A Touch of Gold

about everything that had happened and catching up with each other, I twirled so she could tell me what she thought.

“You look awesome! I love the gloves!” She looked me up and down with a critical eye. “This has to be a hot date outfit. Are you finally going to take Tim up on one of his many offers?”

Sometimes I felt as if Trudy had known me too long. “No. And what do I have to do to convince everyone that Tim and I will never be more than friends?” I sat down in the chair and hugged my secret to myself. “This is something different.”

“A new man?” she guessed, taking off my expensive shoes. “Is there a new man in town? I haven’t heard about anyone.”

“He’s not that new.”

She narrowed her green eyes. They were a different color almost every day thanks to her contact lenses. “You’re talking about Kevin Brickman, aren’t you? All of this is for him?”

“He asked me over for dinner tonight. Alone.” The secret spilled out of me without much coercion. I’d make an awful spy.

Trudy shook her platinum blond hair that never looked less than perfect, framing her pretty, tanned face. She’d never even had a zit all the way through high school. “He’s not over Shayla yet, Dae. If he is looking at you, it’s a rebound thing. You don’t want that.”

“Please! No cynicism. I’ve seen you go after a man for a lot less reason.”

Her eyebrows rose after she put cotton balls between my toes. “Dae, it’s the museum, isn’t it? You had a near-death experience and it’s warped your brain. Take a minute to think about this. You don’t want Shayla’s leftovers.”

“That’s not it.” I argued with her, although I had to admit the reason for the dinner might be different for me than for Kevin. Would he have invited me over if he wasn’t trying to analyze my new abilities?

“Dae—”

“I won’t listen!” I closed my eyes as she applied polish to my toenails. “I’m going tonight no matter what.”

My phone rang. It was Nancy reminding me of my appointment with the chief. “When?” I asked, something like panic building inside of me. I didn’t know if I was ready to discuss what had happened in the graphic detail Cailey and Chief Michaels were looking for.

“They’re here right now, waiting for you. ASAP, I guess.”

I turned off my phone. “I have to go,” I told Trudy. “The chief wants to talk to me about the museum. Sorry.”

“That’s okay.” She pulled out the cotton balls and used a hair dryer to dry the polish quickly. “What did happen over there, Dae? People are saying it’s the pirate curse again.”

“I know. Darcy told me. That’s where I got my shoes.”

“The shoes are perfect,” she remarked, then added. “It’s crazy. But who else would want to hurt Max or blow up our little museum? Nothing makes any sense about it. Kind of like you going after Kevin.”

I ignored the last part and told her about the town meeting tomorrow night. “I’m going to find some way to talk about the pirate curse without sounding stupid. I hope Chief Michaels will be there with Cailey to discuss what they can with everyone. I really don’t think Rafe is back to kill people and blow things up, Trudy. There’s a rational explanation for what happened.”

Chief Michaels wasn’t going to like that I’d promised a news briefing of sorts for him. He never shared information with the public if he could help it. The investigation might be ongoing, but so were panic and fear. We had to nip the pirate-curse rumors before they became what would pass for the truth.

The new people to the community, like Brad Spitzer and Kevin, might think it was crazy to believe in such things today. But I’d found that people will believe anything in the absence of the truth.

Feeling a little overdressed, I made a grand entrance into town hall, where the group was waiting for me. Nancy, looking stressed, was doling out coffee and sodas. Cailey and Brad were talking together quietly in one corner of the room while Tim and Chief Michaels were whispering in another.

When they saw me, everyone got to their feet and stopped talking. It was a little nerve-wracking. Were they all talking about me?

“Let’s go in my office,” I said with as much calm as I could. “Nancy, please hold all calls.”

She nodded, plainly glad to see us go into another room. “Would you like me to take notes?”

“That shouldn’t be necessary since we’re all finally here,” Chief Michaels assured her, his hat tucked under his arm.

I took the dig about being late in stride. After all, his reference to a meeting “sometime” today had been a little vague. I tried to take into consideration that he’d probably not slept much since the explosion happened. He and Max weren’t close friends, but everyone knew everyone else in Duck. He was bound to be as affected by it as other town residents.

Tim brought in two extra chairs, which made my office feel much smaller. As he passed me going in, he whispered, “Big date tonight, Dae?”

I ignored him too. This wasn’t a good time to argue about much of anything. Our long-standing disagreement about our relationship would have to wait. I knew it didn’t make it any easier for him that everyone in Duck expected us to end up together. Everyone, of course, except me.

I sat down behind my desk, hoping the chief wasn’t wasting his time with me. Someone else probably had a better vantage point. There were all those people in the cars and walking down the street at the time of the explosion. I assumed he was either in the process of finding and interviewing them or he’d already done it.

Despite not knowing what I could say to help, or maybe because of it, the meeting made me as jittery as ten double-shot lattes. I was already overwrought about Kevin, my night in the hospital and Max’s death.

Taking a deep breath and anchoring myself with the familiar surroundings in my office, I put on a grim smile and addressed them. “I don’t think I saw anything that could be helpful to your investigation.”

“There might be something you saw that you don’t realize is important,” Cailey countered in her old fifth- grade-schoolteacher’s voice.

“Start at the beginning, Mayor,” Chief Michaels urged as they all took out notebooks. “We know you were at the museum with the kids. What happened then?”

I told them about the program with Max and the kids, about how I walked out with everyone else.

“What made you turn back?” Brad, the arson investigator, asked.

I hadn’t wanted to share the existence of the gold coin with them. It seemed I had no choice. I pulled it out of my purse and showed it to them.

“This is evidence.” Chief Michaels had Tim put on gloves and take the coin from me. “You should’ve told us sooner.”

“I didn’t think it was important.” I gave up the coin reluctantly, still feeling attached to its individual energy. I knew everything about it anyway. I just liked having it with me. “The coin didn’t cause the explosion. What difference does it make?”

“No, it didn’t cause the explosion,” Cailey agreed. “But it might be part of the motive for what happened. Dae, all the rest of the gold coins were stolen from the museum. This is the only one left.”

Chapter 7

“We believe the explosion may have been to cover up the theft of the coins,” Chief Michaels explained further.

I glanced at him in total disbelief. “As valuable as the coins may be, there were only a few of them. Max added fake coins to the display to make it look more impressive. Museums up and down the coast have the same coins. Why our museum?”

“We don’t know yet,” Cailey said. “But we know the coins are gone. They would’ve melted in the heat and we would’ve found what was left of them. Anything else you took from the museum, Dae?”