Clue and The Shrine of the Widowed Bride (Clue Taylor Book 1)

by Wendie Nordgren

  Once inside the grocery store, I took a basket and slowly walked up and down the aisles. Broccoli, carrots, potatoes, raspberries, salt, tea, shampoo, and waste paper would be enough to get me through a few days. I had not enjoyed washing my hair with bar soap. The cashier smiled as he placed my purchases into a reusable pink bag with “Big Bubba’s” printed in yellow on each side of it. I handed him the gold credit chip from my pocket.

  As he scanned it, he said, “Bring this back with you next time and get ten percent off, Miss.” His front teeth showed when he smiled at me, and I noticed that they were chipped.

  “Thanks,” I said as I took the pink handles and carried my bag outside where Cosmo Lenox waited for me.

  Chapter Three

  Cosmo flashed a grin at me, so I turned and walked in the opposite direction. “Hey! Where are you going? Don’t you want a ride?” I ignored him and walked faster. I didn’t expect him to park his bike and catch up to me on foot. “Hey, wait. What’s the deal?”

  Stopping, I turned to Cosmo. “I never told you the house number. How about you tell me who the fuck you are and why you’re following me.”

  Cosmo held his hands up in mock surrender. “Aren’t you a little young to be using that kind of language?” he asked as he grinned at me.

  “Fuck you.” I started walking faster until I made it to Tortoise Street. Then, I ran across the street. It was only about two blocks to Honjo Street. I heard the motorcycle just before Cosmo jumped the curb up onto the sidewalk right in front of me blocking my way.

  “Anytime, sweetheart,” Cosmo said with a grin.

  “What?”

  Cosmo grinned and said, “I’ll fuck you anytime you want, sweetheart.”

  Furious, I started to tell him to fuck off but worried that he would misinterpret the suggestion. I tried to move around him, but he moved his motorcycle forward and back preventing me.

  “Winks gave me a holo-image of you over a year ago and told me it was my job to watch out for you.”

  Lifting an eyebrow, I asked, “How did you know Winks?”

  Cosmo grinned and said, “He was my employer.”

  “So, you’re a thief?”

  “I consider myself to be more of an opportunist.” The pedestrians on the sidewalks to either side of Tortoise Street had begun to stare at us. I didn’t trust the man in front of me. How could I? “How about I give you a ride?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Is there a problem, Miss?” a man with a quiet voice that was full of power and confidence asked. Turning to the source of the voice, I saw an incredibly handsome man of average height and medium build with dark brown hair and slanted eyes. He wore an expensive looking suit. He had an intriguing aura of lethal serenity.

  Cosmo stiffened at the sound of the man’s voice, put on his helmet, and backed his bike off of the sidewalk. Then, he gave me a little salute before speeding off. The handsome man hadn’t stopped looking at me. Distracted by his eyes and the cute small space between his eyes where his nose began, I didn’t answer. Without continuing to wait for a response, the man strode down the sidewalk and entered one of the buildings. Following, I looked up at its sign that read Wisteria Hotel and kept walking.

  Once I had made it inside of 888 Honjo, I put my food into the cold storage unit, stored two rolls of waste paper in the bathroom off of the kitchen, and carried the other two rolls and the shampoo upstairs. Then, I took Momma’s canister out of my backpack and took her downstairs where I placed her on the center of the fireplace’s brick mantel.

  I didn’t know what to do about school. There were credits in Winks’ safe, but the prospect of twelve hours of travel a day between Scorpius and Hyperion would be gruesome. I went upstairs and opened the safe. I thought that I could survive off of the credits inside for at least two years. I had made up my mind to stay in the house, but I needed a job in Scorpius.

  Mr. Nixon had been correct. I hadn’t seen a single Protect and Serve in the city. While kicking out of my shoes, I tripped and fell on my butt in the closet. Groaning at my clumsiness, I untangled my feet and rolled over onto my stomach and knees.

  “What do we have here, Winks?”

  I felt along the baseboards and noticed an almost invisible seam in the corner. Following it with my eyes, I noticed a tiny grey button that was flush with the grey cement wall. I pushed it. Silently, the door slid open revealing a set of stairs. Hurriedly, I put on my shoes and carefully made my way down the steps. The door startled me when it slid closed, but then dim lights activated. The cement steps seemed to lead me lower than where I thought the ground floor was. They ended with a door that required a palm scan.

  “What have I got to lose?”

  Worried that it wouldn’t open anyway, I placed my palm to the scanner. The door whooshed open, and I took halting horrified steps inside.

  “Oh, shit, Winks. What have you gotten me into?”

  Along the left side of the massive basement level were partitioned rooms full of what I could only assume to be stolen goods in a house that legally belonged to me. The first section contained paintings that had been carefully packed in wood frames except for the one Winks had hung on the wall. I recognized it from one of my freshman investigative classes at Hyperion College that I had just completed a couple of weeks ago. The damn painting of a stupid moon rising above a still dark ocean was worth millions of credits and had been stolen from the private home of a prominent and very powerful ambassador in the distant Laconian Sector.

  Getting caught with it would land me on a mining colony for the rest of my miserable life even if I had had nothing to do with it. I had alibis aplenty on Eris Space Station, but simple possession would be enough to ruin my life.

  “Shit, Winks.”

  My head began to pound in time with my heart. It only got worse. The next partitioned room contained one silk bag after another all lined up on shelves. I opened a couple of them and found diamonds, emeralds, and melted down gold chips. A cold sweat beaded on my upper lip, and I wiped my face on the inside of my shirt.

  The next room was full of tech. Most of it looked like it belonged in starships. The next room was full of weapons. In racks were a few blaster rifles and hand blasters, but there were crates full of plenty more. It looked like enough to start a revolt. I wasn’t even old enough to own a blaster at seventeen.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” I whispered.

  The next room had work tables and all manner of odd tools and was where I assumed Winks had worked. At the far end of the basement and to the right was a room with a bed, table, and closet. A kitchen was next to it with a storage room and a bathroom. This was where Winks had lived. In the bathroom, I found his toiletries and even a towel that he had left on the floor. I slid down the bathroom wall and sat on the floor staring at the towel. Tears dripped onto my shirt. I felt stupid for crying, but I was too overwhelmed to do anything else.

  The stolen property was worth more credits than I could imagine. If caught with any single one item, I would spend the rest of my life doing hard labor. At seventeen, how long would the rest of my life be? Even worse was the possibility that one of Winks’ marks would hunt down his or her stolen merchandise and tear me into small bloody pieces over it.

  What had Winks expected me to do all of this? Would Cosmo know? What if Cosmo had lied? It could be that he hadn’t worked for Winks at all. Cosmo could be a competitor, a Protect and Serve, or a private investigator for some wealthy, powerful, and very angry victim.

  One thing was for sure. I could never let anyone into my house. If anyone were to see this, I’d either be dead or at the person’s mercy. In my classes, I had learned that the easiest way to spot a crook was to observe anyone who seemed to come into money. Going around spending Winks’ credits would get me caught. On the bright side, Mr. Nixon had said that the Protect and Serves avoided Scorpius. I needed a job and my own money if I was to avoid suspicion. I couldn’t go back to Hyperion now.

  Reaching over, I pulled at the was
te paper and got enough to blow my nose. Pushing my hands against the cold cement floor, I stood up. I wandered into the kitchen and found the pantry stocked with nonperishable food items. The cold storage was stocked with bottles of water and juice. I took a plum juice and downed it. The bottle had a label from Big Bubba’s and asked to be returned to the store for a discount. I rinsed it out in the sink.

  Then, I ran from the kitchen, through the gigantic basement, and all of the way up the stairs to my new bedroom. Flinging myself onto the bed and clutching Daisy to my chest, I had a hard cry. Sometime later and after blowing my nose, I must have fallen asleep. I carried Daisy downstairs with me and made myself a cup of tea.

  I heard a loud beep and looked around the kitchen. When I heard it again, I realized it was coming from the front door. Making the scanner adjust into a viewer screen required a simple tap. I pushed a button and asked, “What do you want, Cosmo?”

  He held up a bag in answer. “I thought you might want some dinner.”

  There was no way that I was letting him inside not after what I had found. “No, thank you. Go away.”

  “Come on, Clue. Don’t be like that.”

  “I’m not letting a strange man inside.”

  Cosmo’s eyes turned serious. “So, you found it?” When I remained silent, he said, “Clue, let me in, and I’ll prove I’m not a snitch but not through the door. I’ve even got sugar candy in the bag like from your birthday.”

  I froze. Two years ago, Winks had visited the station. He’d handed me a small bag with a box containing light-tan colored candies inside. “These are a special treat planet-side, kid. Don’t eat ‘em all at once, or you’ll get sick.”

  I’d looked up at him, smiled, and gone off to the promenade like I was supposed to do when Momma had a customer. Winks had had the same green eyes as me. I was such an idiot. Momma had to have known. I opened the door.

  “Why didn’t he tell me that he was my father?”

  Cosmo’s eyes were troubled as he observed me. He squeezed past me, and I closed the door following him. I watched as he placed the bag on the kitchen counter and got out plates and forks seemingly at home. Cosmo filled the plates with fried fish and potatoes and placed them on the table along with bottles of chilled sweet tea. Then, he held out a chair for me. I sat and blushed when I realized that Daisy was still in my arms.

  “Ms. Forester told Winks you were the only good thing she’d ever had in her life. She feared you’d want to leave her to be with him. Because of her profession and all, he had no rights to you. I just found out about your loss of her this morning when I looked you up on the vids. I’m sorry, Clue. A while back, Winks had something big planned. If he’d have known about Ms. Forester’s passing, he would have gone to get you. Something went wrong, though. Winks made arrangements for you years ago just in case anything ever were to happen to him.” Cosmo screwed off the tea lid with his hand. “Here.” I took the bottle from him and drank it. “Hey, you aren’t alone. You’ve got me. We’re family of a sort. Come on. Eat something,” he said as he pointed at the food.

  I picked up my fork, and being hungrier than I had realized, ate everything. “What about the basement?” I asked in a barely audible whisper.

  “We leave it alone. I’m sure the both of us are being watched, and they’ll keep watching us. In a few years, I’ll sell some of the gold. We need to lay low for now. Whatever you do, don’t tell anyone about the basement.”

  Cosmo stared at me until I said, “I won’t.”

  He got up, took our dishes to the sink, and washed them. “Catch,” Cosmo said as he threw me a piece of candy.

  My eyes welled up as I looked at it. Daisy made her way from my lap to up under my chin. Her hair was soft and comforting against my neck. “Say, I was with Winks when he got that for you. Do you want to see where?”

  “What?”

  “That little doll.”

  “Isn’t it late?”

  “Yeah, but you can see in the window. Go grab your shoes and a jacket.”

  Cosmo followed me into the living room where Momma’s container caught his attention. Upstairs, I tucked Daisy into bed, used my waste unit, and put on my shoes and jacket. Now, I realized why there weren’t any windows in the concrete building. When I went downstairs, I found Cosmo stacking wood in the fireplace. He dusted off his hands and stood when he saw me.

  “Ready?”

  I nodded. I followed him outside to where he had parked his bike in the street next to the curb in front of my house. Cosmo handed me a smaller black helmet. “This is a different one.”

  “The other one didn’t fit you.”

  Putting it on, I climbed up onto the motorcycle behind Cosmo clutching him about his waist. This time, Cosmo drove a lot slower, so I was able to look around at our surroundings without getting dizzy. Cosmo turned right on Tortoise and slowed to a stop. On the other side of the street, a few people entered the Wisteria Hotel. Cosmo kicked down his motorcycle’s stand. I got off of the bike and removed my helmet. Even in the dark, the candy apple red paint and sparkling glass front window made the toy store look like a happy place. I walked up close to the display window and saw dolls, trains, and all kinds of things.

  “The dolls are all made by hand. Winks said your hair was blonde like Daisy’s when you were a baby.”

  I blinked the moisture out of my eyes. “I’m a freaking orphan.”

  “No, you’ve got me. Come on. I’ll show you around Scorpius.” Cosmo and I rode all over the city, and by the time he dropped me off at my house I felt more confident about my surroundings.

  “You don’t taxi people around on your motorcycle for a living. Do you?”

  Cosmo gave me a grin. “Nope. I work down at the wharf and live on a boat at the marina. My boat’s named the Sea Harpy if you need me. Night, Clue.” Cosmo waited until I had closed my door before he sped away.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning, I made myself a cup of tea and sat at the dining table alone. I made the only noises in the massive lofty house. I decided that there had been four apartments on each level before Winks had remodeled. On Eris Station, there had always been someone nearby. Aside from the locals, new travelers came through weekly for supplies, ship repairs, medical assistance, or simply to relieve boredom. There had been even more activity in Hyperion before classes had ended.

  Deciding that I wanted to be around other people, I went up to my bathroom, filled the tub, soaked for a while, and then got dressed. I gathered up all of my dirty clothes and carried them down to the cleaning unit.

  Then, I headed down to Swan Street where I had seen a café amidst the clothing stores. The smells of fresh coffee and cinnamon cakes wafted to me before I had even made it to the door. A young boy who held the door open for his mother held it open for me as well. “Thank you,” I said.

  He puffed out his chest and smiled proudly at me before following after his mother. I ordered a coffee and a cherry pastry taking them with me to a small corner table. I activated the table’s news screen and scrolled until I found Scorpius’ help wanted section. Most of the jobs had an age requirement of being at least eighteen. There were a few exceptions.

  A Mrs. Stone needed someone to complete various chores and was offering twenty credits per completed task. Mrs. Stone lived on the opposite end of town near the end of Cherry Street. Finishing my breakfast and returning my cup and plate, I began walking. Mrs. Stone lived a block away from an orchard in a single dwelling home in a quiet neighborhood. I thought that the homes must have been built by the owner of the orchard for his employees. I knocked on the door of Mrs. Stone’s white house and waited on the small porch. A plump lonely-looking white-haired lady opened the door.

  “May I help you?”

  “Hello. I’m Clue Forester. Are you Mrs. Stone? I saw your ad for someone to do chores.”

  She smiled and clapped her hands together. “Why, yes! Pleased to meet you. When can you get started?”

  “Right away.”
>
  “Good, good. I do need some help. I’ve got my winter decorations down in the basement, and I need them all brought up. The boxes and the stairs are all just too much for me.” Mrs. Stone gave an exasperated sigh.

  “I can do that,” I assured her.

  “Oh, good. Come in. Come in. The basement is out back right behind my kitchen.” I followed Mrs. Stone through her very neat and clean, but overly decorated house. She opened the back door and pointed to a slanted white door to the side of the steps. “There are six or seven boxes down there with “Winter” written on them. Can you bring them up and put them in the living room by the couch?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I went down the steps, opened the basement, secured the door open with a metal latch hook, and wandered down. I spotted the neatly stacked boxes in a dust covered corner. Picking up the first one had me sneezing. Once I had lugged it out of the basement, I set it down and retrieved the others. Then, I dusted them off with a rag before carrying each of them inside.

  Mrs. Stone’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “Oh, thank you, dear. What did you say your name was? I didn’t get to decorate last year.”

  “You’re welcome. It’s Clue. What would you like done next?”

  Mrs. Stone looked worried. “Well, a branch fell out back, and it’s blocking my transport. I’d like it moved and maybe cut up for firewood.”

  I went outside and around to the side of the house. Putting all of my weight into it, I managed to drag the branch out of the way which made my hands hurt. I returned to the back door. Mrs. Stone was working in her kitchen. “Mrs. Stone, I moved the branch. How do I cut it up into firewood?”

  “There’s a laser saw in the basement on the tool shelf. I need the pieces to be about this big for my fireplace,” she said as she held her hands about a foot and a half apart.

  I found the tool but had no idea how to use it. I carried it to the branch, studied it for a moment, held it away from me, and powered it on. From the handle to the end of the bow-shaped arch, a red beam appeared with a soft hum of sound. Gingerly, I touched the beam to the branch, and it passed through. The end of the branch clunked as it hit the ground. It only took me about half of an hour to cut the branch into firewood. At the kitchen door, I asked, “Mrs. Stone, where do you want the wood?”