Maple Syrup Mysteries Box Set 1: Books 1-3

by Emily James

  “Reverse osmosis machine exploded,” Russ said. The paramedic dabbed at Russ’ skull, and he grimaced. “I got clipped with some shrapnel. Might have been worse if I hadn’t climbed out from under the machine to talk to you right before it happened.”

  “It would have been worse,” Quincey Dornbush said from beside me. “It blew up like a gigantic pressure cooker. He could have been killed.”

  Heat burned over my face, and my hands went cold. Coincidences happened—my parents exploited that fact all the time to help get their clients acquitted—but in the big things, when it really mattered, I had a theory they were rarer. And it seemed like an awfully big coincidence that our reverse osmosis machine exploded and could have killed the person trying to repair it so soon after our repairman was hit in the head, sending him into a coma.

  I caught Elise’s glance, but I didn’t know her well enough yet to know if she’d come to the same conclusion. Despite her similarities to Mark, she wasn’t his twin. He already had one of those in Grant, and even they reacted differently.

  I nodded toward the other side of the ambulance. “How many others were hurt?”

  “Nancy and I are the worst of it,” Russ said. “When the RO machine blew, it knocked over the evaporator and she got splattered with boiling sap.”

  Two was bad enough. I turned to Quincey. “May I look inside?”

  “You can look in the door.” He made a firm line with his hand, as if blocking off how far I could go. “The chief wants the bomb dogs to go through it before we let anyone back in.”

  Well, at least I knew I wasn’t the only one who thought the timeline was suspicious.

  My eyes must have gone round or the color must have drained from my face because Quincey patted the air with his hands. “It’s a precaution. You know how the chief likes to cross his I’s and all that. We don’t know the cause of the explosion yet, and given what happened here last week, he wants to be sure.”

  Elise tapped my elbow. “I’ll go to the door with you.”

  I took it as her signal that she wanted to talk to me privately, so I nodded.

  “Not exactly how I’d hoped to get Noah’s case classified as an attempted murder,” she said as soon as we were far enough away not to be overheard.

  It hadn’t been mine, either. “Did you look at the name I gave you?”

  “Her father’s Tony Rathmell. He owns Quantum Mechanics.”

  That’s what I’d been worried about.

  We stopped at the door. It hung open. The inside looked like a tornado had touched down. Pieces of the reverse osmosis machine littered the floor, and the evaporator lay on its side. Glass shards and sap were everywhere. The room reeked of charred sap and overheated metal.

  This was going to be hard, if not impossible, to recover from this season. Given how expensive the machinery was, I doubted we kept backups hanging around, but I’d ask Russ later to be certain. As soon as the police cleared the building, I’d have to start cleanup with whatever employees agreed to stay and help. I’d hold no ill will against anyone who would rather leave. They’d experienced a trauma.

  The big question was whether or not someone had done this on purpose, and why.

  “Do you think this was meant for Noah as well?” I asked Elise.

  She was staring into the building with a dazed expression like she hadn’t expected it to look as bad as it did. “If Noah hadn’t been in the hospital, he would have been the one working on anything that malfunctioned?”

  I nodded.

  She shrugged and one corner of her mouth narrowed. “It’d still be a long shot, wouldn’t it? Noah might not have been around when it blew.”

  True enough, though Russ had been under the machine because it’d been sounding strange. If Noah hadn’t already been in the hospital, he would have been the one to do it, and I likely wouldn’t have been calling him. “Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe it has nothing to do with Noah’s situation at all.”

  Elise continued to stare into the room rather than looking at me. “Maybe.”

  13

  The paramedics wanted to take Russ to the hospital for a CT scan of his head to rule out internal bleeding. Elise and I backed them up.

  Russ crossed his arms over his broad chest. “I should be here to help with cleanup.”

  I mimicked his stance. “With the mess that’s in there, I guarantee we’ll still be cleaning up once the doctor clears you.”

  “Don’t make me order you,” Elise said.

  Russ swiveled his gaze to her, and the look he shot her screamed traitor. “Unless my health is a police matter, I’m pretty sure you can’t order me to do anything.”

  Stubborn old man. But Elise had given me an idea. “Don’t make me pull rank then. Fifty-one percent, remember?”

  Russ lowered his arms and shook his head. “I suppose I deserve that for not treating you like a full partner before.” He heaved out a sigh. “I’ll go, but you don’t go in that place until Quincey says it’s safe.”

  “I promise.” I tried to mimic the Scout’s Honor sign with my hand, but since I’d never been a girl scout, I wasn’t sure I got it right.

  I thought I heard Russ mutter crazy girl, but the paramedic closed the back door before I could ask him to repeat it.

  It was an hour later before the bomb squad said we were good to go. The sky was navy blue and getting darker. Three employees, including Dave from the rental shop when he heard what happened, had volunteered to stay. Nancy, even with her wounds, had wanted to, but the paramedics insisted she go to the hospital as well.

  But one employee had quit. With Noah’s injury and then the explosion, they weren’t comfortable working at Sugarwood anymore. Another girl, one of our teen workers, let me know that her parents would probably insist she quit as well when they found out.

  Elise stayed until all the emergency vehicles cleared away. “My shift’s over at 6:00. If you wanted, I could ask my mom to stay a bit longer with the kids, and I could come back and lend an extra set of hands. I don’t know how to make maple syrup, but I do know how to clean.”

  My throat closed up. It was no wonder this town and the people in it showed such a loyalty to the Cavanaughs. My parents were feared, respected even. They weren’t necessarily liked. If they ever fell from their pedestal, I doubt there’d be many who’d stick around to help them put it back together again.

  I didn’t want that to be said of me. I wanted to be liked. To be the kind of person who showed up when she was needed. Hopefully Fair Haven could ignore the rumors and give me a chance to prove that’s the kind of person I could be.

  I gave Elise a shaky smile. “I appreciate it, but I don’t want to take you away from your kids. Police officers have to work long enough hours as it is.”

  She held up her cell phone. “Call me if you change your mind. I’m heading into my days off, so I’ll have a little extra time.” She headed for her car, but turned back. “And I’ll make sure Erik has the name you sent me before I go.”

  “Could you do one other thing for me?”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  I might regret this, but it seemed like the right thing to do. Even if Mark and I weren’t close anymore, I didn’t want him hearing about this second-hand and potentially worrying about Russ. “Could you let Mark know that everyone here is okay? I know he tends to worry.”

  Elise’s smile was one of those knowing ones that always made me want to blow a raspberry at the person giving it. “I can do that,” she said.

  We’d barely started to clean up when Russ called from the hospital, needing a ride home. I ducked into his house to grab the keys to his truck since my car was still in a ditch down the road.

  As I pulled into the hospital parking lot, the headlights flashed across a shuffling figure. The gait reminded me of—

  I slammed the brakes a bit too hard, and my body jerked forward. Pain bit through my shoulder again.

  The walk reminded me of Tony, but there was no good reason for Tony to be
at the hospital. It had to be my imagination playing tricks on me. It’d been a rough day.

  Even if it was Tony, he shouldn’t be able to get in to see Noah. Erik had said he’d give the nurses a list of approved people. Assuming, of course, a nurse was nearby enough to notice a visitor, which had been my original concern about the plan.

  It wouldn’t hurt to take a detour up to Noah’s room to make sure he was alright.

  I bypassed the emergency waiting room where Russ said he’d meet me and took the elevator to Noah’s room. Normally I hated elevators. I always envisioned them plummeting to the basement and turning all my bones into goo on impact. When alone, I’d always pick the stairs. But if Tony had done something to Noah, the extra time taking the stairs could cost everything.

  When the elevator doors opened, I fast-walked to Noah’s room. None of the nurses were at the desk.

  Dear God, please let Noah still be alive.

  I broke into a jog and careened through the door to Noah’s room. He lay as still as he had the last time I’d seen him. All the monitors read normal.

  I slumped against the door frame. At least no one was around to catch my latest bout of paranoia. I didn’t even have proof that Tony had tried to see Noah. He might have injured himself at work or been dropping someone else off. He might know someone else who was in the hospital on an entirely different floor.

  I went downstairs and found Russ waiting for me exactly where he said he’d be. “Sorry I’m a couple minutes later than expected. I ducked upstairs to see Noah.”

  I didn’t see any need to tell him I’d gone up because my mind decided to play tricks on me.

  “How’s the cleanup going?” Russ asked as we headed out for his truck.

  “It’s going to take a while.” That might have been the understatement of all my time here, but the bigger problem was what we’d do once we’d cleaned up the sugar shack. You couldn’t crazy glue a reverse osmosis machine back together. “Do we have replacement equipment or any way to get new equipment before the sap stops running?”

  Russ lifted a hand to his head like it might be hurting him.

  I moved closer in case he got unsteady. Who knew how much blood he’d lost. Head wounds tended to flow like a fountain.

  I shuddered and turned my thoughts away. If I kept thinking about blood, I’d be the one who needed steadying. “Did the doctor give you something for the pain?”

  Russ produced a bottle of pills. “I’ll take one when we’re on the way. I need to be able to help tonight.”

  Like heck he was. “You’ll take one because you need to be able to rest.”

  “No chance we’d get replacement equipment in time.” He stuffed the pill bottle back in his pocket. “We should still have our old reverse osmosis machine in the secondary shed, though. How bad was the evaporator damaged?”

  I didn’t miss the fact that he’d dodged answering my question, which was typical for Russ when he didn’t want to argue but didn’t intend to go along with whatever someone wanted, either.

  And he’d trapped me. I wouldn’t know whether the evaporator was just a little dented or if the most essential part had broken off. I also didn’t know which of the employees might be able to tell me. “I guess you will need to take a look, but then managerial tasks only until you’re healed. No cleaning or lifting. Deal?”

  The look on his face clearly said we’ll see. “We can probably get the evaporator fixed, but it’ll likely be beyond what I can do. I’ll give Tony a call. He used to come by and help us out before we hired Noah full-time.”

  I clambered up into the driver’s seat. What reason—that he’d believe—could I give for having someone other than Tony come out? If he had the most experience apart from Noah with our machinery, he was the obvious choice. Technically he couldn’t do any more damage. Noah was in the hospital, not at Sugarwood, and if he’d sabotaged the equipment to hurt Noah, he’d have no reason to tamper with it again.

  Maybe my problem was that I simply didn’t trust him right now, and it would be awkward being around him knowing what I knew about his daughter and Noah.

  All of that led into our bigger problem—we needed someone we could depend on to keep our machinery running. As weird as he was, Oliver must be a good mechanic or Tony wouldn’t have hired him. Erik told me Tony only hired the best. “If Noah doesn’t recover, we can’t expect Tony to drop his real business at a moment’s notice to help us. I was thinking maybe we should invite Oliver. I got the impression that he’d be open to leaving Quantum Mechanics for the right job.”

  Russ squished up half of his mouth. “Ollie’s a nice enough guy, but he’s not the best with people. He’d make a terrible tour guide.”

  “He doesn’t need to do everything Noah did. I can give the tours myself, or we can see if any of our other employees might like the position. Noah said the tips were excellent.”

  Russ gave a slow nod as if he were afraid of making his headache worse. “Something to consider. I guess there’s no harm in asking Oliver to come along this time at least. Get a sense of how he works, and the repairs should go faster. I don’t know what else might have been damaged in the blast yet.”

  We came around the bend in the drive that led to the sugar shack. Cars lined the shoulders.

  My whole body suddenly felt encased in concrete. The number of cars had more than doubled. Even if a few of the employees changed their minds and came back, there shouldn’t have been this many.

  Unless something else had gone wrong.

  14

  I parked Russ’ truck in the first available space, jumped out, and sprinted toward the building, praying the whole way.

  One step inside the door, I skidded to a stop. Dave and the other employees who’d been here when I left were still here, but they’d been joined by people who should have had no reason to be here.

  Dana from my Lost Pets group, her baby strapped on her back in one of those carriers that reminded me of a Native American papoose board. Mandy, the owner of The Sunburnt Arms where I’d stayed for the first weeks I was in Fair Haven. The waitress from The Burnt Toast Café whose daughter I’d helped with her application to law school.

  Alongside them were a few people I didn’t know.

  And Mark and Elise, even though I’d told her she didn’t need to come back.

  Despite all the rumors, despite all the stupid things I’d done, it seemed like more people cared about me and Russ and Sugarwood than I’d realized. This sense of community, the connectedness between all of us, was something I couldn’t have found in the city. I’d been afraid that, thanks to the rumors, I wouldn’t find it here either. Thank God I’d been wrong.

  Elise must have spotted me standing by the door. She headed in my direction, one of those rare smiles that showed her Cavanaugh dimples on her face.

  “The mess looked too big for a few people if you want to be up and running in time to still make syrup this season.” Elise shrugged. “So Mark and I made a few calls. Quincey’s on the night shift, but Erik’s going to come by when he gets off duty if you still need him.”

  I was one breath away from busting into tears when Russ huffed in the door behind me.

  He let slip a curse word. “Where did all these people come from?”

  “Apparently,” I linked my arm through his, “all these people are addicted to our syrup, and they’re afraid they won’t get their fix.”

  Russ reached up a hand as though he intended to ruffle his hair, but his fingers hit the bandage and he settled for scratching at it instead. “I’ll take a look at the evaporator and then make a call about repairs.”

  In the meantime, I should make sure the path was clear to our other reverse osmosis machine. We’d want to move it into the sugar shack while we still had strong backs to help us. “Where do I find the keys to the secondary shed?”

  “You probably have one on Stan’s old keyring.” Russ unclipped the key chain from his belt and handed it to me. “We only had the three copies—mine, Sta
n’s, and Noah’s. Too much expensive equipment to have extras floating around.”

  By the time I made sure a big enough path was cleared to the old reverse osmosis machine and returned to the sugar shack, Tony was bent over the evaporator and legs that I assumed belonged to Oliver stuck out from underneath.

  I stopped near the protruding legs. “I appreciate you both coming out.”

  Tony grunted, his nose a fraction of an inch from a piece of the machine I couldn’t hope to identify.

  “Everything looks good down here.” Oliver worm-crawled out from underneath. “I’ll make sure the other evaporators are okay.”

  I followed after him. Noah had his keys on him when he was attacked—I remembered them gouging into my leg when I tried to help him—and his belongings must have gone somewhere once he got to the hospital. Oliver might have them or might know where they were, and we should get the keys back rather than allowing them to float around in the wild.

  “Do you know what happened to Noah’s belongings? We need to get his keys back.”

  Oliver blink-blinked at me. “They’re probably still at the hospital. No one gave me anything.”

  I’d have to check tomorrow, assuming I could get there. My first task would be to have my car towed out of the ditch and to Quantum Mechanics. As much as Tony’s involvement in Noah’s situation was questionable, his was still the shop I trusted since they’d taken care of me the last two times. Besides, Tony would have no reason to hurt me.

  A hand rested on my shoulder from behind me. From the size, I knew it was a man’s, and from the angle, it couldn’t be Russ. With Erik not here, that left only one man who would touch me.

  From the lewd smirk on Oliver’s face as he turned away, my expression must have telegraphed how I felt about the person the hand belonged to.

  I shifted around, breaking the contact. As suspected, Mark stood behind me.

  I knew I should thank him for coming, but what I really wanted to do was fall into his arms for a hug. Since my Uncle Stan moved to Michigan and then passed away, there’d been a deficit of hugs in my life. Even when I’d been dating someone, our embraces wouldn’t have been classified as the kind of tell-me-everything’s-going-to-be-alright type of hug I needed now.