Cupid's Treasure - Mystery of the Golden Arrow by Barbara Ivie Green Read Free Book Online Page B

it,” Amber said.
    “Good.” Jonathan smiled at her.
    She glanced down at her pajamas self-consciously. “Jessie loaned them to me.”
    “Cute,” Jonathan said, then wished he hadn’t. It was actually too close to the truth. She was adorable. He ran a hand through his hair and noticed for the first time they were standing together all alone in the Valentine’s room of love. “Yeah, well.” He backed away from her like she was a live mortar. “Goodnight,” he said, closing the door behind him.
    Amber watched him go, wondering what the heck had gotten into him. She looked at her kitty on the bed. Kisses looked up at her and meowed. “I know,” Amber said. “That was very odd. . . . He almost acted like he was attracted to me.” She looked into the mirror at her image. Her cat meowed. “That’s impossible!”
    ~*~
    Jonathan set his toolbox next to the computer and looked at Harold who was still bent over the arrow, running a test. “I have something else for you.”
    Harold looked up in surprise. “I didn’t hear you come up.”
    “You look pretty involved over there.”
    “It’s an alloy of metal that I have been unable to recognize.”
    Jonathan noticed how excited he looked.
    “Its magnetic properties are a hundred times higher than that of iron, yet its weight is far less. The implications of having yet another element are—” He stopped speaking when he noticed all the baggies that Jonathan was unloading near the computer. “What is it that you have for me?”
    “I need some prints run and some analysis of blood DNA,” Jonathan said. “Can you do that?”
    “In my sleep,” Harold replied seriously. “Though it’s not nearly as interesting as your last find.”
    Jonathan stepped back to let the older man at the controls. “I’ll leave these for you to deal with.” He headed back down the ladder. “You need anything . . . Your wife just made peach cobbler.”
    Harold grinned at him. “With a dollop of vanilla ice cream if you don’t mind.”
    ~*~
    Amber leaned against the pillows and opened the diary that she’d taken from the library. She had a little time to kill while she waited for everyone in the house to go to sleep.
    I have loved in vain. After gleaning the clues of the treasure, he left me, never to return. I have lost and will never love again.
    The words she read on the last page seemed to resonate within her own soul, though she had lost the memory of it, another thing Amber blamed them for.
    She dressed in a dark pair of pants and sweater that almost swallowed her whole. She was glad that most of her clothes were dull colors. Nothing on her would stand out at night. She wrapped a dark shawl around her hair and deemed herself fit to slip out at night unseen . . . except her white cat. She looked at the fur ball sitting in the window sill.
    Amber set her purse on the bed and opened it. “C’mon girl, we need to go,” she whispered.
    Kisses jumped down from the window and passed the open purse. She walked over to the pillow and looked up at Amber with big blue eyes.
    “Don’t be like that,” Amber sighed. “You know I must go. These are nice people who have no idea the trouble I bring. Compared to me, Pandora’s box is a holiday!”
    Kisses flicked her tail.
    “Please,” Amber said.
    Kisses walked over and sniffed the purse.
    “That’s a good girl,” Amber said.
    “ Muff-muff .” The kitty circled the purse, making a noise that sounded like the beginning of a meow ending in a puff of air, and climbed in.
    Amber picked her up, glancing back at the night table where the radio speaker was sitting and sighed. This is harder to leave than I thought it would be . She looked down at her bag with the kitty’s head poking out of the top. “I’d give almost anything to stay and have this thing over and done with once and for all.”
    Amber slowly made her way down the stairs in the darkened house. She could hardly believe her eyes when a shadow crossed her path. She