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S u n d a y, 7/4/19

Dear Diary,

To say that the hours following Spencer's near-death experience were hectic was anything short of an understatement.

We were all taken back to the police station after the unconscious man was moved to hospital to recover. Each of us involved had to sit down and answer a barrage of questions from the uniformed officers. Then, we had to sign a stack of papers before helping to arrange suitable housing in the ward for the crazed idiot who was living on his mother's vacated property.

By the time Luna had driven Spencer and Rick back to their homes and then returned to the Marsden estate with me, dusk was settling across the Hawaiian shore-line.

While we'd been in the car, Luna and I had composed a relatively believable story to explain our absence and although I could tell Dad was pissed off by the news of our sudden departure, he reluctantly granted the two of us forgiveness.

"Let's watch some movies together!" I light-heartedly suggested in an attempt to ease the tense situation.

As Dad went scrounging for some ice-cream and I browsed through the movie cabinet, Luna spoke up from the couch behind me, "What happened today was some crazy shit. Now I don't often swear, you know, the rules of the house and all but what the hell were you two girls thinking? Spencer could've been killed! You could've been hurt!"

"I know!" I groaned. "I'm sorry, Luna, but neither of us had any idea that a lunatic lived at that address! We just thought we were gonna have a nice conversation with a little, old lady and that would be that!"

Luna shook her head. "It's all this stuff relating to your father's fiancee, Jo. I don't know why but I'm getting a bad vibe; not only from her but from all this investigation that you're doing concerning her. It's dangerous. You need to stop. There's only so much of this I can handle."

"Luna!" I hissed. "Do you want my father to marry a mad-woman? Or a con artist? Or something worse? He's the one in danger right now. I'm his daughter! I have to protect him!"

"I'm pretty sure the roles are supposed to be vice versa but whatever..." Luna grumbled, lowering her voice as Dad tromped back into the room.

"Who wants cookies and cream?" he chortled, holding up a stack of bowls and a tub of ice cream.

As Dad and Luna sat through a few hours of eighties-style movies, circulating from their teen years, I quietly slipped out of the room and dialled Spencer's number.

"Hey," I greeted when she picked up. "Got anything interesting to share with your beloved Sleuth Sister?"

Spencer snickered sardonically. "Yeah. Okay. My beloved. Anyhow, I'm online right now and guess what I've found for sale on eBay?"

"Spence! You're impossible! You're not supposed to be doing online shopping!"

"I'm not!" she protested. "But there is this really cute bag..."

"Spencer!" I practically shrieked down the line.

"Fine! Okay! Well, as I was saying, I found something interesting up for grabs and, somehow, it's related to this notebook."

"Well? Spill."

"Okay, so I was skimming through this notebook and, at the back of it, I found a detailed list of antique furniture and ornaments. It was pencilled in a different handwriting to the rest of the book so I decided to snoop around online and I found every single item, matching each of their descriptions on the list, on eBay and guess what? The same person is selling all of them."

"Now that is a weird coincidence."

"No. Not a coincidence. Fate. I signed up onto the website and put in a customer request for one of the items. The person got back to me almost immediately and I've arranged to meet up with them tomorrow."

"Spence, you can't go on your own! Are you forgetting what happened to you today?"

"I know. I know," she brushed me off. "That's why I hired a bodyguard."

"A bodyguard?"

"Yeah, I got Rick's number. He's coming with me."

I guffawed at this. "Rick, huh? Spencer..."

"Shut-up, Jo, it's not anything like that! Now, back to topic: what has a list of weird, ugly furniture from the eighteenth century have to do with Barbie and her con-artistry?"

I shrugged. "I guess that's what we're gonna have to find out."

Just then, a loud rap sounded from the front entrance.

"Can you get that, Jo?" Dad called out from the lounge.

"Hang on one sec," I told Spencer as I walked over to the door. Without bothering to check who it was, I flung it open, only to stumble backwards in surprise. "Daisy? What are you doing here at this time of night?"

"I need to talk to you," she bobbed her head up and down importantly. "It's about Camden. I need to tell you why he doesn't like your father."

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