43. ~ Char ~
CHAPTER 43
~ Char ~
W hen I’d scooted out of Estelle’s office over a week ago, still confused about why I suddenly wasn’t allowed in there, Estelle had pressed a piece of paper in my hand. It was an update on my account. I’d sort of forgotten about my debt in my desperation to know whether James was in love with me of his own volition.
The latest update stated that the park, even though incomplete, was starting to bring down my tally. Hallelujah.
There were still two weeks to go, and still tens and tens of thousands of dollars to pay back. Who knew if I could do it in time? I was exhausted, and there was a lot that needed to be done. I felt hungover, deflated and drained from the stress of trying to make it all happen with very little money and in such a short period.
Exhaustion overtaking me, I dropped onto a bench near the Calgary Tower, struggling to summon the energy to carry on to work. My extended lunch break, which I’d spent down at the police station helping them identify three final pottery pieces of various sizes and conditions, was over. It was my third time looking at artifacts for them, and it sounded as though they had apprehended someone a few hours ago. Today’s pieces, it seemed, had the power to either make or break their case against the suspect in custody. No pressure.
Officer Beddoe was supposed to fill me in on the case and the results of it all before I left, but he’d been called away to an emergency, leaving me wondering who they’d arrested.
My own personal hunch was that the thefts were an inside job. But who was behind it all? Kendrick in the gift shop? Greg, the tour guide who also worked in the Tinkertorium sometimes? Oscar the security guard who always called in sick? Glenda in admissions? Richard? Who was it?
Traffic and pedestrians streamed around me, the melting heat from the day trapped between the buildings.
My thoughts drifted away from the thefts, and a smile tilted my lips upward. James made his own choices. He was truly in love with me somewhere under the magic spell. He was choosing to be with me.
I tipped my head back, staring up at the dizzying tower above. Things were changing in my life and who knew where I’d be in a year.
Baseball had wrapped up—our team hadn’t won leisure league. Sally and Otto would be home from their trip soon, and I needed to find a new place to live. My job was officially boring me, but I didn’t know what else to do. Mrs. Laven had been admitted into a memory care facility and was no longer around to shark me on Friday nights. Tamara was happily back home with Felipe, surrounded by her parents, Kade and his family. Happy and in love.
I was alone.
But I wasn’t. Not completely. James loved me.
Had my life changed so much over the recent weeks because of my wishes, or because the universe was clearing everything out in order to make room for goodness? Isn’t that what Sally had suggested?
My phone rang, and I looked at caller ID as well as the time. I needed to get to the office. I was already late getting back, and surely Joan would hear about it. But it was my mom’s number, and she never called me.
Wait. There was also a missed call from Officer Beddoe.
I stood, my heart beating hard. I answered, alert to incoming disaster, because that was what my mind did when seeing a call from both the police and my mom within a minute or two of each other. Even though I knew it was likely just Officer Beddoe getting back to me, and my mom needing to brag about something.
“Hello?”
“You were on the news!” she chirped.
“I was?” I frowned, wondering if I’d been caught in the background of some local footage.
“Yes! It was a short piece. But they said you helped solve the museum thefts.”
“Sorry. What?” I stopped walking, plugging one ear. The case had been solved? It was already on the news? I looked back toward the police station, now blocks away, where I’d been looking at the case’s linchpin pieces only twenty minutes ago.
“You identified fakes! I didn’t know you were an ancient history buff.” My mom was using the proud tone she usually used when talking about Brynnie, and I felt the urge to shrink, to deflect the attention.
“Oh, I’m not really,” I mumbled. “I just kind of lucked out by being in the right place.”
“I have to go,” my mom chirped merrily. “We’re about to get on a cruise ship with Brynnie here in the Mediterranean, along with her new fiancé. Oh, did I tell you she’s engaged? He’s amazing. He coordinates million-dollar contracts all over the world! Can you imagine? She’s getting married in two months. There’s so much to do!”
She hung up before I could reply. Brynnie was engaged? Getting married in two months? Taking Mediterranean vacations? Why wasn’t that my life?
I thought of Greece. The trip I’d once been saving up for. Truthfully, I wasn’t even sure the trip was something my dad wanted. He’d never left Canada and didn’t even have a passport. Would he want to go? Or was the trip idea my own personal Band-Aid, meant to make me feel like my dad and I were exciting, that we’d have something to throw in my mom’s face? Because if I was honest with myself, my dad didn’t really know that much about ancient civilizations, and I don’t think he had a desire to learn more than he’d enjoyed on TV from the comfort of his easy chair.
The Greece trip had always been about me. Not him. Not us.
My phone rang again, and I nearly silenced it, fearing it was my mom calling me back. But it was Officer Beddoe.
“Char. We got him. I wanted to be the first to tell you—before the news piece went live.”
I didn’t have the heart to inform him I’d already heard about it. I put a little lift in my voice as I answered, “That’s great! Who was it?”
“Greg coordinated the thefts.”
I swore under my breath. How had I ever crushed on that worthless man?
“He tried to frame me?” He’d known I’d bought the warehouse and had immediately moved his stolen goods into it? Some friend he was. My heart raged and adrenaline flowed through my quads.
Officer Beddoe explained how Greg had been swapping out pieces in the museum for months. He was also behind the online scam, putting shipping insurance on the artifacts he’d accidentally broken, before sending them all off on the same day to make it look like something had happened in the post office. He then blamed Canada Post for breaking the shipped pieces and claimed the insurance.
As for my warehouse, he’d only planned to leave the stolen goods in there overnight before meeting up with a dealer. Unfortunately, due to the timing of the siding removal, the items had been immediately found.
“The timing is crazy!” I said, thinking about the string of events that had happened in order for him to get caught. How had it all stacked up so neatly? So many things had needed to happen. From me spotting the fakes, to Greg hearing about my warehouse and putting the items in there after James and I had gone through, to me being at the museum to talk to Richard on the right night about the fakes, and to the most coincidental—the siding people finding the cases of pottery… it was all so incredibly unbelievable.
“Kismet,” the officer said. “Someone up above must have been looking out for the museum.”
God?
Or had it been Estelle?
I smiled, my gut telling me she’d had something to do with it all. I had my own fairy godmother, and I had a feeling she’d just helped me catch a man who’d been ruining one of my happiest places. I grinned up at the Calgary Tower, feeling incredibly lucky and incredibly blessed to have Estelle as my fairy godmother.