What a shock it was to my system, I'll tell you that much. Seeing as it was Thursday night, and Condolezza wasn't scheduled for playing until Saturday night...So the Farm Person Bluegrass Wah-Wah from her band doing a sound check had barely filtered through my brain when we saw them standing with Cosmo along the midway.

Lucky saw me staring, and turned around as well, "What is it Blake?" she asked. I pointed to the collection of folk oddities before us, and Lucky's voice dropped to a whisper, "That's her, isn't it?"

It was nearing midnight, and the midway was starting to darken as one by one the strings of lights were extinguished. I could tell Lucky was agitated. She had fallen in the big black hole of detective work, and she had fallen hard.
"But they...I mean, they were supposed to...and she's not...?"
I took her by the arm and joined the crowds heading for the exits. "First mistake," I told her, "is thinking it is ever going to be that easy."

We caught a cab and drove to Lucky's. As the driver pulled to the curb and stopped, so did she. She had one hand on the door, and one foot in the street, when she turned to me and gave me that same up'n'down look of hers that was somehow, this time, almost pensive. She paused before she said, "Aren't you coming up?"

I paid the driver, and left a huge tip because I sure as shooting wasn't going to wait around for change and risk the chance she would change her mind. When we reached her floor, Lucky gave a gasp and took off running. The door to her apartment was open, and the place had been tossed. I'll spare you the string of obscenities that flew out her apartment door, but after a quick check by myself to see if the tosser was still in residence, I found Lucky on the kitchen floor, scooping up dirt and trying to repot a basil plant that the bastard had knocked off of her windowsill.

"Gawdammit, Madison," she broke. "What a mess..."
"Yeah, but there's nothing we can do about it tonight. C'mon," I reached down and helped her off the floor, "You can stay at my place tonight. We'll get this sorted out in the morning, okay?" But I could tell it was the furthest thing from okay, and the entire walk to my apartment building was spent in a silence only occasionally punctuated by sniffles from Lucky Day.