“Where have you looked?”
He paused and looked back over his shoulder. “Pardon?”
“Where have you looked already? So I’ll know where to look.”
He paused for too long. How could he not know where he’d looked? Maybe he hadn’t looked at all. “I’ve looked everywhere,” he finally said. Oh, so maybe he’d been trying to think of a place he hadn’t looked. That made sense.
“So where are you going to look now?”
He shrugged one shoulder as he turned to go up the stairs again. “Guess I’m going to start over.”
She couldn’t think of anything else to ask him, so she let him get a head start. She still followed him, in case she thought of something intelligent to say, but she gave him enough buffer to keep him from realizing she was tailing him. She hoped. As she watched him duck into the concessions booth, the outside door opened just feet to her left, scaring the absolute tar out of her.
In blew frigid air, fat pinging raindrops, and Billy.
“Hey, Sandra,” he said, sounding resigned, as he shook the ice out of his hair.
She couldn’t believe it. “Why are you still out there!?”
He looked around in all directions, and then grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. Her breath caught. He looked into her eyes with the gravest expression in his, and said, “I found something and I’m afraid it’s not good.”
Chapter 17
“What?” Sandra asked. “What did you find?”
Billy looked around furtively. “It looks like someone went into the shed against their will, as if they had been forced to go in there.”
Sandra tried to fake surprise and was pretty sure she failed. “Oh?”
He nodded. “I thought I’d found Peter, but the shed was empty.”
She waited for him to say more. “What do you think that means?”
He let go of her arm and held his hands out with his palms up. “Not sure. But it scares me. Did someone put Peter in there? And if they then took him out, where did they put him? Or maybe he got out and ran for help? But that’s not good either. There’s no house for a mile in any direction, and it’s way too cold for him to be out there for too long.”
She nodded, trying to look scared. “Thank you for staying outside so long. You didn’t have to risk freezing to death. You should’ve come in when Otis did.”
Billy’s brows fell in confusion. “Otis?”
“Yeah, didn’t he go outside to look with you?”
Billy rubbed his chin. “I don’t remember. I guess he might have. But he didn’t go with me. He must have gone off on his own to look.”
That didn’t even make sense.
“I got to say, Sandra, you’re taking this awfully well. My wife would be having a full-blown panic attack by now.” He gave a loud, humorless chuckle.
“I’m really trying to keep it together.”
“Well, you’re doing a good job. I’ll keep looking, but I lost feeling in my feet, so I came inside for a bit. I’ll head back out as soon as I’m sure I’m not going to lose my toes. But I checked every car and every trunk out there, and he wasn’t in them.”
“How did you check the trunks?”
Billy pulled a crowbar out of his oversized coat. “I’ll pay to have them fixed, but if he was in one of them, I didn’t want to waste time asking for keys.” He drew a long breath. “Now that I mention it, maybe my toes aren’t so important. I think I’ll head back out now.”
“Billy, wait.” She had to tell him. She looked around, just like he had minutes before. “Let’s go into the office.” She opened the door slowly, afraid a cat or a clown was going to jump out at her, and then they stepped inside. She shut the door behind him and then looked up at him. “Billy, I owe you a huge apology.” She didn’t know where to start. “I’m so sorry, and so embarrassed. You probably heard about what happened to me in the fall, with the soccer refs? Well, I guess now I think I’m some sort of detective or something, because I’ve been scheming and trying to figure this thing out, but I didn’t stop to think about how me pretending to be a detective would affect other—”
He put a firm hand on her shoulder. “You’re not making any sense. Maybe you’re not handling this as well as I thought.” He pulled out a chair and gently pushed her into it, making her feel even guiltier. “Here, take a load off. Whatever you think you have to apologize for, can it wait till we find Peter?”
“No!” she said sharply. She wheeled her chair to the left and pulled another chair toward him. “Please, sit.”
He looked reluctant, but he sat.
She took a deep breath. She really didn’t want to admit this. “Please don’t hate me, but I already found Peter, and he’s fine.”
Billy leaned away from her so abruptly that his chair wheeled backward.
“I’m so sorry, Billy. When we found him, I totally forgot that you’d even gone outside, and then it never occurred to me that you’d still be out there ... so, anyway, I thought that if I didn’t let the killer know that—”
“You said we found him?” he interrupted. “Who else knows?” She’d never seen Billy look angry. It wasn’t a good look for him.
“Ethel.”
He chuckled. “Well, it’s hard to be mad at Ethel, now, isn’t it? Where was he?”
“You were right. He was in the shed.”
“He’s not hurt? He didn’t get too cold?”
She shook her head. “He’s fine. But I made him and Ethel hide in the prop room.”
Billy scrunched up his face. “It smells awful in there.” He rubbed his chin for several seconds and then looked at her. “I guess it’s hard to be mad at you too. I can see where you were going with it.”
She was incredulous. And beyond grateful. She thought about giving Billy a giant hug, but that would be awkward, and he was all wet. “You can?”
“Sure, sure. Did Peter see who grabbed him?”
“No.”
“Oh, well, but maybe the killer thinks he might have seen something. So if you let the killer think he’s still got the kid stashed, then he still thinks he’s got the upper hand.”
She let out a long breath. “Exactly. I was trying to be all smart and conniving, but I’m not very good at it—”
“Oh no, I think you are pretty good at it.” He slapped his thighs and then stood. “So, if you don’t need me to look for Peter, how else can I help?”
“I don’t know. Who do you think did it? I mean, none of these people seem like killers.” She almost told him that Bob suspected Jan, but caught herself just in time.
He looked contemplative. “My money’s on Matthew. He had the hots for her, and she rejected him. Plus, he’s weird.”
“And he’s high as a kite right now.”
Billy guffawed. “Really? Where is he?”
“Don’t know.”
“Well, maybe that’s what I can do to help. Just stick to him like glue, so if he tries anything goofy, I can be there to stop it.”
“Would you?” she was so appreciative she thought she might cry. She was forming quite a team of crime fighters. As long as none of her team members was the killer.
Chapter 18
Sandra laid her cheek against the green room’s door. “You guys doing okay in there?”
Corina’s response came immediately. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
Sandra waited for more information, but none came. “Gloria? Do you want me to take her?”
“Absolutely not. She can either hold it or go in here.” She sounded exhausted and terrified. “We’re not coming out, and we’re not letting anyone else in.”
“Anyone else? Why, did someone try to get in?”
“Yes,” Gloria whispered. “Matthew. He said it was warm in here, but it’s not that warm anymore.”
“Did he try to force his way in?”
“No. He just begged.”
“Good.” Sandra looked up and down the dark hallway. “You guys are doing well. Did you find the p
hone?”
“No.”
She said it so quickly that Sandra wondered if they’d really looked, but how could she nag them about that? “Are you still looking?”
“No.” Another quick negative.
Sandra tried to think of a way to be tactful and couldn’t so she decided tact was unnecessary right now. “Did you do a thorough job? We really need to find it. Have you looked everywhere?”
“Yes!” Gloria’s voice was closer to the door now. “And I really don’t give a rat’s buttock about that stupid phone.”
Sandra tried not to be annoyed, and failed. “Even if it lets us catch the killer?”
Gloria snorted. “Catch him? What are you going to do with him then? What good does it do to catch him? Won’t that only make him mad?”
While Sandra was trying to figure out a way to respond to that, Bob appeared beside her with wet hair and flushed cheeks. She hadn’t known angels could get flushed cheeks. “I found it!” He opened his palm to reveal a giant iPhone in a bejeweled hot pink case.
Sandra gasped. “Where was it?”
“Where was what?” Gloria asked from the other side of the door.
“Uh ... nothing. Sorry.”
“Come on, let’s go to the prop room,” Bob said.
She couldn’t get there fast enough. Bob opened the door as if it had never been locked, and then Sandra stared around the room in wonder. It had been a mess before. Now it looked like a cyclone’s ground zero. “Uh ... what happened here?”
“Sorry,” Peter whispered, not looking the least bit sorry, his left hand full of ropes of varying sizes. “I’ve been looking for the phone.”
“In the rope box?” Bob asked.
Peter shrugged. “Seemed as good a place as any.” Despite her near-rabid curiosity about where Bob had found the phone, Sandra did pause to appreciate her son’s ingenuity.
Bob held up the phone. “You don’t need to look anymore.”
Ethel rushed over to peer at the phone. Peter folded the top of the rope box shut and sat down on it.
“Where was it?” Sandra asked impatiently. She was considering throttling an angel.
“Outside.” Bob looked around for a seat and then rearranged some totes to fashion himself a perch.
“Tell us!” Sandra almost-hollered.
He grinned mischievously. “Okay. So, I watched Jan find it. And it was weird. She found it in the sound booth, and she seemed surprised to find it. It was clear she hadn’t hidden it there. It was also clear she was greatly relieved to find it. She immediately tucked it into the waistband of her pants and then sneaked outside.
Sandra tried, but she couldn’t picture Jan sneaking anywhere.
“I followed her outside. She shuffled all the way across the lawn, only falling once, and then she—”
“She fell?” Ethel asked, her voice sweet with concern.
“Yes. For a minute, I thought I’d have to rescue her, but she managed to get herself upright and then she continued toward the drop-off on the side of the lawn.”
Sandra again tried to visualize what Bob was describing, but she didn’t know about any drop off. The lawn was huge, and she could believe, in this mountainous terrain, that there was indeed a drop-off at the edge of it.
“And then she wound back and threw the phone into the woods.”
“Over the edge?” Peter asked.
“Over the edge.”
They all took a few seconds to absorb that.
“Why would she do that?” Sandra asked.
“It’s a good thing you were the one to go get it,” Peter mused. “It would’ve taken me forever. I’m not even sure I’d be able to climb back up here.”
“Yes, I admit that I didn’t do much climbing.”
“Why would she throw the phone away?” Sandra asked again. She didn’t give a hoot about how difficult it would be for a human to climb back up the mountain. That was why she’d invited an angel to assist her investigation.
“I have no idea,” Bob said.
Sandra held her hand out. “Can I look at it?”
Bob handed it over. The phone was still on, though the battery was low. Sandra wasn’t surprised by this. It seemed reasonable that Treasure would put a hurting on her phone battery, especially out here in the willywacks where there was no signal. She scrolled through recent messages, hoping to find something interesting, but found nothing of note. She did notice that Treasure didn’t have a lot of female contacts. She opened the photo gallery and gasped.
“What?” Peter asked.
Sandra’s cheeks got hot, and she hoped people wouldn’t notice in the dim light. She looked up at Bob. “There’s a photo ...” Words failed her.
“Of?”
She handed the phone back to him, and he looked down at the screen. “Oh dear.”
“Exactly.”
He swiped the screen with his thumb. “Oh dear,” he said again. He swiped again. “Oh my.”
“The third one got an ‘oh my’ instead of an ‘oh dear,’” Ethel said. “That one must be a doozy.”
Sandra snickered. “I only saw the first one, and I wish I could burn it out of my brain. I’m afraid it may be lodged there till the day I die.”
“What is it?” Peter asked. “Is she naked?”
Bob nodded. “And she’s not alone.” He turned the screen off and looked up at everyone. “But the man in the pictures isn’t anyone here, so I don’t think the pictures are related.”
“But there must be something incriminating on the phone, or Jan wouldn’t have thrown it off a cliff,” Sandra said.
Bob nodded. “I’ll keep looking at it. And in the meantime, we need to keep a close eye on Jan. She’s obviously involved.”
“It wasn’t Jan who dragged me to the shed.”
“Are you sure?” Sandra asked. “Jan is a strong woman.” She’d seen her move giant sets like they were made of paper.
Doubt flickered across his face. “I don’t think so. Maybe she smells like a man. I’ve never sniffed her. But I doubt she has hairy arms.”
“That’s it!” Bob bounced to his feet.
“What’s it?” Sandra asked, after giving him time to elaborate.
“As strange as it sounds, I think we need to go around and let Peter sniff people.”
Chapter 19
“Good news!” Sandra announced to Frank, who was in the office, looking at a pile of paperwork. How he could read anything in the meager candlelight was beyond her. Maybe he wasn’t reading. Maybe he was just trying to stay busy. Or maybe he was just trying to look busy.
Frank glanced up, looked at Peter, and, without looking the least bit relieved to see him alive and well, asked, “Where was he?”
Though Bob had instructed her to tell people that Peter had just wandered off after all, Sandra blurted out the truth. “Someone stuffed him in the shed outside.” She stepped into the small office and went to stand behind the seated Frank. “Step into his light,” she said to Peter, “so I can get a look at you.” This ruse didn’t even make sense, as Sandra held a candle of her own.
Still, Peter stepped uncomfortably close to Frank and was hardly subtle as he took a big sniff.
His personal space invaded, Frank tried to push away from Peter, but his chair didn’t move an inch before hitting Sandra. “What is this about?”
Peter stuck out his hand. “Thank you for looking for me.”
Without telling the kid that he hadn’t worked very hard to find him, Frank took Peter’s offered hand and shook it.
As they shook, Peter roughly wrapped his hand around Frank’s right wrist and tried to shove his sleeve up. Sandra knew this wouldn’t work, and it didn’t. The sport coat sleeve slid up a few inches, but the dress shirt beneath it was buttoned up tight as a drum. Frank yanked his hand out of Peter’s grip, and flew out of his chair. He quickly distanced himself from the intruders and pressed his body against the wall, completely out of the light from his candle. “I ask again, what is this about?”
“We just wanted to tell you that we found him, and that he’s all right. Let’s go, Peter.”
Her son completely ignored her. “Mr. Flamatti, may I please see your arm?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Peter picked Frank’s candle up off the desk and stepped closer to the director. “I’m sorry, but I’m trying to figure out if you’re the one who shoved me in that shed, and I need to see your arm.”
When in doubt, just tell the truth. An odd tactical maneuver, but worth a shot.
Frank stood still for several seconds and then wordlessly, with great poise, took off his sport coat, unbuttoned his sleeve, and then neatly rolled it up. He held it out toward Peter, who patted his arm as one would pat a cat he didn’t know well. Then Peter looked at his mom. “It’s not him.”
“Of course not,” Frank said evenly as he started to put himself back together.
“Thank you,” Sandra said. “We’ll get out of your hair now.” Not realizing she’d sort of made a pun until it was out of her mouth, she hurried out of the room before she could laugh, shooing Peter out in front of her.
“I’m going, I’m going,” he said, annoyed with her.
She shut the door behind them and stopped moving so she could decide where to go next.
“Let’s find Billy,” he said.
“It wasn’t Billy.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
Bob appeared beside her.
“Where have you been? I thought you were going to go with us. Peter walking around smelling people was your plan!”
“I know, but I wanted to go see where the police are.”
Oh! What a good idea! Why hadn’t she thought of that? “And where are they?”
“They’re still miles away. They’re following a sand truck. There are no other cars on the road.”
Everyone else knew enough to stay home.
“Where is Ethel?” Bob asked.
“She’s still in the props room. She says she’s too exhausted to go on a scent tour—”
“I’ll go check on her.” Bob disappeared, but was back in a single second.
The Showstopper Page 7