Page 54 of Rock Chick

“That’s a great bookstore. Used to be you could read all day and not be disturbed. The old lady was cool,” he noted. “It still like that?”

“That old lady was my gram. She left me the store when she died, I just added coffee,” I replied.

“You thinkin’ of franchisin’?”

“No way.” I threw up my hands for emphasis, just in case he had any doubts to my sincerity.

He nodded. “Then you’re the little guy too. I’d come to support you, ’cause I read a lot, but I don’t leave this block. Need to keep my eye on things.”

“Sure,” I agreed.

This guy was nuts, but I liked him anyway.

Ally gave him our card and he put his hand in his shirt pocket and gave Ally one in return.

All it said was, “Tex, Cat Sitter,” and had his number.

“You have a cat and go on vacation, you know who to call. Though, I warn you, I do both dry and wet food. I’m not into doin’ just wet or just dry. They need a treat, but they need to keep their teeth clean. It’s important.”

We nodded our agreement and then jogged down to see Mr. Kumar.

“Me and Tex have been looking for your Rosie, but we haven’t found him,” he assured us when we got to the door.

“Thanks Mr. Kumar,” I said.

“No Tim, either. Now I’m worried and I think Tex is getting worried, too. Lots of people coming to knock on Tim’s door. He’s never been this popular.”

“Rosie had a following. He makes good coffee and people miss him,” I told him.

“I can see this,” Mr. Kumar said.

I bought milk, corn chips, two diet pops and all the ingredients for the macaroni salad and brownies I needed to make for Dad’s barbeque. This cost me twice as much as it would if I’d just gone to King Soopers, but Tex was right, we had to watch out for the little guy, especially me, as I, too, was a little guy.

Mr. Kumar’s eyes filled up with tears as I brought all my stuff to the counter.

“You are an angel from heaven,” he breathed.

SEVEN

B AND E DARLIN’

Ally and I went to my house and unloaded the groceries, then back to Fortnum’s, where we sent Jane home and worked the last couple of hours before shutting down at six.

Ally took her car and I walked the two blocks home, Matt following me at a crawl.

On the walk home, I formed a plan.

Rosie couldn’t go up in a puff of smoke and he wasn’t smart enough to hide so well. If Lee hadn’t found him, then something was up. If he got the diamonds and went to San Salvador, then where was Duke?

Unless something had happened to RosieandDuke (which I hoped it had not), or Rosie had gone off looking for Duke (which would be stupid therefore not unheard of), then Rosie had to be hanging out, waiting for Duke. If he was camping out near Duke’s house, waiting, then there would have been a forest fire by now. I didn’t imagine Rosie paid a lot of attention to fire safety.

Rosie was a bit of a loner. He came to parties and went to concerts only when asked and without an entourage. I was certain Tim and The Kevster were his only friends.

Except me.

I boiled all these things down as best I could, considering I was not a spy, a detective or a criminal mastermind.

What I came up with was that Rosie had to be somewhere close. He had to be taking advantage of a friend’s kindness. And, to my mind, since he wasn’t with The Kevster, and Tim had also disappeared then Rosie and Tim were holed up somewhere. Maybe at Tim’s house, in the basement, with copious amounts of cheese puffs, coming out only when the coast was clear or to bake a frozen pizza.

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