Not that I was complaining today.I inched along in the Pilot.I waited at stop signs.I braked so that an entire family—Mom, Dad, and, no joke, seven little blond angels—could cross in the middle of the street.The mom waved enthusiastically at me.I waved enthusiastically back.Take as long as you need.
Because I liked my life in Hastings Rock.I liked getting to live in a big old mansion that I had inherited under extremely dubious circumstances.I liked getting to putter around, working on my writing, crafting the kind of mysteries that all too often, I found myself dealing with in real life.I liked spending time with Bobby—that’s Deputy Bobby, of the Ridge County Sheriff’s Office.And I liked, well, being alive.
And I had the feeling that approaching Mr.Cheek alone, without Bobby’s, um, protection, might be the last (and stupidest) thing I ever did.
But eventually—even though I waited for a crew of retirees to load up in a massive Sprinter van and slowly back out of a parking stall; and even though I stopped while a fat squirrel scurried around in the road, picking up the honey-roasted pecans a tourist kid had dropped; and even though I made a quick stop to get a Baja fish taco from Let’s Taco Bout Tacos (it’s a food truck, and they’re the best tacos in the galaxy)—I ran out of road, so to speak, and found myself parking in front of Fog Belt Ladies Wear.
It was a storefront in a single-story building with shake siding and big display windows.Today, one of the display windows featured a mannequin wearing a maroon jumpsuit with neon trim.It made her (I was assuming the mannequin was a her—you can tell because of how they do the hands) look like one of those women fromSex and the City, but with Kim Jong-Il flair.I want to say her name was Minerva?She drank a lot of appletinis?Mr.Cheek’s idea of fashion might have been…eccentric, but tourists loved it—there seemed to be nothing more liberating for Mom and Grandma from Boise than finding a coral-colored caftan or hemp harem pants or a skort (Mr.Cheek kept those in the back).
A box sat next to the front door.
It couldn’t be that easy, right?It couldn’t just be out there, waiting for me.Right?
On the other hand, Ihadbeen a very good boy lately.I hadn’t even eaten Keme’s ice cream sandwich when he forgot about it because he was so busy playing Xbox.
I parked.I slid out of the SUV.I looked both ways, not yet ready to step up onto the sidewalk.
In cartoons, sometimes there’s a box being held up by a stick, and as soon as the unlucky rabbit—or other animal—steps underneath it, someone yanks the stick away, and the box falls down and traps them.
Not that cartoons are real.I know that.
But, you know.
Sometimes.
A middle-aged couple paused to look at one of the touristy maps the town gives out.From the other direction, a woman was walking briskly toward me.She stopped on the sidewalk in front of Fog Belt Ladies Wear and then turned to go inside.She stopped again at the box.She bent and opened the flaps.
A fluffy tuft of wig poked out.
The woman looked around.Her gaze settled on me.Our eyes met.
She tensed.
At some level, I already knew what she was doing, but I started to explain, “Sorry, that box is—”
She grabbed it and ran back the way she’d come.
For a moment, I stared as the woman—and the box of wigs— got away.
Mr.Cheek threw open the door.Today’s outfit seemed to have come from thePink Panthercollection: black sneakers, black trousers, a black turtleneck (yes, in July), and an abundance of mascara and eye shadow.Also, I know I can’t prove this, but I think he was wearing those Halloween vampire teeth.(Because, I assume, he was planning on biting me.)
“Oh God,” he screamed, “my wigs!”
And since my options were: a) stay and possibly be bitten by Mr.Cheek, or b) literally anything else, I sprinted after the woman and the stolen wigs.
2
Let me tell you something about sprinting: it gets oldreallyquickly.
Plus, wigs or no wigs, that lady was fast.
I lost her after a couple of blocks, and I blame the fortysomething dad who was trying to load his family of five onto a rented golf cart.I’m sure they were lovely people, but they’d blocked off the sidewalk with their shopping bags and their luggage, and by the time I got around them, the thief had disappeared into the throng of tourists.
Panting for breath, I came to a stop at the next intersection.I looked one way.I looked the other.
Lots of people.
No wigs.
