Ultimate Nyssa Glass H. Burke (bookstand for reading .txt) 📖

screwdriver. Cautiously, she unfastened the casing on the broken videophone. Cracks spread like spider veins across the viewscreen, but it would be a simple fix. Just remove the metal frame, clear any shards from the inner workings, and put a new panel in its place. Of course, she needed to find every last bit of glass, no matter how tiny. If not, one might wiggle its way into the wires later and slice through the insulation.

“I wish I could go with you tonight,” Theo said.

Nyssa started. She’d almost forgotten her eight-year-old cousin was in the room. Pushing her goggles up into her wiry brown hair, she eyed Theo. He sat on a stool across the shop from her, hunched over his school reader. Behind him, the window display was filled to bursting with new merchandise, radiosets, pentelegraphs, even a bronze handled Victrola with a massive projection-cone.

“Ellis and I don’t get much time alone,” she said. “You can let us have one evening out. After all, we’ve taken you with us on the majority of our recent dates.”

His bottom lip stuck out and his pale gray eyes were sullen. “Yeah, but you’ve never taken me to a fancy place like The Palms.”

Nyssa wrinkled her nose and imagined Theo squirming on the other side of a white linen tablecloth and shining crystal settings. He’d turn up his nose at the refined cuisine, wishing it were pancakes or ice cream. “You’d be bored out of your mind. I’m sure Mrs. H will cook you something special since it’s just the two of you tonight.” Their housekeeper always knew how to cheer Theo up. He’d be in good hands. “Concentrate on your schoolwork. I know your teacher wanted you to read at least two chapters.”

The boy groaned. “This book is so boring. All about good little kids learning their lessons and doing dull stuff. Plus nobody talks like real life, either.”

“Tell you what.” Nyssa leaned over the shop counter. “You finish that chapter, and I’ll let you pick out one of my mystery novels to read.”

His eyes widened. “You mean the ones with the murders?”

“Sure.” She laughed.

“Bully!”

Nyssa replaced the screen and put her goggles into her leather satchel, which hung from a peg behind the counter. The shop looked clean and organized. Nothing really left to do, and not a customer to be seen, a slow day at the end of a long week. The wall clock ticked down the minutes ’til closing.

I wish it would hurry up. She was eager to get away for some fine food and adult conversation.

Ellis had been gone all day on unspecified errands. He’d been mysterious of late, odd for him. In the year they’d been together, they’d rarely kept secrets from each other, but she could tell from the strange smile that often crept across his lips that he was up to something. Still, he’d tell her in his own time.

A steam car rattled by, blaring its horn. Nyssa looked up. A stocky woman darted across the street in the car’s wake. She wore a white, sweat-stained blouse and navy blue culottes. Her copper red hair, piled high like a bird’s nest, overshadowed her crimson face.

Must be a tourist from the Continent. The San Azulan heat always hits them hard.

The woman approached the shop. The bell jangled overhead as she pushed her way in.

“Theo, would you fetch our customer a glass of water?” Nyssa said.

He nodded and slipped out the back of the shop, towards their living quarters.

Nyssa put on her best “customer service” smile. The woman wasn’t much older than seventeen-year-old Nyssa, perhaps twenty. She had a round face, pale beneath her flush.

“The weather on this island takes some getting used to,” Nyssa said. “Welcome to our shop. We sell new and lightly used videophones, radiosets, and pentelegraphs, but we also offer repair services.”

“Oh, I’ll just browse a bit.” The woman strolled over to the window display and ran her finger over the glass, leaving a smudge. “No name on the shop sign. Just ‘Electrical Repairs.’ You ashamed of your name, or something?”

Nyssa raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t see any need to advertise my name when my work speaks for itself. Speaking of my work, if there’s something particular you’re looking for, I can help you find it.”And get you out of here faster.

“Well, a name carries a reputation. Hard to escape a reputation.”The woman dabbed at her face with her sleeve and turned in a slow circle. “Quaint little shop. Reminds me of a crime scene I investigated back in New Taured.”

A chill cut down Nyssa’s spine. She cleared her throat. “You’re a police officer?”

The woman faced Nyssa with a smug smile. “Junior Detective Brigit O’Hara of the New Taured Capital City Police Force. That particular crime scene was such a sad case.” She narrowed her eyes as if waiting for Nyssa to flinch. “Old man, shop owner, killed in his place of business by the employee he hired out of reform school. Gave the girl a second chance, and she repaid him with murder.”

Nyssa’s shoulders hunched at the description of the crime she had been framed for almost a year before, and it took all her willpower not to run.She’s obviously trying to startle me into saying something incriminating, butI have nothing to fear. San Azula doesn’t have an extradition treaty with New Taured.

“We thought it was a robbery gone wrong, at first, that maybe he’d caught the girl skimming, but a look at the financials couldn’t prove that, and the girl left a full till,” O’Hara continued. “We never pinpointed a motive.”

“Maybe because the girl in question is innocent,” Nyssa said through clenched teeth.

O’Hara laughed. “Come now, Miss Glass. We all know innocent people don’t run.”

Footsteps creaked on the wooden floors, and Theo returned holding a glass of water. He offered it to O’Hara. She took it, her eyes never leaving Nyssa. Theo glanced from one woman to the other.

“Why don’t you see if Mrs. H needs any help with the