“It’s a really popular one, that model. Obviously, if your bike is worth a lot, you’d want a better lock, but for a lower-end bike, you won’t find better at that price.
I thanked the guy, wondering if he knew just how easy it was to break the lock. As soon as I got back to the bookshop, I decided to test it out for myself. Before I got a chance to, however, I was accosted by an angry ghost. Well, as much as you can accost someone when you’re incapable of touching them, of course.
“Where were you today?” he asked, floating well inside my personal space. “I waited, and waited, and waited, but no, you never appeared!”
“It’s Monday today, the bookstore is closed,” I replied. “Sorry, I went out to try and solve a murder.”
“I don’t see how that’s more important than finding out what happens to The Fellowship. They’ve already lost Gandalf, I don’t know how much more they can take!”
I smiled to myself. “Ok, let me go get the iPad for you, and I’ll set it up.”
“I can’t believe I’ve missed out on hours of listening time!” he exclaimed.
“You’ve been dead for like, two hundred years, I think you can handle waiting an extra day to find out what happens in this book,” I replied.
“Oh, of course you would use my death to your advantage. Just because I’ve been dead for nearly two hundred years–I’m not quite that old–doesn’t mean I like being reminded of it constantly.”
“That’s funny, you’re constantly going on about how much better things were back in the eighteen hundreds, and how books were better, and the English language hadn’t been completely trashed by the future generations.”
“And to that I hold, but it’s rude to point out a ghost’s age all the same, let alone over-estimate it.”
I rolled my eyes as I opened up the book on the iPad, still paused from where I’d stopped it the night before.
“All right, here’s your audiobook, as long as you stop complaining.”
“Thank you very much. I will try not to think of the hours which I had wasted in boredom this morning, without the calming words of the great man Tolkien to comfort me.”
“You do realize this book was written like seventy years ago, right? It’s definitely been written by someone from the future generations.”
“All the same, there can be exceptions, such as my dearly departed Miss Christie. Mr. Tolkien is another of her ilk; I have heard that he was a professor at Oxford.”
“Yes, that’s true,” I replied. As well as being a huge fan of Lord of the Rings–and though he would never admit to it, Harry Potter–Archibald’s first true love when it came to modern authors was Agatha Christie, especially her Hercule Poirot novels. Archibald had absolutely devoured the books, and then went for a wander for a few days while trying to see if Agatha Christie’s ghost was anywhere in this world, or if she had passed on peacefully. Unfortunately for Archibald, it turned out to be the latter.
Personally, I was pretty glad. Not only because it meant that Agatha Christie wasn’t hanging onto life in this world out of sheer spite like my local ghost–Archibald wanted to see his nemesis in life Lord Byron’s reputation sullied before he could pass on peacefully–but also because I had a feeling that ghost Agatha Christie wouldn’t be particularly pleased with having an ethereal stalker around her all the time.
Leaving Archibald to his audiobook, I set about testing the lock I’d just bought myself.
I followed the instructions that came with the lock to set my own code–I chose 6969 because I still had the immature mind of a fifteen-year-old–and tested the process. Sure enough, if I pulled hard enough on the lock while scrolling through the numbers, I could hear the faintest clicking sound as soon as it hit the six. I repeated the process with the next three numbers, and sure enough, the lock came apart as soon as I hit the final nine. The trick worked.
Of course, there was no guarantee that there was some kind of bike thieving gang prowling around Sapphire Village, targeting people who locked their bikes with this specific lock, but I thought the odds were pretty good.
And I wouldn’t have been surprised if it turned out Sapphire Sam had figured it out as well. After all, he had stopped gangs of bike thieves on his own before.
I had to see if I was right.
Cat came by that afternoon with her bike. To the surprise of literally no one, her mountain bike had a cute little cat bell to warn people in front she was coming, and Hello Kitty stickers all over the front of the design.
“Well, hopefully the fact that you’re obviously a crazy person isn’t going to put off the potential robbers,” I said, looking at the bike.
“Hey, stickers or not, anyone who knows anything about bikes is going to recognize immediately that this baby cost over three grand.”
I let out a small yelp. “Three grand?”
“Damn straight. Carbon frame, front and rear shocks, Shimano disk brakes, tubeless tires… this baby’s all set up for a day on the local trails.”
“Wait, you don’t actually mountain bike, do you?”
“Of course I do! I grew up here, mountain biking is what you do when you’re not skiing.”
“Somehow I never pictured you as the mountain biking type.”
“Just because I have Hello Kitty stickers all over mine?” Cat grinned. “There’s nothing I like more than dropping a rock face and nailing the landing. Just because you’re afraid of everything doesn’t mean the rest of us are.”
“Hey, I’m not afraid of everything!” I protested. “I’m afraid of broom flying. But that’s because I almost died the first time I did it.”
“You almost die every time you climb into a car, too.”
“That’s different!” I protested, and Cat grinned.
“Yeah, only thousands of more people die in car accidents every year than on a mountain bike.”
I shook my head. “You’re impossible.”
“And you need someone to take you on the trails so you can learn to ride a bike.”
“I know how to ride a bike!”
“When was the last time you were on one?”
“I dunno, maybe when I was six.”
“So you don’t really know how to ride a bike beyond pushing the pedals and not falling over. That’s not even close to the same as mountain biking.”
Who would have guessed that Cat was actually an awesome, extreme mountain biker? Certainly not me.
“We’ll have to get you a bike this summer for you to learn on,” Cat continued, and I held up my hands.
“Uh, no! I’m already getting used to one new method of travel trying to kill me, I’m not going to add a second one to the list.”
“See? Scared of everything,” Cat replied, sticking her tongue out at me. I rolled my eyes, having to admit that I didn’t have any better comeback.
“I’m busy learning to be a witch, anyway,” I finally replied, the words feeling lame as they fell from my tongue, and Cat laughed.
“Sure. Whatever you say. Now, what do you say we make this bike look good for the thieves?”
Chapter 8
After about a half hour of discussion, we eventually settled on an ideal spot: across the street from the bookshop was a bike rack, and Cat locked her bike up against it. When we were upstairs in my apartment, we could see the bike from my living room window.
“Awesome,” Cat said. “Now, I vote we order in Chinese food, and we wait.”
We ordered the food and ate it while watching TV before the sun set–we both agreed it was unlikely the thieves would strike before dark–and then prepared the living room for the night of staking out that we had ahead of us.
Muffin, of course, was incredibly curious as to why we were moving the couch around to face the window, and did his best to get in the way as much as possible.
“What if we get noticed, though?” I asked Cat eventually. After all, we were sitting on the couch, looking out the window at the street below. Any thieves who didn’t look up into our
lit window and see us watching them would be complete morons.
Cat grinned. “It’s like you completely forget you’re a witch, sometimes,” she said, closing her eyes and pointing to the window. It suddenly got a tiny bit darker, as though it was tinted.
“Cool,” I said, nodding.
“It should be completely obscured from the outside. Do you want to run down and have a look to make sure I did it right?”
“Yeah,” I replied, getting up from my spot on the couch and quickly running downstairs. As I stepped into the street and looked up, sure enough, the window was completely dark, as though the occupants had turned out the light and gone to bed.
“While you’re here, do you want to put the second book on for me?” Archibald asked when I re-entered the bookshop. “I’ve finished The Fellowship of the Ring. It is broken. Boromir and Gandalf are dead, and Sam is following Frodo to Mordor. I’m afraid I must know what fate befalls the other two hobbits, who have been taken by Uruk-Hai.”
“Well, I guess I could make you wait until morning, but that wouldn’t be very nice, would it?” I asked, opening up the iPad and buying the next book. Archibald was definitely costing me in audiobook credits.
“You’re right, that wouldn’t be very nice. Please don’t make me wait that long,” the ghost asked, hovering from side to side like an anxious toddler. The creases on his face were etched with worry, and I was tempted to laugh. He really did love his books!
After setting Archibald back up with The Two Towers, I made my way back upstairs to the apartment.
“It worked!” I announced to Cat, who turned and grinned.
“See? Magic makes everything easier.”
“Now, let’s wait for some thieves to show up!”
It very, very quickly became obvious that stake-outs in real life and stake-outs in the movies were extremely different. In the movies, you always saw the characters for only a minute or so before something exciting happened. Or, if you saw them for longer, they were always having deep, meaningful conversations about riveting topics before leaping into action.
The reality was far different.
By midnight, I was bored, and completely exhausted.
“I’m going to make coffee,” I muttered to Cat, who was half asleep on the couch.
“Good,” she mumbled, forcing herself to sit up and look out the window again. “The bike’s still there. Stupid thieves. Why can’t they work normal business hours like the rest of us?”
I yawned as I brought over two cups of coffee. “Agreed. Who knew stake-outs would be so boring?”
“It’ll be worth it if we catch them and they turn out to be murderers, though,” Cat replied.
“Agreed.”
After the coffee, while I was still exhausted and trying desperately to keep my eyes open, Cat began offering up insights on life that were, quite frankly, totally insane.
“Have you ever thought about the fact that your belly button is the first scar you’ve ever had?”
“In the word ‘scene’, is it the ‘s’, or the ‘c’ that’s silent?”
“Do you think we all see the same colors exactly the same way? I mean, if what I see as green you actually see the way I see red, we’d never know, would we?”
“If a piñata doesn’t break, is it broken?”
“I wonder who holds the record for having the same cell phone number for the longest time?”
“Well, if there’s anything tonight has taught me, it’s that your bike is still there and you belong in an asylum,” I finally said as the first rays of the sun broke over the horizon, getting up off the couch and stretching. Today was not going to be a good day.
“I get that way when I’m sleep deprived,” Cat said. “You can’t hold it against me.”
“I absolutely am. Now, get out of here. I’m going to try and get a couple hours of sleep in before I have to open the shop.”
“Lucky, I’m going straight to the cupcake shop to decorate and set up. And today, I’m starting up the coffee machine as soon as I get there.”
“At least you have employees.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t set a good example when I sneak in a nap in the kitchen,” Cat replied. “It’s ok, it’s not like I haven’t pulled all-nighters before.”
“I’ll text you later,” I promised, and Cat waved as she made her way down the stairs to leave.
I didn’t even bother going to bed; I just set my alarm, lay down on the couch, and slept until 9:55, five minutes before I had to open for the day.
I woke up as my alarm went off, a bit of dried drool stuck to my chin, groaned and forced myself out of bed. Making my way to the bathroom, I grimaced and shut my eyes as the lights turned on, like I was a vampire or something. When my eyes adjusted and I looked at myself in the mirror, it was obvious that comparison was an insult to vampires.
After all, Vasile, the owner of the company that supplied my books and delivered them magically, was always impeccably dressed and groomed. I, on the other hand, had red hair sticking in every direction, giving me a kind of fiery creepy halo look. I wiped away the dried drool on my chin, but it was going to take a while for the red mark from where I’d slept on my hand to leave, and my makeup skills were nowhere near good enough to hide the dark circles under my eyes.
On the bright side, it wasn’t like my bookstore was bursting at the seams with customers. Chances were that at most I would be able to count my customers today on one hand, especially since it was only a Tuesday, and the sightseeing and mountain biking season wasn’t in full swing yet.
I made my way downstairs, trying to decide if I should put the “back in ten minutes” sign up and go grab a coffee from the place down the street that I liked, when suddenly I heard a little shriek. It was Archibald.
“Oh! Don’t mind me, I simply got a shock from seeing you.”
“That bad, huh?” I asked dejectedly as I unlocked the tablet that the shop used as a point-of-sale system.
“Well, I don’t want to be rude, but yes.”
I sighed. I really needed that coffee.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes, Archie. You watch the shop, ok?”
“I will not, as I am a ghost, and I’m nearly at the end of The Two Towers, so I will thank you to stop interrupting my book time.”
I was so exhausted I hadn’t even realized the audiobook was still playing in the background where I’d left it. This was not going to be a good day. What had happened to the days when I was twenty and could easily pull off an all-nighter without being completely dead the next day?
Two hours later, after inhaling two large coffees, I began to feel almost human again. I’d moved Archibald into the back room again with the rest of his audiobook, and set about doing some random dusting and housekeeping in the shop just to keep myself from keeling over, dead asleep.
Muffin was doing his part by sleeping in the beanbag chair he loved. “Show off,” I muttered at the cat. It must have been nice to be able to sleep literally whenever.
Just when I was thinking I might make it through the day without completely embarrassing myself, the door to the shop rang, and Chase walked in. Great.
His eyes widened slightly when he looked at me. “Hey, are you ok?” he asked.
I ran a hand through my hair in a desperate attempt to make it look even remotely presentable. “Yeah, Cat and I just had a pretty rough night last night.”
Chase shook his head. “I told you to stay away from this case.”
“Don’t worry, nothing actually happened, we just stayed up all night watching Cat’s bike not get stolen.”
“Seriously?”
I nodded. “Who knew that catching criminals is actually super boring most of the time?”
“Well, me, for one, since that’s my job, and not yours,” Chase replied. “Although that’s not entirely true. Stake outs are super boring though. I agree with you there.”
“I wish I’d known that earlier,” I laughed. “I’d probably look remotely pre
sentable.”
“You look fine,” Chase replied. “You always look fine.” A blush began to creep up my face, but I forced myself to cool it. I didn’t need to embarrass myself even more here.
“Thanks,” I replied. “So are you just here to check up on me?”
“Definitely,” Chase said with a grin. “Any reason to come say hi is a good one, even if it’s just to make sure you’re not getting into too much trouble.”
“Well, don’t worry, I’ve had my fill for a little bit. I’m not sure I have the energy to get into trouble today.”
“How about I just buy you lunch then? Back in a few?”
“That would be amazing,” I replied gratefully.
“All right, I’ll be back.”
As Chase left, I was tempted to run upstairs and try and make myself look a bit better, but I also knew that since he’d already seen me it would be super obvious if I did. So, instead I moved some of the furniture around so that the old coffee table that had held a couple of books was now in front of the couch, ready for lunch.
Chase came back about fifteen minutes later with a couple of warm sandwiches from one of the local places and large fries to share, along with a couple cans of coke.
“I didn’t know what you liked, so I got one pulled beef and one fried chicken sandwich. Hopefully at least one of the two is fine.”
“Yum!” I replied. “Those both sound awesome. I’ll take the pulled beef, please.”
Chase handed me the sandwich as we sat down on the couch and ate in comfortable silence. Then, of course, because I was me, I ruined it.
“Do you think I’d be sexier if I knew how to mountain bike?” I blurted out about halfway through the meal. I could have sworn in the seconds that passed my brain was doing its best to murder my tongue.
Chase laughed. “What? Why would you say that?”
Well, I’d already embarrassed myself. I couldn’t make it worse, could I? I explained my reasoning to Chase.
“Well, it turns out Cat is actually good at mountain biking, and we were talking about it last night, and she said I was a giant baby who was scared of everything. And, uh, I was wondering if that was a bad thing.”
Death Quixote (A Paranormal Cozy Mystery) (Magical Bookshop Mystery Book 4) Page 5