My throat tightened when I heard another tap on the glass. I hoped Sylvia hadn’t come back. With relief I saw a tall man with light brown hair waving at me as I approached. He wore a dark suit, and his badge was clipped to the front of his belt. My shoulders drooped as I unlocked the door to greet the detective from the Ketchum police department.
“Tony, I’m glad you came.” My throat was thick with unshed tears, and I struggled to retain my composure.
“Hey, Adri. I wish we were with Wes meeting over fried pickles instead.”
One corner of my mouth turned up. “Me too.” It seemed a long time since I was tagging along with my older brother and his friends in our hometown of Rupert.
Anthony Ford patted my shoulder as he walked inside. “So your shop was robbed.” He stepped over a gooey blob of frosting and pink roses. “And vandalized?”
“Makes me so mad. Lorea and I were going to eat that today.”
Tony raised an eyebrow and his lips twitched. I knew he was trying not to smile, and somehow that made me feel better.
I motioned to the back door. “At first I wasn’t sure because nothing looked out of place, and then I noticed three missing wedding gowns out of the nine that were delivered yesterday. I was double-checking to see if the dresses were somewhere else in the store when I noticed that my safe was gone.” I pointed to the sharp edge of metal protruding from the floor.
Tony knelt down. “Hmm. Cut right through it. This must be the broken pipe you referred to in the note on your door.”
Wrinkling my nose, I tried to keep the flush from heating up my cheeks, but Tony just laughed. I shrugged. “I’m not a good liar, but I thought it’d be better to keep it quiet for now.”
“Your shop is an odd target for a burglary, but you never can figure out a criminal’s mind,” Tony muttered.
I wondered if I should tell him about the little rocks I found in Natalie’s dress. Yes, that would be great. Why don’t you just turn over all of the gowns now? I answered my thoughts. I opted for a vague reference. “Strange things have been happening with this shipment of dresses.” I told him about the hole in Sylvia’s gown and the dress that didn’t arrive.
“Those are good things to take into account.” Tony scribbled in his notepad. “Can I take a look at the shipment?”
“Sure. Lorea and I unpacked all the gowns over here.” I motioned to the gowns hanging, ready to be steamed, and those still tucked in their packaging.
“What about the boxes?”
I swallowed. “We stacked them over here. I want to keep them for my claim.” To my chagrin, Tony nodded and headed over to the stack of boxes. He looked inside each one, made a note on his pad, and continued to the dresses.
If only I could’ve hidden the diamonds in the box. Tony would have found them and Natalie’s dress wouldn’t be in danger. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“What did you keep in the safe?” Tony asked.
“Not much. Two hundred dollars in cash. The most valuable items were a pair of diamond earrings from Mayfield Jewelers and a binder full of wedding plans.” I frowned. “Irreplaceable, but it will probably be thrown out by the thief.”
“How much do you think the diamond earrings were worth?”
I could taste the muffin in the back of my throat. “At least a thousand. Walter will know. I’m pretty sure my insurance will cover that.”
“Okay, give me a description of the earrings,” Tony said.
“They were half a carat each, I think. In a white-gold setting. Walter probably has another pair exactly like them in his store. Maybe you could take a picture,” I offered.
“Good idea. Can you describe the binder?” Tony jotted notes on a spiral pad.
“I’ll do better than that.” I pulled an empty planner from a storage closet. “It looked just like this, but with swatches of fabric, some beading, pictures, and other items in each of these clear pockets.”
Tony flipped through the binder, trying his best to look interested, but he didn’t fool me. “Follow me, and I’ll show you where we keep the wedding gowns.”
Lorea stood in front of Sylvia’s closet staring at the space where the wedding dress should have been hanging. “She’ll kill me.”
I frowned. “No, she’ll kill us.”
“Who will?” Tony asked.
“One of the gowns belonged to Sylvia Rockfort.” I cleared my throat and pushed down the panic threatening to overtake me. “She’s getting married in three weeks.”
Sylvia’s B-star rating wasn’t enough to attract her a lot of attention, but most residents of Sun Valley had seen their fair city highlighted in the tabloids when she dated Brock Grafton.
Tony grimaced.
“She’s going to be so angry when she finds out. We’d like to keep this quiet for a few days, if possible,” I said.
“We’ll file a report, but the most important thing to do now is contact your insurance adjuster. You do have theft insurance?”
“Not enough to cover everything.” My parents had insisted I invest in good insurance, but I hadn’t upped the merchandise value before the shipment of wedding gowns arrived. That error in my planning now hung like a huge flashing “I told you so” beacon in the empty space of the closet where Sylvia’s dress should have been. Again the panic crawled up the back of my throat as I
