Ken grabbed my hand as we started to walk aimlessly around the toy show, and I let him. He’d gone up at least two notches in my estimation by the compassion he’d shown Jack and Terry.
Less than two hours, however, remained before the show would end. Vendors would start loading up their wares, and the hobbyists would carefully pack their elaborate train layouts and return them to the basements, attics, and garages from which they came. With two lead suspects for Craig’s murder in jail and the missing comic books found, there was nothing much for us to look for. And with the events of the last day and a half, the toys and trains had lost some of their sparkle.
I stopped at a competitor’s booth and admired the Charlie’s Angels figures, still in their boxes. I poked Ken playfully in the arm. “Quick. Which Charlie’s Angel do I remind you of?” I offered up a goofy action pose.
He chuckled, then stepped back to look. “Sabrina.”
I gave him a pouty look. “Not hot enough to be Farrah, huh?”
He put an arm around me. “Plenty hot enough.”
“But more of a curly brunette, like Jaclyn.”
“True,” he said, “but Sabrina was always the smart one. She was my favorite.”
“So you honestly and truly love me for my mind?” Blame the fatigue. I’d used that fearsome L-word. No taking it back now. Maybe he’d just consider it a figure of speech. That’s what it was . . . right?
He pulled me closer. “Yup.”
That started my head spinning. It came closer to a declaration of love than I was ready for.
While I was still pondering what my verbal slip and Ken’s monosyllabic response meant, if anything, to the future of our relationship—and trying to decide what I thought about that—we resumed our slow meander through the various aisles. Santa was doing a fair business with the kids, ho-ho-hoing up a storm in a jolly tenor. We stopped to watch for a few minutes as he coaxed a shy girl of maybe eight or nine into whispering in his ear, then deftly managed a rambunctious toddler who was trying to wriggle in all directions.
“This guy’s good,” I said. I pulled out my camera to take a picture. Moments later, Santa got up, talked with his elves, and disappeared.
“You spooked him,” Ken said. “I don’t think Santa shows up on film, anyway.”
“I’m pretty sure that only applies to vampires,” I said, taking his hand this time as we continued to stroll.
A fair crowd was still gathered around Frank’s layout. He was hoarse from retelling the story about how Craig had fallen on it. Only now Frank had taken on heroic overtones, implying that he’d saved Craig’s life. Albeit temporarily.
“Poor Frank,” I heard one spectator say.
“Yeah, but he did a great job fixing it. I think the UFO was brilliant.”
“Are those aliens to scale?” someone in the crowd asked.
“Shape shifters,” Frank said. “That’s a real science fiction thing.” When he noticed Ken and me, he waved us over. “I heard something hinky happened at the center last night.”
“You could say that,” Ken said.
“You want to hear more?” Frank reached down and picked up a model locomotive. “Remember I told you that one of my engines went missing?”
I hadn’t, but I nodded anyway, just to be polite.
“Well, it’s back today.”
“Are you sure you didn’t just misplace it yesterday?” Ken asked.
Frank looked hurt. “It’d be like missing one of your kids when you loaded up the car.”
“I’m glad it turned up.” Ken grabbed my arm and started moving away.
“You don’t believe him?” I asked when we were out of earshot.
“It’s just that in all my years as a cop I’ve seen families accidentally leave kids behind,” he said. “Including one happy kid who got locked in a trampoline park overnight.”
“That would have its ups and downs.”
Ken groaned. “You’re your father’s daughter.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions.” Even I winced at that one.
Cathy looked tired when we approached the toy booth, even though Miles was helping.
“Go home,” I said, giving her a hug. “We can help Miles pack up.”
“I like that idea,” she said. She beckoned me to the back of the booth. “I didn’t want to tell anybody this morning with everything going on, but I think I had a bit of morning sickness. I’m going to have to tell Parker tonight. I won’t be able to hide it much longer.”
“You poor thing,” I said. “Parker should be closing the shop in about twenty minutes. Go get food. Enjoy your evening. And I meant what I said—he’ll be ecstatic. Oh, and when we have a chance, remind me to tell you the story of the My Little Pony stuff.”
She gave me a surprised look but didn’t press for any more information. She just grabbed her purse and headed out before I could change my mind.
“So much for our day off,” Ken said.
But Miles asked, “Are you letting all the staff go?”
“Not on your life,” I said.
Miles gestured over to the comic booth. “A bit more action over there, huh?”
“Just a little,” Ken said. “But it should all be over now.” Only he didn’t sound convinced.
The idea that somehow this outcome had been just a little too easy, a little too pat, had stuck in my mind. “Are you still worried that not reporting finding those comics will backfire?”
Ken shrugged and picked up the Kirk, Spock, and McCoy action figures sitting on our table. He batted his long eyelashes at me and asked, “Which Star Trek action figure do I remind you of?”
“Let’s see . . .” I gave him a squinty-eyed inspection, rubbing my chin. “McCoy.”
“What?” He clasped a hand to his heart, as if wounded. “Not hot enough to be Kirk?”
I sidled up next to him. “Plenty hot enough to be Kirk.”
“Not smart enough to be Spock, then?” He gave me an exaggerated pouty lip.
“Plenty smart.” I laughed. “But today I saw your compassionate side in what you did for Jack and Terry. That reminded me of the good doctor.”
He winced. “True confession then. I didn’t do it for Terry. And I didn’t do it for Jack.” His Adam’s apple bobbed and his gaze was intense. “I did it for you.”
I took the action figures and set them carefully down on our table—mint in box, remember—then took him by the hand and led him toward the curtained-off comic booth.
“I’m not seeing this,” Miles said.
“What are you doing?” Ken asked. “Where are we going?”
But once the drapes were shut to the rest of the show, I kissed him.
And believe you me, he knew he’d been kissed.
# # #
I dragged myself up the steps that night. All our unsold merchandise was still in boxes stacked haphazardly in the back room. There’d be plenty of time to put it all on the shelves later.
Dad arrived shortly after me, wearing his civvies. “Didn’t take long to put that place to rights,” he said.
“Give your two-week notice, did you?” I pulled out a can of cat food for Othello, who was circling my ankles.
Dad collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table. “I’m done. Tomorrow I’ll turn in my keys and uniform—and get those comic books out of the safe for you—and then they have to find another guy. They don’t have any scheduled events until next weekend, and that’s just a bridal show.”
“Just a bridal show?” I asked. “They’d better put out a call for Chuck Norris. I heard those things can be dangerous.”
“Well, I don’t plan on being there.” He squinted at me. “Unless you wanted to go.”
“Why would I want to go to a bridal show?”
“A little bird told me that things might’ve heated up between you and a certain dashing police chief.”
“Does that little bird have a name? Miles, maybe?”
“I never reveal my sources. I am the model of discretion.”
“Not very discreet of you to practically throw me in his direction, though, was it?”
“Did it work?”
It was hard to be mad at him when he had that impish twinkle in his eye. “I know you have your preferences, and if it makes you happy, yes, things did heat up between Ken and me. But”—I paused to drive my point home—“we’re miles away from talking about bridal shows. And furthermore, any future interference in my love life, real or imagined, will be met with severe sanctions.”
“Is that ‘real or imagined’ love life? Or ‘real or imagined’ interference?”
I gave him my sternest warning look.
“What kind of sanctions are we talking about?” he asked.
I tapped my fingertips together in my best mad-scientist-plotting-world-domination way. “You want grandchildren privileges someday, right?”
He held his hands up in surrender. “No more interference.”
# # #
As I lay awake in bed that night, Othello played tetherball with the pull strings of my blinds, and I stared up at the ceiling. When someone had configured these apartments over the store, popcorn ceilings were all the rage. This particular ceiling had been done when someone had come up with the great idea of adding a touch of glitter to that mix. While the good folks at HGTV would be aghast, I’d grown kind of fond of it. The little slivers of light that slipped into the room hit the ceiling at odd angles, occasionally bouncing around in a twinkling glimmer. I had constellations to myself that nobody else ever saw.
Stars were great for quiet contemplation. And I had a lot to think about.
Jack. In the morning, I’d get the comic books, pick up Jack and Terry, and go to the police station. Jack had walked out on me. Yes, he’d walked out on me because of my questions about his brother’s whereabouts. And it turned out those questions had some merit. But he’d always remember that I questioned his brother’s integrity. And I’d always remember that he’d walked out. Again. As much as I cared for Jack, and as long lasting as our friendship had been, the sad truth about an on-again-off-again relationship is that, while there’s enough magnetism to keep drawing us back together, there’s not enough to keep other forces from pulling us apart.
Ken. There was a definite advancement there. If I wanted it. Did I? Did he? That was the complicated part.
But complications. This whole murder investigation: I had thought it was going to be a complex brainteaser. But this was like opening a jigsaw puzzle, dumping a thousand pieces on the table, then finding the first twelve pieces you picked up completed a perfect rectangle. Mission accomplished. But very unsatisfying, as far as puzzles go. Although more unsatisfying for Craig, I imagined.
But what of Jenna Duncan, the woman who sold Craig the comics? What was she doing at the train and toy show? Why did someone steal the computer from the comic book store? What about Craig’s comic book series? Did that work into any of this? And what about his son, the heir, whom nobody knew anything about? Were they all extraneous pieces fate just threw into the box to have a little fun?
And if the mob was after those comic books, why?
I’d started dozing when that question popped into my head with a shot of adrenaline.
Why was the mob after those comic books? Where did they learn about them? What connection did they have to them? How did those books end up outside where Terry found them?
There were still a boatload of questions to be answered. Maybe this puzzle wasn’t finished after all.