Chapter 10
Tess
Fortunately, my post-robbery morning was super busy. Time flew by, and I was too busy to worry about Brenda much, although concern sat heavily in the back of my mind.
Brenda arrested? Suspected murder? What?
And Jack had said they were in Riverton. Was it about Ace? He’d been missing … I spent some time beating myself up about not taking time to talk to Brenda at the field. But then another group of customers rushed in and took all my time and energy, since they had several small kids with them and none of the parents were particularly interested in supervising them.
“Please don’t climb on the shelves!” I said to a hyper kid who’d climbed halfway up one of the shelving units.
His dad looked over at us, mildly annoyed. “Rutherford. We’ve talked about boundaries.”
The kid, who was maybe six—and burdened with the name Rutherford—gave his dad the same look of disbelief I did, but the man had already turned away. Stellar parenting, for sure.
I sighed. “Hey, kid. Want a lollipop?”
“Yes!” He shimmied down in a flash.
I pulled my jar of lollipops down off the shelf that also held Fluffy, our taxidermied-alligator shop mascot, and held it out. “Red, orange, or green?”
“Blue!”
“Red it is.” I handed it over. By then, the other kids in the store had locked their eyes on the candy jar and started advancing on me. I had a flashback to Jack’s TV show and suddenly felt like that gazelle running away from lions.
Since throwing the candy in the middle of the floor and shouting, “Let the Hunger Games begin!” felt like overkill, and none of them were older than six or seven, I stood my ground.
When the jar was almost empty, they all started chanting. “One more sucker! One more sucker!”
I wasn’t sure if the sucker in question was me, their parents, or the candy, but this wasn’t my first rodeo.
“Nope. One is enough.” I put the jar back on the shelf and thwarted a running leap one of the older girls made to retrieve it.
“Hey, parents! A little help here.” I smiled when I said it, but I was getting tired of these people, none of whom had even tried to buy anything yet.
The adults all ambled over to where I stood, surrounded by the pack of feral children.
“Is that candy gluten-free?” One woman inquired.
I gritted my teeth and held on to my patience. “Yep. No gluten. No nuts. No trans fats.”
Who knew that gluten-free lollipops were the key to this group’s wallets? The woman who’d asked bought a “darling” bracelet for two hundred dollars, and she didn’t even haggle. Then the rest of the group, not to be outdone, each bought progressively more expensive items from my jewelry case, a few antique toys for the kids, and Rutherford’s dad even took the drunk frogs vase off my hands. I didn’t bother to let him know that sometimes the frogs woke up in the middle of the night and started singing drinking songs. He’d figure it out.
I’d been trying to get rid of it for ages.
Eleanor had taken it in on a pawn, but the owner never came back for it, surprising nobody. I’d optimistically priced it at a hundred fifty bucks, expecting to haggle, but he paid without flinching.
However, after I rang him up and handed him his wrapped and bagged purchase, he paused.
“You know, you really shouldn’t give children candy without consulting with their parents first. If they’d choked, you could be held liable.”
If he’d told me this in a quiet voice, or at least without the superior, condescending tone, I might have appreciated it. Since he didn’t, I simply smiled and thanked him for the advice.
And blew out a big breath when they left.
The door opened a sliver, and Rutherford peeked back in at me with a big grin. “Thanks, lady.”
I gave him a thumbs up. “You’re welcome.”
Just like that, my crankiness disappeared. Despite his parents and being saddled with the name Rutherford, there was hope for the little guy.
I was straightening shelves when Eleanor rushed in, looking great in dark blue pants with a white and blue sailor-striped sweater. “Sorry I’m late! So much to do!”
“No worries. We’re having a lull after the rush of hipster parents, mob of feral kids, and the attempted robbery.”
“What?”
I filled her in and showed her Joe Bob’s signed statement.
“It’s a good thing Bill made me quit carrying my gun,” she said grimly.
Bill, her fiancé, was a smart man. Eleanor was a menace with that gun. Fluffy sported a big strip of duct tape from the bullet wound where my sweet, genteel, Southern lady employee had shot him.
She’d been trying to shoot Jack, so I wasn’t all that upset she’d hit Fluffy.
The shop was empty, so I took the statement back and filed it in my vault under T for Turner, and Eleanor unpacked the homemade meatloaf sandwiches she’d brought.
I tried to call Jack, but he wasn’t answering, so I texted him to call me as soon as he could. While we had lunch, I told Eleanor about Brenda.
“I heard she was dating him,” she said, handing me a napkin.
“How do I never hear anything? I own a pawnshop! I should be the center of all town gossip!”
“Do you want to be the center of town gossip?”
“No,” I admitted. “Gossip is exhausting.”
“That’s why most people don’t tell you any, honey,” she said kindly, patting my hand.
My phone buzzed.
Jack:
On my way to you. Do you need lunch?
Me:
No, we’re good. Is Brenda okay?
Jack:
For now. It’s weird. Will tell you in person.
By the time Jack arrived, finishing the sandwiches he’d bought on the way, we were busy again. He waved to me and headed for his office. When things slowed down enough that Eleanor could cover on her own, I headed through our connecting door to talk to Jack.
Even after knowing him for more than a year now, sometimes I was struck anew by how incredibly beautiful he was. The thick waves of bronze hair that framed his face and touched the collar of his forest-green shirt. Great cheekbones, a straight nose, and overall bone structure like I’d seen on the ancient Greek statuary I’d studied in an online art class. Those long, dark lashes around the emerald-green eyes that turned to a beautiful amber when he was a tiger. I touched the tiger’s eye pendant he’d given me and smiled at him.
He looked up from the papers on his desk and gave me a puzzled look. “What?”
“You’re just so beautiful.”
His cheeks flushed, and he stood and pulled me into his arms. “I’m not beautiful. I’m a guy. You’re the beautiful one.”
“Let’s agree that we’re both beautiful.” I said, feeling shy. But then he kissed me, and I forgot about shyness, because I was exactly where I was meant to be.
After so many years alone, I’d found Jack, and he felt like home to me.
“Tell me about Brenda,” I said after a little while, and he filled me in.
“He’s gone? Did they try to track his phone?”
“His phone is turned off or destroyed. I offered to contact Alejandro, since kidnapping can be federal jurisdiction, depending on circumstances. That’s when Sheriff Lawless kicked me out.”
I flinched at the name “Sheriff Lawless,” even though I knew it wasn’t our sheriff. Dead End’s Lawless had been complicit in murders and black magic. Everything I’d heard about his cousin, the Riverton sheriff, was almost as bad, though.
“Are you going to call Alejandro anyway?”
Our friend, Special Agent Alejandro Vasquez, of the FBI’s Paranormal Ops division, had helped us out of more than one jam since Jack had moved home to Dead End. The downside was that he kept trying to entice Jack to work at P-Ops with him as his partner.
We got into enough dangerous trouble right here at home. The last thing Jack needed was to go out searching for more. Fortunately, Jack felt the same way. He’d said on multiple occasions that he was done with being anything even close to law enforcement. After all those years running the rebellion with his co-leader, Quinn, I didn’t blame him.
“This whole thing is odd. Why would she call you for help and then not tell you everything she knew?” I sat on the edge of Jack’s desk. “And where could Ace be? Do you think he’s dead?”
“I got the feeling that part of her wanted to talk to me, but something was stopping her.” He started pacing back and forth in the big, sunny office he rarely used. “I don’t know where Ace could be or who might have taken him. Riverton isn’t Dead End. I have no information on his life or any potential enemies. I’m really flying without instruments, here.”
“Are you still going to help Brenda, even though she’s not talking to you?” I sighed. “Of course you are. And you call me a softy.”
Just then, the door opened. “Hey, Tess. Susan is here. Are you sure you don’t want to tell her about the robbery this morning?”
Jack whipped his gaze from Eleanor to me. “The what?”
Oops. Busted.