CHAPTER ONE
A police lieutenant walks into Snow’s Antique Emporium—which was not the setup to a bad joke, just how my Wednesday began.
The bell over the front door dinged and a gravelly voice snapped, “Where’s that Sebastian Snow?”
“Boss,” Max called without missing a beat. “You’ve got a customer.”
I stepped out of the office. Max didn’t look up from where he was dusting displays on the showroom floor, merely jutted a thumb in the direction of the door.
“Yeah, thanks, I hear just fine.” I took the steps down from the raised counter, wove around glass cases of gizmos and gadgets, and sidestepped larger, more eclectic odds and ends from a century long since passed. When I got close enough that the man came into focus, I nearly tripped over myself as I put on the brakes. “Oh. Hi.”
Calvin’s supervisor, and now-lieutenant after a promotion earlier that year, Ronald Ferguson, glowered at me from the threshold. He didn’t much like me, even blamed me for the Victorian-themed murder mysteries that’d befallen his Homicide Squad in the past, only because I’d gotten tangled up in one or two or four of them. I’d also married his best detective a year and a half ago, after the Bones case had been put to rest, and that’d really twisted Ferguson’s balls. I mean, it’s not like I’d purposefully gone out of my way to outsmart the entirety of the NYPD and steal Ferguson’s spotlight when Dr. Asquith had finally been apprehended. I’d simply had the bigger incentive for solving the case. Calvin might have been Ferguson’s first-grade, golden-goose detective, but he was my husband.
And love makes a guy do crazy things.
Anyway. Let bygones be bygones or whatever. Our relationship since me and Calvin tied the knot wasn’t exactly cordial, and I didn’t expect that to change. The few times we’d crossed paths, I’d say hello, Ferguson would grunt, and then we’d go our separate ways. So the fact that this man, with his permanent scowl, big arms, bigger chest, and classic Cop ’Stache, hadwillinglysought me out at… nine o’clock in the morning… was concerning.
“Is something wrong?” I asked, fiddling with the rolled-back cuffs of my shirtsleeves. “Is Calvin—?”
Fergusontsked under his breath and shoved the cardboard box he’d been holding under one arm against my chest.
I scrambled to catch it and awkwardly pushed my glasses back up my nose.
Max had joined me by that point. He brushed the unsecured flaps of the box with his duster, then said to Ferguson, “Morning.”
“He bites,” I muttered in warning.
Max, who stood taller than me and still had that wiry build of a twentysomething guy who can eat absolutely anything and not gain an ounce, was using my shoulder as an armrest. “Max Ridley,” he said next, motioning to himself with the duster. “In case you wanted to yell at me too.”
Ferguson’s left eye twitched. He reached into the inner pocket of his suit coat, retrieved a crumpled pack of cigarettes, and when I’d taken a breath with the intention of telling him he couldn’t smoke in my shop and I would’ve told him the same thing if he were the President of the United States, Ferguson said, “Cool it, I’m not lighting it.”
“Cool it,” I repeated, deadpan. It was my turn for an eye twitch.
“Who’s your friend, boss?” Max asked in that easygoing-bro way he had of speaking.
“Ronald Ferguson,” I answered. “Calvin’s former sarge and now… is there slang for lieutenant?”
Ferguson snapped the filter off a cigarette, put the stick to his lips, and sucked hard on the cold tobacco. “I don’t know how Winter handles you.”
“With both hands, generally.”
Ferguson bit down on the cigarette. Loose tobacco peppered his tie. “Do you, ever once, have something to say that isn’t sarcastic?”
“Not really,” Max answered for me. “But over time you learn what’s important. It’s like tuning a radio.”
I raised the box in my hands and asked Ferguson through clenched teeth, “Can I help you with something?”
Ferguson took the cigarette from his mouth and pointed at me with it. “Do you know what that is?”
“Corrugated cardboard.”
“His face is getting red,” Max warned me.
“Now listen here, you smartass—” Ferguson began.
I set the box on the nearest display, crossed my arms, and said, “Please try that again.”
Ferguson looked about ready to swallow his tongue. “I read my detectives’ reports.”
