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And since I knew my friend probably wouldn’t want the police poking around for fear they might pull a loose thread on his false identity, unravel it, and realize he wasn’t who he was pretending to be, I worried he might try to let the whole thing go, would cave in to the blackmailer’s demands.
Well, if that happened, I’d pay the blackmail myself. Over the past couple of years, Archie had become like the brother I’d never had, and I was damned if I was going to let anyone hurt him or try to take away the life and business he’d worked so hard to get.
No, whoever this creep was, they’d learn soon enough that Archie had lots of friends…including one very determined hedgewitch.
3
A Helping Hand
“I can’t believe this is happening to us,” Victoria told me in distressed tones. She’d stopped by the shop at a little past ten the next morning, clearly wanting to get my input on this latest wrinkle in her and Archie’s lives.
“It’s going to be fine,” I assured her, even as I hoped I was telling the truth and that this particular problem was more smoke than fire. “Calvin and I both think it’s someone in the ballroom community, someone who’s jealous of Archie’s success.”
Her expression cleared somewhat. Because she was wearing a pretty printed blouse and designer jeans and flats, I guessed she planned to work exclusively in her studio upstairs and didn’t have any meetings with clients. Otherwise, she would have been in one of her signature sheath dresses and heels.
“That’s what Archie told me at dinner last night,” she said. “I want to believe him…but I also don’t want to believe a fellow dancer could be so cruel.”
Maybe one of my eyebrows lifted a bit. “One of those ‘fellow dancers’ chopped Brad Masters into pieces and hid him in your steamer trunk.”
Victoria shook her head, although I noticed how her mouth tightened at my comment. “All right, but that was an aberration, one person acting alone. It’s not like the whole dance community is teeming with murderers and blackmailers.”
Probably not. However, even my brief time in the ballroom dance world had shown me there was a lot of backstabbing and catty behavior backstage at those events, so it wasn’t too huge a leap of the imagination to think that one of Archie’s rivals might have done such a thing to put him off his stride…even if the person who’d printed and mailed that letter didn’t have any intention of sliding from innuendo into outright blackmail.
Did they know Archie was getting married in less than two weeks? If so, sending the letter felt that much more cruel. But even leaving that matter aside, the whole thing felt like a very sick joke.
“It would be nice to think that,” I told Victoria. “The important thing is to not let this get to you. Whoever mailed that letter is probably hoping for that very thing.”
“I know,” she replied, and her chin went up a little. Although her gracefully serene presence might have given some people the impression that Victoria was a pushover, I knew nothing could be further from the truth. It took someone with a backbone of steel to handle hundreds of needy brides…and, if I wanted to admit such a thing to myself, to put up with Archie on a daily basis. I loved the man and was happier than I could say that he’d found love after so many years of laboring under that horrible curse, but I knew if I’d been romantically involved with him, I probably would have wanted to push him out a window sooner rather than later. “And I’m just going to keep on with what I’ve been doing,” she added. “Honestly, I’ve got way too much on my plate right now to let something like this derail me. I’m just glad that I’m working in the office today instead of going out to the site. It’s easier to hold it together when I don’t have to deal with clients.”
Because I’d had my days when I wasn’t sure whether I had the intestinal fortitude to handle customers — namely, when Calvin had been accused of murder more than a year and a half ago — I knew exactly how Victoria felt. “Yes, a nice quiet day at the office is exactly what you need,” I told her. “Why don’t we have lunch together? That should help.”
She sent me a grateful smile, even as she shook her head. “I appreciate that,” she said. “And normally, I’d say yes. But Archie and I are going out at lunch today to meet with the caterer and finalize a few things.”
The last thing I wanted was to get in the middle of any wedding planning details. “Oh, that’s fine,” I said quickly. “But if you need me to help with anything, just let me know.”
“As long as you’re at the bridal salon tomorrow at five-thirty, we’re good,” she assured me. “But now I need to get to work — I have to make some phone calls.”
I said that was fine and that I’d see her the next afternoon at the bridal shop as promised, and she hurried out the back entrance of the store so she could climb the stairs to her studio on the second floor.
As soon as she was gone, though, I found myself frowning. I wanted to believe we were correct in supposing this was someone’s petty little prank, something designed to put Archie off his stride but definitely not cause any actual damage.
What if it wasn’t, though? What if something much worse was going on here?
What if someone really had discovered the truth about Archie’s past?
I told myself that was absolutely ridiculous. The reality of his origins was a secret kept by a very small group of people, just Archie and Victoria, Calvin and me. Not even Hazel and Chuck Langdon, two of our closest friends, knew the truth about him. Like everyone else in Globe, they believed he was a cousin from my biological father’s side of the family and nothing more. Even my mother accepted that story as the truth, since she’d never asked for child support from my father and hadn’t been in contact with him for decades.
Calvin would never, ever betray such a confidence. Neither would Victoria, obviously, and I knew I sure as hell had never uttered a single thing in public about Archie that didn’t fit the narrative I’d given everyone else.
So how in the world could anyone have learned there was a little more to Archie Bradshaw than met the eye?
I didn’t know. Yes, Calvin had had one of his deputies reach out to make the connections required to get Archie all his false documents, but he’d only told the man that Archie was my cousin and needed a fresh start here in Arizona, hinting that some not very-nice-people in California were looking for him. The deputy seemed to have accepted the story…and besides, everyone who worked at the San Ramon Apache police station was part of the tribe.
If there was one thing the San Ramon coyote shifters were very good at, it was keeping secrets.
Which seemed to send me right back to square one.
It didn’t look as though I was going to get any customers anytime soon, so I headed over to the counter that held the cash register and pulled out my tablet. To my surprise, I’d finally gotten a response to my ad on Craigslist, from someone named Melanie Knowles.
