by Jessica Beck
“After I give him mine,” I said.
The conversation with my husband was short and sweet. I could hear the exhaustion in his voice as he recapped the day’s events after I’d left the two older men at the lake house. “Jake, are you working too hard?”
“Without a doubt,” he said, stifling a yawn of his own. “This is a tough gig for a pair of old guys like us.”
“Is there any chance you’ll take it easier tomorrow?”
“A bit of one, but not much,” he answered with a laugh. “Relax, Suzanne. It’s good for me. How are things going on your end?”
“Slow but steady,” I answered.
“Anything you want to talk about?” he asked me.
“No, not yet. I’m still working on compiling all of the pieces I need to figure out what’s really going on here.”
“Well, you know where to find me if you need me,” he said. “I hate to be the one who cuts this short, but if you don’t mind, I’m hitting the hay.”
“Sleep well. I love you,” I replied.
“I love you, too,” he answered before ending the conversation.
I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to sleep, but to my surprise, Jake wasn’t the only one exhausted by the day’s events. Hopefully, tomorrow Autumn and I would uncover something a little more concrete in our investigation.
If we couldn’t manage it, I knew that I might not be able to help her after all.
Chapter 8
I WOKE UP AT MY USUAL time, out of force of habit as much as anything else. For most folks it’s the middle of the night, but for me it’s the start of a new day.
At least it is when I’m going into Donut Hearts to make the goodies I sell.
On the days when I’m off, I’ve developed a system. Instead of getting up, I lie in bed, close my eyes, and start counting the different kinds of donuts I’ve made over the years. I tried counting sheep once, but I kept wondering what their names were, why they were there, and where they were going after they left my dreams. Donuts were comfort food for me in many more ways than just eating them. The odd thing was that instead of jumping over a fence like the sheep did, mine leapt through a ribbon of icing and landed on a rack, ready to go into display cases. I’d told Jake about my system once, and he hadn’t laughed at me, which was just one more reason I loved being married to the man.
I was just getting into the cream-filled donuts when something brought me out of my impending slumber.
I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or if Autumn had put it in my head, but I could swear that I heard voices coming from just outside the cottage.
I got out of bed and got dressed without any light, something I was used to doing when I was at home. I didn’t have anything I could use to defend myself, though. Once I was out in the living room, I thought about opening the fridge door slightly so I could see with the little bit of light, but if anyone was out there, I didn’t want to alert them to the fact that I was on to them. Instead, I used my night vision and searched for something, anything in the house that I could use to defend myself in case things got intense. The only thing I could find that remotely resembled a way for me to defend myself was one of Autumn’s cast iron frying pans hanging from a hook near the kitchen. It was a large one, and I knew from experience that the heft of it would be perfect for flattening anyone who had the audacity to attack me.
Creeping to the front door, I slowly unlocked it and slid outside after holding my breath for a moment. There was a partial moon out, and since we were in the middle of nowhere, the stars were quite lovely, but that wasn’t why I was outside.
Someone was on the porch!
Creeping toward the figure, I was about to swing my frying pan at their head with all my might when I realized that it was just a quilt resting on the back of one of the rocking chairs I’d spotted earlier.
Letting my breath out slowly, I grinned at my reaction despite the danger I’d felt a moment before. At least no one had been out there to witness me nearly decapitating a rocking chair.
And then I heard it again.
It was faint, but I could hear the voices again for a split second. As I stepped off the porch, I lost it completely.
“Who’s out there? I’m warning you, I’m armed!” I said loudly, trying to sound as authoritative as I could manage. It wasn’t a total lie; I had the frying pan, and if I needed to, I could use it to defend myself.
There wasn’t a sound, not a single movement anywhere around the house, at least as far as I could tell.
“This is your last warning,” I said sternly. “I won’t tell you again.” That’s when I realized that I hadn’t told them to do anything. “Walk slowly up onto the porch and I won’t hurt you!”
I was standing far enough away from the front door at that moment that if someone did as I asked and surrendered, I’d be able to see them, but hopefully they wouldn’t be able to spot me.
I was gripping the pan so tightly my fingers began to hurt, but I wasn’t about to drop my only weapon.
When the front door of the cottage opened, I nearly had a heart attack.
Autumn came outside and flipped on the porch light as she did so. I could see she was wearing a fluffy robe and bunny slippers, and it was clear that I’d woken her up.
“It’s just me,” I said as I scanned the area surrounding us, just in case I could spot whoever had been talking.
“What are you doing outside?” she asked. “Come in.”
I decided to comply with her request. After all, there wasn’t much chance that whoever had been out there had stuck around for our little show.
“Why are you carrying my frying pan around in the middle of the night?” she asked me.
“Wait until we get inside,” I said as I joined her on the porch and we disappeared into the cottage together. “I thought I heard something.”
“Like what?” she asked me sleepily.
“Voices,” I admitted.
I was surprised by her instant reaction. “So I’m not crazy after all.”
“You might be, but at least you aren’t alone if you are,” I said.
“I can’t tell you what a relief it is to know that I’m not the only one,” Autumn said as she slumped down on the couch.
“Don’t get too excited,” I said. “I’m not one hundred percent sure of what I heard.”
“Don’t get cold feet on me now, Suzanne,” she said worriedly. “I need you to have heard them, too.”
“I’m not discounting it,” I said. “I just want to dig into it a little.”
“Right now? I’m game if you are,” she answered as she started to get up.
“No, we need light, and that won’t be coming for several hours. Is there any chance you can go back to bed until then?”
“I don’t know. Can you?” she asked me.
“I think we should both try,” I replied. “One thing is certain; we’re not going to sit around waiting for something else to happen. After breakfast, we’re going to dive into this thing and get to the bottom of it, one way or the other.”
“That sounds like a wonderful plan to me,” she said firmly.
“Okay. Then let’s try to get a little more rest.”
Autumn agreed, and then I watched as she wedged a chair under the front door so that there was no way anyone would be able to open it from the outside. It wasn’t a bad idea, but later we were going to take it one step further and get her a bar that went from the doorknob to the floor. It would keep someone from breaking in short of using a battering ram on it, and I had a feeling that we would both sleep better once we had one in place.
I lay there for a few minutes and was about to give up on sleeping any more that night when, much to my surprise, I actually nodded off.
When I woke up again, the sun was just starting to peek through my window. Getting dressed again, I removed the chair Autumn had wedged under the doorknob and stepped outside.
It was a completely different world in the sunshine.
; Maybe, if I got lucky, I’d find something that might show that what I’d heard a few hours earlier had really happened and wasn’t some kind of hallucination on my part.
That was certainly what I was hoping for.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Autumn asked me as she spotted me peering under the bushes near my bedroom window.
“I’m not sure, but I’ll know it when I see it,” I said.
“Tell me what we’re doing, and I’ll help,” she said.
I stood and brushed a few leaves from my knees. “I’m trying to find any explanation for what happened this morning that doesn’t involve me losing my mind,” I said.
“Just like me, you mean?”
“Just the opposite, as a matter of fact. If I can find a reasonable explanation for me hearing voices in the middle of the night, it will go a long way toward clearing you.”
“Then by all means, let’s keep looking.”
We searched for the better part of thirty minutes, but the only thing I found was an area between my bedroom and the porch where the fallen pine needles and oak leaves looked as though they’d been recently disturbed.
Autumn saw what I was looking at and explained, “The birds tear up the undercover to get to the bugs underneath, and the squirrels are constantly searching for acorns. I’m in a pine and oak forest, for goodness’ sake.”
I dropped the stick I’d been probing the ground with. “Okay, but we can’t let this get us down. There’s still a lot more digging we can do.”
“In the yard?” she asked.
“No, just in general,” I said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Should we whip something up for breakfast? I know I’m officially off duty, but I could make us some basic donuts if you could force yourself to choke one or two down.”
“Thanks for the offer, but you’re on vacation,” she said. “I’m not going to have you make donuts for me. How about pancakes?”
“I suppose I could make those,” I said a bit reluctantly. After all, turning down fresh homemade donuts from a professional donutmaker could be considered an insult in some circles.
Autumn laughed gently. “I wasn’t asking you to make me breakfast. The Blue Ridge Café has the best pancakes in the world. Let’s go eat in town.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. “Should I drive, or would you like to?”
“My town, my wheels,” she said with a smile. “You drove all the way here, and last night, too. The least I can do is escort you around town, especially since everyone in the family knows that we’re together anyway. So much for the anonymity of your Jeep.”
“My transportation is many things, but anonymous it is not,” I agreed. “Let’s roll.”
We got into her car, and she took off down the deserted lane as though she were on rails. “Slow down there, partner. I’m hungry, but I’m not that hungry.”
“Sorry,” she said as she eased off the speed. “I just like to drive fast.”
“I know that. That’s why I’m kind of surprised you’re driving a secondhand twenty-year-old Honda.”
She shrugged. “It was all I could afford after I bought the house.”
“I get that,” I said. “Is it tough going from having access to all that money to being on a limited budget again? I’m not sure I could do it once I got a taste of how the other half lived.”
“What they don’t tell you, though, is that money almost always comes with strings,” she explained. “I got really tired of being expected to wear the right clothes, go to the right parties, and yes, drive the right vehicles. The greatest thing about Betsy here is that no one in my former circle of wannabe friends would ever be seen driving anything like her.”
“You call her Betsy?” I asked. Autumn always named her vehicles, a habit I’d picked up from being associated with her.
“Well, the first time I nearly hit a tree out here in her, I said, ‘Heavens to Betsy,’ and it just kind of stuck.”
“Given the circumstances, you could have called her a lot worse,” I said.
Autumn patted the cracked dashboard lovingly. “Don’t listen to her, girl. She’s got a good heart if you dig down deep enough.”
“Hey, I resent that,” I said.
“Are you saying you don’t have a good heart at all, no matter how far down you dig?”
“I give up,” I said as I laughed lightly. “Betsy, I formally apologize. You’re a lovely young lady, and it’s an honor to be riding in you.”
I could swear that for just a moment, the engine purred a little smoother than it had been before. It had to be my imagination.
Right?
Chapter 9
WE GOT TO THE CAFÉ, but to my surprise, the parking lot was already full. However, a cluster of nine or ten people came out and headed for their cars, so Autumn quickly snagged one of the suddenly available parking spaces. As we made our way in through the front door, a cute, chubby pony-tailed blond teen in faded jeans met us with two menus. Her nametag said that her name was Susan.
“Hey, Autumn,” she said, smiling to me as well. “Before you sit down, I need to tell you something.”
My former roommate stared quickly around the room, her face suddenly going to an icy shade of pale. “Is Jeff here? Or Adam?”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” Susan said quickly.
“Then what is it?”
“We’re out of a few things until Herbert gets back from the grocery store.”
“We can probably work around whatever’s unavailable,” Autumn said as she reached a table that was currently unoccupied.
“The thing is, we don’t have any more eggs or hash browns at the moment,” the young girl explained.
I had to grin. “Hang on. Are you telling me that you’re trying to run a breakfast menu without eggs? You poor girl. I’m willing to bet people have been losing their minds. Don’t you let them get to you.”
Susan smiled at me. “I don’t know who she is, but I like her,” she said.
“Do you have any idea how long Herbert will be?” Autumn asked her.
“Knowing him, I’d say another half hour at least,” she answered apologetically. “There are a few things you could order off the lunch menu, if you’d like. Davis over there just got a BLT, and I was tempted to take a bite of it myself before I served it to him.”
“I wouldn’t have minded,” a man who had to be at least ninety said from a nearby table. His picture was in a frame above his spot. “It would have made it a little sweet.”
“Behave yourself, or I’ll have to do something about it,” Susan said with mock severity.
“You can’t throw me out,” he said as he tapped the photo. “I’m an institution. And besides, you know you love me. How could you help yourself?”
“I wouldn’t dream of trying to get rid of you, but you should probably quit flirting with me. I might just call your bluff one of these days.”
Davis grinned broadly, showing that more than a few teeth were missing. “Just because there’s snow on the roof doesn’t mean that there’s not still a roaring fire in the hearth.”
They both laughed at that as Autumn turned to me. “What do you think?”
“I say you sold me on pancakes, and now that’s the only thing I want. If you’re game, I’m perfectly happy to hang around until we can get some.”
“Then we’ll wait,” Autumn told the waitress.
“Excellent,” Susan said. “Would you like coffee while you wait?”
“Why not?” she asked. “Suzanne?”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. I wasn’t a huge fan of coffee, but I’d drink it occasionally.
“Your name is Suzanne? That makes us twins, kind of,” Susan said with delight.
“I wish,” I said with a grin of my own. “I’m afraid I’ve got more than a few years on you.”
“You’re still a pup to me, if that counts for anything,” Davis chimed in.
“Thank you, kind sir,” I answered formally.
&nb
sp; “Anytime,” he said as he placed a five on the table and stood, albeit with a bit of difficulty. “Susan, as always, it was an honor and a privilege being served by you.”
“Right back at you, sweetie,” she said as she took the bill and offered him a bright smile.
“What did he order that a five would cover it?” I asked Autumn. That was a fair price for just about anything, but there were two plates on the table, and both of them were empty.
“That wasn’t for the bill,” Susan said, overhearing my question. “Davis owns this place, so of course he doesn’t pay a dime for his food, but he always leaves me a five-dollar bill for a tip, even if he just has a cup of water. Nancy, our manager, told me once that he trades in a hundred-dollar bill and two twenties every month to get it all in five-dollar bills just for the waitresses here.”
“How sweet,” I said.
“He’s a real honey,” Susan replied.
After our server filled up two coffee cups for us, I looked around the place. There must have been three dozen paintings on the walls, and there was certainly one unifying theme among them.
They were all of dairy cows, Holsteins, to be specific. “I think Davis has a thing for cows.”
Autumn looked around and smiled. “His late wife was an amateur artist. The only thing she found worth painting was a cow, as you can plainly see. I understand his house sports more than he puts up here.”
“She must be so proud,” I said.
“I heard she was right up until the day she died three years ago.”
“It’s so sad that he’s alone,” I said as I saw him tottering down the street through the window.
“I don’t know how alone he really is,” she said. “From what I’ve heard, he talks to her every day as though she were right there beside him, and better yet, apparently he pauses in all the right places when she answers him.” A bit wistfully she added, “That kind of voice I wouldn’t mind hearing at all.”
“I’m sorry things have been so rough on you lately,” I said.
“It’s okay,” Autumn said. “Well, really it’s not, but with you here, I’m getting a little hope back.”
