Page 37 of Dead Ringer

I was honestly feeling a bit giddy, like I’d had a double shot of the giggle water. It was fizzing in my veins, making me feel light and bubbly.

I gave Henner’s arm a squeeze, shooting him a conspiratorial smile. “Think you’re up for the job, Mister Tayir?”

He grinned back at me. “Always.”

Chapter Thirteen

Now, the smartest move was to wait for the auction to start and let it distract everyone real nice.

When everyone was politely informed that the auction would be starting soon, Henner and I made our way into the darkened auditorium.

By day, the theater must have been one of them VIP kind of places, because the seats were more like little couches with tables between them, with a place to hang up jackets and everything. There wasn’t any screen at the front, though, just a raised platform. Though, I could see the brackets on the wall where the screen would have hung, so they must have just taken it down for the auction, to make everything look a bit more hoity-toity.

Everyone was taking their seats, murmuring quietly in the dim light of the theater. The only real light was up at the front on the raised platform, where I assumed the goods would be brought out. Or would they even bring them out? Would people just bid on little note cards, not even getting a peep at what was for sale until they’d ponied up the dough?

I couldn’t imagine spending that kind of cash on anything I hadn’t clapped eyes on, but maybe that was a rich person thing.

What we should be doing is figuring out who’s responsible for this dog and pony show and making them answer to the law, Cain said.

Now, Cain, that’s not what we came here for. All we did come here for was—

Yeah, yeah, I know.

While people were getting settled, I nudged Cain, and he slipped away from me, poking his head out straight through one of the doors to take a peek into the hallway. The ring on my finger cooled at the distance.

That was one keen thing about dealing with everyday humans, even the rich kind; none of them could see ghosts. Cain was a whole lot more useful as a spy when no one could lay eyes on him. Still, I was glad he spent most of his time in Haven Hollow, where he could sort of interact with folks. Not being able to be seen or heard by anyone but your poltergeist ex who killed you was absolute baloney, truly just the pits.

Hallway’s clear,Cain whispered back to me.The guards are all heading to the back rooms, other than the couple up front there.

Henner was playing with his phone when I turned to him. A glance at his screen made me blink because it wasn’t a text or anything like that. He had a view from what looked like a camera feed, and he was swiping through the feeds, choosing the angle he wanted. He came to what was probably the storage room of the theater, but instead of towering piles of popcorn and candy, there were big wooden crates.

“There we go.” Henner gave me a smirk, and it was all I could do not to plant one on him right then and there. All that stopped me was that the shade of lipstick I was wearing wouldn’t look good with his complexion.

Lucky for us, everyone was too busy looking important and staring at the front of the room to notice us slipping back out the door and into the deserted lobby.

Once we got there, Cain floated back over to me from where he’d been sticking his head through all the curtained doorways.Those are mostly other theaters, but there’s a hallway back through that one.

My hand slipped into Henner’s without me even noticing, but he hadn’t shaken me off or anything, so I gave it a squeeze. “Hallway it is.”

Here was the thing; the second we slipped through those red velvet curtains, we were officially being snoops. We wouldn’t be where we were supposed to be, and we’d be sneaking around where we didn’t have any business sneaking. In a place where extremely expensive and perhaps not fully legally obtained items were being held. Somehow, I doubted that the person organizing all this was the kind to politely ask us to leave or to call the coppers. They would probably be thinking more along the lines of: kill first and ask questions later.

There was some real danger here. I wasn’t done with my second kick at the can by a long shot, and Henner’s magic was really useful, but it wouldn’t stop a bullet. So we’re going to have to be careful.

Lucky for us, we had our invisible partner drifting along ahead of us to scout the way. Cain poked his head through any passing doors, and I didn’t know if he was scouting or if he just couldn’t shake off the copper urge to snoop.

The hallway didn’t exactly have a lot of places to hide, being stark white and long and straight. No curtained windows, or floor length paintings hanging on the walls. It was almost like it had been designed for people to wheel barrels of garbage and stuff to clean the theaters, which after the careful opulence of the theater itself, was honestly kind of a let down.

I did kick my heels off the second we stepped off the carpet and picked them up. Those kind of shoes had exactly one job; to make my gams look fabulous. They weren’t meant for sneaking or being comfy. Actually, they made me sound like a horse tap-dancing on the hard tile, so stockinged feet it was. At least the floor wasn’t sticky like most movie theaters.

My breath was burning in my throat like I’d run a mile instead of creeping four feet. My heart felt like it was trying to dance the Charleston and managed to keep throwing an elbow into my ribs. I was shocked if I’d be able to hear anything over the pulse of it in my ears.

I heard the footsteps a half a second before Cain came flying back to us.

Security,he barked.Move.

My skin went cold and my knees went watery. There wasn’t anywhere to hide in the hallway itself. We hadn’t even gotten to see the idol yet! Good Lord, but we couldn’t get pinched when we’d gotten so close.

There were doors off the hall, so Henner and I dove for the closest one. I was fumbling for one of my hair bobs, ready to put my lock picking skills up against a modern lock. I’d managed to jimmy open my jewelry box once, when I’d lost the key. It couldn’t be that much different, could it?

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