1 Lost Under a Ladder

by Linda O. Johnston

  Copyright Information

  Lost Under a Ladder © 2014 Linda O. Johnston

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First e-book edition © 2014

  E-book ISBN: 978-0-7387-4345-5

  Book design by Donna Burch-Brown

  Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

  Cover illustration © Mary Ann Lasher Dodge

  Midnight Ink is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

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  dedication

  To you, my readers.

  And as ever and ever, to my dear husband Fred.

  My fingers are crossed that all the good luck in the universe

  heads your way, every one of you!

  acknowledgments

  I’m really delighted to be starting this special new Superstition Mystery series! My ongoing thanks to my fantastic agent Paige Wheeler and my wonderful editor Terri Bischoff. Thanks, also, to the members of my long-time, much cherished and currently inactive critique group, Janie Emaus, Heidi Shannon, Marilyn Dennis, and most especially Ann Finnin, who gave me lots to think about while editing my Lost Under a Ladder manuscript.

  one

  So this was Destiny.

  I’d anticipated that the town I now cruised in my car would look like this, but even so, the pictures I’d seen hadn’t done it justice. It was a quaint locale, filled with a myriad of people who appeared to be tourists. They strolled along sidewalks in front of rows of stores, most of which were built in the ornate styles of California Gold Rush days.

  Stores with names like Knock-on-Wood Furniture and the Falling Star Gallery would have shouted this town’s theme to me if I hadn’t already known it.

  But did I, Rory Chasen, actually believe in superstitions? Not really. I was here on a personal research mission.

  Right now, I drove slowly along the main street, Destiny Boulevard, just looking around. I took my time—not that I had much choice, with all the traffic. I kept my eyes open for the Broken Mirror Bookstore, probably the town’s most famous shop. That was where I’d find my answers. I hoped.

  “What do you think of this place? Nothing like L.A., is it?” I glanced over at the passenger seat of my car where my dog Pluckie sat. She was just that—plucky. Nimble. Friendly, but sure of herself. She was more than just an adorable little spaniel-terrier mix. She was my closest family.

  A rescue dog, she was my model for keeping on going in life, despite adversity.

  Naturally, I had fastened Pluckie to the seat using a special front-seat dog carrier with a safety harness—one of the best-selling items in the MegaPets store where I work.

  Pluckie barked in what sounded like a positive response to my questions. Or maybe she was just responding to the many dogs outside on the street, walking on leashes at the heels of some of the meandering tourists, letting them know she was there and eager to meet them.

  “Okay,” I said. “As soon as we find the bookstore, we’ll go check into our room, then we’ll take a walk, too.”

  As if mentioning the shop had conjured it, there it was. Of course, that wasn’t much of a surprise. I’d already looked up the address and knew which block it was on.

  What I hadn’t known, though, was that there was a pet store right next door. The sign for the Lucky Dog Boutique materialized just on the other side of the Broken Mirror Bookstore’s sign.

  “Looks as if we have more than one reason to head back to this area,” I told Pluckie, who looked at me with her huge dark eyes and wagged her white-tipped black tail. “Our B&B is supposed to be only a few blocks from here. We’ll—”

  Before I finished, my cell phone rang and I pressed the button to answer with my Bluetooth setup.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Rory,” said Gemma, my closest friend. It was thanks to her that I was here. “Where are you?”

  “In Destiny. I just spotted the bookstore.”

  “Good.” She paused. “Are you okay?”

  Tears rushed to my eyes at her question—reminding me why I had come. I blinked them away. “Sure. How about you?”

  “Fine, of course.” Again she seemed to hesitate. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

  “Of course it is. Like I told you before, Gemma, I really appreciate all you’ve done to help me through this, including suggesting that I visit Destiny. I’ll be able to put all that silliness behind me once and for all when I learn the truth about superstitions here.”

  I heard the bravado in my own voice. But, heck, that was in fact why I was here—to learn the truth.

  Gemma Grayfield was not only my friend—she was a librarian. She had borrowed the book The Destiny of Superstitions for me when I needed more information about the origin—and reality—of superstitions.

  That was why I had ended up in this town, on this afternoon. Closer, I hoped, to the answers I needed—able, at last, to get on with my life.

  “You’ll keep in touch with me, won’t you?” she asked. “Let me know what you’re up to, what you find out?”

  “I told you before I left that I would. Don’t worry about me. I needed a break, a vacation, and this is a great getaway.”

  We chatted for only a minute more before I spotted the Rainbow Bed & Breakfast, the place where I’d reserved a room for several nights for Pluckie and me. “Gotta run now,” I told Gemma. “Time to check into our hotel. But I’ll be in touch. I promise.”

  Which I would—when I had something to tell her, not just to hear how she fretted over me.

  After pressing the button to end the call, I parked in the lot in the front of the B&B and attached Pluckie’s leash. Then, walking under a horseshoe above the door, we entered the ornate, three-story building.

  Unsurprisingly in the B&B called Rainbow, there was a pot of gold in the lobby near the small registration desk. It didn’t appear to be real gold, of course, but in this town each locale evoked a related superstition. Maybe everyone was entitled to find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, as the town’s founders were reputed to have done.

  Sure they did. Call me a cynic, but that kind
of stuff just doesn’t make sense to me.

  The woman behind the registration desk had a nametag introducing her as Serina Frye, the establishment’s owner. I guessed she was about ten years older than my age of thirty-four years. She was dressed in a frilly skirt and blouse that seemed to fit with this town’s theme.

  Not me, though. I wore a denim shirt tucked into snug jeans. Nor was my hairdo old-fashioned like Serina’s soft brown upsweep. Looking at her, I brushed my bangs out of my eyes. They were getting a little long, but I’d had my straight blond hair highlighted and cut recently enough not to need another styling.

  “Welcome,” she said with a huge smile. We went through all the formalities, I handed her my credit card, and she soon showed Pluckie and me to our room on the second floor. A teenage bellboy followed with my suitcase.

  Nice room, but I didn’t intend to stay to check it out. Instead, Pluckie and I headed back downstairs almost immediately.

  The sun was bright outside, so I put on my sunglasses. We headed toward Destiny’s main street. The sidewalks were less crowded than before, but we still couldn’t exactly run. I was careful, though, in guiding Pluckie, who pranced beside me. As I’d already noticed, other tourists who were out and about also had leashed canines along, of all breeds and sizes.

  That wasn’t surprising. Dogs were the subject of a number of superstitions, or so I understood from my reading of The Destiny of Superstitions and the other research I’d begun.

  Research that included the superstition that had become my focus. My obsession. One I intended to dispel as fast as possible.

  But it still wasn’t time to think about that. Instead, I started listening. Eavesdropping. Maybe paying attention to the amiable chatter around me would help.

  I noticed that some of the gabbing folks kept looking down at the sidewalk. I wondered if the townsfolk purposely made sure there were plenty of cracks in and between the thick paving blocks. Believers here were trying to avoid stepping on them. Maybe even nonbelievers, like me. Which was especially silly on my part. “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back” would have no effect in my life. My poor mom had passed away several years ago.

  Even so … I didn’t want to stand out in this crowd or call attention to myself so, like the others, I stepped over those ridiculous cracks.

  I watched Pluckie put her nose in the air to inhale whatever smells doggies could absorb, then against the nose of another pup, a French bulldog, that had stopped to say hi.

  I found myself listening, but discussions about which tours on superstitions would be best to take the next day, or which restaurant was the best place for dinner—really, which restaurant name evoked the luck of the best superstition, the Apple-a-Day Café or the Shamrock Steakhouse—weren’t especially useful. Even so, I found them interesting.

  Eventually, Pluckie and I reached the shop that was our destination.

  Our Destiny? Hah!

  But before I could lead Pluckie into the bookstore, she instead pulled me toward its next-door neighbor, the pet boutique. In fact, my dog seemed quite insistent about it.

  I figured the bookstore could wait.

  The Lucky Dog Boutique was especially attractive—a three-story wood frame building, the shop had lots of small paneled windows on each floor. A couple of people exited through the door, walking a large boxer. Or maybe he was walking them. I saw no bags in their hands so they might just have been looky-loos.

  I didn’t get too many of them in that huge pet supply chain store where I was an assistant manager. Usually people came into MegaPets with a purpose: food, toys, accessories, or a combo of them. A boutique was different. It probably showcased clothes and upscale training equipment and more—things expensive and gifty enough that people might have to consider first whether to buy them.

  Which of course most would, for their pets. Their beloved family members. Their fur kids.

  Before opening the shop door, I took a deep breath. I’ve worked in retail since getting my undergraduate degree in business administration. I’ve considered going back for an MBA but haven’t gotten around to it. Instead, I’ve settled myself as an assistant manager in a retail chain store. For now. But I have higher aspirations.

  I’m obsessed with pet stores. Intend to own one myself someday, not just run someone else’s—no matter how wonderful and revered MegaPets stores are, even by me. I really do like the store where I work, and the way the whole chain caters to animals. Mine is a really nice, large MegaPets store in a great area of Los Angeles, near Beverly Hills. Working there always made me curious about competition and what I could learn to improve our store.

  Blinking my eyes at the sudden glare as I tucked my sunglasses back into my shoulder bag, I grabbed the door handle and pulled. Pluckie darted in first, and I followed her.

  And stopped. The place took my breath away. It wasn’t very large, but the displays showed a copious amount of upscale and adorable clothing for dogs and cats. Toys to keep them occupied and amused, some that even talked to them. Rhinestone-studded collars and leashes. And those were only the things nearest the door.

  I stood there for a moment, drinking it all in. Oh, yes, I liked the look of this place. And the scent. Catnip, or something similar that would appeal more to pet owners to get them to purchase things? I might even buy something for Pluckie here, just to show how much I love my pup.

  I looked around. This place could have been anywhere, not just Destiny—even though there was a plethora of evidence of superstitions. In the center of the store was a huge display of black plush toy cats. Then there was the glass counter filled with amulets that could be attached to collars—or human necklaces—that had smiling animal faces and symbols of good luck.

  I didn’t see a clerk, which I thought was brave in such a busy town. People could “borrow” things so easily and get away with it, with no one around to see them.

  I looked up at the walls. They were mostly painted in textured beige, but one held wallpaper in a design overflowing with cute faces of kittens and puppies. Made me want to hug the surface. And I, being in the business, was probably less vulnerable to such things than the average customer.

  I thought about calling out, asking for someone’s help. But when I looked down at Pluckie, who’d insisted on coming in here, she wasn’t lunging on her leash toward food or toys or anything else. Instead, standing beside me, she issued a low growl from deep in her throat.

  She never did that.

  “What’s wrong, girl?” I started to kneel beside her. Her response was to dart toward the back of the store, so fast and unexpectedly that I nearly let go of her leash.

  I rose and kept hold, following her. She reached a door hidden in a corner behind a flowing mesh drape adorned with shapes of dog bones.

  The door was closed. Pluckie began scratching at it with one of her fluffy white paws, whimpering at the same time.

  I knocked once, knowing how much we didn’t like customers barging into our stockrooms at MegaPets. I heard nothing but Pluckie’s shrill cries, so I made an executive decision.

  I turned the knob and opened the door.

  It was, indeed, a stockroom. In its center sat a card table with a couple of chairs around it. No computer, though. It probably wasn’t where the manager kept track of stock or communicated by email with suppliers, but—

  That was when Pluckie darted forward yet again, toward a pile of material lying on the floor.

  No. Not material. A person.

  A woman in jeans and a flowing, gauzy top. An older, gray-haired woman, who wasn’t moving.

  Hadn’t any customers heard her fall? Apparently not—or surely someone would have gotten help for her. But Pluckie had obviously heard, or otherwise sensed, something.

  “Hey,” I cried, hurrying over to the woman. “Are you all right?”

  Dumb question. She clearly wasn’t.

 
; Pluckie stood near her face now, nuzzling it as I bent to check the woman’s neck for a pulse. That was what you were supposed to do, wasn’t it?

  Did I remember enough to do CPR? I thought I did, just from seeing it on TV.

  Fortunately, though, there was a pulse and she was breathing. Not only that, but the woman stirred. Opened her eyes.

  “Are you okay?” I asked again.

  She gasped for breath as she tried to respond.

  “No, you don’t need to talk. I’ll call for help.” I reached into my jeans pocket for my phone.

  “I’ll be fine,” the woman managed to say in a low, gaspy voice. “Don’t you see?” She slowly turned onto her side and reached out her upper arm. She stroked Pluckie with a wizened, pale hand. “I was about to have a business meeting.” I had to bend down a little to hear her. “And here is this wonderful black and white dog. That means good fortune.” She smiled faintly and repeated in a stronger voice, “I’m going to be fine.”

  two

  I hoped she was right, but I knew she needed help to make her statement true. I used my cell phone to call 911.

  I explained the nature of the emergency to the person who answered but was somewhat stymied when she asked for the address. I knew the street name and general location but hadn’t noticed the number. “It’s the Lucky Dog—”

  “—Boutique on the 1300 block of Destiny Boulevard,” the dispatcher finished for me. Clearly, this was a small enough town that just part of the name of a store was enough.

  “That sounds right,” I said in relief, even as the woman on the floor turned even farther toward me and glared.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” she sputtered, each word an individual gasp that belied what she said. She’d lifted her head a little, but her hair still splayed on the floor beneath her. She squinted eyes sunken into her ashy, aged face—in pain, or because she couldn’t see?

  “Maybe not,” I fibbed, “but I’m sure my dog Pluckie will feel a lot better if I act as overprotective of you as I do with her.”