LITMIR.BIZ

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prematurely, before Steamboat Races opens?”

      She sighed again. “Maybe. There’s been a sort of upheaval. Spooley dropped some hints that the decor was not up to snuff, so the boat manager has blackmailed someone to restyle the reception room into something star-worthy. If Spooley thinks it measures up, he’ll invite Dizz to come in a couple of weeks and see the show while he’s here. It’s my ticket to getting a spot on Acting Up.” She frowned.

      “Complications?” Boris opened the cage for Peaches, his little yellow parakeet, and set him on his shoulder. The bird snuggled up against his chin.

      “One.”

      “Big one?”

      About six feet. “Cy Franco is doing the renovations.”

      “Ah.”

      The syllable spoke volumes. Boris hadn’t met Cy, but Uncle Bo knew enough from what she had shared.

      “If Cy can’t pull it off, Dizz won’t have a reason to come and see me. There goes the biggest chance of my career.”

      He whistled to Peaches. “Buckle up, buttercup,” the little bird said in an exact imitation of her uncle’s voice.

      Bo smiled. “There’s always another chance to score, Piper.”

      “No more, Uncle Bo. We’re doing things the right way. We’re not that kind of family anymore, remember?” This was it. Her once-in-a-lifetime chance to seize the dream and remove herself from the loser list. And not only her. Someone had to keep the Brindle family on the straight and narrow. The more desperate the family became, the more her uncle’s mind fixed on plans to remedy their money problems the easiest way he knew how.

      Stiffening her spine, she gathered up the paper plates, forming a concrete plan of her own. She’d work with Spooley, keep away from Cy and never, with a capital N, allow her uncle near any of them until she’d secured a spot with Dizz on his show—or died in the attempt. “So what happened with Mrs. Rapapeet?”

      “I had to know.”

      She groaned. “You broke in, didn’t you?”

      “I just wanted a peek, to see what she kept in that locked garage. It was like Fort Knox.”

      “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone? Mrs. Rapapeet is entitled to her privacy.”

      “I didn’t touch a thing. I let myself in and looked. Unfortunately, she found me snooping, and tomorrow I have to leave.”

      She felt like screaming. Uncle Boris, left to his own devices for much of his youth, was compulsively, obsessively nosy.

      “So,” she snapped. “Was it worth it? Breaking into her garage and getting evicted? Did you uncover a hoard of gold coins or an illegal printing press or something?”

      “Wigs.”

      “Wigs?”

      He nodded solemnly. “She’s got them labeled by season.”

      She let her head sink onto the table. “Where are we going to find a place as cheap as this?” she asked, voice muffled by the Formica.

      “Actually—” he said, giving her a wink “—wait ’til you hear this.”

      Her pulse revved up a notch. “Please tell me you didn’t do something crazy.”

      “Buckle up, buttercup,” Peaches sang out again.

      * * *

      A BRILLIANT SUNRISE eased away the worry in Cy’s belly as he finished his run along the beach. There was no greater balm for the soul than crisp ocean air. Piper was gone from his mind. Today, he would hit Julio’s bookstore. If anyone had a musty old tome about the glory days of the paddle wheel steamboat, it would be the eclectic Julio, who organized his books by authors’ first names and scrawled receipts on yellow note pads.

      He threw open the door to the Pelican Inn, now termite-free, and soaked in the details once more. It was the same beloved inn where he and his sister had spent their high school years after the death of their mother. With a father gone AWOL, his foster aunt, Bitsy, had taken them in during those tumultuous years. He and Rosa had refurbished the old inn as part of a contest a month ago. They’d lost the contest, but the inn was spectacular, and Rosa had won herself a prize of a husband in Pike, his arrogant tendencies notwithstanding. The Pelican was now an elegant office building housing Pike’s struggling law practice, the Francos’ Dollars and Sense Design and rooms for them to live in on the top floor. Bitsy and Manny had found a nice little place of their own away from the inn.

      It was a shame, in a way. The old, ramshackle structure, perched on a cliff overlooking a sparkling cove, was meant to draw visitors, not commerce. Truth was, Cy might have liked to try his hand at innkeeping for a while. He figured he had the people skills, but Bitsy was right: Running an inn was just too much work, especially since she and Manny were starting off a new married life and Dollars and Sense required Cy’s complete attention.

      Despite the reno, there were plenty of things that needed fixing at the Pelican, Cy reminded himself. A ton of ways he would keep his father busy, engaged and on track mentally. Maybe they’d start refinishing the floors in the attic room as soon as the boat project was finished. New tasks were what the doctors would order if they weren’t a bunch of gloom-and-doomers.

      A misshapen black creature scooted out from under the sitting room settee, paws scrabbling on the pine flooring.

      Cy scooped him up. “Baggy, I’ve missed you.”

      The lumpy dog aimed his one steady eye at Cy and slurped a tongue across his face. It was dog language for, “My world is now complete because you have returned.” Baggy basked in the delight of having his ears rubbed as Cy carried him toward the smell of breakfast.

      Aunt Bitsy was cooking. Manny sat at the kitchen table, sipping coffee.

      Cy planted a kiss on Bitsy’s cheek.

      “Old bag of bones Baggy missed you,” Manny said to his son. “Wouldn’t eat and whined like a spoiled toddler.”

      “He’s got attachment issues.” During a part-time moonlighting gig when he lived in Danville with Rosa, Cy had discovered the dog nearly starved, left in a paper bag on the shop’s back porch. “I’ll make him something special.”

      “Don’t bother, sweetie.” Bitsy put a plate of scrambled eggs on the ground for Baggy. Baggy required soft foods since several of his teeth were missing.

      She handed Cy two more plates of eggs, one without bacon to accommodate his vegetarianism and one with bacon for Manny, before she joined them.

      Cy dug into his food. “You don’t have to come here and cook for me. You’re retired.”

      “We had to return Baggy anyway, and it’s in the blood, I guess. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to walk away.” She tapped a finger on the side of her mug. “Once an innkeeper, always an innkeeper.”

      He chugged some coffee. “So this paddle wheel riverboat has an amazing history. This thing has survived fires, two sinkings and conversion into a military barracks. I even read something about a starlet who disappeared from the River King. I mean, you couldn’t write stuff better than this.”

      “Cy,” Bitsy interjected.

      “And consider the fact that it was christened in 1927. Can you get over it?”

      “That’s amazing, but, Cy...”

      “The old boat is fixed up like a modern hotel. It’s a travesty. Ignoring all that incredible history.”

      “Honey, can you focus for a minute? I need to tell you something.”

      Cy shook away the pull of history. “Sorry. Rosa usually just gives me a smack on the back of the head. What’s up?”

      There was a tap on the kitchen door. On

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