by Tawna Fenske
“Here, you add this and pulse. I’ll zest the orange.”
I kept an eye on my sister, wondering what freak of genetics had made her an artistic soul with no culinary skill while giving me kitchen savvy and an inability to draw anything more complex than a stick figure. I knew it had something to do with my incessant need to feed people and her incessant need to outfit them in all the latest accessories.
“Hold out your hands,” I ordered, spritzing them lightly with cooking spray before doing the same to mine.
“They seem to be getting along well,” she whispered, peering around the edge of the cabinets at the sound of male laughter coming from the living room.
“Great,” I murmured back. “The ex you don’t want and the hot guy who’s already taken.”
“We know how to pick ‘em.”
I reached into the bowl to grab a handful of sticky dough. “Here, roll it into little balls.”
“Like this?”
“Perfect.”
“Gooey.”
“Yup.”
“Then we bake them?”
“They’re no-bake. We chill them, remember?”
The doorbell rang. I stared down at my hands, which were covered with cooking spray and almond paste. Lori’s looked the same, only messier.
“Would one of you guys mind grabbing the door?” I called.
The bell rang again. The volume on the TV went silent and I heard footsteps, followed by the click of my door latch and Pete’s good-natured baritone.
“Hey there, can I help you?”
There was a long pause, followed by another familiar voice. “Um, is JJ around?”
CHAPTER FIVE
“Daniel!” I yelped.
I launched myself across the room in a cloud of flying almond bits and powdered sugar. It was supposed to be quick and graceful, but I tripped over the corner of a rug. Down I went, skidding on my knees across the wood floor to come to rest between Pete and Daniel’s feet.
I looked up to find myself at eye level with both their crotches.
Lovely.
Daniel reached down to help me to my feet, but Pete moved to do the same thing just a split second behind him. For an instant, the two held hands.
They let go fast, like they cupped turds in their palms.
I stood up fast on my own, not wanting to pick between them for assistance in standing. I dusted off my knees and looked from Daniel to Pete, then back to Daniel. I wasn’t sure why I felt so awkward about having them both in a room together, but I couldn’t deny the distinct urge to have the ground swallow me up.
“This is quite a surprise, Daniel!” I said with more cheer than I was really feeling. “What brings you here?”
Daniel’s jaw clenched as he deliberately avoided looking at Pete. “I called, but your cell went right to voicemail. I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d stop in and see if you wanted to go grab a drink. Looks like you have other plans.”
Blue Cat chose that moment to leap onto the arm of the sofa and butt his head against Daniel’s thigh. Clearly, he wasn’t concerned that his mistress had a hot guy answering her door mere days after asking her boyfriend for space.
Daniel scratched Blue Cat’s ears, looking slightly more concerned than my feline companion. Blue Cat purred loudly and drooled on my sofa, pleased that his favorite person on the planet had joined our cozy get-together.
“Right,” I said, clearing my throat. “Daniel, meet Pete. Pete, meet Daniel. Pete works at the landfill. Daniel is my– um, my–”
“Boyfriend,” Daniel supplied, reaching out to shake Pete’s hand. “Good to meet you.”
“Dude,” Lori said from behind me, stepping on my heel to let me know she had my back. “That’s the first time you’ve ever said she’s your girlfriend. I thought there was some sort of company rule about that.”
“The rules have changed,” Daniel said carefully.
“They have,” I agreed, not sure we were just talking about the handbook. “Look, I’m kind of busy this evening, but maybe we could get together some other time?”
“Right,” Daniel said. He glanced over my shoulder where Adam sat watching TV, politely refraining from adding additional awkwardness to the situation.
“We’re not all here having an orgy, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Lori offered.
Daniel frowned. “Why would an orgy be on my list of assumptions?”
“I’m just saying,” Lori said. “It might look like a good setup for an orgy, but—”
“Okay, then,” I interrupted, ready to bring the conversation to a halt. “Daniel, thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a lovely evening.”
“I’ll call you.” Before I could reach for the door, he leaned down and gave me a soft kiss on the lips. It wasn’t overt, it wasn’t passionate, but it was a kiss just the same.
And I’ll admit, I kinda wanted more.
“Good night,” I said, and closed the door. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me before I even turned around.
Adam grinned. “Boyfriend?”
“It’s complicated,” I told him.
“Very,” Lori agreed as she perched on the arm of the sofa.
“Okay,” I agreed. “So I’ll just finish up those apricot balls.”
My cheeks were flaming as I turned and marched back toward the kitchen. Pete touched my arm. “Mind if I refill my water?”
“Sure, right this way.”
Lori shot me a questioning look, clearly trying to discern my comfort level with being alone in the kitchen with Pete.
I nodded once, prompting my protective baby sister to perch on the arm of the sofa as far from Adam as she could possibly be while still sharing the same piece of furniture.
I could feel Pete right behind me as I rounded the corner into the kitchen and used my elbow to nudge on the faucet. I stuck my hands under the water and began scrubbing at the apricot goo.
“You okay?” Pete asked as he pressed his glass against my refrigerator’s in-door icemaker.
“I’m fine,” I said, daring to look up at him. “Sorry about the scene with Daniel. Kinda awkward.”
“No problem,” Pete said. He set down his water glass and handed me a dishtowel. “I know all about how weird on-again, off-again relationships can be.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He didn’t elaborate, though I was dying to know if he was referring to his current girlfriend or someone else entirely.
“I hope my being here didn’t make things more uncomfortable for you,” he added.
“No, I was glad to have you here.”
Pete smiled and my insides went gooey. I was pretty sure it wasn’t just the apricot balls.
Before I could register what was happening, Pete caught my hand in his and gave it a squeeze. He held it for a few seconds, his eyes locked on mine with an intensity that made my stomach do a crazy little twirl.
I opened my mouth, not sure what the hell I intended to say. Was this a friendly “I feel your pain” kind of squeeze or an “I want to get you naked” kind of squeeze?
He let go of my hand before I could ask, then turned and walked back to the living room. I stood there like a moron with my jaw hanging open, the dishtowel dangling from my free hand, and every nerve in my body screaming More! More!
“Hey, cool!” Pete’s voice called from the living room. “A Die Hard marathon.”
“I know, right?” Adam replied. “So hypothetically speaking, in a fight between Colt McTrigger and John McClane, do you think you’d kick his ass?”
“With or without the bionic arm?”
“With. Obviously.”
“Would he get a Taser gun?”
Lori walked into the kitchen rolling her eyes.
I set down the dish towel and sighed. “Something tells me this is going to be a long, weird evening.”
THE NEXT MORNING, Lori and I met for coffee at a little bakery beside the police station. Since the cop last night had suggested s
topping by in person, we’d decided to show up toting a box of donuts as a goodwill gesture.
Lori held the donuts and we marched next door to the police station to explain the situation to the woman behind the counter.
She didn’t look impressed.
“So you want to complain about cheap handbags?” she said dryly, fingering a name badge that read Petty. I wasn’t sure if that was her name, the crimes she handled, or her personality.
“It’s more complicated than that,” I said patiently, opening the bakery box to offer her a donut. “I found these scraps of fabric out at the landfill which lead me to conclude that someone is manufacturing counterfeit designer bags.”
“Do people ever say you have quite the imagination?”
“On occasion.”
Petty eyed the pile of smelly fabric Lori had just upended on the counter beside the donuts.
“Is that a slice of moldy carrot?”
“Probably,” I admitted, flicking it off a piece of faux suede. “Anyway, I want to report it. The counterfeit bags. Not the carrot.”
The woman sighed and glanced at her watch. “Everyone’s really busy right now. With slightly more pressing crimes.”
Another cop walked past and eyed the bakery box with undisguised lust. He stopped in his tracks and stared, his gaze fixed on a particularly oozy jelly-filled number. I watched him, wondering if he might be a better ally than Petty. His tag said Frank. A much better omen. Frank reached for the donut.
“Look,” Lori said, folding her arms over her chest and looking like a disgruntled elf as she stared down Petty. “The officer last night who came to assist our friend, Pete Wilco, suggested we come here and—”
“Who?” Petty asked.
“P-Pete Wilco?” stuttered Frank, dropping his donut on the floor. He bent down and retrieved it, straightening up with a dumbstruck expression and the donut in his fist.
“Pete Wilco,” I repeated, looking from one to the other.
“Never heard of him,” Petty said, scowling.
Frank just stared.
I shrugged. “He starred in some straight-to-video action flick that sold a few dozen copies a few years ago.”
“Bionic Cyber Cops in Monster Trucks,” Frank said, nodding as he clutched the donut in one hand. “If you ladies would like to come with me, I think I can help you out.”
Lori gave Petty her most smug smirk before grabbing the box of donuts and tucking them under her arm. I scooped up the fabric swatches and trotted after Frank as he lumbered down the hall, around a corner, and into a small, gray office.
He dropped into a lopsided yellow chair behind the desk and set his donut down on a piece of paper. Lori put the donut box on the edge of the desk and opened it up enticingly before settling into another chair. I eyed the remaining chairs – all covered with giant stacks of paper – and opted to stand.
Frank reached into the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a pair of rubber gloves and some tweezers.
“So what seems to be the problem?” he asked, pulling on the gloves and picking up the tweezers.
Lori and I stared for a few beats, neither of us speaking. I was the first to break the silence.
“Well, I just started this new job at the landfill,” I began.
“Sure, sure,” Frank said, studying the donut with his tweezers poised above it. “You being sexually harassed or something?”
“Um, no. That’s not it.”
Frank grunted and began picking at the donut with the tweezers. “Unsafe work environment?”
He extracted something from the jelly filling before dipping the tip of the tweezers in a tiny dish of liquid on the edge of his desk.
“No, of course not. See—”
“Do you need a different donut?” Lori interrupted. She’d been quiet until this point, but had apparently reached a breaking point.
He looked up, seemingly startled to see us sitting there. “Donut? No, I can’t stand donuts. They give me gas.”
“But—”
“This here is Drosophila pachea,” he said, holding up his tweezers. “A very rare fruit fly that only breeds on the stems of senita cactus. I don’t know how the little devil ended up here, but I’ve been wanting a specimen like this for years.”
I stared. “You collect fruit flies.”
“Of course.”
Lori nodded, apparently satisfied with that explanation. “I collect handbags,” she announced, reaching into hers to extract a business card. “I’m really proud of my collection, and I’ve invested a lot of time and money in it. As I’m sure you have with your collection?”
“Um—” Frank said, studying Lori’s card with apparent confusion.
“And I care very much about making sure every item in my collection is authentic, don’t you?”
“Well—”
“So how would you feel if someone started forging fruit flies?”
Frank stared at Lori.
“What my sister is trying to say,” I continued, “is that we found some materials at the Albright County Landfill that suggest someone is creating counterfeit designer handbags locally.”
“Say what?”
“Look,” Lori said, snatching the fabric swatches from me and dumping them out beside the donuts. “This here is supposed to look like Coach’s signature material, only you notice how the little Cs don’t line up right? Or this one, this is supposed to look like the lining from a special edition Christian Dior bag that was just released in the spring, only if you look really closely you’ll see that—”
“What does this have to do with you being sexually harassed?” Frank said, staring at me, then Lori, then back at me. When we didn’t respond immediately, he shook his head and went back to rinsing his fruit fly.
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m not being sexually harassed and my workplace isn’t unsafe. We’re here about the handbags.”
“It’s a very serious issue,” Lori added.
Ignoring us, Frank opened the top of a tiny glass container and nestled the fruit fly inside. Setting down his tweezers, he screwed the top back on the container and folded his hands, looking back up at us.
“Look, ladies – I’ve gotta tell you that digging through the landfill to figure out if someone, somewhere, might be making fake purses – that’s not real high on our priority list right now.”
“But—” Lori began.
“How do you even know someone’s making these things locally?” Frank asked. “Maybe someone bought a bunch of purses in China or something and tossed ‘em in the landfill.”
“Because we found fabric swatches, not handbags,” Lori snapped. “If you look at the fabric, it’s obvious these are remnants from a manufacturing operation and not just pieces that have been torn out of old handbags. See here how it looks like someone’s been practicing different types of stitching, and then these pieces here are all close enough in design that it’s obvious someone’s reviewing sample fabrics to choose—”
“Look, miss,” Frank said, unclasping his fingers and touching the edge of Lori’s business card. He yanked his hand back and stuck a finger in his mouth, and I tried not to be too glad about the paper cut. “We’ve got gangs. We’ve got drugs. We’ve got homicides to deal with. Really, where do you see purses fitting in with all that?”
I straightened in my chair and cleared my throat with authority. “The sale of counterfeit luxury items funds terrorism and drug cartels and has ties to human trafficking and—”
Frank sighed. “And likewise, if you have lunch at Mel’s Diner down the street, you’re probably funding his wife’s coke habit.”
Lori narrowed her eyes at him.
“That was an example,” he said. “There’s no Mel’s Diner down the street. I was just giving you an example.”
“An example,” Lori said, gripping the arms of her chair so hard her knuckles turned white. I recognized the signs that she was on the verge of a full-fledged elf tantrum.
“What about her intern?�
�� I asked. “Her name is Macy, and Lori asked her to do some snooping into this whole handbag thing. We haven’t heard from her since.”
There was a faint flicker of interest in Frank’s eyes. “A missing person?”
“I left her a few messages, but she hasn’t called back, and we weren’t able to connect with her last night for drinks and her car isn’t at her house,” Lori supplied.
Frank frowned. “Why wasn’t this the first thing you mentioned?”
I sighed. “Well, the thing is, Macy has the tendency to travel. A lot. Without actually notifying her friends or her employer or—”
“So how long has it been since you’ve heard from her?”
I looked at Lori. She shrugged. “About eighteen hours.”
Frank stared at us. “Let me get this straight. Your girlfriend – who, by your own admission, disappears frequently without warning – has not called you for eighteen hours and you want to report this to the police.”
“Well—” I stopped. Okay, fine, when he put it that way, it did sound a little dumb. Maybe we should have stopped with the handbag thing.
Officer Frank had already turned his attention back to his fruit fly, and Lori appeared to be considering stabbing him in the eyeball with his own tweezers. With a sigh, I grabbed my sister’s elbow and hoisted her up.
“Fine,” I said. “Thank you for your time. I’ll let you know if I uncover anything else that might be relevant to the case.”
“Case?”
“And because you at least tried to be helpful, I’ll pay extra special attention to any fruit flies I encounter in the course of my work.”
“Oh. Well, that’s very kind—”
“But I’ve gotta tell you,” I continued, “if you think I’m just going to let this handbag thing die, you really don’t know me at all.”
He blinked at me. “What was your name again?”
CHAPTER SIX
I spent the rest of my weekend laying low.
There were no calls from Daniel, who was busy playing in a corporate golf tournament out of town.
Only Lori kept my phone ringing. Repeatedly.
“I still haven’t heard from Macy,” she told me on Sunday, her voice a little strained. “I’ve left like six messages, but she’s not calling me back.”