“No one,” I said too quickly for it to sound real.
“Molly,” Barry said, shaking his head. “Someone coming into your house is serious, even if all they’re after is some author’s real name.”
If I mentioned Ryder, I knew Barry would go after him like gangbusters. Much better for me to handle it in my own way. I agreed that it was serious but held my ground and didn’t give up a name.
“You should be more upset,” he said. “You should look pale and have a pounding heart.”
“Gee, thanks for the good wishes,” I said. “By now I’m immune. First you thought there was a dead body in my house and broke the door down. Then somebody was creeping around when I was asleep. Someone just going in the window and throwing around my yarn seems like no big deal.”
The helicopter was long gone and the cruiser had left, too. The den was picked up, but I said the mess in the crochet room was too much to tackle. Barry had pulled his tie loose and taken off his suit jacket. “Maybe I should stay awhile and help you calm down,” he said, putting an arm around my shoulder. “There’s no rush. Jeffrey is at a friend’s. I don’t have to drive car pool.”
I pointed toward my tote bag. “Yes, but I have stuff I have to take care of. I need to get those swatches done and make more snowflakes or Christmas will be over before we even get them hung.”
He tried to say he wouldn’t interfere with my work, but I gave him a look of total disbelief. And I mentioned that Samuel might show up any minute. Barry finally left but not before giving me the speech that my sons were both adults and should certainly be able to deal with their mother having a boyfriend. He reminded me that while he’d been protective of his son Jeffrey at first, not wanting him to meet me unless we were at least engaged, he’d finally relented. “Jeffrey loves you,” Barry said. “I realize that isn’t going to happen between me and your boys, but they have to accept me.”
He had a point, but it wasn’t just about Samuel and Peter. I’d been married a long time and this was like a second chapter of my life. I was hanging on to my freedom. I hated to admit it, but I was using my sons as an excuse to keep Barry from getting too close.
I glanced in the crochet room again and sighed. The morning would be fine to start clearing it up. Through the window I saw the lights of the Perkins’ front porch. I thought of Emily. With everything she’d been through lately, her nerves must be shot. The helicopter and cop car must have sent her into freak-out mode. I ought to at least tell her what was going on, though I doubted she had to worry about my burglar branching out. And maybe I could find out about the mysterious motorcycle.
Emily peeked out the window before opening the door. She looked wan and preoccupied, which under the circumstances seemed appropriate. She said the cops had knocked at her door and already filled her in on my break-in.
I gave her my theory about what they were after and she barely reacted. She had only opened the door halfway and hadn’t invited me in. “Sorry, you probably have company.” I gestured toward the driveway. “The motorcycle.”
For a moment she stared at me. “Motorcycle?”
I fibbed a little. I left out going up her driveway and made it sound like I’d seen it from the street. She appeared perplexed and led me out the front door. We went across the lawn. “Where did you see it?”
I pointed at the spot behind the bush as the motion-sensor light illuminated the area, but now the spot was empty.
“See, there’s nothing there,” she said. “You must have just thought you saw a motorcycle.”
Okay, she was lying. I wasn’t crazy. There had been a motorcycle there and she knew it.
CHAPTER 12
“SO YOU STILL HAVEN’T SEEN RYDER?” DINAH asked. We were standing outside the entrance to the bookstore. The sun had peeked through and added a little warmth to the damp air. Several days had gone by with no further break-ins at my place. I had forgotten another dinner Mason had set up so I could help him with the dog sweater. Barry was either sulking or had picked up a homicide because I’d heard nothing from him. Not that I had time to notice. Once I cleared up the crochet room, I finished the elephant, which was adorable, if I said so myself, and was going to brighten up some little kid’s Christmas. I was so pleased with how the toy turned out, I started on another—this time I was making a snow owl. In between I worked on snowflakes and swatches. I had discovered it was best to work on the knit swatches at home. I couldn’t take Adele’s endless grumbling when I tried doing them at the bookstore. Not that I’d had time there anyway now that the store was crowded with holiday shoppers needing help.
“No. But when I do I’m going to have a little talk with him. I know he probably thinks that’s the way to be a real journalist. The ends justify the means and all that. If he’s willing to stop sneaking into my house, I’m willing to drop it.”
Dinah considered what I’d said. “You better be firm,” she said, going into her teacher mode. “If you want I can be your wingman when you talk to him. I’ll get the message across to him. No more sneaking in windows or else. The secret is in the tone you use when you say the ‘or else.’ You have to fire up his imagination, which is much scarier than anything real you could threaten him with.” The kids weren’t with her and when I asked about them, she said she was meeting Commander later and she didn’t want to push the kids in his face. Conveniently her neighbor had invited them over for a play date.
I pushed the needles out of sight in my tote bag as we walked into the bookstore. The rest of the bag was filled with completed swatches. All done in the garter stitch, which meant knit only, no purl. The snowflakes I’d completed were starched and drying on my dining room table. I had finally brought in the ones Adele had made, but when Mrs. Shedd saw how few there were, she said it wasn’t worth hanging them until we had more.
I was looking forward to some crochet time with the Hookers. As we headed to the back of the store I saw that most of them were already at the table. CeeCee was at the head of the table and even at a distance I could see she was talking enthusiastically about something. Sheila had several blankets on the table next to her and was just beginning another. She seemed totally devoted to her work. Eduardo was sitting next to someone I didn’t recognize. A new recruit perhaps. He was showing her something that she didn’t seem to get. I almost choked when I saw what he did next. He got up and stood behind her, guiding her hands. Okay, it wasn’t a hot scene with him molding his body to hers or anything, but it did remind me of the scene in the first Anthony book,
Dinah saw me staring at Eduardo.
“What’s up?” I reminded her of the scene in the first book and her eyes lit up. “Wouldn’t it be something if Eduardo is A. J.?”
Before I could answer, Adele came bustling out of the children’s area. Just when I thought Adele couldn’t possibly top herself, she managed to. Story time had featured
We all knew that Adele didn’t love kids and the only positive of being stuck with story time was that she had met William, but she didn’t usually look this discombobulated. “Pink, those kids are little hoodlums. Look what I confiscated from one of them.” She pulled out a black metal gun and started waving it around. I gasped and threw myself in front of Dinah to protect her.
“Relax, ladies, it’s a toy—a cap gun,” Adele said, looking at me with consternation. I tried to get it away from her, but Adele pulled away too fast, and to prove her point, she squeezed the trigger. I pulled Dinah with me as I darted behind the “New in Nonfiction” bookcase. There were a bunch of pops and that unmistakable smell of caps. Everyone in the bookstore froze at the sound. Even Bob ran in from the cafe, shouting should he call 911. I didn’t even want to think of a bunch of cops running in to find Adele in that getup, waving the gun. I made sure he knew there was no emergency.
Adele looked around at the stir she caused and laughed. “Looks pretty real, doesn’t it? It just shoots caps,”
