“I’ve already figured that out, but don’t worry, R.J. will fix it. By tomorrow he’ll have helicopters here and more lawyers than can fill an ocean. He’ll call Charley Dunkirk and he’ll fix everything. I think we should find a place to spend the night, get some food, then—”
“Look! I hear people!”
They were standing near the junction to the main street of King’s Isle and they could hear people talking, as though a crowd was moving toward them.
Sara held onto her cousin’s arm. “Do you think it’s a lynch mob coming for us?”
“I don’t know how you can make jokes after what happened.”
For a long moment, Sara and Ariel stood still, arm in arm, looking at the street that earlier had been like a ghost town. Perfectly ordinary-looking people, dressed in perfectly ordinary clothes, were milling about. Some were opening shops and some were walking down the street. There were a few children running, throwing dirt and being yelled at by their mothers. Girls, boys, men, and women, all moving about, laughing, talking. Ordinary, except that not one of them glanced at them.
At last the men caught up with them. “It’s like the curtain going up on a play,” David said. “One minute the stage is bare and quiet, then the curtain goes up and there are lots of people.”
“It’s too much like a stage set for my taste,” R.J. said, looking hard at the people in front of them. “Do you think they don’t see us? Or have they been told to ignore us?”
“I vote that we go to that place where we saw the sign, ROOMS TO LET, and see if we can get some accommodation for the night,” Ariel said as she held up a gold necklace with four pearls on it. “Do you think this will buy us a couple of rooms for a night? Or two?”
“One night is all we need,” R.J. said. “Tomorrow I’ll find a telephone and get us out of here. What say you, my lords and ladies, that we join this play?”
Ariel grimaced. “What I want to know is, is it a tragedy or a comedy?”
“Life is what we make of it,” David said. His tone was so exaggeratedly happy that Sara and R.J. groaned. “Okay, so maybe in this place we have to work a little harder to be able to see the good.” He wiped his hands over his eyes. “I could almost believe that none of what happened did. Are we really to appear in court on Monday morning to answer a charge of killing a dog?”
“No,” R.J. said firmly. “Once I get hold of my lawyer, he’ll send half a dozen men down here and drown the entire police force in paper. There won’t be any court hearing on Monday.” He glanced at Sara and gave a little smile to let her know that his plan was exactly what she’d told the cops would happen.
Sara had to turn away so R.J. wouldn’t see her smile. She knew how his mind worked. So maybe she’d been wrong to try to strong-arm the police here on little King’s Isle, but it was the way she’d learned from watching R.J. He had power and he knew how to use it. She had every confidence in the world that R.J. would get them out of this ridiculous situation.
“Shall we go to the rooming house?” Sara asked. “We might as well enjoy our time here,” she said, then her stomach gave a growl. “Sorry.”
“My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut,” R.J. said, making Sara look at him in surprise. Usually he was careful to not show his country upbringing, so he never used old sayings like that one.
“Do you think they sell cosmetics in this town?” Ariel asked. “Lancôme or Estée Lauder, maybe.”
“Maybe Maybelline,” Sara said as they walked down the main street and headed toward where they’d seen the house with the sign.
People smiled at them as they walked, but no one stared. It all seemed so normal that with every step they took, it was harder to remember the events of earlier that day.
“Were we really in jail?” Sara asked softly. “Or did we make that up?”
Ariel looked at her cousin as though she’d lost her mind. “We have no car and no money. We have to spend the night here, but we have no luggage. How can you think that we made anything up?”
“It just seems so … I don’t know … normal, I guess.”
“It doesn’t seem normal at all,” Ariel said. “One minute the town is empty and the next it’s full of people who are doing their best not to look at us.”
“She’s right,” R.J. said. “The sooner we get out of here, the better.”
“I agree,” David said.
Sara sighed. “I’m just so glad to get away from work for a few days that—” Breaking off, she glanced at R.J. “Sorry.”
“No need to be,” he said. “I’m glad to get away from work too.” They could see the house with the faded sign just ahead of them. R.J. looked at David. “At work, I have an assistant who is quite efficient—”
“Except that she can’t type or take shorthand,” Sara said.
“Right. But she can remember things. She’s better than any of those talking machines that you have to type things into.”
“So what’s wrong with her?” David asked, opening the little gate in front of the house.