Don apparently hadn’t gotten the hint. He left his helm at the chair and came farther inside the room. He picked up the damaged alien head and tried to unbend the broken antennae.
“You better tell your daughter to take better care of the inventory,” he said. “This can probably be fixed, but it’ll never be the same.” He looked up from the head and looked directly at me. I stood as still as I could. “Margo? Why are you hiding in the stockroom?”
Everything happened in slow motion. Black Jack released his grip on me and pointed his gun at my dad. I couldn’t stand seeing a killer aim a gun at someone I loved. I grabbed his arm with both hands and brought it down on my knee. He wailed in pain. I ran forward and pushed my dad’s wheelchair backward. He rolled out of the stockroom.
Right into Detective Nichols and a team of police officers.
*
I woke up sometime the next day. The only thing I knew was that the sun was shining brightly through my bedroom windows. Soot was on the foot of the bed, licking his paw and washing his head as if nothing particularly exciting had happened. I sat up and felt pain throughout my body. That’s how I knew not to believe Soot’s innocent act.
“You’re awake,” my dad said. He walked into the room, using a cane. He picked up a pillow and pushed it under my head so I was half sitting up. “You really surprised me last night,” he said.
“I needed help last night. I don’t know what would have happened if you and Don didn’t show up when you did.”
“Detective Nichols showed up a few minutes after we did, thanks to some information you told her earlier in the night and a call you made to 911. You kept your head on straight in the middle of a very scary situation. I’m proud of you.”
I put my hand on top of his. “Everybody needs a little help taking care of themselves. But there’s one thing I don’t understand. I saw the look on your face when you came into the stockroom. You knew there was trouble. What was it?”
“I could tell the place had been reorganized. The shelves, the signs, the hanging costumes. If you took the time to organize it, you wouldn’t have left the new costumes broken in the middle of the floor.”
“That’s it?”
“That and the plastic pistol you like to wear in your holster. It was lying on the ground.”
“But what did that tell you?”
“It was dark and I saw a gun on the ground. I didn’t know it was a toy. It was enough to tell me to get out of there and get help. What I don’t understand is, why didn’t you call out to us?”
“Black Jack told me it was me or you.” The tears from last night returned, filling my eyes and overflowing down my cheeks. “Where is he now?”
“In jail. Where he’ll be for a long time, thanks to you.”
I leaned back against the pillows and thought about what had happened in the past twenty-four hours. Detective Nichols and company had taken Black Jack into custody. I’d given my statement before the police cleared out. The last of my energy had been spent scaling the steps, showering, and falling into bed.
“Do you think your job will understand if you stay away for a few more days while we wrap everything up here?” my dad asked.
“About my job,” I started. He patted my hand, and I said what had been on my mind for the past few days. “When you were in the hospital in Moxie, you said you were willing to give up the store. And everybody keeps telling me how you want to go out around the country and scope out costumes for the shop. It’s what makes you feel alive.” I turned my hand over and squeezed his fingertips.
“Margo,” he said, “the heart attack changed my priorities.”
“It changed mine too. I want you to live the life you want to live, but I’m not ready to let the costume shop go. Not for a long time. I want to stay here and run the store.”
“This isn’t what I wanted for you.”
“You always said you wanted me to find out what I wanted for myself. This is it.” I leaned forward and told him about my ideas for displays and marketing, about how Kirby had approached the set designer of his school’s drama club about painting backdrops for our windows, and how we could create themed party packs for people who didn’t have their own ideas. I told him about Willow and the Conehead costumes and the medical uniforms that I’d learned about from the crime scene cleanup crew.
“You’ve really been thinking about this a lot, haven’t you?”
“I’m a thirty-two-year-old woman who likes to dress in costume. I think running Disguise DeLimit just might be the perfect job for me.” Soot walked across the bed and butted his head into my dad’s hand. I looked around the room, confused. “Where’s Ivory?”
“Ivory is out front with his owner.”
“Ebony’s here?” I asked. I threw the covers back and winced at the pain that shot through me.