“And some dynamite!” Autumn yelled over her shoulder as she marched off.
“I’ll give you the matches!” Clover shouted.
“Twilight, Moonlight, Autumn, Sapphire, and Clover,” Sam observed.
“And my brother Lennon. Do not go there. It is a burden we all have to live with.” She shot him a look that dared him to tease her for their names.
“I think they are lovely names. Hey, my aunt’s nickname is Blue. Who am I to judge?”
Clover managed a smile – and then suddenly went pale. “Oh God,” she cried out.
“What?” Sam looked concerned.
“I left them inside the store unsupervised.”
She thought she might cry. How was it that they hadn’t been arrested yet? It had been minutes – entire minutes. She rushed into the store with Sam on her heels.
“Don’t worry, I was watching them through the picture window,” Sam said.
“I’m not worried that somebody will hurt them. I’m worried that they’ll have committed several major felonies in the short time that I was outside.”
“Call them all over here,” Sam said.
With a sigh, she did.
“Sam McCoy, head of security for the bears of Blue Moon Junction,” he said, and shook hands with each of them as they introduced themselves.
Then he fixed them with a stern look. “You know how I got my job? By being very good at what I do. Moonlight and Twilight, return the wallet. Now.”
“That lady was making faces at us and saying we looked like rag-pickers.” Moonlight scowled. “I don’t know what a rag-picker is, but she’s a total—” Then she saw the look on Clover’s face and quickly hurried off. She passed by a chubby female jaguar shifter, her arm moved so fast that Clover barely saw her dropping a wallet into the woman’s purse, and then she walked off.
They are way too good at that,Clover thought, stricken.
“Lennon. Return the cell phone.” Sam raised an eyebrow. Lennon had a smirk on his face as he walked right up to a woman who was examining a blouse. He tapped her on the arm and handed her a cell phone. “Pardon me, ma’am, you seem to have dropped this,” he said.
“Oh. Thank you.” She looked startled.
Lennon walked back, looking pleased with himself. Clover looked at him suspiciously. “What did you do?” she demanded.
“Well, in my defense…”
Clover winced. “Never a promising opening.”
“In my defense, she was gossiping about Sapphire with those other ladies. So, Sapphire’s knocked up?”
Clover went pale. “Argh,” she gurgled.
“Anyway, I hacked into the lady’s phone, and she’s cheating on her fiancé with some guy, so it is possible that her phone just downloaded a virus and every time she tries to text the other guy, it’s going to go to her fiancé.”
“Urgh. You did all that in the two or three minutes I was out of the store?”
“I know, I know, I’m getting slow, gotta brush up on my skills. Can we go to the coffee shop now? I want a donut.”
Clover led them all out of the store, with Sam by her side.
She fell behind as they cheerfully skipped off to the coffee shop. Sam kept pace with her.
“This is all my fault,” she moaned. “I shouldn’t have gone to college. I just didn’t see this coming. When I left, Autumn was ten and Lennon was nine and the girls were seven and… How did I let this happen? They weren’t anywhere near this bad when I left.”
