4. Sparking a Clue

CHAPTER 4

Sparking a Clue

W hile Nick headed off to the bank to withdraw funds to replace the stolen rent money, I locked up the store and headed off down the block in the other direction. A cup of spiced apple cider might cheer him up. I’d seen the drink noted as the day’s special on the chalkboard outside the coffee shop when I’d passed by earlier. I placed the order with the barista, and stepped aside to wait.

The manager, who I’d come to know from my many visits to the coffee shop, greeted me. “Hey, Ciara. How’s it going?”

“Not so well.” I told her about the burglary. “We have no idea how anyone could have gotten into the building or how they would know the combination to the safe.”

She frowned. “That’s odd. We had a similar situation here back in August. The rent payment disappeared from our safe. Only three of us knew the combination—my two assistant managers and me. There were no signs of a break-in, so I figured it had to be an inside job. Neither of them confessed, and I simply couldn’t imagine either was guilty, but it seemed that one of them had to be.”

“So, what did you do?”

“I let them both go. What choice did I have? It was an impossible situation. Our profit margin isn’t big. I couldn’t afford for something like that to happen again. The same thing happened at the art gallery last spring. I know the owner. She told me about it.”

“Did she fire any of her staff over it?”

“No. She figured she might have failed to fully close the safe door, and they’d had a lot of people in and out for a showing the evening before, so she gave her employees the benefit of the doubt. She changed the combination to the safe, and it hasn’t happened again.”

I supposed I was lucky that Nick hadn’t fired me on the spot. After all, only he and I knew the safe’s code, so the toy shop burglary appeared to be an inside job, too. The thought that he trusted me warmed my heart, but the thought that someone had somehow accessed the shop made my blood run cold.

The coffee shop’s manager pointed up at two cameras, one at either end of the counter. “After the money went missing, I installed those security cameras, as well as one in the office. If anyone ever tries to pull a stunt like that again, they’ll be caught on video. I had an alarm system put in, as well. Cost a small fortune.”

The barista slid the cider I’d ordered onto the counter. “Here you go.”

I thanked him and picked up the cup. As the spices mulled in the cup of cider in my hand, I mulled things over in my mind. “May I see your safe?” I asked the manager. “I realize it’s an odd request, but I’m just trying to figure out if there’s some clue I’m missing. It sounds like whoever stole your rent money might have also stolen ours.”

The manager hesitated a moment, then seemed to realize there was no risk of showing the shop’s office to me. After all, with an alarm system and cameras securing the place, I’d never be able to break in and steal from her. She waved for me to follow her back to her office.

Once we were there, I eyed her safe. It was the same model we had in the toy store. “Did you install the safe?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “It was already here when we leased the placed from the Dickson brothers. But I changed the combination the day I signed the lease.”

Hmm. I glanced around, wishing her walls could talk. It was then I noticed that nothing was plugged into the top outlet of the electrical socket on the wall perpendicular to her safe. I glanced at the other outlets. Between lamps, a computer, a printer, an internet router, a paper shredder, and a phone charger, all of the other outlets were in use. In fact, a power strip had been plugged into the nearest outlet to allow more devices to be plugged in. “I see you’ve got a power strip.” I pointed to the empty socket. “Why isn’t anything plugged in there?”

She flung a hand. “That socket hasn’t worked since the day we took over the space. It seemed like a small thing, so I didn’t bug Chip Dickson about fixing it. I’m sure he’s got more important things to do and we can make do with the power strip.”

It was essentially the same thing Nick had said when we’d discovered the nonfunctioning outlet in our office. Is it just a fluke that the coffee shop and the toy store both have broken sockets, or is there more to it? I wasn’t sure what to think. It seemed like an odd coincidence, but how could an electrical outlet have anything to do with a burglary?

I thanked the woman and returned to the toy store. Nick had beat me back and was helping a customer decide between a rag doll and a stuffed bunny for her daughter.

I gave the customer a smile. “The eenie-meanie method is always an option.”

She laughed but proceeded to take my advice. After reciting the silly chant and pointing alternately between the doll and bunny, she ended up buying the bunny for her little girl.

Once she’d exited the shop, I handed Nick his cider. “I thought a warm drink might lift your spirits.”

He took a long draw on the cider and issued a satisfied sigh after swallowing. “You were right.”

I told him what I’d learned at the coffee shop. “Doesn’t it seem strange? That someone stole money from their safe and that their office outlet is broken, too?”

“It does,” Nick agreed. “But what would an electrical outlet have to do with anything?”

I shrugged, then decided to do what the sleuths in my favorite mystery series would do. Investigate. “Let’s take a look and see if we can find out.”

We walked into the office and knelt down on the floor to take a closer look at the socket. Neither of us noticed anything unusual about it.

Nick stood. “Unplug the floor lamp. I’ll get a screwdriver and we’ll take the cover off.”

As Nick went to the workroom to round up the tool, I did as I’d been told. A few seconds later, he was back beside me on the floor. He unscrewed the outlet cover. As we leaned in to take a closer look, our heads were only inches apart. Several strands of my wild hair had pulled loose from my pony tail. Nick blew them out of his face, sliding me a smile.

He activated the flashlight app on his phone and shined the beam into the holes on the outlet. He pointed to the semicircle-shaped hole in the upper outlet. “Is it my imagination, or does it look like there’s a small piece of glass in there?”

I squinted as I peered into the hole. I could see the flashlight’s beam reflecting off a tiny circle of glass the approximate size of a pencil eraser. A lightbulb switched on in my mind. I’d read enough spy novels and watched enough James Bond movies to know that gadgets could sometimes be something other than what they seemed. “Could that glass be a camera lens?”

Nick frowned and glanced from the outlet to the safe, just a few feet away. “If it is, it could explain things. The camera could have picked up video of us entering the code on the safe.”

“But who could have installed the camera?”

My question hung in the air for a moment before we simultaneously responded with, “Chip Dickson!”