Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
B unny was so busy thinking about the mystery of the present that she practically ran Maxi over when she came out of the side street that housed the art gallery.
“Oh, Maxi, I’m so sorry!” Bunny exclaimed, steadying a bag filled with notebooks and papers. “I didn’t see you coming out of the gallery.”
“Oh, no worries. I wasn’t watching where I was going,” Maxi said.
Bunny’s eyes darted toward the gallery’s papered-up windows. “So, is everything in there still a top-secret project?”
Maxi let out a tired sigh. “Well, sort of... Let’s just say it’s a work in progress. I promise, I’ll fill you in during our painting lesson later. Right now, I’m off to rescue Claire in the animal rescue charity tent.”
“Oh dear. I heard about the storm. Those poor animals.” Bunny frowned. “But why does Claire need rescuing?”
Maxi leaned in closer, lowering her voice as if sharing a state secret. “She’s manning the animal rescue charity tent with Sandee. Do you know about the whole Beach Bones fiasco?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” Bunny nodded. “I was hoping they’d work things out, you know? Dooley absolutely loves those treats.”
“Same here,” Maxi agreed, “but from what I hear, there’s still a lot of tension between them. So I’m heading over there to provide some emotional backup.”
Bunny smiled warmly at Maxi. “That’s very kind of you, Maxi. I’ll see you at four for our painting lesson.”
“Looking forward to it,” Maxi said, waving as Bunny continued down the cobblestone street.
As Bunny made her way to meet Sam, her thoughts kept drifting back to the Beach Bones debacle. Sam had mistakenly bought Sandee’s Beach Bones from the market, thinking they were Claire’s. Dooley had taken to them immediately. In fact, Dooley seemed to prefer the red ones from Sandee’s collection over Claire’s. Though she would never tell Claire that!
“Bunny! Over here!” Sam’s voice broke through her reverie as she saw him standing near the entrance of the town library, holding two cups of steaming coffee.
“Hey!” she called back, waving and increasing her pace to reach him.
As she took the coffee cup from Sam, they shared a quick kiss.
“Did you find anything more?” Sam asked. They’d split up the detective work, with Bunny going to some of the local auction companies and Sam researching the items in the trunk further.
Bunny shook her head, a wisp of her hair falling into her eyes. “The auction houses didn’t really have much. I asked to search back on what ones Olga attended, but that long ago, there were no computerized records. How about you?”
Sam shook his head. “Everything in the trunk is fairly common. So we know the people were not wealthy, at least I don’t think so. But the items were a little mismatched, as if they were thrown in from different rooms or something.”
Bunny sipped coffee, and an idea occurred to her. “You know, the problem is that there is too broad a time span. Maybe we should focus on the wrapping paper on the gift. If we can identify the pattern or the style of wrapping, we might be able to find out which years that paper was popular. That’ll help us narrow down the yard sales we have to look at.”
Sam’s face lit up, “That’s brilliant, Bunny!”
“I have a picture of the present on my phone. Let’s get into the library and start poking around on their internet. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
Sam gave her a hug and smiled down at her. “I already got lucky when I met you.”
Bunny smiled back, but internally, doubt tugged at her. Not about Sam; she felt the same way about meeting him. She was the one who had gotten lucky. What she doubted was the odds of finding who that present belonged to.
Bunny wasn’t one to give up easily, but for the first time, she had to admit she wasn’t one hundred percent sure they’d be successful at solving this mystery.