Katie Fitzgerald
“Of all the ridiculous –” Giles flattened himself against the train station wall beside Lana, puffing from exertion.
“Shh!” Lana held him back with her arm. “We don’t want him to see us.”
Despite her promise that there would be no sleuthing tonight, here they were, pursuing some poor chap in a green jacket through Victoria Station. Like the murderous maid who turned out to be a registered nurse, and the wolf that turned out to be an Irish hound, Giles knew this man was more likely to be an American tourist than a criminal.
“I see him!” Lana’s face lit up, and Giles took in her dancing blue eyes and those darling freckles across the bridge of her nose. He had been hoping to gaze adoringly into that face from across a romantic table for two, but a glance at his watch revealed that they were about to miss their reservation.
“We look like idiots lurking in corridors,” Giles whispered. “Wouldn’t we be better off trying to blend with the crowd?”
Lana grinned and kissed Giles’s cheek. “You’re brilliant. We’ll disguise ourselves by not disguising ourselves.”
She made a great show of looking around the corner. Then, like an officer leading the charge into a drug cartel’s headquarters, she wordlessly motioned for him to follow her.
Giles didn’t see the man until Lana pointed him out in the coffee shop queue. “I bet he’s going to request a code name on his order. Then someone else will come and pick it up and that will be the signal.”
“The signal?” Giles winced as he realized he was encouraging her. Twenty-five minutes until dinner. He really didn’t want to dine at a burger stand while someone else got his romantic table for two.
“You know, to pick up the diamond.”
“The…diamond?” Blast. He couldn’t help it. As utterly nonsensical as these quests were, Lana could weave a fascinating story worthy of Agatha Christie once she got going.
“In his pocket,” Lana whispered knowingly as she gave a cheery wave to a woman pushing twins in a double pram.
“Do you know her?” Giles was perplexed.
“No, I’m blending in,” said Lana. “Being friendly. You know.”
“Right.”
“Anyway, I’m surprised you didn’t notice the diamond. He took that little box out and looked inside it.” She shook her head, dismayed as ever at his lack of observational skills.
Giles had not noticed, but now he was more convinced than ever that they were wasting time on a fool’s errand. Diamond thieves were few and far between in London, but men about to propose to the women they loved were often in abundance around Valentine’s Day.
Lana waved to a few more travelers as she surreptitiously watched her target. Suddenly, she grabbed his arm and hissed, “The peacock flies at dusk.”
Giles didn’t have a chance to ask what she was on about before she jerked his arm and took off at a jog. “There was no codename! He’s on the move!”
He had no choice but to trot along beside her, doing his best to avoid eye contact with all the people who were undoubtedly staring at the spectacle of two grown people suddenly taking off at a run.
Once again, when they came around the next corner, Giles had no idea what had happened to the man in green, but Lana pointed him out right away. He was holding two cups of coffee, one of which he handed to a tall, lean woman in a long, red peacoat.
“His accomplice!” Lana cheered, and he had to laugh at both her enthusiasm and her naivete. “She looks like Carmen Sandiego, doesn’t she? Do you reckon she’s the inspiration for the character?”
Giles only chuckled to himself, then nodded back toward their target and his partner just as the man went down on one knee.
Lana gasped. “Oh my lord, is he setting off a bomb? You know, like in his shoe?” Her wild eyes scanned the room, and Giles knew she was looking for a security officer.
“Just watch,” he said gently. Taking Lana’s hand in his own, he lifted it to his lips for a gentle kiss.
When Lana gasped again, her tone had shifted. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes as the man got to his feet and the woman in red threw herself into his arms. He wasn’t a diamond thief. All he’d stolen was the heart of the woman he loved. Lucky bloke.
“Sod it,” Giles grumbled under his breath.
Somewhere across town was a table near a window with a beautiful view, a pristine white tablecloth, gold candlesticks, napkins folded in intricate shapes – a table he had hoped to share with Lana. But there was something else he wanted to share with her more.
As Lana continued to gaze upon the romantic tableau across the concourse, Giles reached into his own trouser pocket and removed a small blue box. “Hey,” he said gently. “I think you’ve got the wrong man.”
“What?” When she turned to face him with a quizzical look, Giles was already on the ground, offering up the evidence of his devotion to his favorite amateur detective.
“I’d be happy to serve a life sentence, madam,” he said. “If you’ll have me.”
Lana’s facial expressions as she processed what was happening were nothing short of priceless, and Giles realized her pursuit of an imagined culprit had inadvertently made the perfect preamble to his own surprise. As he stood, slipped the ring on her finger, and drew her in for a kiss, he realized he could work with that.
“From now on,” he said, “I’ll always be your partner in crime.”
Katie grew up in a small town in New York’s Hudson Valley, but now lives in the Maryland suburbs with her husband and five kids.
Connect with Katie on Facebook, Instagram, Goodreads, or her website.
Spark Flash Fiction 