. She had grabbed a coffee and come to the back table in the yarn department. Sheila came in during her break from her duties at Luxe. Dinah lived just a block away. They were both going to be available as crochet teachers as well.

  “The plan is that Mrs. Shedd will hand out tickets to people as they come in. They’ll keep half and deposit the other half in a bowl—in other words, standard raffle procedure. When we’re ready to start, I’ll pick one of the tickets. The winner gets their choice of one of the kits and then Rhoda will help them start it as the audience watches. If the winner is a non-crocheter, Rhoda will teach them enough crochet to make the scarf. We’ll have refreshments. People can watch the lesson and hopefully be inspired to buy one of the kits. I will announce that we have lessons available during the evening or they can come back. I gave a nod to Sheila. We’ll set up some chairs and small tables for the lessons.”

  Mrs. Shedd walked in as I was speaking. She glanced around the yarn department. “Are you sure that you want to hold it here? We could still set up chairs in the event space.”

  “I’d like to keep it here,” I said. “It makes it feel a little more informal, and if people are standing, it’s easier for them to see what’s happening at the table.” The real truth was, I wasn’t sure what the turnout would be. I worried there would be a lot of empty chairs. The way I was doing it, no matter how few people showed up, it would still look good.