Treasure Me (31 page)

“Hugh—”

The words died in her throat. He was already gone.

The intercom buzzed. Sighing, Meade closed her eyes.

With the holiday season in full swing, department stores in Cleveland were reordering at a hectic pace. Two of her customer reps were out with the flu and a shipment of cosmetics was lost somewhere between New York and Ohio.

None of which was a catastrophe. Still, she was frazzled and it was still early.

The intercom went blessedly silent. She hadn’t been herself since her meeting with Birdie. She still wasn’t sure if Theodora’s young friend was telling the truth or was in fact Wish Greyhart’s daughter. Meade resolved to get to the bottom of it after the holiday rush.

The light knock on her office door brought her from her musings. Her assistant entered.

“I buzzed you,” Siki said. “You didn’t pick up.”

No doubt the lost shipment of cosmetics had been found. “Tell me good news.”

“It’s not the shipment. Zelda, the new secretary from Akron—”

“What happened?” Unease slithered through Meade’s veins. Something was terribly wrong. Siki looked nervous and she was usually the epitome of calm. “Was the secretary in an accident driving to work?”

“She’s fine.” Siki glanced over her shoulder. “Something else has come up.”

Meade realized the door was ajar. An arm decorated with chunky gold bracelets popped into view, and something was handed off to Siki. A newspaper.

Approaching, she held the paper away from her body as if it carried the plague. “There’s an article in the
Akron Register
about you and your father,” she said, kicking out the foundation of Meade’s world, “and some criminal named Birdie Kaminsky. You’re on the front page.”

* * *

Everything was packed.

With misgiving, Birdie dropped the tips she’d earned during the last week into a plastic bag and stuffed it into a pocket of her coat. She’d already filled a duffel bag with everything she’d bought during her short stay in Liberty—clothing and a few toiletries. A soft hum of music drifted from the opposite end of the second floor where Mary had reopened her medical practice. Threads of conversation drifted down the hallway—probably more of her staff coming in to work. Farther off a thumping rose from the kitchen followed by the banging of pots. Finney, in the middle of the breakfast rush.

The cook expected Birdie to clock in at noon. She’d be disappointed. The Greyhound to Indiana left in twenty-five minutes.

With the
Akron Register
on newsstands this morning, it was only a matter of time before the news would travel north. Best to leave before anyone in Liberty read the paper.

With regret, Birdie took one last look at the apartment. The kitchen was tidy and the pillows on the couch nicely plumped. Hugh had already cleared out—by the time she’d returned from Ethel Lynn’s house last night he’d stripped the place of his belongings.

A gloomy lethargy accompanied her to the stairwell. It was all for the best. If she saw Hugh again she wouldn’t know what to say. She was a thief who’d never learned the first thing about trust. He was better off without her.

“Going somewhere?”

Startled, she halted midway down the steps. The duffel bag tumbled past her, landing with a thud beside Blossom Perini.

Where the kid sat eating, of all things, a chocolate sundae.

“Nice breakfast choice.” Birdie picked up her duffel bag and brushed past.

Blossom latched onto the hem of her coat. “Birdie, don’t go.” The teen put her sundae on the step and got to her feet. “You’re running away, aren’t you?”

“I have some errands before my shift.” Lousy move to lie to a thirteen year old, but she didn’t have a choice. “Why aren’t you in school?”

Now it was Blossom’s turn to look uncomfortable. “I cut first period.”

“You shouldn’t skip school. There’s nothing more important than an education.”

“I wanted to see you.” Hesitating, Blossom wrinkled her nose. “This morning, when I woke up? The weather was pretty bad. I thought there’d be a snow day so I checked the television for school closings… and there was your photo.”

Birdie went rigid with fear. “My photo’s on the tube?” She got a distressing image of a raging mob from a Frankenstein movie chasing her with raised torches. “Geez, Blossom. Which channel?”

“It was on the early morning program. The show with the old guy and the stupid quote of the day?”

“Oh, no.”

“Is it true you steal things?”

“Oh,
God
.”

“Hey, I’m just curious. You’re kind of like Catwoman only without the black tights.” Grinning, Blossom twirled one of her corkscrew curls. “Did you really come to Liberty because of some goofy fairy tale about jewelry?”

“Jewels,” Birdie corrected. Absently, she dug her hand into her pocket and drew her fingers across the velvet sack. The ruby-studded key had led her exactly nowhere.
Except to
America’s Most Wanted.
And to think, Hugh had been joking when he’d made the crack to Delia.

Blossom giggled. “Rubies, right?”

“You got it. And no, I didn’t find them.” She stared yearningly at the daylight spreading rapidly down the hallway.
Get out now.
“Well, gotta go.”

A dash to freedom never materialized. At the other end of the hallway, the door from the kitchen banged open.

Delia wheeled forward, her face stony and her green hair nicely tinseled in gold and silver. “Blossom—grab her!”

The kid put her own spin on the command by hugging Birdie around the waist. Not exactly your typical apprehension of a criminal.

“You aren’t going anywhere!” the waitress sputtered. “We’re in this mess because of you. Theodora is in the dining room beating people back with a broom. If I hadn’t stowed her satchel, she would’ve shot someone by now.”

Scared and stunned, Birdie gently disengaged from Blossom’s embrace. “Where’s Ethel Lynn?”

“Back home, changing into nice rags. Her words, not mine. A photographer from one of the Cleveland newspapers is snapping pictures, and she wants to look her best. Meaning I’m stuck alone in nutcase central.”

Birdie’s newly discovered familial tie to Theodora brought up her defenses. “Take a chill pill. Theodora’s eccentric but she’s not a nutcase.”

“I’m talking about the customers—the ones
you’ll
help me handle.”

With that, she dragged Birdie into the kitchen. The place was a shambles. Dirty dishes stood a mile high beside the sink. Clumps of oatmeal dotted the floor. Three sausage links, uncooked, hung off the edge of a counter.

Finney barreled across the room with her spatula at the ready. Sheer terror seized Birdie.

“Say you’ve never so much as stolen a dime from my purse and you’ll live.” The cook whipped the spatula around like a machete. Birdie leapt back, cowering. “Shame, Birdie—shame! How a nice young thing like you—I gave you a job, didn’t I?”

Meeting the cook’s eyes was impossible. “Finney, I swear I never stole anything from you. I’m not crazy. You’d scare the mafia.”

Delia rubbed at her nose. “Did you take anything from me?”

The hurt quivering across her face was worse than the cook’s fury. Heartsick, Birdie fumbled around the inside of her coat and withdrew a ten-dollar note. “I took it weeks ago,” she admitted, mired in self-loathing. Delia was her friend. No more. “I never took anything else. Once we got to know each other—”

“You stopped stealing from me? Gee, I feel so much better.” The waitress snatched the bill from her fingertips and stormed off.

After she disappeared into the dining room, Birdie managed to regard Finney.

“I’m guessing Officer Tim will be looking for you,” the cook said with surprising compassion.

“He won’t have to.” Hesitating, Birdie came to a decision. “I’m going to the police station.” For once she wouldn’t run.

“You will, now? I don’t mind saying I’m surprised.”

“Don’t be. I’m not exactly courageous.”

Birdie pushed down her fear. She was tired of running. God, she was tired. If going to the police meant doing time then she’d do it. Pay her debts and call it even.

The cook lifted her spatula toward the humming crescendo of the dining room. “There’s mayhem out there, thanks to you. Go and help Delia.”

“Please don’t make me go out there.” She dreaded walking into the dining room with all eyes settling on her in excruciating judgment. Exactly what she deserved, but it was like entering a shooting gallery with every customer gunning for her.

“You can’t hide forever, young lady. Say your apologies nicely. Let folks shout at you if they’ve got a bellyful of anger. If anyone is too harsh, I’ll come out with my skillet. You’ll do fine.”

The gently issued words filled Birdie’s eyes with stinging tears. “I’m a crook—I admit it,” she said, her throat clogging with emotion. “I’ll do jail time if I have to. Just don’t ask me to face everyone. They hate me.”

“Hate’s a mighty strong word.” In a mothering gesture, the cook brushed the hair from Birdie’s eyes. Which only increased the tears. “The money you took from purses and wallets. Did you spend it?”

“What?”

Finney released a labored sigh. “Do you still have the money you took from people in town? Lord knows you’ve been earning a living wage waiting tables. You didn’t need anyone’s cash to get by.”

“I haven’t spent a dime of it. My paycheck covered my expenses.” Birdie realized where this was headed. “I’ll return all the cash, but I’m not sure what I stole from everyone. How will I figure it out?”

“I have an idea.” The cook went into the walk-in cooler and reappeared with a massive jar of pickles. “Dump these. Clean the jar. Put it on the counter with a sign telling people to take whatever they’re missing.”

“What if someone takes more than they’re owed?” Birdie cringed at her bone-deep cynicism. The way the cook was looking at her, you’d think she’d announced the town was filled with criminals.

Blossom, forgotten in the corner, approached. “No one will take money if it doesn’t belong to them, will they?” she asked, breaking the uncomfortable silent. Which also hurt. If Birdie infected the kid with her cynicism she’d never forgive herself. “Right, Finney?”

“Of course not, child.” Blinking, the cook glanced at the clock above the sink. “Blossom, are you cutting class again? If you are, I’m telling Mary.”

“If Birdie has to take her lumps from the customers and Officer Tim, I’ll take my chances with my mom.” Winding an arm around Birdie’s waist, Blossom planted her feet. “C’mon, Finney—have a heart. Birdie needs a friend out there.”

Delia stuck her head through the pass-through window. Some of the tinsel in her hair drifted to the floor but she appeared too livid to notice. “Someone get out here!”

With her insides turning to jelly, Birdie shuffled across the kitchen. She flinched as a shout erupted from the dining room. It was followed by a
whack!
There was a moment of deadly silence, then a shuffling of feet, and the shriek of a banshee.

Theodora?

At Birdie’s elbow, the kid with the corkscrew curls grinned like a Cheshire cat. “After you,” Blossom said.

Birdie stared at the dining room, aghast. Mayhem didn’t begin to describe it.

Every table overflowed with loud, impatient customers. Many of the faces were unfamiliar, people from Akron who’d obviously seen the
Register
. A crowd teemed outside, puffing in the frigid air and waiting to enter.

A balled up napkin whizzed through the air. Delia, scribbling an order at table six, ducked. A man tall enough to brush the ceiling snapped photos of the antique furnishings, the fidgeting people—even of Theodora, patrolling the perimeter with a broom held before her like an oversized nightstick.

“Don’t worry about the reporters,” Blossom said. “Every time one comes in asking for you, Theodora gets pushy. She gave a woman from the Cleveland paper a goose egg.” The kid tapped the left side of her forehead. “Right here.”

“She didn’t.”

“Honest. The lady said she was lawyering up—”

“And Theodora told her to bring it on.” It was easy to admire the old woman’s chutzpah. “By the way, what’s Theodora doing with the broom?”

Blossom smirked. “You’ll see.”

And Birdie did. At table nine, a stranger in a scruffy jean jacket slowly rose from his chair. Slinking toward the wall, he reached for a painting—George Washington astride a horse, Ethel Lynn’s favorite.

The moment his fingers touched the frame, Theodora lunged down the aisle. With a
thwack
from her broom, mere inches from his loafers, she sent him stumbling back to his seat.

Birdie groaned. “The man is looking for clues behind the paintings. He’s trying to retrace my steps.” Apparently Ralston had spared no details in the article “I need to get my hands on a copy of the newspaper.”

“No one’s got one yet. My dad, over at the Gas & Go? I called him on my cell, and he said Mayor Ryan sent someone down to Akron to get a bunch of copies.”

“You called your dad? Does he know you’re skipping school?”

“No way. I made it sound noisy, like I was in the hallway between classes.” With a sly grin, the teen produced a notepad from beneath the counter, tore off a sheet, and noisily crumpled the paper between her hands. “It’s easy to fake my dad out. Nothing personal, but grownups aren’t too smart.”

Birdie cringed.
She
was an adult who’d managed to pit herself against an entire town. Not smart at all. “Are all of these people from Akron?” she asked, preferring not to think about what lay ahead.

“Most of them. They read the article. Not that I believe it—Finney says the story about the rubies is hogwash. But everyone here thinks they’ll find clues.”

It was true. A woman in a rust colored parka eased out of her chair and tiptoed up to a set of pewter sconces on the walls.
Thwack
went Theodora’s broom, and the woman fled back to her chair. At table one, two men, shifty-eyed twins with matching goatees, squinted lustfully at the vintage American flag on the wall. Nearing, Theodora growled.