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Eve strode toward me, purpose in every step, and I relaxed.
"Hey," she said, a smile flirting with her lips.
I clasped her hand in mine, loving the easy way she threaded our fingers.
"Did my mom really win me, or was that you pulling strings behind the scenes?" I asked, getting right to the point.
"She and I colluded, and I am looking forward to our trip." Eve winced. "I'm sorry if you doubted she was bidding for me, we got interrupted before I could give you a heads up earlier."
At least the right woman had won. I couldn’t imagine going away for a romantic weekend with anyone but Eve. For once, I’d have her all to myself. We could get lost in Spokane without worrying about stirring up gossip. If I snuck her backstage after the show, no one at home would be the wiser. If we found a dark corner at a club, there’d be no one who knew us to comment. That small bit of freedom beckoned, making me wish our trip were sooner.
I lifted our clasped hands to my lips, dropping a quick kiss on her knuckles.
"So long as the right woman emerged victorious, I'm happy."
"What, you didn't want to spend an evening in Spokane with Mary Mallory?"
"Mrs. Mallory is lovely, and lord knows no one really wants her driving to Spokane on her own after she crashed her car into the library, but I'd much rather spend a romantic evening with you."
Gwen arrived, breaking our quiet moment.
"Brady, Zander, can I borrow you?" Gwen asked. She glanced at Eve. "Can you please lead tear down? Most of our guests are clearing out."
Reluctantly, I released Eve to her event duties, turning to Gwen.
"What did you need?"
"I want to see if our little trap caught a rat."
"Right," I murmured, chagrined to realize that I'd nearly forgotten our attempt to outwit any sabotage in my concern over the bachelor auction. "The silent auction."
Zander, Gwen, and I had spent a good chunk of the afternoon after the initial auction setup placing stick up video cameras in strategic locations. The batteries wouldn't last long, but we'd only needed them for one night. We'd set them up to record footage so we could access it later if anything suspicious happened.
I'd say falsifying bids qualified.
Gwen and Zander followed me to my office, and I logged into my cloud storage from my laptop. Grimly, we watched the footage.
"There," Gwen pointed, noting when Jo got up to go to the bathroom.
At first, nothing happened. The same handful of Campfire residents made their way among the tables, browsing and bidding. Then, Wes Johnson sidled up, glancing around furtively before scrawling something on a bid sheet for an auction basket from Gentle Flight Vineyards.
"Gotcha," Zander murmured, rocking back on his heels.
“That’s Wes Johnson,” I said.
Wes was a good student, but he barely had two nickels to rub together. His parents weren’t wealthy, and while he worked at the grocery store on the weekends, I didn’t think he was flush with cash. He had no business bidding on the auction. I was surprised he had money for a ticket. Which raised the question – who funded his little prank?
“You know him?” Zander asked.
“Yes, he’s a student. I doubt he thought of this on his own.”
“I don’t like the trend here,” Gwen muttered, frowning. “Someone else has got to be pulling the strings. I hate that they’re wrapping kids into it.”
“Fixing the bidding isn’t illegal at least,” I said, relieved that I wouldn’t have another student in legal trouble.
“Still, I’m going to turn the footage over to the Sheriff. Maybe she can get to the bottom of this if Wes cooperates.”
As much as I wanted the stupid pranks and borderline dangerous attempts to sabotage the Campfire events to end, I didn’t like the idea of Wes being questioned. But there was nothing I could do, except hope that he held the key to make it all stop.
