Free Panic Button by Kylie Logan Page A

two remaining photos, I looked at them, too. “If we don’t find these two buttons,
     does that mean someone took them?”
    I wished I had the answer to that one, and I told him that right before I added, “The
     metal button, no. There’s no reason anyone would want it. You saw the charm string
     buttons laid out on the tables. There must have been at least two hundred metal buttons.
     Buttons with eagles on them. Buttons with animals on them. All of them—including this
     one that’s missing—are pretty common late-nineteenth-century buttons. There’s nothing
     special about them. In fact, the artwork on the one that’s missing isn’t even particularly
     good. See…” Yeah, the light was bad, but I leaned over and pointed at the details
     on the picture as best as I was able. “It’s a town of some sort, and a building of
     some sort. Very uninspired, and not something a collector would find especially appealing.”
    “But the other one…”
    “Ah, the other one.” I looked at that photo, too, and Iswear, even in the dim light, that enameled button just about jumped off the page
     and shouted its beauty to all the world. “If someone brought that button in here,
     I’d pay plenty for it, and I’d be glad to do it.”
    “But not everyone would know that.”
    It seemed a no-brainer. At least to me. “Anyone who saw it would know it’s beautiful.”
    Was that a pointed look I got from Nev? I used the dark as an excuse to pretend I
     didn’t notice. “Come on, admit it, Josie. Pretty or not pretty, ninety-nine out of
     a hundred people would walk by that button and not give it a second look. It’s just
     a button. And that’s just what they’d think. It’s just a button.”
    “So what you’re saying is that a common thief—”
    “Wouldn’t bother with the button, no matter how pretty it was. I mean, OK, even if
     our killer knew that buttons could be sold to collectors, wouldn’t he have grabbed
     more of them? Why would just these two be missing? And here’s my prediction, we’ll
     find that metal one tomorrow. It probably just rolled under something and the techs
     missed it the first time through. They were pretty overwhelmed by all those buttons.”
    I’m not exactly sure when I realized where this conversation was heading. At least
     I wasn’t until goose bumps prickled up my arms. I started for the door. “No,” I said.
    “I haven’t asked you to do anything.”
    “The answer’s still no.”
    “But you’re good at this, Josie.”
    “I make a great pasta sauce, too, but you don’t see me opening a restaurant.”
    Nev chuckled. “I’m not asking you to open a restaurant. I’m just asking you to help
     me out.” I guess he realized I was going to protest, because he sailed right on so
     I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
    “You can’t deny the facts,” he said, “and the first fact is that there is one valuable
     button missing. If that’s true—and for now, we’re going to say it is, because we don’t
     have anything to prove otherwise—that leads to fact number two: our killer knew that
     one button was valuable. Fact number three, then, is that our killer must know something
     about buttons. What’s that you said outside? That you’re the world’s greatest fabulous
     button expert?” I had just turned out the last of the lights and reached for the door
     handle. That didn’t keep me from seeing the gleam in Nev’s eyes.
    “Our murderer knows something about buttons,” he reminded me. “Or at least about buttons
     that are valuable. Josie, that means I really need your help.”

Chapter Six

M Y DEFINITION OF HELPING DID NOT NECESSARILY MESH with Nev’s.
    Ever practical, I suggested spending the next couple days in the shop, calling button
     dealers throughout the country who might be approached by a person looking to sell
     an unusually beautiful enameled button.
    Nev, while admitting that there were benefits to this strategy, had other plans. He