Part of Sydney was looking forward to facing the man who’d so cruelly used her, part of her dreading the reunion. “He was in my room that night, you know. My drugged milk theory explains a lot. Why he was there one minute, gone the next.”
“Your reaction times would have been slowed if you had been drugged,” Benno continued.
“He could have done anything while I was out, could have slipped a duplicate wedding ring on my night stand to confuse me.” She shuddered. “He could have led me to my death... if you hadn’t been around. You always seem to be around when I need you, Benno.”
“You aren’t going gooey on me again, are you?”
She’d almost forgotten that gooey made him uncomfortable. “How about if I save gooey for after we find the bastard and turn him over to the cops,” she said with a grin, the tension she’d been feeling moments earlier dissipating. “But first we have to write down those numbers.” She started to check her bag once more.
“I think there’s a ballpoint in the glove compartment,” Benno told her as he slammed shut the trunk lid.
“I’ll get it.”
Sydney tried to open the glove compartment but it wouldn’t budge. Benno must have replaced the owner’s manual the wrong way. The thing was jammed shut.
“Great. Now it won’t open. Give me the keys.”
When he handed them to her, she inserted the correct one in the lock for extra leverage. After sliding sideways in the passenger seat, she jiggled, tapped, then slammed the heel of her hand against the small door.
“Want me to try?” he asked.
“No,” she said, gritting her teeth in determination. “Just give me a sec–”
The door unjammed as she gave a great tug, and in the process tore the entire compartment free of restraints. It flipped upside down, its meager contents spewing across the passenger floor.
“Great,” she muttered again.
At least she’d found the ballpoint. Bending over to pick it up, she froze when another object that had rolled under the dash caught her eye.
She retrieved the mechanical pencil, not at all the cheap sort of writing instrument a person would normally put in a glove compartment.
“Is something wrong?” Benno asked, leaning over the open door to see.
Sydney shook her head. “The tape register, the token and now this. You know the old saying. Three’s a charm. Guess who this belongs to.”
She held out the object in question, its mother-of-pearl and gold casing glinting in the sunlight.