I laughed at that. She wasn’t wrong.
By the time we reached the shop, we’d decided to give the girls a few more days to work it out. Hopefully, Allie just needed a little more time to work up the nerve to tell Mindy, and I’d give her that leeway. But if Mindy didn’t know by Timmy’s party on Saturday, I was going to insist that Allie either tell her or Laura will. Especially since keeping the information from her could be dangerous.
The little bell jangled as we pulled the door open, an anachronistic sound considering the shop was full of cutting-edge technology.
“Don’t tell me our girl lost that necklace again?”
“She didn’t,” I said. “For that matter, she didn’t lose it the first time. She loves it. The demons ripped it off.”
Eddie snorted “That just means she’ll lose it again. When aren’t the demons going to be after her?”
“Eddie.”
“What? Like you didn’t already know that? That’s this life. Always was, always will be.”
I knew that, of course. Before Eric and I retired, demons had been a daily part of my existence. Practically an hourly part.
But I’d always wanted something different for Allie. Hadn’t I?
Is my problem the fact that she’s suddenly neck deep in the family business?
Or am I more concerned about the fact that I don’t understand what her larger role is in this hazy world that we were moving through? A world that most people don’t see, but that my family sees all too clearly?
“You two just coming to say hi?” Eddie asked, pulling me from my thoughts. “I don’t see a bag of bakery goods in your hand, so you’re not bringing me lunch.”
“We’re here to enlist your aid,” Laura said. “We’re on a mission.”
“Are you now?” His eyes twinkled beneath his bushy brows. “So how am I helping?”
“We need something that lets us listen to Allie and Jared,” I said.
Eddie’s face turned nine shades of red as he barked out laughter. “Hoo boy. Our girl is going to be pretty ticked off if she finds out you’re doing that.”
“But she’s not going to find out because you’re not going to tell her, and your equipment is so awesome that we will be far enough away that she won’t notice us. Right?”
He snorted. “That so?”
“You do have something like that, right? I see it in movies all the time. Special amplifying headphones or telescope-like microphones that bad guys aim at windows so they can hear the conversations inside. Or, I don’t know, something?”
I realized that perhaps I’d been watching too many movies, and I was about to be utterly defeated in my plan to listen to what my daughter and her vampiric protector were talking about. But then Eddie gave a low snort and said, “Yeah. I got you covered.”
As Laura and I shared a smile of victory, Eddie dipped below the counter. I heard him rummaging in the cabinetry before popping up a moment later with a shiny cardboard box, the kind where the top lifts off to reveal the contents inside.
I peered in and saw something about twelve inches long, very slim, and silver gray in color. “How does it work?”
He took Laura and I through the instructions, which were actually pretty simple. All we had to do was turn it on, put on some headphones, then aim the receiving end toward the kids. (Althoughkidreally is the wrong word for Jared, and I needed to remember that.).
Once again, Eddie disappeared behind the counter, then came back up with a small packet. “Auxiliary headphones,” he said. “So Laura here can listen in, too.”
“Terrific,” I said. “I’ll take it. How much?”
Eddie waved the question away. “You’re looking out for our girl. Let’s just say this one’s on the house.”
“Should I remind you that you don’t actually own this place? You work here part-time, Eddie. Do you really think your boss is going to be okay with that?”
He snorted. “You let me worry about that.”
Since I was more than happy not to have to explain to Stuart why a charge for spy equipment had appeared our credit card, I didn’t protest any longer. I put the box in one of the plain brown shopping bags the store offered, told Eddie, goodbye, then headed out to go spy on my daughter, my best friend at my side.
