Stranger Danger (Lucy McGuffin, Psychic Amateur Detective 4)

Disastrous for Brittany can be anything from a broken nail to finding pickles in her tuna salad sandwich. What she needs is a good stiff dose of reality. “Calm down. What’s wrong now?”

“You’re never going to believe this.” She scrunches up her face like she can’t bear to tell me. “J.W. Quicksilver is a fake.”

Finally. “Oh, I believe it all right. So Will told you the whole story?”

“Will? What’s he got to do with this?” Brittany begins pacing around the parking lot in her high heels, and she never wobbles once, which is impressive. “I’m going to be the laughingstock of the ACCE!”

“The what?”

“The Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives. Lucy, do you think they’ll kick me out? Or … do you think I’ll get”—her voice drops to a horrified whisper—“fired?”

“Brittany, I’m confused. Tell what what’s going on.”

Paco makes a movement with his head suspiciously close to a nod. It’s like he’s agreeing with me. From the beginning, please.

“Remember I was telling you about my plans to hold a book festival here in town? I contacted J.W.’s publisher to let him know how thrilled we were to have J.W. here and how we’d love to have him back for another event and to see if possibly we could get some other big-name authors here too.”

“Like Lee Child?”

Brittany winces. “Don’t remind me. I feel so … ” She shrugs it off, but I’m pretty sure the word “foolish” was on the tip of her tongue. “Anyway, I got an email back this afternoon from the publisher. He had no idea what I was talking about. He said J.W. doesn’t do public events. At first, I thought maybe it was a standard reply, but the wording wasn’t right, so I called.”

“You talked to his publisher?”

“To an assistant. She told me that there was no way that J.W. Quicksilver did any kind of public appearance and that we were being bamboozled. My entire professional reputation is at stake here. I’m the one who insisted we do the big event at Daddy’s restaurant last night. All those people who came and bought tickets … Do you think I could be arrested? For aiding and abetting in a scam?” She bends over and rests her hands on her knees like she’s sucking for air.

“Take slow, deep breaths,” I urge. Then, for good measure, I rub her back. The last thing I need is for Brittany to start hyperventilating and pass out in my parking lot.

“I don’t know who this impostor is, but I even got the Chamber of Commerce to comp him a beach house while he was in town. I’m not a violent person, but I could absolutely kill him.”

Yikes. “I’m sorry.”

She straightens up to look me in the eye. Her gaze sharpens. “Why don’t you seem surprised by any of this?”

I might as well tell Brittany everything. Or at least, the parts that are mine to tell. “Because I know who the real J.W. Quicksilver is.”

For a few seconds, she’s speechless. But Brittany being Brittany, she recovers quickly. “You do? But how? Where is he? Is he here in town?”

“I can’t tell you. Not yet anyway.”

“Who else knows about this?”

“Just me, the real J.W. Quicksilver, and Travis. Well, Travis doesn’t know the identity of the real J.W., but I warned him that the man we saw last night was an impostor. That is why I was trying to get a picture of him. So Travis could run it through a facial recognition program.”

Brittany looks duly chastised. “I didn’t mean to rat you out. It just sort of popped out of my mouth. But oh, Lucy, you’re so clever! Was Travis able to identify him?”

“Not yet, but this guy is running a publishing scam here in town. He’s taken money from Victor Marino and who knows how many other people. And I’ll bet you my last muffin tin that it’s not the first scam he’s pulled.”

Brittany goes pale. “This is getting worse by the second.” She looks around the parking lot and spots my car with the door open and the container of muffins sitting on the seat. “Are you still going to Betty Jean’s book club tonight?”

?

??Yep. We have to pretend everything is status quo or we might scare this con man and his gang into skipping town. If that happens, we might never find out who he is or recoup the money he’s stolen.”

“Gang? You mean—”

“Anita the assistant and a man who’s going by the name of Hoyt Daniels. Maybe there’s more too. Who knows? Once they get to Betty Jean’s, we have to act like everything’s normal. Then the real J.W. Quicksilver is going to show up and tell everyone who he is. Travis will arrest the bad guys and, voila! Everything will be fixed.” Hopefully.

“That’s brilliant! Except … I hope no one will blame me for any of this.”