Chapter Ninety-Three - Crime Club Goes Upside Down

“Ooookay,” Cass said, peering at me closely, “but what made you change your mind between your second thought and your third thought? Or…was there a change? You said we’re going in during both your second and third thoughts.”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I can’t even follow my line of thinking anymore, but…Travis is what changed my mind, I guess. He’s my go-to for when I do things I probably shouldn’t.”

“He doesn’t know about Studmuffin?” Cass asked softly.

I sighed. “If he knows, he doesn’t care.”

“He doesn’t know because you haven’t told him.” She put her hand on mine, which was locked on the wheel even though we weren’t driving anywhere yet. “He kissed your face at the library. He adores both you and Studmuffin. He does care, but he can’t help if you don’t tell him.”

“You’re right, of course.”

In the words of the great Professor Studmuffin Salvitore III, We’re in peril, the clock’s ticking, and you won’t even try again? Sometimes I gave up too easily. Now was hardly the time to give up at all. I had to at least tell Travis where we were in case anything bad happened to us. You know, like getting arrested for trespassing, or worse, catching rabies.

I don’t know how rabies applies here, but it’s among my top five fears for a reason.

Studmuffin has been catnapped, I voice-to-texted Travis. There’s a ransom letter and everything. At Age Is Just a Number Antiques and Appraisals looking for clues. Oh, and they’re closed.

After I pressed send, I waited several beats. Travis usually replied so swiftly, like within seconds. Not lately, but still. I thought for sure hearing about his BFF would make him forget how mad he was at me.

Cass frowned down at my phone with me. “Well, even so, there can still be Crime Club without him.”

Crime Club was our nickname for solving crimes together, definitely not committing crimes together. Nope.

“Once again, you’re right. Let’s see how much trouble the two of us can get into.”

“Paws before laws.” Cass grinned. “Always.”

I nodded. “Definitely. Studmuffin’s paws are much more important than any silly law.”

Cass pointed out the windshield. “If we get caught though, maybe that will help make us look less guilty?”

It took me a second to figure out what exactly she meant. “Ah, the open sign on the door. Ms. Merry-Christmas-Or-Else forgot to flip it. Maybe so.”

We got out of Bernadette, tiptoed through the snow to stand in front of her hood, and gazed up at the open window of the shop’s second story.

“It’s a long way to climb…” Cass said, doubt clinging to her voice.

I grinned at her. “Good thing I brought my awesome broom.”

“Genius as always,” Cass said, grinning.

“Why, thank you.” I retrieved my broom from the back seat and came around to stand by her again. “I’ll fly up, get inside, and then unlock the front door for you, okay?”

“Right, and I’ll pretend I have no idea what’s going on.” She stared, awestruck, at the falling snowflakes like she’d never seen such things before.

The expression looked so at home on her face that I half wondered if she was pretending at all. Either way, who was the genius now?

Chuckling, I climbed onto my broom and bit down on the end. While the taste of pink flooded over my tongue, I rocketed up into the sky. Oops, too high. With the falling snow, I could barely see five feet in front of me, so when I tried to correct my height, I was hurling toward the window.

Brakes! Why hadn’t I asked Cass about the brakes on this thing?!

I pushed out my arm to stop my broom from smashing through the window. That prevented it from doing so, but the force of my palm hitting the glass shook me off my broom.

“Oh no!” Cass hissed from below. Far, far below.

Oh no was right.

I was free-falling. Seconds later, I hit the porch’s sloped overhang and skidded down fast. Panic lit through me. My arms and legs windmilled to catch hold of anything. Finally, my fingers curled around something hard and stopped my fall. It was my broom, hovering in midair! I swung my legs over the top of it so that I dangled upside down.

Cass huffed out a relieved breath and then did another of her quick word purges when she said, “I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t know…”

I didn’t either. Flying upside down on my broom like this made it gently hover and slowly go where I needed it to. All I had to do was point the end in the direction I wanted. This was progress!

But flying like this sure rushed all the blood to my head. Hopefully my dizzy thoughts were just as good as my regular thoughts.

Ha!

I nudged closer to the window and hesitantly reached out toward it. Luckily it was frosted over with snow so if Parker Lee happened to be on the other side, he couldn’t see me trying to break in. Um, I mean, trying to close his window for him.

For once, luck decided to be on my side, and I slid the window up easily. Through it was a room stacked almost floor to ceiling with knickknacks, jewelry, and other people’s junk/treasures. It was otherwise empty.

I wrapped myself tighter to the underbelly of my broom and pointed it inside the room. It crept inside, one single inch at a time, but this speed was so much better than flying through walls and doors. Once inside, I kept my grip on my broom and lowered myself to the floor on my tiptoes.

A faint creak sounded above me. Good. Parker Lee, or someone, was still up there. Let’s all hope he stayed there.

On silent feet, I crept through the darkened room, into a hallway, and then found the stairs. At the bottom, keeping my eyes and ears perked, I unlocked the door for Cass.

“Look what I found in the snow while I had no idea what you were doing,” she whispered and held up a silver coin. “A lucky quarter! Does this mean I can be the treasurer of Crime Club?”

“Absolutely. You can be in charge of saving up our bail money.”

“Easy enough.” She clasped the quarter tightly. “What do we do now?”

“We act like we should be here. We act like the place is still open, which technically, it is.” To prove my point, I tapped the open sign on the door.

“So we keep whispering and tiptoeing?”

“Exactly.”

Cass nodded then did a double take at the painting of Parker Lee on the wall. “Mr. Lee’s ghost has a sense of humor, I see.”

I chuckled as soon as I saw what she was talking about. Mr. Lee now had a curly Sharpie mustache. “Is his ghost still around?”

“Not that I can see.” She pointed to the stairs. “Should we go up?”

Just then, a car door slammed outside.

Ohhhh no.

Cass’s mouth popped open as she stared at me with wide brown eyes. “Ms. Merry-Christmas-Or-Else is back?”

I sucked in a shaky breath. “Quick! Hide!”

We swept past each other, me with my broom and Cass with her quarter. If we got caught, we’d need a lot more bail money than that.

Only I couldn’t find a place to hide unless I folded myself up underneath a rocking chair. The problem with folding is that I can’t do it.

Footsteps crunched the snow up the steps toward the door.

Cass and I zipped past each other again. The other side of the room where she’d just been didn’t look much better in terms of hiding places.

But we were running out of time. The doorknob began to turn. Of course I hadn’t locked it behind Cass in case we needed to make a getaway. Like now.

The door slowly opened.

Something on Cass’s side of the store rattled crazily, but I didn’t risk a look back. Thinking extra-skinny, don’t-break-anything thoughts, I dove underneath a small table topped with a pretty glass lamp. It teetered wildly.

I shot out my hand to right it then froze. While the front door kept opening, footsteps thundered down the steps from the store’s top floor.

Just what we needed—another uh-oh!

A silk turquoise handkerchief was spread open under the lamp, and I let it flutter back into place to half cover me. Well, more like cover me from the nose up. I squeezed the rest of me and my broom tighter into my black coat and pretended I was a big rock.

“Hello?” a voice called from the front door, deep and familiar.

Travis! He was here!

A whistled tune accompanied the thundering footsteps down the staircase. Also familiar, with great looping notes. The same song I’d once heard in the men’s restroom of the police station. There had been a severe lack of small tables in there, so I’d hid in a stall.

So great to know that the more my life changed, the more it sure stayed the same.

Circus Man was Parker Lee, the appraiser? The guy Jake Williams’s grandmother took the Ring of Everlasting Night to in order to get it appraised? The guy who spoke on the phone in the restroom about dancing that night and that “she” was here, whatever that meant?

“Travis Black,” he said in a great booming voice as though conducting a circus right here. “I’ve been expecting you.”