Dashing Through the Snow (30 page)

“True,” Smith conceded. “I wonder what he did
with his car.”

Lily jerked her head forward. “I think we’re
about to find out that and more.”

John joined them in his office and sat behind
his desk. “All right, so Landry is singing like the proverbial
canary. This thing is huge. There are people involved from Chicago
and here in town. Turns out you were right, Smith. Mrs. Landry was
in on the theft from the get-go, and Landry did try to run out on
them. Landry had wanted the Folly for years and knew he had to take
his chance when the museum announced its plans for a new exhibit.
He knew if they sent it on tour, he’d never get his hands on the
diamond, so he plotted to have a reproduction made and steal the
real one.

“Everyone else thought they were going sell
it to a buyer in Russia who was willing to pay a cool fifty million
for it, but it turns out Landry had planned all along to take off
with it. He wanted it for his collection. His plan was to lay low
for a while and then leave the country for Cuba via Canada.”

“What’d he do with his car?” Smith asked.

“You know that junkyard over in
Placerville?”

“Yeah.”

“Well they’ve got a crusher and he took it
over there and had it crushed. Says he knew he had to get rid of it
in order to get away clean.”

“So who all was in on it? He’s naming names,
right?”

“Right,” John said and consulted his notes.
“Let’s see here. In Sheffield-Chatham, we have Mr. and Mrs. Landry,
Mr. Winscoff, Kip Beech, Adam Ginsburg and Taylor Thomkins -- two
of our leading citizens, by the way. In Chicago, there’s Ramirez
from the museum, who was brought in by Tam, who is in the wind, but
they’re looking for him. And then you have the two goons from
Chicago, one of which died an hour ago from the injuries he
obtained when falling down the incline. They, too, were brought in
on it by Mr. Tam. Actually, they forced themselves in. He
apparently owes them big money.”

“So the Businessman’s Social Club isn’t
facilitating a theft ring,” Lily said to Smith.

“No,” Smith agreed, “but it was a good
theory.”

John nodded. “Yeah, it is. There certainly
were enough members involved in this for a reasonable person to
come to that conclusion. At any rate, we’re bringing Mrs. Landry in
for questioning right now.”

“And the mistress?” Lily asked.

“As far as I can tell, she had nothing to do
with anything. Kip Beech has never heard of her and Landry says
she’s clueless. Hell, she isn’t even the reason he was in Chicago
the last time he was there. He wanted one last taste before he ran
off, but not from her. He’s got
another
mistress. Can you
believe it? Old dude like that?” He shook his head. “Unbelievable.
Oh, and before I forget. This is for you.” He reached across his
desk and handed Smith a card. “That’s the card for the woman at
Village Hall. She says you should call and talk to her about
repairing the funicular car and the ticket seller’s cabin.”

Smith slipped the card in his pocket and Lily
said indignantly, “There’s nothing to repair at the cabin. Smith
only picked the lock so we could hide inside. He did break the
glass on the funicular car, yes, but that was to make them think we
were hiding inside. So, we’ll pay for that, and nothing else!”

John looked from Lily’s angry face to Smith,
who just grinned and said, “I’ll leave all the money matters to
her.”

“And speaking of which,” Lily began, “this
whole Mrs. Landry as co-conspirator thing begs the question of how
we’re going to get paid.”

“Talk to Cousin Ralph,” John suggested. “I
don’t know if it would be his practice, but if he can’t tell you
what to do, surely one of his partners can.”

“Maybe the Field will offer a reward,” Smith
suggested.

“Might be worth a try,” John agreed. “You
know they’re probably going to milk this for all the publicity they
can get. It will mean a lot of ticket sales. Maybe they’ll hail you
two as the dynamic detective team that saved the jewel.”

“Where is the Folly? Can I see it?” Lily
asked excitedly.

“Just remember where it’s been,” John
cautioned as he slipped on a pair of latex gloves. He took a key
and unlocked one of his desk drawers and pulled out the Folly.

Lily stared, completely transfixed. “Do you
have another pair of gloves?” she asked her cousin without taking
her eyes off the jewel.

John handed her a pair and Smith helped her
slip one on. John dropped the diamond in her hand. The weight of it
made Lily close her fingers around it like it was a guilty secret
she desperately needed to keep to herself. “Ah,” she groaned. “It’s
gorgeous.” She opened and closed her hand several times in a weird
game of peek-a-boo. She couldn’t believe she was actually holding
it in her hand.

She sighed, knowing if she didn’t relinquish
it right that minute, the temptation to get up and run from the
room would be much too great to resist. She handed it back over to
John. “Shouldn’t you put that in a safer place, say, like a bank
vault?”

“I would, but the museum is sending the
curator with armed guards to pick this up tonight. They’ll be here
any minute. Might as well make sure the thing is accessible.”

“But --” Lily began, but Smith nudged
her.

She looked at him and then followed the
direction of his gaze. Two policemen were leading Charles Landry
past John’s office in handcuffs. Landry wore yoga pants, slippers…
and a green coat.

Epilogue

December 23, 2011
(Lily’s
birthday)

Lily bounced out of bed, brushed her teeth
and washed her face, and then managed to put on the new sheer satin
pink peignoir Smith had given her for her birthday the night
before. Calling it the reciprocity gift because by wearing it, he’d
explained with a lusty smile, she gave
him
a present for
her
birthday, he’d begged her to try it on with nothing
else. Lily blushed as she remembered exactly how he’d shown his
appreciation.

He hadn’t given her a matching nightgown, but
she’d found one in her drawer to sleep in, prompting him to
complain that she’d ruined his present. She chuckled as she
continued her happy bounce down the stairs. Her week couldn’t have
ended any better. Not only did the museum offer them a reward for
locating Golddigger’s Folly, but her cousin had told her the day
before that he thought there was a way they could get their fees
and the bonus from Mrs. Landry. Smith and she had been interviewed
on the local news and a major Chicago paper had interviewed them
for a piece that would run in its Sunday magazine. She was hopeful
that the publicity would bring in new clients.

Sure, she was a little disappointed that
Smith hadn’t awakened with her on her birthday, but she didn’t let
it bother her. She was sure his reason would be good. She turned
into the living room after stepping off the last stair and was
assaulted with the seizure-inducing, intermittent flashing lights
of a revolving disco ball that hung from her ceiling, and the first
pulsating beats of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.”

Laughing with sheer delight, she noticed a
chair with a crown on it and picked the crown up, put it on her
head, sat down and prepared to be entertained. She clapped with
enthusiasm when Smith glided into the room wearing high-water black
jeans, black penny loafers, some kind of sparkly shirt and a black
jacket, a black Fedora and one white glove. “Oh, yay, you’re doing
the thing!”

She saw him grimace in embarrassment, but he
soldiered on. Showing her his profile, he put his hand on his hat,
bent his head over the microphone (a scrub brush) and thrust his
hips in time with the beat of the music. When the tempo changed, he
twisted and turned his body in perfect harmony with the music. The
vocals started and he whipped the hat off and tossed it in her lap.
She cracked up laughing when she saw that he’d arranged his hair so
a great hank of it flopped on his forehead just like Michael’s had.
Still looking thoroughly embarrassed, he sang along with the song,
his voice strong and true. He slipped his hand in his pocket and
jerked his shoulders up and down as he twisted a foot into the
floor as if he were trying to grind a hole into the wood.

In perfect timing, he kicked his leg out and
twisted it in the air. It wasn’t done quite as gracefully as it had
been at age nine, but it was good. When he glided smoothly into the
moonwalk, she decided to put him out of his misery and rushed over
to him and jumped into his arms, where he caught her, of course.
“Oh, I love you,” she said laughingly and kissed him.

When she would have ended it, Smith prolonged
it and turned it into something tender. He cradled her face in his
hands and sipped gently from her mouth. “You’d better love me,” he
said as he looked into her eyes. “Or else I’m making a fool out of
myself for the wrong person.”

He was smiling, but Lily knew he was serious
and she answered in kind. “I do love you.”

Smith kissed her again. “I love you.” He
wrapped his arms around her and they swayed slowly together,
completely off beat with the music.

Lily looped her arms around his neck, lay her
head on his chest and breathed him in. “I can’t believe you
remembered the dance moves from his appearance on the twenty-fifth
anniversary of Motown. Only you would do something like this for
me.”

“Of course, I remembered the moves. I watched
your VHS copy of that show for hours and practiced the moves for
days to get them just right because you were sick with the flu and
had to miss his concert in Detroit with the rest of your little
friends and their parents. I felt so bad for you.”

Lily lifted her head and smiled at him. “You
were so sweet. I remember you came into my room with your boom box.
‘Don’t be sad, Lily-bud. Look, Lily,’ you said, ‘I’ve got a
surprise for you and I looked and I watched you dance and sing for
me, even though you were beet red with embarrassment, and I fell in
love with you all over again, probably for at least the fiftieth
time in our young lives.”

“When I finished, you said, ‘I love you,
Smith’ in such a sweet little sincere voice that when you asked me
to do it again, I did it again.”

“And again, and again, and again!” They said
together, laughing as they did so. The music had changed to
something romantic and so slow, it was thick. They’re bodies
automatically moved in time.

“You know, we’re really good together,
Lily.”

“Yes, we are. We should be partners.”

“I was thinking the same thing. We’ll combine
our businesses. What shall we call ourselves?”

“I tried to think of names yesterday,” she
said. “All I could come up with was C&C Investigations, but
then it occurred to me that maybe we want a name that will get us
noticed so I thought Hunt Club, but it sounded too much like a
clothing line. I then came up with Carstairs & Cameron
Investigations, but thought it would only be fair to list you first
since you have the most experience and it’s correct alphabetically.
So what do you think of Cameron & Carstairs In --”

Smith had pressed a finger to her lips. “How
about Cameron & Cameron?” He took a deep breath and took the
plunge he’d been trying to avoid for four years, “Lily, will you
marry me?”

Lily looked at him. “What? Why? We don’t have
to get married to go into business together.”

Exasperated, Smith shook his head. “I know
that, Lil, and I can’t believe I have to explain this. We should
get married because we love each other.”

Lily shook her head. “Not necessary. Besides,
I’m not ready, and you don’t really want to. You’re only proposing
because you think I want to be married.”

Smith stopped dancing. “I wouldn’t have asked
you if I didn’t want to marry you, sweetness. Besides, both your
mama and mine gave you to me, and I plan to keep you.”

She nodded absentmindedly. She’d started to
tune out his words and pay attention to the feel of his body
pressed against hers. She stood on tiptoe to nibble at his chin.
“Can I have another birthday present, Smith?” she whispered as she
nuzzled his neck.

Distracted, Smith took her by the shoulders
to look in her eyes. The lust he encountered made heat curl low in
his stomach and he forgot what he was going to say. “What did you
say again?”

“I asked if I could please have another
birthday present. Pretty please,” she begged prettily before
nuzzling his neck again. “With sugar on top.” This time she scraped
her teeth across his skin.

And he was a goner. He took her mouth in a
long, wet kiss. “What would that present be, sweetness?” he asked
when they came up for air.

What she whispered in his ear made him pick
her up and toss her over his shoulder. “I believe that can be
arranged. We’ll finish our discussion later,” he promised as he ran
with her up the stairs. “Count on it.”

Keep checking Lisa’s blog to find out when
the next Lily and Smith adventure comes out!

###

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa G. Riley is the best-selling author of
“Caught Up in the Rapture” and “At Last.” Her work has been called
“character and issue driven; exciting, passionate and thought
provoking.” Ms. Riley writes in several genres including romantic
suspense, erotica and paranormal. She resides in Chicago where she
is hard at work on her next project. She loves to hear from
readers. Feel free to email her at
[email protected]
. Please
visit her at
www.lisagriley.wordpress.com
for more information about her work.

OTHER BOOKS BY LISA G. RILEY

After the Morning After

Give Yourself to Me

Stolen (co-authored with Roslyn Hardy
Holcomb)