Sleeping with Anemone

asked.

“Me,” she said. “The way Abby’s mom has been raving about them, I decided I should have one. Why? Does it matter?”

“If the brooch is for you,” Marco asked, neatly sidestepping her question, “why do you want it wrapped?”

Jillian sighed, as if the answer was obvious. “Because Claymore is giving it to me as a surprise.”

I smiled at Marco. From the bemused look on his face, I could tell he was ready to call it quits. I was vindicated!

“Now, can I have my brooch, please?” Jillian said. “I want to open my present at dinner.” She pulled a credit card from her wallet and held it out. “Use this. I just paid it off.”

Marco moved aside. “That’s Abby’s department.”

What? Leave me to clean up his mess? I scowled at him. Some bodyguard he was.

Trying to portray abject wretchedness, I said to my cousin, “I am so sorry to tell you this, Jilly, but it seems we don’t have any brooches after all. They were stolen.”

All sounds from the coffee-and-tea parlor ceased. Obviously Grace was eavesdropping. Only the ticking of an anniversary clock on the shelf behind me could be heard as my cousin absorbed the news, as if the shop itself were holding its breath.

Suddenly, Jillian’s nostrils flared, her hands curled at her sides, and her lips pressed into a hard line. “Then what am I doing here?”

“Well,” I said slowly, trying to think of how to pacify her, “you’re here because…”

“I asked you here,” Marco said, fixing her with his most sincere gaze.

What was he doing? He wasn’t going to tell her his real reason, was he? Never mind; I couldn’t take any chances. “That’s right-Marco asked you here because I need your help.”

Jillian’s lips plumped into a perplexed pout. “Let me see if I understand this. Marco asked me to come over because you need my help?”

“Yes! Knowing how enlightened you are about fashion,” I continued, “and how socially connected you are, we-I mean I-thought you’d be the perfect person to keep an eye out for someone wearing one of the stolen brooches.”

Jillian tapped the toe of her high-heeled boot on the floor. “Is that so? And you couldn’t tell me this on the phone? I had to drive here through snowdrifts, in this subarctic cold?”

Three inches of snow did not constitute a drift, and the temperature was thirty-three degrees Fahrenheit. Still, I was in no position to debate it. I shrugged. “But then we wouldn’t have had this chance to visit.”

Jillian drew in a deep breath. She let it out slowly, as though composing herself. Or maybe she was sending me up in a balloon. Whatever it was, she managed to say in a civil tone, “While it may be true about my fashion expertise and well-fixed social position, if you will remember, except for that one blurry image of your beret on the news, I have yet to seeany of the missing brooches! Every time I’ve come here, they’ve been gone.

“But wait,” she cried dramatically, “not just gone. Stolen! Filched! Purloined! Right out from under your nose! And not once but three-count them-three times. I mean, come on, people. Buy a security camera. This is getting tiresome!”

Huffing indignantly, she whipped out her cell phone, gave me one last dirty look, and headed for the door. “Hi, Claymore? You won’t believe what Abby did this time.”

The bell jingled behind her.

Marco’s eyebrows were higher than I’d ever seen them. But it wasn’t like I hadn’t warned him. “I’ve never seen her turn on you before,” he said in wonder.

“That could have been you, dear,” Grace said to Marco, as she and Lottie came back into the room from different doorways.

“You should be grateful, Marco,” Lottie said, winking discreetly at me. “Abby took the bullet for you.”

“The main thing is that Jillian doesn’t know you suspect her,” I told Marco. “I think we’re safe as far as the family goes.”

“Boy oh boy, Jillian was madder than a wet hen,” Lottie said with a chuckle. “I could feel it through the curtain. Woo-ee!”

“But we’re still missing the brooches,” I said, “so we’d better file another police report. I’ll call Reilly and see if he’s around to take the report.” I glanced at Marco to see if he was in agreement, but he was headed for the workroom like a man on a mission.

I made the call, then went to tell Marco. He was working at the computer, typing words into a search box, while Lottie finished a silk flower arrangement at the worktable behind him.

“I left a message for Reilly. What are you searching?” I asked, leaning over his shoulder.

Marco was concentrating, so his answer came out in bursts. “Jillian mentioned the brooch-news conference- checking something.”

He had typed flower brooch into the box, and was resting his chin on his hand, reading through the links, so I prompted him to fill in the blanks. “Jillian mentioned seeing the brooch on my beret at the news conference and you’re researching flower brooches because…?”

“It got me to thinking about who else might have seen it.”

“What do you mean? Like a professional brooch thief?”

“Where did you say you got it?”

“It was lying loose in a box of orchids, but I called our supplier in Hawaii and he didn’t know anything about it. He said to keep it unless I heard otherwise.”

Marco scrolled through the links on the first page. “Two and a half million results. We have to narrow the search.”

“Try anthurium brooch,” I said.

He typed it in, glanced down the list of links, then clicked on Hawaiian collectibles: Antiques and Hawaiiana. Up popped a page full of photos of flower pins, pendants, and brooches in a variety of materials. I watched over Marco’s shoulder as he scrolled down the page.

“There’s an ivory anthurium brooch,” I said, pointing to the image on the screen. “That looks a lot like the one I found.”

Marco clicked on the photo, but all it did was enlarge it. “I’ll have to get in touch with the dealer to find out more about their brooches. The pieces on this site are all collectors’ items.”

“Maybe the one you found is a collector’s item, too,” Lottie said.

“If it were valuable,” I said, “you’d think it would be packaged in a cushioned box.”

“Maybe a woman packed the flowers and didn’t realize her brooch fell into the box,” Lottie offered.

Marco dialed the phone number on the Web site’s home page, then held his hand over the receiver. “It’s an automated menu. I have to leave contact information.” He removed his hand and gave his name and cell phone number, then left a brief description of the brooch.

“Here’s a thought,” Lottie said. “Remember when the phony delivery man came by for a package he claimed was delivered to us by mistake, and that man turned out to be Hudge? Maybe we did get someone else’s package and he came to pick it up.”

“So you’re saying Hudge pulled off those kidnappings to get the brooch?” I asked.

Marco turned to look at Lottie. “When did Hudge come here?”

“Right after the flower shop was trashed,” Lottie said.

“Why don’t I remember that?” Marco asked.

“You were checking out the other rooms for damage when we discussed it,” Lottie said. “Sergeant Reilly was making out a report, and I said I wondered whether the damage was the result of a plain ol’ robbery instead of Uniworld trying to retaliate.”

The phone rang and Grace caught it out front, then came back to say that Reilly was on the line. Marco picked it up at my desk. “Hey, Sean. Yes, Abby did call. Right, and this time twelve brooches were taken. Three brooch- related thefts. We’ve definitely got something going on here, so we’ll need to file a police report. Sure. I’ll hold.”

“Abby,” Lottie said, “Gracie and I are going to close up shop now.”

“Okay,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”