Oliver Twisted (An Ivy Meadows Mystery Book 3) (25 page)

C
HAPTER 66

Home Again Straight

After eight hours of traveling and stops in San Francisco, L.A., and Yuma, I finally arrived at Sky Harbor and dragged myself to baggage claim. Staring at the carousel in a daze, I felt a tap on the shoulder.

“Olive-y?”

I turned around. “If it isn’t Brad Pitt,” I said as I hugged Cody. He did look like the film star—tall and blonde and handsome. Plus open-mouthed.

“I wasn’t sure it was you,” he said, still gawping after our hug. “Your hair. It’s…it’s…”

“It’s sexy hair,” I said.

“I think so.” Matt, a few inches shorter than my brother, smiled at me over his shoulder. “Welcome home.”

I felt it then, when Matt smiled. Home.

“But how did you know when I was getting in?”

“Uncle Bob told us,” said Cody.

“Those are my suitcases.” I pointed at two bags now customized with gold polka dots, courtesy of a metallic Sharpie.

Matt grabbed the bags off the carousel. “A matched set. Nice.”

On the way home, I sat with Cody in the backseat. “Since it’s almost midnight, I’m going to drop Cody off first.” Matt met my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Then I’ll take you to your apartment. Sound good?”

“Sounds wonderful.” I leaned back against the seat and closed my eyes.

Cody punched my arm. “No way. You can’t go to sleep before you tell us about your case.”

I gave the two of them the shortened version of my adventures, ending with Jonas’s idea about a prison theater production. “Cool,” Cody said. Matt didn’t say anything, but then again, he was driving. He turned into the Coronado neighborhood. Cody’s group home was just a few blocks away.

“Now it’s your turn,” I said to Cody. “I want to know everything about Stu and—”

“I already told you everything.”

“Nuh-uh.” I could finally ask Cody the question that had plagued me ever since he had disappeared. “Where did you sleep all those nights when you were gone?”

“In Uncle Bob’s garage.”

Phew. Uncle Bob’s nice safe garage.

But wait. “How did you get in? Didn’t he lock the doors?”

“Yeah.” Cody managed to swagger, even sitting down. “But I remembered that video you showed me. ‘How to Break into a Garage in Sixty Seconds.’”

Research for a case, I swear. “You remembered that?”

“I watched it on the computer at our house a couple of times. Stu too. He helped me practice.”

“On our garage?” said Matt, pulling in front of the group home.

“Cody.” I hugged my brother. “You may be shaping up to be a criminal, but you’re a hero to me.”

“And Stu,” Matt said. “And me.”

“I’m not a hero. Or a criminal.” Cody let me go, done hugging. “I’m a detective.”

Must run in the family.

I switched to the front passenger seat for the ride to my apartment, leaning back against the headrest and watching the streetlights flicker across Matt’s face like moonlight on a lake. We rode in companionable silence until he parked in my lot. “I’ll walk you to your door.”

“That’d be nice.”

We got out and he grabbed my suitcases out of the trunk. Matt was quiet as we climbed the Astroturf-covered stairs to my second-floor apartment. When we got to my place, I unlocked the door and turned to thank him.

He put down my bags. “Ivy.” The porch light glinted off his glasses, so I couldn’t see his eyes, but his voice sounded serious. “This prison theater thing sounds like a great project, but it’s not here in Arizona, is it? You’d have to leave, right?”

“It’s not in Arizona,” I said, “but I don’t think I’ll take it. I want to stick around here for a while.”

“Good.” Matt stepped closer, but he didn’t pick up my bags.

The air was suddenly filled with electricity, like before a thunderstorm, but I went on, “In fact, I think I’m going to recommend Candy. She’s not the same type as me, but she’s a great actress and—”

I couldn’t say any more because Matt’s lips were on mine and his arms were around me and he was
kissing
me and I was kissing him back and oh. Oh.
Oh.

We finally stopped to breathe. Matt’s face, that face I’d known but never really seen, was just inches from mine. Heat and joy flooded my body. Matt cupped my face in his hands. “Ivy, should we—”

I placed a finger on his lips, opened the door to my apartment, and took him by the hand.
“
Please, sir,” I said. “I want some more.”

Reader’s Discussion Guide

In
Oliver Twisted
, author Cindy Brown takes readers on a literature-themed cruise filled with characters influenced by Dickens’s famous novels. Ivy Meadows, actress and part-time PI, has to navigate this new world of thieves and orphans while working with her detective uncle to expose a theft ring. The job is tougher than she expected: in her undercover role as an actress, she has just days to learn to perform on the aerial silks; her uncle is sidetracked by a suspicious blonde; and her brother in Phoenix has given her a long-distance mystery to worry about. As always, Ivy’s world is slightly screwball, but in
Oliver Twisted
she also explores the definition of family, and of criminal behavior.

Topics and Questions for Discussion

Would you like to take a literature-themed cruise? What book or author would you choose to cruise with? What details would you like to see included—which characters, what types of food, what types of activities?

Why do you think the author chose a cruise ship as the setting for
Oliver Twisted
? What other settings might reflect the world Dickens wrote about?

Jonas uses a Dickens quote to explain his feelings for Val: “Family not only need to consist of merely those whom we share blood, but also for those whom we’d give blood.” Are there people not related to you whom you consider family? Who are they? Why do you feel so close to them?

Ivy thinks she’ll never be able to perform aerial dance in such a short time, but she manages to do it. Have you ever accomplished something you once felt impossible?

In the original
Oliver Twist
, Oliver’s half-brother Monks is a greedy, sinister man who has seizures. How do you think our view of epilepsy has changed since Dickens’s time?

If you attended the costume ball onboard the
S.S. David Copperfield
, which Dickens character would you want to dress as? Why?

What do you think of Theo’s “Positively Powerful” philosophy? Has positive thinking influenced your life? What are its benefits? Its downsides?

There are several famous Dickens lines parodied throughout the book. Can you find them?

Dickens had famously evocative names for his characters. Can you think of any names in
Oliver Twisted
that pay homage to this trait? If you could choose a Dickensian name for yourself, what would it be?

Did you catch the Dickens reference in the opening line of the book?

Some of the screwball antics in Ivy’s books have been inspired by true stories (like the scene where Ivy’s trapped in the shower). Do you have any wacky true-life experiences that might fit into Ivy Meadows’s madcap world? (If so, the author would love to hear about them).

Enhance Your Book Club or Class Discussion

Read Dickens’s
Oliver Twist
, or watch the miniseries and/or the musical
Oliver!

Create your own Dickens-themed meal. You can have a simple ploughman’s lunch (Ivy eats a version on pgs. 120-121), enjoy traditional tea and scones, or create a Victorian feast with recipes from
What Shall We Have For Dinner?,
a cookbook by Charles Dickens’s wife, Catherine.

Catch an aerial dance performance, or even take a class. If you can’t find an aerial dance troupe in your town, watch the “Maiden Light” performance online.

See if you can fit inside a restroom stall while wearing a hoopskirt (just kidding).

Visit www.cindybrownwriter.com to learn more about the author, and to sign up for her Slightly Silly Newsletter, an irreverent look at mystery and drama (with a smidgen of book news).

About the Author

Cindy Brown has been a theater geek (musician, actor, director, producer, and playwright) since her first professional gig at age 14. Now a full-time writer, she’s lucky enough to have garnered several awards (including 3rd place in the 2013 international
Words With Jam
First Page Competition, judged by Sue Grafton!) and is an alumnus of the Squaw Valley Writers Workshop. The first Ivy Meadows mystery,
Macdeath
, was an Agatha Award nominee for Best First Novel.

Though Cindy and her husband now live in Portland, Oregon, she made her home in Phoenix, Arizona, for more than 25 years and knows all the good places to hide dead bodies in both cities.

The Ivy Meadows Mystery Series

By Cindy Brown

Read all about it and/or grab the book from Amazon

MACDEATH (#1)

CLICK FOR MACDEATH

THE SOUND OF MURDER (#2)

CLICK FOR THE SOUND OF MURDER

OLIVER TWISTED (#3)

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MURDER ON A SILVER PLATTER

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A Red Carpet Catering Mystery (#1)

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