Cupid’s Revenge

by

Melanie Jackson

Version 1.1 – December, 2010

Copyright © 2011 by Melanie Jackson

Discover other titles by Melanie Jackson at www.melaniejackson.com

This book is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events or locals or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Chapter 1

I knew that Alex was planning something when he arrived home with flowers— very expensive in February— and Chinese take-out with extra pot-stickers. The fact that he wanted to talk to me with Blue present rather than in a restaurant made me think it was either something very good or very bad. Or both.

The odds were against bad, I thought as he set the white paper bags on the counter. After all, he had spent a fair amount of money buying and renovating the other half of the duplex where I lived, turning the left half into an office and spare bedroom which we had yet to use.

The spare bedroom…

“Oh no!” I blurted. “Your parents are coming.”

“Yes, for Valentine’s Day weekend,” Alex said, his face falling. “But I hope you’ll get engaged to me anyway,” he said, taking a green velvet box out of his coat pocket.

* * *

Mrs. Graves had asked me to lunch the next morning. This was not shocking, but she had never done it before so I was curious and even a little bit apprehensive.

Usually I would suggest a picnic since I have a short lunch hour, but it was February in Hope Falls, and with all due respect to Shakespeare, this is the cruelest month— not April. Instead of dining alfresco in the park, we were having sandwiches from Big Daddy’s in a formal dining room. The chair I sat in was large enough that my feet barely touched the floor.

Mrs. Graves kindly waited until we had our food unwrapped before she explained the reason for our lunch.

“Chloe, as you know I have been named the Queen of Hearts this year and they have saddled me with Tara Lee, Shirley Winkler and Missy Everett as princesses.”

I swallowed some tea and started inventing excuses for why I couldn’t get involved. Was it fair to use my future in-laws visit as an excuse? Surely Mrs. Graves understood why I wouldn’t wear a ball gown and a tiara.

“As you also know, the Queen is really just free labor for the annual Sweethearts Ball committee.”

I nodded because I did know this, all too well.

Every year the Sweethearts Ball committee denudes the town of pink and red crepe paper and tissue (and even toilet paper and Kleenex in a pinch) and uses all these dyed dead tree parts to refurbish the Queen gazebo, where the Queen of Hearts and her court sit during the opening of the Valentine’s Day dance which raises money for that year’s chosen charity. The structure is basically a ten by ten square of chicken wire with a pyramid roof and large heart-shaped cutouts on the side. In daylight it looks unspeakably tacky, especially if it has gotten rained on during transport and one can see where the dye from the crepe paper has splotched and run. But at night, inside the old opera house with spotlights glaring into the audience’s eyes, it looks fairly impressive. And it is a town artifact dating from the 1950s so upkeep and respect are expected even if it is now considered—by some— as a silly tradition.

I know a lot about this because Mom and Aunt Dot have been on the decorating committee for decades and I, and my small hands, have been pressed into service decorating the tight interior corners and delicate roof ever since I turned five years of age and foolishly demonstrated that I could make paper carnations.

As a child and teen, it had seemed the height of unfairness that I had been unable to attend the adults-only ball until at eighteen when I had actually wrangled an invitation to the event.

It was dull, dull, dull. Most of the attendees were widows who liked to dress up in ball gowns and listen, but not dance to, Viennese waltzes played by the same string quartet they engaged every year. What few men did attend the dance made a beeline for the cash bar and stayed there, refusing to waltz with the man-hungry widows who often looked a lot like either Liberace or Carmen Miranda depending on their preference for rhinestones or silk fruits and flowers.

Still, there was a certain cachet to being named the Queen of Hearts. Like the Grand Marshall of the Christmas parade, the Queen was selected by a committee of citizens made up of elected officials and she earned her post by being tirelessly devoted to the welfare of the town. Or that was the theory. In reality, the post often went to whichever squeaky wheel was annoying the school board or town council. I think it is a backhanded compliment to be appointed, but if you are the kind of person who likes tiaras and sequin dresses, this was the office to have.

The trouble was that Mrs. Graves is about as un-sparkly a person as I can imagine. Her ‘princess’, Tara Lee, was a much more likely candidate. She was very involved in civic matters and often wore sequins and large jewels to everyday functions. Even Mrs. Everett, who owned the lingerie store, was better-suited than practical Mrs. Graves.

It was no mystery how this miscasting had happened though. Mrs. Graves, as an actual paid writer who was willing to work for the town’s charitable organizations for free, was drafted by Mrs. Winkler to write a fund-raising speech for the local charity, Books on Wheels. Mrs. Winkler had had every intention of delivering this speech herself, since she enjoys hectoring the town council, but she contracted laryngitis on Groundhog Day (at another hectoring that took place outdoors) and Mrs. Graves had ended up having to give the speech herself.

All speeches to the town council are televised on the local cable channel, which nobody watches. But due to some screw-up at the cable company, that night channel 8 was the only station broadcasting at 9 p.m.. Voila! Mrs. Graves became the new face of Books on Wheels.

She might have escaped queendom and the job of working on the toilet paper gazebo had there not also been a confluence of events, a perfect storm of synchronicity riding hard against her. That same meeting the town council had announced budget cuts from the state and the closing of several satellite libraries. Suddenly this revamped school bus, full of shoddy donations the main library didn’t want, became the only place for pre-mobile kids and post-mobile seniors outside of town to check-out books.

“Dear Larry Jackman has promised to be my escort,” Mrs. Graves said. “It’s a hell of a thing to do to a friend, but I couldn’t face it alone. Even at my wedding I didn’t wear a tiara. War brides didn’t in those days.”

I nodded sympathetically, waiting for the other shoe to fall.

“The thing is, I am very afraid that we may not have the gazebo ready in time for the ball.”

Uh-oh.

“At first I thought we were being plagued by bad luck but, Chloe, I think someone is actually trying to sabotage the dance.”

I blinked.

“How so?”

“They keep the gazebo in an old storage locker out by the highway.” I nodded. I’d been there. Often. “The first day we went to work on the gazebo, we found the door open. The hasp had fallen off and we assumed the wind had done the rest. Since there was a lot of rain the night before, three sides of the gazebo got wet and the paper was ruined. The floor was one great pink puddle.”

“Oh no!” My dismay was sincere. The gazebo usually only needs about a quarter of its paper carnations replaced and that can take a solid week of donated evenings for the unlucky volunteers.

“We drove to every craft and dime store in a fifty mile radius and were able to get enough crepe paper to fix it up. All four of us, working eight hours a day were able to get it back into shape.” Mrs. Graves paused. “Eat your sandwich, dear, or it will get cold.

I complied. I was actually hungry and I love corned beef, but only when it’s hot.

“Then, that very night, someone left the space-heater on inside the locker and it managed to catch the gazebo on fire. I know that heater was off when I left, but whoever came back to work—or something more sinister—isn’t admitting anything.”

I stopped chewing.

“Fortunately, Emmett Spalding saw the smoke and came out with a fire extinguisher and it saved the structure. But the gazebo was completely ruined. We tried to get more paper but everyone wants pink and red for Valentine’s Day so there wasn’t enough unless we mugged every nursery school and kindergarten in the county. Larry was able to get us more online, but this is our last shot. If something else happens, there won’t be time to get more paper or to fix the damned gazebo. Which wouldn’t be so bad except, well, I don’t want it to get ruined on my watch.”

I nodded emphatically and swallowed my corned beef and sauerkraut. Mrs. Graves’ cat, Cleo, sauntered into the kitchen. Having assessed the potential for a bit of corned beef and deemed it likely that I would give her some, she slipped over to my chair and rubbed my dangling foot. I kept thinking while using sleight of hand to pass over part of my sandwich.

“Chloe!” I jumped guiltily. My mom never lets me feed animals from the table. “Is that an engagement ring?”

I exhaled in relief.

“Yes, Alex proposed last night.” I held out my hand so she could admire the ring. It was simple, a band with a channel for eight small diamonds. “His parents are coming to celebrate. Over Valentine’s Day,” I added gloomily. No matter how I packaged the announcement, it didn’t sound good.

“But not his sister or nephew?”

“No, thank God. Gwen and Zack can’t come.” Mrs. Graves and I shared a look. She is one of the few people who had heard about my disastrous dinner with Alex’s sister.

“Well good! You can send them down to the storage locker and they can help with the gazebo.”

I felt a smile tug at my lips.

“Maybe I will. It’s what I would do if they were really family…. Too bad that Dad won the election. He could have kept them really busy working on his campaign, handing out flyers at the landfill, attending Elks meetings.”

“I don’t know where you get this mean streak,” Mrs. Graves said, but her eyes were twinkling. Then she sobered again. “And, Chloe, you’ll come too? Just to look around? It would be kind of a relief to know I’m imagining things.”

“Yes. I’ll come after work. Do you mind if I bring Blue and Alex— if they want to come,” I added contentiously.

“Of course not. Many hands make for light work.”

“Hmph.” The light work thing had never proved true for me, but I might have to help for a while. At least until I got a feel for the group dynamic and some clue about who would want to sabotage the Sweethearts Ball. I didn’t say it aloud, but the most likely culprit was someone close to the event. “Maybe Mom and Aunt Dot can help too. If you are real short of hands. They have tons of experience.”

And speaking of my mother, I really needed to tell her and Dad about being engaged. It was just that I knew the announcement would send Mom into wedding-planner mode and I wasn’t ready to face that battle of conflicting tastes just yet. Mom would want ten bridesmaids all in pink ruffles and I just wanted Blue. And Alex, of course.

Chapter 2

I phoned Alex and explained about Mrs. Graves’ problem. Being a fine specimen of modern manhood he offered to pick up pizza and meet me at the storage locker so I could snoop on a full stomach. I suggested he bring Blue since you never knew when a tracking dog might be useful. Being a fine specimen of tactful manhood, he pretended not to know that I wanted Blue there because I missed my dog.

Cold weather brings out a different kind of parking violator, one I am less likely to ticket. We have a fair number of elderly persons who shop downtown and they tend to park as close as they can to the places they need, since the streets are icy and it is difficult to carry packages up or down steep hills. Jeffrey and I tend to turn a blind eye to their parking infractions as long as they stay out of fire zones and don’t run more than an hour over the two hour parking limit. The chief knows we do this but leaves it to our discretion since he isn’t a fool and enjoys being well-thought of by the senior citizens of Hope Falls who have exemplary voting records.

At the storage facility I found not only Mrs. Graves, but Mr. Jackman, Tara Lee, my mother and Mrs. Winkler. Everyone had red noses to match the pink and red crepe paper they were making into carnations and stuffing into the blackened chicken wire frame. The space heater had not been replaced.

“Chloe!” Mom exclaimed before I had even said hello. “Is that a diamond ring?”

“Hi, Mom. Yes, Alex and I…”

“Wanted to tell you the good news together,” Alex said, as he entered the locker, carrying two pizza boxes and a tray of coffees. Blue rushed over to greet me and I happily abandoned explanations for my mom in favor of hugging my dog.

“Oh, this wonderful!” Mom exclaimed giving Alex a hug that nearly upset our dinner. The others managed to congratulate us in reasonably happy tones considering their teeth were chattering. To be fair, Mrs. Winkler didn’t know us well, so we couldn’t expect ecstasy from her.

“Let’s eat,” Alex said, and chilled people dove on the pizza.

While we munched and slurped I looked around the locker. It was one of the largest of the storage units, a place where someone could store an RV or boat. There were outlets on two of the three walls and some soot marks on the plywood of the ceiling and the bank of florescent lights. The culprit space heater was gone, but there was still an extension cord plugged into the outlet on the south wall. It was an industrial kind and someone had written on it ‘Property of Hope Falls High School’.

“Who brought the extension cord?” I asked and then realized I sounded abrupt. The others were assuming that I was there to volunteer as usual and not investigating anything.

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Graves answered, brows contracting. Everyone else looked blank. Maybe their faces had frozen. “I’m not even sure who brought the space heater.”

I smiled and took another bite of pizza. For the time being I would let assumption stand that I was there as a volunteer and nothing more.

“Well, this was lovely,” Tara Lee lied. Pizza— pig swill— it was all the same to Tara Lee. “Thank you for bringing dinner, Alex. But I really need to be getting on home. I’ll let you young people take the night shift.”

“Me too. I need to get home,” Mrs. Winkler said in her gruff tone. I thought there was genuine relief in her low voice and wondered if it was all due to getting off her feet and out of the cold, or if maybe she had had enough of playing supporting princess when she should have been queen.

Part of me hoped that Mom would leave then, but of course she wanted to talk wedding. Since I was in no way prepared to have this discussion— especially with Alex’s parents coming into town— I decided to distract her by putting other cards on the table.

“Since we’re alone now, I have something to talk to you about.” I turned to Mrs. Graves. “You don’t mind?”

“No. Go ahead.”

“I think you have a saboteur who is trying to ruin the Sweethearts Ball.”

Only Mom looked shocked, so I knew Mrs. Graves had confided in Mr. Jackman.

“But why?”

“How much money will this event bring in?” I asked. “And what happens to Books on Wheels if they don’t get this funding?”

Everyone paused to hear Mrs. Graves answer. Mom had been a volunteer for decades, but Mrs. Graves was a retired accountant and always knew about money things.

“After expenses, probably about seven thousand— and that will pay the bus’s expenses for half a year. If we failed… I suspect someone would rush in and save the day.”

“Only half a year?” Mom asked, looking in dismay at the gazebo they were redoing for the third time. Mom wasn’t great at math, but it must have occurred to her labor was not being all that appreciated.

“Yes, after they pay the driver and for insurance— you know how iniquitous rates are for bus drivers,” Mrs. Graves said. “And fewer people are donating liquor and so on for the ball so expenses are higher this year.”

We all nodded solemnly though I didn’t know if insurance rates for bus drivers were especially bad or if donations were down.

“Who has keys to this unit?” I asked after we had considered the shortcomings of the insurance industry for a moment longer.

My Mom looked serious.

“I do. And Dotty has keys too. So does Tara Lee and Mrs. Winkler.”

“And I have a key. So does the manager,” Mrs. Graves added. “They give them to all the volunteers. At least, all the ones who work here regularly.”

“And this isn’t a new policy?” Mom shook her head. “So basically anyone who has worked on the gazebo in the last 60 years could have a key to this unit?”

“No,” Mr. Jackman corrected. “This storage facility was built in the ‘70s. Not that it narrows the field by much.”

“The key wasn’t used the night of the rain storm though, right? So it might be someone who only recently got a key” I asked. “Did the hasp that fell off look really rusted? Or was it pried off?”

Alex went to the door and stepped outside. He carried a tiny pocket light which he used to examine the wood.

“I can’t be certain since the wood is so weathered and slivered, but it looks to me like force was used.”

“So either the person didn’t have a key at that point, or wanted the damage to look like either an accident or plain old robbery.” I took a sip of coffee. It was almost cold and very bitter. “Then came the fire. Does anyone know how the manager came to spot it right away? I don’t see any smoke detectors in here.”

Mr. Jackman cleared his throat.

“I talked to Emmett— Emmett Spalding, the night manager. He says he got a phone call warning him that there was smoke coming out of the unit. The Good Samaritan didn’t leave a name.”

“Man or woman?” I asked.

“He couldn’t tell. The voice whispered.”

“So, we have someone who is willing to wreck the gazebo, but not to burn down a building. That’s good, I guess.”

“Good!” My mother sounded outraged. “This is an assault upon tradition. The destruction of our gazebo would mean more than the burning of this old building.”

“Probably not to the people who are storing things in the unit next door,” I said dryly. Then, to put the argument in terms my mother would understand, I added: “What if all our family photo albums were in there?”

“Oh.” Mom fell silent, doing the heavy math that would quantify the loss of a town landmark against the destruction of treasured personal mementos.

“It also means that we aren’t— at least yet— looking at anyone who will commit an act of violence.”

“Who was the front-runner for the award before the library thing happened?” I asked Mom. “Who might be bent out of shape?”

“Debbie Mullins and her community garden. She donates the extra produce her fifth grade class grows to the food bank. But the garden got its funding and the library didn’t so….”

“I don’t know Debbie well. Her son was a year ahead of me in school and seemed like kind of jerk. Is she a jerk too?”

Alex snorted and then laughed. Mom looked pained.

“Yes, she’s a jerk,” Mrs. Graves answered. The word didn’t sound natural on her tongue but she was at least willing to say it. My mom would have a seizure before using the word.

“Too bad she doesn’t teach at the high school. We would have the perfect suspect,” I said, looking at the extension cord again. “Don’t!” I added when Mr. Jackman turned and reached for it. “I know that the culprit probably wore gloves since it has been so cold. And it is also likely that the cord has been handled at least by Emmett Spalding and half the high school, but I am going to take it in and dust it for prints anyway.”

That would mean telling the chief what was going on, but I didn’t think he would mind. This was a small crime, but it could have been a bad one if the fire had spread.

“Well, that’s very— very— efficient of you,” Mom said brightly. “But I really think that we should get back to work on the gazebo. We have only a few days left to get this done.”

I opened my mouth to explain that I wasn’t there to make paper carnations, but Alex beat me to the punch.

“Sure. Let me wipe my hands off,” he said, looking enthused. “I’ve never done this before.”

There was no point in protesting. This was part of the small town charm that was all new and appealing to Alex. He’d learn quickly enough when his finger got raw from scraping against the wire as he poked in the carnations.

“Let me get an evidence bag out of the car and then I’ll get started,” I said. Really it was just a clear zip-lock I kept a car blanket in, but it would do.

Chapter 3

I brought the extension cord into work early the next morning and stopped in to see the chief before the morning briefing. I explained what I wanted and why, and he kindly didn’t argue. Like me, he was concerned that someone had been willing to risk a fire to stop completion of the gazebo. It is a tribute to our relationship that he didn’t question my hunch that this was more than random bad luck.

“What’s wrong with your hands?” the chief asked when I took off my gloves and pulled the makeshift evidence bag out of my pack. They were nicked and scratched but also an unhealthy shade of red from the crepe paper dye that wouldn’t wash off.

“The gazebo is what’s wrong. I’m kind of sorry the fire didn’t melt the thing.”

“Oh.”

“Have you got your ticket to the ball yet?” I asked.

“Well, I ah—” the chief stalled.

“No problem. I have some here.” Mom had thrust them upon me with instructions to sell them to my co-workers. “It’s to benefit Books on Wheels. It’ll look wrong if you aren’t there,” I added. “Dad has to come too. It’s your civic duty.”

The chief sighed and reached for his wallet.

“How much?”

“Twenty bucks. Be sure to drink heavily at the bar. You’ll need to if they’ve booked the same band. And that’s where they make their real money anyway.”

The chief handed me a twenty and I handed him a ticket. He shuddered at the bright pink hearts and white doves.

“I haven’t seen Blue for a while. She’s with Alex today?”

The chief hadn’t been thrilled with Blue being with me on the job when he first arrived in Hope Falls but he had grown fond of her, as every right thinking person does eventually.

“Yeah. I miss her a lot, but the cold is harder on her now that she’s older and she likes Alex almost as much as me,” I said, being brave and unselfish.

The chief nodded.

“Chloe, you know that even if the cord has prints on it that it won’t prove anything by itself?”

“I know. But it could be supportive evidence if this ever comes to making an arrest.” I sighed and got to my feet.

“Anything else wrong?” the chief asked. It was kind of him to take an interest.

“Alex’s parents are arriving this afternoon. They are staying for Valentine’s Day.”

“That’s not good?”

“We haven’t told them that we’re engaged.”

“You haven’t told me either,” the chief pointed out.

“I’m trying not to tell anyone because they’ll blab. But Mom found out anyway. Now Dad and Aunt Dorothy and Althea and Dale and Mary Elizabeth probably all know.”

“Mothers! They find out everything.” The chief grinned at me and I found myself smiling back. Maybe I was sounding a little petulant.

“Yeah, what’re you gonna do?”

“Turn off your cell phone?” he suggested, knowing my mother the way he did.

“Already done. I will check messages though in case you find Jack the Ripper’s prints on that cord.”

“Hope ever, hope on.”

It was another slow day and parking revenues would be down at least until the weekend when tourists and even locals would come into town for bright lights and big romance, or at least a fancy meal. Since I had some spare time, I swung by the community garden site. It was still too cold for anyone to be working there, but I figured that I could talk to the neighbors and get a feel for how much support the garden had at the neighborhood level. Someone might be angry enough and dumb enough to try and get back funding by ruining the Sweethearts Ball.

As I had hoped, a couple of the seniors were out having a chat at the mailbox. One of them was Rosie Templeton, a terrible gossip and good friend of Mrs. Everett. The other was Elvis Baum. I didn’t know him real well and didn’t want to. Dill pickles are less sour.

“Hello, Chloe,” Mrs. Templeton said. “Blue not with you today?”

“No. She’s home with Alex.” I smiled at both of them.

“I hear you’re engaged.”

Mom was wasting no time.

“Yes, it was all very sudden.”

“And Alex’s parents are coming up to celebrate?”

Celebrate our engagement? Not hardly.

“They’ll be in this afternoon. They don’t know the happy news yet. We thought we would surprise them tonight.” And hopefully not shock them into coronary arrest. “So, I came by to look at the garden. You know, I’ve never taken a plot here but maybe I should since pumpkins take up my whole yard.”

“You should,” Mrs. Templeton said, with a sweet smile that didn’t match her next words. “We would far rather have you here than those brats of Debbie Mullins’s.”

I blinked, not expecting this attack.

“The kids are noisy?” I asked.

“The damn brats are painting graffiti all over the place,” Mr. Baum added, finally taking part in the conversation.

“Graffiti? Have you called the station?” I asked.

“Yes,” Mrs. Templeton answered, scowling now. “They said it was just chalk and we should wash down the sidewalks.”

“Oh.” I was at a bit of loss. The suggestion seemed sensible to me.

“It’s a good thing they didn’t get that Sweetheart money,” Mr. Baum said. “They wanted to lease the lot next to mine and expand the garden. I’d have the damn brats all over my yard too, writing stuff on my sidewalk.”

“I had no idea that the children were causing so much trouble.” I still didn’t have that idea. For heavensakes! Chalk on sidewalks was harmless.

“She may still get her money,” Mrs. Templeton warned. “Debbie Mullins is one stubborn woman and she was not happy about the money being voted to the Books on Wheels program.”

“That’s too bad,” I said. “Books on Wheels sounds like a great project.”

“And it keeps the other kids out of town!” Mr. Baum added and then shuffled away, muttering to himself.

“He should go to a retirement home. The man’s so old he might have come off Noah’s Ark,” said Mrs. Templeton who was at least his age and perhaps even older.

“I imagine that it would be hard to give up the home you’ve always lived in,” I said gently.

Mrs. Templeton snorted but didn’t disagree. I said goodbye and got back on my route.

So, Debbie Mullins was angry about not getting the grant. She didn’t seem the type to be vindictive, but I didn’t know her that well. And her son was still a jerk.

*  *  *

“Did your parents arrive?” I asked Alex, slipping off my coat and going down on one knee to hug Blue, who is my soul made visible and who I had missed so badly I felt like crying. As we exchanged greetings, I noticed that Apollo and Aphrodite were both on top of the television and looking tense.

“Yes.” At Alex’s strangled tone I looked up and saw he was showing some white around the eye.

“What? What’s wrong? Did you tell them about the engagement?”

“They brought the cats,” he whispered.

“Oh good God in heaven.”

Blue whined agreement.

Xu Ming and Lu Zhi (Zooming and Lucy) are Burmillas, a cross between Burmese and chinchilla cats. Silvery grey, howlingly rare and beautiful beyond words. They were also spoiled beyond words and had to be groomed like six hundred times a day and ate only homemade cat food. A blue blooded princess in residence couldn’t be more work.

“How did they travel?” I asked.

“Not very well apparently.” Alex blinked. “Oh, by plane.”

“They didn’t drive? Poor cats,” I said feelingly. I wanted to explain to Alex how insane that was, but from his expression he apparently already knew this.

“It’s Dad who’s frazzled. They howled all the way from the airport. He looks absolutely gray. I suggested they have a nap.”

Oh damn. This was going to be a great reunion.

“Look, maybe we shouldn’t tell your folks right away about being engaged.” Before Alex could get offended, I added: “Your folks are stressed out right now and frankly I don’t know how happy they are going to be. Let’s give them a fighting chance at saying the right thing when we tell them.” That was kind of blunt. I decided to spread the blame. “And anyway, Mom is bad enough to deal with right now. She called me six times today to try and talk about wedding stuff. I don’t want to be double teamed before dinner. And you know that if they can’t get to me to plan stuff then they’ll go after you instead. I can go to work and turn off my cell, but you’re stuck here where they can find you. Before you know it they’ll have booked a polka band for the reception and have you wearing a purple tux with a pink loafers.”

Alex looked thoughtful. He didn’t try to tell me that it wouldn’t happen. His mother was the stronger personality.

“Well… maybe we should wait a little. Let the jet-lag wear off.”

I didn’t point out that there was no jet-lag from California to Washington.

“Did you find any prints on the extension cord?” he asked instead of pursuing the question of openness with the parents. Before I could answer, his folks came through the new door that connected the two sides on the duplex. Alex’s parents slipped through and the door shut quickly. Almost at once I could hear scratching and feline wails of anger on the other side of the door.

“Chloe!” Bob sounded mildly pleased considering he looked like he had a headache. Rosemary’s voice when she echoed him was neutral. We didn’t hug but we all managed to smile.

“How was the flight?” I asked, pretending not to hear the cats next door. I needed this like I needed domestic terrorists. In fact, the cats kind of were domestic terrorists.

“Ghastly. The seats were so tight that Bob got bruised knees and they confiscated my lip gloss,” Rosemary answered. Bob had been allowed to utter my name but that was all he was going to get to say. “We had to go into that horrible body scanner. They even searched Xu Ming and Lu Zhi! As if my precious kitties were terrorists!”

“Poor kitties!” I said sincerely, though I kind of agreed with airport security on this one. “I doubt these TSA people have any animal training. Let me hang up my coat and I will start dinner. I think we could all use a peaceful meal. Alex, would you open the wine?”

With those words I fled to the bedroom. I couldn’t delay the confrontation for long, but I needed a minute to myself.

They brought the cats! Without telling me or Alex! Didn’t they understand that cats are territorial? We’d be lucky if Apollo and Aphrodite didn’t leave smelly expressions of displeasure in our shoes. I would have to remind Alex to keep the closet door closed until his parents left.

Chapter 4

“Now look,” I said to Zooming and Lucy, though Blue, Apollo and Aphrodite were lined up by the sofa and listening too. “We are all civilized creatures in this house. There will be no more acting like godless heathens and sharpening the claws on the drapes and screaming at the cook. They are ugly drapes but Alex chose them and you will respect that. And if you make me angry there will be nothing buy dry kitty kibble for breakfast.”

I saw movement from the corner of my eye and caught Bob slipping through the connecting door. I couldn’t be sure but I thought he was laughing. That was good. At least one of my future in-laws had a sense of humor. Alex’s aunt, Mary Elizabeth was a nice woman, but I wouldn’t say that she was over-endowed with playfulness and whimsy. And if Rosemary had any sense of humor at all, I’d seen no signs of it.

Bob and Rosemary were going to breakfast with Mary Elizabeth, so I was again thwarted in my attempt to have a solo conversation with either of them. I was thinking unkind thoughts about couples who become conjoined twins, but stopped myself when I considered how I was with Blue. And how much did I want to talk with either of them anyway?

Alex could have been having breakfast with me, but he was out giving my dad a jump-start since his van’s battery was dead and it looked bad when the new mayor wasn’t in his office by eight. So I was alone, baby-sitting spoiled cats and supervising the interspecies encounter group.

We were trying the group experience since, left on their own last evening, the cats had attacked the drapes and screamed ceaselessly until Bob and Rosemary got back from their walk. Hence my lecture to the cats about respect for personal property. All things considered, I thought we were doing pretty well. There had been no hissing, spitting or barking when the connecting door opened and worlds collided.

Just as I was patting myself on the back, two things happened almost at once. Bob and Rosemary left, the wind banging the door loudly and making us all jump. Then the phone rang and I got up to answer it, turning my back on the ungrateful vipers I was trying to nurse to my bosom. Seeing an opportunity to eat something other than health food, Zoom skidded across the table, scooping up my bacon and knocking my abandoned toast on the floor. The plate it was on didn’t break but my coffee cup went over and there was mocha everywhere, including my shoe.

I gave a bellow of rage which startled Alex and he immediately began demanding to know what was wrong. I ignored him except to say ‘damn cat’ and hung up the phone.

Blue, torn between taking part in my plan to catch the bacon thief and cleaning up my spilled toast and coffee made the correct decision and pounced on the feline marauder first.

Zoom, faced for the first time in her life with a stronger personality, wisely went limp. Blue, roused to unprecedented action, picked her up by the scruff and brought her over to me.

“Oh God. Good girl,” I said to Blue, taking the cat from her. Blue has a soft mouth and was doing a low, slow tail-wag, but I was terrified at how close the stupid feline had come to disaster. I don’t know how many PSI’s a Rottweiler’s jaw can exert but it is surely enough to snap a cat’s neck.

“Dumb kitty,” I said resuming my seat, but stroking the cat with gentle hands. Her gray coat was blotched with drool and coffee. “Stupid, stupid kitty. What if Blue wasn’t a good doggy? Next time just ask for bacon. I’ll share if your mommy isn’t around.”

Blue, her job as enforcer complete, sat down to enjoy some slightly dusty toast with jam and coffee. The other three cats were on the back of the sofa looking on with enormous eyes. Apollo and Aphrodite had never seen Blue acting like a dog, and Lucy had never seen any dog act like a dog. They may not have seen a dog period.

The phone rang again. Laying the cat over my shoulder, I went to reassure Alex.

“It’s okay,” I said at once. “Blue didn’t eat her.”

“That’s good to know,” the chief said agreeably. “Though I am sure whoever ‘she’ is that she deserved it. Blue is an excellent judge of character.”

I snorted. “You have that right. My mother-in-law-to-be’s cats are the worst-mannered animals I have ever met. They already tore up the drapes in Alex’s office and stole my breakfast.”

Zoom began purring hysterically into the phone. Maybe she liked the chief’s voice.

“Maybe she learned a lesson,” I said optimistically as the chief strangled a laugh. “It has to be scary when a dog jumps on you.”

“This is a cat we’re discussing, right? Can they learn lessons?”

“You have a point. And both of them are as stupid as they are loving. Honestly, I thought A-p-o-l-l-o was the dimmest cat around.” I moved the phone to my other ear since I could hardly hear above the purring. “Sorry for the digression. I thought you were Alex. I hung up on him when the cat spilled the coffee. Did the lab get the prints off the extension cord?”

“Yes, nine sets of them. All with a perfect right to be there. What I was calling about was your friend, Agatha Graves.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked with sudden alarm. “Is she hurt?”

“She’s fine, but someone wrote an obscenity on her garage door in the night. In bright colored chalk.”

“Huh. Which obscenity specifically?”

“Traitorous bitch. She mentioned that it was spelled correctly.”

“So, probably not one of Debbie Mullin’s fifth graders.” But maybe Debbie Mullins herself? Or someone who knew about Debbie having colored chalk for her kids and trying to shift the blame onto her or them? Mrs. Graves lived only a block from the community garden. “So, you want me to see Mrs. Graves before I come into work?”

“It might be wise. Just in case there is a connection with the other matter.”

“Okay. I think I also better go check on the storage locker. Just in case anything happened in the night.”

“Good plan. Don’t worry if you are a little late. Things don’t get busy downtown until ten this time of year.”

I glanced at the clock.

“I will probably be late, but not by much if I leave now. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

“Good.”

Alex came in the door as I hung up the phone. He looked from me to the dishes on the floor. Zoom still clung to my shoulder, purring away. I picked up a napkin and started blotting her.

“I expected a dead cat and maybe dead parents after the swearing,” he said mildly. “I tried calling back but the line was busy.”

“I’m sorry you got dragged home. Was I swearing? I was thinking bad things inside but didn’t know I said any of them out loud.”

“Yes, you were swearing.” He smiled broadly. “Even your dad heard you. He thought it was funny.”

“I wasn’t even aware of it.” I walked forward and handed Alex the cat then bent and retrieved my plate and mug. They were sparkling clean. Blue is thorough. “That was the chief. I have to leave as soon as I change my shoes. I need to check on the gazebo and go see Mrs. Graves. Someone wrote ‘traitorous bitch’ on her garage door last night. It could be unrelated, but I think our arsonist is getting pissy and maybe reckless. More reckless. This isn’t like the storage place. Mrs. Graves has outside security lights that work on a motion sensor. If we’re lucky maybe the neighbors will have seen something.”

“Mrs. Graves didn’t see anything?”

“No. She hates the lights that go on several times a night and sleeps with blackout shades in her bedroom.” Alex opened his mouth to point out the illogic of this behavior but closed it again. “I know. It isn’t logical, but there you are.”

“We are as God made us,” he agreed, looking down at Zoom, half in affection and half in disgust. His jacket was covered in hair. So was my right shoulder.

I kissed his cheek, wishing for just a moment that I could be a conjoined twin and skip going out.

“Gotta go.” I headed for the bedroom.

“Tell you what, you go see Mrs. Graves and I’ll go by the locker. This afternoon I will do some checking on the various queens and sweethearts. Maybe we’ll get lucky and someone will have a record.”

“Take Blue with you,” I said. It was hard to add the next part. “I was afraid for a second that she would actually hurt Zoom. I was very angry about the spilled food and Blue sort of picked up on that.”

“Let’s play it safe. I’m locking the cats in the guest bedroom. Mom can let them out when they get back from breakfast. And if they tear up Mom’s clothes, then so be it.”

I thought about the drapes. I didn’t like the ones in the guest bedroom either so I just nodded.

“I’ll come by the locker after I see Mrs. Graves. The chief doesn’t expect me until ten so I have some leeway.”

“So he’s taking this seriously?”

“Yes. I don’t know if this is good or bad. What if it’s all nothing? I’ll feel like an idiot.”

*  *  *

Mrs. Graves had zero to add to the chief’s report, though she held off washing her door until I arrived and could see things for myself. The handwriting was kind of high up for a child and was neat enough to be calligraphy. I took a picture with my phone and then helped her wash off the door.

Alex didn’t report disaster but I went by the storage facility anyway. As I suspected, Alex had been pressed into work, making carnations and stuffing them into the high places. I rescued him by suggesting he make a donut run and he accepted gratefully. My motives weren’t all altruistic. I hadn’t gotten to eat my breakfast and I was starved. Blue stayed with me at the locker since I needed moral support and she wouldn’t be allowed in Big Daddy’s Donuts anyway.

“Mrs. Graves will be here soon,” I told Mom and Aunt Dorothy. “She had a bit of trouble at her place last night. Graffiti. Probably kids just messing around, but maybe it was our saboteur again.”

I thought this sufficiently interesting to divert Mom and my aunt from wedding talk, but Althea and Dale were back from their honeymoon and settled into Dale’s house. Aunt Dot, short a daughter and still in wedding mode, was only too happy to help Mom worry about me and my lack of plans.

They tried to talk gowns and reception sites while we worked on the gazebo ceiling but I was politely unresponsive and making only one observation, which was that men didn’t like to be fussed at and Alex and I could always just elope to Las Vegas if things became too much of a bother.

Mom took the hint and hushed her sister, but I knew a private mother-daughter talk was coming. I wasn’t acting like a happy bride-to-be. What I would say to Mom was a mystery because I wasn’t entirely sure why I didn’t want to just rush right in and let Mom plan everything so we could be married by March.

Partly it was that I wanted a little time to adjust to being engaged. Alex and I had gone from long-distance lovers to live-ins to engaged couple very quickly. For sure I wanted Alex in my life. But I just needed a little breathing room before I said ‘I do’.

And then there were his parents. I decided to risk an indiscretion and quickly filled Mom and Aunt Dot in on the fact that we hadn’t told Bob and Rosemary the happy news. I said that it wasn’t that they didn’t like me exactly, but that they had just had their son move away and they weren’t ready to deal with anything else. It was craven of me to shift the blame to his parents, but it got Mom and Aunt Dot on my side. Then I told them about the cats and both women were appalled at the destruction of the drapes.

“And Alex just got his office fixed up!” I said, pouring it on. “What he doesn’t need is another headache. But they are his parents so what’s he going to do? Certainly I can’t say anything.”

“You know, dear. It sounds like Alex might have a better time of it if Bob and Rosemary were occupied with something meaningful.”

“Definitely.” Preferably far from Alex and me.

“I think perhaps they should come down and help us decorate for the dance. And they could come to the ball too.”

For the price of two tickets, she meant. Mom wasn’t so far gone as to miss a chance to make money for her favorite charity. Still, it was a good idea.

“I’ll ask them. Maybe they would be interested in our other problem. After all, Alex solves crimes for a living. Maybe they would like to feel close to an investigation.” I kind of doubted this, but anything was possible. “It isn’t like this is dangerous or anything.”

“I would let Alex tell them about the problem if he wants,” Mom advised and then we dropped the conversation because Alex was back with coffee and fritters.

I gobbled a donut and then had to leave for work.

“Before you go, Chloe, my work gloves are missing.” Mom stopped there.

“They’re in Dad’s van,” I said, buttoning my coat. Dad had stopped in to help with the gazebo after work and then given Mom a ride home. Being cold, she would have worn her work gloves to the van. Being warm in the van she would have taken them off again.

“Oh good. I hate breaking in new gloves and these are already stained.”

“Call Dad,” I suggested since I knew she wanted to. “Maybe he can bring them over on his lunch hour.”

I kissed Alex, hugged Blue and then reluctantly left for work.

Chapter 5

It occurred to me as I was driving into work and passed the cupid-strewn card shop window, that I didn’t have a Valentine present for Alex. Except tickets to the Sweethearts Ball and that couldn’t be disguised as anything other than self-serving and was unromantic besides. Thousands of paper carnations and ball gowns aside, the dance was one of the most unromantic things there was.

Of course, having Alex’s parents in town wasn’t the most romantic thing either. Maybe we were screwed for this year.

For safety reasons I was keeping my cell on while I did my rounds and answered when I saw my home phone number come up in the screen. It was Bob suggesting that maybe I could come to lunch with him and Rosemary since Alex said he had to work and Mary Elizabeth was making deliveries to clients. I could tell Bob was puzzled at this seeming coldness in his son and from the sniffling in the background that Rosemary was hurt by their son’s desertion, but I figured my mom was correct about letting Alex explain stuff to his parents, if and when he wanted to.

“Bob, another day I would love to do that,” I lied. “But I had a late start this morning and will probably have to work through lunch.” There was a silence so uncomfortable that I had to say something. “Do you and Rosemary play Scrabble?”

“Um— well, we used to enjoy a game or two.” That meant no.

“Good. How about if tonight I pick up a couple pizzas and we break out the Scrabble board? That will give us a chance to have a visit.” Which I would enjoy as much as having my teeth drilled without Novocain. But it did mean that the cats would be supervised so perhaps Alex and I wouldn’t lose any more furniture or drapery. One must always look for the silver lining.

“Listen, I’ve got to go now. You wouldn’t believe the number of scofflaws who think the red curb is for everyone but them. Bye!” I said gaily and then hung up.

Damn. If only I could count on Mom and Dad not to say anything to Bob and Rosemary about our engagement. I would invite them to dinner to help deflect Rosemary’s growing unhappiness about their visit.

I tried to think of things to investigate, but there wasn’t enough of a lead to follow. And I kept running up against the mental wall of my secret engagement and the fact that I didn’t really like my future in-laws. That was bad because they weren’t like a faulty appliance I could take back to the store.

Dithering, I drove by the Kandy Kounter and the card shop again and this time noticed a pink flyer in the window next to the velvet heart boxes full of truffles. It was an advertisement for the Sweethearts Ball and the calligraphy on it looked very familiar. I had already forwarded the photo of Mrs. Graves’ garage door to Alex and the chief. I took a second photo of the poster in the window to compare handwriting. Alex had some software on his computer that I was dying to try.

This was a good lead. There had to be some committee in charge of publicity. Surely they would know who penned the flyer. That didn’t prove this person was our arsonist, but at least we would know who had it in for Mrs. Graves.

It was time to call Mom and put her to work on something besides making paper carnations. I wanted to know who thought Mrs. Graves was a ‘traitorous bitch’ and if they were angry enough at the whole organization to try and sabotage the biggest fundraiser of the year. She needed to take some friends to coffee and pump them for information. And maybe that would keep her from thinking bridal things.

*  *  *

I arrived home with two pizzas, one for carnivores and one plain cheese for us purists. Alex was perched on the edge of the sofa, looking harassed in spite of Blue being pressed against his legs and doing her best to calm him. Bob was blank-faced and pale compared to Rosemary who looked blotchy and red-eyed.

“You should have just said we weren’t welcome,” Rosemary gulped. “I thought you said Chloe likes cats.”

“Mom, it’s not that. It’s just…” But there he stalled.

“Okay— enough,” I said, shrugging out of my coat. “It’s time for a family meeting. Everyone into the dining room.”

I sat everyone down at the table and opened the pizza boxes. I guess I looked grim because everyone was sober about this announcement and ignoring the delicious smell of molten cheese which had Blue and the cats riveted, though I was sure they had had dinner already.

“No more beating around the bush. I am going to lay my cards on the table because I think it is the best thing to do.”

Rosemary looked from me to Lucy who had jumped into her lap. She was worried that I was going to complain about the cats. And well she should be. Who brings pets to someone’s house without any warning?

Bob was smarter. He looked at the ring on my hand— which I had forgotten to take off— and then back at my face. I didn’t need to glance at Alex to see how he was taking this. His silence was a clear indication that he has feeling helpless. He always caved when his mother or sister was tearful.

And, though I wanted to tell Bob and Rosemary that we were engaged and to just get over it, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t yell at them about the cats either. At least not right that minute.

“I know that after what happened in October that you were upset. My parents were too. Violence came a little too close that day. But sometimes we have close calls— regardless of our professions— and all we can do is move on and keep doing what we know is right. Alex is safe here. At least as safe as anyone can be anywhere. And there is a lot less crime in Hope Falls than in the Silicon Valley.”

Rosemary got teary again and I had a light bulb moment. She didn’t object to me— the person— she was worried that because of my wanting to be a detective that I would endanger her son with my work. Alex had left police work after a case went bad and he lost a partner and was nearly killed himself. She was afraid it would happen again if I involved him in police work.

“I am not being the hostess with the mostess this week because I have other things on my plate. One of our town’s institutions is under attack, and Alex and I are investigating who is behind it. We need to find out why and put a stop to it before Valentine’s Day.”

“What’s happening, Chloe?What is being attacked and why Valentine’s Day?” Bob asked. He was still a little pale but had had relaxed at my speech and so had Alex who was slumping slightly in his chair. Rosemary was staring at me with shock and confusion, but she wasn’t crying.

“This will sound silly and maybe it is, but as Mary Elizabeth can tell you the Sweethearts Valentine Ball and their other philanthropic endeavors have raised a lot of money for small causes and charities that would never get noticed otherwise. This year the money is going to Books on Wheels, a much needed program now that the library has lost most of its funding and had to close all but the main branch, leaving a lot of elderly patron and kids in the small towns without anywhere to borrow books. And someone is trying to sabotage the Valentine ball.”

I leaned forward and started explaining. I downplayed the potential danger from the vandal and painted a touching picture of these pathetic elderly ladies out in the cold, trying to finish the centerpiece of the Sweethearts Ball so that the Books on Wheels program would not go under. Mom and Mrs. Graves would forgive me for making them sound decrepit, and by the time I was done emoting both Bob and Rosemary were fired up and volunteering to help in any way they could.

Alex looked at me with awe. He went and got dinner plates and a bottle of wine.

“Step one,” I said, taking a slice of cheese pizza. It had cooled to the point that it was safe to eat. “We are going to break out some new handwriting recognition software and compare a couple samples of graffiti. I think we finally have a solid lead and it is high time that you see what Alex can do with a computer. It’s absolute magic.”

Chapter 6

Whoever said that many hands make for light work hadn’t stuffed those many hands inside a storage locker with little ventilation and where they were likely to get in each other’s way. The room seemed full to bursting when I arrived on my lunch hour with deli sandwiches and sodas. Taking a quick mental roll call I found the ranks were swollen not just with Bob and Rosemary but also Alex and Cousin Althea. She works in a dental office but it is only open four days a week.

Althea isn’t an evil person, but any prolonged conversation with my cousin causes my brain to stall and, when over-burdened with hormones, to slip into defensive catatonia. Especially if Althea is reciting her latest poem Revenge of a Lovelorn Cupid On Valentine’s Day. The thing about Althea’s doggerel is that she is an unremittingly bad poet, which is unfortunate because the lack of talent is paired with an unflagging zeal for writing verse. So, Blue or no Blue (and a Zen master at the height of meditation would have felt the weight of that doggie stare), I would have been happy to leave my food offering for the Sweetheart slaves and flee back into the drizzle and deal solely with parking malefactors. But Blue, Alex and Mom were clearly relieved to see me, Alex because he was twitchy about my mom blowing the secret of our engagement (he had come around to my way of thinking about the dangers of premature announcement to his parents) and Mom because they needed someone small to go up the fragile, rickety ladder and stuff more carnation in the roof. Blue was happy to see me just because.

Two minutes in the locker with Rosemary talking determinedly about people no one else knew and Mom, just as determined to be pleasant and not retaliate in kind, and therefore talking ceaselessly about the weather, had me nearly ready to ask Althea to recite her poem again.

I made myself think about the handwriting match we had on the graffiti and the flyer and ways I could discover the owner of the poison pen. Or chalk.

The weather was a good topic, of course, but eventually it was exhausted and left nothing on Mom’s mind but the wedding.

“Damn it!” I said, coming down the ladder in a hurry. Here Alex and I were doing the verbal quickstep and all but gagging ourselves so we didn’t say anything and Mom lets the cat out without even thinking. But even as I panicked, I realized that maybe it was for the best that Mom got the news out in the open.

“Mom! You know Alex and I were saving the announcement until Valentine’s Day.”

Rosemary’s eyes were wide and her mouth suddenly silent. Alex might have been her twin rather than her son, though he also looked guilty as well as shocked. My friends and family rushed into the breach and congratulated Alex and I. Again. Bob managed to say the right thing and hug Alex but Rosemary just looked shocked. I smiled hard at all the good wishes, but narrowed my eyes at Mom. She just smiled smugly.

I knew what she was thinking and it was pretty shrewd. Rosemary wouldn’t dare say anything in front of my friends and family and she would have several hours to adjust before getting Alex or I alone. The problem was that I didn’t think that this cooling off period would matter. She needed months, not hours.

Mom also figured that could also start talking about wedding plans out in the open— all the faster to get Alex and I wed. Fine for her, less fine for me and Alex who hadn’t discussed any plans or preferences yet.

“Chloe, maybe you should wear your Grandma Boston’s wedding gown. She was petite,” Aunt Dorothy suggested.

“Grandma Boston was short but she was also fat. And I don’t want a knitted wedding dress. Especially not with pink pearls and silver yarn.”

“Of course not, dear,” Mom answered stoutly. “If Chloe is going to wear anyone’s wedding dress, it will be mine.”

Uh-hu and I’d look like I was wearing a christening gown. Mom has eight inches on me both in height and bosom.

“Chloe, I’ll write a poem for your wedding,” Althea said. “A nice long one.”

Feeling cowardly, I gobbled my half of a sandwich (Blue got the rest) and announced I had to get back to work. Alex got the quickest kiss on record and the hissed advice to find some urgent work to do elsewhere. If he stayed I figured that he was either insanely brave or too stupid to marry.

I passed Daddy’s Donuts on the way downtown, inhaling all the way. I love the way the shop smells on a cold day. Surely that is what heaven smells like, at least part of the time. Had I been less upset I might have stopped and picked up a fritter to go. As it was, I knew it would give me indigestion. Besides, I had been eating a lot of fatty foods recently. If I didn’t stop I would end up fitting in Grandma Boston’s wedding dress.

Tomorrow I had a half-day off. Usually I love having free time when everyone else is at work. But not just then. Maybe I would lie and say I had to work. After all, our first Valentine’s Day was rushing down on us, an avalanche of pressure, and I couldn’t think of a single thing to give Alex except to get his parents out of town. And maybe to arrange for my mother to take a six month cruise on a boat with no communications center.

I needed help and was not too proud to ask for it.

Taking a risk on being rebuffed, I pulled my cart over and phoned Mary Elizabeth.

“Mary Elizabeth, this is Chloe.”

“Hello, dear. Are calling about that new pomegranate moisturizer? It’s going fast.”

“No, at least not at the moment. Um, my mom kind of made a premature announcement about Alex and I getting engaged and Rosemary looked like someone slapped her in the face with a smelly fish.”

There was a pause.

“I see. By premature, do you mean that you aren’t actually engaged?”

I squirmed. We hadn’t given details to Mary Elizabeth either.

“Well, we were going to announce it on Valentine’s Day— at the Sweethearts Ball because it would be romantic,” I added mendaciously. Mary Elizabeth is a Sweetheart of long standing. “Anyhow, I just wanted to warn you that you may be getting a phone call from Rosemary. Right after she calls Gwen and unburdens.”

Mary Elizabeth actually snorted.

“I take it Bob is fine with the news?”

“He seems to be. I think he had already guessed. I mean, Alex and I are living together and he bought the duplex next door. It can’t be that big a shock.”

Mary Elizabeth snorted again.

“It’s a pity that your grandmother isn’t alive. She could have fixed this.”

I didn’t ask which grandmother she meant. Grandma Boston, to whom I owe my strange talent, had had a reputation for being a witch. Her favorite trick— or the one other people talk about most— was her ability to afflict people with laryngitis. It was all psychological, of course, but it would be handy to know how she did it. Unfortunately, Grandma Boston is in heaven knitting spangled sweaters for stars like Liberace and Elvis.

Mary Elizabeth and I said goodbye. Feeling that I needed a stronger ally I called Dad. Dad was free to take my call— I had a feeling that he often was free since he was big on delegation— and explained what had happened.

Unlike Mary Elizabeth, Dad was laughing.

“You’ve got to hand it to your mother.”

“I’d like to hand the whole mess to her,” I muttered.

“Any hope that Rosemary will heal quickly from the shock?”

“I don’t know. I am trying the Christian Science approach right now and hoping things will fix themselves given time and space.”

“So lots of praying?”

“I think we are past prayer and have moved on to wailing and gnashing of teeth. I am also thinking of taking up hard liquor until they leave.” Dad laughed harder. “So, want to come to dinner tonight and play human shield?”

“No,” he said frankly. “But I will since I need Alex of sound mind and body until my website is done, and you are my only child. Also, it’s a good idea to know your adversary before you ignore them. I think I need to know Bob and Rosemary better if they are going to be butting in on our lives with any regularity.”

Dad was a man after my own heart. And he had Alex staked out as his own property, the son he’d never had.

“Thank you,” I said earnestly and then decided I really did need to get back to work. My engagement was a personal crisis I would handle on my own time.

I called Alex before I started for home. He didn’t sound as harried as I expected and I found out that was because he had heeded my warning and left the storage facility right after me. He had some non-news. Elvira Lewis was in charge of publicity for the Sweethearts Ball, but she was out of town with a daughter who had just had twins. No one was sure who Elvira had assigned to make posters and flyers this year, but inquiries were being made.

I could barely remember Mrs. Lewis. I hadn’t had much to do with her after she retired from the cafeteria at the elementary school. She had always been kind of tatty looking with strange, patchy brown and black hair that grew to different lengths. Someone had started a rumor in junior high that she has worked at Three Mile Island when it had a meltdown. It was also believed that she had a glass eye though no one could say why.

“Dad is coming to dinner,” I told Alex. “And I don’t feel like cooking so I was thinking of picking up Chinese. Does that sound good?”

“Yes. And maybe we’ll be spared tonight after all.”

“Really? Why?”

“Mary Elizabeth has invited Mom and Dad to dinner and promised she would try and keep them late.”

“Bless her,” I said. “But I’ll get extra pot-stickers in case they come home early.” Pot stickers are doughy smiles of happiness— as long as you turn them smiley side up.

It was good that I planned ahead because Alex and Dad were ravenous after their hard work on the website.

Bob and Rosemary came home around seven. They used the door on our side of the duplex, though they had a key and could have entered through the other side. Rosemary wasn’t crying but looked forlorn and her steps actually dragged as she headed for their side of the duplex. I knew she was waiting for Alex to say that he took it all back and we weren’t actually getting married.

Blue put her head in my lap and I fondled her ears, comforted but not happy. I really couldn’t wait for Bob and Rosemary to go home. I wasn’t used to people who were ready to fling their emotions around at the drop of a hat, especially when they were guests in someone else’s house. Had they no understanding of the rules for being a guest?

Well, of course Rosemary had no understanding. She had brought her cats without asking.

No, Rosemary was not the make and model of mother-in-law that I would have ordered, but she came with Alex. It was a package deal. And I wanted Alex. Didn’t I?

“Chloe? I don’t like that stare. What are you thinking?” Alex whispered.

“Your son is your son until he takes a wife…” I murmured, thinking of a poem my mother had told me. I bet Rosemary knew that one too and was panicking.

It also explained why Alex’s sister was the way she was. Gwen had probably learned her behavior at her mother’s knee.

“Damn it,” I said as the connecting door closed quietly after Bob and the crying started again.

Dad gave a low whistle.

“What?” Alex didn’t look happy either.

“She fights dirty,” Dad said.

The quicksand of unhappiness would swallow Rosemary if she didn’t come around and quickly. And that would bother Alex. Something had to be done. I hated paying the blackmail, but I didn’t feel like I had a lot of choice.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” I told Alex.

Signing in resignation I picked up the phone and dialed my mother. I told her to bring all of Althea’s bridal magazines and something sweet to eat.

We would give the glossy bridal pictures a chance to bring Rosemary under their spell. If being allowed to help with the planning of her son’s wedding didn’t cheer her up then nothing would, and I could wash my hands of her and still sleep nights.

“You don’t have to do it,” Alex said. “I know you don’t want this. She’ll get over it in a few days.”

I could tell he didn’t believe this.

“Families aren’t always about getting what you want,” I said as I hugged Dad goodbye. He’d had enough wedding talk when Althea got married. He had already told me to just let him know when, where and what to wear. “And it will make Mom happy too. And if it gets too ridiculous we will just run away to Vegas.”

I wasn’t joking.

“Would you rather do that?” Alex asked. Dad paused. He looked enthused about this idea too.

“Yes. But we’ll save it as the threat of last resort.” I exhaled. “Do we have any more wine? I need a drink.”

Chapter 7

I turned the pages on the magazine with movements that were a little jerky. My motor skills were being influenced by too much stress and late-night caffeine. Alex had talked me into coffee instead of wine since alcohol tends to lower my inhibitions and I have a tendency to be extremely truthful when under the influence. I had to agree that the situation called for tact, not truth.

Mom and Rosemary kept showing me dresses while Bob and Alex pretended to watch a basketball game while buried in feline bodies. Both women were of the Valentine Fantasy Princess school of couture and I had a bad feeling that I could end up looking like something that belonged on a box of truffles if I listened to them. I smiled and nodded anyway.

I was using my own magazine to help hide my face. I had stopped looking at dresses and was instead looking at a picture of a vast lawn with a Jaguar parked in the middle of the expanse of velvety green. It was very peaceful. I would like to own a Jaguar someday, but it will never happen. We simply aren’t a match. I can look. I can admire. I fantasized about standing there on that lawn and running my hands over the long, sleek hood. But the car just stared back, unmoved, knowing I was not Jaguar material. I will always own sensible, dog-friendly vehicles. I will never have a velvet lawn either. I might not even get to have peace and quiet.

These dresses Mom and Rosemary were picking were even more wrong for me than the car.

I began humming His Yoke Is Easy, His Burden Is Light. Only I had substituted ‘noose’ for ‘yoke’. ‘Her’ for ‘His’ and ‘blight’ for ‘light’. I was as bad as Althea sometimes, but it amused me.

“That’s pretty, dear,” Mom said. “What is it? Were you thinking of using it for a bridal march?”

“It’s from The Messiah,” I said and opted not to explain the rest. I glanced over at Alex and could see he recognized the music. I just hoped he didn’t guess what I had been thinking.

“I know what’s wrong,” I said suddenly, having conceived a wonderful lie. Not always, but sometimes, I can slip one past Mom. If it’s a white lie and I use verbal sleight of hand when I deliver it.

“What, dear?”

“These are all winter dresses and I was thinking of having a wedding when the weather is nicer. So we could be outside, at least for the reception.”

“A summer wedding?” Mom asked, torn between having a chance to do something different from her sister whose daughter had had a winter wedding, and the chance to get me married right away. After all, you never knew when disaster might intervene and we would be short a groom.

“Or maybe early autumn,” I said, knowing that it would make Rosemary happy if she had several months of breathing room. After all, Alex might come to his senses or be abducted by aliens or something. I could be hit by lightning or meet a rap star and move to Hollywood.

“Autumn.”

“And I don’t want to pick a dress until we have a venue. Imagine trying to drag a train through autumn leaves or up or down stairs. So I think we need to start scouting sites and get some new magazines with summer dresses. Mom, I know you are very busy with getting ready for the Sweethearts Ball, but maybe if we get the gazebo done early, you and Rosemary could start looking at sites. The Falls might be nice. Think of the pictures.” Uh-hu, like I would get married at the scene of my most embarrassing Office Bill safety lectures.

Alex smiled at me, knowing what I was doing. Mom looked at me too. I don’t know what conclusions she was drawing, but she smiled agreeably and said: “Of course, dear. It’s hard for a working girl to make time for things like this. Leave it to us.”

“Thanks.” I made sure to smile at both Mom and Rosemary. “I’m sorry for bailing out on you. But it’s been a long day and I have an early morning tomorrow. I’m going to hit the hay.”

“And I should get going,” Mom said. “We need to get that gazebo done and that means an early morning for me too. Chloe, maybe we could all meet for lunch out at The Falls.”

“Okay.” Oh boy. Oh yeah. Oh joy. Waterfalls in February. That would be swell.

Alex yawned convincingly so Rosemary and Bob had no choice but to say that they were tired too. I noticed that Rosemary did take one of the magazines with her, which I took as a good sign. Maybe the drastic therapy was working.

*  *  *

The whole wedding situation was keeping me from investigating our Valentine saboteur, so I left early the next morning— with Blue— to visit some friends and neighbors and scope out the neighborhood where Mrs. Graves lived. I wasn’t worried about the saboteur going after the gazebo again. Volunteers were there all day and since the fire Emmett Spalding was being vigilant at night. That didn’t mean that our culprit wouldn’t try something else though. The acts had been spiteful and vindictiveness didn’t always burn itself out after an act of protest or two.

Mom called at eight and reminded me that I was meeting her and Alex’s parents at noon to assess The Falls as a potential wedding site. This was make-work. There was absolutely no way I was going to be married in the same place where I had tripped on a skateboard and toppled into a fountain. People I knew had seen me! There was even video. Why hadn’t I thought of some other plausible location for the wedding? One indoors with a coffee bar.

The morning was frustrating. My interviews with the neighbors availed me nothing, except a whole lot of congratulations on my engagement and questions about when the wedding would be. Blue likes attention, but by ten I had had it with chit-chat.

I had a mild brainwave and visited Geppetto’s toy store to ask about who had been buying colored chalk, but it turned out that that would be almost everyone because he had run a special on it, a box of five colors and a cupid on the front. Lots of parents liked this option better than Valentine candy, he explained.

Stymied, I stopped by Daddy’s and got an apple fritter and coffee, and Blue and I went to Courthouse Park for a snack. The chief found me there, even though I was hiding behind a dense shrub.

“No progress on the saboteur,” I reported glumly and offered him a bit of fritter. The chief declined, probably because Blue was looking anxious about the diminishing proportions of the pastry. “I don’t know how I am supposed to get anything done with this stupid wedding hanging over my head.”

“You want to marry Alex, don’t you?”

“Yes. But I don’t see why I have to have a dress bigger than a car and serve my guests fruit cake and make them dance polkas.”

The chief grimaced.

“Do you have to serve fruitcake and so on?”

“Rosemary wants fruitcake because that’s what she and Bob had.” I gulped some coffee and gave Blue the rest of the fritter. “Our wedding’s been hijacked. My only hope of survival is for Mom and Rosemary to get into a power struggle and take each other out.”

This made the chief smile a little.

“And there’s nothing you can do? Like maybe talk to your Dad? I suspect he has more influence with your mother than anyone else.”

“Dad’s on my side. He wants Alex sane and work-ready. But he’s up against an unstoppable force this time. And if we dodge by eloping, the force will never forgive us.”

“Chin up, Boston. You’ve faced worse and lived.”

“Yes. But only barely.” I shook my head. “Well, what can’t be cured must be endured. That’s what Grandma Boston always said.”

“Sound advice. So, the Sonics play tonight,” the chief said, revealing the reason for his personal visit. Well, at least another reason.

I made myself consider his unspoken question.

“It’s an away game? Sorry, but they’ll lose.”

“You’re sure?”

I stared at him with an I-beg-your-pardon expression.

“Okay,” the chief said. “We can’t win them all.”

“Come on, faithful dog. We’re off to The Falls,” I said to Blue, pitching my napkin into the little outhouse that surrounded the trashcan. Why an outhouse was classier that a green metal cylinder I did not understand, but the council had spoken and so mote it be. Public parks had outdoor toilets for trashcans.

The visitor center at The Falls was an old cinderblock building built post World War Two, and in an effort to make it look less like a large restroom facility, they had planted a dense screen of cedars mixed with donated statuary of questionable artistic merit. In honor of the approaching holiday, someone had set out sprays of red and pink silk flowers. Instead of looking like a bathroom, the building now resembled a mortuary.

Mom, Rosemary and Bob were already waiting.

“Chloe, I just don’t think…” Mom waved a hand.

But I wasn’t looking at her. Mom and Rosemary were both bright pink from the wind and the cold. Bob was gray and sweating. I had seen something like this last Christmas when the Grand Marshall died. When Bob clutched his arm, I said to Mom: “Get Bob in the car! He’s having a heart attack!”

I pulled out my cellphone and dialed 9-1-1.

The benefit of living in a small town is knowing everyone and being able to cut through red tape. I explained the situation and Judy Ripley, the ER nurse they patched me through to, agreed it would be better for us to take Bob to the hospital than to wait for the ambulance to finish its current pick-up and drop off at a car accident outside town and then come and get us.

Mom drove. She did it well. She was fast but took no chances on the icy road. We made good time and a team was waiting for us when we pulled in to the emergency entrance of the hospital.

My first call after 9-1-1 was to Alex. The second was to the chief to let him know that I probably wouldn’t be back for my afternoon shift. It didn’t occur to me until later that there was a protocol for these things and it didn’t involve phoning the chief of police on his cell, but Randy was lovely and told me not to worry.

Mom had been busy while I helped Rosemary through the admittance paperwork and we weren’t at the hospital for long before Mary Elizabeth and Dad arrived. Dad had Alex with him. There was much hugging and hand holding until the cardiologist came out an eternity later to tell us that Bob had indeed had a heart attack, but the damage was minimal and that he was stable and doing fine. Dr. Mills hoped that he would be released on Sunday— a day before the Sweethearts Ball. Looking at our horde which included Blue, the doctor added that no one was to disturb Bob at that moment but he could have short visits from immediate family that afternoon starting at three.

Rosemary and Alex were relieved at the news, but Rosemary kept saying in her helpless voice that she didn’t know what to do and Alex didn’t know how to comfort her. Finally I took her hands and said calmly: “We will do whatever needs doing. You are not alone. We are all here to see that everything gets done and gets done right. For starters, I think we could all use something warm to eat and drink. We’ve had a shock and it is cold today.”

Since Rosemary was feeling so flattened and Mom has always believed in the efficacy of warm drinks, my plan prevailed and we all trooped down to the cafeteria. I let a shaken Alex sit with his mother and Mary Elizabeth. I would comfort and assure him later if he needed it.

Mom and Dad and Mary Elizabeth left the hospital after Mary Elizabeth looked in on her brother. Blue went with Dad who would drop her at home. I tried not to thinik what the cats might be up to.

Aunt Dot, Althea, Mrs. Graves and Mr. Jackman came with contraband pie and coffee which we shared with the nurses. Randy Wallace arrived after work and he was very gentle with Rosemary and her dithering. The chief is good that way and I could see her relaxing a little more with each assurance that all would be well. The stream of visitors also assured her over and over that we would help look after Bob.

Finally it was just Alex, Rosemary and I. Alex excused himself to go to the bathroom, leaving Rosemary and I alone for the first time that day.

“Your family is wonderful,” Rosemary said suddenly. “They have adopted Alex, haven’t they?”

“Yes. And the thing about my family— well, it’s sort of like being in the mafia. When you’re in, you’re in all the way. Like it or not. Alex has taken it pretty well.”

This made her smile a little. Her gaze was far away though and I wasn’t surprised when she changed the subject.

“After Gwen married I was feeling very low and Bob thought I was suffering from empty nest syndrome. So, he got the cats for me. They were just babies then.”

I nodded encouragingly. The cats weren’t my favorite subject but it was better than listening to her worry about Bob dying and leaving her alone. Alex did not need to hear any more of that kind of talk.

“We hadn’t had them a week when we decided to go out to dinner. It was our anniversary. Usually we would have had a party at the house but Gwen was on her honeymoon and Alex was traveling.” She cleared her throat and I knew something bad was coming. “I made Bob come home early because I had a bad feeling. It turns out I was right. One of the kittens had gotten tangled in the cord of the blinds. Zu Ming had hung herself and she was choking to death.”

I took her hand, sharing her horror.

“It’s why I have tie-back drapes instead of blinds,” I said gently when she needed a moment to gather herself.

“I was afraid to come visit Alex without the cats. Bob didn’t want me to bring them, but I was too scared to leave them. Turns out I should have worried about Bob instead. He’s been so tired lately and…” She gulped.

“I understand,” I said, and actually did. “You know that before Alex moved in with me that I took Blue to work with me every day so she wouldn’t be alone?”

Rosemary smiled again. It was wan but it was a definite smile.

“Alex told me that. It’s what made me think I could maybe like you.”

Maybe she could like me. That was ringing endorsement. I suppressed a sigh.

“Don’t worry. I’ll grow on you. Like moss,” I said and actually got a watery chuckle.

“Your mother has been wonderful at trying to include us in the wedding plans. Many mothers of the bride wouldn’t bother. I certainly didn’t.”

“Well, Mom wants help bullying me into wedlock as quickly as possible. I am already two months behind my Cousin Althea and it is killing her. If Althea gets pregnant right away there will be no living with her. I’ll have to change my name and leave town.”

Alex came back and found his mother giggling. He looked more shocked at that than he did when he heard about his dad. He sat down beside me and took my hand.

“Okay, what are you up to?” he demanded.

“Oh, just girl talk,” I said airily. “Why don’t you and your mom go in and see Bob one more time and then we’ll head home. It’s almost eight and we are all tired.”

“Okay,” Alex said, rising again.

“But you come too, Chloe,” Rosemary said. “You’re family now. Bob will want to see you.”

Well, I never thought I’d hear that. But I smiled and went along. It might help Bob to see that peace, however tenuous, finally reined.

Chapter 8

Bob was released the next day, with a long list of instructions of things not to do. I was a bit nervous at this quick turnaround, but his relief— and Alex’s— at being out of the hospital was so strong that I didn’t let my unease at this responsibility show.

Knowing that Bob was coming home that afternoon, I spent some of my free morning cooking appropriate food. The house smelled very homey and Bob fell on his vegetable soup with all the gusto of a starving werewolf at full moon. Since the soup was super low sodium and no fat, and therefore not real fun, it had to mean that he was feeling better and that the hospital food was dire.

“Maybe Bob should have a nurse. Or go to a rehabilitation home for a while.”

“No.” Bob paused eating long enough to disagree.

“Or we could get you a motorized wheelchair.”

“No!” Bob said emphatically. “The doc says I’m fine and I need to walk. And one more word about wheelchairs and I’ll hop the next bus to Reno where I can smoke and eat dawn to dusk at the all-you-can-eat buffets.”

Rosemary gasped. She wasn’t helping Bob stay calm and Alex was unable to check her. Honestly! Someone needed to slip her a chill pill.

“Rosemary, Bob won’t be alone. You and Mary Elizabeth will be here during the day to make sure he doesn’t over-do it. Alex too. And my family will be checking in, never doubt it. Mom is bringing a casserole tonight. She has had a lot of years to learn how to cook yummy low fat and low sodium food. And if Bob or you need anything, help and company is one phone call away.”

Bob shot me a grateful look. Rosemary frowned but I took it as a good sign that she didn’t suggest that Gwen come up to help. There were apparently some bounds to the delusions she had about her daughter, and for this I was grateful. I could stand Bob and Rosemary and the cats— I might even like Bob if I got to know him— but Gwen and her demon-spawn was a line I would not cross. I suspected that she would be useless anyway. I have never met a more spoiled, self-absorbed person. Her hysterical phone calls six times a day were bad enough since they wound Rosemary up. Bob needed peace, not the drama of Rosemary junior on steroids. We did not want an encore heart attack.

“And”, I said firmly, again hiding my misgivings since they were not intuition just free-floating fear. “Tomorrow Mary Elizabeth is taking you and Mom under her wing and giving you makeovers for the Sweetheart’s Ball.”

“Oh, I don’t think that Bob should—”

“We’re going,” Bob said before slurping up the rest of his soup. “I’ve got sweat-equity in that paper palace thing and I want to see it in action. And you know I like an excuse to wear a suit.”

This was probably a lie. Certainly Alex had no love of suits.

“We’ll only go long enough to be polite,” I said. “It’s a low key affair. We’ll listen to some music, watch Mrs. Graves get crowned with that hideous tiara the Queen of the Sweethearts has to wear. And after we’ve sniggered at her a bit and I’ve shown off my dress, we’ll come home and have some tea and apple cobbler.”

“It sounds perfect. You are a darn good cook, too, Chloe. Thank you. That hit the spot.”

“Wait ‘til you try my cobbler.” I patted him on the shoulder and hoped that cobbler without butter really would be tasty. “Now, I am going to pop out to the store for a few groceries. I’m low on cinnamon.” Cinnamon is important if you aren’t using salt. And I needed butter substitute. I didn’t keep the devil’s spread around unless Mom was visiting. “Rosemary, do you need anything while I’m out?”

“No, I’m fine.” She wasn’t fine but nothing at the grocery store would help with what ailed her.

“Alex?”

“Some beer,” he said and then looked guiltily at his Dad.

“Go ahead, you rotten kid,” Bob said with a smile. “You’ll have plenty of chances to be abstinent when you are old and overweight.”

“I’ll be back shortly.”

Blue went with me. She loves the market. It was an off hour, so there were few people in the store. I noticed the Valentines on the card aisle were very picked over, but dawdlers can’t be choosers, so I found one that wasn’t too nauseating to give to Alex.

Lines were short. Only Mrs. Winkler was ahead of me. I wasn’t being nosy, but we were close and I watched with fascination as Mrs. Winkler wrote her check, drawing each letter with artistic care.

What with the heart attack and the wedding, the investigation had become just so much white noise in the background, but I hadn’t forgotten it entirely. And now, as a consolation prize from the gods, I had found my poster maker. And our saboteur.

“Mrs. Winkler, we need to have a talk,” I said quietly.

“Chloe?” She blinked nervously. “What about?”

“About chalk and space heaters and the evil that men— and women— do.”

“Oh.” Her eyes got big.

“Let’s go for coffee. I have a little time.”

*  *  *

“So that’s it,” I said to the chief the next morning. “We could have gotten her for the graffiti but the rest wasn’t provable and she really was horrified about the fire once she saw it might spread. So I took care of it another way— a way that won’t jeopardize Books on Wheels funding or cause any bad publicity for the Sweethearts Ball. I hope you don’t mind.”

The chief nodded. “That’s the best solution all the way around.”

The chief was about justice more than about the law. It’s why he and Dad got on so well. City government had never been so harmonious.

“Yeah— and I won’t have to make another paper carnation as long as I live! Mrs. Winkler is my stand-in from now to eternity. It’s her penance,” I said, righteously.

“I’m glad it isn’t blackmail like I first thought,” he said dryly. “So, will you all be going to the ball tonight?”

“Briefly. I would give it a pass, but Bob is determined and I think it is best for everyone if we let life get back to normal.”

*  *  *

I got home before Rosemary, but not by much. Alex was working next door in the remains of his office and Bob and Dad were watching a basketball game with cats in their laps and a tremendous amount of hair on their clothing. They weren’t talking but looked utterly relaxed in each other’s company. In fact, they may have been napping.

Rosemary shut the door noisily and dropped packages on the dining table. She was wearing a patterned scarf loud enough to cause seizures. I’m sure she was trying for cheerful and had unwisely taken Mary Elizabeth’s fashion advice.

She had also bought replacement drapes for Alex’s office which she displayed proudly.

The duplex is modest in size. You have to be careful how you decorate it or you can make the rooms look even smaller than they are. I do a lot of cream on cream. The ruffled sheers in Pepto pink would make Alex’s half look like a dinky dolly dream house. But this was Alex’s mom and Alex’s problem.

I managed not to snicker until Rosemary had gone off to change clothes and share her find with Alex, but I looked over at Bob and caught him grinning and I kind of lost it.

“Alex will be very surprised with those drapes,” I said finally.

“Yes, and then some.”

I shook my head at him.

“You know, you and Alex are both entirely too nice. I have to work hard not to take advantage of that,” I scolded.

Bob grinned some more. He was looking a lot better. Dad got up and hugged me.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said. “I’m bringing your mother.”

This wasn’t a huge surprise. Mom and Dad didn’t live together but they weren’t really separated either.

*  *  *

The band was slogging through Melody Of Love. They played everything at a slow waltz time and it made the songs all but indistinguishable. I did my best to tune them out and to sit up straight so I didn’t crease my dress. I was wearing the same gown I had for Althea’s wedding. I hadn’t had the time or inclination to shop for another.

The gazebo looked terrific. In previous years, when there had been only needed renovations, parts of the structure had seemed a little faded and tired. That night it stood in vibrant glory, housing a very uncomfortable Mrs. Graves, a haughty Tara Lee, a fluttery Mrs. Everett and Mr. Jackman who was doing his best to hide himself and his enormous red silk flower boutonniere behind the left pillar. I doubt he had understood what he was signing up for when he agreed to be the Queen’s consort. At least he didn’t have to wear a crown.

Shirley Winkler was ‘sick’ and couldn’t attend. I think she was sick with shame and also fear of what Mrs. Graves might say to her.

“We have a surprise to share with you all,” Rosemary said as Alex passed around the sparkling cider. In deference to Bob’s restrained menu, we were all avoiding alcohol. “Bob is retiring.”

We all started to offer congratulations but Rosemary rushed on.

“And we have decided to sell our house and get a condo and then a place up here so we can spend summers with you. That means we’ll be here to help with the wedding.”

I managed a grimace that might pass for a smile and then gulped my cider. Alex and Mary Elizabeth at least managed wan grins. Mom and Dad did a little better.

“Well. That’s just lovely,” Mom said. She did it really, really, well but I knew she was lying. Even my mother had Rosemary-fatigue.

I squeezed Alex’s hand under the table, offering comfort and support. The housing market was really slow. I consoled myself with the hope that they wouldn’t find a buyer for a good long time. Maybe years.

And if they did manage to sell the house and get up here by summer… well, there was still Las Vegas as a fallback option.

“Cheers!” I said, offering a toast. “Happy Valentine’s Day!”

Excerpt from the next Chloe Boston Mystery: Viva Lost Vegas

Alex poured me a glass of wine as soon as I walked through the door.

“So,” he said nervously. “Gwen called today. She’s been talking to Mom.”

“No,” I said, refusing his request and the wine. “No. I don’t want her to be a bridesmaid.”

“But—”

“No.” I turned, picked up my purse, called Blue and then left. About two blocks later I stopped running and called the house.

“Chloe!”

“I’ve had it. I don’t want a polka band. I don’t want fruitcake. I don’t want to release a hundred white doves to poop on my guests. I don’t want to wear a dress that is bigger than the entire church and weighs more than I do. And I really, really don’t want people picking my bridesmaids!”

The last part was shouted and Blue was looking alarmed.

“I’m sorry. I—”

“The wedding is off.”

“What?” he sounded as stunned as I was at this blurted announcement. I clutched at Blue and rolled the words around my head. They were horrible, but they were right.

“Here are the options. One, we continue to live in sin. Two, it’s you, me and the courthouse— with maybe our parents. Three, we elope to Las Vegas and let Elvis marry us.” I paused, feeling faint but forcing out the next words. “Or you can leave, of course.”

“No! God, no! I’ve been driven crazy by wedding stuff, but not that crazy.”

“Okay then.” I inhaled and exhaled slowly. “So what’s it to be?”

And that was how we ended up in the car, in the dead of night, during a rainstorm, heading for border with a duffle bag, my dog, a sack of kibble and reservations at a one-star, pet friendly motel.

The only person I had called was my boss, Randy Wallace, and he had only asked me if this was vacation or sick leave.

“Do they have mental health days?” I asked.

“No. Not without a visit to a shrink.”

“Then mark me down as sick and tired. I’ll be back by the weekend.”

I should have known that it is never that easy when you are having a wedding.

Excerpt from The First Book of Dreams: Metropolis

‘Frae ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beasties and things that gae bump in the night, O Lord, deliver us.’

— 14th century Scottish Prayer

I dream.

And so do you, of course. Animals too. But dreaming is my job. Or rather, the policing of dangerous sleep, being the guardian of dreamers gone awry, that is the task that has devolved upon me.

You may have met me in the Narcoscape, a silent shadow at the edge of your imaginings as I went about my business. Perhaps you saw me as an angel, if you believe in such things. You probably did not fear me when we passed, for you knew that I was not one of the creatures that go bump in the night. Chances are good we may meet again some night because I get around.

Sleep can be many things. It is the calling of the sweet daydreams of the parted lovers, or the longing of the child stuck in a classroom on a fine May day. It can be the refuge where we see to the knitting up of the raveled sleeve of care left tattered by daily life. It is the place visited by mystics and swamis, and the destination for deep meditation and prayer. It is a tapestry embroidered with our unconscious thoughts. Without it, we would die.

It is other things, too, many of them dangerous and predatory. It is the place where infants are so beguiled by visions that they do not wake in the morning. It is the shadowy realm where the coma patients live—sometimes by choice but sometimes because they have become weak in mind and soul, and other darker things have begun to prey on them. It is often the last stop for the drunks and drug-users who come one too many times to the arms of Morpheus and Hypnos seeking oblivion. This is also the kingdom of schizophrenics, paranoids and other members of the insane fraternity whose grasp on waking reality has slipped. For them monsters abideth here.

Most people come and go from the Narcoscape without incident, but once in a while something goes wrong on the dreamside. If it goes a little wrong and the victim’s kin are ignorant, the family will have to wait for the Dream Police—aka the NarcoNazis—to sort it out. When it goes very wrong, if loved ones are in the know, they call me. I’m the retrieval expert, the ghost hunter, the slayer of night terrors who won’t negotiate with the Dream Police.

I own and run Hypnos Inc. and have a scary Greek title conferred at birth (my parents said) by gods of sleep and dreams, but you can call me Nic. That’s short for Nicodemus. Yes, that’s traditionally a man’s name. I am called after my paternal grandfather. It’s one of the trials of being an only child in a family with large expectations of offspring to carry on the familial traditions. I’m a little surprised they didn’t stick me with a whole string of my aunts’ and uncles’ middle names while they were at it, but I guess my parents figured that naming a girl Nicodemus was enough of a sacrifice to generational expectations. The other relatives went begging.

My namesake, Grandpa Nic, was the great-great-something-grandson of the first Nicodemus, best know for his psuedepigrapha, The Gospel of Nicodemus. Only according to family legend, there is nothing psuede about it. His visions were real dream visitations and his descendents had been having them ever since, though most of us have escaped the curse of prophecy.

Not too surprisingly, dream consulting is a family calling, a difficult job that few can manage and stay sane, so I haven’t got a lot of competition in this field. Of course, I can’t really advertise in the yellow pages either, so it all kind of evens out. I am not like a dentist or a stylist or an accountant. For one thing, I’m not that well paid. Also, my cases are the kind you can’t schedule for in advance—though certain people keep me on retainer, just in case. When I am needed, I am needed now. That was why I was on my way to Mercy Hospital, driving in the pre-dawn darkness without my usual skinny café-mocha or indulging in the regular Monday morning visit with Aunt Gertrude. The hospital was one of my long-standing clients who keep me on retainer for emergencies. It is also the place where my husband and parents died. Without me. They were gone through Death’s door before I even knew to look for them and there is a hole in my heart that I have never managed to fill.

Most hospital work I can do from home, but proximity helps when it is a fast snatch-and-grab job, which this might well be. It sounded like I wouldn’t have a lot of time for hunting down one Thomas Seymour before the family arrived, so I needed to go into the dreamside close to where he was sleeping. I may have lost my own husband, but I would not lose this man.

As so often happens, the threat on the patient’s life was an impatient family, just like this one. They were already on the way to the hospital to pull the plug on the unlucky Thomas Seymour (whose insurance had run out) and the hospital administrator wanted me to have a last look at their patient, age thirty-four, minor car accident victim with no apparent physical injuries but entering month four of an expensive and unexplainable coma.

It sounded fairly routine.

The hospital contract that had me up and driving at six in the morning had been negotiated by my parents before my birth. As I said, they are dead now and the previous hospital administrator has retired, but the family business lives on anyway. Officially, I am listed as a grief consultant, but what I really do is save the hospital from possible lawsuits for wrongful death and inconvenient reviews by medical ethics boards when it is decided that it is time to turn off life-support. The hospital administrator feels better knowing for certain that there is no mind left in the body and that the soul has actually moved on before they terminate life support. As a bonus, I sometimes rescue lost souls who have just wandered off in the Narcoscape and are in danger of becoming ghosts. When all goes well, which is most of the time, I bring them back to their families with their minds intact.

When the mind isn’t intact… well, we have ghosts in the Narcoscape too, lost minds who will not go to Death but refuse to return to Life. You recall that horrible feeling when you know you’re in a nightmare but can’t wake up? That’s what this is for the lost. It is a terrible fate, leading to a rapid mental degeneration similar to Alzheimer’s, though much worse because something predatory will almost always find a confused ghost and accidentally—or deliberately— enslave or consume them. I didn’t want this to happen to Mr. Seymour. If possible, I’d bring him back to the wakeside. But if all else failed, I would help him to find Death and move on. And I had to do it before his physical body died or he’d be stuck alone on the dream-side until something stronger ate him up. I can help the dreaming, but not the dead.

Chapter 1

‘Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams’.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

I pushed my way out of the heavy velvet curtains and into the meadow of ruby red grass that swayed gently under the breath of a southern zephyr smelling of Coppertone suntan oil. This time I was sure I’d gotten it right. The wandering one had been located.

My linen skirt rustled as it moved through the field and I had to keep a hand on my sunhat because the playful breeze was determined to whisk it away. I found myself wishing that I had time for some kite-flying.

The man sitting on a camp stool at a large easel put down his paintbrush and smiled at me in a vague, distracted way.

“Hello, Thomas,” I said in my calmest voice. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Hello,” he said back, brow wrinkling as he tried to recall my name and face. “Do I know you?”

“We’ve never been formally introduced. My name is Nicodemus Smith.” I didn’t offer my hand.

“Oh.” A line appeared between his sandy colored brows. “You’re my first visitor today. I came out here to paint the meadow. I always thought that grass would look like this over here.”

I nodded. Thomas’ medical records said that he was colorblind. It was probably this ailment that prevented him from noticing that the traffic light he ran was red instead of green.

“Do you know what that building over there is?” he asked, pointing a paint-smeared finger over my right shoulder. “It’s really pretty and I keep thinking that I’ve seen it before.”

I turned to look.

The poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was a frequent visitor to the Narcoscape in the nineteenth century. Little is permanent dreamside and only rarely will some construct survive the death of its creator. But Coleridge’s Xanadu is still there, the pleasure domes still shining brightly in the sun. Most drug-users dream of pink elephants and melting faces, but Coleridge’s opium-induced dreams had been beautiful and the remnants were still a joy to everyone who saw them. Enough high school and college age kids still read his poems that Kubla Khan’s Pleasure Dome was actually something of a tourist attraction on the dreamside at the start of the Fall semester.

There are other vestiges of extinct cultures in the Narcoscape. There is a fine Incan temple brought into existence by the collective will of a people so strong and sincere in their beliefs that it survives even today. The Greeks have a place too—a sort of artistic ruin of the Parthenon. There is a sacred pagan grove that had gone feral for centuries, but is now once again tame and the place where neo-druids come to worship at the solstices and equinoxes. The Hindus and Buddhists have their places too.

And there is an enormous Egyptian pyramid that overlooks almost everything in the Narcoscape. Unlike the Greek temple, this one shows no sign of erosion. Of course, worship of the old gods was never completely abandoned even with the birth and ascendance of Allah. Understandable when these old gods are still accessible to anyone who wishes to worship them.

“That’s The Pleasure Dome,” I said. “Would you like to go see it?” We didn’t really have time but it was important to build trust before I asked him to follow me.

“No thank you,” he said. “I have to wait here.”

“Why is that?” I asked, glad that he had broached the subject. Things generally go better when the client is ready to discuss matters.

“I have to be here when my wife comes.”

“Ah. Do you think she’ll be coming soon?” My question was mild.

“I’m not sure.” Thomas looked suddenly sad. “I think I killed her,” he confessed.

“Killed her?”

“Yes, we were having an argument. In the car. And I wasn’t paying attention and all of sudden there was this truck coming at us. It hit her door.”

“That’s what they told me at the hospital,” I answered. “But I have some good news for you. Your wife didn’t die in the accident. She only broke her arm. She’s fine and so are you.”

“Really?” For a moment I thought he looked a little disappointed. “This isn’t heaven then?”

“No. You’re in a coma and this is the place where people wait when they are uncertain about whether they want to live or die.” I was simplifying but this wasn’t a moment for a lecture about the nature of the Narcoscape.

“Oh. It seemed kind of empty.” He thought about this. I was glad that he didn’t appear disbelieving of what I’d said. “Where would I go if I wanted to die?” he finally asked.

I pointed to the left where a great cloud wall marked the edge of the Narcoscape. As always, the Egyptian temple was nearby.

“That looks… ominous.” It did. It should. It was death. “I don’t think I want to go there.”

“Okay. I can take you back to your wife then.”

“Alright.” He got up slowly. “Can I bring my painting?”

I looked at his canvas. It was good. It had been good when Monet painted it a hundred years ago too.

“Sorry. Nothing from the dreamside can cross over. Maybe you could paint some more when you get back home.”

“No. I’m not any good back there.” He didn’t sound that unhappy.

“Can you clean your hands up a bit?” I asked him.

“What?”

“The paint. Make it go away,” I instructed.

“I can do that?”

“Of course.”

Thomas stared at his hands and then grinned as the blue and green smears disappeared.

“Wow. That’s cool.”

“Very cool. Take my hand, Thomas. We’re going home.”

Using my free hand to set my sunhat on my head, I used the other to anchor Thomas so we could begin our journey back to the wakeside.  My internal clock that retains some awareness of the passage of time wakeside said that we needed to hurry, but I said nothing to Thomas as he paused a moment to look a last time at our surroundings and enjoyed the gentle breeze of a fine Spring day.  Although the grass was still red, I had to admit that I was beginning to find the color change to be pleasantly unique if not downright appealing. Wakeside, everything was gray and gloomy as November deepened into winter.

Walking across the meadow now thick with wild flowers, I was enjoying the tickling sensation of the foliage on my ankles.  I was especially enjoying the awareness that since this was a dream, the grass would probably not be infested with ticks and other forms of parasite.  Ah, what a feeling to stroll through a blemish-free world with a man’s hand in mine.  Thinking back, I had a hard time remembering the last occasion I’d gone strolling with a man, let alone strolling in such a romantic setting. Too bad Thomas was married and we were on such a short clock. It was a place that invited one to linger. Some days I missed my husband so much that I thought I might die from the emptiness.

Looking up into his face, I found that he could hold my gaze without being self-conscious of his pleasure, so I followed suit and allowed myself to just enjoy the moment.  I didn’t let myself think and I didn’t let myself remember. Throwing my head back, I listened to a chorus of red bluebirds happily chirping as they flew across an azure sky.  Thank God he at least got the color of the sky right. A green one would have ruined the mood.

We had traversed the majority of the field and were approaching the tree line that marked the border between Thomas’ dream canvas and our exit when the trouble began.  I first sensed its coming as a vibration emanating from the ground and traveling up my legs.

Being from California, Thomas’ first question was: “Is that an earthquake?”

“Shit. Not an earthquake. Something worse.” I saw the earth several feet ahead of us begin to fracture as large stones were pushed up from beneath the ground.  It turned out to be a huge stone wall, an impenetrable barrier, being thrust up out of the ground between us and the nearest exit.  It rose until it stood twenty feet high and likely a mile wide.  Inevitably I heard helicopters coming from behind. Their engines were humming the theme from Apocalypse Now. We weren’t going to be leaving by the direct route.

“The NarcoNazis must have woken up from their nap early today,” I mused as I turned to see twenty black attack-helicopters flying our way from out of the distance.  The Dream Police had found us out.

“That’s bad?” Thomas asked as he squinted at the helicopters. He sounded calm.

“It isn’t good, but we’ll manage.” I sounded confident. It was very important that the lost have faith.

As they neared our position, zip lines were dropped to the ground and soldiers, also clad in black and carrying heavy arms, descended those lines in waves.  I’d never seen so many Dream Police in one place.

“Thomas, I hope you’re feeling fit and that you’re ready to lead these jerks on a bit of a chase ‘cause I’m not sure they’ll let you go home if they catch us.”

“I’ve never felt better, actually,” Thomas said, looking more fascinated than afraid of the approaching army.

“Good,” I replied as I watched the soldiers pursuing us form a line and point their armaments our way.  I concentrated on our opponents as their leader issued the order to fire.  Rather than hearing the rattle of automatic weapons and being riddled with bullets, the barrel of each gun in the line ejected a small rolled up flag that unfurled quickly and displaying a single word: BANG!

Thomas found this to be funny.  I, on the other hand, knew that this would likely enrage them. As I watched, the soldiers threw down their rifles and came running at us brandishing swords which had appeared from nowhere. Obviously they didn’t share my sense of humor.

I suppose this is as good a time as any to explain a few facts about the Dream Police and their operation within the Narcoscape.  First, their official function is to police the Narcoscape, keeping dream raiders— which they consider me to be— from traversing multiple dream canvases and thereby supposedly siphoning off dream energy, or polluting the Narcoscape and in other ways causing emotional devastation and mayhem in dreamers’ psyches — yadda, yadda, yadda.  I suppose that someone has to perform this function, but suffice it to say that these guys are no friends of mine.  Second, no one is exactly sure who pulls the strings of the NarcoNazis, but it’s widely assumed that they get their marching orders from somewhere amongst the loose association of dream authorizers my family calls The Absolutes.  Whoever or whatever it is that runs the NarcoNazis, they have substantial power within the Narcoscape and they wield a large portion of it via their Dream Police. Alone, Thomas wouldn’t have stood a chance against them.

Finally, it’s also worth mentioning that these guys aren’t actually out to kill anyone, not outright.  Instead, they’re out to imprison one’s dream essence, bring the dream-self to trial, and expel the dreamer from the Narcoscape—sometimes for a few days, sometimes forever.  This last sentence is of course tantamount to murder since no one can live for very long or with any quality of life without dreaming.  I for one had no intention of falling into their hands, nor would I leave Thomas behind to face his fate alone.

I wished passionately that Josh was there. My husband and I had been a great team. He would create the diversion and I would rush the package home while everyone was dazzled by his sleight of hand. Now I had to play both roles.

“Thomas, have you ever wanted to be a gopher?” I asked nonchalantly.

“A gopher? Like a real one, or in a cartoon?”

“Either. But I need a yes or no, Thomas. Are you up for this or not?”

“Well, yes, I suppose,” he said with a broad, foolish grin. “I always did like Looney Tunes.”

With a wink of my dream essence, the dreamside equivalent of wiggling my nose or crying “Shazam”, we became gophers.  I immediately started to burrow my way under the stone wall and soon sensed that Thomas was busy doing the same.  Arriving on the other side I continued to burrow underground at a fast pace.  There’d be no popping my furry little head out of the ground until I was out an exit or safe in someone else’s dream.

Dead ahead I heard a thud and felt something heavy penetrate the ground.

“Thomas?” I shouted down the tunnel. “They’ve blocked the exit. Go right!”

My warning came too late. Thomas wasn’t digging deep enough and I heard a loud bonk from behind as Thomas hit his head on the bottom of the new wall. He swore in cartoon fashion, then we were off again, this time side-by-side, burrowing rapidly toward the tree line and the safety beyond.

Having no intention of being denied their prey, the Dream Police were soon back on our trail forming themselves into a huge mechanical beast that pounded its way through the stone wall (this was just for effect, because they could have as easily willed the wall away) and then began punching into the ground with some kind of pointed stake.  The massive mechanoid followed our collapsing tunnels, stomping on the raised earth with huge metallic feet in a feeble attempt to squash us before we could get away.  Surfacing a few feet from the tree line I assessed our chances of escape. Not good. They could stomp faster than we could dig.

Trying to keep things as cartoon-like as possible, in the hope of not terrifying Thomas unless I absolutely had to, I exerted my dream-essence in the direction of the metal beast. A huge steel foot transformed into a giant orange carrot that landed a few feet away from me and snapped off harmlessly.  Thomas had surfaced too and feeling cocky, he decided to take a large bite out of the carrot stump with the set of preposterously huge buck teeth he had provided himself.  This sent the mechanoid hopping away holding its damaged vegetable appendage.

*@#!* exploded into the air above us. The mechanoid had not been provided with a voice and this was its only way of cursing. Thomas snickered, still thinking that this was play. It only looked funny because we were in his dream space and he had decided on a cartoon environment.

Now is a good time to mention a few things about dream manipulation.  We all do it in our own dreams to a certain degree. It’s just that some of us are more adept at it and more creative in our manipulations because we are aware that this is what we are doing.  I’ve had a great deal of practice over the years manipulating the Narcoscape for fun and profit, and often to facilitate my escape from the Dream Police. What surprised me was Thomas’ ability to consciously manipulate his dream. Novices usually weren’t that good first time out. I wondered if there might be something special about him. Some people are born with latent abilities that can be developed with proper training.

Still in Thomas’ dream canvas where he had a reasonable amount of power, we had succeeded in redirecting the attention of our pursuers for the moment but we had yet to deal with the dream membrane that separated us from the next canvas and what I hoped would be an unguarded exit.  This is a simple procedure when one has the time for delicate manipulation.  We didn’t have time for delicacy though, so instead it would involve me plunging through the membrane, which I can do very easily as long as I apply the mental equivalent of brute force, and then dragging Thomas’ sorry ass after me.  The membrane was protean and would close up after us without any harm to the neighboring dreamer as long as our entrance wasn’t witnessed and we didn’t tamper with the dreamer’s basic reality. The problems would begin when we had to interact with what we found on the other side. Although I had already traversed the next dream canvas on the way in and found it safe, no work of art remains the same for long. There was no knowing what we would be facing and how much the dreamer might fight against my dream manipulation.

“Ready?” I asked, looking into Thomas’ cute, whiskered face as I grabbed a hold of his paw with my newly transformed hand. “It would be better if you let me handle the dream manipulation when we get to the other side, okay? And don’t be freaked out if things look weird.”

“Squeak,” Thomas answered through massive front teeth.

Jumping through the dream membrane, I felt the familiar sensation of satin sheets being dragged across my naked body.  There was then a slight sucking sound as the last of my body passed through the gap. It was followed by a gentle pop.  I like the sensation but I know that many others do not. Of course, there was a strong tug as Thomas hit the membrane and panicked at being pulled through the curtain. Hauling on his paw with all of my might, I wondered if he had transformed himself again and I was dragging a fifty pound sack of potatoes through quicksand.

I paused for a second to catch my breath. No, I remembered the quicksand dream now, and it was much worse. I just needed to pull harder. Bracing my feet, I yanked with all my might. Thomas came through the barrier with a much louder pop, and it took a while for his face and other features to snap back into human shape.

“Ow! My teeth hurt,” Thomas complained.

“Yeehaw!” A shrill voice screamed before I could answer.

I looked over my shoulder and sighed. Things were about to get athletic and Thomas didn’t have long to adapt since we were now in the middle of another dream.

“Hang on!” I shouted as we were spun up into the air and dumped onto a pair of horses.

Most people would find it somewhat alarming appearing in a new dream, mounted on horses running at a full gallop.  Fortunately, although I had never ridden a horse bareback before, I had been incorporated into this dream as a fully qualified rodeo rider.

“Howdy partner, Wyatt Jones is the name,” I heard in a comfortable drawl from beside me.  Looking to my right I saw a man who was undoubtedly the dream owner, also running at a flat out gallop.  He had a long walrus mustache and wore a dirty hat and bandana.

“Howdy, Nicodemus Smith is my moniker,” I replied.

“I think I’ve heard of you, young lady.  You must be the one they’re after,” he said, nodding over his shoulder. “The whole damn injun nation is ridin’ up on our asses. Never seen that before.”

Springing onto my feet and performing a kick-flip so I landed in my newly imagined saddle facing backward, I observed the Indians galloping through the dream membrane, hot on our trail though wearing a strange mix of costumes from various tribes of the Plains and South West.

“Damn.” I had hoped we had lost our pursuers.  Since one of their primary functions is to prevent tampering with dreams, they themselves will often avoid dream canvas contact, let alone inter-dream transit if at all possible.  I guess they really wanted me bad. Or they really wanted Thomas to stay behind for some reason.

Becoming concerned for Thomas, I looked to my other side to find that he was having the time of his life, galloping along on an old paint, swinging a lariat in the air, though there was nothing for him to rope.  I could only imagine what he was making of all the crazy colors appearing in this dream.  Doing another kick-flip, I once more faced forward to see that we were apparently racing after a steam locomotive upon which we were closing fast.

“You head on after the train,” Wyatt Jones yelled to me. He pulled a giant revolver. “I’ll head back and slow down them injuns. I think maybe a cattle stampede would do it.”

“Thanks, partner! I won’t forget it.”

Having no better plan in mind, I kicked my booted but consciously unspurred feet into the sides of my mount and received an amazing power burst as the horse surged forward in response to my silent plea. Our host was helping us get away. In no time at all, I was swinging from my mount onto the engine of the puffing train and reaching out a hand to help Thomas aboard. No Hollywood stuntman could have done better.

“Yeehaw!” Thomas screamed as I pulled him onto the engine.  “I’d never have thought of this, but from now on I’m a cowboy dreamer,” he added.  “And check out all the wild colors.  It’s like a psychedelic dream. That Wyatt guy must be nuts.”

“Or eating magic mushrooms.”

Seeing that we were pulling safely ahead of the NarcoNazis who were lost in a sea of rampaging cattle, I shared a laugh with Thomas before picking up a shovel of coal to stoke the fire in the hope of even more speed.  Feeling a surge of energy with every shovel full of coal that I threw into the tinder box, I was vaguely hopeful when I leaned my head out the window to check on our lead.

One look was enough to assure me that our poor steam engine wouldn’t be fast enough to escape the NarcoNazis. The cattle had been turned into prairie-dogs and a streamline, diesel locomotive was gaining on us from behind.  It was painted flat black and had a flaming skull mounted on the front on the engine.

So much for remaining within the proper context of the dream.  It looked like the Dream Police were out for blood this time. I began to feel genuine alarm. Not for myself. I had a sort of emergency, dial *69 and get-out-at-once escape route I could use. But that would mean leaving Thomas behind. He had adapted well to this dreamscape but I didn’t think he had enough understanding of The Narcoscape to get home on his own, even if I convinced the Dream Police to follow me and leave him alone.

“What are we going to do?” Thomas shouted, hanging his head out the other side of the train. “They’re gaining on us! Should I shoot them?”

At that point I was convinced that the Dream Police would do anything in their power to stop our escape. What remained to be seen was just how much power they had. I had never tested the limits before.

“Don’t start shooting. So far, they’re just mad at me.” I hoped this was true. I handed Thomas the shovel. “I’m on it. Just keep out of sight, shovel the coal and make sure we don’t run out of track.”

Thomas went to it with a will and I think that on some level he understood that it was our determination that fueled the engine. It just happened that it looked like lumps of coal.

My next action would take a bit of effort and was overtly hostile, but I also knew that it would produce spectacular results if I timed it right. Up to that point, I’d kept things playful—adversarial, but no one had ever been killed. If you could kill a NarcoNazi. I mean as in kill them forever. Making unnecessary enemies wasn’t my thing, but they had made me angry. I was ready to take the gloves off and put on some brass knuckles if that was what it took to get Thomas away from these guys.

We were traveling as fast as good fortune could carry us, but it wasn’t fast enough. We needed another diversion. Concentrating on the tumbleweeds and sagebrush that flew by the engine, I gathered my dream energy and everything Thomas had to spare, and focused it on the ground. The air around us filled with smoke and bright cinders of brimstone as Thomas’ own determination grew. Sparks began to fly from the iron wheels, the noise like nails on a chalkboard. It was unproductive activity, but quite threatening, so I didn’t stop him.

As the diesel struggled to reach parity with our steam engine, I glanced forward a final time and saw with satisfaction that new tracks were still laying themselves down in front of our speeding engine. Thomas was handling things fine on his own. I looked back to the black diesel and then let fly with my next manifestation which was a three foot thick steel wall that appeared immediately ahead of the chasing diesel. They had no time to apply the brakes.

“Holy shit!” Thomas yelled.

The crash produced by the collision of these two dream forces was nothing short of spectacular. I felt the backlash rattle my teeth. The sound of grinding metal was horrendous, and parts flew in all directions, some of them continuing to keep pace with our own locomotive.  Thomas jumped up and down and clapped his hands in response to the crash, but I knew better than to think we were safe. The DP weren’t giving up this time. I began to wonder if they had been bribed.

My suspicion that the DP couldn’t be hurt was proved correct. No sooner had the diesel disintegrated than a massive starship flew out of the fire ball that was the locomotive and positioned itself in the skies overhead.  As I had suspected, killing the NarcoNazis wasn’t an option. There would always be more.

Seeing the tip of the massive laser mounted on the side of the craft begin to glow with pent up dream energy, I grabbed Thomas’ hand and prepared for the next phase of our journey.  Fortunately the next dream membrane was right ahead and our train was turning on a new course that would come within a few feet of it. My first impulse had been to run the train right into the wall, but I wasn’t desperate enough to risk freaking out whoever was dreaming on the other side.

“Get ready to jump,” I warned.

Seeing the shimmering barrier ahead of us and recognizing it for what it was, Thomas’ resisted, pulling back against my grip.  “No, it’s too far, we’ll never make it. Let’s fight them here. I always wanted to fly a space ship.”

“Thomas, remember, in this world we can fly ourselves. Didn’t you have flying dreams when you were a kid?” I asked with a forced smile.  This reminder of this universally pleasant dream cheered him up immensely, and together we faced the rapidly approaching barrier.  “Please just trust me. If you don’t fight it, it won’t hurt.”

“Okay.”

We jumped not a moment too soon since our transportation was blown to pieces by a death ray fired from the spacecraft the moment our feet left its floorboards.

Flying through the air, or more like swimming in Thomas’ case, it required only a few flaps of our arms to travel the full distance to the dream barrier.  As usual, I penetrated the membrane without difficulty and was then pulled up short by Thomas who was sill hanging onto my hand.  Yanking on his arm, I tugged him through. We both summersault over the powdery ground.

Thomas coughed and tried to wipe the dust away.

“Where are we?”

The new dreamscape was comparatively quiet but I knew instinctively that we were not safe. Something strange was happening. I could feel power massing and everything was moving way too slowly. The world seemed hazy and out of focus.  Regardless of the disorienting atmosphere, I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so good.

No, wait a second, I could remember.

“Oh no.” I finally recognized the signature of an adolescent wet-dream.  Letting go of Thomas’ hand, I knew that we had no reasonable choice but to ride it out and hope the NarcoNazi’s didn’t arrive until our host was done.

Sitting down on the bed that formed behind me, I ignored the couple that was writhing in ecstasy beneath the sheets. I tipped my head back, trying not to be too vocal as I enjoyed the inevitable ride.  Fortunately, the kid had a short fuse because I doubt that I could have handled any more arousal and my inner-clock said we really didn’t have the time for this.

With a final thrust, in which I was not involved but of which I was still intimately aware, the situation came to a climax.  And this climax was long and hard like only a male, adolescent orgasm can be.  We climaxed together and I arched so hard I damn near broke my back.  As is always the case when I’m involved in such dreams, I wondered what my body was doing on the wakeside.  Was it currently arching itself as it moaned in ecstasy?  That would be embarrassing and would give the nurses on the third floor something to talk about. I just hoped to hell they didn’t think I was having a seizure and try to revive me.  If I got pulled back wakeside, Thomas would be left alone.

Rising to my feet, I grabbed Thomas and pulled him forward on wobbly legs.  I made a point of not staring at the large wet spot on the front of his jeans. Opening the bedroom door, we ran out of the room into a barren desert under a blood red sky.  There was some kind of small spacecraft hovering in the driveway. The hood of the flying car said: Fuckmobile.

Finding it strange that the boy’s bedroom was in the middle of a Martian landscape, I glanced back at the bed to take a look at what the boy had been having relations with. She looked like a green Barbarella in thigh-high silver boots.

There was just no accounting for taste, I thought as I dragged Thomas to the next barrier only a few yards ahead.

Looking out into the desert beside us, I saw that the mighty DP spacecraft had crashed.  It gave me quite a chuckle to think of the members of her crew trying to pilot the craft while having a massive group orgasm.  Unfortunately for us, the after-affects of sex were short lived, and black-clad storm troopers were already pouring out of the craft to fire pulse rifles in our direction.

Plunging through the next dream barrier was far easier.  I guess Thomas was getting the hang of dream-hopping.  I just hoped I wasn’t turning him into a dream-visitation junky.  It could and did happen to dreamers who lacked imagination and developed a taste for more exciting dream scenarios. I told myself that I would worry about this later.

Pop.

“Get down!” I screamed. It appeared that we had just stepped into the middle of a full out military battle circa World War II.

Hitting the sand and pulling Thomas down beside me, I peeked over the top of a dune only to have a spray of machinegun fire force me to bury my head back in the relative safety of the sandbank.  Apparently we were hitting a beach with the marines, and based on the authenticity of this dream, I assumed that the owner had done this in the real world. He was having some kind of flashback.

“Keep your head down and try not to get hit,” I warned Thomas.  “It hurts a lot if you get shot.”

Propping himself up to ask a question, Thomas immediately took a bullet in the shoulder.  “Oh, shit,” he screamed, pressing a hand against the wound to staunch the flow of blood. “That really hurts!”

“I warned you,” I chided, and then I focused my attention on getting us to the next barrier.  Why, oh why had I had the misfortune of entering the Narcoscape so many canvases away from my destination? I wondered as I surveyed the beachhead for possible safe trails. I knew that there was an exit from this dream somewhere, but I couldn’t see it. Why hadn’t Thomas been where he was supposed to be? I would have to ask him about that later when he stopped whimpering. “Just stop the bleeding,” I said. “You know how.”

“I’m trying. It still hurts.”

“There it is—the next barrier. See it?”  I pointed. The next wall was just behind enemy lines over the top of a large hill.  Machinegun fire sprayed from that knoll and several Panzer tanks pulled up in reinforcement.  The Dream Police had arrived. The NarcoNazis and joined the regular Nazis and swelled their ranks.

“This is all wrong,” Thomas complained. “What did we ever do to them?”

Looking along the line of troops hiding behind our hillock, I quickly identified the dream owner as the lieutenant three positions down who lay shaking with his head buried in the sand.

“Keep your head down and follow me.” Crawling down the line, I forced myself in beside the lieutenant and tried to get his attention. Wearing my father’s body and what I hoped was a proper uniform, I nudged him in the ribs as I shouted: “Lieutenant, the enemy has brought in a battalion of Panzer tanks in support.  What should we do?”

There was a long silence.

“Panzers?  There are no Panzers in this battle. Where the bloody hell did they come from?” he replied in a terror-stricken voice.

“Sir, I’m afraid the enemy is not fighting fair. We need you— you’re our only hope against a bunch of damned Nazi cheaters. Those bastards just won’t fight fair.”

At the mention of cheating, the lieutenant seemed to perk up.  After considering my words for a moment, his face became downright livid.

“Cheaters, are they?” he said in indignation.  “Well, I’ll show them.”

Popping his head over the top of the dune, the lieutenant shouldered his Thompson machinegun and started to spray bullets at the enemy.  The amazing thing is that every bullet seemed to hit its intended target.  In the wake of his seemingly random fire, enemy soldiers keeled over and the gas tanks on Panzers exploded in a way that would never have happened in real life.  By the time the lieutenant had to replace the clip on his machinegun, the enemy forces were decimated and what few remained unharmed were running for cover. Since the dream owner had shot them, they were obliged to play dead.

The NarcoNazis weren’t willing to shoot the dream owner. How lucky for us.

“Come on, Lieutenant, we need to get to the top of that hill before the enemy regroups,” I shouted encouragingly, sending him some of my power. I could be wrong, but I thought that defeating these bastards would be good therapy for this guy.

“Come on, boys, follow me,” the suddenly brave lieutenant bellowed as he raced over the top of the dune leading us toward the next dream barrier.  Again, his machinegun fired with incredible precision, cutting a swath through the Dream Police soldiers who tried to stand in our way.  I laughed breathlessly as I stormed through ineffectual return fire.  Thomas did little but whine about the pain in his shoulder as he followed, but at least he kept up.

Arriving at the top of the hill, we found a line of almost one hundred enemy troops standing between us and the barrier.  No worries though.  With a single spray of no more than twenty bullets, the lieutenant managed to send all of the enemy to the ground, convulsing in overly theatrical death throes.  I didn’t stay to give thanks to our rescuer. Plunging through the center of the enemy line, Thomas and I hit the barrier running and never looked back.

I was pleased to find that this time I didn’t need to pull Thomas through the wall.  With a bit of a struggle, he managed to make it by himself.  Once past the obstruction, his shoulder stopped hurting and he seemed much relieved, though again we didn’t have a lot of time to prepare mentally before finding ourselves in the middle of another intense dream sequence.

“Damn. Doesn’t anyone have simple house-keeping dreams any more?” I muttered as grass sprouted under my suddenly cleated feet.

“Hut one, hut two, hike,” the owner of the dream shouted.  Receiving an oblong ball through the legs of the man crouched before him, the dream-owner immediately turned and handed the ball to Thomas who, though startled, gamely pushed me out in front of him as we started to run for the end of the field.

“Run for the end zone, I can see the barrier there,” Thomas yelled as he tried to guide me in the direction he wanted to go.  I had no idea what the end zone looked like, but I recognized the barrier just beyond a line of giant men wearing black football uniforms.  Having a basic familiarity of the game, I started throwing my shoulders into the opposing players sending them flying to either side of the field as I forced a hole for Thomas to run through.  Unfortunately, the more players I knocked aside the more players who showed up to replace them.  Soon there seemed to be hundreds of opponents packed close together between us and the end zone. This was blatant cheating. Still I hammered on and watched as the gridlines disappeared under my feet. The dream owner really wanted that touchdown and was helping Thomas and I get there.

I saw the exit sign glowing green at the end of the tunnel behind the end-zone. Hallelujah! We had a way out. Ten yards, nine, eight, seven— I continued to push on.  Six, five, four— now I was beginning to slow and was thankful when I felt Thomas shove at my back to add momentum. Once past the goal line, the dreamer had abandoned us, but we couldn’t let the drop in energy slow us down. Usually I don’t tire dreamside but today had been unusually taxing. Three, two, one, I had almost stopped now, feeling that I was too exhausted to move on, then suddenly we were there, running down the tunnel toward the glowing exit sign next to the locker-room.

I shoved the door open and snapped awake instantly. I was slumped in a very uncomfortable hospital chair just outside Thomas’ room.  Springing to my feet, I threw open the door to room 316 and found a ring of concerned looking individuals surrounding Thomas’ bed. They watched in amazement as he regained consciousness and slurred what I recognized as: “Touchdown!”

One woman in particular looked more amazed then the rest.  She stood beside the bed holding an unplugged cable in her hand.  Although I had never met her, from the cast on her right arm, I recognized her as Thomas’ supposedly loving wife, Nora.

“Nora, what are you doing with that plug in your hand,” were the first clear, waking words that left Thomas’ mouth.

That was a telling question. I can’t tell you how many times I had seen it. Loved ones who take the expression “pull the plug” literally then end up unplugging the lights over the patient’s headboard or the heart monitoring machine in their eagerness to get it all over with.

“Nora?” he asked again.

It looked like someone had some explaining to do. Thankfully it wasn’t me.

I backed out of the room before anyone noticed me. I felt no inclination to participate in the subsequent heated discussion.  Having completed my contractual obligation and seen Thomas safely wakeside, I decided that the rest of the details such as billing and words of thanks could be taken care of via the mail.

If Thomas ever asked why I left without talking to him, I’d tell him that I hate long, mushy goodbyes. Really, I just hate long family arguments.

He probably wouldn’t ask though. Most rescued dreamers never quite believed that I was real.

About The Author

Melanie and her husband, also a writer, live in the California Gold Country with their cat (also a writer who has a page on myspace) and their dog (who is hoping to get a page on facebook as soon as she masters typing). Melanie likes gardening but hates the deer who also like her garden, and she volunteers at a local animal shelter. Discover more about her books at www.melaniejackson.com

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Excerpt from The First Book of Dreams: Metropolis

Chapter 1