Page 53 of Save the Drama for your Mama
I walked back to the trunk with the picture frame, then stopped.
“Flip-side,” I mumbled to myself, then flipped the frame over to get a look at the back. “You’re not going to believe this.”
“What?” Melody said, moving closer.
I showed her the sticker on the back of the frame.
“James Blade Photography,” she said.
We both stared at it for a beat.
“Okay—I’m more confused than ever,” I said. “That newspaper article said James was a shoe repairman.”
Melody shrugged. “People change careers all the time, or sometimes they have side jobs that are their passions. He could have repaired shoes Monday through Friday, then gone out on the weekends with his camera. It’s not unrealistic at all.”
“There’s one huge discrepancy with that scenario,” I said.
“Which is?” Melody asked.
I turned the frame back over to reveal the picture of the USS Midway docked at the Navy Pier in San Diego. “James died at least ten years before he had supposedly taken this photo.”
She blinked twice. “How do you know that? There’s no date on the photo.”
“The USS Midway became a museum in San Diego in—”
“2004.” Melody gasped and her eyes got wider. “Which means . . .”
“James Blade is still alive,” we said simultaneously.
We stared at each other, absorbing this surprising discovery.
“Wow—I did not see that one coming,” Melody said. “He didn’t die in the ocean like everybody had presumed. But how is that even possible, and where could he be now?”
I turned to her. “That’s what we’re going to find out.”
ChapterThirteen
MELODY
Cooper Galloway was a big tease.
The man had gotten me all revved up last night when he had mentioned that we were going to investigate the mystery of James Blade after our big discovery that he was still alive. But instead of doing research like I had hoped, Cooper locked himself in the library again, saying he had a spark of creativity for his book, and that he needed to strike while the iron was hot.
It wasn’t like I didn’t understand his point of view. He’d been having trouble finishing his book. Then there were the constant interruptions from the restoration. He had a job to do; I got that. I also understood the creative process was sometimes tricky and unpredictable, but dang it, I was dying to dig into this mystery! It was like being invited to an estate sale, showing up, then not being let in.
My mind had raced all night with questions.
How was James still alive when the newspaper had declared him dead? Why hadn’t there been any follow-up articles when he had been found alive? And what was his connection to Cooper, since they looked alike?
I even Googled James and found out he had a photography studio up in San Clemente, about an hour north of us. I was this close to texting Cooper everything last night, but I didn’t want to disrupt his writing groove and suffer the wrath.
Instead, I waited for this morning to come, while Cooper’s fingers clacked away at the keyboard late into the night.
I yawned as I sat at the patio table outside in the courtyard, waiting for Chip, the supervisor in charge of the restoration. Dale Monorail from the Coronado Historical Association was on his way over to meet with us. Chip and I were supposed to update him on the restoration progress and let him inspect our work. I wasn’t holding my breath for Cooper to join us since I could see him through the library window, head down, beret on his head, still typing away. He had a look of satisfaction on his face, like he was making progress. Had he even gone to sleep last night?
One of these days I was going to ask him about the beret. Although I wasn’t certain, he only wore it while he was writing. Was it his lucky beret? Was there something superstitious about not wearing it while he wrote?
“Wussup, buttercup?” Chip called out, swaggering over in his flip-flops. “You ready to get this party started, or what?”
