Chapter Four

A door crashed closed somewhere near my head, setting off a sadistic little drummer boy hell bent on a Metallica concert solo. I moaned and cracked open my eyes, which made my head hurt worse. My vision was blurry—all I could see was my very shiny wooden floor. I sure had done a top-notch job on cleaning it yesterday.

Back on track, Ivy. Two brown blurbs came into my still wonky line of sight. My eyes sent the message to my brain, but I wasn’t getting it. Which is why I said the most intelligent thing I could thing of. “Wha?”

“Ivy!” My dad yelled so loud I was at least sure my hearing was still fully functioning.

“Ohhhhh.”

“Ivy?”

“Ohhhh.” I sounded like a broken record but couldn’t come up with anything else. I felt strong arms fit under mine at the armpits. My dad only grunted a little when he hauled me to the couch three feet away. Thanks, Dad.

Shoving a pillow under my head, he took my hand in his, patting it. “Sweetheart, are you okay? Do you need me to call a doctor? What happened?”

Too many questions. “One at a time,” I said. Nausea rolled my stomach. Now was not the time to barf. What would my beautiful floors look like then?

Dad got what I was saying, like any good parent, and asked slowly and carefully, “Are you okay?”

“Ugh.” I gingerly lifted one hand, placing it on my throbbing forehead.

“Do you need a doctor?”

“Nooooo.” I had no idea why I drew the word out; it only increased the drum solo. Bile raced up my throat. Gross.

“What happened?” He crouched down next to me, and his hand snaked under me again, trying to help me sit up.

Not a good idea. “Down,” I said. In that great way my dad had of understanding what the hell I meant even when I’d barely said anything, he helped me lie back down on the couch.

“Thanks.” Closing my eyes for a second, I tried to get the world to stop spinning. I’d be all right if I could just get the world to stop spinning.

“So what happened?” My dad hovered over me, bringing thoughts of vultures. But that wasn’t really fair. I knew he must be worrying. I mean, here he came to my home to find me prone on the floor in the middle of the afternoon… I’d worry, too.

“I’m not really sure what happened,” I said. I opened my eyes for a second, reassured when no spots popped up. The world was the way it should be—stationary and in single vision. Thank God. “I came into the house because I thought I saw you through the window in the door. Before I got more than two steps in, someone knocked me over the head with something solid.” I chanced a glance at his face. “I take it that wasn’t you I saw roaming around in here?”

Dad looked over each of his shoulders as if searching for something. His gaze fixed on an object a smidge out of my peripheral vision. “Huh.”

“What’s huh?”

Crouched as he was, he reached along the floor for something I couldn’t see. “Maybe this is what the person hit you with,” he said, lifting an object that set my face on fire with one of my ever-embarrassing blushes.

****

“I can’t believe he was brandishing one of your ‘toys,’ ” Bella said. This was presented with the ever-popular finger-hook quotation marks in the air, followed by gales of laughter. “He should have taken more than your frames. He could have made a fortune on the black market.”

“I’m so happy I could provide a laugh for you.” Yeah, I sounded stiff, but really, how else was I supposed to deal with the fact that I had been knocked out with a vibrator? And how the hell did the person who knocked me out get it out of my closet? I mean, seriously, it wasn’t something I’d even used. I was checking it out along with some others to see if I wanted to carry them in the store in addition to a variety of other new things. Not that I really had enough for the black market, but Bella thought so, obviously. The burglar must have had quite a chuckle over my possessions before I interrupted the perv.

And why was it always me? Everyone else had only had their frames stolen, while I got my closet violated. Unless he’d gone through the others’ stuff but no one else had vibrators lying around. Though I knew for a fact that wasn’t true, considering the people who shopped in my back room. Ugh! Maybe he felt he should come charging out of my bedroom to hit me over the head with the Dominator as a final act of his comedy.

“You didn’t tell me what your dad said. Was he horrified?”

Like any true suffering drama queen, I threw my hand over my eyes and moaned. “Thankfully, he had no idea what the hell it was. He actually thought it was some kind of hybrid candlestick.”

Which set off another bout of laughter that only ended when I kicked Bella in the shin. She scowled at me as she rubbed her flesh.

“Just promise me you won’t tell anyone,” I begged, not too proud to get down to kiss her feet if I had to. The last thing I wanted was for her to tell anyone I’d been whacked over the head with a big silver object of pleasure.

“Oh, I don’t know, Ivy. It could be good fodder for the gossip mill.” Bella snickered.

It took me a minute to respond since I was awed at her use of the word “fodder.” Once I regained my composure, I said, “It’s bad enough I had to let the police department know. Please don’t make me explain anything about it to Ben.” I quickly looked around surreptitiously (still as good a word on the second time around) to make sure he wasn’t anywhere in the vicinity. It never failed that when I said something embarrassing he was there, whispering in my ear.

“He’s not here,” she said, laughing. “Are you paranoid, or what?”

“I’m not paranoid, simply cautious. You know as well as I do that anytime I do something potentially embarrassing, he’s there to catch me. He always calls me on it, too.”

“You do have a point. All right, so be paranoid, but it’s still a funny story. I don’t know how long it’ll be kept under wraps, though. Do you seriously think something like that is not going to leak from the department?”

“Well, I can only hope.” I fiddled with some of the knickknacks on the end table next to me, figuring the story would come out sooner or later. I hoped for much, much later. “I’m counting on the fact that this is the third round of picture frame thefts to help keep the spotlight off what else exactly happened. The whole thing was so weird, though. When my dad and I looked through the house, nothing else was missing. I know I don’t have anything really valuable to walk off with, but I do have a couple of things that would have been easy to take along with the frames.”

“And nothing else was disturbed?”

“No. And even weirder? The person who did this was really careful to remove all the pictures from the frames, then leave them exactly where they’d hung. He only took the frames. He stuck my pictures back on the wall with bright green thumbtacks.”

“Freaky.”

“You’re telling me.” I’d known it was a possibility after Ben had told me about the robberies. But to actually see it in action was bizarre.

We sat in silence for a minute. As always, it was a comfortable silence. I’d lucked out the day I walked into her salon asking for something a little different.

Bella cleared her throat. “So, not to bring down the mood, but I can’t seem to stop thinking about this whole murder thing.”

I heard the worry and sorrow in her voice loud and clear. I vowed right then and there to help her no matter what. I’d made no headway, yet, but I’d double up my search. “Ben and I are going to work on it. Promise. I’m not sure what help I’m going to be, but the last couple of times turned out all right, didn’t they?”

“Yeah, if you discount the fact that Kitty trussed you with a scarf and smacked you with a plastic saber, that banker guy smacked you with a mannequin leg, and Horace nearly brained you with a gun.”

“So not my best showing, but we still got our people. Hopefully, we can do the same thing this time.”

“Do you think it’s a woman?”

I gave the thought some careful consideration, not that I really had any idea of what or how a woman would do it differently than a man. I watched all those crime scene shows, but I wasn’t channeling the info right now. I was more concerned about keeping my friend out of jail than making predictions.

“Sweetie, I really don’t know, but we’ll think of something. I have a feeling life is about to get really complicated, what with clearing your name and trying to figure out what the hell the frame thief is really after. Unless you want to turn on your psychic ability? Tell me what’s going on?”

“Leave me alone about that. It’s never been true, and it certainly isn’t true now. Plus, you’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

“I’m aware of that. I’m thinking out loud, actually.” I sighed and picked up a particularly ugly ceramic kitten. I quickly put the pink-and-purple thing back down. “So tell me where you were and what you did over the last week. I want to get an idea of what we’re looking at.” We settled down into the couch for a long chat.

The whole time we talked, I wished I could take everything away for her, point my accusing finger at the killer. Unfortunately that wasn’t going to happen. I only hoped and prayed what I could do would be good enough. Her life was seriously at stake. I’d never felt more inadequate, though I wasn’t going to tell her that.

When I got home about an hour later, Ben was sitting in the recliner with the television blasting, the paper opened and held high. His head was buried in the sports section. I knew from previous experience he could probably go for hours without surfacing.

Unfortunately, this didn’t appear to be one of those times.

“Ivy, where have you been?” He didn’t even bother to close the paper. After a second glance at the front, I realized it was the local paper that came in my mailbox each week. Had he been in my mail?

Hopefully I hadn’t received any risqué toy catalogs in the mail. Not that he would be offended or anything, but it might give him ideas I wouldn’t want to try yet.

Then the ramifications of him checking the mail and feeling comfortable enough to rifle through things hit me. It was not sitting well. He started talking again, making me lose that particular angst because of what he was saying.

“So, anyway, I was thinking you could make some of the great meatloaf and mashed potatoes you used to make for your old man when you lived with him.”

Huh?

“I don’t have the ingredients for meatloaf,” I mumbled, horrified, hoping he would take that as an answer. I could put together something else in a few minutes. No such luck.

“That’s okay. I went to the grocery store. I picked up everything you need.” He smiled at me. For my part, I worked hard to stay upright.

Ben. Went to the store. Willingly. Ben went to the store willingly? Holy crap. I think this was probably the first time in the whole history of his life. I struggled between fascination that he actually went to the store, and the clerks survived, and disbelief he wanted meatloaf so badly he would go to such extremes. Then again, how did I think he had been surviving all this time? Well, at the convenience store around the corner, as far as I knew.

But I couldn’t resist asking, “Did you actually go to the store by yourself?”

He twitched the paper and harrumphed. I almost thought he wouldn’t answer. “I, uh, went to the store, yes.”

Huh? “What does that mean? Did you go to the store by yourself, or not?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“And what?” He’d buried his nose in the paper, again.

“And what happened that you aren’t telling me?” I stuck a hip on the arm of the couch, watching in glee as he squirmed around on the chair.

“I got lost, okay? And I had to ask directions to the new store, and then I had to ask how to make meatloaf. The butcher almost fell over. It is not funny!”

But I’d already fallen on the floor in a fit of giggles.