Death of a Six-Foot Teddy Bear by Sharon Dunn Read Free Book Online Page B

confessed. Ice cascaded into her glass.
The two women shared an ain’t-getting-older-fun laugh.
“I have a private spa room in the hotel fitness center. You should join me sometime for a workout and massage.”
The invitation took Ginger by surprise. Maybe being the resident celebrity got lonely sometimes. “That sounds like fun. I’ll have to take you up on that before we leave.” She turned her attention back to the convention floor.
Victoria tossed ice into the blender on the counter. “Would you like a smoothie? I make them for Dustin all the time.”
That explained why she knew her way around Dustin’s kitchen. Maybe Victoria wasn’t so strange. “Sure, that sounds good.” She wasn’t in a hurry anymore. After she called the front desk to report her missing cat, she would just have to wait in the room. Earl would have to come to her.
Ginger walked over to the wall of glass, her attention now drawn to a booth that had a snake in an aquarium. The words The Reptile Catcher written in hot pink were displayed next to a picture of what looked like a spoon with rounded claws on it. Talk about a limited market. Pet-store owners and kids with lizards.
Ginger’s breath caught in her throat. She leaned a little closer to the window. “Do you have some binoculars?”
Victoria took a gulp of smoothie. “There’s a pair on that stool by the elevator. Dustin likes to watch the convention floor.”
Ginger grabbed the binoculars. Her heart pounded. Phoebe strutted toward the reptile display as if she owned the convention floor. Most of the cleaning crew had on headphones or were moving with a rhythm that suggested music fed through ear buds, so they did not notice the cat on the hunt. Phoebe stopped in front of a cage that probably had snake food in it, live mice. She flicked her tail.
“I think I’ll skip that smoothie.”
Ginger rested her open hand on her ever-tightening chest. A deep breath would be nice. Phoebe jumped on the counter that contained the mice and then up on a railing where a bushy-tailed water-skier rested.
“I need to get down to that convention floor fast.”

Commander Laughlin looked up from his Sudoku puzzle. His nineteen-year-old niece stood in the doorway of his office looking like she was biting her lips off. She held a single piece of paper in her limp hand.
“Problem?” He put his pencil down. His chest ached with a sensation somewhere between heartburn and firecrackers going off. He had been dealing with the pain since he hired his niece.
Ashley crossed and uncrossed her arms. The paper she held fluttered. “I just got a call from the Wind-Up Hotel—”
“And?”
“I’ve been looking at the list of dispatch codes you gave me to follow, and there is no number that goes with what the call is about.” Ashley studied the paper. So deep was the furrow in her brow that he feared her face would crack, splintering off into a million pieces and revealing the empty space inside. “I was thinking it fell somewhere between a lost dog and a kidnapping. So I thought maybe I should just make something up. You know, a new code.”
The commander took a sip of cold oversweetened coffee to push the scream traveling up his throat back down into his stomach. He had promised his sister he wouldn’t shout at her daughter. Megan had explained that Ashley was a sensitive girl. “This is not a creative writing exercise. The dispatched officer won’t know what you’re talking about if you give them a code that doesn’t exist.”
The teenager stared at the ceiling. “Well, what am I supposed to say:
“What was the nature of the call?”
Ashley gnawed on a fingernail. “Somebody at the Wind-Up phoned and said that a squirrel has been stolen … or kidnapped.”
Laughlin rubbed his bubbling stomach. There was only so much shouting he could swallow before he got another ulcer. “A squirrel? For real?”
“I thought I would send Officer Drake. I looked at the map and that’s his patrol area. There was a