Taking a deep breath, my lungs working like a bellows, I forced a laugh. “Dark enough. What would that look like?” I made a show of craning my neck to peer at the oily black sky.
“When it’s black as pitch,” he said.
“I think you’ve hit it square on the head.” I was going for friendly. Anything that would encourage him to forgive my trespassing and open the door, sooner rather than later.
“You think so?” He frowned.
I found myself nodding like a bobblehead. My nerves were stretched tighter than a barbed wire fence, partly because I was in his van—Good Samaritan or no—partly because one of his stun guns was hiding in my pocket.
His brow furrowed and he checked his watch.
I inched my fingers beneath the tail of my shirt. I’d done a fine job of wedging the thing in the pocket of my cargo shorts. Too fine. My hands were icy cold, my fingers refusing to work.
He lifted his lantern high so its bright light shone in my face. I dropped my hand, praying he hadn’t seen me reach for my pocket. I wasn’t entirely convinced the stun guns in his van had been stolen from Pinyon Pawn. And, honestly, the idea was ludicrous. But someone had stolen them and flung one into Lucky’s chili. I had to get the evidence to Lightfoot so he could compare the serial numbers and scratch Fillmore from the list of suspects in my brain.
“Hey, Frank, I’m locked in.” I tried the handles several times; but his attention was riveted on the night sky.
“Was she complaining about my work?” he asked.
“No. Mrs. Cogburn’s excited to see your fireworks. We all are.”
Once again lifting his lantern high, he began to inspect the seal on the rear doors, first running his finger along the crack where the doors met and then removing something from the edge of one door—a pebble that he held up to his lantern for a closer look.
“How did you get in my van, Miss Callahan?” He’d dropped his angry mask. Now he appeared to be bewildered by my presence.
For all I knew, Lucky had bought the stun gun on his own—which wouldn’t surprise me—and had pulled it out for protection when an intruder entered his tent. Either way, I was as nervous as a calf in a calf roping, watching with dread as the young cowpoke practices swinging his rope.
“I found one of your missiles on the ground.”
“My what?”
I grabbed the red plastic firework and held it up in front of the window for him to see. “Rocket? Missile? I’m not sure. But you must have dropped it on the ground.”
“Nah, that’s not true. I wouldn’t have dropped a missile where someone could trip and break one. Plus, all the missiles I brought with me are included in tonight’s fireworks display.”
I was getting fed up with raising my voice to be heard. “Hey, Frank, could you please open the door and let me out of here?”
He bent over, his face disappearing for a moment, and my whole body relaxed. The nutjob was finally going to release me. He reappeared just as quickly with a familiar face I adored held next to his own.
“Yip, yip, yip,” Lenny said, his body trembling with indignation.
“Hey, Lenster.” I smiled, hoping to give him comfort.
“Miss Callahan, go on. You were saying, or should I say, spinning some yarn about my missile.”
“Honestly, Frank. I found it on the ground. I wanted to put it back inside your van so no one would get hurt. I didn’t break in. The doors were open. I don’t think they closed properly.”
He nodded and a smile played around his lips. Then Lenny licked his ear, which unfortunately drove the smile away.
“I swear,” I muttered under my breath. I was losing my patience. If he didn’t open the door immediately, I was going to crawl to the passenger door, knees or no knees.
Again he nodded, but this time he turned the door handle. Nothing happened. “It’s locked.” He gave Lenny a smile. “Guess I’ll have to find the key.” He lowered my canine sidekick to the ground and removed a large set of keys from his belt.
“I bet you’re wondering how I came to be inside your van?”
He was holding his lantern with one hand and sorting through keys with the other. “I figure that you were killing time until I came back.”
I smiled in relief. “That’s right. Lenny and I were just about to inspect the fireworks setup you’ve got going over there.” I waved at the platform of explosives. “Nah, we were going to check for you over there next.”
He lowered the lantern so that the bony planes of his face were highlighted like a ghostly apparition.
I forced a chuckle. “That gives me the creeps.”
“I’m a what?” He leaned in closer to the window.
“The way your light is casting shadows over your face is creepy.” I enunciated each word very carefully.
“What?”
I raised my voice. “When you hold your lantern that way, you look like a ghost.”
He made a silly face. “Is that so?” And then he did that belly laugh thing that was so infectious, and I immediately felt my nervousness lift.
“Now you look like a ghost from the ’50s, complete with crew cut.”
“Find anything interesting while you were digging around in my personal belongings?” he asked, a key in his hand.
Slowly I lowered my Maglite to the floor of the van. If I ever got out of here I was going to use it to knock another hole in Frank’s head. I placed my hands on the window to reinforce the sincerity of my plea. “I didn’t dig into anything, I promise. I’ve only been in here a couple of minutes.” I bumped my nose against the window so that he could see my face more clearly. “Frank, please open the door. I’ll show you the rockets and mine cakes I found.”
He watched me closely, but the key remained in midair.
I pressed against the window with my
