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  The dispatcher shrugged apologetically.

  “Get him back on the line, would you?”

  “Well . . . I don’t know what good it would—”

  “Tell Brian I have a picture of him in Superman undies that’s going viral if he doesn’t give me two minutes.”

  The dispatcher smiled, turned away, spoke into a phone, nodded, then faced me. “What do you know? Now you can go through.”

  When the steel door buzzed, I entered the inner police sanctum and followed the beige hallway with its framed vintage police photos all the way down to the last office on the left, where I paused in the doorway.

  Brian, in a blue short-sleeve shirt, yellow tie, and navy slacks, was standing behind the desk, packing personal belongings into a cardboard box.

  “Sorry I had to play the undies card,” I said. “But I wanted to say good-bye.”

  Brian looked over with those puppy-dog brown eyes of his, his brown hair slightly tousled—like it was after I used to run my fingers through it.

  But the boyish smile I remembered fondly was not in evidence.

  “Good-bye,” he said flatly, resuming his packing.

  “And I wanted to wish you the best in your new job.”

  Could that sound more awkward? More stilted?

  “Well,” he said, “now you can check that off your to-do list.”

  What had I expected? A warm embrace, one last kiss?

  “Well . . . just don’t unfriend me,” I said, wounded nonetheless. “That I don’t think I could take.”

  I’d given it a shot.

  I turned away.

  “. . . Brandy.”

  He came out from behind the desk and crossed over to me, eyes softening. “Sorry. Pouting isn’t becoming on a guy, is it?”

  “Not that great on a female, either.”

  “I do appreciate you stopping by.”

  I nodded, smiling weakly. “Look, I know you were disappointed about not being selected chief. But I heard you’re going to be chief somewhere else, right?”

  He laughed softly. “What did I expect? Tony has credentials way beyond mine. And it’s my own damn fault, too, the way I jumped the gun on Sinclair’s first preliminary hearing.”

  Consequences.

  I asked, “So where are you going to be chief now?”

  “Naperville. And I’m not chief, exactly. Deputy chief. It’s a big town. Bigger than Serenity, anyway.”

  “And part of the Chicago Metro area and everything. Maybe I mentioned that Jake lives there with his dad.”

  He gave me a wry smile. “Please tell me your son’s not a crimestopper like you.”

  I gave him one back. “Well, he’s already helped out a few times. But if Mother and I come to visit, I promise we won’t look into any homicides.”

  “I wonder if I’ll have to hold you to that? But will you promise to look me up?”

  “Absolutely.” I touched his arm. “I just know you’ll be happy.”

  He shrugged. “I think I will. I’ll be close to where my daughter lives, and my ex was almost friendly the last time I visited.” He cocked his head. “Now, about that picture . . .”

  “Do you really think I’d let any other woman on the planet see how cute you really are?”

  And I kissed him on the cheek and got out of there. Whether I had to dry my eyes in the parking lot is not really any of your business, is it?

  Next on today’s to-do list was to deal with a consequence of my own, but one that I shared with my best friend’s husband. The time had come: Kevin and I needed to tell Tina about Baby Brandy.

  As I drove the C-Max up the drive of the white ranch-style home, Kevin came out from working in the garage to meet me. We had planned this confession together, so for once there was none of our usual banter.

  “Ready?” I asked him.

  His eyebrows flicked up and down; his anxiety was obvious. “As I could ever be.”

  I followed Kevin through the garage to the back door that led into the kitchen, where Tina was chopping vegetables at the island counter.

  Teen looked up.

  “Brandy! Nice surprise!” But her smile faded as she took note of my solemn expression. “What’s wrong, honey? Please don’t say your mother’s had another relapse?”

  “No. She’s fine. Happily medicated.” I glanced around. “Where’s Baby Brandy?”

  Tina wiped her hands on a kitchen towel. “Down for a nap.” She frowned, eyes going from me to Kevin, then back to me. “Okay. What’s going on? If this is an intervention, I promise I haven’t touched chocolate in days.”

  I took the lead—after all, using one of my eggs as a backup to Tina’s had been my idea.

  “Kevin and I have something to tell you.” I looked at him, then gave my BFF a smile that must have been ghastly. “Maybe this should be done away from sharp knives. . . .”

  Bad nervous joke.

  Tina moved to the kitchen table, then sank down in a chair. Again she looked from him to me, me to him. The blood drained from her face. “Are you . . . are you two having an affair?”

  “No!” I blurted. “Oh my, no. I’m so sorry that I am so lousy at this. . . .”

  “At what?” Tina asked, looking a little relieved, getting her color back, but still clearly concerned.

  Kevin pulled another chair around, sat down and took his wife’s hand. “Teen, it’s about the baby. . . .”

  I said quickly, “Nothing’s wrong with her. It’s not that.”

  “No,” he said, “it’s not that. It’s just . . .” His eyes went pleadingly to me.

  Joining them at the table, I just flat-out told her. Confessed that after the last of her fertilized eggs hadn’t taken, I’d used one of mine.

  She listened expressionlessly, and when I was finished, I felt sure I had just lost my best friend.

  But after a long silence, Tina sighed heavily and said, “I was wondering when one of you would get around to telling me.”

  “You knew?” Kevin said, astonished.

  “Of course I knew,” she said simply.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Well, duh . . . she looks just like you!” Tina smiled a little. “And, I guess I have a confession of my own to make. After all those failures with my eggs? I was going to ask you for some of yours . . . but I just couldn’t get up the nerve. So you must have read my mind.”

  I got out of the chair and came around the table as Tina stood, and we both hugged.

  A relieved Kevin said, “Well . . . I guess you two will want to be together.”

  And he discreetly made his exit.

  Tina said, “Now, Baby Brandy is a test-tube baby, isn’t she?”

  “Yes! No fooling around with Kevin involved. But I still say you’re a lucky girl.”

  “I am, aren’t I? To have both of you in my life.”

  About an hour later I left Tina, feeling confident our friendship remained strong, and drove back to the shop, where I found Mother in the living-room area, rearranging knickknacks. Sushi was curled up on a Victorian settee—the handwritten DO NOT SIT sign pinned on the back of the love seat apparently did not apply to her.

  “Dear,” Mother said, looking very unlike herself in a black Bettie Page wig, “we’re running low on stock—a picking trip would seem in order!”

  Business had been brisk this summer, and we’d coasted along by just rearranging the goods. But the rooms were now looking a little sparse.

  I joined Sushi on the love seat, the sign not applying to a co-owner, either. “I know where we can get our hands on a roomful of wonderful antiques and collectibles, and it won’t cost us a dime.”

  “You are in jest.”

  “No jesting.”

  Mother’s eyes widened behind the large lenses. “And where is this treasure trove that won’t cost us a bleeding farthing?”

  “It’s an exotic, elegant place, but one you know well.”

  Her eyes grew wider still. “Yes . . . yes?”

  “It’s cal
led our garage.”

  The stand-alone structure was filled to the rafters with stuff and things, plus things and stuff, that she had scavenged over her many years of . . . well, scavenging. But the notion of plundering it froze Mother like Lot’s wife taking that one last ill-advised backward peek.

  I asked, “Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to put our new car in the garage this winter?”

  Mother thawed a little. “Well . . . perhaps it is time to put those things to use. To let the darlings come out into the world and thrive!”

  Into our shop, anyway.

  “Great!” I said. “But this does mean I’ll have to cancel my call in to the producers of Hoarders?”

  Straight-faced, she said, “I don’t do guest appearances on rival shows, dear.”

  “What show? We haven’t heard a word in ages.”

  The store phone rang on the counter in the next room, and I got up to go and answer it.

  “Trash ‘n’ Treasures,” I said.

  “Brandy! Phil Dean.”

  Wow, was our producer/director ever on cue!

  “Oh . . . hi, Phil. What’s up?”

  “I finally have news about the pilot,” he said, the tone of his voice providing no clue as to its fate.

  Would Mother be doing cartwheels, or confined to her bed in deep depression?

  “The show is a go!” Phil exclaimed.

  Cartwheels, then.

  Me? I wasn’t so sure.

  Stay tuned.

  A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip

  Many vendors have a cash-only policy, so hit the ATM before you arrive at a swap meet. Don’t be in a position where you miss out on a bargain because you’re only a card-carrying shopper. Mother keeps a spare hundred-dollar bill pinned inside her bra just like Bret Maverick used to (of course, he had a thousand-dollar bill) (and no bra).

  About the Authors

  BARBARA ALLAN

  is a joint pseudonym of husband-and-wife mystery writers Barbara and Max Allan Collins.

  BARBARA COLLINS is a highly respected short story writer in the mystery field, with appearances in over a dozen top anthologies, including Murder Most Delicious, Women on the Edge, Deadly Housewives, and the best-selling Cat Crimes series. She was the co-editor of (and a contributor to) the best-selling anthology Lethal Ladies, and her stories were selected for inclusion in the first three volumes of The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories .

  Two acclaimed hardcover collections of her work have been published—Too Many Tomcats and (with her husband) Murder—His and Hers. The Collins’s first novel together, the Baby Boomer thriller Regeneration, was a paperback bestseller; their second collaborative novel, Bombshell—in which Marilyn Monroe saves the world from World War III—was published in hardcover to excellent reviews. Both are back in print under the “Barbara Allan” byline.

  Barbara has been the production manager and/or line producer on various independent film projects emanating from the production company she and her husband jointly run.

  MAX ALLAN COLLINS has been hailed as “the Renaissance man of mystery fiction.” He has earned an unprecedented twenty-one Private Eye of America “Shamus” nominations, winning two Best Novel awards for his Nathan Heller historical thrillers, True Detective (1983) and Stolen Away (1991), and Best Short Story for his Mike Hammer story, “So Long Chief” (2014), completing an unfinished work by Mickey Spillane. His other credits include film criticism, short fiction, songwriting, trading-card sets, and movie/TV tie-in novels, including the New York Times–bestsellers Saving Private Ryan and the Scribe Award–winning American Gangster. His graphic novel Road to Perdition, considered a classic of the form, is the basis of the Academy Award–winning film. Max’s other comics credits include the “Dick Tracy” syndicated strip; his own “Ms. Tree”; “Batman”; and “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” based on the hit TV series, for which he has also written six video games and ten best-selling novels.

  An acclaimed, award-winning filmmaker in the Midwest, he wrote and directed the Lifetime movie Mommy (1996) and three other features; his produced screenplays include the 1995 HBO World Premiere The Expert and The Last Lullaby (2008). His 1998 documentary Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane appears on the Criterion Collection release of the acclaimed film noir Kiss Me Deadly.

  Max’s most recent novels include Ask Not (the conclusion to his Nate Heller “JFK Trilogy”) and King of the Weeds (completing an unfinished Mike Hammer novel from the late Mickey Spillane’s files).

  “BARBARA ALLAN” live(s) in Muscatine, Iowa, their Serenity-esque hometown. Son Nathan works as a translator of Japanese to English, with credits ranging from video games to novels.

  Photo by Bamford Studio

  BARBARA ALLAN is a joint pseudonym of husband-and-wife mystery writers Barbara and Max Allan Collins.

  BARBARA COLLINS is a highly respected short story writer in the mystery field, with appearances in over a dozen top anthologies, including Murder Most Delicious, Women on the Edge, Deadly Housewives, and the best-selling Cat Crimes series. She was the co-editor of (and a contributor to) the best-selling anthology Lethal Ladies, and her stories were selected for inclusion in the first three volumes of The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories.

  Two acclaimed hardcover collections of her work have been published—Too Many Tomcats and (with her husband) Murder—His and Hers. The Collins’s first novel together, the Baby Boomer thriller Regeneration, was a paperback bestseller; their second collaborative novel, Bombshell—in which Marilyn Monroe saves the world from World War III—was published in hardcover to excellent reviews. Both are back in print under the “Barbara Allan” byline.

  Barbara has been the production manager and/or line producer on various independent film projects emanating from the production company she and her husband jointly run.

  MAX ALLAN COLLINS has been hailed as “the Renaissance man of mystery fiction.” He has earned an unprecedented twenty-one Private Eye of America “Shamus” nominations, winning two Best Novel awards for his Nathan Heller historical thrillers, True Detective (1983), and Stolen Away (1991), and Best Short Story for his Mike Hammer story, “So Long Chief” (2014), completing an unfinished work by Mickey Spillane. His other credits include film criticism, short fiction, songwriting, trading-card sets, and movie/TV tie-in novels, including the New York Times–bestsellers Saving Private Ryan and the Scribe Award–winning American Gangster. His graphic novel Road to Perdition, considered a classic of the form, is the basis of the Academy Award–winning film. Max’s other comics credits include the “Dick Tracy” syndicated strip; his own “Ms. Tree”; “Batman”; and “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” based on the hit TV series, for which he has also written six video games and ten best-selling novels.

  An acclaimed, award-winning filmmaker in the Midwest, he wrote and directed the Lifetime movie Mommy (1996) and three other features; his produced screenplays include the 1995 HBO World Premiere The Expert and The Last Lullaby (2008). His 1998 documentary Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane appears on the Criterion Collection release of the acclaimed film noir Kiss Me Deadly.

  Max’s most recent novels include Ask Not (the conclusion to his Nate Heller “JFK Trilogy”) and King of the Weeds (completing an unfinished Mike Hammer novel from the late Mickey Spillane’s files).

  “BARBARA ALLAN” live(s) in Muscatine, Iowa, their Serenity-esque hometown. Son Nathan works as a translator of Japanese to English, with credits ranging from video games to novels.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10022

  Copyright © 2015 by Max Allan Collins and Barbara Collins

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  Library of Congress Card Catal
ogue Number: 2015931004

  ISBN: 978-0-7582-9304-6

  First Kensington Hardcover Edition: May 2015

  eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-9305-3

  eISBN-10: 0-7582-9305-4

  First Kensington Electronic Edition: May 2015