“They wouldn’t do that, would they?”
“It’s a bad risk now. They’re spooked. People won’t want to go to a bakery where the last three owners have been killed, more or less. First Angela, then Trenton, then one of the trustees of the estate. People are superstitious around here.”
“But you aren’t asking them to become owners, just customers. People are curious. It will drive them there. You know how much more business we get when something bad happens? People want to talk about it, they want to see the place where something happened, they want to see and talk to the people involved. We’ve had a ton of extra business today because I was the one who found the body.”
“Yeah?” Charley sat up a little taller. “I’ll tell them that. Maybe that will help.”
Erin was happy to help, but also irritated that she felt the need to. Did she have to keep helping her competition? Charley had just told her that she wasn’t going to be able to reopen The Bake Shoppe, which would have been the best decision for Erin, and instead of simply commiserating and letting that decision stand, Erin was helping Charley to fight back.
She caught Vic’s gaze on her and gave a helpless shrug. She just couldn’t seem to stop herself.
Erin tidied away the washed and dried kitchen implements, putting the cheap wooden rolling pin she’d picked up at the grocery story away in a drawer.
“Did you take my rolling pin?”
Charley turned toward Erin, her expression a mask. “Why would I take your rolling pin?”
“I thought maybe you’d found that yours was missing, so you thought you’d borrow mine until you could get one. You asked about using some pans.”
“I wouldn’t just come in here and take it.”
“Okay.”
“So, who did?” Vic asked.
Neither of them had an answer for her.
“Somebody who wanted to set me up,” Erin said. “They wanted to implicate me.”
Chapter Thirteen
E
rin was glad to separate from Charley and go home. She tried to love her sister, but Charley was abrasive, and they had little in common. They probably wouldn’t ever have become friends without a family connection. Erin was ready to go home and stop talking about Don Inglethorpe’s murder. She’d had enough of it for one day.
“Hello?” Erin called out as she closed the front door behind her. There was no answer. She heard Orange Blossom jump down from her bed, but he was the only one who came to the door to greet her.
Erin picked him up and scratched his ears, listening for any other sound in the house. Marshmallow lollopped silently over. Erin couldn’t hear anything else.
“Jeremy?”
There was no answering call or noise. Erin walked through the house, putting Orange Blossom down in the kitchen, and went out through the back door. Vic was just opening her door in the apartment over the garage.
Erin didn’t want to say anything about Jeremy to Vic where a neighbor might overhear them.
“Vicky?”
Vic turned around to see Erin standing there. Erin pointed back at her house, then gave a dramatic shrug. Vic frowned. She opened her door and poked her head inside. She went into the apartment, leaving the door open, then came out again a minute later and shook her head. Erin waited while Vic descended the stairs and walked across the yard, apparently also wary of shouting anything that might be overheard.
“Did he tell you he was leaving?” Erin asked quietly.
“No. Not a word. I’ll check my email and see if he left a message, but I did check it at noon.”
“Come in for a minute. Or do you want to shower and change first?”
They both walked into the house and shut the door. Erin leaned against one of the kitchen counters. “Did you find out why he was here?”
“No. And I didn’t push it. I figured he’d tell me sooner or later on his own. He just said he wants to get out on his own.”
“Have you talked to any of the others? Did he have a fight with your parents? Get kicked out?”
“I haven’t talked to them. Jeremy’s the only one who’s wanted anything to do with me.”
Erin thought from her visit to the Jackson farm that the other boys just didn’t know how to take the changes in Vic. They hadn’t seemed antagonistic toward her, just awkward and uncertain. Only her father had been threatening.
“Is there one of them that you could ask? What if something happened to him? If we don’t say anything, it might put him in more danger than reporting it.”
“We don’t have anything to report right now. He was out of the house when we expected him to be home. He’s not missing.”
“You don’t think you should talk to any of them?”
“No,” Vic shook her head with certainty. “He said we needed to keep it quiet that he was here. He’s not just striking out on his own. He’s hiding. And maybe there’s a reason he’s hiding from the others.”
“If he doesn’t show up again…”
“He will. Or he’ll let us know where he is. We’re not going to report him missing.”
Erin breathed out in a puff, frustrated. But she knew what it was like to want to disappear. She’d pulled up stakes and left all of her troubles behind more than once. Or she had tried to leave all of her troubles behind. It had never actually worked out that way.
If Jeremy was in trouble, she had to assume he knew the best course of action to take for himself.
They were still talking when they were interrupted by a knock on the back door. Vic startled, then smiled. “There he is.”
But it wasn’t Jeremy who opened the door and poked his head in, it was Willie Andrews.
“Oh!” Vic jumped up. “Is it that late already?”
“I was expecting to pick you up from the loft. You aren’t ready?”
Willie had cleaned up as much as he could, his skin always stained dark from his mining and refining activities. He was a rough-looking character, but always pleasant and happy to help.
“I just need a quick shower and change. Sorry, we got talking and I lost track.”
Willie shook his head. “You’ve got all day to talk with each other. I don’t know how you could have anything else to talk about at the end of the day!”
“My fault, Willie,” Erin apologized. “I don’t want to talk about all of this stuff about Don Inglethorpe in front of the customers.”
Willie accepted this. “That makes sense. Murder isn’t good for business.”
Vic gave Erin an amused look, but neither of them argued the point as they had with Charley. Erin gathered Vic hadn’t told her boyfriend that Jeremy was in town. Willie would have kept Jeremy’s secret, but if he didn’t know, there wasn’t any way it could slip out accidentally.
“Have a good day tomorrow. I’ll see you for sure on Monday,” Vic advised.
They would likely see each other several times before then, but Erin was working with Bella on Saturday, and Vic was working with Bella Sunday morning, so they wouldn’t both be at the bakery at the same time.
“See you then. Have a good weekend.”
Vic quickly was out the door and hurrying to her apartment to get ready. Willie didn’t follow her immediately.
“You okay, Erin?”
“Yeah. I’m fine, thanks, Willie. It’s almost becoming routine stumbling across dead bodies.”
He wasn’t fooled by her bravado. “I hear you fainted.”
“Don’t listen to Terry. He lies.”
Willie chuckled. “I am sorry you had to deal with that. Sounds like it was a pretty messy scene.”
Erin tried to remain stoic. There was no need for her to visualize the scene of the crime, to think about what she had seen and the smell of the congealing blood. She put her hand over her mouth.
“Yeah, it was.”
“You need anything? Is Terry coming over tonight?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he stopped by, but no specific plans. I might just hit the sack early.”
>
“Okay, well, take care. You know you can call on me if you need anything.”
Erin nodded. “Thanks.”
He backed up out of the doorway. “Lock the door and arm your burglar alarm.”
“I’ll arm it before I go to bed.”
“There’s a killer out there who is trying to send trouble your way. I think you should arm it now.”
Erin gave a shudder. She hadn’t thought about it that way.
“Okay. I will.”
Chapter Fourteen
E
rin did arm the alarm and she did go to bed early, without Officer Terry Piper having come by for a visit. She knew he was on call and he had probably ended up having to deal with a nuisance report of some kind. She didn’t hold it against him. That’s just the way things worked when dating a small-town police officer.
The sound of the burglar alarm blaring woke her out of a sound sleep. Erin jumped out of bed, grabbed her phone, and crept toward her bedroom door, listening for the sounds of an intruder, trying to decide whether to go out to see what had set the burglar alarm off or to hide in her room and call Terry.
Was some crazed killer coming after her, disappointed that she hadn’t been arrested at the scene of Don Inglethorpe’s murder? Someone who wanted her out of the way and wasn’t going to wait to see where the investigation led?
There was swearing and a male voice calling her name. “Erin? Are you home? I’m sorry…”
Erin hurried down the hall toward the alarm control panel without identifying who it was. She hit the disarm code on the panel and the alarm was silenced abruptly. Erin turned around to see Jeremy, his face bright red. She hadn’t bothered to talk to him about the burglar alarm, not anticipating that he was going to take off—and then return at night without contacting her first.
She shook her head at him and went to the front door. She looked back and forth at her neighbors’ houses. Mrs. Peach was looking out her doorway, phone in hand. Erin waved at her.
“Sorry! False alarm! Everything is okay.”
The older woman nodded and retreated into her house, muttering to herself. Erin looked around for any other concerned citizens and didn’t see any. She repeated the procedure, going to the back door and checking to make sure the siren hadn’t awakened Vic. There was no sign of life in the apartment, all lights out and no movement that Erin could see. Vic and Willie appeared to be out. Erin wasn’t sure what time it was or how long she had been asleep. She shut and locked the door, then turned to face Jeremy.
“The polite thing would be to let me know that you were going to be out, and when you planned on coming back. Or maybe given me or Vic a text that you were here, and would we open the door for you.”
“Yes,” Jeremy nodded vigorously, “I’m sorry. I should have done that. I should have let you know ahead of time. I just… I didn’t want to disturb you. That was the wrong thing to do.”
Orange Blossom wound around Erin’s legs, staying quiet for once, but wanting to be close to her with all of the unusual activity.
“How do you even have a key?”
“Uh…” Jeremy hesitated, then opened his hand to reveal a key. It was narrow and looked as if all of the teeth had been filed down. “It’s called a bump key. It’s…”
“For burglarizing houses! Now I don’t feel bad at all that the alarm went off! What are you doing with a bump key?”
“It’s just…” he shook his head. “Sometimes you need to help a friend who has locked himself out…”
“I might be naive, Jeremy, but I’m not that naive.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Uh…”
Orange Blossom sat back to wash.
“What are you doing sneaking in here in the dead of night?” Erin was still holding her phone, and she looked down at the screen for the time. “Well, maybe not the dead of night, but still. You don’t just burglarize people’s houses after they offer you their hospitality.”
“I wasn’t stealing anything, I was just letting myself in to go to bed. I didn’t want to disturb you because I knew you’d already be in bed. I’m really sorry, Erin. Please, I won’t ever use it again. I’ll call you if I get locked out.”
“I should turn you over to Terry.”
“Yes.” His voice was small, and he stared down at his shoes, looking like a little boy facing his principal. “You should. I should never have used this. If you call him, I won’t run away. I’ll face the music. Whatever you think is right.”
Erin knew she wasn’t going to turn Jeremy in to Terry, but she was not happy with him thinking that he could just break into her house instead of calling or ringing the doorbell. She studied his shamefaced attitude for signs that he was just dramatizing for her sake, and decided he was sincerely embarrassed and penitent.
“You won’t ever use it again?”
“No. I’ll call you or Vic, I won’t use the bump key.”
Erin nodded. “Fine, then. Where have you been?”
Jeremy raised his eyes from his shoes to look at her. He weighed his words, and she saw the mask come over his face. “If I’m going to be on my own, I’m going to have to find a job. A place of my own. Stuff like that. I’m not going to get anywhere just hiding out here all day.”
So he wasn’t going to tell her why he was really there or what he had been doing. Erin kept her eyes on him for a few extra moments, letting him know that the explanation didn’t fly with her. She was not that naive. Jeremy lowered his eyes again.
“Find anything?” Erin asked.
“Uh… no, not yet.”
“Did you try the General Store?”
“Well, no. That’s kind of out in the open.”
“The grocery store?”
“No.”
“Where, exactly?”
“Just did some asking around,” Jeremy said, with a hint of irritation in his voice.
“What is it you do? What kind of work are you looking for? I could help.”
“I doubt you’ll hear of anything as a baker. I’m not exactly looking for the same kind of job as Vic.”
“What kind of job?” Erin persisted.
“I don’t know. Bouncer at a bar. Courier. Something… not too high profile, but I don’t have a lot of skills. Born and raised to work on the farm.”
“There are farms around here. Maybe one of them would be willing to take you on as a farm worker.”
“I don’t want to work on a farm. If I wanted to work on a farm, I would have just stayed home.”
Erin pushed a lock of hair away from her eyes. “Why didn’t you?”
“You don’t know what it’s like to live there.”
“No,” Erin agreed. “I don’t.” She hadn’t liked what she had seen of Vic’s father, an angry, abusive redneck. And they were all part of the Jackson clan, which turned out to be a sort of Tennessee crime syndicate. She wouldn’t have wanted to stay there. She would have wanted to get out as fast as she could. “What exactly are you running away from?”
“I’m not running away.”
Erin waited.
“Vic is the one who ran away. I just… wanted to try something else.”
“Vic didn’t run away. Vic got kicked out. Did you?”
“No!” Jeremy flushed, as if Erin had suggested that he might also be transgender. “I’m not… I didn’t…” He forced himself to stop protesting, and used a calm, firm voice. “Look. If you don’t want me here, just say so. I will find something else. I mean, I’m going to anyway. If you want me out of here…”
“You can stay for now,” Erin said, “as long as it’s not going to get me in trouble to have you here. But I think I deserve to hear the real story at some point.”
He shuffled his feet uncomfortably and didn’t offer an explanation. Erin nodded to his bedroom door.
“It’s bed time. Please keep me updated on your schedule.”
He nodded obediently. “Yes, ma’am.”
Erin scooped up Orange Blossom, and they each went to thei
r rooms without another word.
Chapter Fifteen
T
he bakery opened a little later on Saturdays. Bella drove in at the same time as Erin and they went in together. Bella had worked there long enough to know the routine, so she and Erin got started without the need for detailed instructions.
“I heard about Mr. Inglethorpe,” Bella commented, looking sideways at Erin to see what her response would be.
“You and everybody else in a two-hundred-mile radius. Yes, I was the one who discovered his body. And yes, it was… horrible.”
“It must have been,” Bella agreed. “I can’t imagine.” She tucked her long blond curls into a net and put on her hat. “And is it true that it was done with… your rolling pin?”
“Yes. It’s true. I mean, there hasn’t been an autopsy completed yet, so we can only assume that was the cause of death. Either way… he was hit more than once with my good rolling pin.”
“Ouch. Now you’re going to have to get a new one.”
“Yes,” Erin agreed, smiling slightly that Bella’s concern was for the rolling pin rather than the man. “I’ve got a wooden one for now, but I’m going to need a proper replacement. It’s just not the same.”
The light wooden rolling pin meant she needed a lot more muscle power to roll dough out, and it didn’t stay chilled when rolling pastries like the marble did. A wooden rolling pin was fine for quick cookies.
“Who do you think killed him?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know who might have had motive. Do you?”
Bella pursed her lips as she considered the question. She had lived in Bald Eagle Falls all her life and might have a few more insights than Erin.
“He’s not someone I knew really well. He wasn’t mom’s lawyer and didn’t have any kids in school. Didn’t go to church. Those are the people that we tend to know. I knew who he was, but I didn’t really know him personally.”
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