“Well, thanks to your being in the moment, I figured out the perfect way to end the story. Now let’s load up the truck. And don’t forget the sheep.”

Daphne sat listening to the two biggest phonies she’d ever met in show business, and she was more and more annoyed with each word. But when she heard that they were going to take off with Nat and Wendy’s sheep, she jumped up. “You can’t take those sheep. They belonged to a couple, now deceased, who belonged to the club and wanted them to stay here in the front parlor.”

“We’ll bring them back,” Jacques said.

“I still don’t think it’s right. The president of our club isn’t here right now, so we can’t ask him.”

Jacques walked over to Daphne and took her hand in his and kissed it. “I’m sure we can give you a real part in this final scene. If you’d like …”

“Playing what?” Daphne asked tentatively.

“The beautiful and wealthy owner of the sheep farm, who has just moved to New York.”

“Let’s go,” Daphne agreed quickly.

Jacques grabbed his walking stick from his ever present assistant, raised it in the air, and cried, “We’re off!”

40

Stand back,” the Emergency Services Unit officer called out to Janey. “I’ve got the gear to break down the door.”

“What gear?” Janey yelled.

“A hatchet.”

“A hatchet?” Janey cried.

“A hatchet,” he confirmed. “It’s a beauty.”

“Be careful,” she urged, then remembered to add, “please.”

“I’ll try. How much room you got in there?”

“Not much.”

Thomas whimpered. He and Regan were standing at the other end of the kitchen. The apartment was full of detectives, patrolmen, and emergency services personnel.

“Well, here goes.” The ESU officer lifted the hatchet over his head and brought it back down against the door. The metal head struck the heavy wood with a snapping, crackling sound not unlike twigs burning in a fireplace.

There goes Ben’s security deposit, Regan thought.

It took several minutes, but finally bits of the door had been hacked away. Another few minutes and Janey was stepping through the jagged opening and running into Thomas’s waiting arms.

Murmurs of relief and “good job” rippled through the kitchen. One of the police officers stepped into the living room to pass along the good news to the cluster of folks out there and in the hallway, including a couple of neighbors and the building’s superintendent.

Regan stood back as Janey and Thomas locked themselves in a passionate embrace. She certainly doesn’t seem as meek as she did this morning, Regan thought. Well, it’s the quiet ones who will get you every time.

“Miss,” one of the detectives said to Janey, when she and Thomas finally unhinged from each other. “I’m going to need to talk to you.”

“May I use the powder room first?”

“Of course.”