“About the people falling over the edge and the birds getting lost and the dinosaur-eating monsters.”
“I told him I’d think about it.”
“You know what we should do?” said Vesta as she yawned and stretched. “We should go to this meeting.” She was tapping the flyer.
Scarlett stared at her.“What are you talking about?”
“Scarlett, I don’t know about you, but I’m bored. Nothing ever happens in this town, and if this keeps up I’m going to die of boredom. You do know that people can die from boredom, right? You see it happen all the time with the folks that retire. Three months later they’re dead. Worked all their lives, forty years on the job, and three months into their retirement, bam, they drop dead.”
“You’re not retired, though. You still work at the doctor’s office.”
“Yeah, but that’s a borefest, too. I want some excitement, honey. Something to keep my mind engaged. And this flat earth business is just the ticket. I can feel it in my bones.”
“I don’t know, Vesta. It looks a little crazy to me.”
“Of course it looks crazy. Because it is crazy. So why don’t you and I infiltrate this organization and find out what’s going on?”
“Oh, I know what’s going on. A bunch of crazies getting together and driving each other even crazier than they already are. What surprises me, though, is how a guy like Fido would get involved in a thing like that. He never struck me as a nutter.”
“That’s what we need to find out. If these people can snag Fido, who’s next? Pretty soon this whole town will be part of this cult, and then when the FBI comes knocking, we’ll be the ones to save the day. We’ll be like Deep Throat.”
“What throat?”
“Never mind what throat. Let’s do this.”
“If you say so,” said Scarlett, dubiously.
6
Marge Poole was reading a book and was so engrossed by the exciting tale the author had spun that she didn’t even notice a customer had entered the library and was standing in front of her desk. Only when the person cleared her throat did she finally look up.
“Oh, hey, Mrs. Samson,” she said. Margaret Samson was one of her regulars, and came in every week, sometimes even twice a week, to load up on reading material. Her genre of choice was steamy romance, which for a lady as aged as she was sometimes came as a surprise to those who saw her fill her little basket with her favorite books. “I have that book you asked me to look out for,” Marge said as she put down her own book and picked up a tome she’d put aside for Mrs. Samson. It was called Fierce Hunk, by Courtney Divine, and featured a picture of a young man with an impressive six-packand a sort of smoldering look in his eyes.
Mrs. Samson’s own eyes lit up. “Oh, goodie,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for that one. I do wish these writers would write faster, Marge. Can’t you tell them to write faster? It’s been months since Fierce Heart came out, and I just know I’ll have to wait months for Fierce Betrayal, the third book in the trilogy.”
“I’d tell her if I knew her,” said Marge with an indulgent smile as she placed the book aside. From experience she knew that the old lady would load up on more reading material. One book was only going to keep her occupied for a couple of hours. She read a book a day, and sometimes even that wasn’t enough. “You could always write to her,” she suggested.
“Write Courtney Divine?” asked Mrs. Samson, raising her eyebrows in surprise. “You mean like a letter?”
“No, an email. Or you could even find her on social media, and get in touch with her that way.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Mrs. Samson dubiously. “She probably doesn’t want to be bothered.”
“I’m sure she’d love to hear from such a loyal fan as yourself. Here, I’ll write down her email and you can go over to one of the internet computers and write to her.” She handed the old lady a piece of paper with the email.
Mrs. Samson stared at it curiously and with a touch of reverence.“But… what do I tell her?”
“Just tell her how much you love her books, and tell her you can’t wait for the next one to come out.”
“Okay,” said the old romance addict. “I guess I can do that.”
Marge watched her trot off in the direction of the bank of internet computers, and smiled. An avid reader herself, she could absolutely relate to Mrs. Samson, who considered the characters in the books she read almost as real as the people in her own life.
She picked up the book she’d been reading and was soon engrossed in the story. It was about a woman of humble descent who met a sheikh and fell in love. Part one depicted their whirlwind romance, and he’d just proposed to her and she’d accepted and was rushing home to tell her mom and dad all about it and also to showthem the diamond ring the sheikh had gifted her, containing a very precious and unique diamond called the Pink Lady.
Just then, her phone chimed, and when she glanced over, she saw her daughter was trying to reach her.“Hey, honey,” she said. “I’m just reading the most amazing book. The Sheikh’s Passion. Have you read it?”
“No, Mom,” said Odelia. “I’m with Uncle Alec right now, and we need your help.”
“My help?”
“Wait—I’ll hand the phone to him.”
There was a rustling sound, and then her brother Alec’s voice sounded in her ear. “Marge, I need to ask you a big, big favor.”
“Sure,” she said. “Though if it’s about tonight’s menu, it’s fish. I already took it out of the freezer, and if we don’t eat it tonight it’s going to spoil.”
“It’s not about the fish. It’s about a diamond.” He cleared his throat. “Have you ever heard about a diamond called the Pink Lady?”
Marge blinked, then her eyes slowly traveled to the cover of the book on her desk. It depicted a very large and very pink diamond.“The Pink Lady?”
“Yeah. It was a diamond that went missing thirty years ago. It used to belong to a sheikh’s wife—anyway, long story short, it disappeared, and now it’s turned up again. On the beach.”
“Amazing,” she breathed, as she turned the book over and perused the back cover, where a picture of the author had been printed. It was a woman with thick curly blond hair, looking confidently into the camera. Her name was Loretta Gray, and The Sheikh’s Passion was her debut novel.
“So the people that found the diamond took it to Thormond Linoski, the jeweler on Carmel Street, and now he’s afraid for his safety, and the safety of the diamond. And as long as we don’t know for sure who it belongs to, I was thinking that maybe we should keep it in a place no one would everthink to look.”
“And where is that?”
“You have a small safe in your bedroom, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, why don’t we put the stone there until we can figure out what to do with it?”
“Why don’t you keep it at the police station? Don’t you think it’ll be safer there?”
“This was actually your daughter’s idea,” said the Chief. “Wait, here she is.”
“Mom?” said Odelia. “So Mr. Linoski has asked for extra security, but Uncle Alec can’t spare anyone right now, and so we were thinking that the best way would be for the diamond to be kept in a secret place.”
“So why not the police station?” she repeated.
“Wait, I’ll hand over Uncle Alec again.”
“Marge, the police station is the first place thieves will look when they find out about that stone. And trust me, they will find out, since the parents of the little girl who found the stone have already been blabbing about it to anyone who would listen. It’s all over the news—they even gavean interview to WLBC-9 and everything.”
“Okay, sure, if you think this is a good idea.”
“It wasn’t my idea,” said Alec. “I wanted to put it in the police station lockup but Odelia—wait, I’m passing the phone to her.”