I didn’t want to say that might be the exact reason he was being secretive. I knew what it was like working with Adele. She seemed deep in thought as she moved around the room. She checked out the chair and books next to it. She looked at the bookcase and examined the titles and all of a sudden she screamed. “Pink, I know why he’s being so secretive.”
She had pulled out a book and held it for me to see. It was an old book with a dark worn binding. There was no dust jacket; instead, it had paper plate on the cover. In gothic-looking type was the title—Vampire Legends. When I didn’t respond, she yelled at me.
“Don’t you get it, Pink, he’s not writing an instructional book. Vampires and crochet research. William is A. J. Kowalski.” Adele’s excitement bubbled over into her jumping up and down. “It makes sense. He wouldn’t want to write the Anthony books under his own name because then people would expect them to be kids books.” She stopped jumping and put her hand on her hip. “You know people do that. Like Nora Roberts calls herself J. D. Robb when she writes mysteries.”
She grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the room and shut the door behind us. “I’m A. J. Kowalski’s girlfriend,” she said, dropping my hand and letting it sink in. “Pink, we can’t tell anybody.” She said, “wow” a bunch of times and then grabbed my arm. “I have to make him one of those vampire scarves. Thank you, Pink. If you hadn’t been so nosey, I’d never have found out.”
Adele had a way with compliments.
CHAPTER 15
WE WENT BACK TO THE BOOKSTORE. MRS. SHEDD was with a customer, and as soon as they left, her smile faded. I took the opportunity to tell her the latest developments in the Bradley Perkins situation. Mostly I wanted to tell her about the SEC people not knowing who all the investors were. I suggested she might want to let them know she belonged on the list. I couldn’t tell if she planned to or not.
The store was bustling with customers, many of whom seemed as if they needed assistance. Day off or not, I stowed my purse and went to help out. Mrs. Shedd looked over and her eyes softened and she mouthed a thank-you.
There was a lull later in the afternoon and I slipped back to the yarn department. I managed to complete one crocheted swatch. I really got the point of the swatches when I looked at the finished little piece. The ball of yarn was pretty with its shades of blue and purple, but nothing compared to how the yarn looked when it was crocheted. The swatches were going to help sell a lot of yarn—if I ever got them finished.
There was a surge of business in the late afternoon and I went back to waiting on customers. When I finally left I was determined to work on snowflakes all evening to add to the stock. I promised myself I’d only do a couple of rounds on the owl. I loved the sparkling white yarn I’d chosen to use instead of the plain white in the pattern. Our last holiday event before the launch party was coming up and we all agreed the snowflakes needed to be hung by then. I pushed away any thoughts that it might be our last bookstore holiday event altogether. It was too sad to consider.
People always thought of Southern California as being warm in the winter, and maybe compared to the Midwest it was. However, the Valley occasionally got frost in the middle of the night. It wasn’t enough to kill anything but the most fragile of flowers, but the grass and leaves on the orange trees would have bits of ice in the morning. It felt like it was going to be one of those nights when I walked outside. There was a sharpness to the cold and it cut right through my fleece hoodie. The days were almost at their shortest and it had already been dark for so long it felt very late, though it was only seven. Before I turned into my driveway, the car’s headlights washed over the tall gangly figure of Ryder. He was sitting on the curb. His face was illuminated by the bluish glow that came off his video camera as he watched something he’d taped.
I pulled in quickly and hit the brakes, making the car squeak to a stop. I cut the motor and jumped out of the car and marched toward him. Something in the way I was walking must have scared him because he stood up quickly and took a defensive pose. I couldn’t say I blamed him. I had a bit of the crazy-lady thing going by then.
“What’s up, M?” he said.
“I’ll tell you what’s up,” I said, getting so close to him, he stumbled back. “I know you are all focused on your career in journalism or reality TV or being the YouTube king and you probably think the ends justify the means and all that trash talk. But you sneak in my house one more time and throw everything around, and I’m giving you up to the cops.”
“W-what?” he stammered. “Why would I be sneaking in your house?”
“We both know why. You want to scoop everybody and find out who the vampire book author is. You think I know who it is and have the information hidden in my bags of yarn.”
“Wow, do you? Know who it is, I mean?”
“No,” I said firmly.
“You have to believe me. I wasn’t in your house,” he said. “I do want to be a journalist, and I know you have to walk that extra mile to get a story sometimes, but I didn’t. I mean, I wouldn’t—”
My crazy-lady demeanor began to diminish. As much as I didn’t want to believe him, I did begin to think he was telling the truth. But if he wasn’t breaking into my house, who was?
Ryder and I had just about finished conducting our business when Barry’s Tahoe pulled into the driveway and stopped near the street. Barry and his son, Jeffrey, got out. Barry zeroed in on me, and Jeffrey walked up to Ryder.
“Hey, weren’t you Curly in the junior production of Carousel ?” Ryder said.
Thanks to the floodlight on my garage that illuminated the end of the driveway, I saw Jeffrey’s surprised expression. When Jeffrey nodded with a confident toss of his head, Ryder held out a hand to high-five him. “Hey, man dude, you done good.”
“Man dude?” I said, looking at Ryder.
“I’m trying to start a new phrase. You like it? I want to include it in my next YouTube piece and maybe start a trend.”
“You put stuff on YouTube?” Jeffrey said, impressed.
“All the time, Columbia,” Ryder said. I heard Barry groan. He hated that Jeffrey wanted to be an actor and even more that he’d decided to go by Columbia. What Columbia /Jeffrey said next made Barry choke.
“I think Columbia is too long. I’m considering shortening it to Cgreen,” Jeffrey said. Ryder mulled it over and proclaimed it very contemporary.
“Or you can change it altogether and sound like one of those rappers and go by Ice Berg,” I said. Jeffrey, Ryder and Barry all glared at me.
“Sorry. I should have added an LOL at the end. I was just joking.”
The two boys stepped away and Barry stopped next to me. He was glaring at Ryder. “He’s the guy, isn’t he?”
I tried playing stupid, but that only convinced Barry more that Ryder was the one I thought was breaking into my house. “I think I’ll have a little talk with him.” Barry made a move toward Ryder, but I grabbed his arm.
“I already took care of it and he said it wasn’t him.”
“And you believe him? Wake up and smell the coffee, Molly. People lie. The people I see lie twenty-four, seven unless you know how to get at the truth.” He seemed disappointed when I wouldn’t let him interrogate Ryder. Barry said he’d stopped over to check that his temporary repair to my front door was still secure. There was a delay with getting the new door, he explained.
Samuel’s jeep stopped in front of the house. He got out and crossed the lawn. “Hey,” he said, nodding a greeting to Ryder and Jeffrey. The nod he gave to Barry was only marginally cordial. While Samuel wasn’t as bad as my other son, Peter, there was always a certain level of tension between him and Barry. Peter didn’t like Barry, but with Samuel, it was more about the problem he had with me dating. Dating? That was as out of place as calling Barry a boyfriend. Dating implied Saturday night movie dates followed by a hamburger somewhere. Barry showed up whenever. I usually cooked something, after which he fell asleep sitting on the couch while insisting he wasn’t tired.