The silence was glorious.
5
The early afternoon was absolutely ordinary, at least for a festival day. Lots of customers, lots of sales. I put in a quick order for moreDead End Pawnt-shirts, shaking my head as usual at how popular they were.
Tourists. They'd buy anything. Especially now that we had put a picture of Fluffy, our taxidermied-alligator shop mascot, on them.
Jack was very helpful, but I could tell he was itching to get out of the shop and on with the investigation.
"Listen," I finally said at around three o'clock, hands on hips. "As much as I appreciate your help, I can handle this. Go find out something that can help Lorraine, okay?"
He flicked the end of my long ponytail and grinned. "Okay, beautiful. I love it when you boss me around."
Before I could think of an answer tothat, he leaned down, kissed me, and walked out of the shop, leaving me blushing and a pair of women in yoga pants giving me envious looks.
"Honey, if he was mine, I wouldn't be telling him to leave," one of them advised me.
The other one, still staring after Jack, just whistled. "I think I'm getting hot flashes. And I'm ten years past menopause. That man issizzling."
I sighed.
Yeah. He totally was.
By the time six o'clock rolled around, I was happy to close up shop and ready for a shower and some dinner. I locked up, spent about ten minutes straightening up while promising myself I'd come in early Monday to clean, and got ready to head out. My phone showed I'd missed some texts in the rush.
Molly:
Hey, Evie is ecstatic to be rid of that box. Is it still giving you a hard time?
Oddly enough, I'd forgotten about it in the afternoon rush. I'd put it in the back, in the vault, so if the box had been playing music, I hadn't heard it.
Jack:
I've got a lead from Beau. Pick you up at the shop?
I saw the text had come in an hour ago, so I quickly responded.
No, I need to go home and hop in the shower and grab some dinner. You can join me there.
The little dots that told me he was texting back showed up, so I waited.
And waited.
And… waited.
Finally, his text came through:
Are you inviting me to join you in the shower? Or for dinner? Or both?
I was so not ready for text flirting of this magnitude.
Also, the thought of naked Jack in the shower with me gave me one of those hot flashes my customers had been talking about.
When I could breathe again, I texted back:
No! Yes, dinner. No to anything else. Slow down, my friend. We have a murder to solve.
He sent back a laughing face and a tiger emoji, and I rolled my eyes.
