Take the Trophy and Run Read online

  Despite the heat of the warm spring day, a chill rushed up Stan’s spine. He knew exactly where the gnome was supposed to be. He’d been the one to put him there.

  He turned to look at Amber at the same time as Amber turned to the center of the garden.

  Her purse dropped on the ground and a bunch of girl stuff bounced out. Amber gasped and pressed her palms to her cheeks. “Gnorman! He’s gone!”

  Chapter Two

  Amber stared at the place in Becky’s garden where Gnorman had stood holding the trophy. Stunned, she pressed her hands to her face until she felt a gentle tugging on the hem of her blouse.

  “Amber?” She looked down at Becky’s young niece, whose eyes were wide. “You dropped your purse and a bunch of your stuff fell out. Want me to help pick it up?”

  Without moving her head, Amber scanned the ground. Sure enough, half the contents of her purse lay strewn about her feet.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she registered Stan approaching from his position beside the end of Becky’s fence.

  Quickly hunkering down, Amber grabbed the most embarrassing items first. “Yes, thank you, Sasha. A man should never see the contents of a woman’s purse.”

  Little Sasha nodded and giggled. “My mom says that when she’s got a chocolate bar and doesn’t want Daddy to find out. You don’t got any chocolate, but you got some good gum.”

  Amber dearly wished her last piece of Wrigley’s was a biggie-sized Three Musketeers. There probably wasn’t a better time for chocolate than right now. Everyone would ask her where Gnorman and the trophy were, but she had no clue. She had to find him, and fast. Even though Gnorman had made a place for himself, and for her, in the garden club, the most important absence wasn’t really the ceramic gnome, but the trophy that she’d strapped to his hand.

  As she reached to pick up her lip balm, Stan’s black leather shoes blocked her hand’s trajectory. She withdrew her hand, tilted her head back, and looked up, way up, at Stan, who looked down at her.

  Usually when they stood side by side, she had to look up at him anyway, since he was nearly six feet tall and she was merely five and a half feet. But kneeling on the ground, she felt even smaller than usual beside him.

  Stan crossed his arms over his chest. “What’s going on? The gnome was here less than half an hour ago.”

  Amber stood, checked around them to make sure no one was close enough to listen to their conversation, and then stepped a little closer to be sure. “It’s obvious someone’s taken him. I can’t figure that out. He’s just a garden gnome. I wonder if it was a bunch of teenagers up to mischief, but a garden gnome isn’t something I can see a bunch of kids stealing.”

  Stan shook his head. “I don’t know if any of the local teens who usually pull pranks like that would be out of bed this early on a weekend. Besides, if you’re thinking of the same group as I am, most of them have relatives in the garden club, and they wouldn’t dare steal your gnome. They’d get off lighter if they’d stolen a car.”

  Amber turned to look at her aunt’s vintage Cadillac. “Except Aunt Edna’s car. That one’s pretty untouchable.”

  Stan squeezed his eyes shut and sighed. “Please, I touch that thing way too often. It’s almost impossible to find parts for it. I’ve actually wished someone would steal it.” He shook his head. “Never mind that. We need to find out who took your gnome.”

  They both scanned the crowd. “It can’t be anyone here. When we got to the party, everyone here was there.”

  Stan lowered his voice to barely above a whisper. “That’s not necessarily true. This is quite a crowd. If anyone disappeared for five minutes, which is all it would have taken if they had their car parked half a block away, no one would have noticed they were missing. It wouldn’t have been hard for anyone to sneak off for five minutes. The courtyard was a huge free-for-all.”

  Amber glared at Stan. “Sneaking off to a car sounds rather devious.”

  He grinned. “Not really. It’s just good planning.”

  “Good planning? Are you speaking from the voice of experience?”

  Stan’s ears turned red. “Let’s save that conversation for another day. All I’m trying to do is consider all the possibilities.”

  While Amber really wanted to hear about Stan’s misadventure and why he’d parked his car a block away from some unnamed event, and why she hadn’t heard about this story until now, this wasn’t the time. Again, she scanned the crowd. Looking from one person to the next, her attention stopped on her Uncle Bill, her Great-Aunt Edna’s husband. Bill had no interest in the flowers. Instead, he watched the food for the luncheon being unloaded from a small line of cars.

  “Oh dear,” Amber whispered to Stan. “I hope Aunt Edna doesn’t catch him breaking his diet.”

  Before she could say “transfat,” her aunt appeared in the distance, lips thinned and jaw clenched, using her cane not to help her walk, but to move Libby out of her way, as she quick-stepped toward her husband.

  Amber cringed, having been poked with Edna’s cane a few times herself. “Does that cane ever touch the ground, or does she just use it to clear a path?”

  Stan shook his head. “I’ve never seen it touch the ground. I think she doesn’t want the end to get scuffed. It’s amazing how she gets around at her age.”

  “Seventy-five isn’t as old as it used to be. Aunt Edna does aerobics three times a week, and I hear she uses bags of fertilizer for weight lifting.”

  Stan cringed, and Amber would have cringed, too, if she wasn’t concentrating so much on not appearing nervous.

  “Let’s go talk to Becky,” Amber said. “I don’t want to be anywhere near this.”

  Stan simply nodded and followed her to the circle of people who tried to console Becky that the trophy that should have been the centerpiece of her yard for the season had vanished.

  If Amber worried about how to break into the conversation, she shouldn’t have. The second everyone saw her, conversation dropped like a bale of hay off the end of Jackson’s baler.

  Becky stepped forward. “What are you going to do? Everyone knows I won The Spring Fling Early Bloomer Award, since it will be published in the newsletter.” She smiled widely. “I would have loved to have the trophy in my garden, but now this will bring more publicity to my garden than the trophy. The little gnome though . . .” Becky gave a loud, sad sigh. “He’s become such a fun tradition of The Spring Fling party, we’ve got to find him. I know he’s one-of-a-kind. You must be so upset.” She lowered her voice to barely above a whisper. “If we find him at Bethany’s house, I’ll just . . .” She let her voice trail off, then cleared her throat and smiled at the gathering crowd. “We all need to find out who took Amber’s little Gnorman.”

  Amber wanted to remind Becky that since Bethany wasn’t a member, there was no way that the town pack rat could possibly have known where the semifamous gnome would be. Even if she did know, Bethany would never steal anything. She just liked to buy more than she needed, and her yard and living room were a testimony to that. But before Amber could open her mouth, Naomi, who happened to be Bethany’s mother, complete with one of her flamboyant hats, joined them.

  “If you ask me, I think Tom took Gnorman. He’s been trying to get Becky’s attention for years, but she never takes him seriously. This would make her notice him.”

  Not very subtly, they all turned to Tom, who was talking to Andy, who was pointing at Aunt Edna’s car and shaking his head.

  Amber shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t know Tom that well, but he seems quite honest, and this doesn’t seem like something he would do.”

  Libby elbowed Amber in the ribs. “What about Andy? With one arm raised, your little gnome would make a good outside perch for that ridiculous parrot of his.”

  Pamela spun toward Libby and waved one of her hands, flashing her mul
ticolored nails dotted with rhinestones. “Andy is quite mischievous, but do you really think he would do something like this, even as a joke, with something as special as The Spring Fling trophy?”

  Libby narrowed her eyes and glared at Pamela. “So you’re admitting he did it?”

  Pamela glared back. “I’m not admitting a thing. I think you’re more likely to hide the gnome and trophy, then call it a joke.”

  “Well!” Libby stiffened and raised her nose in the air. “I refuse to stand here and be insulted.”

  Before Amber could tell the two alleged friends to stop squabbling, Libby stomped off to join the people organizing plates and utensils at the food table.

  Stan raised his palms toward the group. “Ladies, please. We’re not pointing fingers. We’re trying to figure out who could have done this.” He turned slightly and took hold of Amber’s elbow, causing her to flinch. “I think Amber and I need to check out Gnorman’s last known location.”

  “Ohhhhh . . .” Elsie, the garden club’s most senior member except for Aunt Edna, drawled. “Are y’all looking for a l’il ol’ clue?”

  Amber squeezed her eyes shut. “Elsie, that is the worst fake Southern accent I’ve ever heard.”

  The other ladies gasped at her reprimand, then Elsie chuckled. “Sorry. I was trying to get into character. You know. Like method acting.”

  Pamela’s eyebrows arched. “You mean like from one of those mystery detective TV shows? Are we looking for clues? Like Lana did it with her paintbrush in the garden?”

  Becky’s eyes widened, and Amber could almost see the gears turning in her head. Becky broke out into a conspiratorial grin. “Or Stan did it with the wrench in the cul-de-sac.”

  Stan’s grip on her elbow tightened. “Do they really think I would do something like this?”

  From the widening eyes of everyone in the little circle, Amber could see that no one thought Becky’s joke was funny. The air went still in their little circle.

  Pamela crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes. “Becky! No Clue jokes. This is serious,” she hissed.

  Becky shrugged. “He’s the first person I could think of with a wrench. That was a real weapon in the real game, you know. Not a paintbrush, which is all Lana would have.” She turned and glared at Pamela.

  Amber lowered her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. “This isn’t a game, and no one was murdered. My gnome and the trophy are missing, and we’ve got to find them.”

  A slight pressure on her elbow encouraged her to walk away from the group of women.

  “That’s right,” Stan said over his shoulder as he guided Amber to a vacant spot. “We’ll figure this out so they aren’t missing for long. Excuse us, please.”

  Stan gritted his teeth.

  Amber’s membership with the garden club already rested on shaky ground, and this wasn’t doing anything to help her position. It was a natural and expected prerequisite that members of the garden club be . . . gardeners. The only reason Amber had a garden at all was because of the sprinkler system he’d rigged for her. Prior to his handiwork, the only plant she’d grown successfully was a potato, which he didn’t even know flowered. She’d almost cried when they’d dug it up. Then she couldn’t bring herself to eat the potatoes it had grown.

  He didn’t know why a person who could become emotionally attached to a vegetable would want to be a garden club member, but he didn’t need to know the reason. He only knew that she desperately wanted to be a member, and that was good enough for him. The novelty of her gnome displaying The Spring Fling trophy every year was a major component of her continuing membership, so he would do whatever it took to get the gnome back.

  Stan turned slightly, guided Amber to an unoccupied spot under a big tree, and released her.

  “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I really think it had to be a member of the garden club who took your Gnorman.”

  “I agree.”

  Together they scanned the crowd.

  Even though his garden was nowhere near the level of Becky’s, he had enough plants strategically placed that he qualified for membership. He knew most, but not all of the other members, especially the newer ones.

  “I can’t tell if everyone is here,” Stan said. “I wish I had access to my membership list.”

  “I know. But there are more people here than just the members. There’s a lot of guests because this is the second biggest event of the year for the club.”

  Stan ran his fingers through his hair. “This is scary that I know this many people. There’s more people here than at a usual Sunday service at church.”

  Amber sighed. “I know. And like you, I don’t think anyone here could have done it, but there’s no one else who would. Does that make sense?”

  Maybe not to anyone else, but he knew what she meant.

  Stan searched through the crowd one person at a time. Simply, there was no one he considered suspicious or capable of pulling a stunt like this in the group. Many of the women he knew were members of the garden club so they shared a lot of friendly news, otherwise known as gossip, and most of the men who were here only came for the food.

  Stan grinned, thinking that not only did he also enjoy all the great food while he was at a garden club event, most of the older ladies heaped leftovers on him to take home. As one of the few members who owned a large pickup truck, he often hauled heavy stuff for anyone who needed help, and sometimes that included transplanted trees. The ladies were appreciative, and he had enough homemade meals in his freezer to last him awhile.

  Amber turned to him and ran her fingers through her hair, messing it up and making him want to pat it smooth again, until he decided he liked it slightly mussed.

  “I can’t think of anyone here who would steal the trophy,” she muttered, “especially when one of the members is the chief of police. Have you got any ideas?”

  Stan opened his mouth to respond, but when she looked up at him with those gorgeous green eyes, his words caught in his throat. Amber’s eyes were the color of deep jade, and from as far back as he could remember, that had always been his favorite color. For years he’d wanted to buy a jade ring for Amber, not just because of her beautiful eyes, but because he wanted to treat her special. The only reason he held back was because she would never accept such a thing from him.

  Their mothers had been best friends, so close that they’d had a double wedding and bought houses next door to each other. They were even pregnant at the same time, so Stan and Amber had known each other since they were born. Whenever he did something to annoy her, she threatened to show their friends pictures of them as babies, one shot in particular where she had a cute little dress on and he only wore a diaper and one sock.

  Growing up, he and Amber had spent time together almost every day of their lives, including after they went to school and met other friends. Even now, as adults and no longer living next door to each other, they still saw or talked to each other nearly every day.

  Every time he tried to buy her something nice, she got angry with him for spoiling her, so now all he could purchase for her were birthday and Christmas presents. But if one day she would accept a “just friends” gift for no special occasion, a jade ring would be his first purchase.

  For a moment his heart went cold, remembering the day when her parents decided to leave Bloomfield and move to Chicago to live closer to Amber’s grandmother because of her failing health. It had been the most unsettling time in his life until Amber told him she’d decided to stay in Bloomfield. Once the decision had been made, she’d leased a small townhouse, opened her little store, and joined the garden club. They both loved small-town life.

  Stan continued to look down into her eyes, unable to break contact.

  The reason he’d joined the garden club wasn’t because he loved gardening so much, or, like most
of the other male members his age, that he could get a lot of good, free food. It was because Amber, knowing her lack of gardening skills, had been too afraid to attend the first meeting alone, so he’d joined to go with her.

  Getting his thoughts back to the issue at hand, Stan turned and watched another group of people milling around Becky’s yard at the spot where Gnorman had been and shaking their heads.

  At some point everyone there had checked out the empty patch of grass and no doubt wondered the same thing: who took the gnome, and where was the trophy?

  He sighed. Watching the crowd was getting them nowhere. “Maybe we should walk around and talk to people.”

  Amber’s posture sagged. “If that’s what you think will help. I’m sure that’s all everyone’s been talking about, and they’d just love to repeat themselves to us.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “We’ve got nothing to lose.” Or rather, nothing more to lose.

  Amber straightened her purse strap on her shoulder. “Okay, let’s see if anyone has any better ideas than we do.”

  Stan clenched his teeth so he wouldn’t say his thoughts out loud; ten times zero was still zero.

  Chapter Three

  Amber dragged her feet as she approached her store. She’d been unable to sleep, worrying about Gnorman and the trophy. While she already missed her little gnome, it was more important to find the trophy.

  For now, everyone they’d spoken to felt sure that Gnorman, along with the trophy, would be returned within a day or two, after whoever who had taken him was satisfied with their practical joke. But after thinking about it all night, Amber wasn’t so sure this wasn’t more personal.

  As she inserted her key into the lock, her hand stilled. Next to the lock, a white envelope stuck out from between the door and the frame, held up by the deadbolt.

  Leaving the key in the lock, Amber shifted her purse and tote more securely onto her shoulder, pulled the envelope from its hiding place, and ripped it open.