Nope, nope, nope.
I scurried back to the front room, waving my hands. “Not that one! Not that one!” I hissed at Horst, who stopped playing immediately. “That one was working on the kids.”
He blanched, looking from me to the pipes to Oomy. “Oops.” Taking a deep breath, he said, “Okay, let me try something different.”
This time, when he started to play, the music was lower, quicker, softer, the notes seeming to slink along the ground, growing more and more urgent as Horst continued to coax them from the pipes. I’d heard him play before, felt the haunting magic of his music. But this was something entirely different. The song he played made me feel as if I’d just walked through a spiderweb, as though I could actually feel the notes sliding over my skin. I rubbed my upper arms just to get the feeling off me.
But despite my discomfort, it seemed to be working. As I watched, rats began to scurry past me. First a baby rat, then another baby, then Cookie. They moved as if in a trance, heading straight for their cage. I counted the rats as they streamed by me, the tension in my spine easing as Cupcake, the fifteenth and final rat, climbed into the cage. The notes of Horst’s song faded away as I closed the cage door, double-checking that it was latched, and clicked the lock around the handles.
It was over. Horst had saved me.
Again.
Chapter Twenty-One
Despite Roger’s secret attempt to curse the café’s first birthday party, the final thirty minutes went off without a hitch. There was cake. Kids drank lemonade. Gifts were opened. No rodents met their gruesome end by tooth or claw.
And, most importantly, it ended.
After Andi had wrapped her arms around my waist, squeezed, and said, “That was the best party ever,” and Julia told me she was thrilled with how everything had gone—despite the cool look she gave my apron—I walked them to the door, locking up once they had gotten into their car.
I could not deal with one more hiccup. Not even a small one. The café was going to be closed for the rest of the day so I could decompress and also work on packing up that glitter bomb for Roger.
I traipsed back into the cat area and collapsed on the couch near the rat cage, stretching my legs out in front of me. Horst had hung back when I led the kids to the café for cake and presents, and he remained in front of the rat cage, studying the lock closely.
“How did this door end up open?” he asked.
The cats drifted in, clearly optimistic about persuading me to open the last of the treats. “I don’t know,” I said, petting little Cecil, a one-eyed cat with a stumpy tail. “I assume one of the kids opened it without understanding why it was closed.”
“But it was locked,” Horst pointed out.
“Maybe I forgot to lock it.”
He turned and leveled his honeyed gaze at me. “You? Glory O’Bryan, you double-check every lock you come across.” Hejabbed one finger toward the lock. “I guarantee you didn’t forget to lock this before a group of kids came through.”
I tried to suppress the feeling of unease that ran through me. “But I was distracted. My princess showed up sick, so I had to find an emergency replacement.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up. “Resourceful. Who’d you rope into that?”
“Ah, puppy. You made it. I was afraid you might miss the party.”
I looked up to see Quill had managed to once again sneak up on us. She’d changed back into her own silvery blue dress and removed the wig and tiara, although she still had traces of cream blush on her cheeks and her pale eyes looked even paler thanks to a thick coating of mascara on her spidery lashes.
Oomy slipped back into Horst’s shirt pocket, tucking herself away as the color drained from his face. “Glory O’Bryan,” he said, “tell me you didn’t ask Quill to play a princess at a kids’ party.”
