He only let go, with a hint of reluctance, when Quinn Lancaster reached the counter. Calvin’s gray eyes shone like the cut and polished edges of a gemstone. They reflected everything he carried inside him—frustration, concern, that touch of chronic weariness, but also his newly found happiness. And relief. Relief that his dumbass, trouble-prone fiancé hadn’t been shot or run over or suffered so much as a papercut before he’d gotten to the scene. The dim lighting of the shop created shadows on Calvin’s face, produced from the hard lines and angles of his cheekbones and jawline. Clusters of freckles across his cheeks, nose—even lips—stood out in stark relief from his pale complexion.
Beautiful, in an unconventional sort of way.
Calvin cleared his throat, squared his shoulders, and said to Officer Rossi, “We’ll take it from here. If you can direct CSU and the ME when they arrive? Thank you.”
Despite the dismissal, Rossi lingered a beat. But when the staring contest with Calvin proved to be going nowhere fast, he let out a breath and unhurriedly left us.
I looked between Quinn and Calvin. “He’s a charming individual.”
“He’s a brownnosing SOB aching for a promotion to detective before he’s learned a thing or twoaboutdetecting,” Quinn grumbled.
“Ah.”
Calvin motioned to the counter and the remaining officer standing guard over the box. “Dispatch gave us a rundown of the report so far.” He looked at me. “But please explain in your own words why I’m seeing you after breakfast instead of at dinnertime.”
“Speaking of breakfast—it’s back there,” I said. “So watch your step.”
Quinn made a sound of disgust.
“A courier service dropped off a package this morning,” I started. “Just before nine.”
“Which service?” Calvin asked, retrieving the small notepad he kept in his inner coat pocket.
I shrugged. “I didn’t really take note.”
Calvin frowned a little. “Why not?”
“I wasn’t expecting a human head.”
“Seb’s off his game!” Max shouted from across the room.
Calvin ignored my assistant. “What about the courier’s name?”
“No.”
Calvin tapped his pen against the blank page. “Seb—”
“I’m not trying to be difficult. You know on any given day I might have up to a dozen packages coming and going from here. Sometimes a mystery delivery slips in.”
“Whatcanyou tell us, then?” Quinn interjected.
“The package came with a letter.” I motioned at the counter. “It’s still there.”
Quinn shot Calvin a quick look before moving around us both. She took the stairs, stepped over the vomit, and went to the register to examine the note. “I, hereby known afterward as Party A, am looking to hire Sebastian Andrew Snow, hereby known as Party B, to recover a most unusual article lost to time and neglect.”
“Yeah. See, that’s not weird,” I stated. “I get asked to hunt down strange and rare artifacts all the time.”
Calvin made a sound of agreement. After all, he’d been dating a small-business owner who once couldn’t shut up for an entire day about the quality of a taxidermy violet-capped wood-nymph hummingbird and its hand-carved perch, circa 1860, that he’d gotten at an estate sale in Queens. Whether Calvin liked it or not, he knew the ins and outs of my antique store.
“Upon said article’s salvage, Party A is prepared to reward Party B witha most substantial sum,” Quinn finished.
I pointed at her. “That’sthe weird part. The note never says what they want me to find. Or why. Or what the compensation is.”
Calvin shut the notepad. He tucked it into his coat and leaned over the countertop to study the note for himself.
From Calvin’s telltale tics to hearing what wasnotsaid between cops, I’d become pretty adept at understanding murder scenes without verbal explanations. Unfortunately—for me or them, I wasn’t certain—the silence,the lookbetween detectives, was one of recognition. Something about this event, be it the letter or the head, was familiar to both Calvin and Quinn.
Merry Christmas.
