Chapter Ninety-Four - Accordions & Appraisals

Circus Man had been expecting Travis? What? Why?

He stepped off the staircase to shake Travis’s hand. In the police station bathroom, Circus Man hadn’t been wearing pants, according to Studmuffin anyway. Now, he wore really baggy jeans that kind of fit him like clown pants. Instead of a painted face though, his skin was a natural bronze color, and instead of a colorful wig, his dark, slicked-back hair had an oily sheen. He appeared to be in his fifties.

“You wanted to get a couple rings appraised, you said?” he asked.

“I did, but…” Travis began, “someone in town mentioned you were closed for the day already?”

That was me. I was that someone.

“Yes, we closed early due to this crazy weather. Can you even believe it? Snow in July? But I’ll make an exception for you. Let me take a look at your rings.”

“Great… Thanks…” Travis said.

I could practically smell Travis’s hesitation. No, wait, that was mothballs. Never mind. I could hear his hesitation though. Was it because he remembered me telling him about the Circus Man who wore no pants and liked to dance?

“Um, I have them both right here.” He took a little black box from his coat pocket, plucked the Ring of Everlasting Sunblock from his finger, and handed them over to Parker.

What on earth was he doing? Those rings belonged to him and his gran, two of Belle’s Cove’s newest vampires. The rings allowed them to walk around in daylight. Surely he wasn’t going to sell them. Was he?

Across the room by the front door, a pair of familiar brown eyes caught mine. They were Cass’s. She was hugging the coatrack, hidden by the dangling coats, her cheek smashed to the center wooden pole. Her sandals stuck out plain as day at the bottom though.

She finger-waved. I finger-waved back.

I had a funny feeling we’d be here a while.

“Ahhhh,” Circus Man said. “My eyes aren’t what they used to be, and I left my magnifying glass upstairs. I’ll leave these with you, and I’ll be right back.”

“Sure. Take your time,” Travis called after him. Once Circus Man’s footsteps faded up the stairs, Travis hissed, “Olly olly oxen free.”

“Who’s Olly?” Cass whispered, still attached to the coatrack.

“Cass! You’re here too? Where’s Victoria?” Travis asked.

“Here,” I grunted. With great effort, I spilled out from beneath the table like an unfolding accordion. Slow and graceful and— Oops, there went the lamp on top of the table.

In a blur, Travis was there to catch it.

“Are we oxen in this scenario?” Cass continued, stepping out in the middle of the store. “Should I be offended?”

“No,” Travis said, righting the lamp and offering me his arm. “You shouldn’t be offended because I meant no offense. Today or any day.” His mouth broke into a small smile that kind of broke my heart with how sad it was. “I’m so sorry about Studmuffin, Victoria.”

Instead of taking his offered arm, I lunged at him. Not to murder him but to hug him. Sometimes I even surprised myself.

“Thank you,” I told him, breathing in his calming leather and peaches scent. His sandy-blond hair looked windswept, the snow in it sparkling like diamonds. Tired half-moons hung under his hazel eyes like always. He wore a worn brown leather coat with matching boots that I wasn’t so sure Studmuffin had seen before. “But what are you doing here?”

“Helping…or trying to. When you said you were here and why, it got me wondering about the Rings of Everlasting Sunblock and if they might be worth more than the”—he glanced toward the stairs—“You Know What. If so, then maybe the catnapper would take my rings instead.”

“But…Travis, they help you and Gran walk around in sunlight like normal people.”

Travis snorted. “Have you met us? We couldn’t walk around like normal people if we tried.”

“But…” I shook my head. “You would do that? You would become He Who Only Comes Out At Night again?”

He smiled softly. “Once again, have you met me? I would do anything for you and Studmuffin.”

Right then and there, my heart melted into a puddle. I had to bend and scoop up the remnants on the floor even though there was no point. My heart was now ruined in the best way possible.

“No matter what kinds of pesky laws we have to break,” he continued, “we’ll get your Studmuffin back to you safely. I promise you.”

“Paws before laws,” Cass agreed with a soft smile.

Okay, now the puddle turned even messier and saltier. It was the kind of puddle that saturated pretty much everything, including Travis, with tears.

“Thank you,” I choked out. “That means the world to me.”

“Don’t mention it. You know our bright idea of Crime Club is what I’ve trained for my entire life.”

Waggling her eyebrows, Cass held up her shiny quarter. “Bright ideas mean bail money.”

Travis grinned. “And you ladies are already saving up? Couple of geniuses right here.”

Okay, how did I get so lucky in the friend department? These two seemed perfectly willing to do anything to help me get my familiar back. I could never explain just how grateful I was to them.

“I have no pockets in my skirt though,” Cass said. “Some Crime Club treasurer I am.”

“I can help with that.” Travis took the quarter from her and frowned down at it.

Footsteps came toward the top of the staircase.

“Quick! He’s coming!” Cass said.

“Back into my turtle shell I go,” I whispered. Before I disappeared underneath the table again, I hissed, “That’s Circus Man. Remember I told you about him? The guy who doesn’t wear pants and likes to dance at the police station?”

“The whistle man with a mysterious plan? How could I forget?” He pocketed the quarter and then pointed up toward the approaching footsteps. “Now we know it’s this Parker Lee guy. I’ll find out how exactly he’s involved with all this. Now, go!”

Cass held up something in the air, but I couldn’t tell what it was. “Um, Victoria?”

“Quick,” Travis warned us.

We zipped back to our hiding places while Travis stood waiting, as casual as could be. He smiled at Parker as he reentered the front room.

“This is some shop you have here,” Travis said. “I imagine you see a lot of valuable things coming in and out of your door.”

“Oh yes,” Parker said in his unusual voice. “Some things are worth so much that they’re beyond any monetary value.”

Like the Ring of Everlasting Night?

“Let’s look at what you have here…” Parker peered through his magnifying glass at one of Travis’s rings and “ooooh’d” and “ahhhh’d.”

Meanwhile, across the room underneath the coatrack, Cass finger-waved at me again. I finger-waved back. Again. She shook her head hard and finger-waved yet again. I shook my head too and scrunched up my nose in an effort to explain that now was hardly the time for charades.

“What you have here is very rare,” Parker told Travis. “There are possibly only two Rings of Everlasting Sunblock in all existence.”

“They’re worth a lot, then?” Travis asked hopefully.

Shaking her head again, Cass flashed me her phone and pointed to it. Then she brought her finger up to her lips in the international sign for hush.

But…wasn’t that what I was doing? Hushing?

“I’ll give you twenty bucks each,” Parker said.

“Twenty?!” Travis screeched. “You just said they’re very rare.”

No, wait, Cass wasn’t telling me to hush. She was telling me to hush my phone. I did and then gave her a thumbs-up. Immediately a text appeared from her with Studmuffin? and a blurry picture of her palm.

Ooookay… Since when was Studmuffin a palm? I gave her a look like “what are we doing and why are we doing it now?”

“Mr. Black, most vampires I know don’t want to have anything to do with the sun,” Parker explained. “They’ve lived perfectly fine without it for hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years.”

Spoken like someone who knew the sun would go away soon and the Rings of Everlasting Sunblock would be useless.

“Well, my gran and I aren’t most vampires,” Travis explained.

“Then why are you trying to sell your rings?” A note of suspicion pitched Parker’s voice all over the place.

Cass pointed two fingers at her eyes and then down at her phone. Ah. Look closer, she was saying.

“Curiosity?” Travis answered. “And because my lack of motivation to do anything at Speedy Zone might be contagious, which is also why I’m here. But mostly I’m here out of curiosity though.”

I zoomed in on the picture of Cass’s palm. Something lay in it. Something long and thin and black and white.

A piece of cat glitter. My cat glitter.