The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The First Collection by Frost, J (great novels .txt) 📕

My heart revolts. The chain and lock have a lot of meaning to me, to both of us. But I’m not going to ruin this day for Emily. She’s looked forward to it for a month. She’s driven herself crazy making sure all our guests’ needs were met. If I have to collar her with twisted bits of florists’ wire, I will. “I just can’t figure out where the hell it could have gone.”

“Where’d you see it last?” Mac asks.

Niall and I groan in unison.

“We’ve been through that already. The collar and lock were together, in a velvet box, in that drawer yesterday morning.” I point to the dresser. Mac crosses to it and opens the drawer. He shakes his head and closes it. “Really? It didn’t just appear?”

Mac snorts. “Okay, you’ve looked everywhere already.”

“Everywhere. I honestly can’t figure out where the fuck it would have gone, Mac. The box isn’t small.” I hold out my hands to approximate the six inch by six inch box. “And with the chain and lock in it, it isn’t light. It couldn’t just fall behind the dresser or something.”

“Have you looked?” Mac asks.

Of course I haven’t, so we spend five wasted minutes dragging the dresser out of the corner and looking behind and underneath it. All we find are dust bunnies.

Niall stands back, his head tipped to the side, staring at the dresser as Mac and I move it back against the wall.

“What?” I ask, dusty and frustrated.

Niall shrugs. “Probably nothing.”

“Great.” I stomp over to the closet and pull out a hanging bag. I know the box isn’t in it because I haven’t opened it since I packed it in New York, but I’m feeling the twitch of anxiety and one fucking thing has to go to plan, I unzip the bag and reach into the jacket pocket. My fingers close reassuringly around a small, velvet box that I withdraw and open. Niall and Mac come to stand beside me. Niall gives a low whistle.

“Fancy.”

I nod and take out the ring, my mother’s engagement ring that I’ve had reset with a pink champagne diamond for Emily. Each of the men look at it and then hand it back to me.

“At least that part of today isn’t fucked.” I return the ring to its box, tuck the box back in my jacket pocket, and zip up the bag.

“Today won’t be any less meaningful to Emily,” Mac says, clapping me on the shoulder. “Don’t let it be any less meaningful to you, son.”

He’s right. I nod. “I told Emily to stop worrying about whether this weekend was perfect. Looks like I’m going to have to take my own advice.”

“That’s gotta be an even more bitter pill to swallow than the headache tablets,” Niall says. “Speakin’ of which . . .”

I wave him towards the bathroom. “Emily never travels anywhere without an entire pharmacy. Take whatever you want.”

With another rub at his temple, Niall shuffles off towards the bathroom.

Mac picks up a sheet from the floor and starts remaking the bed. I get on the other side of the mattress and help him spread and tuck.

“Son, I don’t want to point fingers,” Mac says, fluffing a pillow. “But you’ve got to consider whether someone took it. It was platinum, right?”

“I have. I just can’t see anyone here doing that.”

“Martyn have any housekeepers?”

I shake my head. “Evidently, he does everything himself.”

Mac tosses me an edge of a blanket and we spread it on the bed between us. “Can’t really imagine him taking it, can you?”

I shake my head. “Not in a million years. On top of him being a natural daddy and knowing how it would destroy Emily, I’d think he’d be too worried about the inn’s reputation.”

“Heard that little, Aggie, say to her daddy that maybe the ghost took it. This inn haunted by a light-fingered ‘ghost’?” He brackets the word with air-quotes before picking up Emmy’s Ravenclaw binkie, folding it, and placing it next to a pillow.

“No, there’d be something in reviews of the inn online and Emmy would have mentioned it. Although she thought it might be Molly’s ghost, too.” I shrug. “When all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Mac frowns and shakes his head. “Who said that?”

“Emily’s second favorite detective: Sherlock Holmes.”

“So, we’ve settled on the ghost taking it?”

I chuckle, despite the remnants of my hangover and the lingering sense of failure. “I guess.”

“I don’t think so,” Mac says. “You mind if I speak to Martyn?”

“Be my guest.” I trust Mac with my life. If he thinks he can get something out of Martyn I didn’t, more power to him.

“Okay, son. I recommend you take a nap to take your mind off this and let those pills work. You want to be fresh for the ceremony. And if you don’t mind me saying so, you don’t look too fresh.”

I don’t feel very fresh. “Thanks.”

Mac chuckles and tosses a throw pillow at me. I catch it and pat it down on the bed, then stretch out on top of it.

“There you go.” Mac nods at me before he leaves, closing the door quietly behind him.

The bed dips with a weight settling onto it. I know without opening my eyes it isn’t Emily. Too heavy and Emmy cuddles up to me immediately. Always.

With a groan, the person next to me kicks off his shoes. I open an eye to peer at him. “Are we sleeping together now?”

“Feck off.”

I chuckle quietly as I relax back into the pillows. “Your head hurting as much as mine is?”

“More.”

“You were the one who ordered that last round of whiskey shots. Something about making a man out of me before Emily made off with my balls?”

“Feck off harder.”

I knuckle-noogie his shoulder.

He grunts before reaching out to pinch my ear.

“Ow.”

“Wanker.”

“Gobshite.”

* * *

Giggling wakes me. I smile without opening my eyes, because I know that giggle. I’d know it anywhere.

“Sh-sh, you’ll wake them.”

Aggie’s voice. Nothing like a bunch of excited littles trying to keep quiet.

I hear soft steps