Page 15

Horst’s head snapped up, and he held very still for a moment, holding his breath as though that might help him hear better. Then, as the sound became undeniable, he swore under his breath.

“The police are here,” I said.

“Yeah.” Horst pulled his hands away from me and grabbed his pipes, blowing a quick tune before shoving them back into his pocket. “I think the slide might be the fastest way out, don’t you?” And with that he swept me against his side and leapt onto the slide like something out of an action movie.

It was pretty hot, actually. It might have been hotter had we been, I don’t know, swinging on vines across an alligator-filled moat or something and not bouncing our way down an inflatable castle slide painted to look like a pastel rainbow, but whatever.

We reached the drawbridge at the bottom, the impact of hitting what seemed to be an extra springy part of the castle bouncing me onto Horst’s chest. I gazed down at him, at his beautiful face that seemed almost to be carved from living wood, his heavily lashed honey-mead eyes that always seemed to hold both a secret and a promise, and his incredibly kissable lips.

For a moment, I forgot that we were, you know, running from the law, and it seemed like Horst did, too.

And then Oomy appeared out of nowhere, making frantic kobold squeaks, and the whooshing stopped suddenly as unseen kobolds apparently unplugged the inflatable, which began rapidly sinking around us.

Horst grinned as though this was all part of a regular day for him—and for all I knew, it could be—and rolled to his feet, helping me up.

We stopped to shove our feet into our shoes, and then we darted for the back door, which seemed like a mistake to me.

Wouldn’t the cops be waiting out there for us?

They hadn’t come through the front door yet, the one closest to the inflatables, so they had to be out back.

But there was no one there when we emerged from the warehouse. Horst hustled me to the car, breathing a sigh of relief as we closed the doors behind us. “That was a close one,” he said, leaning back against his seat. Then he straightened up. “Oops. Spoke a little too soon.”

Turning, I saw the flash of a police light at the far end of the strip mall.

That was when it hit me. The cops weren’t there for Bounce Bounce Bounce. They were there for a different business. The one at the other end of the block.

The pawn shop with the deer targets in the window.

Headlights briefly blinded me as the cop car drove along the back side of the strip mall, obviously checking everything out.

Horst’s hands slipped to the hem of my shirt again. “I’m going to need you to take this off.”

“What? Why?”

“I’m just very interested to see what bra you have on today. Your black one? Maybe something in red? Or even...leopard print?”

“The cops are going to be here any minute. Shouldn’t we get out of here?”

“Too late now. If they see us driving off, they’ll be all over us.” He leaned over the center console, setting his lips to the base of my throat and scraping his teeth over the sensitive skin there. “It’s called an alibi. Just go with it.”

Maybe Horst kissing my neck just plain made me stupid, or maybe the whole night had eroded my good sense, or maybe I really did just make the worst decisions, but I allowed Horst to strip my shirt off and toss it into the back seat.

Then he shoved his hands through my hair, tousling it thoroughly as he crushed his lips against mine.

And if I thought jumping onto the slide of a princess castle like some kind of Indiana Jones was hot, this was about one hundred times hotter.

I knew the cops were seconds away from the car, and I still almost begged Horst to take me right there in the front seat of his Civic, a handful of fast food wrappers brushing my ankles as I shifted my feet on the floor.

I had come so close to forgetting that we were making out only as an alibi that I was genuinely startled when someone rapped on Horst’s window and a flashlight lit up the car from outside.

I let out a little half scream that earned a nod of approval when Horst drew back.

“Nice touch,” he whispered before he turned to roll down his window.

With a handcrank. Because that’s how old his car was.

“Why, Officer Melody Simpson! What are you doing here on this lovely evening?”

I winced. Of all the cops to find us out here...

Officer Simpson lowered the flashlight so it was no longer in my eyes, and I could see a mixture of resignation and confusion warring on her face. “A better question, Mr. Pfeiffer, would be what are you doing here?”

Horst looked toward the dashboard, rubbing the back of his neck as though he were embarrassed to have to admit exactly what we were doing. “As to that, officer, we were...uh...” In the cool light from the flashlight, I could see he was even blushing. “Well, we just needed a little time alone.”

“I see.” It was obvious that she did. Because, you know, the light, while no longer in my eyes, was still on me.

Me and my rose gold bra with the little rhinestones along the straps just glittering away in the police officer’s flashlight.

“This is kind of déjà vu for me. The last time I saw the two of you, you were making out while Ms. O’Bryan was shirtless. ”

Horst half turned in his seat, stretching one arm out and resting his wrist on the steering wheel in a pose so casual I almost believed we hadn’t just emerged from an illicit encounter in a bouncy house rental warehouse.

“I hate to disagree with an esteemed officer of the law, but that just isn’t true,” he said, his tone light.

The beam of the flashlight wavered ever so slightly. “No?”

“That was the last time you arrested me. But the last time you saw me was after I had bailed out, and Glory definitely had a shirt on by then. Remember? You told me to stay out of trouble?”

She nodded slowly. “I do remember that, yes. And it looks like you didn’t listen.”

Horst jerked back as though she’d slapped him.

“I think that’s going a little far. Maybe we didn’t have the best judgment this evening, but”—he turned to look at me, a dazzling smile on his lips even though the policewoman couldn’t see it—“just look at this woman. She makes it hard to make good decisions. But I certainly wouldn’t call what we were just doing ‘getting into trouble.’”

“Mmhmm.” Officer Simpson didn’t sound convinced. “There was a break in just down the way there. Clyde’s Pawn Shop.”

Horst looked back at the policewoman, shaking his head. “Crime’s getting worse every day. I’ll tell you what, officer, I sure am grateful to have people like you looking out for all the law-abiding citizens of Gallows Bay.”

Officer Simpson shifted the flashlight from one hand to the other. “As much as I appreciate that, it certainly seems like a big coincidence, doesn’t it? You being here while a break-in was going on?”

“Not such a coincidence,” Horst said with a shrug. “We were looking for a dark, isolated place where we could spend a few minutes, um, talking. I would imagine that burglars look for the same kind of places, right? Just for less fun purposes.”

Officer Simpson practically snorted. For a moment, her gaze went to the base of my throat, and I realized Horst had left a hickey there with all that teeth scraping.

Sexiest. Alibi. Ever.

“You didn’t happen to see anything odd, did you?” she asked.

“We weren’t exactly paying attention to anything outside the car,” Horst said.

“I’m sorry. Had I known a crime was going on and we had the chance to provide information on the miscreants involved.

..” He trailed off, then reached over and laid his hand on my knee.

“No, actually, sorry. I probably still wouldn’t have been able to tear my eyes away from Glory here. ”

Officer Simpson studied us both for a moment, then shook her head. “Against my own better judgment, I’m going to let you two go. But maybe try to find more socially—and legally—acceptable places to, as you put it, ‘talk.’ Okay?”

“We definitely will. Thank you, officer.” Horst reached down to roll up the window, then stopped. “And if I do happen to think of anything I might have seen, I’ll give you a call.”

“Thank you.” She walked toward her car but turned to watch us as Horst rolled the window up and started the car.

“Excellent work, Glory O’Bryan,” he said as he buckled up, backed out of the parking space, and drove slowly past the cop car toward the front of the strip mall.

I’d buckled up, too—no sense courting a seatbelt ticket from Officer Simpson—and I struggled to pull my shirt over my head with my seatbelt on. I was relieved that we’d managed to escape another encounter with the cops with no arrests, but something was bothering me.

“Why did you bring me here?” I asked, managing to tug my shirt on under the shoulder portion of my seatbelt.

“I thought it might be helpful. You’re throwing a princess party, right? Maybe you could rent a princess castle inflatable.”

“But I don’t have a parking lot big enough for an inflatable that size.”

“Ah. Well, maybe something smaller.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove us back toward my apartment. “It was just a thought.”

It was possible that Horst really hadn’t considered the size of the inflatables versus my parking lot. But that brief tune he’d played before we entered the building made me certain he had an ulterior motive for taking me there.

Because the music had been really loud.

Loud enough to be heard down by the pawn shop.

For kobolds to hear down by the pawn shop.

“Did you break into that pawn shop tonight?” I asked.

He slanted me a surprised look. “I was with you the whole time.” He lowered his voice to “sexy growl” territory. “You know what we were busy doing.”

“I...” An image of exactly what we’d been doing rose up in my mind and I had to take a couple deep breaths to clear my head. “You know what I mean.”

“This is how little you trust me, huh? I break into your café...” He glanced over. “How many times was it?”

“At least twice.”

“See? Just two times, and the next thing I know, you’re accusing me of being a one-man crime wave.”

“I notice you’re not denying it.”

There was tension in his arms, which practically vibrated as he held the steering wheel.

Finally, he relaxed. “Fine. It’s possible some of my kobolds may have attempted to gain entry to the pawn shop.

I told you—I’m always looking for magical objects, and sometimes that means tip-toeing across the line of what’s generally considered legal. ”

So the whole evening was planned not around the princess castle, but around the pawn shop. “Why bring me along at all, then?”

We stopped at a red light, and he turned his head to look at me, his smile almost sad. “Didn’t you have a good time?”

“I did, but—”

“Then maybe just accept the night for what it was. We both enjoyed ourselves. No one has to get bailed out of jail. A successful night all around.”

The light turned green, and he turned his attention back to the road. “I know something’s going on with you,” I finally said. “I wish you would tell me what.”

He was quiet for a long, long time. Then, finally, he said, “I don’t know why you think that. But if there was something I wasn’t telling you, it would be for a good reason.”

When we got back to the café, Horst said he was too tired to come in, which certainly could have been true. But it also could have been an excuse.

After I let myself into my apartment, I slumped down on the couch, stroking Pancake slowly as I thought about how cagey Horst had gotten at the end of the night. Then I thought about what Roger had said the other day.

Friends do things for each other.

I wanted to be able to help Horst, if only he would let me. But he wouldn’t even tell me what was going on.

I froze, my hand on Pancake’s back mid-stroke.

I didn’t know exactly why Horst was looking for something, but I knew what he was looking for.

And what’s more, I had an idea of where I might be able to find it.

It was late, but witchy antique shops keep very late hours. Pulling out my phone, I scrolled through my contacts until I found what I was looking for. My old boss answered on the third ring. “Bixley’s Antiques, Collectibles, and Oddities,” an ancient voice said.

“Bathsheba, it’s Glory O’Bryan.”

There was a pause, and then she croaked, “Well, young lady, it’s been a very long time since I’ve heard from you. I’m assuming you’re not just calling to find out if my gout went away.”

“Yes, I—”

“It did not, by the way. In case you were wondering.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” I paused in case she had any more updates she wanted to share. When she stayed silent, I said, “I’m looking for something, and I was hoping you could help me...”