Copenhagen Cozenage (7 page)

Was everyone picture crazy in Denmark?

Perhaps I was so marvelously entertaining that none could resist a snapshot. Either way, the photo snapping did not improve my volcanic mood.

Leroy thumped down onto the deck and rolled on his back, pretending to be all repentant and sad. His big brown eyes did not sooth my ire.

I snatched up his collar and told him to “Come!” in the stern kind of voice that I had heard on TV from award winning dog trainers. My fierceness worked.

Leroy slogged after me like a heap of reluctant molasses. As we traversed the deck together, Pirate Guy laughed and snapped another shot of my humiliation.

Then something across the water caught Leroy’s eye and he froze.

I jolted to a halt beside him and peered out over the water.

People crowded the paths across the lake, but Leroy seemed intent on some distinct sound.

After a moment, I distinguished the piercing cries of children shrieking and playing alongside the water. The three little boys from Dragon Boat Lake skipped stones with their mom, just opposite the pirate boat.

Leroy pulled the leash from my stiff fingers and propped his paws up on the side of the ship.

I clomped after him across the deck, wondering if anyone would notice if Leroy got swapped for the pig in the upcoming luau that night. No, all I had to do was get him to August, and then he could decide whether the animal should be roasted or not.

The pirate raised his phone for one more snapshot of the soggy girl and her unrepentant beast.

A scream cut the air.

The youngest boy wobbled on a fallen log that stuck out into the deeper water. His mother scrambled to snatch him up, but she was too slow. The little boy plopped into the lake, came up thrashing, and then he sank.

Leroy stared at him, still and intent.

I seized the leash.

Leroy leaped from the pirate ship.

I had only a blink to stare at his retreating rump before the leash snapped taut and yanked me over the edge. I flung the leash away and screamed, a lot. But it was too late. I fell toward the dark water below and it was a much farther drop than from the bumper boat. I closed my eyes, bracing for a stinging splash. Something caught my foot and I crashed against the side of the ship, upside down, tangled, and in pain. My dress. I tugged at the fabric trying to maintain a shred of modesty as darkness crept in upon my vision. I felt sticky moisture behind my ear. It was weirdly quiet and my leg really hurt, but a weakness in my limbs made sleep seem like the best option at the moment. I sagged against some kind of netting and closed my eyes.

“Come on, sweetheart. Open your eyes.”

I cracked my lids.

August was hanging from a net beside me.

“You should get your dog,” I said. “He’s over there…saving children and eating stuff.”

“Let’s get you untangled, milady, and then you can chase that savage fiend to your heart’s content.”

It wasn’t August after all. The pirate untangled my shoe and pulled me into his arms. Despite the drama of the situation, he was still in character.

I stared at the handsome rogue. “You take your job far too seriously.”

He squeezed me tight against him.

I tried to squeak out a warning, but he only squeezed me tighter. I puked all over his manly chest.

My heroic pirate recoiled and dropped me into the dark swirling waters below.

Water slammed up my nose. I sank toward the bottom all tangled up in my purse straps. Yanking the little backpack purse off my shoulders, I tried to kick. The formerly adorable shoes were impossible. I wasn’t going anywhere.

Someone broke through the surface above me. The pirate was stroking under the water toward me.

I ripped one shoe off and was yanking on the other one when he reached me.

He grabbed my purse and shoved it into my hands. Then he slipped an arm around my waist and tugged me to the surface. We hit the top, sputtering and gasping. The pirate pulled me to shore and set me carefully on the bank.

I leaned against a small weeping willow that hung down over the water and hid my face in my hands. It was all too awful. Oh, no. The little boy. I sat up and looked around. Should we plunge back in the water? Had he gotten to safety? I spotted Leroy about ten feet to my right, surrounded by adoring fans.

All three boys squeezed him and their mother was feeding him more ice cream.

I sighed and sagged back against the bank. At least one of us was all right.

“You were very brave to think of the boy.” The pirate sank to one knee on the bank, his eyes solemn, and his wet shirt clinging to broad, muscular shoulders. I looked away, embarrassed that I’d noticed.

“Most people wouldn’t consider going back into the water after a fall like that.” The pirate’s voice was quiet, no longer in character. He snapped his eye patch back into place as I looked up into his face.

“Thank you, I think. You won’t really keep those pictures, will you? Can’t you just erase them? I’ve had the worst day. You can’t imagine.”

He smiled down at me, and I noticed a dimple in his cheek for just an instant before his face went serious again. He shook his head, cupped my jaw in his hand and slowly, gently, kissed me on the lips.

I sat frozen for just an instant.

He turned and dove back into the lake, swimming toward the pirate ship with strong, even strokes. What in the world?

I stared after him, angry, confused, still feeling the warm tingle on my lips where he had touched me.

Then Leroy splashed down upon me and slurped my face and neck and arms in such an enthusiastic greeting that I could think of nothing but diving back into the dark, weedy water to save myself from his fervent affections.

10

The Call

I heard giggling behind me. I swiveled at the sound and was greeted by enthusiastic chanting voices.

“The pirate and Dog Girl sitting in the sea

K-I-S-S-I-N-G

First comes love.

Then comes marriage.

Then comes a baby pirate in a doggy carriage!”

Dog Girl? Who had raised these children, a pack of wolves?

“Hey, he kissed me. I didn’t kiss him. There is absolutely nothing to chant about.”

The boys grinned at me, unrepentant.

This was ridiculous, why was I concerning myself with a childish rhyme?

The boys’ mom gave me a sympathetic smile. “Thank you so much. Your dog saved my Anton. Can I offer you a piece of cake? We were about to go warm up and have a bite.”

I thanked her for the offer but refused.

The young family headed off toward their snack.

My head ached and the cold clung to me like the sodden remains of my red dress. But I was almost done, I could do this. If I got Leroy to the fountain, handed him off to August, and got changed into my very last girly outfit in time, I could still meet my cousin for brunch.

I snatched up Leroy’s lead and slogged down the path barefoot. I had made it about halfway there when my grandma’s watch fell off again, and the delicate, little key that wound it popped out in the dirt. I pulled Leroy to a stop and scrabbled around in the dirt until I located the key.

It clicked back into the watch without too much trouble, but the latch looked pretty bent up and the watch no longer ticked. It must have been damaged with my fall.

My purse hung heavy and wet from my back, and I didn’t relish wrestling around with the soggy thing. So, I unzipped the cute little pocket in Leroy’s collar and stuffed the watch inside.

My phone rang. I stared at it. Despite two dunkings, it still worked. The number belonged to my cousin Freja, but the signal was low. I answered with a perky greeting. She didn’t know I was barefoot and trudging down a dirt path looking like a drowned rat while dragging a mammoth beast behind me. What Freja didn’t know, wouldn’t embarrass her…or me.

“Are you almost ready for brunch?” I chirped.

“Morgan, listen to me. My cab driver has dropped me off in some frightful alley by the gravel road. I’ve never been to Tivoli. If you could—” Freja screamed.

There was clattering noise as though her phone had fallen. The unmistakable sounds of footsteps approaching the phone crunched in my ear. A low groan made me suck in a startled breath as goose bumps raced up my arms.

Then the line went dead.

11

The Gravel Road

I stared down at my phone. This could not be happening. Stuff like this didn’t occur in real life. Only in bad movies, featuring mutated grizzly bears that had somehow managed to infest civilization and rampage through New York—or more likely, Tokyo—with wild abandon.

I tried calling Freja’s phone. It went straight to voice mail. Maybe the situation wasn’t as serious as it sounded? Perhaps some random rabid beast had slobbered all over Freja’s next-to-last dress and she screamed and the animal stomped on her phone. It had only sounded terribly sinister, but in reality, she was just fine. All Freja would need was a good bath and a short visit with her therapist to deal with her newfound phobia of rabid animals.

Oh, who was I kidding? Freja had screamed into a phone that then went dead. I glanced down at my soggy, sagging attire. This was not how I had wanted to meet my long lost family. It couldn’t be helped though. Family was family, and they didn’t necessarily schedule their crisis to moments when your hair was combed. But where to search first? I looked up and met the steady gaze of Emil, the gardener.

“You OK, miss?” He took a step closer, searching my eyes.

“My cousin’s taxi dropped her off somewhere strange and she can’t get to the park. She sounds as if she needs help, but I think her phone’s broken.”

“The taxi was taking her here, yah?”

“Yah. I mean, yes.”

“Then there’s a good chance she’s close. Sometimes they drop visitors in the back to avoid the traffic. Have you tried using the dog?”

“He’s not my dog.”

“The creature might be trained. If you have something of hers, you could give him a sniff and see what happens. Couldn’t hurt.”

Hmmm, it very well might hurt. Leroy could drag me through a marshland populated entirely by bristling hedgehogs and spiny porcupines crouched quivering under every other bush waiting to impale unwary travelers. But I hated to disappoint my gardener friend. Besides, there was probably a serious shortage of dangerous swampland in the city of Copenhagen. I stuffed my phone into Leroy’s collar pocket thingy and zipped it closed. Then I struggled to remove my waterlogged purse from my back. After rummaging inside, I tugged out the scarf that Freja had mailed me to wear for our rendezvous.

I held the scarf up to Leroy’s nose. He took a deep snuffle and turned to stare at the gardener.

Emil snapped his fingers and said, “Go on, boy.”

Leroy spun and zipped off down the path, dragging the leash behind him.

Wow, I had no idea Emil was so handy with dogs. I should have gotten his help with Leroy earlier. I waved a thank you to Emil and sprinted after my least favorite gamboling beast. I snatched up the leash just in time to get dragged around a corner toward the park exit.

Emil pulled a phone out of his toolbox, snapping a picture as I stumbled away. His grin made his face seem much younger than his gray hair would suggest.

I tightened my grip on the leash and sighed. It seemed I could not escape the shutter-happy Danish people, no matter which way I turned. But for Emil, I would forget my ire. I had wanted to experience a different culture, and he had been nothing but kind. He could not help that American tourists got a bit twitchy among all the incessant photography.

Leroy seemed to know what he was doing. We zipped out of the park, down two blocks, and into a dim little street. The rundown avenue contained several old warehouses, a gas station with boarded up windows, and a secondhand shop that displayed a collection of ancient coffee mugs featuring the crown jewels of Denmark. Leroy lurched to a stop in front of the narrow thrift shop. It was called “The Gravel Road.”

I slumped against the sagging storefront, breaths burning as I pressed my forehead to the crumbling brick. What on earth? I had expected an actual road with, you know, gravel on it.

Could this unsightly boutique be the gravel road to which Freja referred?

Two dusty windows sank into the brick storefront like deep set eyes. I rubbed a clean patch in the window with the heel of my hand. Dust coated the wares inside and I saw a number of creepy-looking dolls staring at me with those twitchy little eyes that blink every time you dip them upside down.

Another deep sniff and Leroy heaved on the leash, dragging me into an alley that ran to the left of the shop. The alley sported a great deal of carefully applied graffiti on both my left and right. A rusted, old dumpster leaned on three legs against the building, and a ginger cat hissed at Leroy before streaking through my legs and back toward Tivoli.

I came up against a faded brick wall at the back. The alley was a dead end. That is, unless I wanted to investigate the set of ancient concrete steps that sank down into the ground over to my right. The steps ended at a crooked wooden door with a tiny square window of yellowed glass. The door was ajar.

Leroy paused, snuffled the breeze, and thundered down the stairs.

I skidded to a stop. My phone beeped. I hooked the leash over my wrist and followed him down the steps while I dug through my purse. No phone. But I could hear it.

Leroy whined and scratched at his collar. Oh, yeah, the dog had my phone and he didn’t seem happy about it, either. The beeping probably hurt his ears.

I hauled him into a sitting position and zipped open the little pocket on his collar. The phone fell out. I knelt at the bottom of the concrete steps and scooped up my phone, glancing around. It was terribly quiet. Moss grew between the cracks in the stairs. The door had once been white. The paint had warped and peeled. The wood beneath was spotted with mold and splintered. A cut glass knob offered access. This was not a “happy ending” kind of door. I glanced down at my phone.