Honeymoons Can Be Hazardous by Amanda Flower

Author:Amanda Flower [Flower, Amanda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2022-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-one

The inside of the clock tower smelled damp and dank like a root cellar and was constructed from plain, cold cinder block. Above us, light poured in from the open cuckoo door.

To our right, a metal staircase wound its way up to the open door above. Lois hiked her purse on her shoulder. “Let’s go. There’s no time like the present.”

She started up, and after a couple of beats, I followed. The steps were steep and winding. I soon had to stop, and I pressed my hand against the bare cinder block wall as I tried to catch my breath.

“Oh, good,” Lois said, turning around. “This means I can rest, too. I was afraid you were going to barrel ahead. You’ve always been in better shape than me. Whose idea was it to make the steps so far apart from each other, anyway? Someone young, I would guess.”

After several breaks, we reached the top. The platform leading to the open door looked precarious at best. Lois stepped onto it as if it were built of solid granite.

“Be careful,” I warned. “We can’t get hurt up here. It would be difficult for anyone to rescue us. We need to remember we aren’t twenty any longer.”

“We haven’t been twenty for decades, but we’ve never let that stop us before,” Lois said. “I’m still twenty in my heart.”

The gears of the clock were above our heads. They were massive. The larger gears, I suspected, weighed more than Lois and me combined. They weren’t moving right now, as evidenced by the frozen clockface on the outside.

An Amish proverb came to mind: “One thing you can learn by watching the clock is that it passes time by keeping its hands busy.”

I swallowed. Not this clock. Not these hands.

“Deputy Little said the clock had been tampered with. We just have to find out how, and we can leave,” I said. The sooner we got out of there, the better.

Lois looked up at the gears. “If those were tampered with, I wouldn’t even be able to tell. Not to mention the size of them. They’re as tall as I am.” She touched one. “Ouch!”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. It didn’t break the skin. I didn’t realize how sharp they would be.”

I winced. “Please be careful.”

“I know, I know. No one can hear us scream up here.”

I inched closer to the open door from which the cuckoo had fallen.

The two bright blue double doors hung from their hinges. By the looks of it, either one could tumble to the ground at any moment. I would have to tell Karl he needed to do something about it, or he might have another tragedy on his hands. I didn’t think the young man could handle the fear of possibly being sued by two different families.

I gripped a nearby two-by-four and held on for dear life. I wasn’t a fan of heights. One summer, not long after we were married, Kip and I had taken the train out to see the Grand Canyon.

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