The Queen Con (The Golden Arrow Mysteries Book 2)

by Meghan Scott Molin

  Matteo’s grim look returns.

  “You . . . you think he’s involved?” I hedge.

  “I guess so. We probably need to get a security detail on him until we’ve figured this mess out.” He runs his hands down his face and over his stubble.

  Oh no, oh no. Matteo knows. Matteo suspects. How could this be possible? Hadn’t I just talked myself out of believing Lawrence could be our vigilante?

  “I don’t think there’s any way Lawrence is the Golden Arrow,” I offer, hoping I sound casual.

  Matteo shoots me a look so confused I decide you can just call me the Dazzler, I’ve missed the mark that badly.

  “I don’t think he’s the Golden Arrow; I’m worried about him, Michael-Grace.” His face plainly says he thinks I’m paranoid. “The only people who knew about that drug sample were my team. My team is also the only team who has seen that photo and knows who took it.”

  The leak.

  I fill in the rest of the blanks quickly. Lawrence went in search of this person, or information about this person. If it’s really true that our imposter Golden Arrow knows about the drugs, knows about Lawrence, and either is or is working for the Queen of Hearts . . . my best friend is in big, big trouble.

  It’s hard not to dwell on Lawrence as I drive his car home. In fact, he’s so heavy on my heart that I swing by his shop in hopes of seeing a sign of him being there. We need to talk. If he’s off wherever he’s off to, and in danger, I want him to come home.

  I text him for the third time that night. Let me know the moment you’re home, we need to talk. GA. 911.

  I contemplate camping out in his shop to know the very second he walks through the door, but decide that’s not wise for a couple of reasons: One, someone may come looking for Lawrence, and I don’t really want to present myself as an easy alternative target. And two, I have so much work to do, I really do need to go home if there’s nothing I can actively do at L’s.

  Just as I’m about to pull back into traffic, my phone dings, and I almost hit my head on the roof of the car. I’m so frantic to pick the phone back up, I drop it twice and have to turn on the overhead light to find it between the console and the seat. Expert stakeout-er, I am not.

  Waves of disappointment sweep over me when I discover that it’s not, in fact, L who has texted me, but Daniel.

  Have you heard from L? I have sponsors who need info about the Halloween bash, and he hasn’t returned my call.

  It’s almost eerie that Daniel chooses this exact moment to ask about L. I wonder if he and I have mind-melded or something. Maybe he has Spidey-sense too.

  I type back a quick response. No, L is still out of town, I think. Anything I can help with?

  I pray the answer is no, but the three dots that appear on my screen don’t go away any time soon. With every passing second, it seems more likely that there is something I can help out with, and I almost wish I hadn’t volunteered. Almost.

  L is my best friend, and I dragged him into this whole Golden Arrow mess to begin with. Now his life is in danger—yet again—because of me, and well, the least I can do is organize some sponsors for his pet project, right?

  And that’s exactly what Daniel is asking. I read over the list of sponsors that need everything from tax-ID paperwork for the nonprofit donation of their goods and services to schedules for deliveries and descriptions of the event. They need a location for float building, and a timeline for construction. In short: they need everything. I assure Daniel that I’ll get to this as soon as I can and that L will pick up from there when he’s back in town.

  So, as I pull out into traffic, I stuff one more thing into my overflowing “things to care about” box in my head. The Golden Arrow case, Lawrence’s safety, my report on the costume meeting—complete with sketches—Hooded Falcon scene sketches and scripts . . . and that’s not to mention that Lelani wants to see some concept sketches for my space monkeys comic. And now helping L plan his party. And we won’t even mention my worry that I haven’t seen my boyfriend in three days anywhere outside of his work, or that he told me he loved me and I haven’t really addressed that in . . . any capacity. There are so many straws on this camel’s back, it’s a wonder it’s not flat on the floor of the Sahara.

  I pull in behind my own Millennium Turd—nay, I shall now just call it the Hurtling Turd once again, revoking its star cruiser status—and realize there is yet another thing I need to do soon. Call a tow company and get my noble steed into the shop.

  I drag myself into the house, noting the dark windows. Ryan isn’t home yet either. I haven’t heard from him since this afternoon, and I frown as I unlock the door. Usually he’s home by now or I get a text that he’s going out. A frantic Trog meets me at the door, and I hurry inside, tossing my keys and coat onto the floor in favor of hustling my poor dog outside for a pee. Ryan hasn’t been home at all since I saw him if Trog hasn’t peed yet today.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” I coo as my sweet little corgi lifts a grateful leg on the single tree outside my townhouse. “Life has been crazy, and you are definitely getting the short end of the stick.” He probably hasn’t eaten yet, so I fill his bowl, laughing at his puppyish bouncing. It’s hours past when he normally gets fed. Me too. I totally understand his enthusiasm.

  Unfortunately for me, it’s cabinet-cruising time and then straight to some sort of work. In short order, I make my way through the downstairs and past the bathroom to the converted utility room in the back of the house, a plate of crackers and a jar of peanut butter balanced in one hand. Sure, the utility room still houses our serviceable washer and dryer, but it also has my sewing machines, dress form, drafting table, and approximately three square inches for my rolling chair to go between these things.

  Ryan hates coming back here.

  I kind of love it.

  It’s my creativity nest. Plus, I always point out to Ryan, I can’t fit this stuff in my bedroom, and I don’t begrudge him his corner of the living room for his pile of gaming paraphernalia.

  I set my dinner down on the dryer and look around the room. I have no idea where to start on my list, but I have to start somewhere. Maybe something mindless like hemming? That way I can ponder the case. Better yet, I could even go get my copies of the early Hooded Falcons and glance through them while I sew.

  I detour yet again back through the dark house, Trog padding at my heels. He’s not happy unless I’m sitting stationary and he can lie where he can see me. Or preferably, if I’ll let him, lie directly on my feet. It’s herding-dog mentality; Trog is at his happiest knowing exactly where all his people are at one time. In his younger years, he was known to attempt to herd Ryan, Lawrence, and me into one room together for his own peace of mind.

  It takes less than a minute for me to locate my stack of Hooded Falcon comics—still left handy from our case earlier in the summer because I suck at putting things away—and I head back to the utility room with them. It’s fully dark outside now, and I settle in at my smallest sewing station directly under the overhead light. I try several positions to prop up my comics so I can see them while hemming, but end up having to use my phone flashlight to illuminate them separately. I add another note to my junk-pile-to-the-sky to-do list in my head to look for a brighter bulb for this room. If I’m going to be working this many nights in the near future, I need better lighting.

  Luckily, I don’t have to read the comics so much as glance at the page so that I recall it in my head. Then, I spend time thinking about the panels I know are in that sequence while I hem a pair of slim tuxedo pants for one of L’s forties-throwback looks. Latifah had put a heel right through the hem in her last performance.

  Somewhere around Issue 14—the one where Falcon is fighting the Brain on a secluded mountaintop—I hear a noise outside.

  At first, I think I’ve imagined the soft scraping noise along the side of the house. Truth be told, I started to nod off, I think. Caught in that weird state of consciousness between sleep and awake where my hand is still techn
ically sewing but I’d also been thinking about how ranch dressing seemed like a panacea for all the world’s ills.

  I’m about to chalk it up to something in my quasi-dream state when I note that Trog is sitting forward, ears perked, Wonder Bread body alert. He gives the lowest of woofs, and I know he’s heard something too. That’s when the goose bumps rise on my arms. A quick glance out the door shows me that the house is still completely dark. Ryan isn’t home yet.

  Please let this be Ryan.

  But . . . why would Ryan be skulking about his own townhouse? He usually just gets a ride with Lelani or Ubers home. This certainly wasn’t the sound of an Uber.

  I rise, debating whether I should flick off the light in the utility room. I can’t help but picture any number of bad guys related to the Golden Arrow case sneaking around my house with ill intent. Deciding against turning off the light, I instead make my way to the front door, Trog on my heels. The best way to know exactly what that noise was would be to catch the person who made it still in the act of . . . whatever. It’s the first time in my life I’ve prayed to find your average teenage hoodlum out for a nice night of breaking and entering at my neighbor’s kitchen window.

  “Okay, boy, go for the Achilles if we meet anyone,” I say, clipping his leash to the collar. I have little confidence that Trog will actually be of help with a perpetrator. A herd of hair dryers or vacuums maybe, but not humans. Nevertheless, it makes me feel better to have him with me. I whip my phone out, pull up Matteo’s number in case I need to call him with the push of a button, and silently count to three.

  On three, I flip on the exterior light and at the same time push out the door and onto my porch, brandishing my phone and my corgi with as much daredevil drama as I can manage.

  “I’m calling the cops right now,” I say in a sure voice to cover the moment when my eyes are adjusting from the dark of my entryway to the light just off my tiny railed porch.

  While the night seems to be totally ordinary, I catch the snap of a twig off to my right that doesn’t sound like your average bunny or squirrel. Crap. There really is someone out here.

  “I have a gun,” I add for good measure, holding my cell phone out in front of me the way TV agents do.

  Trog starts to strain against the leash, and my heart hammers in my chest in response. It suddenly dawns on me that all that stands between me and this potential threat is my brave—but not very imposing—dog. And I don’t want Trog to get hurt.

  I press the number to call Matteo and whip my cell phone back in the direction of the noise. It’s at that moment that Trogdor starts to bark. It’s a deep sound, not the little warning woofs he does sometimes that just puff out his cheeks. This makes him sound like he’s mastiff size.

  “MG?” The voice comes from alongside the building, out between the landscaping and the wall to the townhouse, and just beyond the reach of my phone’s flashlight or the porch light.

  It takes me a moment to place it. “Ryan?”

  “Yeah, hey, sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He appears slowly from the vegetation, hands held aloft in surrender. He’s dressed in black workout clothes, making him extra hard to see in the dark. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that was his intent with his outfit, and my Spidey-sense tingles.

  “If you didn’t mean to scare me, then what the hell are you doing in our bushes at night, dressed in black?”

  I’m prickly. I should feel relieved, but all I feel is mad.

  Ryan hops over the railing—actually quite an impressive feat—and passes his gaze over my phone and Trog. “Thank God you’re not actually armed.” Trog moves forward, sniffing Ryan like he, too, is suspicious as to why we’re having this meeting on our porch in the dark.

  “What does that mean?” I ask, intercepting him as he makes a move toward the front door. “And what are you doing out there?”

  Ryan looks reluctant to say, which is infuriating.

  “Ryan! You scared the living daylights out of me. I thought . . .” He doesn’t know about the L snafu or the missing evidence, so I cut myself off just in time. “I thought you were a burglar. I almost called the cops.”

  No, wait. I had called the cops. I look down at my phone. It’s been connected to Matteo’s number for almost thirty seconds. I whip my phone up to my ear. “Matteo?”

  “MG?” He sounds either alarmed or incredibly annoyed. Maybe both. “You called me. Are you okay?” Usually I text, and he might have heard the part about burglars. Or about calling the cops.

  Ryan’s eyes widen as he realizes Matteo has been on the phone. He makes another move toward the door, but I move to block him again.

  “I’m perfectly fine. Pocket dial. Call you later,” I say into the phone, hanging up before Matteo can argue with me. I barricade the door with my body, leveling my gaze at Ryan.

  “Geez, MG, it’s my house too. It’s not like I need a warrant to be in my front yard.”

  I cross my arms.

  Ryan realizes he’s not getting around me, so he sighs. “Okay, fine, but don’t be mad okay? I had an errand to run for L while he’s gone. I borrowed your bike because mine needs a new chain. And I didn’t want to make Trog bark by locking it on the porch, so I locked it to the gas meter back there. I know I didn’t ask to borrow it; I’m sorry, and I meant to put it back in the morning before you found out.”

  I crane my neck around him and peer into the landscaping, then look back at him, question evident in my face.

  “I didn’t want to take an Uber,” Ryan says, defensively, correctly guessing my question. Then his shoulders deflate. “Look, money is kind of tight right now, until I find out if this next contract gets picked up, okay? I’d have asked to borrow your car but . . .”

  I feel awful for being suspicious of my roommate—of both of my best friends recently. I’m seeing spooks around every corner, grasping for any round peg that fits the square hole of this case. Of course, I totally understand the whole empty-pocketbook thing. Too well. So well, in fact, I’m not sure how I’m even going to pay to get my car towed. I might very well be the one locking my bike to my porch at—I glance at my phone—11:34 p.m. next time.

  “I thought you’d be in bed,” Ryan says sheepishly as we push through the front door together, Trog trotting happily into the darkness now that his humans are both home and the crisis is over.

  “Nah, work,” I say, stifling a yawn.

  “Are you finished?”

  “No, I’m going to work a bit longer.” I don’t needle him by pointing out that I have my adrenaline rushing despite my yawn, and there is no way I’d be able to sleep, thanks to his antics.

  “Okay, ’night.” Ryan makes his way up the stairs, and I head back to the utility room. It’s only after I’m back in the room and seated at my desk that I remember that his antics included an errand for L. It’s tempting to go grill Ryan in case it’s important to the case, but just as I rise from my chair, I hear the shower turn on upstairs. I sit back down. I don’t want to know that badly.

  With a sigh and one last longing thought about my bed, I turn back to the comic books and the pile of sewing. It’s going to be a long night.

  CHAPTER 21

  I wake up the next morning, quite literally drowning in my work. It takes me a moment to fully gather my bearings, but the indent of sequins on my cheek goes quite a long way in informing me that I never made it to my bed last night. All around me are the remnants of my attempt to catch up last night—sketches, thread, bolts of cloth, several rumpled garments, my sketchpad, and a stack of comic books.

  This should distress me. But it doesn’t. The dream I had just before waking is still fresh in my head—a glistening jewel of inspiration and creative energy.

  It’s as if communing with my work in a very real way has led to osmosis. Instead of feeling the same bitterness and disappointment with my comic sketches that I feel when I think about the space monkey project, I feel buoyant. I could reach out and hug my creative nest. It’s done its job, meld
ing all the things I love together. It’s given me an idea.

  I open my Moleskine, jotting down several key words before starting in on the sketch of the panel I woke with burned into my imagination.

  That’s how Ryan finds me.

  “Did you sleep at all?” he asks, taking in the wreck that is my nest.

  I peer at him with manic glee over my stack of comic books. “Some, but it doesn’t matter. I know what I want my pet project to actually be! Screw those chimpanzees in space.”

  “Pet project?”

  I bite my lip, trying to think back. “I guess maybe I didn’t tell you that part. Hero Girls got canceled.”

  Ryan frowns in concern. “Oh, I’m sorry, that’s awful.”

  “Yeah,” I agree, then shake myself. “But it’s okay, I guess. Not really, but it is what it is. Anyhow, I accidentally pitched this robot versus space chimpanzees idea—”

  Ryan’s eyes goggle.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Anyhow, it was a placeholder idea, because I had this crazy dream last night about L, and well, I can’t say too much until I talk to him, but I feel really sure this is the right project for me . . .” I break off again, eyeing the weird posture Ryan is standing in. It looks like he’s looking for the earliest opportunity to interrupt my victory speech, which is unlike him, and ultimately why I trail off. “What?” I ask.

  Ryan holds up his phone. “It’s Matteo; he called me because he was worried when you didn’t respond to his texts or calls.”

  “Oh!” I rush forward, dragging half a bolt of cloth with me and tripping over my stack of comics that has slid onto the floor. I distinctly remember not plugging my phone in to charge, so it must have died. Given that my boyfriend heard only a snippet of conversation last night, most of it about burglars, before I essentially hung up on him, I get that he might be a teensy bit worried. I grab the phone from Ryan.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I say before the phone has even hit my ear. I bump the speakerphone button, and fumble unsuccessfully to reverse it. Great. Now Ryan will be present for my imminent dressing down. “My phone died.”