Gotcha, sweetcakes! That’ll teach you to have me stuck in this one-stoplight burg until you ‘re ready to cry uncle and rush back to your cushy life and your dipstick fiance.
“Two blocks up, just past the Pouting Petals flower shop. It’s the old East Wapaneken schoolhouse. You might try there. It… it has high ceilings.” She was staring at him. She knew she was staring at him. Why was she staring at him? “You know, ceilings,” she said to fill the sudden, tense silence, raising one hand above her head. “High ones. And big windows. Now, if you’ll excuse me? I understand I’m to—that is, I have to refill the sugar canisters before customers start showing up for the early-bird special.”
“The early-bird special? Pure small-town gold for this scribbler. What’s that?”
“Pork and sauerkraut. All you can eat if you get here before five o’clock ,” Shelby told him, mentally beating herself back under control. Goodness, you’d think she’d never seen a man with gray eyes before. And she could read the word adventure in both of them. Did they put something in the water here in East Wapaneken that she was now suddenly sensing a second, quite interesting definition for the word adventure?
Quinn patted his stomach, held up the Styrofoam container. “Nice bit of folklore for the book, but I think I’ll pass on the actual thing. But, hey, thanks for the information. And I’ll see you again, I hope. If I can get a room, I’ll probably be eating most of my meals here.”
“I would imagine so. Most of East Wapaneken does,” Shelby told him, then turned and walked away. It was either that or throw her silly self into this handsome stranger’s arms and say something dreadfully cliched like, “Take me. Take me now!”
Oblivious to Shelby’s designs on his body, Quinn left with nothing else to say. More than a little mad— at her, at himself—Quinn returned to his Porsche and headed up the street until he passed the flower shop, then spied the large, square, redbrick building that still had the words East Wapaneken School visible in gray granite over the front door.
There was also a sign nailed to the front door: Aparts to let. Rooms, fernished and unfemished. Bye the week, bye the month. Inventive speller, his prospective landlord. No wonder they’d closed down the old school.
He pulled to the curb, got out, gave a passing thought to the brand-new motel he’d seen as he’d gotten off the highway, then climbed the cement stairs two at a time and walked inside. Because if Shelby Taite knew about this place, it was dollars to doughnuts she was living in this place. That was what all good detectives would call real logic, not that Quinn considered himself a real detective, but it was better than calling himself a baby-sitter. Damn better.
There were three rows of mailboxes built into the vestibule, one for each floor of the building, he imagined, and there were only names on six of the twelve mailboxes. None of them were Shelley Smith or Jones, which wasn’t surprising. He doubted if she was going to advertise the fact if she did live here.
Quinn pressed the doorbell on top of the mailbox labeled Manager, and waited less than a minute before a large, low-to-the-ground woman in a flowered muumuu that could have served as a dustcover for a 1956 Buick rolled out of the first door to the left beyond the vestibule.
“Afternoon, son,” she said, smiling around a smear of cherry red lipstick and a filtered Marlboro. “Need some help?”
God. East Wapaneken was so small-town cliche he almost didn’t believe any of this was actually happening.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said in what he hoped was a nonthreatening, not-so-big-city tone. “I was just down at Tony’s, and the hostess there told me I might be able to rent a furnished room here for a couple of weeks if you’ve got one.”
“The hostess? But Thelma’s out of— Oh, yeah, the new girl. She’s staying with Brandy a couple of weeks. No
“Two blocks up, just past the Pouting Petals flower shop. It’s the old East Wapaneken schoolhouse. You might try there. It… it has high ceilings.” She was staring at him. She knew she was staring at him. Why was she staring at him? “You know, ceilings,” she said to fill the sudden, tense silence, raising one hand above her head. “High ones. And big windows. Now, if you’ll excuse me? I understand I’m to—that is, I have to refill the sugar canisters before customers start showing up for the early-bird special.”
“The early-bird special? Pure small-town gold for this scribbler. What’s that?”
“Pork and sauerkraut. All you can eat if you get here before five o’clock ,” Shelby told him, mentally beating herself back under control. Goodness, you’d think she’d never seen a man with gray eyes before. And she could read the word adventure in both of them. Did they put something in the water here in East Wapaneken that she was now suddenly sensing a second, quite interesting definition for the word adventure?
Quinn patted his stomach, held up the Styrofoam container. “Nice bit of folklore for the book, but I think I’ll pass on the actual thing. But, hey, thanks for the information. And I’ll see you again, I hope. If I can get a room, I’ll probably be eating most of my meals here.”
“I would imagine so. Most of East Wapaneken does,” Shelby told him, then turned and walked away. It was either that or throw her silly self into this handsome stranger’s arms and say something dreadfully cliched like, “Take me. Take me now!”
Oblivious to Shelby’s designs on his body, Quinn left with nothing else to say. More than a little mad— at her, at himself—Quinn returned to his Porsche and headed up the street until he passed the flower shop, then spied the large, square, redbrick building that still had the words East Wapaneken School visible in gray granite over the front door.
There was also a sign nailed to the front door: Aparts to let. Rooms, fernished and unfemished. Bye the week, bye the month. Inventive speller, his prospective landlord. No wonder they’d closed down the old school.
He pulled to the curb, got out, gave a passing thought to the brand-new motel he’d seen as he’d gotten off the highway, then climbed the cement stairs two at a time and walked inside. Because if Shelby Taite knew about this place, it was dollars to doughnuts she was living in this place. That was what all good detectives would call real logic, not that Quinn considered himself a real detective, but it was better than calling himself a baby-sitter. Damn better.
There were three rows of mailboxes built into the vestibule, one for each floor of the building, he imagined, and there were only names on six of the twelve mailboxes. None of them were Shelley Smith or Jones, which wasn’t surprising. He doubted if she was going to advertise the fact if she did live here.
Quinn pressed the doorbell on top of the mailbox labeled Manager, and waited less than a minute before a large, low-to-the-ground woman in a flowered muumuu that could have served as a dustcover for a 1956 Buick rolled out of the first door to the left beyond the vestibule.
“Afternoon, son,” she said, smiling around a smear of cherry red lipstick and a filtered Marlboro. “Need some help?”
God. East Wapaneken was so small-town cliche he almost didn’t believe any of this was actually happening.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said in what he hoped was a nonthreatening, not-so-big-city tone. “I was just down at Tony’s, and the hostess there told me I might be able to rent a furnished room here for a couple of weeks if you’ve got one.”
“The hostess? But Thelma’s out of— Oh, yeah, the new girl. She’s staying with Brandy a couple of weeks. No
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