I frowned and read it again. He lost the whales? Who washe? What mermaid?
I couldn’t make sense of the message, but I knew the address.
“Museum of Natural History,” I murmured.
I SHOULDhave called Calvin.
But going to the museum wasn’t dangerous. And really, I was only looking around. It’s not like they had mermaids on display, so what was I even doing there? What did the clue mean?
No big deal.
But as I raced up the steps, past the statue of Theodore Roosevelt, it struck me suddenly that the museumdidhave a whale display. Amassivewhale. It was a ninety-four-foot-long model of a blue whale that hung suspended from the huge Hall of Ocean Life. What did that mean, though?
Was there going to be another clue waiting for me?
This was like some sort of fucked-up treasure hunt. Would a dead body be myXthat marks the spot?
Damn it, I really should have called Calvin.
But now I was too wrapped up in seeing where this led. I couldn’t walk away. Not yet. Calling him was logical, of course. He was a cop; he was working with the fire investigators and would undoubtedly solve the murder and find out who tried to off me. But he was also my boyfriend, and call it some stupid macho-man thing, but I felt like a damsel in distress with my default to chaos being to call Calvin.
I could handle this.
And I’d tell him what I learned.
I stood at one of the kiosks in the main entrance, holding my magnifying glass to the screen as I fumbled through ticket options. One adult ticket, no special exhibits. I swiped my credit card and waited for the stub to be dispensed from the machine.
I needed to take a moment and step back from the clusterfuck of a situation I was in. The past two days had been such a whirlwind of insanity, I was now knee-deep in shit on Thursday morning, at the Museum of Natural History, with next to no understanding as to why.
The kiosk spit my ticket out.
I looked down, grabbed it, and left the fairly empty lobby to step into the next hall. I moved to the display on the wall that featured photos of each exhibit and where they were located—after all, the museum was multiple floors and you had to plan your visit because there was no way you’d see it all in one day. I tapped the picture of the whale.
I made my way toward the Hall of Biodiversity, which I had to walk through to reach the marine life. And with each step, I laid out my clues.
Start with the obvious. What were the facts so far?
Tuesday morning someone threw an antique brick into my shop. The message was direct and definitely written for me. Someone knew I had a compulsion to solve mysteries. Wednesday someone broke into my shop and filled it full of the same bricks. The second note had solidified my interest in what was happening, egging me on to begin subtle investigations of my own.
And then there was the body. I didn’t know who he was or why he was presented in such a manner, but it was a glaringly obvious clue I wasn’t quite putting into place. And the message.
It started with a fire.
But that didn’t imply my fire, did it? I felt like it was a message about a past event. And this newest one now—I had been handed more clues than I knew how to process.
He lost whales. In… a fire? And Jefferson Davis?
I shook my head and waved the clutter away from my mind.
The fact that someone gave me a clue this morning wasreallythe reason I should have called Calvin. No one knew I was going to the scene of my former home. Pop knew I went to the precinct, Calvin thought I was going home, and I didn’t tell Max where I had been when he rang. So had someone followed me? From the precinct? FromPop’s?
That didn’t sit well.
At least I knew he was out for the day at his shelters, and Maggie was a good guard dog who wouldn’t let anyone she didn’t trust near my dad.
I couldn’t shake the idea that whoever this was could be someone I was familiar with. It had to be. Knowing what made me tick, where I lived, where to find me…. I’m not on all of the hip social media sites that kids are on. I don’t advertise myself to creeps online. So it had to be someone in my life.
But who did that leave? If I gathered up all the folks who knew me well enough into a drawing room to name the culprit, I’d be left with Pop, Calvin, Max, Beth, and I guess Neil. Yeah. Allreal serioussuspects.
